HOF Standards
dallasactuary
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in Sports Talk
What better way to welcome myself back to the Sports Talk forum than to post something incredibly long, incredibly complicated, and that few, if any, of you will actually read?
Using statistical methods that I will not describe in detail, I have divided the HOF into six tiers (beyond identifying a player’s Tier, I will not otherwise rank them), with Tier I being at the top and Tier 6 at the bottom. There are roughly the same number of players in the top 3 Tiers as in the bottom 3 Tiers, and roughly an equal number of players in Tiers I and VI combined as are in each of the other individual Tiers.
I have assigned points to each player as follows (but not in detail):
Peak Value – 50%: by “Peak Value” I refer only to those seasons where a player performed at an All-Star level or above, and performance at an MVP level counts a lot more than at a mere All-Star level. That is, if a player performed at a near All-Star level for each and every year of a 20 year career, he would get zero points for his peak value. This isn’t how I think the HOF should evaluate players, but in every debate I’ve had on the HOF worthiness of a given player – and I’ve had hundreds of them on these forums – this appears to be what most everyone else thinks should be the correct standard. And so to avoid that argument, I’ve adopted that method. The better the season, the higher the points, and the more such seasons, the more points.
“Meat” value – 25%; this is the value that a player contributes at an All-Star level that is not captured by his peak value. So, for example, all of Babe Ruth’s peak value is captured by his HOF level seasons, and this bucket captures his merely great seasons. If a player’s peak value is only at the All-Star level, then there’s nothing left to capture in this bucket. But, as is more common, a player has only a few seasons at a HOF level, then his peak value captures those seasons and his “meat” value captures his other great seasons. I’m calling it “meat” because for a typical great, but not Ruthian, player, the meat of his career is performed at this level.
Career value – 25%; this bucket captures primarily the value of a player in those seasons when he performed at an above-average level, but below All-Star level. It also captures any additional
value the player had in those seasons when he was merely average, but this adds very little to any great player’s total. If a player has only seasons when he is at or slightly above average, he would need to play for over 100 years to get higher than Tier V.
And note that the 50%/25%/25% breakdown refers to averages. Nearly all of Babe Ruth’s value, for example, is in his peak bucket; nearly all of Pee Wee Reese’s value is in his “meat” bucket, and literally all of the value of most of the Tier VI players is their “career” value.
Adjustments: I tried to limit the number of subjective adjustments that I made, but a few were necessary to create Tiers that made any sense at all to me. Without going into specifics, I gave extra credit to catchers and shortstops, I gave extra credit for hypothetical seasons missed due to the color barrier, and I gave extra credit for seasons missed due to war. I also made an “era adjustment” recognizing that being better than one’s peers has generally become much harder with each passing year, at least until relatively recently. I did NOT give extra credit for postseason play, for any awards, All-Star appearances, league leaders, etc. If a player deserved an award, then that value is captured in his statistics. If he led the league in something due to his own skill and not that of his teammates or because of his ballpark, that value is reflected in his statistics. And since this is inherently a ranking exercise, I am not willing to give, say, Mickey Mantle, credit for his postseason play when those points are not available to Ted Williams or Ernie Banks. To introduce postseason play is to create an unbalanced playing field, and I won’t do it. In any event, the number of players who appeared in enough postseason games to be statistically significant, AND whose performance in those games was significantly better or worse than the rest of their careers, is tiny. And finally, I did NOT make any adjustment to the records of the players who played during WWII. There aren’t that many in the HOF anyway, and more importantly, I have no idea what the value of that adjustment would be.
With the definitions behind us, below are the current members of the HOF divided into the six Tiers.
Tier 1
Tier I HOFers have, all of them, peaks that are far above the average HOFer, as well as having a remainder career that is either of average length but almost entirely at an All-Star level, or very long and a mix of All-Star and close to All-Star caliber. There are players with peaks as high as some of the Tier I players who didn’t make it to Tier I because they had nothing else. Tier I HOFers have great peaks, and much more.
Hank Aaron
Grover Alexander
Johnny Bench
Gary Carter
Ty Cobb
Lou Gehrig
Lefty Grove
Rickey Henderson
Rogers Hornsby
Randy Johnson
Walter Johnson
Greg Maddux
Mickey Mantle
Willie Mays
Joe Morgan
Stan Musial
Kid Nichols
Babe Ruth
Mike Schmidt
Tom Seaver
Tris Speaker
Honus Wagner
Ted Williams
Carl Yastrzemski
Cy Young
Surprises? I’ll save surprises for who is NOT in a given tier until their name appears. As far as surprises for who IS in Tier I, the only one for me is Gary Carter. And believe me, I looked closely into that to see if I was giving him an undeserved or nonsensical advantage somewhere, and I didn’t see anything. I will repeat here that one of the factors I used was to give added weight for certain positions. I won’t go into everything I looked at, or the exact adjustment, but suffice it to say that without a positive adjustment for catchers, NONE of them end up in Tier 1, and only a handful end up in Tiers II and III. That makes no sense to me, and it makes perfect sense to me why catchers aren’t able to play the same number of games as players at other positions, and it makes perfect sense to me why their careers aren’t as long, and it makes perfect sense to me why they may not be as “ready to hit” on any given at bat as their teammates. In any event, I think it’s silly to say that there are no catchers in Tier I of the HOF, and, also a surprise to me, there was no logical way to tweak anything that got Bench in Tier I but not Carter. Bench’s peak isn’t all that much higher than Carter’s (if you don’t park adjust you miss that, but then, if you don’t park adjust you miss almost everything) and Carter has more value outside his peak than does Bench.
Tier II
Tier II HOFers are more varied than in Tier I. Included are some players with Tier I peaks, and nothing else, players with peaks near Tier I and much more, and players with peaks well off Tier I level but who played at an All-Star level for a very long time. Bear in mind, too, that Tier II is twice as large as Tier I, so there is a great deal of difference between being almost in Tier I and barely in Tier II. Eddie Collins has much higher credentials for the HOF than does Charlie Gehringer, but they are both in Tier II. If you see a name here that you don’t think belongs in Tier II, that’s one thing. But if you see a name here that you don’t think belongs in the HOF then you either have a silly idea about what the HOF is, or you need to do your homework on that player.
Cap Anson
Luke Appling
Ernie Banks
Bert Blyleven
Wade Boggs
George Brett
Dan Brouthers
Roy Campanella
Rod Carew
Steve Carlton
John Clarkson
Roberto Clemente
Eddie Collins
Joe DiMaggio
Bob Feller
Carlton Fisk
Jimmie Foxx
Pud Galvin
Charlie Gehringer
Bob Gibson
Reggie Jackson
Ferguson Jenkins
Al Kaline
Tim Keefe
Nap Lajoie
Pedro Martinez
Eddie Mathews
Christy Mathewson
Johnny Mize
Phil Niekro
Mel Ott
Gaylord Perry
Eddie Plank
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Robin Roberts
Brooks Robinson
Frank Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Amos Rusie
Ryne Sandberg
Ron Santo
Ozzie Smith
Duke Snider
Warren Spahn
Frank Thomas
Arky Vaughan
Ed Walsh
Robin Yount
Surprises? I thought Bob Gibson and Frank Robinson would make Tier I, but they both missed by a fairly comfortable margin. Gibson’s peak was as high as some Tier I pitchers, but there just wasn’t enough after that. Robinson’s HOF-level peak was fairly short; he performed at an All-Star level for a very long time.
As far as players who are surprising that they got this high, Fisk was somewhat surprising, but see the discussion of Carter above and I’ll stop mentioning the catcher adjustment now. It surprised me that Brooks Robinson and Ozzie Smith got this high, but Brooks’ peak was actually much higher than I had been mentally giving him credit for, and while Ozzie’s peak wasn’t spectacular, it wasn’t bad, and he played at an All-Star level for a very long time.
Tier III
Tier III HOFers come in too many varieties to list them all. But what they have in common is that played at a Tier I level and Tier II level for at least part of their careers, and were much better than the average player for their entire careers. In brief, making the case that any player in Tier III belongs in the HOF is incredibly easy, and if you’re talking to someone who actually knows who the player is and what he accomplished, it shouldn’t be necessary to make a case.
Roberto Alomar
Richie Ashburn
Frank Baker
Yogi Berra
Craig Biggio
Lou Boudreau
Jim Bunning
Mickey Cochrane
Roger Connor
Stan Coveleski
Joe Cronin
George Davis
Andre Dawson
Ed Delahanty
Frankie Frisch
Joe Gordon
Hank Greenberg
Tony Gwynn
Harry Heilmann
Ralph Kiner
Sandy Koufax
Barry Larkin
Juan Marichal
Willie McCovey
Joe McGinnity
Paul Molitor
Eddie Murray
Hal Newhouser
Jim Palmer
Charles Radbourn
Al Simmons
George Sisler
Dazzy Vance
Rube Waddell
Paul Waner
Pee Wee Reese
Mickey Welch
Billy Williams
Vic Willis
Dave Winfield
Surprises? Players I thought would be in Tier II include Berra, Biggio, McCovey and Murray. In each case, their peaks just weren’t high enough to get them there, and they instead played at a consistently very high level for a very long time. They didn’t surprise me, but in the event that they surprise others, there are also players like Koufax and Sisler who had Tier I peaks, but shorter peaks than the players who are in Tier I, and then nothing. Outside of their 5 year peaks, Koufax and Sisler were average players and under a system like this that places little to no value on “hanging around”, it takes about 10 years at at least an All-Star level to crack the top two tiers. In both cases, too, their peaks probably aren’t as magnificent as they first appear, given the parks they played in.
Tier IV
Beginning with Tier IV, reasonable people can start having debates about whether the player truly belongs in the HOF. I think the great majority of them do, but for those who hold that the HOF should only be for the “best of the best”, then it starts getting gray in Tier IV whether these players meet that standard.
