I know this article has been written a million times before, but it's a lot more fun when Joe P writes it:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/07/21/top.100/index.html
Thoughts? Arguments? Concurrence?
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 20:32 (eleven years ago) link
oh man i <3 this guy
― igloo-fifty-four-quart-sports-ice-chest.jpg (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 20:34 (eleven years ago) link
i guess the obv quibble would be a-rod - the guy is getting old and is likely deteriorating, and his home run numbers are pretty obv juiced by playing in new yankee stadium - and if this was a "who would you draft" thing i dont know if i would want a guy who is hitting .250 as opposed to like... justin upton even
― igloo-fifty-four-quart-sports-ice-chest.jpg (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 20:39 (eleven years ago) link
I thought it was pretty audacious to put the grinkster in the #4 spot, even if his performance has maybe warranted it.
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 20:41 (eleven years ago) link
greinke, lincecum & haren are almost interchangeable as the #1 pitcher imo
― igloo-fifty-four-quart-sports-ice-chest.jpg (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 20:42 (eleven years ago) link
All the American League 1B at 14-17 seem silly to me.
― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 20:58 (eleven years ago) link
xp Agree, but I'd still take Lincecum marginally over the other two to pitch a single game cuz of the strikeouts.
― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 20:59 (eleven years ago) link
ya - greinke's slot was the first headscratcher to jump out at me.
― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:03 (eleven years ago) link
Ibanez at 26 is just a joke.
― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:10 (eleven years ago) link
23. Derek Jeter, SS, Yankees
― velko, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:13 (eleven years ago) link
Would take McCann, or Escobar, or Gallardo, or Phillips, or just about anyone behind Inge, prior to Inge.
― Stacey Pollen (Andy K), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:16 (eleven years ago) link
McCann at 81 is fucking nuts. He's top 25 probalby.
― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:22 (eleven years ago) link
A-Rod at 6 or whatever and Chipper at 87 is mindblowingly weird.
― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:25 (eleven years ago) link
ibanez kinda makes sense if you follow his criteria of who is the best right now at this very moment
― "he said...all things passantino the night" (omar little), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:29 (eleven years ago) link
― igloo-fifty-four-quart-sports-ice-chest.jpg (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, July 22, 2009 4:39 PM (58 minutes ago)
really dude? arod - .252/.401/.546 "justin upton" (i know u were just trolling but) - .291/.361/.525
and those arod numbers are including that awful start
― ehhh p. diddy miss (k3vin k.), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:51 (eleven years ago) link
i'm like the only dude that doesn't like joe pos :(
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:58 (eleven years ago) link
upton was probably a bad example because he doesn't walk much, but let's go with... idk matt kemp
a-rod - .252/.401/.546 kemp - 323/.390/.507
or mccan - .305/.379/.508
or votto - .345/.430/.592
take any of those four guys and switch them w/ a-rod (who has inflated home run numbers due to new yankee and has a million more rbi chances being on a team like the yankees than say the reds or dbacks) and they are having comparable if not better years
― igloo-fifty-four-quart-sports-ice-chest.jpg (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 21:59 (eleven years ago) link
"ibanez kinda makes sense if you follow his criteria of who is the best right now at this very moment"
I guess, but there has to be some forecasting to it too. I mean who'll be the rest for the rest of the season ya know?
I don't really like him either, CAD.
― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 22:00 (eleven years ago) link
Uh aren't Votto's #s inflated by playing in Bandbox Park?
― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 22:01 (eleven years ago) link
And it's not like A-Rod's going to stop playing in New Yankee Stadium so really who cares about that.
Agree that McCann and Kemp are seriously underrated though.
― He was only 21 years old when he 16 (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 22:02 (eleven years ago) link
― igloo-fifty-four-quart-sports-ice-chest.jpg (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, July 22, 2009 5:59 PM (15 minutes ago)
okkkkk but 1) who cares about rbis and 2) arod had a horrible start, he's still a better player than those dudes
― ehhh p. diddy miss (k3vin k.), Wednesday, 22 July 2009 22:17 (eleven years ago) link
read some of the comments section re this list and ppl rightfully kind of livid over him missing out on markakis AND adam jones and even brian roberts
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 23 July 2009 12:19 (eleven years ago) link
nflandrumArlington , VABrian Roberts leads the AL in doubles not Pedroia, is tied in runs scored with Pedroia, has more RBIs, total bases, and steals and plays on a worse team. He has also grounded into 10 fewer double plays. Glad to see major market teams getting the standard bias. This list is rediculous.
hmmmm.......
