FormerHoya
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Post by FormerHoya on Jul 28, 2009 10:22:56 GMT -5
"Steroid-possibility excepted?" Please, he's one of the poster children. “People want to talk stuff about our offense. They move the fences back, they take steroids away, what do you expect?” - Brian Giles You can point to Giles' crazy OPS+ all you want, but he never led the league in a major category, he never was considered one of the five best players in the league, he made the AS game only twice, and never sniffed an MVP. How you get that OPS+ matters, which is why Ken Griffey Jr. - who has a 137 OPS+ vs. Giles 136 OPS+ - will make the hall and Giles will never be in the conversation. Those are Bobby Bonilla qualifications, not HOF qualifications. He's the prime example of why steroid-era numbers and benchmarks have to be treated very differently. Certainly there's suspicion of Giles, and while I'm not a huge fan of conviction without evidence, I get that argument for him. Performance-wise, though, if he there were no suspicion, where is he versus Rice? How Giles was considered, etc., excuse me if I ignore All-Star voting and MVP voting. Hardly an accurate or good measure anymore. But I don't think he was ever the best player in the league. Jim Rice wasn't either. As for Griffey, there's a huge difference in the HOF credentials of a GG-CF versus a very good fielding RF -- a similar OPS+ means the CF was a better player. If Rice played CF, I wouldn't be having this argument. As for Bonilla, he never peaked anywhere near Giles, doesn't have the career stats of Giles, was an awful defender at any position and a clumsy baserunner. Brian Giles is much more comarable to Jim Rice than Bonilla is to any of these guys. Nice hitter for a while. Please note, Gold Gloves mean less than All-Star and MVP voting. At the very least, they're the same kind of worthless.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 28, 2009 10:36:22 GMT -5
I was merely using the term Gold Glove to designate "good fielder" -- you're right that Gold Gloves can be as suspect as MVP voting.
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HoyaFanNY
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Post by HoyaFanNY on Jul 28, 2009 11:44:53 GMT -5
Didn't you kind of just defeat your own "what if you grew up rooting for Brian Giles' team" argument? Cleveland has a laundry list of players from those teams that will make the HOF (Eddie Murray being the first). I was more thinking of Pittsburgh fans. And I'm not trying to make Brian Giles into a HOF. My point is that he's not -- and that Jim Rice isn't any better. just when i thought it couldn't get any worse. this is a case of looking so much at meaningless stats that it warps ones common sense.
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Post by TrueHoyaBlue on Jul 28, 2009 12:28:43 GMT -5
(Tentatively stepping into this argument).
While I enjoy advanced stats--and use them often in fantasy league drafting--I actually don't have much of a philosophical problem with including the memory factor in who gets in the HOF and who doesn't.
I mean, it's called the hall of fame, not the hall of statistical excellence. And if part of how writers decide between borderline HOF'ers is by who made more of an impact on the game in their minds, that makes plenty of sense to me. Otherwise, just plug in a formula and get rid of the voters altogether.
I wasn't consciously watching baseball until the late '80s, so I don't want to wade into the specifics of Jim Rice (vs. Brian Giles vs. Tim Salmon).
But I can say that Rice probably had, has, and will continue to have more name recognition (beyond simply hometown fans) than the other two through the next several decades. And if that's not fame...
