hall of fame, next vote...

Greinke has a pretty solid shot at the HOF if he finishes up his career w/a string of seasons like this one, just to push that win total up into an area that'll make trad stat types happy, along w/his WAR probably getting towards Mussina/Schilling territory. it probably helps that at present there really only seem to be half a dozen other starting pitchers who are on a possible HOF track (Verlander, Kershaw, Scherzer, Sale, Sabathia, Kluber if you're optimistic about him having a nice run deep into his thirties.)

Would love to see Kluber do it but oof the path is pretty narrow. Not saying it's impossible! Just that if he does it where are going to be all grateful to witness such a peak.

For career length if a player has it then it's fantastic and it's bonus points in my opinion, there is something pretty great as someone who plays for so long, there's value in that. On the other hand, and it might seem contradictory, but if a career is shortened for whatever reason it should not count against the player.

eh..disagree except in special circumstances

I'm a big hall guy anyway, get Reuschel and Lolich in imo.

To get Reuschel and Lolich in, it would indeed have to be a very big hall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-4-gLlF0uw

hahaha

though ultimately it's not too different than what JAWS tries to do

I don't think that's right. The JAWS peak is based on seven seasons. Greinke's WAR7 right now is 46.3, which puts him within a couple of games either way of Palmer, Reuschel, Mussina, and Glavine, much more consistent pitchers who all score low (18-23%) on what I'm trying to isolate.

https://t.co/Iyxv0lzyPX

let chase utley in

(fangraphs link)

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24200497/what-makes-member-hof-class-hall-famer

So why did Morris get elected? Maybe the root of the argument spins around this idea, something I've come around on as a plausible Hall of Fame discussion point: Can you tell the story of the player's era without that player being a prominent part of that story? A recent example is David Ortiz. If you're going strictly by career value, Ortiz's Hall of Fame case is murky, with just 55.3 WAR. But he obviously towered over the game; you can't tell the story of 2004 to 2016 without Ortiz as a central figure. You could make a similar argument for Yadier Molina, a player whose Hall of Fame case is better than his numbers.

That's kind of the Morris argument. He pitched one of the most famous games in baseball history. He won two games in the 1984 World Series for the Tigers, one of the best and most famous teams of the '80s. He was a workhorse in a decade in which many of the other top pitchers didn't stay healthy enough to cement their Hall of Fame cases. You can't really tell the story of the 1980s and 1991 without Morris as a main character.

And yet still closer to Livan Hernandez than Mike Mussina.

Six living, well-known players going in this weekend--that's got to be the most since the first couple of years.

I read somewhere the other day that it's the most in quite a while, forget the timeframe now though

a full 2/3rds of them deserve it too.

It is a fucking travesty that Morris, not Whitaker, is entering the Hall of Fame.

I'm sure that Trammell and Morris will now push for Whitaker's induction (as Maddux and Glavine did with Smoltz), and that the Veteran's Committee will step in soon enough.

http://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2018/07/25/detroit-tigers-lou-whitaker-alan-trammell-hall-fame/830271002/

at least 3.5 of the 6 deserve it

Trammell and Morris got me looking at stats and players on that 84 Tiger team. I was 14 that season and followed that year like a hawk each week in the Sporting News. I remember the early season no-hitter that Jack Morris threw on the Saturday game of the week. I was watching it and my dad was working out in the garage and would keep popping in every now and then on the game. It was a really deep roster with great depth both on their bench and their pitching staff.

Historically great team, but I'll use that to correct a common misperception (I followed that year pretty closely too): that after their 35-5 start, Detroit ran away with the division. While they did win the division by +15.0 in the end, Toronto also had a fantastic start, and on June 6, after taking two of three from the Tigers, Toronto had moved to within 3.5 games; Detroit was 39-13 (so they'd just had a 4-8 stretch), Toronto 36-17. They never got that close again, although they were still within six on July 6.

One other thing that popped out on me checking out those Tigers 84 stats, check out Chet Lemon's WAR stats on Baseball Reference. I'm going to have to think about this one for a while, but dig this...his WAR offensive career numbers are pretty much the same as Dave Parker and Jim Rice. Both those guys had a couple thousand more at bats, but both had a couple years where they were arguably the best all around hitter in baseball (and 3 MVPs).

I could easily believe Lemon's defensive WAR numbers would be much better, as he was a good center-fielder and Rice was pretty much always bad in the field. Parker had an amazing arm, but his legs were all beat up bad a good portion of his career. That Chet's offensive WAR by their metrics career equivalent to Jim Rice and Dave Parker. I am going to have to mull that one over as I would not put him in the same level as those two guys.

Saw that no-hitter, too -- maybe three feet from the screen, lying on the floor, from first to last pitch.

I was envious of the Jays for their outfield and Stieb (an actual ace), not that I ever let my best friend (who was originally from Mississauga) know about it. Speaking of '84, this article he wrote (long after he returned to Mississauga and became famous) mentions Dave Collins, whose #deceptivespeed we joked about: https://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/mendes-bracketology-b-sides/

Here's Chet. George Kell on the call and Gibson in left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7RMB5m-drU

that promo is 100x better than any modern promo i've seen

The hat-jersey mismatch on the scripted part is a nice touch.

I'd have to check back, but I think James regularly cited Lemon as being in the running for most underrated player in the game in the old Abstracts.

(Not hard to see why, in the context of player evaluation back then. He had the Amos Otis problem in getting noticed: he'd often hit 16-19 HR, not 20; score and/or knock in 70 or 80 runs, not 100; hit .270 or .280, not .300.)

Four-time AL HBP champion!

Joe Posnanski's 2019 round-up:

http://www.mlb.com/news/2019-hall-of-fame-ballot/c-288030220

Longshot, but on the periphery: Jon Lester.

