Dale Murphy, should he have won 4 straight MVP's?
JoeBanzai
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After winning in 1982 and 1983, Murphy was as good or better than the MVP winners in 84 and 85.
He dropped a bit in 1986 to about the 5th best player in the NL, but was probably the best or second best player in 1987.
Unfortunately, his hitting declined in his next 4 seasons and his career was finished.
Had he won 4 MVP's in a row, would he be in?
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Just throwing this comparison out there.
@LandrysFedora
hey ya Landry...
Are these good W.A.R. numbers???
I'm still lost on the concept...
I'd say so Groce, they are higher than Baines in almost 700 less games.
.265 BA looks like a HOF deal killer for a non SS, catcher or pitcher.
I believe that really hurts his cause also.
Murphy shouldn't have won any MVPs; what a travesty it would have been if he'd won four in a row.
1982: Mike Schmidt was easily the MVP, but he'd won in 1980 and 1981 and they don't like to give the MVP to the same guy that often.
1983: Schmidt was again the best player, but the margin wasn't huge. Murphy winning was defensible.
1984: Ryne Sandberg lapped the field and deservedly ran away with it.
1985: Lots of viable candidates, and McGee was as deserving as anyone. Murphy came in 7th, which was about right. There's a case for Murphy finishing as high as 3rd, but that's it.
So, interestingly, there is a solid case that the MVP should have gone to the same person four years in a row, but it's Schmidt in 1980-1983, not Murphy in 1982-1985.
I would generally agree with your opinion, Schmidt being more deserving of winning 4 straight, but Murphy did win those first two and I sure don't see Sandburg being better in 84, Murphy had the best OPS and most HR (tied with Schmidt) and the best SLG of the players receiving votes. He also led the entire league in Total Bases. His OPS+ was 9 points higher than Sandberg's as well. Defensively, Center field vs second base. Sandberg was a better base stealer, that's about it.
Please explain how Sandberg's WAR is so much higher.
1985, the only guy in Murphy's class (not counting pitchers) was Guerrero. McGee's OBP was barely higher than his BA and not as high as Murphy's. Dale scored more runs even though Willie stole all those bases.
We all know the voters got it wrong a lot more than they got it right, BUT the question still remains unanswered;
Had he won 4 in a row, would he be in the HOF?
Almost 400 HR, 5 gold gloves in center field, higher SLG than Yastrzemski.
Batting average is a very small part of the equation.
Murphy was way too low in the voting in 87.
I think Jack Clark should have won with Murphy second but Dale somehow finished 11th or something like that.
Clark is who I was thinking of, but he missed 31 games that year.
Total bases was Murphy 328, Clark 250. WAR also favors Murphy.
I'll add a second question, if Murphy wins 5 in 6 years is he in?
First, your question was SHOULD Murphy have won four straight MVPs. And the answer to that question is an emphatic "no", and you don't have to look at any year but 1982 to close that case.
For the sake of argument, I'll concede Murphy winning in 1983 was fine even if I would have voted for Schmidt.
1984 looks to me to be as clear as 1982, with Sandberg easily being the most deserving. As hitters, they were close, although Sandberg did beat Murphy in WPA and runs created, and his baserunning was a lot more valuable. And then there's fielding, where Sandberg was exceptional, and beat Murphy in fielding percentage playing second base while Murphy was in the outfield. What I see is Sandberg being more valuable at the plate once you consider when they got their hits and when they made their outs, more valuable on the basepaths, and more valuable in the field. None of the margins are huge, but they all go in the same direction and when you add them up the margin is substantial.
In 1985, the margins are smaller and Murphy winning wouldn't have been a travesty, but Raines, McGee, and Guerrero all look better to me. I think you're undervaluing, if not ignoring completely, baserunning. You're looking at OPS+, which is fine, but there is literally zero difference between a double and a bases empty single followed by a stolen base. Turn 50 of Raines' singles into doubles and recalculate his OPS+ and you'll how valuable those SB are.
In answer to your closing question, yes, I think Murphy would definitely be in the HOF had he won four straight MVPs. I've wondered the same thing about Dave Stieb who actually should have won four straight Cy Young Awards, even though he won none.