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 28, 2009 13:04:47 GMT -5
(Tentatively stepping into this argument). While I enjoy advanced stats--and use them often in fantasy league drafting--I actually don't have much of a philosophical problem with including the memory factor in who gets in the HOF and who doesn't. I mean, it's called the hall of fame, not the hall of statistical excellence. And if part of how writers decide between borderline HOF'ers is by who made more of an impact on the game in their minds, that makes plenty of sense to me. Otherwise, just plug in a formula and get rid of the voters altogether. I'm in no way advocating a formula. There will never be a statistical evaluation that won't need interpretation. My issue with the other part of your comment -- "It's the Hall of Fame" etc., is twofold: why would I want it to be on Fame; and who gets to vote. On the former, you're basing the Hall based on a name. That's not actually the definition of who gets elected. The HOF is a name, not a definition. And even if it was, why would anyone prefer that over a museum that dedicately honored the best and you could learn about a great guy who wasn't famous. I can just listen to Tim McCarver blather if I want the other. On the voting point: Back in the day when the BBWA was given a vote, the people who covered baseball as beat writers were ALL the baseball writers in the US. There weren't national writers. There wasn't really a Sporting News or a Baseball Weekly and there definitely wasn't ESPN.com. There is a ten year requirement on beat writers -- which made some sense when nobody really graduated. Now, there's a huge part of the media that isn't a beat writer. They can't vote. Many people don't stay on beats for 10 years anymore. They can't vote. If the Hall is for the fans -- they can't vote. If it is for the players -- they can't vote (although, they've proven they suck at it). The BBWA isn't really the problem, but my point is, when you make things overly subjective and throw out objectivity, we get a very small subset of people making the HOF. The smaller it is, the worse it often is -- the Veteran's committee was generally atrocious and partially because it was like five people. Again, the Hall of Fame is a name. Why don't we just take everyone's Q scores and put them in, then? Basically, the argument boils down to: I want the best players in the Hall of Fame, through whatever means there are, including objective and subjective. You, and several others, seem to want who Tracy Ringolsby thinks of as famous. I know which one I'd rather visit. Which one do you? When people fall back on "I know this guy was better" or "It's the Hall of Fame" it always seems to me to be "I want this guy in so I won't actually make an argument." There's been lots of assaults on my stats, but I have yet to see an argument of why Jim Rice should be in -- other than I liked to see him play. I liked to watch Giles play. I liked to watch Kenny Lofton. Rob Deer was a BLAST to watch play (as was Jack Clark). I loved Andy Van Slyke. There's got to be more to an argument than that.
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HoyaFanNY
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Post by HoyaFanNY on Jul 28, 2009 13:53:58 GMT -5
SF, i'm a reds fan and i am completely biased on barry larkin getting in next year. i think he benefits from a rotten class, other than the spitter (alomar). what do you think?
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 28, 2009 14:22:21 GMT -5
I'm a Larkin fan. I actually think both he and Trammell should be in. If anyone is going to be screwed by the steroid era, it's going to be those folks who peaked in the late 80s and early 90s. No roids/small ballparks/juiced ball for the first half of his career, but most people won't differentiate.
He's not Jeter or Rodriguez, but at the end of the day, he was the best SS of the early 2000s and still was very strong after Tejada, Rodriguez, Jeter and Garciaparra took over the second half.
If there are 30 or so HOF playing at one time, Larkin was one of those. My only issue with him is that he was always hurt. I could see people leaving him out based on that.
I think he will be left out because of Jeter & Co.
I'm somewhat biased to up the middle players, especially since there are so many 1B/Corner Outfielders in the Hall. The ability to play SS (or CF or C) means a lot.
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TC
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Post by TC on Jul 28, 2009 14:30:47 GMT -5
Certainly there's suspicion of Giles, and while I'm not a huge fan of conviction without evidence, I get that argument for him. Performance-wise, though, if he there were no suspicion, where is he versus Rice? Similarity scores says he would be below Rice, a Reggie Smith level player.
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Jack
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Post by Jack on Jul 28, 2009 14:50:07 GMT -5
Certainly there's suspicion of Giles, and while I'm not a huge fan of conviction without evidence, I get that argument for him. Performance-wise, though, if he there were no suspicion, where is he versus Rice? Similarity scores says he would be below Rice, a Reggie Smith level player. Of course Reggie Smith is an inductee in Baseball Think Factory's "Hall of Merit," which is a stathead version of the HoF with the same number of inductees as Cooperstown. Rice ain't even close to getting in there. And similarity scores don't rank players, they just look at how similar two players are.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 28, 2009 15:02:14 GMT -5
Certainly there's suspicion of Giles, and while I'm not a huge fan of conviction without evidence, I get that argument for him. Performance-wise, though, if he there were no suspicion, where is he versus Rice? Similarity scores says he would be below Rice, a Reggie Smith level player. I'm not a fan of similarity scores, because they don't adjust for era or ballpark. They are just weird. A really mediocre player now may be similar to a deadball Hall of Famer -- that's not really right. BTF -- as Jack mentions -- did a two or three year project on a "new" HOF. It is definitely statistically inclined, but not everyone there is into VORP or whatever -- there's lot of good discussion, including some fantastic discussion on peak v career and the Negro Leagues that I'm not sure you can find so concentrated anywhere else. Their HOF is not perfect from anyone's POV, but it gets rid of a lot of the obvious mistakes. You can waste a good couple of weeks if you like baseball history.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 28, 2009 15:18:13 GMT -5
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Jul 28, 2009 17:51:54 GMT -5
One last thing about using adjusted OPS to compare across eras. It seems to me that it's not so easy to accept that it works completely for this purpose. A glance at the top of the career adjusted OPS list is littered with early-century, expansion era, and roids. I think when you combine smaller ballparks and diluted (or just poor in the case of the beginning of the century) talent, you get a situation where guys hit homers at an insane rate, then get walked because of it, and the OPS+ rich get richer in those time periods. As an added bonus, its less likely they have as good a player behind them in the lineup with dilution so its even better to pitch around them. Maybe OPS+ isn't the end all. Maybe that has something to do with why the "Spreadhseet Splinter" Brian Giles is a bit inflated.
