Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

[DrJones]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

Exhibit E
A HOF leadoff hitter who never got 200 hits in a season?? Excuse me? Sure, again he walked a lot, BUT maxing out at 167 hits in a season in your prime while getting near 700 PAs every year for a decade doesn't scream "HOF hitter" to me.

Rickey Henderson (never had even 180 hits in a single season) would like to have a third-person conversation with you on this subject.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

Rickey Henderson (never had even 180 hits in a single season) would like to have a third-person conversation with you on this subject.

Fair enough, but he did get to 3,000 hits so that checks one more of my imaginary boxes than Joe Morgan. As does being the all-time leader in SBs and in runs. And Rickey walked a ton too, 2nd all time.

Plus with the '81 strike, Rickey was leading baseball in hits with 135 hits in 108 games. Had he gone on at that pace, he may have had a puncher's chance at 200 (or at least 190). In my eyes, leading the league in hits is just as good as 200.

[DrJones]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

He's not incredibly far off from those players on the list, but I can agree that his road numbers should be higher for a 1st baseman. My point behind saying his road numbers aren't that far off was to show that he wasn't a bad player on the road at all.

Manny has a road slugging percentage that's more than 100 points better than Helton (Bonds and Pujols more than 120 points). That's GIGANTIC. There's a bigger difference in slugging between Bonds/Pujols and Helton than there is between Helton and Omar Vizquel.

[G3no_11]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

Manny has a road slugging percentage that's more than 100 points better than Helton (Bonds and Pujols more than 120 points). That's GIGANTIC. There's a bigger difference in slugging between Bonds/Pujols and Helton than there is between Helton and Omar Vizquel.

Pujols road: .317/.402/.601

A-Rod road: .293/.379/.543

Jeter road: .309/.373/.437

Ramirez road: .314/.409/.580

Bonds road: .296/.440/.597

Helton road: .289/.389/.473

Bolded are the stats that Helton was actually better than those players on the road.

Also:
He was only -.007 behind Bonds' .296 average.

He was only -.004 behind Arod's .293 average.

But even looking at it this way, it's somewhat unfair. All of those players besides Manny Ramirez (who actually was split pretty evenly home/road) hit better at home. Helton blows them all out at home and Coors can be credited to a lot of it, but you can't just disregard someone's home stats completely.

The only real argument that can come out of this, is that he didn't put up prototypical HoF 1B power numbers on the road. Which could definitely hurt him in the HOF voting. You would hope a guy like Helton would hit 500+ dingers but really aside from a 6-7 year stretch in his career, he's been more of a doubles hitter.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

I think you'd have a better argument for Larry Walker. I don't think Helton quite gets there.

[ubernoob]

Or average more than 75 RBI for the majority of his career, or top 120 RBI more than the two seasons that were considered his peak.

He's a very good player but not HOF-caliber

[G3no_11]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

Or average more than 75 RBI for the majority of his career, or top 120 RBI more than the two seasons that were considered his peak.

Maybe I just miscalculated, but I calculated an average of 80 RBI per season. That is including this year and the last 3 or 4 years where he has been injury plagued.

1376 RBI/17 Seasons = 80.8?

Also, he tallied 113 RBI, and 117 RBI in 2 other seasons. That's pretty damn close to 120. You can't put total blame on him for RBI either... you gotta have people on base to hit in and he was on some pretty poor teams through out his career.

[G3no_11]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

I think you'd have a better argument for Larry Walker. I don't think Helton quite gets there.

I was done with the Helton argument lol. But everytime it get's brought up again I have something else to say because someone either took what I said out of context or they bring up a certain stat but not giving the full story behind it.

EDIT: I do really hope Larry get's in though. It's too bad he became pretty injury prone in the last few seasons of his career.. but man was he fun to watch in his prime.

[snepp]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

And yet, despite all those walks, he made the 40th most outs all time (he was 28th in PAs though). So he made outs, lots and lots of big fat outs. My main contention is he wasn't really that good of a hitter. Good walker, good glove-guy, good runner, good teammate and winner, so-so bat.

Here's the problem, your main contention is wrong, very very very wrong. And you won't find an analyst (professional or otherwise) with even a modicum of a clue that would ever agree with it.