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 23 July 2009 12:22 (eleven years ago) link
tragic that roberts' peak has been wasted on the o's imo
― call all destroyer, Thursday, 23 July 2009 12:24 (eleven years ago) link
soo many people in the comment are mega butthurt over cole hamels not making the list - the guy has a 5.82 era and a .337 baa ON THE ROAD
lots of lols from "HOW CAN THE MVP FROM WHEN IT MATTERS THE MOST NOT MAKE THIS LIST!"
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 23 July 2009 12:27 (eleven years ago) link
lots of stl fans getting butthurt over no yadi - dude is an amazing defender but...
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 23 July 2009 12:30 (eleven years ago) link
what catchers made it? he's no less than the 5th best catcher in baseball right now isn't he?
― call all destroyer, Thursday, 23 July 2009 12:45 (eleven years ago) link
Jair Jurrjens should be on this list even if he didn't have the best name in the game.
― GM, Thursday, 23 July 2009 23:09 (eleven years ago) link
no mccann until fucken 81??? eatadiccup posnanski
― the shitbirdification of america's youth (cankles), Friday, 24 July 2009 02:35 (eleven years ago) link
i normally love poz but this is DOGSHIT i hope he is brutally murdered
it kinda feels like he just went to his yahoo league, sorted players by their ranking, and copy/pasted it into a SI column
― the shitbirdification of america's youth (cankles), Friday, 24 July 2009 02:44 (eleven years ago) link
uh this has nothing to do about this article, just a general question and i assume some ppl will open this thread:
how do you have a lower obp than BA, as yuniesky bentancourt has had in his time with the royals?
― a narwhal done gored my shortstop yunel (J0rdan S.), Thursday, 30 July 2009 02:32 (eleven years ago) link
sacrifices lower your OBP but not your BA
― (*゚ー゚)θ L(。・_・) °~ヾ(・ε・ *) (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 30 July 2009 02:35 (eleven years ago) link
thank u shasta
― a narwhal done gored my shortstop yunel (J0rdan S.), Thursday, 30 July 2009 02:39 (eleven years ago) link
Finished with the first 10 on his 100-Greatest-Ever list:
100. Curt Schilling99. Cool Papa Bell98. Ron Santo97. Lou Whitaker 96. Ichiro Suzuki95. Mariano Rivera94. Paul Waner93. Craig Biggio92. Old Hoss Radbourn91. Robin Roberts
Prediction, based on stray comments he's made here and there: Mays, not Ruth, will be #1.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 10 December 2013 04:17 (seven years ago) link
I know all the arguments against Ryan (#87), they've been widely discussed. But wow at this:
Since Deadball ended — it was a different game in Deadball — who has thrown the most no-hitters?A: Nolan Ryan. Of course. He threw the seven no-hitters, most ever even if you include Deadball.
OK. Next. Since Deadball, who threw the most one-hitters?A: Nolan Ryan. He’s tied with Bob Feller with 12 one-hitters.
Since Deadball, who threw the most two-hitters?A: Nolan Ryan. He threw 18 of them.
Since Deadball, who threw the most three-hitters?A: Nolan Ryan. He threw 31.
Think about this for a moment. Nolan Ryan threw 69 complete games where he allowed three or fewer hits. That’s more than Roger Clemens...and Pedro Martinez...and Randy Johnson. COMBINED. It’s more than Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale combined, even if you throw Greg Maddux on top.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 11 December 2013 19:38 (seven years ago) link
I have a hunch that it's a lot less impressive that it seems ... i.e. how many walks and runs did he give up in those games? He threw "only" 61 shutouts, so in most of those three hitter or less games he probably gave up runs and maybe didn't win the game.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Wednesday, 11 December 2013 20:57 (seven years ago) link
thats covered pretty well in the remainder of the article
― frogbs, Wednesday, 11 December 2013 21:01 (seven years ago) link
OK, I hadn't read it yet.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Wednesday, 11 December 2013 21:13 (seven years ago) link
Couldn't resist checking, so I went through his game logs. Not nearly as onerous as it might seem. The games in question were easy to spot, so it only took about 45 minutes.