Earl Averill
Mordecai Brown
Jesse Burkett
Jimmy Collins
Sam Crawford
Dizzy Dean
Bill Dickey
Larry Doby
Bobby Doerr
Don Drysdale
Dennis Eckersley
Red Faber
Elmer Flick
Nellie Fox
Tom Glavine
Goose Goslin
Billy Hamilton
Billy Herman
Carl Hubbell
Hugh Jennings
Willie Keeler
King Kelly
Harmon Killebrew
Chuck Klein
Ted Lyons
Joe Medwick
Tony Perez
Kirby Puckett
Jim Rice
Nolan Ryan
Enos Slaughter
John Smoltz
Willie Stargell
Bill Terry
Bobby Wallace
Deacon White
Hack Wilson
Surprises? Three players who I thought would be higher are Killebrew, Ryan and Stargell. In each case, when you compare their peaks to the peaks of the players in the top three tiers, there is a clear gap. Each of these three played at sub-All Star level for a long time, at an All-Star level for a surprisingly short time, and at an MVP level only very briefly. If you give more credit for being very good but not great, then each of them moves up a Tier, but in a peak is what counts HOF, these three drop to the bottom half.
The players who made Tier IV who surprised me include Bobby Doerr, Billy Herman and Jim Rice. Doerr was simply a better player than I remembered, and Herman and Rice had higher peaks than I gave them credit for. Again, personally I don’t think a player’s peak ought to have such a large influence on making the HOF, and I still think Jim Rice sucks, but if the HOF really is more about peak value than career value, then Herman and Rice make it to the “gray” Tier IV.
Tier V
Tier V players are very good baseball players. They are not great baseball players. The great majority never had an MVP caliber year even once and instead attained “very good” status by being better than average for a long time. There are a handful in this tier that I think belong in the HOF for contributions that, while worth honoring, did not necessarily translate into winning a lot of baseball games, but most of them I, and I suspect most of you, would never have put in the HOF.
Luis Aparicio
Dave Bancroft
Jake Beckley
Chief Bender
Roger Bresnahan
Lou Brock
Max Carey
Orlando Cepeda
Frank Chance
Jack Chesbro
Fred Clarke
Earle Combs
Kiki Cuyler
Hugh Duffy
Johnny Evers
Buck Ewing
Whitey Ford
Lefty Gomez
Rich Gossage
Burleigh Grimes
Gabby Hartnett
Catfish Hunter
Travis Jackson
Addie Joss
Joe Kelley
Tony Lazzeri
Freddie Lindstrom
Ernie Lombardi
Heinie Manush
Rabbit Maranville
Bid McPhee
Jim O'Rourke
Herb Pennock
Eppa Rixey
Phil Rizzuto
Edd Roush
Red Ruffing
Red Schoendienst
Joe Sewell
Don Sutton
Sam Thompson
Joe Tinker
Zack Wheat
Early Wynn
Ross Youngs
Surprises? Only one, but the biggest shock in the whole exercise for me: Whitey Ford. Now, if we switch to a career value method Ford makes it easily – he’d probably jump at least to Tier III, but Ford’s HOF-level peak is very brief (by HOF standards), and his All-Star level peak is pretty brief, too. What Ford was, for most of his career, was a very good pitcher who pitched for a great team racking up a lot of wins.
And finally,
Tier VI
Tier VI players are in the HOF for a variety of reasons, but none of them have to do with being the greatest baseball players of their own, or any, era. There are a handful who would bump up to Tier V if we gave more weight to career value than peak value, but none who could get any higher than that no matter what you do. The only two players in Tier VI that I think belong in the HOF are Mazeroski and Wilhelm, but not because they were such great overall players, but rather because I think they had careers worth honoring in and of themselves.
Jim Bottomley
Rick Ferrell
Rollie Fingers
Chick Hafey
Jesse Haines
Harry Hooper
Waite Hoyt
George Kell
George Kelly
Bob Lemon
Rube Marquard
Bill Mazeroski
Tommy McCarthy
Sam Rice
Ray Schalk
Bruce Sutter
Pie Traynor
Lloyd Waner
John Ward
Hoyt Wilhelm
No surprises for me; I don’t know how any of these, except for Wilhelm and Mazeroski, ever entered the mind of a single HOF voter, let alone got enough votes to be enshrined. If you think any of them belong in the HOF, then you need to make a case for them that doesn’t involve being a great baseball player, because none of them were. Many of them were great at something, but what they were great at wasn’t nearly as important to winning games as what the players ranked higher than them were great at. If anyone is wondering, the player in dead last, and by a fair margin, is Tommy McCarthy. I have no idea why his name ever came up when the HOF was being discussed – he was not one of the 1,000 best baseball players. Anyone surprised that Pie Traynor is in Tier VI has a lot to learn.
On the off chance that anyone has read this far, what I’m going to do now, very briefly, is look at some non-HOFers and where they would rank if they were in the HOF. 99% of all players, if I went through this exercise for them, would be in Tier VI (as low as anyone can go), so everyone here, even those in Tier VI, are at least good players, and those in Tier V are very good players. But what I was interested in finding were those players who would be in a Tier higher than that; those who deserve to be in the HOF on the same basis as the players that most people agree deserve to be in the HOF. I did this off the top of my head, and I ignored active players, inactive players not yet eligible and cheaters, so I may have missed someone.
In reverse order by Tier
Tier VI – no business in a HOF discussion
Ron Fairly (I did him just for fun)
Steve Garvey
Frank Howard (this surprised me)
Tier V – It would take an inventive argument that they deserve to be in the HOF
Norm Cash
Jack Clark
Rocky Colavito
Jose Cruz
Kirk Gibson
Pedro Guerrero
Stan Hack
Tommy John
Jim Kaat
Fred Lynn
Jack Morris
Bobby Murcer
Tony Oliva
Boog Powell
Ken Singleton
Roy White
Tier IV – the “gray” Tier; maybe borderline HOF case, but these players were as good as LOTS of current HOFers
Sal Bando
Bobby Bonds
Bert Campaneris
Cesar Cedeno
Ron Cey
Will Clark
Darrell Evans
Dwight Evans
Bill Freehan
Jim Fregosi
Ron Guidry
Keith Hernandez
Don Mattingly
Sam McDowell
Minnie Minoso
Dale Murphy
Dave Parker
Vada Pinson
Ted Simmons
Reggie Smith
Gene Tenace (Yes!!!)
Jimmy Wynn
Tier III – These players were as good, in a peak-weighted sense, as MOST HOFers
Dick Allen
Ken Boyer
Kevin Brown
Bobby Grich
Graig Nettles
Tim Raines
Luis Tiant
Wilbur Wood
Yeah, Wilbur Wood shocked the hell out of me, too. But if you think a player’s best few seasons matter a great deal more than his “hanging around” years, then he belongs. Have you seriously looked at what he did at his peak, and at how great a reliever he was before that? Do it. Don’t look at his W/L record on his sorry ass team, look at how good he was.
Tier II
Mike Mussina
I didn’t think there’d be any Tier II guys, but there was one. Now that Blyleven is in, Mussina stakes the claim to the most deserving player not yet in the HOF. Someday he’ll get there; simply too damn good to keep out forever.
So there's my ridiculously long welcome back post. Feel free to mock it or comment on it as you see fit.
Using statistical methods that I will not describe in detail, I have divided the HOF into six tiers (beyond identifying a player’s Tier, I will not otherwise rank them), with Tier I being at the top and Tier 6 at the bottom. There are roughly the same number of players in the top 3 Tiers as in the bottom 3 Tiers, and roughly an equal number of players in Tiers I and VI combined as are in each of the other individual Tiers.
I have assigned points to each player as follows (but not in detail):
Peak Value – 50%: by “Peak Value” I refer only to those seasons where a player performed at an All-Star level or above, and performance at an MVP level counts a lot more than at a mere All-Star level. That is, if a player performed at a near All-Star level for each and every year of a 20 year career, he would get zero points for his peak value. This isn’t how I think the HOF should evaluate players, but in every debate I’ve had on the HOF worthiness of a given player – and I’ve had hundreds of them on these forums – this appears to be what most everyone else thinks should be the correct standard. And so to avoid that argument, I’ve adopted that method. The better the season, the higher the points, and the more such seasons, the more points.
“Meat” value – 25%; this is the value that a player contributes at an All-Star level that is not captured by his peak value. So, for example, all of Babe Ruth’s peak value is captured by his HOF level seasons, and this bucket captures his merely great seasons. If a player’s peak value is only at the All-Star level, then there’s nothing left to capture in this bucket. But, as is more common, a player has only a few seasons at a HOF level, then his peak value captures those seasons and his “meat” value captures his other great seasons. I’m calling it “meat” because for a typical great, but not Ruthian, player, the meat of his career is performed at this level.
Career value – 25%; this bucket captures primarily the value of a player in those seasons when he performed at an above-average level, but below All-Star level. It also captures any additional
value the player had in those seasons when he was merely average, but this adds very little to any great player’s total. If a player has only seasons when he is at or slightly above average, he would need to play for over 100 years to get higher than Tier V.
And note that the 50%/25%/25% breakdown refers to averages. Nearly all of Babe Ruth’s value, for example, is in his peak bucket; nearly all of Pee Wee Reese’s value is in his “meat” bucket, and literally all of the value of most of the Tier VI players is their “career” value.