The whole gee let's use wRC and OPS+ for everything is tiresome (not really blaming you for that, I'm just seeing that stat everywhere...when people should be looking at a bunch of metrics). Using 100 as the barometer for OPS+ proves nothing other than he was above average and consistent.

Of course it's tiresome for you, you've got absolutely nothing to counter them and they pummel every lousy, 19th century argument you've tried to make.

[snepp]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

But Morgan's AVG and SLG were lower than Ryno's.

Do you understand the concepts of context, and eras?


Here are some fun with numbers.

Sandberg had 5 seasons where his OPS+ was greater than 130.

Morgan had a career OPS+ over 130.


Another, Sandberg had a career OPS+ of 114.

Morgan had an OPS+ of 118 in the 80's, in his age 36-40 seasons.

[Sportsforever]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

False. Morgan had fewer HRs (268) than Sandberg (282)--that was actually a decent piece of the puzzle for Sandberg getting in as I recall at the time.

It's true, I want my HOFers to be near .300 or over. I'll admit to that. And .271 is pretty far away from that. I still view some numbers as magic: 3000 hits, 500 HRs (for some), .300, 300 wins (or at least 250), 3500 Ks.

.285 looks quite a bit stronger than .271. And if you compare the rate stats of Sandberg vs. Morgan with regard to power (i.e. cancel out longevity):

Sandberg: 32.9 PA/HR, 12.2 PA/XBH
Morgan: 42.4 PA/HR, 13.9 PA/XBH

it looks even more pronounced. For me, when you get obvious hangers-on like Morgan for basically half of the 1980s, I tend to start viewing the longevity in a negative way, meaning he's just trying to pad his stats. At the same time, I think Sandberg left the game too early (thanks to his wife....) so I tend to think of his longevity actually being a bit longer than it was.

But, mostly, I saw Sandberg play and knew he was a dominant player, and it's also a Cubs fan homer argument that I just like him a lot.

Exhibit A
The thing that really bugs me about Joe Morgan is his early years were measured as "good" just because the mound was high and it was a pitching friendly league--not because his stats were good. I realize that we have to normalize the eras and all, but it doesn't sit well that a guy with a .236/.365/.372 with 15 HRs and 43 RBIs would be considered a plus for him like OPS+ does.

Exhibit B
Another gripe is he had a TON of those types of seasons. Basically every year outside of '72-'77 strikes me as meh at best. He hit .230, .240, and .250 a ton of times--way way too much for a HOFer. Now, sure he walked a lot, but that doesn't excuse his hit rate for being so bad for the times he actually got an AB.

Exhibit C
Let's not pretend that lineup protection does not exist. While I don't think it's a HUGE concern, Morgan played on some of the best offensive teams outside of the live ball Yankees. He had more guys to drive in and just the cumulative fatigue factor for pitchers facing that Machine had to work in his favor. In short, I believe protection exists, but the effects are small, and Morgan enjoyed them to the fullest (however small).

Exhibit D
Sandberg made the most of his rare playoff opportunities. .385/.457/.641 is a pretty crazy line for Sandberg, and Morgan (though he gets all the credit for being a winner and champ) was pretty bad/mediocre in the playoffs .182/.323/.348.

Exhibit E
A HOF leadoff hitter who never got 200 hits in a season?? Excuse me? Sure, again he walked a lot, BUT maxing out at 167 hits in a season in your prime while getting near 700 PAs every year for a decade doesn't scream "HOF hitter" to me. There are other guys who walk a lot AND get a ton of hits and Morgan just wasn't one of them.

So, there's some pieces of an argument I would make through the lens of denying Joe Morgan HOF entry. It's a moot point cause he's in and I have no power. I also think he probably belongs and he was 80% on his 1st ballot in 1990. That's all fine. My main point is more that Morgan is not the no doubt, can't touch this surefire lock that a couple of guys were saying. I view him closer to a borderline case than that (though I said I'd admit him).

We are clearly on opposite sides of the fence here (and my bad on the HR goof...it was late last night), but I will point out that while you view Morgan as 'hanging on' and Sandberg as leaving too early Morgan was actually an above average offensive contributor all the way to the end while Sandberg was below average his last 3 years. I would argue that Sandberg, especially coming back from retirement, was hanging on/padding stats as you put it.

FWIW, Bill James lists Joe Morgan as the #1 second baseman of all time and puts Sandberg at #7. I think you'll find most analysts place Morgan in the top 3 somewhere and Sandberg in the last half of the top 10 to just outside the top 10.