I only came up with 66, so I must have missed three. I kept track of IP, H, ER, and decisions, not walks and strikeouts. I wanted to do it quickly. Some of the walk totals were indeed crazy--8 or 9 sometimes--and the strikeouts were indeed awesome. We already knew that, though--I wanted to see if the walks led to runs, and if the runs led to losses. For the 66 games I found:
IP: 590.2H: 138ER: 36ERA: 0.55W-L: 62-4
It's hard to know whether those games are less impressive than they seem, because there's nothing to compare them to--no one else threw that many low-hit games. If Greg Maddux had thrown those games, obviously they would have been light-years tidier in terms of walks. He probably would have given up fewer runs, too, although maybe he would have given up more home runs than Ryan (who didn't give up many). Sixty-six games of Pedro doing that would have been more impressive, I'm sure. But that's all hypothetical--they didn't do it. If Johnson or Koufax were in the 40s or thereabouts, maybe that'd form some basis of comparison.
― clemenza, Thursday, 12 December 2013 00:03 (seven years ago) link
Nice work ... I looked at a few years of game logs ('77 + '78 and '89 and '90) and it was about what I expected -- the first group had games of the 2 H 6 BB 8 K 0 ER variety, and the second group was more like a Justin Verlander special, 2 H 2 BB 12 K (except for the pitch totals ... just ridiculous ... several 140+ pitch games in '89, including a 164 pitch, 8 IP 13 K game). Pos claims that Ryan just wanted to dominate hitters and couldn't care less about the walks, but something obviously changed between the late 70's and late 80's. How much of it was the hitters and how much of it was Ryan learning how to control his pitches?
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Friday, 13 December 2013 12:53 (seven years ago) link
I think it was the latter. What's kind of amazing is that it coincided with a drop in his strikeout rate (actually that's not amazing) but no real drop in effectiveness (kinda interesting) but then rose like crazy again in the latter part of his career (okay that's bonkers). Also the comparison between Fangraphs and B-R WAR is really striking for Ryan. Like if you just focus on peripherals he looks amazing (esp. at the end) but in terms of actual outcome he's basically more than a win worse for every year played.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Friday, 13 December 2013 14:43 (seven years ago) link
w/out looking, he figured out how not to walk ppl when he was about 35, right?
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, 13 December 2013 15:06 (seven years ago) link
31 (1978) is the last year the walk rate is just bonkers (over 5). It trends down after that (some spikes though). It never goes below 3 a game though (mostly between 3.5 and 4.5).
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Friday, 13 December 2013 15:10 (seven years ago) link
Ryan's total # of career pitches must be insane
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, 13 December 2013 15:13 (seven years ago) link
Randy Johnson just got better and better controlling the strike zone:
1988-92: 5.7 BB/9 (range: 2.4-7.9)1993-98: 3.3 (2.7-3.8)1999-03: 2.5 (2.1-2.8)2004-09: 2.1 (1.6-2.9)
His K/9 never dropped below 10.0 from '91-02, peaking in Arizona.
― clemenza, Friday, 13 December 2013 22:06 (seven years ago) link
Johnson was definitely amazing. Way better pitcher than Ryan even was.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Friday, 13 December 2013 22:38 (seven years ago) link
randy would've had ten consecutive 300k seasons without the strike and injuries.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 13 December 2013 22:45 (seven years ago) link
and w/ryan, his three best WHIP seasons came during his first three seasons in texas (his age 42-44 seasons!)
i mean really if he'd learned to pitch earlier in his career he could have been one of the top five pitchers ever.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 13 December 2013 22:49 (seven years ago) link
*joe morgan lets out a bloodcurdling scream from the beyond*
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 16:24 (two months ago) link
That's a good point. It's like the first time you hear Team X has only lost once when leading after 8 innings and you go "Wow," and then you find out that that's pretty much true of every team. My guess is that Reuschel's no-win quality-start ERA is below the norm. And I'm not sure if he'd be that affected by any adjustment--a lot of his career was spent in Wrigley, and that would even out any era adjustment.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 21:42 (two months ago) link
Oh, for sure. I don’t doubt that reuschel is way below the average ERA in that situation, or that posnaski didn’t put in the time to check. I’m just always curious about what the actual baseline is!
