hall of fame, next vote...

That's the thing, though--I don't see those peak WAR numbers as being good enough to get in without building on them in your 30s. I'd just as soon put in Garciaparra: 7.4., 7.1, 6.8., 6.6, 6.1.

What about the Big Hitters who are being dismissed on no evidence or hearsay, eg Bagwell, Piazza? xxp

I'm assuming ppl who dismiss Andruw & Beltran wd have to be convinced on Kenny Lofton too.

Even tho Jones' OBP is higher than Dawson (the worst recent mistake of the BBWAA), Andruw will get more skepticism for "hitting" .254.

Andruw was better for longer than Nomar. (Again, w/ peak value -- Koufax didn't build on anything in his 30s.)

rating Verlander and Felix as approaching safe is a little premature; they are down in the 160s in JAWS, where the only modern HOFer keeping them company is Catfish Hunter. (JV at least has some postseason heroism to boost his standing.)

not sure what's hard to get abt jones -- if his UZR is any indication, he's one of the greatest defensive players of all time and he also happens to have 434 HR. it's not like this was a tiny peak, 10 yrs isn't abnormal.

10 years is basically sandberg/puckett. nomar is more like mattingly.

he doesn't seem to be active anymore, but scott rolen is one i wonder about. he probably won't get much of a look (in that berkman/beltran/bagwell mold) but he's got 70+ fWAR.

Rolen is 10th on the 3b JAWS list, everybody ahead of him is in except Chipper and Beltre

Out for a while...I just can't cross that bridge of electing a guy who contributes zilch once he hits his 30s (with the unique exception of Koufax). I'll concede, as I have before, that I'm much more comfortable discussing offense than defense. We'll see what happens--my guess is that Jones does not last more than two or three years on the ballot.

i'm always wary of throwing my support behind a guy whose statistical case hinges largely on defense, since we seem to know less about that, but the thing about andruw is that, subjectively, we all knew we were watching one of the greatest defensive outfielders ever, and probably the best of his generation bar maybe griffey

and i'm all for keeping the hall relatively exclusive, but at least according to JAWS, andruw fits in right with the best (the average JAWS for a center fielder is a bit skewed toward the high side, since willie mays and ty cobb were really good)

lofton is a guy who i never thought of as a HOF candidate but who WAR seems to love, mostly due to his baserunning, defense, and the generous positional adjustment that comes with playing CF for 17 years

Although I find it bothersome that Lofton only played 150 games twice in his career--or three times, if you want to give him credit for '94 (played in every game but one)--I'd be much more comfortable putting him in than Jones. Lofton's offensive-to-defensive ratio for WAR is about 4-1; four parts what metrics analyze really well, one part what is still a work in progress. Jones' ratio is about 5:3--so much of his case rests on the more contentious part. I didn't see Jones play enough to even have a subjective opinion; my subjective opinion on Roberto Alomar is apparently wrong.

The other thing I like about Lofton is that wherever and whenever he played, he was productive--right until the end. At age 38 in Philadelphia, he was getting on base and scoring runs. At age 40, his final year, his line is .296/.367/.414, and he scores 86 runs in fewer than 500 AB. He always contributed; he always made money for his partners. (I will say that Jones' last four seasons look better if you were to group them into two seasons.)

And for that, Lofton got all of 3% his first and last time on the ballot. I don't see Jones doing a whole lot better, unless he catches a break and debuts against a weaker field.

http://www.bravesjournal.us/?p=8729

keltner list on lofton

Good piece. I like the Keltner Test. I once tried to run a variation on it to see who was more famous, Suicide or the Shoes.

well, it's too late to keep the Hall relatively exclusive, unless you mean that almost no hitters from 1985-2005 are making it soon.

revamping the Frick Award

http://www.baseballnation.com/hot-corner/2013/9/4/4694728/baseball-hall-fame-ford-frick-award-broadcasters-new-system

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/40383/helton-falls-just-under-hall-of-famer-bar

shoenfield on helton's chances. have to agree, though it wouldn't be the end of the world if he got in

vlad will make for some interesting debate in a few years

BP podcast did Vlad & Helton today. Helton was crazy productive on the road at his peak.

Couple of opposing Helton pieces in the last couple of days:

James -- Yes (it was a "Hey Bill" answer, behind the paywall now)
Schoenfield -- No (http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/40383/helton-falls-just-under-hall-of-famer-bar)

the BP 'cast briefly summarizes the James case

Sorry, didn't realize Kevin had posted the Schoenfield link.