Adjustments: I tried to limit the number of subjective adjustments that I made, but a few were necessary to create Tiers that made any sense at all to me. Without going into specifics, I gave extra credit to catchers and shortstops, I gave extra credit for hypothetical seasons missed due to the color barrier, and I gave extra credit for seasons missed due to war. I also made an “era adjustment” recognizing that being better than one’s peers has generally become much harder with each passing year, at least until relatively recently. I did NOT give extra credit for postseason play, for any awards, All-Star appearances, league leaders, etc. If a player deserved an award, then that value is captured in his statistics. If he led the league in something due to his own skill and not that of his teammates or because of his ballpark, that value is reflected in his statistics. And since this is inherently a ranking exercise, I am not willing to give, say, Mickey Mantle, credit for his postseason play when those points are not available to Ted Williams or Ernie Banks. To introduce postseason play is to create an unbalanced playing field, and I won’t do it. In any event, the number of players who appeared in enough postseason games to be statistically significant, AND whose performance in those games was significantly better or worse than the rest of their careers, is tiny. And finally, I did NOT make any adjustment to the records of the players who played during WWII. There aren’t that many in the HOF anyway, and more importantly, I have no idea what the value of that adjustment would be.
With the definitions behind us, below are the current members of the HOF divided into the six Tiers.
Tier 1
Tier I HOFers have, all of them, peaks that are far above the average HOFer, as well as having a remainder career that is either of average length but almost entirely at an All-Star level, or very long and a mix of All-Star and close to All-Star caliber. There are players with peaks as high as some of the Tier I players who didn’t make it to Tier I because they had nothing else. Tier I HOFers have great peaks, and much more.
Hank Aaron
Grover Alexander
Johnny Bench
Gary Carter
Ty Cobb
Lou Gehrig
Lefty Grove
Rickey Henderson
Rogers Hornsby
Randy Johnson
Walter Johnson
Greg Maddux
Mickey Mantle
Willie Mays
Joe Morgan
Stan Musial
Kid Nichols
Babe Ruth
Mike Schmidt
Tom Seaver
Tris Speaker
Honus Wagner
Ted Williams
Carl Yastrzemski
Cy Young
Surprises? I’ll save surprises for who is NOT in a given tier until their name appears. As far as surprises for who IS in Tier I, the only one for me is Gary Carter. And believe me, I looked closely into that to see if I was giving him an undeserved or nonsensical advantage somewhere, and I didn’t see anything. I will repeat here that one of the factors I used was to give added weight for certain positions. I won’t go into everything I looked at, or the exact adjustment, but suffice it to say that without a positive adjustment for catchers, NONE of them end up in Tier 1, and only a handful end up in Tiers II and III. That makes no sense to me, and it makes perfect sense to me why catchers aren’t able to play the same number of games as players at other positions, and it makes perfect sense to me why their careers aren’t as long, and it makes perfect sense to me why they may not be as “ready to hit” on any given at bat as their teammates. In any event, I think it’s silly to say that there are no catchers in Tier I of the HOF, and, also a surprise to me, there was no logical way to tweak anything that got Bench in Tier I but not Carter. Bench’s peak isn’t all that much higher than Carter’s (if you don’t park adjust you miss that, but then, if you don’t park adjust you miss almost everything) and Carter has more value outside his peak than does Bench.
Tier II
Tier II HOFers are more varied than in Tier I. Included are some players with Tier I peaks, and nothing else, players with peaks near Tier I and much more, and players with peaks well off Tier I level but who played at an All-Star level for a very long time. Bear in mind, too, that Tier II is twice as large as Tier I, so there is a great deal of difference between being almost in Tier I and barely in Tier II. Eddie Collins has much higher credentials for the HOF than does Charlie Gehringer, but they are both in Tier II. If you see a name here that you don’t think belongs in Tier II, that’s one thing. But if you see a name here that you don’t think belongs in the HOF then you either have a silly idea about what the HOF is, or you need to do your homework on that player.
Cap Anson
Luke Appling
Ernie Banks
Bert Blyleven
Wade Boggs
George Brett
Dan Brouthers
Roy Campanella
Rod Carew
Steve Carlton
John Clarkson
Roberto Clemente
Eddie Collins
Joe DiMaggio
Bob Feller
Carlton Fisk
Jimmie Foxx
Pud Galvin
Charlie Gehringer
Bob Gibson
Reggie Jackson
Ferguson Jenkins
Al Kaline
Tim Keefe
Nap Lajoie
Pedro Martinez
Eddie Mathews
Christy Mathewson
Johnny Mize
Phil Niekro
Mel Ott
Gaylord Perry
Eddie Plank
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Robin Roberts
Brooks Robinson
Frank Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Amos Rusie
Ryne Sandberg
Ron Santo
Ozzie Smith
Duke Snider
Warren Spahn
Frank Thomas
Arky Vaughan
Ed Walsh
Robin Yount
Surprises? I thought Bob Gibson and Frank Robinson would make Tier I, but they both missed by a fairly comfortable margin. Gibson’s peak was as high as some Tier I pitchers, but there just wasn’t enough after that. Robinson’s HOF-level peak was fairly short; he performed at an All-Star level for a very long time.
As far as players who are surprising that they got this high, Fisk was somewhat surprising, but see the discussion of Carter above and I’ll stop mentioning the catcher adjustment now. It surprised me that Brooks Robinson and Ozzie Smith got this high, but Brooks’ peak was actually much higher than I had been mentally giving him credit for, and while Ozzie’s peak wasn’t spectacular, it wasn’t bad, and he played at an All-Star level for a very long time.
Tier III
Tier III HOFers come in too many varieties to list them all. But what they have in common is that played at a Tier I level and Tier II level for at least part of their careers, and were much better than the average player for their entire careers. In brief, making the case that any player in Tier III belongs in the HOF is incredibly easy, and if you’re talking to someone who actually knows who the player is and what he accomplished, it shouldn’t be necessary to make a case.
Roberto Alomar
Richie Ashburn
Frank Baker
Yogi Berra
Craig Biggio
Lou Boudreau
Jim Bunning
Mickey Cochrane
Roger Connor
Stan Coveleski
Joe Cronin
George Davis
Andre Dawson
Ed Delahanty
Frankie Frisch
Joe Gordon
Hank Greenberg
Tony Gwynn
Harry Heilmann
Ralph Kiner
Sandy Koufax
Barry Larkin
Juan Marichal
Willie McCovey
Joe McGinnity
Paul Molitor
Eddie Murray
Hal Newhouser
Jim Palmer
Charles Radbourn
Al Simmons
George Sisler
Dazzy Vance
Rube Waddell
Paul Waner
Pee Wee Reese
Mickey Welch
Billy Williams
Vic Willis
Dave Winfield
Surprises? Players I thought would be in Tier II include Berra, Biggio, McCovey and Murray. In each case, their peaks just weren’t high enough to get them there, and they instead played at a consistently very high level for a very long time. They didn’t surprise me, but in the event that they surprise others, there are also players like Koufax and Sisler who had Tier I peaks, but shorter peaks than the players who are in Tier I, and then nothing. Outside of their 5 year peaks, Koufax and Sisler were average players and under a system like this that places little to no value on “hanging around”, it takes about 10 years at at least an All-Star level to crack the top two tiers. In both cases, too, their peaks probably aren’t as magnificent as they first appear, given the parks they played in.
Tier IV
Beginning with Tier IV, reasonable people can start having debates about whether the player truly belongs in the HOF. I think the great majority of them do, but for those who hold that the HOF should only be for the “best of the best”, then it starts getting gray in Tier IV whether these players meet that standard.
Earl Averill
Mordecai Brown
Jesse Burkett
Jimmy Collins
Sam Crawford
Dizzy Dean
Bill Dickey
Larry Doby
Bobby Doerr
Don Drysdale
Dennis Eckersley
Red Faber
Elmer Flick
Nellie Fox
Tom Glavine
Goose Goslin
Billy Hamilton
Billy Herman
Carl Hubbell
Hugh Jennings
Willie Keeler
King Kelly
Harmon Killebrew
Chuck Klein
Ted Lyons
Joe Medwick
Tony Perez
Kirby Puckett
Jim Rice
Nolan Ryan
Enos Slaughter
John Smoltz
Willie Stargell
Bill Terry
Bobby Wallace
Deacon White
Hack Wilson
Surprises? Three players who I thought would be higher are Killebrew, Ryan and Stargell. In each case, when you compare their peaks to the peaks of the players in the top three tiers, there is a clear gap. Each of these three played at sub-All Star level for a long time, at an All-Star level for a surprisingly short time, and at an MVP level only very briefly. If you give more credit for being very good but not great, then each of them moves up a Tier, but in a peak is what counts HOF, these three drop to the bottom half.
The players who made Tier IV who surprised me include Bobby Doerr, Billy Herman and Jim Rice. Doerr was simply a better player than I remembered, and Herman and Rice had higher peaks than I gave them credit for. Again, personally I don’t think a player’s peak ought to have such a large influence on making the HOF, and I still think Jim Rice sucks, but if the HOF really is more about peak value than career value, then Herman and Rice make it to the “gray” Tier IV.
Tier V
Tier V players are very good baseball players. They are not great baseball players. The great majority never had an MVP caliber year even once and instead attained “very good” status by being better than average for a long time. There are a handful in this tier that I think belong in the HOF for contributions that, while worth honoring, did not necessarily translate into winning a lot of baseball games, but most of them I, and I suspect most of you, would never have put in the HOF.