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 8 December 2020 21:52 (two months ago) link
This Outsiders list is in some ways more interesting than the Top 100 list, which was players who get written about to death; instead, all these great players who will fade from view because they missed the HOF. (#41: Bobby Abreu.) The entries are short enough that I hope he appends everything to the Top 100 book.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 9 December 2020 16:05 (two months ago) link
and you go "Wow," and then you find out that that's pretty much true of every team
the worst case of this was a few years ago when some HOF voter said he was considering not voting for mariano rivera because he had a really bad ERA in games that he lost. he didn't have any other reasons, he clearly just saw the stat in a tweet or something and didn't look into it. and then constructed an entire narrative that mo was a phony because his ERA was bad in games where he gave up runs.
― ✖, Wednesday, 9 December 2020 23:39 (two months ago) link
(Haven't read the article as I don't have a subscription) I would have thought Pos would rank Reuschel higher, I always thought he had a very decent case for the HOF. I'm a sucker for longevity cases, but there is a zone in the 60-70 WAR/3000 + IP/ between 3.00 and 3.50 era/fip in which some players are in (Glavine, Bunning, Palmer, Drysdale) and others aren't (Lolich, Koosman, Friend) and it seems only tea leaves are separating them.
― Van Horn Street, Thursday, 10 December 2020 03:31 (two months ago) link
reuschel played for some awfully shitty teams, not least the mid-80s pirates, so he didn't get the wins
but also he barely broke 2k K's, only twice approached a cy, gave up more hits than innings pitched
i love him but he's a hall-of-really-good guy
― mookieproof, Thursday, 10 December 2020 04:37 (two months ago) link
Now that he's into the Top 30, full essays. The Schilling piece is not what I expected:
https://theathletic.com/2250850/2020/12/11/top-mlb-outside-the-hall-of-fame-curt-schilling/
(Probably paywalled--I can put it on a Google Doc later, Joe always said that was okay ocassionally.)
― clemenza, Friday, 11 December 2020 17:11 (two months ago) link
that's well said and is very close to my own change in thinking about the hall. there was another voter last year - pretty sure it was keith law - who wrote a short diatribe expressing his newfound disillusionment with the institution. i think more and more people might start to think this way (though pos obviously isn't writing off the HOF entirely)
for most of my time as a baseball fan i saw the HOF as nothing more than another argument to win. it was a major battleground in the endless stats vs tradition culture war and another opportunity to feel smug. that's what it is for most dingholes on the internet. and when a player like edgar or blyleven finally gets in, it gives us dingholes a big validating endorphin rush. so you keep campaigning for guys on the outside looking in, because the more you care about the more you stand to win when they win.
last year the players that i would've rooted for the hardest on a statistical basis were a bigot (schilling), 2 wife beaters (bonds and andruw), and a statutory rapist (clemens). (and scott rolen, who i don't believe is caught up in any shit.) it's really hard to continue seeing a HOF win as a win for truth and rightness when that's that cast of characters who stand to actually benefit. like pos, i stopped seeing the Hall as an abstract concept and started seeing it the way that i think most of the players themselves see it - a ceremony meant to honor men, an opportunity for honored men to get up on stage and make a speech about their whole lives and their whole selves, not just the numbers on the back of their baseball card. that's what i see now when i think of HOF elections - not a plaque reeling off achievements, but a man walking up to a podium.
the kicker for me was actually harold baines. after he was voted in, everyone basically agreed that he didn't deserve it but people kept talking about the speech - that he was a great, well liked guy who played for a million years, probably had a lot of stories to tell, and he deserves to get up there and command our attention for x minutes. i honestly never even watched an entire ceremony, i never cared about them. people would say so and so gave a great speech, and i'd think "i should watch that when i have time" and then i never had the time. my feelings about the HOF were about me, not them.
that's how i see the hall now. regardless of what the hall says about itself, it's really just an opportunity for players to stand up there and build their public profiles, add value to their autographs, elevate their eventual biographies a little more into hagiographies. i don't want that to happen for any of these assholes. so i just don't see the value in it anymore.
― ✖, Saturday, 12 December 2020 01:57 (two months ago) link
I want to add that the hockey and basketball hall of fame have women enshrined and I think it’s time for the BBWA writer to take a proper stand on this.