Schmidt > @JoeBanzai said:
I actually think Murphy would have been a great choice also in 87. I don’t know how he finished 11th. Murphy 1st Clark 2nd would have been great.
Yes if Murphy would have won either 4 or 5 MVP’s he’s definitely in.
Schmidt hit .267 and was obvious first ballot HOF. Brooks Robinson is another. Harmon Killebrew was another with a low average but tremendous power and he drew a lot of walks so his OBP was very good.
Maybe, but it is the first thing that the average slob looks at. Career home runs is second.
Most everyone here is better at figuring out what qualifies for the HOF than me. And I always question, what is the criteria for a position player to get to Cooperstown.?
Seems that there is none, at least not officially, so we stumble along with, gee Eddie Schmuck got in with the following stats, that means that Ernie Schmeckle should also be in. By that logic, every guy that made it to the plate once (incuding Gaedel who was never called out in his career,) is eligible.
This is how we end up with Jack Morris enshrined with a 3.90 era.
I probably SHOULD have said COULD!
The point I was trying to make was how winning these awards (that are given out at times without looking at reality) influence other things.
Murphy was top 3(?) In his league for 5 out of 6 years and isn't in, yet the above mentioned Baines was in the top 10 once, is.
I understand it's great Baines was a very good hitter for a very long time, but electing him in was a big mistake.
You are absolutely correct on Dave Stieb could/should have won it from 1982-1985.
Morris and Kaat were poor choices, and I really liked Jim Kaat!
MVP or not, Murphy was a great player and it's beyond insulting to even mention him in the same sentence as Harold Baines. And that's the danger of putting mediocrities like Baines in the HOF - the number of players who can claim to be better than Baines, and therefore deserving of the HOF, is enormous. Murphy has a plausible HOF case, Baines did not.
And Kaat was a "poor choice". Morris was a travesty.
Baines finished his career with almost 2900 hits. I think he was not only close enough to the magic number but also with the time he lost due to strikes he might have reached it. I think that Baines is borderline but not unworthy.
Change 50 of his singles to doubles or something.
He had 11,100 plate appearances to go with those 2,900 hits.
He also made 7,500 outs and grounded into 300 double plays.
He had 3 great seasons 1984,89 & 91. Other than that he was a slightly above average hitter and not really a full time player.
Murph was great in his prime. I can't see a path to the 1984 MPV though.
OPS+
Murphy 149
Sandberg 140
Win Probability
Murphy 4.2
Sandberg 4.6
Run Expectancy(including men on hitting)
Murphy 35
Sandberg 44
Old School Runs Created (Runs Scored+RBI-HR)
Murphy 158
Sandberg 179
Overall, Sandberg contributed more runs and more wins offensively. Then when you consider Sandberg was elite defensively at 2B it gets very hard to put Murphy ahead of him for 1984.
1985 would be tough too...especially when Dwight Gooden should have been the absolute runaway MVP. Of all the years the writers chose a pitcher to win the award, the one year where a pitcher deserved it more than ever, they voted him fourth in the voting lol.
I would argue as the Devils Advocate that Murphy shouldn't have won in 1982, maybe not even in 1983.
When your primary argument for HoF induction is comparison to someone else in the hall, then your case is broken.
Dale Murphy had a very good, above average career and I am sure holds a special place in the hearts and minds because of the era in which he played.
That said-he's not a hall of famer.
Murph is on the outside looking in like Arod, but unlike Arod, Murph is beloved by most.
I’m not saying you’re wrong at all. Just that he’s borderline rather than egregious. I’m guessing that the poster was who used the word egregious was trying to elicit an emotional response or was unable to partition their own.
Ridiculous.
If I'm better than even 1 guy in the HOF, I not only have a GREAT argument to be in, it means I SHOULD be in.
In Murphy's case, he was a top 3 (number open to dispute, but the point is valid) player, not only in his league. But in all of baseball, for 5 out of 6 seasons.
Against him, is the fact that after that, he was average for his final 4 full seasons.
