Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

[lhslancers]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

"Will they get in?": Right now, no on all three. Sabathia has the best chance of the three and he still has plenty of work to do.

"Should they get in?": I would vote for Sabathia. No on the other two. Hudson's peak wasn't good enough for me and Verlander just hasn't been able to sustain his greatness.

CC is not about to improve his HOF standing from here on out I don't think. I think all 3 are borderline but I'm in the school of if you have to think too much about it the answer is no.

[Chip Douglass]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

I thought I'd relay this funny anecdote from Dave Cameron in one of his recent chats:

"True story: on the BBWAA forum a couple of years ago, a voter asked for a packet of information about the eligible players to be snail mailed to him for research purposes, because he didn’t recognize all the names on the ballot. When someone simply responded with baseball-reference.com, he said it would be easier for him if it was on paper."

I imagine this guy is giving up his ballot next year because of the rule change and the whole process is better off because of it.

[lhslancers]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

I thought I'd relay this funny anecdote from Dave Cameron in one of his recent chats:

"True story: on the BBWAA forum a couple of years ago, a voter asked for a packet of information about the eligible players to be snail mailed to him for research purposes, because he didn’t recognize all the names on the ballot. When someone simply responded with baseball-reference.com, he said it would be easier for him if it was on paper."

I imagine this guy is giving up his ballot next year because of the rule change and the whole process is better off because of it.

I am sure there are a lot of guys who follow daily in the electronic media who would be so much more qualified than some of these guys.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

I thought I'd relay this funny anecdote from Dave Cameron in one of his recent chats:

"True story: on the BBWAA forum a couple of years ago, a voter asked for a packet of information about the eligible players to be snail mailed to him for research purposes, because he didn’t recognize all the names on the ballot. When someone simply responded with baseball-reference.com, he said it would be easier for him if it was on paper."

I imagine this guy is giving up his ballot next year because of the rule change and the whole process is better off because of it.

I don't know whether I should be appalled more that the guy doesn't even recognize players good enough to be Hall-eligible or that he's never heard of baseball-reference.com.

[redsox4evur]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

Lance Berkman??

Black Ink Batting - 8 (295), Average HOFer ≈ 27
Gray Ink Batting - 107 (205), Average HOFer ≈ 144
Hall of Fame Monitor Batting - 98 (171), Likely HOFer ≈ 100
Hall of Fame Standards Batting - 44 (126), Average HOFer ≈ 50
JAWS Left Field (20th), 51.7 career WAR/38.9 7yr-peak WAR/45.3 JAWS
Average HOF LF (out of 19) = 65.1 career WAR/41.5 7yr-peak WAR/53.3 JAWS

Don't think so. I found this on baseball-reference and his numbers are very low compared to average LF HOFers.

[dubcity]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

So, are we at the point where everyone bases their opinion of players entirely on WAR and esoteric sabermetrics? No offense, but man that is boring, lol.

[redsox4evur]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

So, are we at the point where everyone bases their opinion of players entirely on WAR and sabermetrics? No offense, but man that is boring, lol.

I'm not going to put a guy in the HALL OF FAME just because he was a great clubhouse guy. Because then you are inviting in guys like Jonny Gomes and Kevin Millar. Do you want those guys in the HOF?

[SPTO]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

So, are we at the point where everyone bases their opinion of players entirely on WAR and esoteric sabermetrics? No offense, but man that is boring, lol.

If that was the case Tim Raines would be a HOFer right now.

[AC]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

If that was the case Tim Raines would be a HOFer right now.

Not necessarily

[Chip Douglass]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

So, are we at the point where everyone bases their opinion of players entirely on WAR and esoteric sabermetrics? No offense, but man that is boring, lol.

For anyone who remotely cares to look at HOF worthiness objectively, sure.

I personally think looking at facts is more enlightening than boring, but whatever. Maybe we should look at Clubhouse Wins Above Replacement and other meaningless, subjective criteria and add some excitement to the process.