― Van Horn Street, Saturday, 12 December 2020 02:00 (two months ago) link
X -- I really like your post, even though I'm not where you are in my own thinking. Which, at this point, is more muddled than ever. I want Schilling in, remain indifferent to Bonds and Clemens, and balk at the idea of Baines (and Vizquel, and other good guys)--is there any consistency there? In my mind there is, but I don't know anymore. I want Dick Allen in; he was considered a bad guy for most of his career, now he's a good guy. I'm fine with Kirby Puckett; good guy (more than just good) when he played, now a villain. I suspect Posnanski's Schilling piece today may be seen as influential down the road. Sean Foreman voted for Tim Hudson, left Schilling off.
― clemenza, Saturday, 12 December 2020 03:35 (two months ago) link
tbf i don't think anyone in the world outside of jerry reinsdorf wanted baines in the HOF
― ✖, Saturday, 12 December 2020 09:12 (two months ago) link
Something of an extension to his Schilling post, Joe argues today that both Felipe Alou and Dusty Baker should be in (or, more accurately, that there should be a mechanism in place for the likes of hybrid careers like Felipe Alou's and Dusty Baker's): "Honor great baseball lives." I don't disagree. I used to make more or less the same argument for Leo Durocher, before he was finally inducted in 1994--that he was so integral to so much baseball history, the sum was greater than the parts. (Durocher's managerial career was actually pretty similar to Baker's: good career winning pct., very little to show for it in terms of postseason success.)
― clemenza, Friday, 18 December 2020 16:15 (two months ago) link
Pete Rose, #9 on Posnanski's Outsiders list. I figured out a way to quickly compile the whole list--I'll do that later today.
― clemenza, Thursday, 14 January 2021 16:41 (one month ago) link
ooh that wld be great, thanks
― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 14 January 2021 16:42 (one month ago) link
100. Juan Alberto González Vázquez99. Fredric Michael (Fred) Lynn98. Rocco Domenico (Rocky) Colavito97. Albert Jojuan Belle96. Samuel James (Jimmy) Tilden Sheckard95. Quincy Thomas Trouppe94. Fernando Valenzuela Anguamea93. Darrell Wayne Evans92. Steven Patrick (Steve) Garvey91. David Gene (Dave) Parker90. Frank Oliver Howard89. Albert (Al) Oliver88. Willie Larry Randolph87. William Lance Berkman86. Paul Aloysius Hines85. Ronald Ames Guidry84. Walter Anton (Wally) Berger83. Dwight Eugene (Doc) Gooden82. Elston Gene Howard81. Orel Leonard Hershiser IV80. William Nuschler (Will) Clark Jr.79. Urbain Jacques (Urban Shocker) Shockcor78. Jorge Rafael Posada Villeta77. Louis Rogers (Pete) Browning76. Bobby Lee Bonds75. Timothy Adam (Tim) Hudson74. Francis Joseph (Lefty) O’Doul73. James Sherman (Jim or Jimmy) Wynn72. John Garrett Olerud71. David Gus (Buddy) Bell70. Howard Ellsworth (Smoky Joe) Wood
T-69. Omar Enrique Vizquel GonzálezDavid Ismael (Dave) Concepción BenitezDagoberto (Bert, Campy) Campaneris BlancoMark Henry Belanger
“I basically think all four players have roughly an equal Hall of Fame case to me. If I had to rank them in the order I’d vote them in, I suppose I’d go like this:
1. Bert Campaneris2. Omar Vizquel3. Dave Concepción4. Mark Belanger
But honestly, as players, I’d vote them all in or none of them.”