Luis Aparicio
Dave Bancroft
Jake Beckley
Chief Bender
Roger Bresnahan
Lou Brock
Max Carey
Orlando Cepeda
Frank Chance
Jack Chesbro
Fred Clarke
Earle Combs
Kiki Cuyler
Hugh Duffy
Johnny Evers
Buck Ewing
Whitey Ford
Lefty Gomez
Rich Gossage
Burleigh Grimes
Gabby Hartnett
Catfish Hunter
Travis Jackson
Addie Joss
Joe Kelley
Tony Lazzeri
Freddie Lindstrom
Ernie Lombardi
Heinie Manush
Rabbit Maranville
Bid McPhee
Jim O'Rourke
Herb Pennock
Eppa Rixey
Phil Rizzuto
Edd Roush
Red Ruffing
Red Schoendienst
Joe Sewell
Don Sutton
Sam Thompson
Joe Tinker
Zack Wheat
Early Wynn
Ross Youngs
Surprises? Only one, but the biggest shock in the whole exercise for me: Whitey Ford. Now, if we switch to a career value method Ford makes it easily – he’d probably jump at least to Tier III, but Ford’s HOF-level peak is very brief (by HOF standards), and his All-Star level peak is pretty brief, too. What Ford was, for most of his career, was a very good pitcher who pitched for a great team racking up a lot of wins.
And finally,
Tier VI
Tier VI players are in the HOF for a variety of reasons, but none of them have to do with being the greatest baseball players of their own, or any, era. There are a handful who would bump up to Tier V if we gave more weight to career value than peak value, but none who could get any higher than that no matter what you do. The only two players in Tier VI that I think belong in the HOF are Mazeroski and Wilhelm, but not because they were such great overall players, but rather because I think they had careers worth honoring in and of themselves.
Jim Bottomley
Rick Ferrell
Rollie Fingers
Chick Hafey
Jesse Haines
Harry Hooper
Waite Hoyt
George Kell
George Kelly
Bob Lemon
Rube Marquard
Bill Mazeroski
Tommy McCarthy
Sam Rice
Ray Schalk
Bruce Sutter
Pie Traynor
Lloyd Waner
John Ward
Hoyt Wilhelm
No surprises for me; I don’t know how any of these, except for Wilhelm and Mazeroski, ever entered the mind of a single HOF voter, let alone got enough votes to be enshrined. If you think any of them belong in the HOF, then you need to make a case for them that doesn’t involve being a great baseball player, because none of them were. Many of them were great at something, but what they were great at wasn’t nearly as important to winning games as what the players ranked higher than them were great at. If anyone is wondering, the player in dead last, and by a fair margin, is Tommy McCarthy. I have no idea why his name ever came up when the HOF was being discussed – he was not one of the 1,000 best baseball players. Anyone surprised that Pie Traynor is in Tier VI has a lot to learn.
On the off chance that anyone has read this far, what I’m going to do now, very briefly, is look at some non-HOFers and where they would rank if they were in the HOF. 99% of all players, if I went through this exercise for them, would be in Tier VI (as low as anyone can go), so everyone here, even those in Tier VI, are at least good players, and those in Tier V are very good players. But what I was interested in finding were those players who would be in a Tier higher than that; those who deserve to be in the HOF on the same basis as the players that most people agree deserve to be in the HOF. I did this off the top of my head, and I ignored active players, inactive players not yet eligible and cheaters, so I may have missed someone.
In reverse order by Tier
Tier VI – no business in a HOF discussion
Ron Fairly (I did him just for fun)
Steve Garvey
Frank Howard (this surprised me)
Tier V – It would take an inventive argument that they deserve to be in the HOF
Norm Cash
Jack Clark
Rocky Colavito
Jose Cruz
Kirk Gibson
Pedro Guerrero
Stan Hack
Tommy John
Jim Kaat
Fred Lynn
Jack Morris
Bobby Murcer
Tony Oliva
Boog Powell
Ken Singleton
Roy White
Tier IV – the “gray” Tier; maybe borderline HOF case, but these players were as good as LOTS of current HOFers
Sal Bando
Bobby Bonds
Bert Campaneris
Cesar Cedeno
Ron Cey
Will Clark
Darrell Evans
Dwight Evans
Bill Freehan
Jim Fregosi
Ron Guidry
Keith Hernandez
Don Mattingly
Sam McDowell
Minnie Minoso
Dale Murphy
Dave Parker
Vada Pinson
Ted Simmons
Reggie Smith
Gene Tenace (Yes!!!)
Jimmy Wynn
Tier III – These players were as good, in a peak-weighted sense, as MOST HOFers
Dick Allen
Ken Boyer
Kevin Brown
Bobby Grich
Graig Nettles
Tim Raines
Luis Tiant
Wilbur Wood
Yeah, Wilbur Wood shocked the hell out of me, too. But if you think a player’s best few seasons matter a great deal more than his “hanging around” years, then he belongs. Have you seriously looked at what he did at his peak, and at how great a reliever he was before that? Do it. Don’t look at his W/L record on his sorry ass team, look at how good he was.
Tier II
Mike Mussina
I didn’t think there’d be any Tier II guys, but there was one. Now that Blyleven is in, Mussina stakes the claim to the most deserving player not yet in the HOF. Someday he’ll get there; simply too damn good to keep out forever.
So there's my ridiculously long welcome back post. Feel free to mock it or comment on it as you see fit.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
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The company he keeps in tier IV seems about right too.
<< <i>Thanks for taking the time to write that up! Nice to see the Jim Rice wasn't a tier V or VI player
The company he keeps in tier IV seems about right too. >>
I almost didn't post it when Rice came out that high.
Seriously, as I said in my post, I personally think meat and career value ought to count about the same as peak value in this context, but that is obviously just an opinion. This exercise did give me a greater understanding for why so many people's opinion of Rice is so far from mine. But by the same token, I hope people who were OK with leaving Blyleven and Santo out of the HOF for so long will similarly rethink their own standards. Even in a peak weighted HOF, they both make it to Tier II; that they were excluded for so long was ridiculous.
I know next to nothing about baseball, but Ryan suprised me. I think he was getting K's and social security
at the same time. Didnt they decide where to build the HOF determined solely on the spot he was standing
that day?
I wish you had something similiar to this with football, then I would have a fighting chance
<< <i>I'm curious as to what keeps Joe Dimaggio from being tier I? >>
DiMaggio's last great season was at 35 and he retired at 36; that's part of it. DiMaggio's best seasons are also not as great as most of the Tier 1 guys. He had MVP quality seasons, but relatively few compared to most of the people in Tier 1, and none of them were of the historically great quality of a Ruth, Gehrig or Yaz. Finally, a lot is going to depend on what credit you give him for the years he missed for WWII. If you give him no credit at all, he barely makes Tier II. If you assume that the three seasons he missed would have been his three best seasons ever, then he makes Tier I. I assumed that he would have performed in 1943-1945 more or less at the level he performed in 1942 and 1946. And in those two seasons he performed at an All-Star, but not MVP level. The end result is a player with a relatively short peak, and a long "meat" portion to his career, which is more or less the standard for Tier II.
Bear in mind, too, that DiMaggio was an outfielder. He was good enough in the field, but not so good that his fielding adds a whole lot to his value. This is a greatest player system, not a greatest hitters system; he might be a Tier I hitter.
<< <i>I'm trying to figure out how Phil Rizzuto - who literally had one good year in his entire career - is a tier 5 guy. >>
Rizzuto had one good year hitting; he had more than a handful of very good years as a player since he was an excellent shortstop. While his hitting in most years wasn't good, it also wasn't bad; the combination of not bad hitting and excellent defense was often a very good season.
I'm also giving him credit for three good to very good years, as a player, for 1943-1945.
It's an interesting read dallasactuary, however some of the methodology might still need to be refined with some small adjustments. For instance a player like Whitey Ford on Tier V on the surface seems ridiculous. Whitey often pitched with a 5 or 6 run lead so basically the message given to him was just go out there and throw strikes. Don't worry about giving up 3 or 4 runs because our offense is going to tack on a few more anyways, just don't issue any walks. So he was not trying to pitch the best game he possibly could, just eat innings and get the win.
Also I think most Baseball Historians would agree that Yogi Berra was a better catcher during his era than Gary Carter was during his time. Berra had an .OPS of .830, 358 HR and 1430 RBI's compared to Carter's .OPS .773, 324 HR and 1225 RBIs over the same 19 year career span. Yet we find Carter on Tier 1, and Berra on Tier 3. Gary Carter was a fine player, but he does look a little out of place alongside the rest of those names on Tier 1.
Another name that seems out of place on Tier 1 is Joe Morgan, again another fine ball player, but looks out of place among the other players on Tier 1. If Joe Morgan is given added weight for being a 2nd baseman, a case could be made that Roberto Alomar was a better defensive player and probably Morgan's equal offensively especially when you consider Alomar played 17 years to Morgan's 22 year career. It just seems logical that they should be on the same Tier or 1 Tier apart, not Tier 1 and Tier 3.
Here is why the methodology still needs to be refined or have slight adjustments made to it. People see the conclusion as what Tier did certain players eventually wind up on. When they see a name like Christy Matthewson on Tier 2 they know something is wrong. How can a guy that threw over 300+ innings 11 times have a god like career ERA of 2.13 with 9 years in the 2.00s and 5 years in the 1.00s (are you kidding me, an ERA in the 1.00s !) a career with 373 wins not be a Tier 1 player. Those kind of numbers can never be equaled in the modern game and even during his era was considered one of the best pitchers ever to take the mound.
How is Jimmie Foxx not a Tier 1 player a career 534 HRs, 1922 RBI's, a career OPS of an unworldly 1.038. Jimmie Foxx is without a doubt one of the best players of all time. Mike Schmidt was a great player but having him a Tier above Jimmie Foxx is just wrong. If you polled the best minds in baseball between Schmidt and Foxx, Foxx probably wins by a 2 to 1 margin. 67% to 33% or something.
I understand that different modifiers have been applied to players peak value, meat value, and career value respectively, but drawing a conclusion of Tiers with Matthewson and Foxx on Tier 2 and players like Gary Carter, Joe Morgan, and Mike Schmidt on a Tier above them needs some adjustment.
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Tier V for my avatar?
