Tony Suck For The Hall Of Fame
Along With My Five Other Choices For The Upcoming Election
So I'm going to do a "My Hall of Fame ballot" column. Baseball columnists try this every once in a while, and unfortunately it usually yields something like the following:
"Here are my choices: Kurt Bevacqua should be in because he had five seasons hitting .300 or more and played with heart and soul. Joe Blow deserves enshrinement because he had a similiar career to Hall of Famer Edd Roush and could play 'Heart and Soul' on the piano with the best of them. Tony Suck was on five wild-card winning teams and was the best-fielding left fielder in Florida Marlins history. Amanda Hugenkiss had 300 career HRs, 200 career HBP and reached base on catcher's interference 20 times, and no one with those totals is not in the Hall ..."
And so forth. But I care too much about the Hall (perhaps unreasonably so) to be satisfied with a few half-baked initial reactions. I have a number of preconceived notions, but I think it's necessary to test them out. It's a deep game, and we need to involve more in the decision than a cursory glance at a player's career record and a vague impression based on old memories.
And thanks to baseball-reference.com, we have a whole set of tools to help us see beyond quick, potentially faulty analyses. This site has a number of super-analyst Bill James' Hall of Fame metrics computed for every player in history (even the celebrated Tony Suck).
Below is an extremely intimidating graph of all of these metrics. All have the benefit of turning the sum of a player's contributions -- all the AB, the RBI, the ERA, even, depending on the metric, things like MVP trophies and statistical biases created by the player's home park -- into a single number. Don't worry, I'll explain each one. For the trickier ones, you can also click on each heading to go to the Web site's explanations. Once you learn what they mean, it's fun; I promise.
Stan.: The Hall of Fame Standards Test awards points for accomplishments that contribute to a Hall of Fame career. A "Stan." number of 50 constitutes an average Hall of Famer, so there are tons of the well-deserving already-enshrined who check in below 50. This essentially tells us who should be a Hall of Famer, based on his accomplishments.
Mon.: The Hall of Fame Monitor does essentially the same thing, except with different criteria for awarding points. This one is set up to contrast with the Hall of Fame Standards in that it intends to show who will get elected, as opposed to who should. Here a score of 100 is a likely Hall of Famer, and a 130 is virtual lock.
There are quite a few Hall of Famers who fall below 100 in this one, but most are middle infielders or catchers whose career totals don't look all that impressive, or players who didn't have very long careers. That, and players who just don't belong in the Hall to being with.
The difference between these two reflects a frustration that Bill James and many other hard-core baseball analysts have had with past Hall of Fame elections -- namely, an over-reliance on career totals. So be wary of someone who has a high Monitor number and a low Standards number -- he's probably overrated. By the same token, someone with a good Standards number but a low Monitor number is probably someone who deserves to be in but will struggle to do so because he doesn't have the flashy big numbers.
Most-sim.: This gives you the most-similar player to the candidate in question, based on career totals and position played and whatnot. Again, this should be taken with a grain of salt (heck, all this stuff should), since career totals are not the be-all-end-all. Since baseball-reference.com lists the ten most-similar players for each player, I also included numbers to the side that tell you how many of the Hall-of-Fame-eligible players in each player's top ten are already in the Hall of Fame.
For example, look at the Lou Whitaker listing below. The player most similar to Whitaker, according to this metric, is Ryne Sandberg. The others in the most-similar-to-Whitaker list are Brian Downing, Alan Trammell, Joe Morgan, Joe Torre, Buddy Bell, Ted Simmons, Bobby Doerr, Toby Harrah and Jimmy Dykes. Of this list, Sandberg and Trammell are not yet eligible for the Hall of Fame, having retired too recently. Out of the eight remaining in this list, two are Hall of Famers: Joe Morgan and Bobby Doerr. You get the idea.
TPR: Total Player Rating is Total Baseball's rating system for players. As I mentioned in a previous article, TPR is about as comprehensive as one number can be in summarizing a player's career accomplishments. It's not perfect -- no one stat is -- but it does a good job. Unlike the other numbers here, it's not set up to provide perspective on the Hall of Fame, merely to encapsulate the sum of a player's accomplishments.
Following each TPR number is the number's rank in baseball history. Keep in mind that there are around 200 players currently in the Hall (and another 50 or so in for being a manager, executive, pioneer, umpire, or in the Negro Leagues, who thus don't have TPR ratings). If the player's TPR is lower than 500th all-time, I just marked him as having no ranking.
Voting: This one's nice and self-explanatory. This is the number of Hall of Fame votes that the player garnered last year, accompanied by the percentage of ballots onto which the player made it. A player must be on 75% of ballots to get elected.
