2010 Baseball HOF Voting Results

[rowech]

Originally Posted by Hammer755

I think a lot of statheads can come on way too strong, and do a disservice to their cause by turning off potential statistical analysis converts. I certainly don't think that's what is happening here - dawgfan and jbergey have done an excellent job of presenting their arguments - but it does happen a lot. Baseball is ideal for statistical analysis - it is a series of individual discrete outcomes. Basketball, football and hockey are all so team-oriented that it's very difficult to isolate the true causal effect of statistical results.

To think that one person's observation is more accurate than 100+ years of data is absolutely absurd. Combine that attitude with Blackadar's brick wall debating, and this thread has turned from a fairly good discussion into a pull-your-hair-out maddening experience.

Agreed...pure stats guys think they have a holy grail to everything. On the flip side of that, I think many people discredit so much of the statistical work because they don't fully understand it. They think the stats are just being invented out of thin air. They don't understand the math that not only goes into producing the stats but also the math that shows the stats to be extremely good predictors of what things they measure.

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by Hammer755

I think a lot of statheads can come on way too strong, and do a disservice to their cause by turning off potential statistical analysis converts. I certainly don't think that's what is happening here - dawgfan and jbergey have done an excellent job of presenting their arguments - but it does happen a lot. Baseball is ideal for statistical analysis - it is a series of individual discrete outcomes. Basketball, football and hockey are all so team-oriented that it's very difficult to isolate the true causal effect of statistical results.

To think that one person's observation is more accurate than 100+ years of data is absolutely absurd. Combine that attitude with Blackadar's brick wall debating, and this thread has turned from a fairly good discussion into a pull-your-hair-out maddening experience.

Agreed, but there's a sort of old fart (I call it the Malleus Dei experience from OOTP) who refuses to accept any sort of evidence; they know what they know, and any evidence that disagrees with that is clearly wrong. These are the people who resort to asinine habits as insisting the "numbers are biased"; there really is no hope for them.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by rowech

Do you quote anything but OPS+ as a stat? I think most people accept this as a good measure but it is NOT a be all end all to everything.

Comparing two good hitters of different era's I think its the best metric for that. It may not be the end all to everything but Id like you to try and find a better stat for isolating hitting performance from the different ballpark dimensions and different eras we try to compare.

If I were comparing Ozzie Smith to Cal Ripken Id probably go a different direction since Ozzie was known for his great defense while Ripken was known for being a great hitter with "sound" defense.

What metric would you use to compare Jim Rice and Edgar Martinez?

Obviously I am leaning with this stat in defense of Edgar Martinez because it paints the best picture of him as hitter. Im not going to use home runs because because Edgar was much more than a home run hitter.

[rowech]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Comparing two good hitters of different era's I think its the best metric for that. It may not be the end all to everything but Id like you to try and find a better stat for isolating hitting performance from the different ballpark dimensions and different eras we try to compare.

If I were comparing Ozzie Smith to Cal Ripken Id probably go a different direction since Ozzie was known for his great defense while Ripken was known for being a great hitter with "sound" defense.

What metric would you use to compare Jim Rice and Edgar Martinez?

Obviously I am leaning with this stat in defense of Edgar Martinez because it paints the best picture of him as hitter. Im not going to use home runs because because Edgar was much more than a home run hitter.

Your mention of Win Shares is a much better metric. I also like to use RC a lot. I know it's not perfect by any means but the thing I like about it is the fact that it pays dividends to a player who has a longer career.

Rice -- 1384
Martinez -- 1631

I'd say Martinez wins fairly handidly...especially when you throw in he already has an advantage compared to Rice in OPS+. I'd be curious what their win shares end up being. That doesn't take into account defense either so Rice might make up an advantage since Martinez wouldn't give too much extra there.

For the record, I don't think Rice belongs in either.

[ISiddiqui]

IIRC, doesn't Win Shares take into account defensive contributions?

[rowech]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

IIRC, doesn't Win Shares take into account defensive contributions?

Correct...and I mentioned that.

[ISiddiqui]

Ah, ok... I misread your post. Apologies!

[rowech]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Ah, ok... I misread your post. Apologies!

No worries...and I have to be honest and say I never saw Rice play so I have no clue what kind of defense he had. Just from my tabletop baseball history, it would seem he's right around average.