Jay Jaffe on Vlad: http://mlb.si.com/2013/09/16/vladimir-guerrero-retires-hall-of-fame-chances/?sct=mlb_wr_a2

I would vote Guerrero in myself. I know his career WAR is right on the bubble, but his career now ends at 36 while he was still somewhat productive, and I don't doubt he could have gotten enough AB over the next three or four seasons to make a solid counting-stat argument (500/3,000, probably, which I don't discount) to go along with his impressive peak. Didn't realize till reading the Jaffe article that he was .358/.364/.679 in the minors the year Toronto wouldn't bring him up...which looks like one walk in 55 PA, but the rest suggests he still had something left.

http://wapc.mlb.com/play?content_id=20190423

yessss, i was looking for this one. from the freaking corner!

the statistical case for vlad is pretty mixed tbh -- great peak, right at the average HOF (an average which is skewed high thanks to the likes of babe ruth and hank aaron), but probably didn't play long enough to accumulate enough WAR or pass some of the traditional counting milestones. he also played in massive hitters' parks (his career AIR is 109) during a historic offensive time period. his WAR numbers are hurt by his defensive metrics (-10 dWAR over his career, even though he was a fine fielder -- 7 runs above average according to DRS, +10 by UZR -- the positional adjustment is what does him in), but his raw numbers are great -- career OPS+ of 140, two more walks than strikeouts in his career (something pretty rare for a slugger like vlad in this era)

ultimately though you look at his 7 year peak of 41.2 WAR, about 3 MVP shares, and the fact that he played the game like no one else, i would vote for him. sue me

i will not sue u

also he gets a bonus for no batting gloves

i mean, todd helton was a great player. i watched a lot of baseball during todd helton's prime, and i feel fairly confident that i am not going to remember him as anything other than the dude from the rockies who could mash. vlad was an artist

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/29590/vlad-guerrero-a-legend-in-winter

this is great

ppl remember vlad as the dude who would swing at anything but his k numbers are miniscule by current standards and he hit .318 all-time. should have run less; that's about it

he walked more than he struck out!

no he didn't

if you include IBBs

As a practical matter, Guerrero will, I imagine, have some good-guy sentiment on his side when he goes on the ballot--popular, exciting player, no PED association, didn't overstay his welcome (or at least didn't get the chance to). Sort of like Kirby, pre-scandal. That may matter at some point.

?

737 bb, 985 k

if you include IBBs

― sing, all ye shitizens of slumerica (k3vin k.), Monday, September 16, 2013 8:58 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pretty sure ibbs are counted as real-life bbs

i mean, it's cool that he was ibb'd 250 times, but that's part of his 737

hm, maybe you're right. but i'm not sure

IBB are a subset of BB. Either that, or Barry Bonds walked 352 times in 2004.

ok yeah that was what i'd always thought, but recently after reading about how wOBA and wRC+ are calculated, i learned that they don't count IBBs so i thought maybe they had always been separated

kinda surprised how low his career war is...
was his defense seriously that bad?
can someone tell me why he didn't play in 2012 and no one gave him a chance this year?

OK, arguing about who gets in a Bondsless HOF during a playoff race is just ridiculous.

To quote the Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, blow it up.

Guerrero could still hit but he'd become a liability in the field and on the bases. In the days before every team carried 47 relief pitchers he'd have latched on as a PH/occasional starter who'd appear in 70-80 games a year for sure and could have extended his career another two or three years. Thome managed to hang on in that kind of role (as is Giambi now), but he was power hitters up until the end, so teams found a way to justify the roster spot.

he was *a* power hitter, rather

vlad had a tryout with the jays in the spring of 2012 iirc, but was cut

even back with the angels his knees were too shot to really play the field

ahhh right. the knees.

Helton was pretty tremendous but I also feel confident that no Rockies hitter will get in before possibly tulo. I might vote for Helton, idk. I definitely would vote for walker.

I would take Walker over Helton too. Helton's home/road splits were better than i expected, but still favoured home to a noticeable degree. and you could see his numbers take a dip post-humidor, but nothing epic. he went from being Albert Pujuols to Carlos Delgado. and then a few years later he morphed into John Olerud (sorry my go-to references are mostly Blue Jays/Mets).

he's close - but i just can't consider Helton a hall of fameor.

Thinking about Vlad when I was thinking about him as a player, I'd figure he was pretty similar to Andre Dawson as they both had bad knees, total cannons in the outfield and both started with the Expos. Looking it up, man Vlad's career batting average is .318, which is pretty impressive.

OBP is a little less impressive, however. but ya - def see the Dawson parallel.

Posnanski on Guerrero:

http://joeposnanski.blogspot.ca/2013/09/vlad-impaler.html

Lots of that good-guy sentiment throughout. He also points out some uncanny similarities to Helton, pointing out that the two couldn't have been more different in how they got there:

"Helton hit .317. Guerrero hit .318. Helton had 2,505 hits. Guerrero had 2,590. Helton had 2,791 runs-plus-RBIs. Guerrero had 2,824. Helton had 61.2 WAR. Guerrero had 59.1 WAR. You could make a strong Hall of Fame case for both."

From 2007 to 2011, by the Fangraphs numbers, Vlad Guerrero swung at more than FORTY-FIVE PERCENT of the pitches out of the strike zone.