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Other than possibly Rogers Hornsby, Joe Morgan is arguably the 2nd best 2B of all time, and is unquestionably the best post-war 2B of all time. Not Tier 1? You must be joking. Unless your definition of greatness is solely based on batting average. Comparing Alomar's offensive numbers playing in the 1990s-2000s to Morgan playing in the 1960s-1970s is a poor comparison. Moragn also trumps Alomar's career OPS+ 132 to 116 and WAR 100.3 to 66.8.
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Morgan Alomar
186 150
169 141
159 140
154 136
149 134
145 130
138 116
136 115
132 114
131 109
You can see by this comparison, that Morgan's worst season would rank as Alomar's 6th best, and that Alomar's best season would barely rank no better than Morgan's 5th best, and that while Morgan's bottom 3 seasons are still easily far better than the league average, Alomar's bottom 3 would be considered just marginally better than average.
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<< <i>The only two players in Tier VI that I think belong in the HOF are Mazeroski and Wilhelm, >>
So you would bounce George Kell with his .306 career batting average?
<< <i>TC, I never claimed that Joe Morgan was on the same level as Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, et al, as all of those players are not second basemen and therefore should not be compared to Joe Morgan. Morgan, however, is significantly better than fellow 2B Roberto Alomar, and is the best post-war 2B in baseball history, a point which dallasactuary has already clearly and insightfully illustrated. So Tier 1 for 2B? No question in my mind. >>
No one claimed that you did put Morgan on the same level as Ruth, Mays, Williams, ect., but Morgan is found on Tier 1 and Alomar is on Tier 3; I don't think Morgan was head and shoulders above Alomar as far as 2nd baseman go, to me they are at best 1 Tier apart.
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TennisCoach, I'll reply to each of your separate points in order:
1. Whitey Ford, as I said, bothers me a lot. But while I have no idea if the anecdotal evidence that you provide for Ford is true, or how that same phenomenon might affect other pitchers, I do know that the only way to get Ford to a higher Tier is to give him a bump unrelated to his statistics, essentially bypassing all the analysis and just plopping him down in the Tier I want him in. At some point I will redo this analysis using the weighting that I prefer - less on peak, more on meat and career - and I'm pretty sure that Ford will rise a Tier or two. As a peak pitcher, though, Ford just wasn't that impressive.
2. Yogi Berra / Gary Carter - yep, that bothers me a great deal. But, as I said, I looked at that for a long time. I tweaked this and that, within reason, trying to undo it. And I couldn't. My conclusion: Gary Carter was a whole lot better player than you, and I, tend to give him credit for. Fact is, those two aren't even close; Carter's peak value was higher than Berra's, his "meat" value is higher, and he played a bit longer at an above average level. Berra was also nothing special as a catcher, and while Carter wasn't the greatest, he was very good, and that is a big part of it. In any event, there's no way to weight the stats to get Berra higher than Carter. All that said, I still don't feel good about it, and I know Bill James ranks Berra higher, too. I suspect, but can't prove, that James gives Berra a big subjective boost for being the captain of a winning team, for stellar postseason play, and for being just generally good for the sport. Bottom line, I am bothered a little bit by Carter making Tier I, and I am bothered a bit more by Berra falling to Tier III. I wish they had both landed in Tier II, but they didn't, and I couldn't find any way to get either one of them there.
3. Joe Morgan, had he ended up anywhere other than Tier I, would have bothered me more than the Carter/Berra situation. Morgan and Alomar were about equals in the field, but as hitter's they weren't even close. Morgan, as was already pointed out, has a huge OPS+ advantage, but beyond that he stole a lot more bases and ground into 100 fewer DPs.
4. Christy Mathewson being in Tier II never even caught my eye; it was where I expected him to end up. Now, please note that Tier I and Tier VI are smaller than the other Tiers; if I made it bigger, he might make it. But as it is, which pitchers in Tier I (Alexander, Grove, R. Johnson, W. Johnson, Maddux, Nichols, Seaver, Young) do you think should be bumped for Mathewson? I think each of those was clearly better than Mathewson, and the statistics do back that up. He was near, but not at, the top of Tier II, if that helps, but this one doesn't bother me at all.
5. Jimmie Foxx was a great player and is in basically the same situation as Mathewson. Make Tier I bigger and he makes it, but he landed in the Tier I expected him to. Bill James ranked Schmidt as the 21st greatest player of all time, and Foxx at 29, and that's fairly consistent with how my analysis came out. Schmidt was the only 3B to make Tier I, and Foxx was near the top of Tier II. Feels right to me. I think it's interesting, and relevant, to note that Schmidt played during the era in which it was the absolute hardest to separate one's self from one's peers, and the margin by which he separated himself was one of the greatest ever. Foxx's era was one of the easiest to separate one's self from one's peers, and while Foxx did indeed create quite a separation, in context it was about the same as Schmidt. This keeps coming up, but here it is again: as hitters, they were about equals, and I'll even concede that Foxx may have been a little bit better. But Schmidt was a great third baseman, and Foxx was an adequate third baseman; that's where the greatest difference is.
Bottom line - you reiterated the two results of my analysis (Carter and Ford) that bother me the most, too, but those are really the only two that bother me much. I will keep looking at those two, and will happily change their rankings if I find something I did wrong or missed. The others, like Mike Schmidt and Joe Morgan being in Tier I, were the kind of signposts that you referred to - if they had ended up anywhere else, it would have bothered me so much I would have gone back to the drawing board.
MG - George Kell? Yeah, I'd bounce him in a heartbeat. If you look at the list of non-HOFers at the bottom of the OP, with the exception of my sentimental favorite Ron Fairly and the execrable Jack Morris, there is not a single other name listed that I don't think is more deserving of the HOF than George Kell. Kell never had a single great season and only had two seasons that I would even classify as "very good". He was a fine baseball player, but he was no Tony Oliva or Vada Pinson. He didn't even occur to me when I was running through names to analyze, but Matty Alou has a higher career BA than Kell, and I hope we agree he's not a HOFer. (And I ran his numbers - he beats Kell by a hair because Alou's peak was a little bit higher.)
<< <i>Man, I love this! Thanks for the replies.
TennisCoach, I'll reply to each of your separate points in order:
1. Whitey Ford, as I said, bothers me a lot. But while I have no idea if the anecdotal evidence that you provide for Ford is true, or how that same phenomenon might affect other pitchers, I do know that the only way to get Ford to a higher Tier is to give him a bump unrelated to his statistics, essentially bypassing all the analysis and just plopping him down in the Tier I want him in. At some point I will redo this analysis using the weighting that I prefer - less on peak, more on meat and career - and I'm pretty sure that Ford will rise a Tier or two. As a peak pitcher, though, Ford just wasn't that impressive.
2. Yogi Berra / Gary Carter - yep, that bothers me a great deal. But, as I said, I looked at that for a long time. I tweaked this and that, within reason, trying to undo it. And I couldn't. My conclusion: Gary Carter was a whole lot better player than you, and I, tend to give him credit for. Fact is, those two aren't even close; Carter's peak value was higher than Berra's, his "meat" value is higher, and he played a bit longer at an above average level. Berra was also nothing special as a catcher, and while Carter wasn't the greatest, he was very good, and that is a big part of it. In any event, there's no way to weight the stats to get Berra higher than Carter. All that said, I still don't feel good about it, and I know Bill James ranks Berra higher, too. I suspect, but can't prove, that James gives Berra a big subjective boost for being the captain of a winning team, for stellar postseason play, and for being just generally good for the sport. Bottom line, I am bothered a little bit by Carter making Tier I, and I am bothered a bit more by Berra falling to Tier III. I wish they had both landed in Tier II, but they didn't, and I couldn't find any way to get either one of them there.
3. Joe Morgan, had he ended up anywhere other than Tier I, would have bothered me more than the Carter/Berra situation. Morgan and Alomar were about equals in the field, but as hitter's they weren't even close. Morgan, as was already pointed out, has a huge OPS+ advantage, but beyond that he stole a lot more bases and ground into 100 fewer DPs.
4. Christy Mathewson being in Tier II never even caught my eye; it was where I expected him to end up. Now, please note that Tier I and Tier VI are smaller than the other Tiers; if I made it bigger, he might make it. But as it is, which pitchers in Tier I (Alexander, Grove, R. Johnson, W. Johnson, Maddux, Nichols, Seaver, Young) do you think should be bumped for Mathewson? I think each of those was clearly better than Mathewson, and the statistics do back that up. He was near, but not at, the top of Tier II, if that helps, but this one doesn't bother me at all.
5. Jimmie Foxx was a great player and is in basically the same situation as Mathewson. Make Tier I bigger and he makes it, but he landed in the Tier I expected him to. Bill James ranked Schmidt as the 21st greatest player of all time, and Foxx at 29, and that's fairly consistent with how my analysis came out. Schmidt was the only 3B to make Tier I, and Foxx was near the top of Tier II. Feels right to me. I think it's interesting, and relevant, to note that Schmidt played during the era in which it was the absolute hardest to separate one's self from one's peers, and the margin by which he separated himself was one of the greatest ever. Foxx's era was one of the easiest to separate one's self from one's peers, and while Foxx did indeed create quite a separation, in context it was about the same as Schmidt. This keeps coming up, but here it is again: as hitters, they were about equals, and I'll even concede that Foxx may have been a little bit better. But Schmidt was a great third baseman, and Foxx was an adequate third baseman; that's where the greatest difference is.
Bottom line - you reiterated the two results of my analysis (Carter and Ford) that bother me the most, too, but those are really the only two that bother me much. I will keep looking at those two, and will happily change their rankings if I find something I did wrong or missed. The others, like Mike Schmidt and Joe Morgan being in Tier I, were the kind of signposts that you referred to - if they had ended up anywhere else, it would have bothered me so much I would have gone back to the drawing board.