I would rather see a guy who was really great for 6 seasons and average for 6 get in than a guy like Baines who was really only great for 1 or 2 seasons and very good for 9.
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Murphy had a better OBP, SLG and OPS. He also won a Gold Glove for Center Field play.
MAYBE Sandberg was slightly better, but it could have gone either way.
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Pitchers have the Cy Young.
Gooden appeared in 22% of his teams games. He had a superb year but the MVP should go to an everyday player.
The only guy who had SOME better numbers was Pedro Guerrero and he missed 31 games, 20% of the season.
Murphy played in every game and
Dale certainly should have been MVP.
Now do it for 1987 and tell me who was ahead of Murphy?
I assume this is a joke of some kind, but I don't get it. If it's not a joke, then they're going to have to move the HOF because Cooperstown isn't big enough to house a HOF with that many thousands of inductees. There are many members of the HOF who were MUCH worse than Dale Murphy, and it was an egregious mistake to let those players in. Being better than George Kelly or Rube Marquard is a TERRIBLE argument that a player should be in, no matter how much fun it would be for me to see Ron Fairly and Rick Wise inducted.
If you say instead, "if I'm better than even 1 guy in the HOF AND WHO DESERVES TO BE IN THE HOF", then I won't argue. But it's the "deserves to be" part that is key, and it means never, ever basing your argument on what other people did (MVP votes, HOF induction, etc.) People make mistakes, sometimes egregious ones, and we are much better off acknowledging that they were mistakes, than basing future decisions on them as if they weren't mistakes.
^^So your reasoning is; "we let crappy players in a long time ago and we're still letting crappy players in, so even though you're better than they were, we're not going to let you in because we let too many guys in that we shouldn't have."
Screw that.
I couldn't care less about George Kelly or Rube Marquard, but guys like Baines, Kaat and Morris are going in right now and Dale Murphy was MUCH better than all three of them.
I'm by no means saying Murphy us a top tier guy, he had a pretty short career with 4 years in which he hardly played and several years he was average. His 6 year prime was superb, being top 3 ? 5? In MLB for those years. I just don't agree with the longevity thing that's going on.
Nobody. Not Dawson, not Clark, not Gwynn.
Schmidt was better in 1982, Murphy was a good pick in 83.
So, for the sake of arguing;
Had Pete Rose gotton only 3,000 hits in his career, he would have had a .213 lifetime batting average. Betting on baseball aside, HOF?
I would say he (Rose) shouldn’t get in but he would be a borderline case only because of the hit metric. Voters would see 3k hits and mash the in button.
I’m not lobbying for baines to be received as decidedly worthy. I’m only saying he’s not an egregious case in my
opinion.
Im also not going to worry about the size of the HOF of whether Player A should get on because of Player B who is already in. Just like most things, reference points are great, but each players career should be judged independently.
It’s a good discussion for the most part.
@JoeBanzai, the same scenario would place Ty Cobb at .262. It is an interesting thought exercise, but I might point out that if your Aunt had balls she'd be your Uncle. I know that seems absurd to think about, but in today's age, well, anything is possible.
Pete and Ty were too good at hitting for your scenario to ever be considered, but I have one that's more realistic. If Cal Ripken Jr had played 1,316 games and then taken a day off and gone back to work would he still be in the HOF??
In that case, you should definitely avoid saying things like
because George Kelly and Rube Marquard are the players you invoked when you said that.
But then you went on to invoke Harold Baines, Jack Morris, and Jim Kaat. Leaving aside that Jack Morris was equally as mediocre a pitcher as Rube Marquard - and that you therefore couldn't care less about him, either - you've also acknowledged that Baines and Kaat were poor choices for the HOF. So you are doing exactly what I believe is an even bigger mistake than admitting Morris in the first place. You are saying that we are not allowed to recognize that there are players in the HOF who don't belong there, and the ratchet for admission can only move in one direction: down. Now I'll grant you that it is doing exactly that, but that doesn't mean we have to like and accept it.