Or maybe it's just not that great a way of assessing at all. While we argue about Giles vs. Rice, both have a higher OPS+ than the other inductee, you know, the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. But all are bums compared to Kevin Mitchell at 142. Uh, yeah, maybe not perfect.
From 1975-1986 Jim Rice was top 5-10 in the league 9 times in RBIs, homers, total bases, and slugging, leading the league multiple times in many of those categories and winning a very deserved MVP. If Jim Rice came up against your team, you said "Oh S***." That's why he was voted in, and the nostalgia of him guarding that famous wall.
But the real reason Rice was voted in is he's #56 in home runs, but quickly becoming #36 amongst guys who will be actually let into the hall of fame as more names emerge. I suspect that had a lot to do with it. Don't worry about space, they'll use the one that was to be for Rafael Palmeiro. Dawson will take Sosa's. And on it will go, I suspect.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 28, 2009 19:02:00 GMT -5
One last thing about using adjusted OPS to compare across eras. It seems to me that it's not so easy to accept that it works completely for this purpose. A glance at the top of the career adjusted OPS list is littered with early-century, expansion era, and roids. I think when you combine smaller ballparks and diluted (or just poor in the case of the beginning of the century) talent, you get a situation where guys hit homers at an insane rate, then get walked because of it, and the OPS+ rich get richer in those time periods. As an added bonus, its less likely they have as good a player behind them in the lineup with dilution so its even better to pitch around them. Maybe OPS+ isn't the end all. Maybe that has something to do with why the "Spreadhseet Splinter" Brian Giles is a bit inflated. Or maybe it's just not that great a way of assessing at all. While we argue about Giles vs. Rice, both have a higher OPS+ than the other inductee, you know, the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. But all are bums compared to Kevin Mitchell at 142. Uh, yeah, maybe not perfect. From 1975-1986 Jim Rice was top 5-10 in the league 9 times in RBIs, homers, total bases, and slugging, leading the league multiple times in many of those categories and winning a very deserved MVP. If Jim Rice came up against your team, you said "Oh S***." That's why he was voted in, and the nostalgia of him guarding that famous wall. But the real reason Rice was voted in is he's #56 in home runs, but quickly becoming #36 amongst guys who will be actually let into the hall of fame as more names emerge. I suspect that had a lot to do with it. Don't worry about space, they'll use the one that was to be for Rafael Palmeiro. Dawson will take Sosa's. And on it will go, I suspect. Or maybe Giles was just good at winning games as Rice, but you don't want to admit it because it doesn't fit with your preconceptions. OPS+ does a great job of adjusting for era in recent eras. It is a measure of most of a players' offensive worth relative to their peers. The issue it would have historically is that it would overweight older players -- over time, talent has gotten more and more uniform and the distribution of ability has gotten tighter. No one is likely to dominate like Ruth again (at least, naturally). Here's the reality: there's a good chance Rice owes his #36 as much to Fenway as many of the people you are marking off owe their rankings to steroids. There is a difference in moral character, of course. But no so much in evaluating how good a baseball player each person was. In addition, Rice's best attribute was his power. You simply can't ignore the rest of his game, where Giles is better than him in almost every aspect.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 28, 2009 19:53:09 GMT -5
Intentional Base on Balls
Jim Rice: 77 over 9058 career PAs. Brian Giles: 114 over 7385 career PAs.