The first half of the list of players are those who didn't make the Hall last year but made it past the gauntlet of last year's election (if a player gets less than 5% of the votes in any particular year, he becomes ineligible for the next election). They are followed by the players who will be newly eligible in the 2001 election.
Why so many different numbers? To confuse you? No, although that's an added perk (insert smiley face emoticon here). Because as much as I rely on statistics, I don't trust them wholly. That is, even for these metrics that combine a whole lot of numbers and are fine-tuned ad nauseam by brilliant people, there are biases and imperfections. If we look at a whole range of different comprehensive stats, we can better guard ourselves into relying on one too heavily and thus possibly being misled by its imperfections.
OK THEN ? let's look at this damn chart:
Stan. Mon. Most-sim. (HOFers) TPR (rank) Votes (Pct.)
Jim Rice 43 146 Orlando Cepeda 4/5 27.2 (151) 257 (51.5)
Gary Carter 42.2 135 Johnny Bench 5/10 29.6 (129) 248 (49.7)
Bruce Sutter 17 66 Doug Jones 0/4 19.8 (289) 192 (38.48)
Rich Gossage 19 126 Rollie Fingers 2/10 29.5 (131) 166 (33.27)
Steve Garvey 31.9 131 Al Oliver 1/8 -5.2 (none) 160 (32.06)
Tommy John 44 106 Jim Kaat 8/10 25.0 (191) 135 (27.05)
Jim Kaat 44 125.5 Tommy John 8/10 19.0 (305) 125 (25.05)
Dale Murphy 35.4 115.5 Ron Santo 1/8 19.2 (303) 116 (23.25)
Jack Morris 39 113.5 Dennis Martinez 7/9 7.0 (none) 111 (22.24)
Dave Parker 41 125.5 Tony Perez 2/8 23.0 (222) 104 (20.84)
Bert Blyleven 50 117.5 Don Sutton 8/10 30.8 (119) 87 (17.43)
Luis Tiant 41 94 Catfish Hunter 3/9 17.1 (354) 86 (17.23)
Dave Concepci?n 29.7 107 Bobby Wallace 4/7 9.2 (none) 67 (13.43)
Keith Hernandez 32 86 Mark Grace 0/8 34.4 (97) 52 (10.42)
Ron Guidry 38 95.5 Kevin Brown 2/5 18.2 (318) 44 (8.82)
Steve Bedrosian 10 22 Al Worthington 0/8 7.5 (none)
Tom Browning 16 26 Ross Grimsley 0/6 -4.9 (none)
Ron Darling 15 23 T. Stottlemyre 0/6 -1.8 (none)
Jim Deshaies 7 6 Andy Hawkins 0/7 -8.8 (none)
Kirk Gibson 22.1 18.5 Ron Gant 1/6 16.1 (380)
Tom Henke 32 55 John Wetteland 0/3 21.2 (255)
Howard Johnson 20.6 41 Jesse Barfield 0/8 2.9 (none)
John Kruk 24 30 David Segui 0/7 10.8 (none)
Candy Maldonado 9.8 5 Jim Hickman 0/8 -8.7 (none)
Don Mattingly 34.4 134 Cecil Cooper 0/5 11.3 (none)
Kirby Puckett 39 156 Don Mattingly 2/9 29.1 (134)
Dave Righetti 7 39 Tug McGraw 0/8 15.7 (393)
Jose Rijo 20 26 Don Wilson 0/8 17.5 (339)
Dave Stewart 21 67 Rick Sutcliffe 0/9 1.8 (none)
Andy Van Slyke 19 35.5 Lloyd Moseby 0/7 2.2 (none)
Lou Whitaker 43 93 Ryne Sandberg 2/8 24.8 (195)
Dave Winfield 55.3 148 Eddie Murray 7/7 38.6 (70)
Well, was it all you had hoped for? First things first: it gives weight to my suspicions that Dave Winfield is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He comfortably exceeded the cutoff point in each of our cute 'lil numbers. The most-similar players to Winfield make up an astounding list: Eddie Murray, Al Kaline, Carl Yastrzemski, Andre Dawson, Frank Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Mel Ott, Tony Perez, Billy Williams, and Harold Baines. Thus, Dave Winfield gets my unequivocal vote.
And I think we can cut out most of the guys that we knew from the start we'd be able to ignore. Steve Bedrosian, Tom Browning, Ron Darling, Jim Deshaies, Kirk Gibson, Tom Henke, Howard Johnson, John Kruk, Candy Maldonado, Dave Righetti, Jose Rijo, Dave Stewart, Andy Van Slyke -- thank you, one and all, for your services. You can hold you head high for your contributions to Major League Baseball. You just can't hold your head high in the Hall of Fame. Odds are that none of these guys will be on the ballot next year.