[G3no_11]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

I think you'll find most analysts place Morgan in the top 3 somewhere and Sandberg in the last half of the top 10 to just outside the top 10.

Joe Morgan being one of those analysts.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

Here's the problem, your main contention is wrong, very very very wrong. And you won't find an analyst (professional or otherwise) with even a modicum of a clue that would ever agree with it.

Of course it's tiresome for you, you've got absolutely nothing to counter them and they pummel every lousy, 19th century argument you've tried to make.

No, I just think over-reliance on one stat (whether OPS+ or wRC or HRs or whatever) by saber people is exhibiting exactly the short-sightedness that so many criticize the traditional crowd for with RBIs and stuff. Anyone with a brain knows there are flaws to each stat, whether it's the one Bill James or Fangraphs tells you to use or not, and which ones to use depend on the point you are trying to make. That people use only OPS+ or only wRC shows a big flaw as if there was one magic stat to measure everything with perfect precision and accuracy. I reject that notion. Often, comparisons come down to many, many different stats. A HOF case requires more than one (highly baked) stat to decide on.

19th Century argument? OK, buddy...

Do you understand the concepts of context, and eras?


Here are some fun with numbers.

Sandberg had 5 seasons where his OPS+ was greater than 130.

Morgan had a career OPS+ over 130.


Another, Sandberg had a career OPS+ of 114.

Morgan had an OPS+ of 118 in the 80's, in his age 36-40 seasons.

This of course relies on the assumption that Joe Morgan's era was as talented or more talented than Sandberg's, which may or may not be true. These league-average, weighted composite stats end up comparing a player with a fictional average player. Whereas I can see and measure that Ryno hit 40 HRs, his OPS+ of blah blah blah is a statistical construct. Not to say it's wrong to use, but it's certainly more abstract and relies on assumptions that very few actually consider.

Sandberg's rate stats were better basically across the board. Homers, average, slugging...Morgan has him in BBs and SBs.

[AC]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

Any stat that values a grand slam home run and an infield single as being worth the same can **** off.

Win Probability Added, or WPA, is a stat I think you'd like.

No, I just think over-reliance on one stat (whether OPS+ or wRC or HRs or whatever) by saber people is exhibiting exactly the short-sightedness that so many criticize the traditional crowd for with RBIs and stuff.

Oh, okay, you don't want to look at just one stat? Let's look at a lot of them.

Sandberg fWAR: 60.9
Morgan fWAR: 98.8

Sandberg wOBA: .351
Morgan wOBA: .372

Sandberg wRC+: 115
Morgan wRC+: 135

Sandberg played from '81 to '97. Morgan from '63 to '84. Longevity points.

Sandberg BB%: 8.2%
Morgan BB%: 16.5%

Sandberg K%: 13.6%
Morgan K%: 9%

Sandberg WPA: 25.17
Morgan WPA: 33.36

Still cherrypicking stats?

Those are all the stats that I use that hasn't already been cited by guys like Snepp, 55 and everyone else. Make no mistake, Ryne Sandberg was a really, really good baseball player.

Joe Morgan was better.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

Well you have a case. And so do I. Sandberg was better at certain things and so was Morgan. To say one is better overall, there really is no stat for that (video game OVR), in the end it's almost qualitative.

I mean I already cited stuff like HRs, playoff stats, HRs and XBHs as rate stats, slugging percentage, and batting average--all of which Sandberg wins at.

If you aren't pleased with those stats, well then we just might not be able to agree.

I could use media awards like Gold Gloves, and "cherry pick" other "stats" like Silver Sluggers (Ryno winning 7 or 8 to 1) where Sandberg also holds the edge to further my point. My main contention though is I'd rather have Ryne Sandberg batting over Joe Morgan. And that's what makes me rate Sandberg ahead. Disagree all you want.

Now, some of this is certainly biased (unlike you perfectly unbiased beings who are congregating here to argue for the glory of Joe Morgan) because I saw Sandberg play and did not see Morgan play.

But the thing that bugs me about Joe Morgan is he played 22 years and had 6 "great" seasons. Sandberg played 6 fewer years, and his career was interrupted by a premature retirement, and he still has those 6-7 great years. So longevity +points? Or longevity -points?