Not sure if this proves much, as Rice had much better hitters behind him than Giles. But what it seems to me is that while people love to say Rice was incredibly feared, they weren't fearful enough to walk him intentionally much.
How about someone who was actually feared:
Manny Ramirez, 200 IB in 9197 PA.
He's generally had Jim Thome or Big Papi batting behind him.
So yeah, anyone can basically say "He was feared" -- and man, Giga, you're basically my age, so Rice wasn't feared from anything you can remember, but when baseball people actually fear a guy, they walk him intentionally despite having a great hitter behind him.
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Jul 28, 2009 20:14:08 GMT -5
One last thing about using adjusted OPS to compare across eras. It seems to me that it's not so easy to accept that it works completely for this purpose. A glance at the top of the career adjusted OPS list is littered with early-century, expansion era, and roids. I think when you combine smaller ballparks and diluted (or just poor in the case of the beginning of the century) talent, you get a situation where guys hit homers at an insane rate, then get walked because of it, and the OPS+ rich get richer in those time periods. As an added bonus, its less likely they have as good a player behind them in the lineup with dilution so its even better to pitch around them. Maybe OPS+ isn't the end all. Maybe that has something to do with why the "Spreadhseet Splinter" Brian Giles is a bit inflated. Or maybe it's just not that great a way of assessing at all. While we argue about Giles vs. Rice, both have a higher OPS+ than the other inductee, you know, the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. But all are bums compared to Kevin Mitchell at 142. Uh, yeah, maybe not perfect. From 1975-1986 Jim Rice was top 5-10 in the league 9 times in RBIs, homers, total bases, and slugging, leading the league multiple times in many of those categories and winning a very deserved MVP. If Jim Rice came up against your team, you said "Oh S***." That's why he was voted in, and the nostalgia of him guarding that famous wall. But the real reason Rice was voted in is he's #56 in home runs, but quickly becoming #36 amongst guys who will be actually let into the hall of fame as more names emerge. I suspect that had a lot to do with it. Don't worry about space, they'll use the one that was to be for Rafael Palmeiro. Dawson will take Sosa's. And on it will go, I suspect. Or maybe Giles was just good at winning games as Rice, but you don't want to admit it because it doesn't fit with your preconceptions. OPS+ does a great job of adjusting for era in recent eras. It is a measure of most of a players' offensive worth relative to their peers. The issue it would have historically is that it would overweight older players -- over time, talent has gotten more and more uniform and the distribution of ability has gotten tighter. No one is likely to dominate like Ruth again (at least, naturally). Here's the reality: there's a good chance Rice owes his #36 as much to Fenway as many of the people you are marking off owe their rankings to steroids. There is a difference in moral character, of course. But no so much in evaluating how good a baseball player each person was. In addition, Rice's best attribute was his power. You simply can't ignore the rest of his game, where Giles is better than him in almost every aspect. Hey fine, Giles gives his astatistically better chance of winning games than Rickey or Jim Rice. Still not a hall of famer. Why? Well he's not as good as Kevin Mitchell (142) and he's not a hall of famer. Kevin Mitchell doesn't deserve to be in because he's not even as good as Albert Belle (143) who is not a hall of...you can play this game forever. That would be my argument for you. But for me, I say he's not because he doesn't have enough raw stats for a long period of time and his medium-length career was only very good. You're either great for a long period of time, great for a short-period of time, or very good for a long period of time. Those a re the types of players that make the hall. And the Hall of Fame monitor stats confirm this one. Four different measures on baseballreference.com and Rice checks in with 3 of 4. Giles is a hall of famer by none of those measures. So at least some other statistical assessments don't discount Rice because of Giles. Oh and if I were Jim Rice, I'd tailor my swing to the park I play 81 games in. I might not if years later some stat would show it made me "less of a winner" than Jay fri-giggin' Buhner. But In 1975, I'd uppercut and see what happened.