Next year will be his age-35 season. He's 177-98, 3.50, 44.6 WAR. No Cy Youngs, but four times in the Top 4. Good postseason record for his career in just under 150 innings. He'd probably need a great postseason this year and four or five more productive years--225 wins, 60 WAR--to have a chance.

Probably no more than a 5% chance. But he is still pitching well, and past the obvious people--Kershaw, Verlander, Scherzer, Sale, maybe Kluber--he and Hamels seem like the next best bets. He's in better shape than Felix right now. Sabathia, I'm not sure--he'd have to get in Morris-style at this point.

Sabathia is 51st in career pitching bWAR (62.2). Morris is 137th.

True, but I think if he were to go in, people voting for him won't try to make a sabermetric case, they'll be touting his durability and bulk numbers, especially his 250+ wins. If there are any voters like that left when he retires, that is.

Sabathia's chances are way better than Lester's right now. Besides the round numbers that the voters like (he'll reach 250 wins and 3000 K's next year), he pitched better for more years, and was far more dominant in his prime (and won a Cy Young).

Lester might have more at stake, HOF-wise, in the playoffs than any other pitcher. If he pitches well and the Cubs win or even reach the World Series, it'll go a long way towards cementing him as a "winner", Morris-style. He already has the reputation as a big game pitcher.

In terms of peak years, there's not a striking difference between Sabathia and Morris. C.C.'s three best years were 6.4, 6.3, 6.2; Morris's were 5.9., 5.2, 5.2. Neither guy had anything close to one of those flashy, '78 Guidry-type seasons.

(C.C.) was far more dominant

Doesn't show up in WAR. C.C. - 6.4, 6.3, 6.2; Lester - 6.2, 6.2, 5.6.

don't have the JAWS numbers, but i think CC > Morris

He is:

C.C., 71st; Lester, 152nd; Morris, 163rd. Mostly because of C.C.'s career advantage; for their seven best seasons, it's C.C. 39.4, Lester 35.0, Morris 32.7. Which is a different way of saying that, if C.C. gets in, it'll be because of durability, not because he was ever particularly dominant. In a way, he's a different kind of compiler--he compiles WAR, 2-3 WAR per season for much of his career.

Sorry, looking at the wrong column--make that 3-4 WAR per season.

You missed CC's best year according to bWAR -- split between Cleveland and Milwaukee in 2008, 6.8 total WAR.

But you're right that according to JAWS, there isn't a huge different between Lester and Sabathia's seven year peaks. However, Lester's seven best seasons are more spread out, whereas Sabathia had that great run of five straight years in the top five of Cy Young voting, which is what triggered my previous post.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_P.shtml

Good catch--missed that. (Baseball Reference gives a Total line for split-seasons in their main career box, but not in the Player Value box.) That does tip the scales more in C.C.'s direction: 6.8, 6.4, 6.3 is better. Myself, I think of peak value more in terms of 3-4 seasons--especially when grouped close together, agree with you on that--than 7.

Lester would probably need to get some of those counting totals way up and that WAR would have to clear 65 or 70. i don't really see it, tbh, he seems less likely than Sabathia, who doesn't seem exceptionally likely either. They feel more like the current model of the Koosman/Pettitte/Wells/Tanana/Ruess-type lefty, which is to say extremely good but a step or two below HOF-level according to what has been deemed HOF-level. No shame in that, those were some great pitchers.

Agree. I put him at 5% above. If you identified the 20 pitchers who a) had the closest career records to Lester at age 34, and b) were coming off a good season, my guess would be that one of them continued to pitch well for a few more years and went into the HOF. I posted in the first place because I think he does fly under the radar. The HOF isn't completely out of the question yet, and that's something right there.

James yesterday: "I ran a poll asking readers whether Greinke or Jon Lester was closer to the Hall of Fame. Greinke won 56-44; almost 4,000 votes."

Their most basic old-school stats (W-L/ERA) aren't drastically different, but Greinke's close to 20 WAR ahead, and my sense is that he's in much, much better shape.

Greinke had two outstanding seasons that account for about 1/3rd of his total WAR, and a bunch of really good ones. For me he's something of a compiler, but he does seem to have a lot more left in the tank than Lester.

Peak Felix was probably better than all the "periphery" guys that have been mentioned, but he might end up as the Andruw Jones of pitchers. I really hope he can turn it around somehow, it's sad to see someone that great collapse like that.

Greinke is another season away from passing 70 for his career, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get to Messina territory there (and he seems like a decent comparable to Mussina albeit with a more dominant peak and less consistent baseline.)

With his career earning he could get to Messina right now if he wanted

He's at 61.5 on Baseball Reference, so he's two years (at least) away from hitting 70 (barring a rather miraculous reversion to 2009/15 form).

and 56.7 on fangraphs, or 4 seasons away from hitting 70 fWAR if he maintained his 2018 rate of production

i was looking at his bWAR line right below his photo, which is 65.7 (i suppose accounting for hitting and defense??)

still he seems like a good bet for the HOF in a lot of ways, his peak years were very peak.

Greinke has the Cy Young and most probably he hits 3000 strikeouts. Those are arguments some dinosaurs at the BBWA still care about and didn't see in Mussina.

Same for Sabathia + the ring, dude is going to retire as the left hander with the most strikeout in AL history. Also, Fangraphs loves him much more than baseball-reference, I have the feeling xfip tends to embellish heavy workloads.

Joe Posnanski, who's resumed his Top 100 countdown--with a heavy emphasis on peak--just listed Johan Santana at #95 the other day.

Johan was probably the Saberhagen of his era, an all-time great HOF talent derailed by injuries.