68. Torii Kedar Hunter67. Dan Raymond Quisenberry66. Richard Benjamin (Dick) Lundy65. Charles Ernest (King Kong) Keller64. Andrew Eugene (Andy) Pettitte63. Mark Alan Buehrle62. John Wesley (Jack) Glasscock61. Roger Eugene Maris
T-60. Vernon Decatur (Vern) StephensAnthony Nomar Garciaparra
59. Walter Williams (Billy) Pierce58. Stanley Camfield (Stan) Hack57. Grant U. (Home Run) Johnson56. Wesley Cheek (Wes) Ferrell55. Salvatore Leonard (Sal) Bando54. Maurice Morning (Maury) Wills53. Donald Arthur (Don) Mattingly52. William Henry (Willie) Davis51. Rickey Eugene (Rick) Reuschel50. William Frederick (Bill) Dahlen49. William Ashley (Bill) Freehan48. Bernabé (Bernie) Williams Figueroa Jr.47. Sherwood Robert (Sherry) Magee46. James Lee (Jim) Kaat45. John Christopher Beckwith44. Vada Edward Pinson43. Thurman Lee Munson42. Theodore Roosevelt (Double Duty) Radcliffe41. Bob Kelly (Bobby) Abreu40. Thomas Edward (Tommy) John39. Jeffrey Franklin Kent38. Alejandro Oms37. Kenton Lloyd (Ken) Boyer36. David Andrew (Dave) Stieb35. Pedro (Tony) Oliva López Hernándes34. James Kevin Brown33. Graig Nettles32. Rafael Palmeiro Corrales31. Bret William Saberhagen30. Curt Schilling29. Reggie Smith28. Doc Adams27. Johan Santana26. David Cone
T-25. Felipe AlouDusty Baker
T-24. Sammy SosaGary Sheffield
23. Fred McGriff22. Keith Hernandez21. John Donaldson20. Manny Ramirez19. Todd Helton18. Bobby Grich
T-17. Luis TiantBilly Wagner
16. Kenny Lofton
T-15. Andruw JonesJim Edmonds
14. Mark McGwire13. Gil Hodges12. Shoeless Joe Jackson11. Dale Murphy10. Dwight Evans9. Pete Rose
Cutting, pasting, cutting--not that onerous. So really there’s going to be 110-120 players by the time he finishes. (He should have had Rose and Shoeless Joe as a tie.) He stopped with the full names inside of #30--I really liked those. I'll update as he counts down.
― clemenza, Thursday, 14 January 2021 19:39 (one month ago) link
terrific, thanks p!
― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 14 January 2021 19:43 (one month ago) link
79. Urbain Jacques (Urban Shocker) Shockcor62. John Wesley (Jack) Glasscock
normal baseball names, nothing to see here
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 14 January 2021 19:47 (one month ago) link
Shockcor was a shocker--never knew that.
― clemenza, Thursday, 14 January 2021 19:52 (one month ago) link
Schilling was on his Top 100 list, so he does allow overlap...with that in mind, I'm trying to guess the remaining eight.
Bonds and Clemens. (But not A-Rod--when he began, he put him in a separate list of best 10 players not yet eligible.) Probably a tie at #1.
Lou Whitaker, Scott Rolen, Buck O'Neill...and then I get stuck.
― clemenza, Thursday, 14 January 2021 22:10 (one month ago) link
8. Curt Flood
Of course--when I was trying to guess yesterday, I was scanning WAR charts on Baseball Reference, down to about 60 career WAR. I added O'Neil because Posnanski was his friend and has written numerous columns on him. Now that Joe has clearly factored character-counts into his advocacy, Flood is an obvious choice. (Posnanski sits about halfway on that question, I'd say--he's still going to have Bonds and Clemens on his list. He's an inch to the right of wherever Schilling exists on that spectrum.)
I sent this a Hey Bill" into James last summer:
This years Veteran's Committee ("The Golden Era"--ugh) covers Curt Flood's window, 1950-1969. I think Flood should be in the HOF already, but voting him in this year, would, I feel, make a strong statement about the moment we're in. Not sure if you agree--you may not--but if you do, the problem then becomes how do you categorize him? He was a good player who falls short based on his on-field career, with the mitigating circumstance that his career was cut short because of the very thing you'd be inducting him for. But can you call him a builder? That seems weird.
Answered: 8/29/2020Player and pioneer.
So he didn't say whether or not he agrees that Flood should be inducted.
― clemenza, Friday, 15 January 2021 13:19 (one month ago) link
(I said on some thread the other day that all my posts strategically leave out one word. Except when I strategically add one--get rid of that "this.")
― clemenza, Friday, 15 January 2021 13:23 (one month ago) link
i have been working on leaving out one additional word per post, every year that i'm on ilx. by the end, my posts will just be one or two words, tops, and probably just conjunctions by that point
didn't say so explicitly, but any true "pioneer" of the game (like Flood) is HOF-worthy, imo.
― Karl Malone, Friday, 15 January 2021 17:23 (one month ago) link
I'm a month late with this, but a category for "hybrid" HOF careers is sorely needed.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Sunday, 17 January 2021 22:40 (one month ago) link
7. Dick Allen
I must have assumed he'd already been listed.