The esoteric comment is funny too. If you really cared to educate yourself about WAR, you could have done a quick Google search and found this: http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/war/. The basic concepts are pretty easy to understand and the calculations are transparent.

And there's a million times more transparency in how WAR and other sabermetrics are calculated versus anonymous 60 year old white guys deciding they're going to hide behind a secret ballot and not vote for a no-doubt HOFer because he knocked their favorite team out of the playoffs one year or whatever.

[redsox4evur]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

For anyone who remotely cares to look at HOF worthiness objectively, sure.

I personally think looking at facts is more enlightening than boring, but whatever. Maybe we should look at Clubhouse Wins Above Replacement and other meaningless, subjective criteria and add some excitement to the process.

The esoteric comment is funny too. If you really cared to educate yourself about WAR, you could have done a quick Google search and found this: http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/war/. The basic concepts are pretty easy to understand and the calculations are transparent.

And there's a million times more transparency in how WAR and other sabermetrics are calculated versus anonymous 60 year old white guys deciding they're going to hide behind a secret ballot and not vote for a no-doubt HOFer because he knocked their favorite team out of the playoffs one year or whatever.

No I hate the guys that won't vote a Maddux/Pedro/RJ just because they are on the ballot for the first time...that's absurd.

[Chip Douglass]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

It's funny how people think sabermetrics is ivory-tower research meant for high IQ snobs.

I don't even consider myself a mathematically-oriented person to begin with (pol sci major). I'm a SABR-head because I want a better understanding of a game I've followed my whole life and I'm willing to embrace new concepts.

[pietasterp]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

It's funny how people think sabermetrics is ivory-tower research meant for high IQ snobs.

I don't even consider myself a mathematically-oriented person to begin with (pol sci major). I'm a SABR-head because I want a better understanding of a game I've followed my whole life and I'm willing to embrace new concepts.

Yeah, sabermetrics is basically what the standard baseball stats would be if the game was invented today. The 'traditional' baseball stats were largely the product of a handful of people at the turn of the century that had no math or stats background trying to vaguely quantify the narrative they saw on the field. It had nothing to do with accurately assessing player value - that concept didn't even exist back then. There's nothing magical or fancy about sabermetrics - it's an attempt to isolate the value of an individual player's contribution by filtering out the 'noise' that goes with occurrences in the game that are outside of that player's control. It's not perfect. But it is transparent and logical. And it makes more sense than having a stat that is essentially "batting average + luck"....

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

So, are we at the point where everyone bases their opinion of players entirely on WAR and esoteric sabermetrics? No offense, but man that is boring, lol.

I think this is a good point although it's bound to not be well-received by some people. The point is good because at some point we all were young enough, and probably collected baseball cards enough, to rely fully on bubble gum stats like HR/RBI/AVG for batters and W/K/ERA for pitchers to inform us about our favorite players. However, in recent years a lot of that emphasis has been shown to be incomplete and, in some ways, I can see how that would be sad or "boring" to some people. Now it seems that those bubble gum stats are actively being discredited by folks who want to install their own replacement system of what numbers are the right ones to use. The truth is probably somewhere in between: where the simplicity/tradition/accessibility to the casual fan of bubble gum stats and the advanced/composite/SABR stats can and should both be used.

In some ways, I feel that the self-identified "SABR" people are a lot like the conventional people (i.e. RBI people) in that they are "set in their ways" and supremely believe their stats/what they look for is superior. The SABR people look to Bill James, FanGraphs writers, and other SABR luminaries much as conventional people look at famous managers/GM's and guys who are an authority because they played the game.

So, in a lot of ways, I see more similarities in both camps than either one would probably like to admit. In short, the bubble gum stats are good and the SABR stats are also good for the game.

[AC]

Re: Hall Of Fame: Yes Or No?

In some ways, I feel that the self-identified "SABR" people are a lot like the conventional people (i.e. RBI people) in that they are "set in their ways" and supremely believe their stats/what they look for is superior.

I think that's just a human being thing, lol.