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Jul 28, 2009 20:17:53 GMT -5
Intentional Base on Balls Jim Rice: 77 over 9058 career PAs. Brian Giles: 114 over 7385 career PAs. Not sure if this proves much, as Rice had much better hitters behind him than Giles. But what it seems to me is that while people love to say Rice was incredibly feared, they weren't fearful enough to walk him intentionally much. How about someone who was actually feared: Manny Ramirez, 200 IB in 9197 PA. He's generally had Jim Thome or Big Papi batting behind him. So yeah, anyone can basically say "He was feared" -- and man, Giga, you're basically my age, so Rice wasn't feared from anything you can remember, but when baseball people actually fear a guy, they walk him intentionally despite having a great hitter behind him. Rice was my sister's first baseball glove so Jimmy was still hitting when we were alive. Intentional walks prove nothing as you say because I'm not walking Rice to get to Yaz. I'm walking Giles for sure to get to Ramirez when he was lousy. Manny was feared. Stop the press! Possibly the greatest hitter of our generation was feared! I mean, I'm sure Ruth was feared too but there aren't 12 hitters in the hall. There's like 150+ right? Rice doesn't have to Manny. He has to be Top 150. Big difference.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 28, 2009 20:45:14 GMT -5
My point was simply that Manny was feared. There's really no evidence that Rice was feared anymore than Giles was, at least by opposing players.
As for Giles, I don't think he's a HOF. That's kind of my point. There's a lot of players along that spectrum -- Players like Belle with a short career and great peak, and people like Rice with good career length but a lesser peak. Giles is in that group, and so are a bunch of other players.
And when you've got a big group of players who are about the same, they aren't HOF to me.
I get it. You grew up with Rice so you are happy he's a HOF. He was not a better player than Albert Belle. He was different -- longer career, lower peak. But he and players like Giles are all sort of the same All-Star but not quite great corner outfielders. To me, if I put one in, I should be putting them all in. Then the HOF gets huge.
(BTW, Rice does get credit for tailoring his swing. But some of his home stats are that EVERYONE hits well in Fenway, and his accomplishments should be adjusted for that).
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Jul 28, 2009 21:32:16 GMT -5
My point was simply that Manny was feared. There's really no evidence that Rice was feared anymore than Giles was, at least by opposing players. As for Giles, I don't think he's a HOF. That's kind of my point. There's a lot of players along that spectrum -- Players like Belle with a short career and great peak, and people like Rice with good career length but a lesser peak. Giles is in that group, and so are a bunch of other players. And when you've got a big group of players who are about the same, they aren't HOF to me. I get it. You grew up with Rice so you are happy he's a HOF. He was not a better player than Albert Belle. He was different -- longer career, lower peak. But he and players like Giles are all sort of the same All-Star but not quite great corner outfielders. To me, if I put one in, I should be putting them all in. Then the HOF gets huge. (BTW, Rice does get credit for tailoring his swing. But some of his home stats are that EVERYONE hits well in Fenway, and his accomplishments should be adjusted for that). It's not even that I'm so happy he's in. I'm just fine that he's in. There's so many worse guys in. Joe Gordon just this year or Phil Rizzuto who isn't even the Money Store spokesperson baseball HoF (Palmer is the only member). I mean there are so many worse guys. Borderline guys from that expansion tweener era when pitching ruled, I don't mind at all. Let's face it if we went OPS+ for the hitters in the 80s Mike Schmidt is the only Hall of Famer in there. Mike Schmidt's the greatest third baseman ever. Surely that's not the standard for that entire era; greatest at your position ever or out.
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TC
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Post by TC on Jul 28, 2009 22:01:29 GMT -5
Jim Rice: 77 over 9058 career PAs. Brian Giles: 114 over 7385 career PAs. The problem with your logic is that people also intentionally walk you when you're the only player on your team who hits at the league average because the other players on your team suck. 69 of Giles' IBB came as a Pirate - he was walked less than Rice the rest of his career.
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TBird41
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Post by TBird41 on Jul 28, 2009 22:38:20 GMT -5
Ok, so if Jim Rice is a Hall of Famer, why isn't Dale Murphy? Murphy put up similar career numbers offensively while playing very good defense in center field. He's basically Jim Rice, with speed and the ability to play center field well. Poznanski has a good breakdown here: joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/01/12/the-murph/Also, Murphy was more feared than Rice--he has more than double the number of IBB that Rice does in almost the exact same number of PA.
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