hall of fame, next vote...

Posnanski's going to work through the whole list over the next few days:

Quiz
Garvey/Parker

Dave Concepcion - He probably was the best shortstop in baseball in the 70s. That said, the hitting line isn’t going to change any minds. I figure he might get in like Bill Mazeroski in the veterans committee.

Bobby Cox – no doubter.

Steve Garvey – I think the bigger drag isn’t on what Garvey did as a player is more people think he is a creep. Garvey was a player a whole lot of fans loved to hate and then his transgressions after baseball, he’s a big fake and just not likable.

Tommy John- The guy was a pretty good for a long time and I would imagine most clubs in hindsight would like having him in the starting rotation. The guy had to have some serious guile to be able to pitch that long, even if often average for that long and striking out that few of batters. I’d have to say this is a player that got the most out of his talent, which is admirable.

Tony La Russa – total no doubter.

Billy Martin – They don’t call it the Hall of Fame for nothing.

Marvin Miller – obviously should be in for tie to history of game.

Dave Parker – One of my favorite players as a kid. Get well Cobra!

Dan Quisenberry – This guy had style. I’d take a reliever that doesn’t walk people very much any day.

Ted Simmons - I mostly remember this guy playing for the Brewers later on. I look at the stats and they look pretty impressive for a catcher to me. I don’t know how good he was with a glove.

Joe Torre – I think he has had a pretty remarkable career in baseball. He was a really good player, just fell off the cliff in his 30s. He eventually had a lot of success as a manager. Torre will be in the Hall at some point.

tommy john was kind of amazing. here's a guy who had some very successful seasons where he'd toss 260+ innings and strike out 70 batters. He was just an insane groundball pitcher and basically jamie moyer if moyer wasn't nearly the strikeout pitcher he was.

Garvey was a clown imo. and he was good but he wasn't a HOFer, he was basically a 1970s michael young. no shame in that but nothing hall worthy. his other playing career had some amazing highlights though:

At the age of 22, Garvey married Cynthia Truhan."[18] They married in 1971. They had two children, Krisha and Whitney. Cynthia left Garvey for famed composer Marvin Hamlisch.[18] (Cyndy would later claim Garvey "gave me away" to Hamlisch after a private two-hour conversation.[18]). Garvey was already romantically involved with his secretary.[18] The couple divorced in 1983.

Garvey discovered in July 1988 that Cheryl Moulton was pregnant with his child, Ashleigh, a pregnancy Garvey subsequently claimed was intentional on Moulton's part, but without his "consent."[18]

Although Moulton was pregnant with his child, Garvey proposed to Rebecka Mendenhall because of what he termed her "ultimatum" in November 1988.

In January 1989, less than two weeks after ending his engagement to Mendenhall, Garvey became engaged to Candace Thomas, whom he met at a benefit for the Special Olympics. He broke up with Mendenhall, the first week of January but she insisted that they meet one last time. During this "meeting," Mendenhall became pregnant with their one and only child born October 13, 1989.

Over the next few weeks, Garvey and Candace Thomas began a whirlwind courtship that included trips to the inauguration of President George H.W. Bush and the Super Bowl.[18] Rebecka Mendenhall then discovered she was pregnant with Garvey's child.[18]

When these details became public, Garvey's post-baseball political ambitions were widely seen to have disappeared under the weight of two illegitimate children.[18] Garvey, in the midst of what he later termed a "midlife disaster," sued Cyndy, his ex-wife, for access to his two children.[18] His daughters testified in court that they did not love their father and did not wish to see him.[18] (Cyndy was hand cuffed and jailed based on 167 counts of contempt .[18]) Under the shadow of multiple lawsuits and damage to his reputation, Garvey lost business opportunities, declared himself broke, and found himself paying half his monthly television earnings in child support.[18] and millions in legal fees. He and Candace Thomas married in February 1989, and had three children, Ryan, Olivia, and Sean. The Garvey's remain happily married almost 25 years and still reside in Southern California.

I initially balked at Earl's suggestion that Concepcion was probably the best shortstop of the '70s--I know he was good, and I was a Reds fan at the time, but there must have been someone who was better, no? But when you start looking around, it pretty much comes down to him or Campaneris. WAR favors Campaneris, with 36.0 for the decade to Concepcion's 30.1; that does surprise me. Close enough, though, that I think you could go either way. Roy Smalley peaked higher in '78, but he arrived late. Same with Yount--he sneaks in three pretty good years, but he doesn't turn into Robin Yount until 1980. I thought Russell might be in the running, but not really. (Never knew Russell's nickname was "Ropes"--rhymes with "Lopes.") Garry Templeton ("If I ain't startin', I ain't departin'") was a big deal when I was younger, but WAR doesn't like him--never walked, lousy SB percentages. The Cards traded him away for somebody, can't remember who. Bucky Dent hit a big home run. When it came to shortstops, it wasn't the '80s or '90s.

(Am I forgetting someone obvious? I scanned Jay Jaffe's list.)

Concepcion is no Trammell, as I think Neyer said.

As noted in my last line--I don't even think he was the equal of Tony Fernandez, the fifth-best shortstop of the '80s.

(Or maybe the fourth--forgot that Yount moved to the outfield halfway through the decade.)

Just out of curiosity, did a quick scan of the year-by-year WAR leaders through the '70s, and there wasn't a single shortstop who placed in the yearly Top 10s (both leagues combined) even once. Most forgotten name to show up on one of the lists: Dave Goltz in 1978.

Tommy John is a lock, just consider his contribution to the advancement of medicine.

if he gets points for that Dr Frank Jobe needs a wing

"Concepcion is no Trammell, as I think Neyer said."

