hall of fame, next vote...

there was some discussion upthread w/r/t Kimbrel and Jansen and Chapman and all of those guys are 31 and i don't see any of them getting near. Kimbrel looks like he's toast. he had that massive 2017 w/Boston but otherwise the two seasons before and the two since don't seem exactly Rivera-like in terms of consistency and microscopic ERAs. He's a guy that i do not want to see on the hill for the Cubs in an important situation in the World Series (lol?)

Jansen seems to be trending downward (ERA creeping up, k/9 creeping down).

Chapman is holding a bit steady in some areas, but his WHIP isn't sub-1.00 these days...also maybe i have some ill will towards him mostly for being a domestic abuser and but also more shallowly for being trash at key moments for the cubs in the 2016 postseason.

I for real hate Chapman for being an asshole human, I shallowly hate Kimberly because of his dumbass hanging arms.

Jansen is super cool. Love that guy

Sorry Kimberly

in defense of kimberly, with the way these guys are maniacal about their 'routines', it can't be easy to miss spring training and several months of the season, throw 3.2 innings in triple-a and then just show up in cubs save situations. (also his HR/FB is 28.6%, which is just unreasonable, either through bad luck or juiced balls)

that said, he's not a hall of famer, is definitely trending downward, and has the dumbass hanging arm/facial hair

Kenley Jansen is also a 1-team player at least so far. He's got a decade with the Dodgers this season. It will be a big deal for him and Kershaw if the Dodgers finally win it all this year.

Two or three years ago, I thought one of the three would emerge to have a chance--with the caveat that they'd have to add some major post-season success to their credentials. Not any more. The biggest part of what I thought they had going for them--where they even eclipsed Rivera--was in their unprecedented H/9 and K/9 ratios. Year-in and year-out they were under 5.0 H/9 and up around 15.0 K/9. I figured if one of them could keep that up for another five or six seasons, he'd have a chance.

And then Hader comes along, and such numbers aren't unprecedented anymore. And probably some other reliever will come along and put up a season where he's under 4.0 H/9 and up around 18.0 K/9. I don't know where they hit the wall on that, but I'm back to thinking Rivera will be the last in a long while.

a big part of what made rivera special was his consistency and longevity. i don't think it's so much about new thresholds of reliever greatness (12 K/9, 15, 18), it's about keeping it up year after year for an insane amount of time (like rivera). even then, rivera only managed 39 WAR (which is INCREDIBLE for a full time reliever) over his career. just like DHs, relievers have to be the elite of the elite to make the HOF because they're just not affecting the game for enough innings compared to position players and SPs

hader is pretty incredible right now. he needs to keep up this pace for another 10+ seasons to have any chance

Absolutely. Until his last couple of seasons, I thought Kimbrel did have that consistency; from 2011 to 2018, he's pretty solid the whole way (couple of minor blips). He just needed to add the longevity.

But he had a lousy post-season, and this year had been a nightmare.

If part of the reason Rivera is in the hall is because of his shutdown rep in the postseason I think Kimbrel and Chapman haven’t exactly done much to stand out in that respect.

the way things are going, we'll need to weigh K/9 and HR/9 against the league environments to compare across eras

I'd love to see the progression of the K/9 record for relievers. The starter record is still held by Randy Johnson in 2001, so that's been locked in for almost 20 years. The relief record is probably a relatively steep line up for a decade or two. But I can't find anything online.

Chris Sale seems to have the starter k/9 record at present? 11.1 vs Unit's 10.6 (Scherzer coming up a little shy at 10.5). And actually Darvish is #2, Strasburg #4, Scherzer at #5 (Cole is #11 despite having only had two seasons w/more K than IP, which shows how eye-popping his K rate's been over the past couple seasons).

Career, it's Sale; Johnson's single-season mark has been surprisingly resilient through the strikeout boom, though. Johnson (6), Scherzer (3), and Sale (2) hold more than half of the 20 best seasonal marks.

Somehow missed the “2001” — RJ was insane during that era.

Can Edwin Encarnacion and Nelson Cruz pad their juiced ball counting stats enough to get some HOF support? Both are late blooming DH-types who won't stop hitting. Edwin has a reasonable shot at 500 HR/1500 RBIs (assuming his current wrist injury doesn't ruin his power stroke).

If David Ortiz is the standard bearer for the DH with a 15-year peak, and he's not considered by many as a shoo-in, then Cruz and Encarnacion don't have a chance. But who knows how this era will be viewed in 10-15 years time.

