currently active players with a shot at the hall of fame

eh those aren't valid counters, they're all external to the sample of current major leaguers. what i'm saying is that baseball talent is unevenly distributed among the positions

shortstops and center fielders are on average worse hitters than baseball players as a whole. this is part of why they get such a nice positional adjustment in WAR. but i'd argue that shortstops and center fielders are generally the best athletes and have a much better pool to choose from than catchers

― k3vin k., Tuesday, July 22, 2014 4:44 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean to use the little league analogy everyone knows the fat kid was the catcher

― k3vin k., Tuesday, July 22, 2014 4:45 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is silly and wrong

i'll never understand why being able to hit a baseball good and/or crouching on your knees for 9 innings 5-6 days a wk is considered less "athletic" than running fast and being thin, especially when a lot of SS/CF perceived "athletic" value comes from actually being smart, quick to respond and able to execute -- skills also required for catching. or why this athleticism, if catchers really lack it, should be valued more than the ability to withstand everything catchers withstand.

a lot of SSs and CFs suck at SS and CF but every catcher has to be able to withstand being a catcher

eh those aren't valid counters, they're all external to the sample of current major leaguers. what i'm saying is that baseball talent is unevenly distributed among the positions

― k3vin k., Tuesday, July 22, 2014 4:52 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk man people are always dinging old timers for not having to play against non-wites and that's E2TS (external to the sample, new lingo)

it's just really silly to me to hold a potential sample pool against an actual sample pool

yeah i mean this is all splitting hairs at a certain point but when a dude writes a (pretty good actually) article asking why catchers aren't represented among the game's greats, a reasonable response would be to point out that maybe the best players just don't play catcher

It's ok, catchers get to be in HOF as great managers.

I think this paragraph nails it: Does Mauer have to pad his career with numbers tallied at first base for us to appreciate this, or can we appreciate the genius of his career now? If we can appreciate the short-but-brilliant careers of Sandy Koufax or Kirby Puckett, why can’t we do the same for Joe Mauer? If we cut Koufax and Puckett slack for arm injuries and vision problems, why isn’t the same leniency granted to major league catchers?

I realize this is not a paragraph. I'm sorry I called this a paragraph.

anything can be a paragraph if you believe in yourself

mauer's been in the top 10 in WAR once in his career. it's not like he'd be a no-brainer if he retired tomorrow

he's a catcher and plays fewer games, but he's not pujols. there aren't many players who have airtight cases by the time they're 30

Except for billy Hamilton

tru

Sorry, been out all day--I posted your comment, Kevin.

(Took the liberty of capitalizing...old-fashioned that way.)

that must have been exhausting, but thanks!

I definitely believe that WAR isn't very accurate for catchers. The inherent bias where even the best catchers are only capable of playing 120-130 games max per year is only a small part of it.

A big part of Mauer's HOF case is that there was never another catcher like him in the history of baseball -- he won three batting titles, was an OBP machine, and a great defender. He was great *and* possessed a skill set completely different than anyone else who played the position, to me that's a meaningful "intangible" and a big boost to his HOF candidacy.

I'll put this here...Heard Smoltz interviewed last night in conjunction with this weekend. He doesn't think there'll be any more 300-game winners, or anyone hit 3,000 K again. He did throw Kershaw's name out as a possible caveat on the 300 games.

People have been saying this since at least Seaver and Carlton (maybe it goes back even further--did they say it after Spahn and Wynn?), and they're wrong every time. I know Verlander's having a bad season, but he's still in pretty good position, as is Felix (all those screwed-out-of-wins seasons notwithstanding). And Kershaw, yes. And probably someone else who'll step forward in the next few years. One of those guys will win 300.

As far as 3,000 K, that intuitively doesn't make sense. Strikeouts keep going up and up--somebody has to do the striking out. I know the Kimbrels and Chapmans and those guys get their fair share, but if you look at the active K leaderboard, you can easily pick out a few guys who are in good position. (Led by Felix, I'd say: 1,866 at age 28.)

those old players love to think of themselves as being part of the last of a dying breed rather than someone whose accomplishments will invariably be overtaken and overshadowed in the years to come.

strikeouts are up but so are TJs. the medical landscape is just different now. for some reason no one threatens to K 300 a year anymore and the guy who comes closest (yu) always seems a few starts away from a huge injury. i'd peg guys like felix and kershaw as more likely to suffer huge career-screwing injuries than reach 3000, though i'm sure it will happen again for someone.

they just don't build em like they used to

Strikeout thing doesn't make any sense to me. There are plenty of dudes on the active list who are halfway there and could be less than halfway through their careers. Not everyone will fall apart and with medial science some of them might even pitch forever a la Clemens and Johnson.

as with all things pitcher-milestone related, reaching them often has a lot more to do with longevity/health after 30 than greatness before 30

Totally but why would you think ALL of them would break down when not all of previous generation's great did? I mean predicting any single dude gets 3000 is probably foolhardy but ANYONE at all ever when two recent dudes nearly hit 5000 is bizarro.

it's also a lot harder to compile when you're pitching 6+ fewer starts a year with pitch counts

generally that could happen with fewer injuries because weaker arms, which could happen because weaker opposing lineups filled with defensive specialists (also an impt factor)

those things don't exist anymore

RJ was a total freakish outlier and clemens had strds. that's my explanation.