1. The Yankees were always among the top teams in runs scored during Ford's career. Ford won a lot of games, so by deduction he had to pitch with a lot of leads. I have spoke to people that covered the Yankees and others who were fans and they have said Whitey stats are somewhat misleading because he had so many runs to work with. Who needs to throw their best stuff when you have a 6 run lead in the 7th.
2. Having Yogi Berra on Tier 3 and Carter on Tier 1 just looks wrong. I'm guessing 80 to 90% of the people I know would take Berra over Carter even eliminating what Berra did in post season play. It doesn't seem possible that Carter could be 2 Tiers better than Berra. It doesn't pass the eye test from those who have watched both players.
3. I will concede that Joe Morgan was a better hitter than Alomar, but to say they were equals in the field is simply not true. Alomar won 10 gold gloves and arguably should have won 11, his range was better than Morgan's, his release and mechanics were smoother, he positioned himself better, he had a quicker first step, he turned 2 faster than Morgan, he was just better. Morgan was a really good 2nd baseman, but Alomar is one of the best.
So I would think that if Morgan was on Tier 1 then Alomar should be on 2 because of his defense. Not Morgan on Tier 1 and Alomar on Tier 3. Although its not as bad as Carter on Tier 1 and Berra on 3.
4. Christy Matthewson being on Tier 2 is probably the main reason the methodology needs to be refined. Matthewson belongs on Tier 1 ahead of (Maddux, Lefty Grove, Kid Nichols, Tom Seaver, and Grover Alexander). Christy was simply one of the most dominant pitchers to ever take the mound. You just couldn't score off Matthewson, he could get players to pop up or ground out better than any pitcher that ever lived. That was what Jerome Holtzman has said about Matthewson. He would sometimes have complete games where the ball would never leave the infield.
5. There is no question that Mike Schmidt is much deserving HOF player, but to place him above Jimmie Foxx is wrong. Foxx was one of the greatest hitters to ever live. He could drive in runs like you wouldn't believe, which means he was about as clutch as you could possibly get. You needed Foxx to get on base, done- he had a career OBP of .428, you need slugging, done, how about a lifetime .609, that's an OPS of 1.038. He had 1922 RBI's in his career with a .325 lifetime batting average because he just a pure hitter. I think Schmidt, who was also a great player, was just in an era where there were not as many really good 3rd baseman. Schmidt was as solid as they come at 3rd base, not quite as good as brooks Robinson or Scott Rolen, but still great. I have no idea how good Foxx was defensively, but Foxx was a clearly a better hitter than Mike Schmidt just by the numbers. If you say well the players of Foxx is era were no where near as skilled as a modern player like Schmidt, that is certainly true. But we can't make that comparison because the modern athletes of 2014 are certainly much better than players from the 70's and 80's. I mean Randy Johnson would have darn near been unhittable if he was time warped back to the 1970's. I guess a case could be made that Schmidt was just far superior to the other 3rd baseman in the era in which he played. However people that make rankings place Jimmie Foxx way to low on all time ranking lists. Foxx probably belongs around 15 on a list of all time greats.
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2. Having Yogi Berra on Tier 3 and Carter on Tier 1 just looks wrong. I'm guessing 80 to 90% of the people I know would take Berra over Carter even eliminating what Berra did in post season play. It doesn't seem possible that Carter could be 2 Tiers better than Berra. It doesn't pass the eye test from those who have watched both players.
3. I will concede that Joe Morgan was a better hitter than Alomar, but to say they were equals in the field is simply not true. Alomar won 10 gold gloves and arguably should have won 11, his range was better than Morgan's, his release and mechanics were smoother, he positioned himself better, he had a quicker first step, he turned 2 faster than Morgan, he was just better. Morgan was a really good 2nd baseman, but Alomar is one of the best.
So I would think that if Morgan was on Tier 1 then Alomar should be on 2 because of his defense. Not Morgan on Tier 1 and Alomar on Tier 3. Although its not as bad as Carter on Tier 1 and Berra on 3.
4. Christy Matthewson being on Tier 2 is probably the main reason the methodology needs to be refined. Matthewson belongs on Tier 1 ahead of (Maddux, Lefty Grove, Kid Nichols, Tom Seaver, and Grover Alexander). Christy was simply one of the most dominant pitchers to ever take the mound. You just couldn't score off Matthewson, he could get players to pop up or ground out better than any pitcher that ever lived. That was what Jerome Holtzman has said about Matthewson. He would sometimes have complete games where the ball would never leave the infield.
5. There is no question that Mike Schmidt is much deserving HOF player, but to place him above Jimmie Foxx is wrong. Foxx was one of the greatest hitters to ever live. He could drive in runs like you wouldn't believe, which means he was about as clutch as you could possibly get. You needed Foxx to get on base, done- he had a career OBP of .428, you need slugging, done, how about a lifetime .609, that's an OPS of 1.038. He had 1922 RBI's in his career with a .325 lifetime batting average because he just a pure hitter. I think Schmidt, who was also a great player, was just in an era where there were not as many really good 3rd baseman. Schmidt was as solid as they come as a fielder at 3rd base, not quite as good a fielder as Brooks Robinson or Scott Rolen, but still great. I have no idea how good Foxx was defensively, but Foxx was a clearly a better hitter than Mike Schmidt just by the numbers. If you say well the players of Foxx is era were no where near as skilled as a modern player like Schmidt, that is certainly true. But we can't make that comparison because the modern athletes of 2014 are certainly much better than players from the 70's and 80's. I mean Randy Johnson would have darn near been unhittable if he was time warped back to the 1970's. I guess a case could be made that Schmidt was just far superior to the other 3rd baseman in the era in which he played. However people that make rankings place Jimmie Foxx way to low on all time ranking lists. Foxx probably belongs around 15 on a list of all time greats.
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And we're just going to have to agree to disagree about Morgan/Alomar, Schmidt/Foxx and Mathewson. I don't see any problem at all with where they landed. And even if I concede that Alomar was a somewhat better fielder than Morgan, Morgan was a better hitter than Alomar by such a tremendous margin that Alomar would have to have been the greatest fielder ever, and Morgan one of the worst, to get them within shouting distance of each other. Schmidt/Foxx are very close; Schmidt just happens to land above my arbitrary line, and Foxx below it; that Schmidt is higher seems correct to me in any event. Mathewson, as I mentioned, fell just below the Tier I line and that's fine with me. I disagree that any of the pitchers you listed were worse than him.
I'm not sure what measures you used, but I think if you did the following, it might tidy the list up even more, and maybe answer some of the ones that were surprises to you.
1)For offense, use a few of the top metrics to get a broader idea. For example, add Win Probability Added,(for post War Guys). It might shed more light in dominance. Take Eddie Murray for example. He lead the league 3x in WPA, and was 2nd two other times. He also did it in one of the most competitive eras to distance oneself from his peers. That looks more like Tier I type dominance, as opposed to you being surprised he wasn't higher. Since that stats sheds the most light on a player's contribution to creating runs/wins, it makes it a good cross check to any of the other measurements you might use.
2)For Offense and Defense. Since offensive measures are far more accurate, I find it difficult to put any defensive measurement on par with the offensive. If there are two players, each 'credited' with producing 50 runs above average, but one of them got to that 50 with 45 coming from offense and 5 from defense....and the other got there with 5 coming from offense, and 45 from defense, it is far more likely that the guy with the majority of his contribution coming from offense, is indeed the better player, because by nature, all defensive measurements are far less valid, and even with the video, it can still be the pitcher/luck/circumstance that is getting the player more opportunities to create outs in the field(and that doesn't mean he is better, just in the right circumstance).
If you used the defensive runs saved, and only gave them a weight of .80 or something, it may be more accurate.
3. A player's era was mentioned in terms of ease of separating from one's peers, and I notice Cap Anson very high on the list, and guys like Murray, Winfield, McCovey, Billy Williams are lower. That would be a big head scratcher for me. No way that Anson was playing in as competitive a league, and as I showed in the top ten study of how it was easier for guys to separate in Ansons's time.
More on that. I notice 11 of the 25 Tier I are from the pre war(and most being the meat of their career from 1900, 1910, 1920's). Compare that to having only having three players who's career started post 1980, and five players who had the meat of their career in the 80's, 90's, 00's. That hints that a more harsh era adjustment is needed for some of the pre war guys.
4.Since you are this far into it, you may as well take the next step...it is a step I always kind of wanted to do. Taken what you have done already, and with just a few of those points above, you may as well just go ahead and do a 'grudge' match to come up with a more solid ranking.
Here is how I envisioned doing that. Take the one player you feel would be ranked number one. Lets use Ruth as the example. Use your methodology and compare him one-on-one to every player on the list. If there is nobody that can beat him. He is your number one.
Do that for the next guy you feel is number 2. Now you will get more close calls. Keep comparing him to players until you find someone that beats him. If you find nobody, then he is number 2. If you find a player that beats him, then you have a new contender for number 2. Then do that exercise for him, and you will have your number 2.
This will be easy for the first ten or so, because you know you don't even have to bother comparing each player to him. The time will come around player 25 or so, that you will have a lot of work ahead of you, and if you have a strong method, it shouldn't be too hard.
May be easier to separate pitchers and hitters.
I would be curious on the measurements you used, and such.
Career Plate Appearances
Carter 9,019
Berra 8,359
OPS+
Carter 115
Berra 125
Batter Runs Linear Weights
Carter 163
Berra 237
Win Probability Added
Carter 14.5
Berra 37.2
Top Five Peak
OPS+
Carter 146,143, 138,138, 126
Berra 142, 141, 137, 136, 135
Batter Runs Linear Weights
Carter 36,33,28,27,18
Berra 31,28,28, 26, 25
Win Probability Added
Carter 3.6, 3.2, 3, 2.3, 1.9
Berra 4.5, 4.3, 3.8, 3.6, 3.4
Career wise, Berra has Carter beat rather easily, and in each of the three different types of measurements.