My own sense is that Ortiz is a shoo-in, and that Encarnacion and Cruz have virtually no chance, with or without 500 HR. I think Ortiz's spectacular finish and--overrated in the aggregate though they may be (his ALDS and ALCS stats aren't anything special)--post-season numbers will count for a lot when he goes on the ballot, plus his seasonal numbers are clearly better than both.

Very similar, though, in how all three basically don't get started until they're 27-28.

(I don't just mean Ortiz's last season, although that was highlight--more like his sustained bounce-back after 2009, when he looked close to finished.)

I think Ortiz has is beloved enough that the bit of smoke around his alleged positive PED result will be overlooked. Which is unlike virtually every other PED guy. Plus the whole speech after the Boston Marathon bombing, and some more recent events too.

Before the so-called steroid era, 500 HR was automatic, and the HOF is full of guys in that 400 HR, 1400 RBI range whose peaks were about as good as Edwin and Cruz's are. If Jim Rice is in (and yes, he's a weak inductee) then aren't these guys worthy of serious consideration.

I personally think they don't "feel like HOFers" but their stat lines are getting interesting.

i think the real question is: can any of these touch harold baines??

neither of these guys are anywhere near ortiz, tho, and cruz needs another three seasons like this one just to get to 500 -- 2.5 of which would come after turning 40

ortiz was a top-5 mvp finisher in five straight seasons; neither cruz nor edwing have done it once. if we're gonna ride for mediocre fielders who didn't quite get to 500 let's go back and get crime dog before either of these two

I said this earlier (probably on this thread), but I think Martinez's induction helps Ortiz too. Edgar was the better hitter--a little better in OPS+, 13 games better in career WAR. (Helped by some positive defensive numbers very early in his career; there's some evidence there he would have been at least an adequate third baseman if they'd just left him there.) For as long as Edgar wasn't in, I think there would have been enough writers conflicted about voting for the second-best DH ever to keep Ortiz under 75%.

These guys hit with more power and probably had a better peak season, but Baines was a more complete hitter and did it for a longer period of time.

I'd put them probably with guys like Richie Sexton, Greg Luzinski or Don Baylor. Baylor won an MVP. Don't think either one is better than the Crime Dog.

Ortiz is "Big Papi", the guy is a huge star. Good lord the guy is like King Arthur as he pretty much killed the Yanks and the curse dead himself.

The wild thing about Encarnacion is that ANYONE could have had him for pretty much nothing at at one point, as he was put on waivers I think twice. He then turned around and hit like 250 home runs. Nelson Cruz pretty much came out of nowhere to win a couple AL HR crowns too, which is also notable.

Kinda too bad that Eddie could never figure out the throw from third base, as Encarnascion seemed to be pretty decent about picking it at the hot corner in Cincy. I remember more than a couple times him doing this amazing stop and then throwing the ball into the 3rd row. Reds could have used that big bat he had later on with Jay Bruce and Votto. Reds at one point wanted to extend him and then he went into a funk and got traded for Rolen. Don't even think the Blue Jays saw him busting out like the did, them bringing him back after releasing him looks pretty smart in hindsight.

That was the Jays MO somehow. Bautista was similar, in that most of baseball saw little to no value in he guy before his breakout.

whatever bautista did during the winter of 09-10 should be studied by scientists and historians

Andrés Galarraga is another player somewhat similar career arc/stats to Encarnacion and Cruz, he had the Mile High boost too but did continue to hit after he left Denver. He had a couple decent years in Montreal and then seemed like he was kinda done before breaking out with the early Rockies clubs.

Cruz and Encarnacion are incredible power guys and a lot better in many respects than your Kingman/Deer/Incaviglia/Dunn/Reynolds types, the guys many may view them as similar to. Better in terms of being well rounded at the plate, not too shabby in the BA dept, they walk a bunch, they’re totally dangerous, smart hitters. A cut below non-HOFers like Crime Dog but that’s nothing to be ashamed of really.

Galarraga is a good comp, he was a superior batter and while he didn’t walk that much his hitting was good enough to give him a good career WAR. He was no Bichette that’s for sure.

the HOF is full of guys in that 400 HR, 1400 RBI range whose peaks were about as good as Edwin and Cruz's are

Players I can find in that range (eliminating cases like Bench and Berra and DiMaggio, where it's a moot point): Willie Stargell, Vladimir Guerrero, Billy Williams, Orlando Cepeda, Johnny Mize, Andre Dawson, Duke Snider, Jim Rice, Tony Perez. Rice and Perez are in the same range as Cruz and Encarnacion; less so the others, I'd say.