[ISiddiqui]

Interestingly, I opened up my Win Shares book and saw Blyeleven compared to some Hall of Famers who pitched a significant time in the 70s:

Blyeleven: 339 career Win Shares
Don Sutton: 319 career Win Shares
Fergie Jenkins: 323 career Win Shates
Jim Palmer: 312 career Win Shares
Nolan Ryan: 334 career Win Shares

Of course he doesn't compare to Tom Seaver (388) or the like, but few do.

Jim Rice's career Win Shares was 282. Due to his short peak, surprisingly low (Fred Lynn's is 280). Martinez seems to have about 305:

The Baseball Analysts: Edgar Martinez and the Hall of Fame (second comment)

Borderline, but then again, I wouldn't have put Rice in. Martinez is better than him it appears.

[lungs]

Isn't the win shares statistic sort of falling by the wayside these days?

[Young Drachma]

Outrage at Baseball Hall of Fame voters is baseless but good for the game, Howard Bryant writes - ESPN

[Hammer755]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Outrage at Baseball Hall of Fame voters is baseless but good for the game, Howard Bryant writes - ESPN

Here, for posterity, is a short list of players not elected on the first try: Cy Young (511 wins), Joe DiMaggio, Eddie Collins (3,315 hits), Jimmie Foxx, Whitey Ford, Eddie Mathews, Rogers Hornsby, Robin Roberts and Roy Campanella. Yogi Berra (67.2 percent in 1971) was not a first-ballot inductee.

Alomar cannot claim superiority over anyone on that list. Each was eventually inducted, and the free world survived.

He's right, the world won't come to an end because Alomar will be a non-first ballot HoF'er, but his entire argument is that it's OK because they screwed up voting in the 50's. Bad argument. Prior stupidity doesn't excuse modern stupidity.

Also, he didn't do his research - the two biggest omissions on that list are Joe D. and Rogers Hornsby IMHO. The reason that neither of them made the cut on their first tries was that they got votes before they were eligible for induction. In fact, they both got in before they were supposed to.

Joe D. retired in 51 and got a large number of votes in 53 and 54 before finally being inducted in 55. Hornsby retired in 1937 and got votes every year from 36-39 before finally reaching >75% in 1942. Hornsby is a little more understandable since the voting rules were still in flux and he played sparingly in the late 30's. But not considering him a first-ballot HoFer is disingenuous.

[dawgfan]

Without getting into a novel-sized post (because it could easily get that way), let me say this - I agree with Blackadar that the game has changed (and will likely continue to change). Current statistical analysis is really, really good at breaking down what has just happened, and is getting better at projecting forward.

But comparing players of different eras is difficult because of all the various factors that have changed - segregation, integration, the decline in interest in the sport in the U.S. countered by the rise in interest internationally, advances in training and drugs, travel differences, changes in ballparks, changes in the consistency and composition of bats & balls, etc.

If you want to say that hitting in Rice's era was different than in Edgar's era, I'm on board. If you want to say Rice would've done better (in absolute rather than relative terms) had he played in Edgar's era, I'd agree. He almost certainly would've had more HR's and a higher SLG.

But you can get into all kinds of hypotheticals and subjective opinions here. People are certainly free to do so, and I do it myself in many ways, but in terms of sticking with what can objectively measured, I operate on this principle - I'm going stick with judging what players have control over. They don't (individually at least) have control over whether the talent pool was diluted or not, or how the ballparks were configured, or whether the mound was higher or lower, or what the bats and balls were like, etc.

That's why I'm content, when comparing players of different eras, to look at how they did relative to their peers. That's why I look at "+" metrics for that kind of analysis, such as OPS+ (or even better, wRC+) for hitters. Comparing straight OPS figures for Rice & Edgar is flawed because of factors outside their control that were specific to their eras, but you can look at how much better Rice was than the average hitter of his era and how much better Edgar was than the average hitter of his era and get some sense of how they compared, relative to their era.

I'm not going to get into the whole thought experiment of wondering if Rice would've walked more had he played in the current era, or how much Edgar's power would've been reduced had he played in Rice's era - there's just so much that you can't really know that I think it's a discussion that would necessarily be nothing more than a wild guess, and any conclusions not worth being too invested in.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

my multi-quote literacy level is about 3 multi-quotes per post, so this page just reads like a bunch of scrambled goo.

SI