― clemenza, Monday, 18 January 2021 14:37 (one month ago) link
That leaves Bonds, Clemens, O'Neil, and Whitaker for sure, I think; Rolen probably (doesn't make sense to me that he'd be this high, but it makes even less sense that he wouldn't be in the Top 100); plus one more.
― clemenza, Monday, 18 January 2021 14:39 (one month ago) link
O’Neill I wasn’t expecting.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 18 January 2021 20:54 (one month ago) link
Paul O'Neill at #3 will not make me happy.
(If you go back a few posts, I misspelled his name too!)
― clemenza, Monday, 18 January 2021 23:03 (one month ago) link
I don’t see it at all. He’s nowhere near those other guys.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 19 January 2021 02:45 (one month ago) link
Buck O'Neil in; Paul O'Neill, no.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 19 January 2021 05:56 (one month ago) link
(Unless you mean Buck O'Neil shouldn't go in as a player. I don't know enough about his playing career, but I'm basing that on this move in the direction of character, combined with Posnanski's friendship with him.)
― clemenza, Tuesday, 19 January 2021 05:58 (one month ago) link
6. Lou Whitaker
― clemenza, Tuesday, 19 January 2021 13:12 (one month ago) link
5. Scott Rolen
― clemenza, Wednesday, 20 January 2021 13:12 (one month ago) link
4. Roger Clemens
I bet he puts Buck O'Neil at #1 and not Bonds. Still not sure who the third will be.
― clemenza, Thursday, 21 January 2021 14:03 (one month ago) link
3. Barry Bonds
― clemenza, Friday, 22 January 2021 13:57 (one month ago) link
I started skimming the Bonds comments, and the thing I've been puzzling over was made clear: Minnie Miñoso will be #2.
― clemenza, Friday, 22 January 2021 14:17 (one month ago) link
2. Buck O'Neil
Minoso at #1? I'm surprised. Posnanski is also obsessed with Duane Kuiper, maybe it'll be him.
― clemenza, Monday, 25 January 2021 13:34 (one month ago) link
1. Du...Minnie Minoso
― clemenza, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 13:55 (one month ago) link
Also, there’s this: A SABR researcher named Scott Simkus added things up, and he found that when you add together Miñoso’s Major League hits, minor league hits, Cuban League hits, Mexican League hits and Negro Leagues hits, you come the staggering number of 4,073, seventh all-time. Here’s that list of players with more than 4,000 total professional hits:
1. Pete Rose, 4,7692. Ty Cobb, 4,3793. Ichiro Suzuki, 4,3674. Henry Aaron, 4,2455. Jigger Statz, 4,0936. Julio Franco, 4,0747. Minnie Miñoso, 4,0738. Derek Jeter, 4,0599. Stan Musial, 4,023
― clemenza, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 14:01 (one month ago) link
The fifth most hits ever is by a guy named Statz.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 14:53 (one month ago) link
i will admit to being ignorant of all things Buck O'Neil. what's the case for him?
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 26 January 2021 15:43 (one month ago) link
former NL player of middling quality but P much invented the NL HOF in Kansas City, was an advocate on behalf of all the NL greats and forgotten greats, beloved Baseball spirit, first black coach in MLB for CHI C
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Tuesday, 26 January 2021 15:48 (one month ago) link
should be in as a builder at the very least
like, if Yawkey is in the HOF buck o'neil should be above him for so many reasons
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Tuesday, 26 January 2021 15:50 (one month ago) link
a guy named Statz
5-foot-7, 150-pound pacific coast league legend
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 15:50 (one month ago) link
I think a lot of people got to know Buck O'Neil through the Ken Burns film; he's in it a lot, and he's great.
I looked up Statz this morning--four consecutive years of 240+ hits in L.A. of the PCL.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 16:21 (one month ago) link
it's amazing how many games the PCL scheduled in those days -- statz played 199 games in 1926!
guess you can do that when the games don't take three hours
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 16:30 (one month ago) link
― clemenza, Tuesday, January 26, 2021 11:21 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
He's great in Jazz too, especially if you are familiar with Baseball. The way he talks about Henry Aaron and similar to the way he talks about Billie Holiday.
― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 23:41 (one month ago) link
Had no idea. I have Jazz and have been meaning to start it for years.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 27 January 2021 00:38 (four weeks ago) link
i can't look at buck o'neil without slowing zooming and panning
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 27 January 2021 05:25 (four weeks ago) link