If you studied percentage of starter K's vs. reliever K's, you'd have a clearer picture. I realize reliever K's have gone way up in the past couple of decades, but so have K's themselves. Does the second cancel out the first? Probably not--but is the separation so great that the occasional 3,000-K starter won't slip through? Again, the strikeouts have to go somewhere.

Okay maybe RJ and Clemens are just freaks, but Schmoltz hit 3000, Maddux, Pedro, Schilling. These dudes were not pitching tons of complete games or hitting 40 starts a year. They pitched in the same environment that Kershaw, Hamels, Felix, Lee, et al, are.

And putting aside Clemens and Johnson, the 3,000 list also has Maddux, Pedro, Schilling, and Smoltz, all of whom retired within the past five years. Has the sea-change been that drastic?

(Ha--Alex beat me to the same question.)

i honestly have no idea

smoltz had such a weird career

i do think guys will still hit 3000 but it still has to do with longevity, and that's something that's become really unpredictable.

Sure but saying something is hard to predict is different from saying it's never going to happen again (which is what Smoltz did.)

there isn't much time before the apocalypse/end of human civilization so someone better stay healthy

will it happen before the mainstream realizes that pitcher wins don't mean shit, tho?

mostly talking about Ks here

pitcher wins don't mean shit, tho?

Season to season, sure. Over the course of a career, demonstrably not true. James did a thing a few months ago where he systematically ranked pitcher categories as reliable indicators of quality. He had W-L record somewhere in the middle:

6) Won-Lost Records (60.9%). OK, the most interesting conclusion from these studies is the fact that won-lost record and its brother, winning percentage, perform better as a predictor of true value than ERA and its brothers, runs allowed per 9 innings and WHIP, so let’s deal with that here.

We've had this argument nine million times.

Not sure how durable David Price will be, but he looks good in the strikeout department (through age-28 season):

Smoltz -- 1,252
Price -- 1,059 (and counting)
Schilling -- 618

Schilling, of course, hadn't really gotten started yet--struck out 2,215 through his 30s.

New election rules: the eligibility period was shortened to ten years, and voters must make their names public (but not their ballots) and agree to a code of conduct, i. e. the Le Batard rule.

It's kind of unfair to apply it to player who are already on the ballot, especially with all the HOF worthy players on the ballot and those who will be added in the next few years. Tim Raines can probably kiss his chances goodbye.

So wait, everyone agrees there is traffic jam on the ballots and the way to resolve this is to reduce the number of eligible years?

*quits thinking/caring/reading about Hall of Fame*

players who are already on the ballot will still get the full 15 years

xxp

yeah this is ridiculous

not sure what shortening the period does, do they think the voters will feel pressured to vote for guys sooner?

blaming this on bud don't care if he didn't do it

wait that's real?

ya

literally the only change that solves an actual existent problem is the dan lebatard thing. not even blank ballot bullshit. what is the point! rip raines

changes to the vet committee?

As for the others, players can still maintain their status on the BBWAA by attaining five percent of the vote each year. That part of the rule hasn't changed. But after 10 years, they now will be eligible for consideration by only one of the three Veterans Committees -- the Post-Expansion Era Committee -- which meets every three years.

that's the only mention of the vet's committee here

Wait how was the Dan LeBatard thing an actual problem?

My first thought was "That's terrible" too, but after compiling a list of all the guys who were elected by the writers past their 10th year of eligibility, I'm not so sure (career WAR in brackets):

1952 – Harry Heilmann (72.1)
1954 – Rabbit Maranville (42.8)
1954 – Bill Terry (54.2)
1955 – Dazzy Vance (59.9)
1955 – Gabby Hartnett (53.4)
1975 – Ralph Kiner (49.3)
1976 – Bob Lemon (48.8)
1980 – Duke Snider (66.5)
2006 – Bruce Sutter (24.6)
2009 – Jim Rice (47.4)
2011 – Bert Blyleven (95.3)

Past Blyleven, Snider, and Heilmann, a lot of dubious names on that list. (And don't forget, Morris just missed in his 15th year.) I guess you could look at it as a variation on the capital punishment cliché: it's better to let 10 guys go in who don't deserve it than lose one over-qualified guy like Blyleven. I still think the much bigger concern is at the front-end of eligibility--set some reasonable benchmarks for staying on the ballot regardless of support, and get rid of the stupid 5% rule that has dropped many players before they had a real chance to build support.

I should exempt Kiner from the dubious list: he was pretty dominant in a shortened career.

add raines

Yes--and Trammell.

well he wouldn't have had a shot unless they extended it to 25 years