Again, Dale Murphy has his own case for the HOF that has nothing to do with Harold Baines or George Kelly or any other schlub that is only in the HOF because they had the right friends not because they were particularly good at baseball. Make that case and I might even help you flesh it out. But any case that depends, in any way, on pointing to the worst players in the HOF will not get my support.
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I certainly hope not.
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He regularly destroyed my Minnesota Twins club, so I used to have a high opinion of his hitting. In looking at his career, I would say that he had at most 3 HOF caliber years.
He had 12 seasons where he played in less than 100 games.
He had 4 seasons playing between 100-118 games.
16 (out of 22 total) years as a part time player.
73% of his career he wasn't good enough to play every day and he's in the HOF.
I'm sticking with egregious.
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I absolutely agree, but if player "A" was better than player "B", and player "B" is in the HOF, why on earth shouldn't player "A" be in?
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Yes, I rather enjoy player comparisons.
Baines has no business being in the HOF, Murphy is a maybe, but he was a MUCH better player than Baines.
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The point I was trying to make was when guys are good enough to play forever, they should have a lot of hits. Saying 3,000 hits, or 500 Home Runs automatically puts you in is bad enough, now we're down to "close enough" to 3,000 hits on a guy with 10,000 at bats. Sure, appreciate the accomplishment, but if the guy sucked so bad at defense he was a part time player for 3/4 of his career, "almost" doesn't mean much.
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Yes.
I think that if you just look at Baines stats then you’re not looking at the whole picture. He was a very clutch hitter and performed very well in the postseason. Where he sits on the RBI leader board tells a different story than mediocre.
Not quite. He played 130+ games in 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1997, and 1999. That's 15 out of 22 seasons. And then 127 games in strike-shortened 1995.
He averaged 128.6 games per year over a 22-year career that included three different seasons shortened by strikes.
Baines doesn't belong in the Hall but not because he was a part-time player.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn't bother to spend the time checking on strike shortened years. My bad.
The guy was a very good hitter, very impressive production WHEN HE PLAYED. Yes, part of the reason he should have never been seriously considered was because he was not good enough a ball player to be an every day player for more than half of his career.
I totally respect the guy. I've heard he was a great human being, but he just doesn't qualify for the HOF.
I never said he was mediocre, PLEASE don't put words in my mouth.
No, the reason I don't belive he belongs is because I AM looking at the whole picture.
You, on the other hand have only mentioned hits and RBI, and RBI is dependant on other players being on base if you're not a home run hitter. Baines hit about 17 home runs a year on average.
I've said several times he was a great hitter, but when you look at career numbers like total hits and RBI, you need to realize that anyone who was a good/great hitter and played 22 years, SHOULD have some nice totals.
You also need to look at more than just hitting (whole picture). He was a poor defensive player and completely worthless as a base stealer, he didn't walk a lot, so his OBP was not impressive either.
Here's my final waste of time on the subject;
I'll accept the earlier statement that Baines played in 128.6 games a year.
Based on a 162 game season, that means (no, my math won't be perfect) what he actually gave you was 130 hits, 58 runs, 22 doubles, 17 home runs, 73 rbi, 1.5 stolen bases, 48 walks and 209 total bases per year.
He led his league in one category (SLG in 1984) one time in his entire career.
In addition, he was a top 10 player in 3 seasons in batting average and OPS but never higher than 6th place.
In no other offensive category was he ever better than #6 in the American league.
He had exactly 2 years where he could be considered a top 10 player; 1984 & 1985, and just barely makes it in 1985. If you expand the comparison to the NL, he's worse.
Lastly, he batted left handed, giving him an advantage because most pitchers are right handed and most ball parks have a shorter right field. Not a huge advantage for Harold, but an advantage.
Nice hitter, apparently even a better human being, played a long time.
These are NOT hof numbers. He deserves BRIEF mention, but by no means serious discussion.
No, I'm not going to spend my time examining every single player in the HOF to prove my point, I don't need to.
I could bring up Tinkers,Evers,Chance as well, did they get in for the wrong reasons? I don't care.
I am focusing on players I am familiar with that don't "deserve" to be in the HOF.