Top five peak wise, it gets closer. They are extremely close in the OPS+, and Batter Runs(with maybe the tiniest hair to Carter). However, in WPA, Berra beats him handily, so in the end, their peaks would favor Berra by a small margin.
Defense. It will take a lot of defense for Carter to overcome Berra. Defense is very hair to measure, but with catcher, one measurement is pretty straight forward, and may be their most important job, and that is throwing out base stealers.
Career CS%...and the league CS %
Carter 35%.....league average of 32%
Berra 49%.....league average of 45%
In terms of how they did compared to the league average, there really is no difference in them defensively in throwing out runners. We can guess how Berra would have done in a league that ran more...his percentage would have dropped, like it did for everyone else. I don't see anything that would cause him to drop worse than the average catcher though.
So between the two we have this:
Career Offense: Clear edge to Berra
Peak Offense: Tiny edge to Berra
Defense: Nothing concrete enough to sway what the offense results are showing, or that one was really any better than the other.
I think it would be hard to put Carter in a tier above Berra. A case may possibly be made to put them in the same tier, but a tier above, just doesn't seem to add up.
<< <i>TC - I agree with you, for the most part, about Carter/Berra and Ford. Not much more to say on those. With Carter/Berra, I wonder, though, how the perceptions of the two might be different if Carter had been on a team that went to a dozen World Series, and Berra had labored for, say, the Senators when he played. That my system got all the other catchers "right" tells me its not way off the mark. As I said, the two Tier gap doesn't make me happy, but I think each of them is "off" by one Tier, in opposite directions. With respect to Ford, his teammate Allie Reynolds - no HOFer - had a W/L of .686 as a Yankee. Which tells me that putting together a really high W/L percentage on those Yankee teams just wasn't that hard. Cover the wins and losses columns and look at Ford's stats - how impressive are they really? Yeah, Tier V still seems low, but not "throw out the system" low.
And we're just going to have to agree to disagree about Morgan/Alomar, Schmidt/Foxx and Mathewson. I don't see any problem at all with where they landed. And even if I concede that Alomar was a somewhat better fielder than Morgan, Morgan was a better hitter than Alomar by such a tremendous margin that Alomar would have to have been the greatest fielder ever, and Morgan one of the worst, to get them within shouting distance of each other. Schmidt/Foxx are very close; Schmidt just happens to land above my arbitrary line, and Foxx below it; that Schmidt is higher seems correct to me in any event. Mathewson, as I mentioned, fell just below the Tier I line and that's fine with me. I disagree that any of the pitchers you listed were worse than him. >>
dallasactuary, I think you are missing the point on Ford. If we take it to the extreme and hypothetically say the Yankees staked him to a 20 run lead every game he pitched where he couldn't possibly lose. What incentive would Ford have to try and hit the corners, pitch around guys, and be careful with certain hitters? The answer is he wouldn't, he would throw more pitches that were hittable and just be sure not to walk guys. Well when you have a 5 run lead in say the 6th inning, that is what Ford did; he would trade runs for outs because the game was already in hand. He would pitch much differently than if it was a 1 run or tie game or trailing. I'm saying that Whitey Ford is a better pitcher than his stats showed and everyone in baseball at the time knew this. It's like an NBA team with a 25 point lead going into the 4th quarter, they usually don't win by 25, they typically win by like 10 or 12. Is it because the winning team is the worst 4th quarter team in basketball, of course not. Their defense is better then their stats show because the game is already in hand, same thing happened quite often with Whitey Ford and that's why he does not belong on Tier 5 because stats don't tell the whole story.
I think Morgan was a better Hitter and Alomar was a better fielder, so I see them as 1 Tier separation. You see them as 2 Tier Separation.
I See Yogi Berra as a better player than Carter and should at least be on an equal Tier as Gary Carter. You see Gary Carter as a two Tier better Catcher and have them as Carter Tier 1 and Berra Tier 3 respectively.
I see Christy Matthewson as being one of the best pitchers to hold opponents to the fewest runs, which is exactly what you want from your pitcher and deserving of Tier 1 status, you view him as a Tier 2 pitcher behind the likes of (Maddux, Lefty Grove, Kid Nichols, Tom Seaver, and Grover Alexander)
I see Jimmie Fox as one of the 15 best hitters of all time, you see Mike Schmidt as a better player when his defense is added to the equation and I respect that.
Overall it has been Great debating with you, I guess we see things slightly differently. I can appreciate all the hard work you put into designing your system for separating the players into Tiers, I just happen to respectively disagree with some of its conclusions. To me sometimes stats are a little misleading as when it comes to some of the numbers the Colorado Rockies used to put up at home, or the power numbers that Sammy Sosa put up at Wrigley. I don't think that Sosa was a better power hitter than Mickey Mantle, but if you found someone that didn't watch baseball and went solely by the numbers he might come to the conclusion that Sosa was a better power hitter than Mantle having never seen each player actually play.
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I fiddled with the era adjustment a lot, and am happy enough with where it ended up. But I did make it a fairly straight line, and it could be that a steeper line starting in 1876 that gets flatter over time would be better. Anson specifically doesn't bother me all that much; since he really had no peers for a good part of his career, it's largely guess work how good he really was. I also neglected to mention another adjustment that I made: for 19th century players who played when a "full" season was way below the 154/162 modern level, I had to give them a boost or they started out in too deep a hole to overcome. A lot of guess work went into that since "full" seasons varied from year to year, league to league, and sometimes even team to team, so it may be that I gave some of those guys a little too much. Pitchers from that era also got "capped" - the opposite of a boost - so that two or three seasons pitching 76 games a season didn't vault them over the Babe; that cap may need to be lowered, too. Like I said, I'll look into it, and the other ideas you had.
Whitey Ford, and what he gave up in each run situation:
Game Score.....AVG....OB%...SLG%...OPS
Tie Game.........235....302.....334.....636
Within 1 Run....233....299.....341.....640
> than 4 runs...234.....300....341.....637
Ford didn't pitch any differently in any of the game score situations. That stuff used to be said about Jack Morris, and it simply isn't true.
He gave up the same stuff in blowouts(greater than 4 run margin), as he did in tie games and one run games.
<< <i>I See Yogi Berra as a better player than Carter and should at least be on an equal Tier as Gary Carter. You see Gary Carter as a two Tier better Catcher and have them as Carter Tier 1 and Berra Tier 3 respectively. >>
TC - I think at this point we each know where the other stands, and I thank you for your comments and input. With respect to Carter/Berra, though, I want to make sure one thing is clear. You say that I see Carter as Tier I and Berra as Tier III, but that's not really correct. My system put them in those Tiers, but those results bother me. I personally see Carter as Tier II, and Berra as borderline Tier I/II. I'm still wrestling with why my system did that, and whether it has revealed a previously unknown truth or, much more likely, I've just missed something. I'm still working on that.
On Ford, I need more to work with, though. If pitchers get a pass for pitching less well with a big lead, then I need to know not just what adjustment to give Ford for that, but also what adjustment to give every other pitcher for that. Lots of them, not just Ford, pitched for a long time on a great team. That they didn't fall several Tiers as a result tells us something, doesn't it?
I agree, looking at the list, it really is pretty strong.
If doing a similar analysis as done with Berra/Carter, I see the following:
Stargell would belong two tiers higher, up into Tier 2. I see him as getting beat down the worst.
Murray, McCovey, Berra, Killebrew would bump up one, to Tier 2
Ryan up one Tier. It would seem that his extreme good longevity would be enough. There is merit to judging a player vs League replacement, as opposed to just League Average.
Carter and Anson dropping down a tier each.
I just don't see Anson belonging ahead of Murray, McCovey, Killebrew, and Stargell.
Ansons's career OPS+ is 142, so that kind of eliminates the worry of the shorter season factor by using that rate stat. Looking at how the level of competition is weaker, I can't see him being ahead of McCovey 147, Killebrew 143, Stargell 147.
In essence, all those guys beat their peers MORE than Anson, and they were harder peers to beat.
I see a league difficulty adjustment putting Anson's OPS+ closer to the value of 128.
<< <i>For clarification:
Whitey Ford, and what he gave up in each run situation:
Game Score.....AVG....OB%...SLG%...OPS
Tie Game.........235....302.....334.....636
Within 1 Run....233....299.....341.....640
> than 4 runs...234.....300....341.....637
Ford didn't pitch any differently in any of the game score situations. That stuff used to be said about Jack Morris, and it simply isn't true.
He gave up the same stuff in blowouts(greater than 4 run margin), as he did in tie games and one run games. >>
This is an excellent point. The notion that a pitcher "pitches to the score" (a la Jack Morris, and now, Whitey Ford) is a common misconception that has been debunked in almost every case.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>Dallasactuary, your formula for ranking Hall of Famers seems pretty sound. However, I was surprised that Carl Yastrzemski made the list as a Tier I Hall of Famer, were you surprised too, or did you anticipate he would make the cut? >>
No, that didn't surprise me since peak was weighted so heavily. At his peak, Yaz was an absolute monster, although since he had his peak during the second deadball era his absolute numbers don't necessarily jump out. His 1967 season was one of the greatest seasons anyone ever had. His best three seasons (1967, 1968, 1970) likewise constitute one of the highest peaks ever.
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IT CAN'T BE A TRUE PLAYOFF UNLESS THE BIG TEN CHAMPIONS ARE INCLUDED
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<< <i>List is flawed if Clemente not tier 1. >>
Dont even try unless your a math major and too intelligent for your own good
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>Tier V for my avatar?
