I wasn’t originally planning on writing much about the Hall of Fame, but the discussions that have arisen over the last week or so – particularly the one about Andruw Jones‘ candidacy that we posed last week – have sparked some additional thoughts. Clearly, how defensive contributions should be valued is not universally agreed upon, and a player’s offensive numbers still generally carry the day when the question of Cooperstown comes up.

But defense is a consideration in the perception of a player’s value. For instance, consider this comparison between a second baseman who will almost certainly be elected on Wednesday and a second baseman who I doubt has any real chance of getting in when he hits the ballot.

Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote a piece for ESPN Insider today that talks about defensive metrics and Hall Of Fame voting. The main example used in the story is Andruw Jones, who you might be shocked to learn has accumulated +70.5 WAR in his career, putting him in a dead-even tie with Derek Jeter. Of course, Jeter did most of his damage with the stick, while Jones has racked up a huge percentage of his career value on defense, and there is usually far more acceptance of offensive value than defense value.

I’m curious, though, what our readers think, given what you know about Jones’ career, and, even with his lofty WAR ratings, would you support his candidacy for the Hall Of Fame? Poll after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

This has been done before, most often by Craig Calcaterra, but after reading a host of articles about why this writer or that writer is not voting for Jeff Bagwell, I’m compelled to offer the following comparison.

Morris, writing about Raul Ibanez last summer:

Thirdly, it’s time for me to begrudgingly acknowledge the elephant in the room: any aging hitter who puts up numbers this much better than his career averages is going to immediately generate suspicion that the numbers are not natural, that perhaps he is under the influence of some sort of performance enhancer. And since I was not able to draw any absolute parallels between his prodigously improved HR rate and his new ballpark’s hitter-friendliness, it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility that “other” performance enhancers could be part of the equation.

Sorry Raul Ibanez and Major League Baseball, that’s just the era that we are in — testing or no testing.

Read the rest of this entry »

This time of year, we generally get three things: Christmas presents, cold weather, and arguments about the voting for baseball’s Hall Of Fame. For a few reasons, I generally try to stay out of the arguments about the Hall of Fame; I think the divide that is created between traditional media and the statistical community on this issue is unfortunate, and in general, both sides end up just talking past each other. The conversations do more to alienate people who should get along then it does to advance the cause of quality Hall Of Fame voting.

I do, however, want to use the voting process – and one article in particular – to highlight a point that I believe drives a large portion of the vehement disagreement that we see every year. The following is the introduction to the most recent by piece Danny Knobler, senior writer for CBSsports.com, where he lays out his reasoning for his personal ballot.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re on twitter and you follow some of the same people I do, you’ve probably been inundated with one thing over the last few days – WAR Graphs. Perhaps one of the most underrated parts of the site, it is especially fun around times like this when Hall Of Fame voting is a popular topic of discussion. Mike Axisa was having so much fun using the graphs to compare different players that he opened a twitter account, @WARGraphs, specifically for the purpose of sending out such gems as the one below. Even though it has nothing to do with Cooperstown, this one was one of my favorites.

Read the rest of this entry »

While the market for relief pitchers has been brisk, there’s one group of players that have generally been ignored so far this winter – designated hitters. Thanks to the glut of available bat-only players, teams with open spots at DH have been content to sit around and let the off-season play out, and it looks like we’ll head into January with a half dozen or so designated hitters still looking for jobs; Vladimir Guerrero, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Johnny Damon, Russell Branyan, and for a team with a serious appetite for risk, Nick Johnson.

Read the rest of this entry »

In this afternoon’s impromptu chat session, I was asked which team I thought had the best rotation in the National League Central. This question was clearly inspired by the Brewers recent acquisitions of Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum, giving them three formidable starters to match up with the group down in St. Louis. However, I didn’t choose either of those rotations as my pick for the best in that division. Instead, I went with the Reds, with the caveat that Aroldis Chapman ends up starting for them. Am I nuts?

Read the rest of this entry »