hall of fame, next vote...

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.

and connected with ALL OF THEM.

had vlad been more selective, he'd have been better. but i might have enjoyed him less

Vlad Guerrero was nasty on way low pitching. He just hit some of that stuff like a golfer and clobber home runs on stuff like a foot low or more. His arm in the outfield was amazing when Vlad was in Montreal. I can't remember who it was but I remember him just nailing someone from the Cubs at third on an absolute strike from deep in the right field warning track at Wrigley. It was a crazy great throw not unlike the one Dave Parker did in the allstar game.

The talk of Vlad and Walker gets me to thinking how many good outfielders the Expos turned out in that period of time. They were able to bring up also Marquis Grissom who was a player you could also file into the hall of very good, as he was quite a solid player of the same period. The Expos also stole Moises Alou from the Pirates on waivers (dumb move Pittsburgh) and he was playing around these guys too. Alou also had a very good career and was just a very tough right handed hitter with combination of good line drive power and really hard to strike out. (That said, Alou didn't draw a ton of walks.) He could still hit late into his career, but he was often injured.

moises was a solid player; it is perhaps sad (or awesome?) that i will mainly remember him for pissing on his hands to toughen them up

I still can't decide which one is more weird that practice by Alou or Clemens use of icy hot on his groin on days he pitched.

wasn't there someone else who would eat something like 6 hotdogs before every start?

surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/writers-view-the-best-players-not-in-the-hall-of-fame/

I recently posed a question to 22 baseball writers from across the country. It was a question that doesn’t have an easy answer. Given the subjectivity involved, it doesn’t even have a right answer.

“Who are the three best eligible players — not including Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — not in the Hall of Fame?”
...

Point Totals:

Raines = 38
Piazza = 36
Bagwell = 31
Biggio = 22
Schilling = 18
Trammell = 11
Kaat = 8
Whitaker = 7
Hodges = 5
Palmeiro = 5
Allen = 4
Martinez = 4
Gooden = 3
Minoso = 3
Adams = 1
Garvey = 1
Morris = 1
Murphy = 1
Tiant = 1
Walker = 1

lots of interesting stuff here, although the names are mostly predictable (piazza, bagwell, biggio, raines, schilling are all mentioned frequently). but the minoso mention surprised me - i didn't realize how good he was! an obp machine. and i definitely didn't realize he made a comeback with the sox at age 50 AND 54. pretty amazing.

well those comebacks were mainly for box office.

I just know Jon Heyman musta said Garvey.

only one for Walker?!

i was wondering - if you just removed Ricky Henderson from history, like he never existed - would Raines be in the hall already? he was such an amazing base runner, that only someone like Henderson could have overshadowed him (and i realize Raines was good at a great deal more than just base running).

I think playing in MTL hurts him more than being in Rickey's shadow, but OTOH, Gary Carter and Andre Dawson had their best years in MTL too and they were elected. But both of them had very high profile seasons for bigger clubs after leaving MTL too.

Raines got enough attention via All Star and MVP votes in his prime to make me think he was appreciated when he played (which also agrees with my very fuzzy memories of his 80's prime) but that's the problem sometimes with having a very long career -- twenty years passed between his best years and the year he finally become eligible for the HOF, and people forgot how great he was.

I wonder if mythic "coke vial in the uniform pocket" plays a role.

those Jim Kaat votes shoulda gone to Bobby Grich

http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2013/09/when-it-raines-part-i.html?m=1

I really think they'll change the rules in the next few years and let writers vote for up to 15 players, or something to that effect. Too many great players are going to be lost in the shuffle otherwise.

hopefully they're just waiting for Morris to drop off the list.

Another thing that hurt Raines was that what may have been his greatest season, 1987, was curtailed by 20+ games because of owner collusion. He was a free agent that winter, and, coming off a batting title and everything else he'd accomplished to that point, no one signed him. So he resigned with Montreal, and didn't play his first game till May 2. He went on to hit .330 with 18 homers, slug over .500, and score 123 runs in 139 games. Add back that missed month and who knows?

I don't think letting them vote for 15 guys would change much -- they can vote for 10 now, and I'm pretty sure most vote for 4 or less.

i don't think 20 games really makes too huge of a difference.

ok - i did some math. if you average out his WAR for 1987 and apply it to another 20 games (assuming he stayed healthy) - that would have added another 0.96 WAR. better than i thought!

What I meant for '87 was that Raines might have, with those extra 23 games, won MVP that year. That was the infamous Andre Dawson MVP. Raines finished behind Wallach on his own team (because of Wallach's RBI) and 7th overall, but maybe, with eye-popping Rickey Henderson numbers (90+ steals, 140+ runs), and the fact that the Expos won 91 games (rather than the Cubs last-place finish), he might have snuck in. Doubtful--Henderson finished behind Mattingly in '85, when he clearly shouldn't have--but possible. And if Raines had won, MVPs resonate with HOF voters.