IMHO, your guy shouldn't even be in.
<< <i>
<< <i>Dallasactuary, your formula for ranking Hall of Famers seems pretty sound. However, I was surprised that Carl Yastrzemski made the list as a Tier I Hall of Famer, were you surprised too, or did you anticipate he would make the cut? >>
No, that didn't surprise me since peak was weighted so heavily. At his peak, Yaz was an absolute monster, although since he had his peak during the second deadball era his absolute numbers don't necessarily jump out. His 1967 season was one of the greatest seasons anyone ever had. His best three seasons (1967, 1968, 1970) likewise constitute one of the highest peaks ever. >>
I somehow missed you had Yaz as a Tier I guy. I'd probably have Yaz at the very bottom in Tier 4, maybe even lower. He had a monster stretch from 1967-70 but was, well, pretty much average or worse for the entire rest of his career. A corner outfielder who puts up .265/16/76 every year? Uh...yeah. So, yeah, he had that monster peak but the rest of his career isn't really even All-Star level except the occasional hiccup (1963, 1977).
<< <i>
<< <i>Tier V for my avatar?
IMHO, your guy shouldn't even be in. >>
He isn't really my guy , I was browsing avatars when I joined up and I saw this and it was like looking in a mirror so I chose it
<< <i>
<< <i>I'm trying to figure out how Phil Rizzuto - who literally had one good year in his entire career - is a tier 5 guy. >>
Rizzuto had one good year hitting; he had more than a handful of very good years as a player since he was an excellent shortstop. While his hitting in most years wasn't good, it also wasn't bad; the combination of not bad hitting and excellent defense was often a very good season.
I'm also giving him credit for three good to very good years, as a player, for 1943-1945. >>
He was a career 93 OPS+ so, yeah, for the vast majority of his career, his hitting was bad. Full seasons of 52, 74, 79, and 88. He played 11 seasons of 125+ games and in four of them he was atrocious at the plate.
He's clearly getting a positional boost for being a SS but we're talking a guy who is always in the discussion for worst HOFer. No way he belongs anywhere other than buried at the bottom of Tier 6.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>Tier V for my avatar?
IMHO, your guy shouldn't even be in. >>
He isn't really my guy , I was browsing avatars when I joined up and I saw this and it was like looking in a mirror so I chose it
Hey, a good nickname is easily worth a jump in tier.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>Tier V for my avatar?
IMHO, your guy shouldn't even be in. >>
He isn't really my guy , I was browsing avatars when I joined up and I saw this and it was like looking in a mirror so I chose it
Hey, a good nickname is easily worth a jump in tier. >>
rollie fingers FTW woo hoo
<< <i>Skin2, what source did you use to find those numbers in tie and 1 run games. Everything I have heard from the old timers that saw Ford play say he would often have a big lead and would trade runs for outs in order to get a complete game. They said if Ford had a 6 run lead he would often times give 3 of them back because he just wanted to finish the game. I believe he had 156 complete games over the course of his career. However if your source is credible that the stats are the same whether he pitched in a tie, 1 run, or greater than 4 run game, then a lot of people I spoke with have selective memories. I remember talking with Bob Feller and he told me that Whitey was a much better pitcher than people realized and that he always wanted to finish games. He also mentioned that Warren Spahn was perhaps the most talented pitcher of his day and really knew the art of how to pitch. He didn't say it in those exact words but that was the jist of what he meant. >>
It is from the play by play data, courtesy of Retrosheet. Can also be found now on BaseballReference.
It is common to hear people say the things you have, but as you said, selective memory plays probably the biggest part in it. Another thing that may play a part is that a pitcher may very well have a different mindset in that situation, but it simply doesn't manifest in the results.
I would guess Rose falls into tier two based on the methodology.
On the other side of the coin, Clemente typically gets vaulted a bit too high.
They played a good chunk in the same era, here are their best 15 OPS+ years stacked side by side:
Yaz.....Clemente
193.....171
177.....168
171.....160
156.....152
148.....150
140.....146
139.....146
136.....143
125.....138
124.....136
120.....136
120.....121
119.....114
118.....106
116......95
Yaz's top five years easily beats Clemente's
Clemente's next five beats Yaz, by about the same margin as Yaz beat Clemente in the top five
Yaz's 11-15 yrs beat's Clemente's
So 2/3 of the top 15 years has Yaz ahead of Clemente.
Then remarkably, Yaz threw up even more above average years:
113
112
112
111
108
106
96
91
The fact that Yaz was STILL able to be an above average hitter so long, should NOT be a penalty toward him...and that is what people falsely do.
From age 35-43 Yaz had an OPS+ of 113...with 4,876 Plate Appearances. That is a positive, not a negative.
People mistakingly call that 'compiling', and they are flat out WRONG. As shown above, the only thing Yaz 'compiled' was a five year peak better than Clemente's, and then a 15 year peak as good or better than Clemente's.
After ACCOMPLISHING all that, he threw up another 4,100 plate appearances, as an old man, with an OPS+ of 113.....and to put that into terms, Ichiro's career OPS+ was 110
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<< <i>How can it be argued that Yaz had a great season in 1968? He finished 9th in the AL MVP voting, and wasn't even the best player on his team that year, Ken Harrelson was. Yaz's numbers that year were 23 hrs, 74 RBI, .301 ba, compared to Harrelson's 35/109/.275. >>
That is incorrect. Yaz lead the league in OPS+ that season, bettering Harrelson 171 to 155. Yaz also led the league that year in walks and OBP% (beating Harrelson by 70 points, .426 to .356) AND OPS (.922 to Harrelson's .874), despite Harrelson's edge in home runs.. Harrelson did lead the league in RBI's but all of the other more salient stats categories were led by Yaz, who was the better player that season, despite the difference in power, which is what the voters tend to be blindsided by, which explains his lower MVP vote. (Yaz also led in WAR 10.5 to 5.0.)
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>How can it be argued that Yaz had a great season in 1968? He finished 9th in the AL MVP voting, and wasn't even the best player on his team that year, Ken Harrelson was. Yaz's numbers that year were 23 hrs, 74 RBI, .301 ba, compared to Harrelson's 35/109/.275. >>
Yaz led the league in OPS+ that year. His .301 avg led the league.
Harrelson was great too.
Yaz was a little down in men on base hitting that year, and his RBI oppurtunities...hence the lower RBI totals.
That is why you look at measurements like Win Probability Added that takes all that into account, and gives it proper value. It is 100x better than RBI. So if you like RBI...you are in love with Win Probability Added.
Win Probability Added in 1968:
Yaz was 5.4
Harrelson 5.7
So yes, Harrelson had a great year.
For the record 5.4 would be Clemente's third best ever Win Probability Added for his career, and that is what Yaz put up in 1968. So yeah, pretty darn good year in a year starved for offense.
Also that is one of the reasons it is good to use OPS+, Batter Runs, and Win Probability Added to paint the best and most accurate picture of a players contribution.
<< <i>
<< <i>How can it be argued that Yaz had a great season in 1968? He finished 9th in the AL MVP voting, and wasn't even the best player on his team that year, Ken Harrelson was. Yaz's numbers that year were 23 hrs, 74 RBI, .301 ba, compared to Harrelson's 35/109/.275. >>
That is incorrect. Yaz lead the league in OPS+ that season, bettering Harrelson 171 to 155. Yaz also led the league that year in walks and OBP% (beating Harrelson by 70 points, .426 to .356) AND OPS (.922 to Harrelson's .874), despite Harrelson's edge in home runs.. Harrelson did lead the league in RBI's but all of the other more salient stats categories were led by Yaz, who was the better player that season, despite the difference in power, which is what the voters tend to be blindsided by, which explains his lower MVP vote. (Yaz also led in WAR 10.5 to 5.0.) >>
He also led in the Polska kielbasa billboards category , I'm pretty sure there is still one left on the side of route 24 . It was clearly visible still when I was a teenager but I believe its still there now only hidden by 50 foot tall trees that were seedlings back then
<< <i>Yaz typically gets bashed, because as Dallas pointed out, he produced so good in the second dead ball era, that people fail to put his numbers in perspective those years. Also, the rest of his years are not as bad as people say.
On the other side of the coin, Clemente typically gets vaulted a bit too high.
They played a good chunk in the same era, here are their best 15 OPS+ years stacked side by side:
Yaz.....Clemente
193.....171
177.....168
171.....160
156.....152
148.....150
140.....146
139.....146
136.....143
125.....138
124.....136
120.....136
120.....121
119.....114
118.....106
116......95
Yaz's top five years easily beats Clemente's
Clemente's next five beats Yaz, by about the same margin as Yaz beat Clemente in the top five
Yaz's 11-15 yrs beat's Clemente's
So 2/3 of the top 15 years has Yaz ahead of Clemente.
Then remarkably, Yaz threw up even more above average years:
113
112
112
111
108
106
96
91
The fact that Yaz was STILL able to be an above average hitter so long, should NOT be a penalty toward him...and that is what people falsely do.
From age 35-43 Yaz had an OPS+ of 113...with 4,876 Plate Appearances. That is a positive, not a negative.
People mistakingly call that 'compiling', and they are flat out WRONG. As shown above, the only thing Yaz 'compiled' was a five year peak better than Clemente's, and then a 15 year peak as good or better than Clemente's.
After ACCOMPLISHING all that, he threw up another 4,100 plate appearances, as an old man, with an OPS+ of 113.....and to put that into terms, Ichiro's career OPS+ was 110
Yaz played in Fenway Park and Clemente played at Forbes field. Clemente is considered one of the best outfielders in history.
IT CAN'T BE A TRUE PLAYOFF UNLESS THE BIG TEN CHAMPIONS ARE INCLUDED