Just to be clear, when I wrote the "HOF is full of guys" in that range, I didn't mean a majority of the HOF, I was thinking about exactly the kinds of players you named. It's not a small number, and even though Dawson and Rice might be considered borderline HOFers, they were great players and huge stars.

Cruz and Edwing were never really huge stars, didn't get the MVP support and so on, but their rate and counting stats are those to some HOFers. I'm not really sure what to make of it myself.

but their rate and counting stats are *close* to some HOFers

jaffe goes through some of the bigger names making moves:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/weve-reached-peak-mike-trout-again/

I think the biggest HOF season this year has easily been Greinke's. He started the year at 187-118, 3.39, 61.1 WAR. You never know at that age--if quick decline had set in he might have ended up on the bubble, shy of 200 wins and somewhere around 65 WAR. But he's been great this year and has two more seasons at least in Houston; he looks solid for 225+ wins and 70-75 WAR, plus he'll have a chance to have a big postseason or two. I'd say he's getting closer and closer to a sure thing.

I know you guys live/breathe these sites' analyses as gospel, but I simply cannot (esp. after that radical recalculation for catchers a scant 5 months ago) trust any Defensive WAR #s and when FG/BA come out with these clicky-pieces comparing today's players vs. pre-statcast legends. (Offensive #s, sure, I'm right there, far less foggy/subjective).

I try to not to talk him up on here but I have a buddy who works for a (very good) club and he rolls his eyes whenever anyone in our group of friends brings up this "hobbyist" stuff to him. He feels like the open source sites are (my paraphrase) "on the right track but ultimately no more than entertainment for the more than casual fans & writers". His club has developed their own proprietary systems and metrics and says that even the top open source analysts are ~10 years behind their club's tech. No names but they are +250 to win the WS as of this morning.

the Lindbergh-Sawchik book has disposed me to root against that team (as soon as they dispose of the Yankees)

all models are wrong, some are useful

WAR is a constant work in progress, and I have no doubt that MLB teams aren't spending huge money on analytics to learn about what they could read on Fangraphs for free.

These are totally different things though -- in discussing the HOF, we're looking at past performance by the top 1% of players. Teams are interested more in future projections for everyone in baseball, including minor league prospects. Of course they're going to use different analytics tools!

*Marlins management takes a second look at $1 million line item to revisit Harold Baines’ hall of fame case*

Ha!

all models are wrong, some are useful

Doesn't address Jersey Al's points.

WAR is certainly a better framework for understanding player value than anything else publicly available

Maybe the Hall of Fame vote should only be decided by quants on the astros lol

xp - I have thought that might be the case at times. Other times, I look at the numbers and think something is wrong and I wonder about why and the extent to which other things that might be less noticeable are also skewered.

I don't know if you guys are interested in one I was looking at the other day. Minnie Rojas is said to have been worth 1.8 WAR in 1966, but only 0.8 WAR in 1967 when he pitched 37.1 more innings, had a lower ERA, finished 31 more games (leading the league), had about the same WHIP, lower FIP, lower SO/W.

The only thing I could think of is that maybe total offense was down in the AL in '67? But I checked, it was down, but only about 4-6% overall.

Fangraphs has him at numbers that are completely different: 0.1 WAR for '66, 0.7 WAR for '67. Bill James has him at 9 Win Shares for '66, 16 WS for '67.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rojasmi01.shtml

that seems inexplicable

why were you looking at him, though?

team defense might be a reason, since bWAR includes that. the Angels in '66 had a worse defense by dWAR numbers, winding up with a negative team number, which could mean Rojas had to bail himself out more vs being bailed out by their better defense in '67.

I collect cards, have his '67 and '68 Topps. Interesting guy, came over from Cuba, short career.

Defensive difference between '66 and '67 teams is calculated as a total of 4.8 dWAR. Rojas pitched about 8.5% of the team's innings that year which would mean about a 0.4 difference in team defense when he was on the mound, right?

looks like he did give up 45 runs in 1967 (36 earned) vs 28 R/27 ER in 1966. So while his performance ERA-wise was better he could be getting dinged by the unearned runs maybe?

i have no idea if caught stealing rates are incorporated in pitcher WAR, but i can't imagine it mattering this much

this seems like the sort of thing you should ask a chat session and report back! except the fangraphs ratings seem reasonable, and they're the ones with all the chatz