Moving to our returning favorites: I see three guys who might not constitute the top tier of the Hall of Fame, but deserve to be in there nonetheless. Jim Rice, Gary Carter and Bert Blyleven, I have precious few qualms about giving you my votes.
Jim, I tried to argue against you in the aforementioned previous column, but upon reflection, I must admit my counterargument was insufficient. Jim's list of most-similar players is Orlando Cepeda, Rafael Palmeiro, Duke Snider, Joe Carter, Dave Parker, Billy Williams, Fred McGriff, Andres Galarraga, Willie Stargell and Chili Davis. In other words, all the sluggers who fall short of the best in history, but still mostly range on the happy side of the Hall of Fame's cutoff point.
Gary, you're simply one of the better-hitting catchers in history, with perhaps an even greater defensive reputation. Like any catcher, you broke down in your 30s, and your career wouldn't look very impressive if you were a right fielder. But by the standard of catchers, there's really little doubt as to your credentials. (Why did I start addressing all these guys in the second person? Ed doesn't know. But Ed is enjoying his little fantasy of manning the door of the Hall of Fame and admitting players one by one, like some sort of Hall of Fame bouncer.)
Pity the poor Bert Blyleven. The Hall of Fame voters have a bad taste in their mouth from voting in Don Sutton and are apparently out to punish any other pitcher for whom longevity is his main criteria. Blyleven was seldom an ace, but was always good, and for a very long time.
And it's always been my belief that he's a step above Tommy John and Jim Kaat, both of whom probably deserve enshrinement eventually. Maybe. I dunno -- let's leave those guys aside for now.
Don Mattingly and Kirby Puckett pose problems. Both were the cream of the crop in the '80s -- unquestioned superstars who hit a lot. Both were defensive marvels. And both didn't have the longevity that would make them Dave Winfield-esque shoo-ins.
As I argued, again in that previous Hall of Fame column, a player should not be granted leave because of injury (unless it's endemic of the player's position, like Carter's knee problems). Even for a complete freak injury like Puckett's. If it were an election for Hall of Great Guys or The Hall of Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda Beens, Puckett would be in already. But it's not -- it's about total value of a player's performance over his career, and, fair or unfair, Puckett had less career value because his career was cut short.
Luckily, however, in Puckett's case, it's a bit of a moot point. Even though he lasted only twelve seasons, Puckett had a grand career in those twelve. And while Puckett's 39 in the Standards category is a concern, and is indicactive of a less-than-stellar bag of credentials, it's not outside Hall of Fame range either.
On the all-time list in Standards, he is among Enos Slaughter, Lave Cross, Ron Santo, Darrell Evans, Tony Perez, Joe Jackson, Herman Long, Al Oliver, Roy Campanella, Hack Wilson, Tony Lazzeri, Ken Williams, Babe Herman, Pee Wee Reese -- you get the idea. Again, not the cream of the Hall of Fame crop, but close enough to get a boost from other factors and be boosted into the Hall.
And in every boostable category, Puckett shines like the snow cover in a cloudless Minnesota winter day. He's a peach of a guy. He was on two World Series winning teams, and performed spectacularly in postseason play. He was a terrific fielder, winning 6 Gold Gloves in 12 seasons.
And after all, it is the Hall of Fame we're talking about, not the Hall of Stats or the Hall of Career Value. Kirby Puckett gets my vote.
But Don Mattingly, just a few minute steps below Puckett, does not. It's a shame, really -- when I was a kid, Mattingly was baseball excellence personified. But despite being arguably the best hitter of the mid-'80s, he simply couldn't battle through his injuries enough to post more than a handful of Hall-worthy seasons. His most-comparable players are Cecil Cooper, Wally Joyner, Hal McRae, Kirby Puckett, Mark Grace, Tony Oliva, Will Clark, Paul O'Neill, Carl Furillo and Keith Hernandez. Not a Hall of Fame list, I'm afraid.
I think if I were a real Hall of Fame voter, I would get ten choices. For now, I've already written too much, so I'll save my next five votes for next week. In the meantime, who else do you think I should choose? Do you have any beef with the choices I've already made? No matter what you want to say, write me. Please. I'm lonely.
Previous Diatribes ? I Mean, Columns:
- Pedro Martinez Should Be AL MVP
- More Yankees Talk, Jim Rice A HOFer?
- Clemens, Yankees Deserve Each Other
- Tony La Russa Must Go
- Yankees Have The Edge, Plus More MVP Talk
- The NL MVP, Cy Young, And ROY Are ...
- Who Would You Put In The Hall of Fame?
- Why The Cubs Stink: Too Much Love
- Baseball's Public Enemies
- What Kind Of Baseball Expert Are You?