This is true. Don't doubt it.

One thing I think is interesting on Concepcion's career stats is that he really did improve as a hitter after a pretty slow start his first three years.

dave parker won't make it, nor does he really deserve to

but i hope he does

If Tommy John was on the BBWAA ballot now instead of 20 years ago, would he get elected (leave aside the issue of the BBWAA ballot being stacked and just think about TJ's profile in general). I think he would based on greater name recognition alone -- TJ surgery is talked about a lot more than it was then. He certainly looks good next to Jack Morris or Andy Pettitte.

hmmmm

Career bWAR

John 62.3
Pettitte 60.9
Morris 43.8

TJ ahead of Marichal and Drysdale, tho obv w/ less impressive peak.

career WAR divided by years played should be a standard stat

what about years lost to injury?

hmm, good point, maybe per 500 plate appearances or X # of innings pitched or something

but yeah, just mentioned that because:

john 4710 IP
pettitte 3316 IP
morris 3824 IP
marichal 3507 IP
drysdale 3432 IP

the JAWS system sort of tries to account for that, but agreed that a denominator of some sort could be widely used

I am not sure I like the idea of a player being less "impressive" because he hung on for an extra 4 years to get that $$$

what if cars only had odometers and not speedometers? the officer would pull you over and say "sir, do you know how far you have driven?", and you'd say "yes, the odometer says just over 34,000 miles", and then the officer would say "hmmmm, so it does. and i suppose we'll have to leave it at that, as i cannot prove any wrongdoing here with respect to your current speed without a denominator."

isn't one of the things people look at the avg WAR/y during peak years & length of peak?

all i'm saying is I don't say I drove an average of 35 mph because I sat in my driveway for 15 minutes listening to that one last jam before going in the house

Haha, yeah. I'm not advocating for using WAR/playing time to replace just plain WAR, just that it should also be taken into consideration, especially when comparing players with differing career lengths

career v peak value, both are good to look at

i think WAR/yr wouldn't be incredibly valuable (better at least if it were by PAs or innings pitched)

i'm guilty of just using career WAR as a barometer of should vs shouldn't and i wish that'd stop, i wish we'd all stop trying to replace old HOF milestones with new ones and act like grownups who can process and analyze different sets of information without forcing it into some big pretty grand total

nothing against WAR it's just that these arguments always happen with all these players between 55 and 75 WAR, which seem to be the extreme ends of the ? zone, and i don't think WAR is a useful tool in figuring out those players or where that line 'should' be

and honestly, i'm a big-hall guy, but if there are so many players who live in that zone and they're all a bunch of question marks maybe the line should just be higher

for the record no i have no idea what i'm saying rn

lol no i think most would agree that WAR is a starting point, and much better at separating players far apart than close together

no, you are both wrong

a player who hits a homerun in his only at bat in the major leagues is more valuable than a guy who averages 5 WAR per year for an 18-year career, because his WAR per at bat is higher

the end, that's my story

when FG and BR synchronized their replacement level or w/e it added/subtracted like 8+ WAR to some players, and we still don't have a grasp on UZR before 2002 (or 1B/C UZR at any point), and we can't even decide on ERA or FIP for pitchers, urgh

xp

i don't really know what you're sarcasming at ZS

obv didn't mean WAR per plate appearance but WAR per 600-or-so plate appearances, etc

seeing as WAR per year wouldn't know the difference between a cup of coffee at age 20 and a full season at 30

changing the denominator wouldn't matter xp

ZS was just goofing tho i think

oh, i'm just sarcasming at no one in particular, sorry!

but yeah, if there was going to be a WAR/time stat, i think WAR/AB would actually work. or maybe (WAR/AB) x 100, just to make things less decimalized. if you average 5 WAR per 500 AB, that would leave you with a (WAR/AB) x 100 of 1.0. or WARservicegoamericawarisgood for short. of course it would be totally meaningless in small samples. but that's also true of tons of baseball statistics. when pete kozma was jesus for the last month of 2012, only total fucking idiots who nonetheless filled the airwaves of sportstalkradio believed that it meant anything.

god, if you think my sarcasming is insufferable tonight (and it is, i know), you should have had a conversation with someone last winter in STL who thought pete kozma was actually good. it honestly felt like a circle of hell, i couldn't help but try to scratch my skin off

Probably WAR/PA would be the way to go.

the main point of WAR and all other non pitcher-win numbers is to laugh at Jack Morris For the HOF ppl.

Can you name the MLB hitters who produced the most WAR per plate appearance?

No idea if this is accurate but i guess someone was thinking about it...

if you somehow actually "get" all 20 of them, you're an insane person

i typed in number 17 as a joke and it was right

i only got 11, missed some really obvious ones (a.m. brainlessness)

#17 & 18 were hardest. I suspect #17 will fall out of the top 20 before long.

actually his yearly totals are still pretty high! Good thing he misses 30-50 games every year.

wish i could give it a shot but the website is blocked at my work. is there a minimum PA requirement, or is it just straight up WAR/PA?

doesnt specify min PA, just B-R as a source

Only 14/20, but no wrong guesses. Missed #12, #14 (surprised), #15 (should have had it), #16 (a guy who probably gets overlooked a lot), #17 (yeah, shocking), and #20 (team sort of threw me off, but I guess that's the best designation).

got 15/20, dumbest omission was aaron. kept trying to put "jones" for braves

there must be a minimum PA or WAR or else you'd think trout (or puig) would be #1

The first name I typed was "Henry Aaron," got nothing, gave up, said "just give me the fucking names already." Oh, you wanted HANK Aaron?!

just figured it out and trout would actually be a distant second, with 13.96, just ahead of bonds. that baby ruth lady was good