I saw Kaat and Morris pitch and I can look at their numbers. They weren't good enough to be in the HOF.
I saw Baines a lot, often obliterating my Twins, but in looking at all the factors, he shouldn't be in.
Murphy certainly has some issues, I wouldn't say it is a travesty he's not in, but at least he was one of the very best players in the league for 5 seasons.
You cannot say that about my other three examples of Baines. Morris or Kaat.
I wasn’t framing your argument.
So, your argument boils down to:
Mistakes were made in the past, let's make another.
Got it.
Wrong again.
I'll admit up front that I'm confused. I'm not sure where we disagree or even if we do disagree. That Murphy is a better candidate for the HOF than Baines and Morris is obvious, so I know we agree on that. I think Murphy and Kaat are actually pretty close in that regard. I don't think it's a travesty that Kaat got in, and I wouldn't think it was a travesty if Murphy got in. But they have very different HOF cases, and if you think Murphy is ahead of Kaat I have no problem with that. If it were entirely up to me I wouldn't put either one of them in the HOF, so we may disagree there.
My only point, which I keep making even though nobody asked, is that a real HOF case does not depend on mistakes that past HOF voters have made. Down that road lies a HOF with literally thousands of inductees and very little honor attached to being a member. Murphy's HOF case rests on his hitting for a long stretch in the 1980's; everything else is almost meaningless, although he does get points for being a very good CF for a while. Showing that Murphy was better than Baines is unnecessary because everyone (everyone familiar with baseball, anyway) already knows that. But in the process of showing just how much better he was than Baines - which was a LOT - the HOF case for Murphy starts to present itself. Like I said, I'm not convinced by it, but the case is there.
I don't get your high opinion of Kaat.
Three seasons in the top ten but never in the top 5 in ERA.
WAR for pitchers 6 seasons in the top 10, highest here is a 3rd place finish.
WHIP, 3 years in the top 10, highest was a 4th place finish.
He gave up a LOT of hits #1 in four seasons to go with a #2, #3 and #4.
He didn't walk too many guys, he was a great fielder (yawn) and he played well for a very long time.
I don't see it.
What did he do that gets your high regard?
Edited to add; he was a great color man in the booth post career.
This is absolutely the crux of your argument for Murphy's inclusion.
"So-and-so is in, Murphy was better than him! He should be in!"
Still wrong, wrong, wrong.
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Well, "high regard" is relative. My regard for Kaat is higher than yours, but I did say he's no HOFer.
But to answer your question, I'll do something I've done several times before - break Kaat's career down into two careers.
Kaat has one career where he pitched about 3,500 innings with an ERA+ of 117. Compare that to Catfish Hunter who pitched about the same number of innings in his entire career with an ERA+ of 104. Jim Kaat was a vastly superior pitcher to Catfish Hunter. I'm not trying to restart a "Hunter sucks" debate, so I won't participate if one starts. Suffice it to say that while I'm not participating in that debate, should it occur, I'll be laughing at anyone who disagrees.
But what about pitchers who were better than Hunter? Who pitched about 3,500 innings in their career with an ERA+ of about 117? That list includes Andy Petitte, Mark Buehrle, Dennis Eckersley (HOF), Wilbur Cooper, CC Sabathia, Jim Bunning (HOF), Dolf Luque, Billy Pierce, and Don Drysdale (HOF). These aren't all apples to apples comparitors to Kaat, but they're similar enough to call a peer group, and Kaat is not significantly better or worse than any of them. At least, he wasn't in those 3,500 or so innings.
The rest of Kaat's career was significantly worse - about 1,000 innings with an ERA+ of 90. That's not good but it's a little better than replacement level. In other words, those 1,000 or so innings have positive value, however small, and they don't detract from whatever HOF case he built over the other 3,500 innings.
In a comparison to Murphy, I think Kaat holds his own. Murphy makes his HOF case with a shortish period of sustained greatness, Kaat makes his with an extended period of "very good"-ness. At least, that's how I see it. And again, I think they both fall short, but not so far short that it bothers me much that Kaat is in, nor would it bother me much if Murphy got in.