hall of fame, next vote...

i wonder if anyone has ever had the guts to say "hall of the very good" out loud in his presence

OK sorry for the confusion. When I asked who had anything like Baines' numbers, I meant lifetime numbers. Thanks for engaging with me, unlike the other ilxor sitting in the peanut gallery.

think the argument would be that it doesn't have to be peak enough when you average 2.75 WAR over your twelve best seasons.

WAR is roughly calibrated like this: 0.0 is of course replacement level, 2.0 is roughly "solid major league regular", 4.0 is an All-Star, 5.0-6.0 and above is getting into MVP territory. So in his very best twelve seasons, Baines was a bit better than the average major league regular.

It does mean something to be a solid regular for 12+ seasons, since most players don't keep their starting jobs for even close to twelve years. But a guy who topped out as a borderline All-Star by WAR (which is being generous) shouldn't be a HOFer by any standard.

rumor has it LaRussa was venting about analytics today! stay tuned.

This is ... something. To summarize : game winning RBIs!!!!!

https://www.mlb.com/cut4/tony-la-russa-and-chris-russo-debate-harold-baines/c-301782986

fwiw, harold baines led his own team in bWAR twice: in 1984 (his biggest season), he and starter richard dotson both put up 4.3; in 1986, he was way out in front with 2.9. that was the last year he spent any significant time in the outfield.

both those white sox teams finished fifth in the AL west.

I'm going to cut and paste something I put up on Facebook, rather than reword exactly the same thing. (When I posted it, I included an aside that I'd never post it on ILB in a million years, knowing the ridicule it would inspire.) Please understand, this is not, in any way, an argument that Baines should be in the HOF. He shouldn't--not at all, not close, and I haven't wavered on that a bit. But I have been trying to grasp onto something that makes his pick a little less...bizarre? Anyway, prompted by a comment Tim made about his hits/HR totals:

One addendum to this. The only way those multi-category combinations have even a bit of validity is to drop the floor well below what the player has achieved--if you set the floor exactly where the player is, and then throw in enough categories, you can prove Kelly Gruber ought to be in the HOF. So extend hits and HR to include RBI. If I'm looking at the career RBI list correctly, there are only two non-PED guys with 2500 hits (Baines has 2866), 300 HR (Baines has 384) and 1500 RBI (Baines has 1628) who are not in the HOF or inarguably on their way: Baines and Carlos Beltran. Beltran will probably make it--he was a much better player than Baines, for starters--but I wouldn't say he's quite a sure thing like Cabrera or Beltre. Anyway, Baines clears all three of those benchmarks with room to spare. So that's...something. Not a HOF resume in and of itself, but it's something.

The reductio ad absurdum illustration of combining categories and using the player's totals as the floor was well illustrated by Posnanski yesterday:

I could put together faux-impressive statistical pages like that on just about any player you want. I mean, how in the world has the Hall of Fame not yet voted in a player who has:

More hits, triples and runs scored than 70 Hall of Famers, more doubles and RBIs than 67 Hall of Famers, more stolen bases than 91 Hall of Famers, I mean, how much more does a man have to do?

Give me a call Tony. I'll tell you exactly why Duane Kuiper belongs in the Hall.

exactly

the reason WAR exists is to stop us from coming up with these arbitrary combinations of flawed counting stats

fwiw I'm not trying to make a case for Baines as HOFer so much as arguing that the idea doesn't seem insane. As just an offensive player, I don't think being impressive for a long career across all three slash line numbers represents an arbitrary combination of facts.

i.e., what can you fault him for as on offensive player other than speed?

as AN offensive player

looks like people generally tend to look at him as 4th best DH of all time (which I know is just a little over 40 years)

I'm not trying to make a case for Baines as HOFer so much as arguing that the idea doesn't seem insane.

it's not insane, it's bad

here's the leaderboard for most WAR accumulated between a player's age 22 season and his age 33 season

baines comes in at 516th, just between jake daubert and riggs stephenson

Daubert is in the HOF too; I had to check on Riggs (no).

btw the hell with Lee Smith getting off easy... the Spink Award went to Jayson Stark.

yeah, no kidding.

i don't have a vendetta against stark or anything, but several years ago he wrote for...yahoo? i forget? and it really seemed like he was being paid by the word. just so repetitive and loooong

ring lardner and jayson stark, side by side

at least he's NOT BEING INDUCTED, despite what the media say every year

If anyone's inclined to care about leverage over an eleven thousand PA career, Baines has his highest numbers in high leverage - .314/.381/.481 (for 2,289 plate appearances).

i guess it's something

he’s 97th in career WPA

Harold Baines was pretty good

I was looking at WPA earlier! I actually wondered if he was higher than that.

KM, Mark Grace is ahead of him...

lol

mark grace - pretty, pretty good

he was!

but not hall of fame good

not at all. we'll put him in the Hall of Professional Hitters, where .300-hitting first basemen with no power rest in glory

*late-career rod carew staggers through the doorway*

*late-career rod carew staggers back through the same doorway to the hall of fame, then closes the door and locks it behind him, leaving only a frightened billy butler in the hallway*

HOF tracker is at 45 ballots now, or 11.2% of the electorate.

Mariano still at 100%

Edgar at 91.3%

Halladay at 89.1%

Mussina at 82.6%

Schilling at 73.9%

Walker at 67.4%

Walker has gained 9 votes, the most of anyone overall. He's lost zero.

Somewhat curiously, Edgar and Mussina have each lost a voter from last season.

Forgot that this was Helton's first year on the ballot...46 ballots, 30% (tied with McGriff in his last year). Not an auspicious start, but if he stays somewhere around there, I think most first-year guys with 30% are eventually voted in by the writers.

“I would love to get into a legitimate confrontation [and] debate where you pull all the stuff that we looked at and you tell me," LaRussa said before adding some unsuitable for publication words, "that you look at, I guarantee you Harold [should be in]. Harold Baines is a Hall of Famer, and it’s a shame that now he’s being looked at as not right.”

that's from this piece, which discusses why the writer only voted for 3 players on his ballot (bonds, clemens, rivera):

https://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/david-lennon/harold-baines-hall-of-fame-david-lennon-ballot-1.24610024

Somewhat curiously, Edgar and Mussina have each lost a voter from last season.

see the link above - this is the guy who dropped them (and schilling), and he explains why

My Hall of Very good lineup

1b- Darrell Evans
2b- Tommy Herr
ss- Tony Fernandez
3b- Buddy Bell
lf- Roy White
cf- Chet Lemon
rf- Pedro Guerrero
C- Lance Parrish
dh- Greg Luzinski

Two of those guys, Evans and Bell, are on James's list of the 25 Best (non-PED) Players Not in the HOF (link above). Tommy Herr was great in '85, but I think I'd rank him a little lower.

I just put up some good players I dug for one reason or another.

Herr was a good hitter and seemed to really benefit from the switch hitting. Two things, he batted clean up a bunch for the Cardinals. I also remember him having that pad that he would put over his thumb when he batted. He seemed to have a pretty open Charlie Lau style which was big in that day.

IIRC, didn't James write (in the New Historical Abstract) that Darrell Evans was the most underrated player of all time?

He might have. The first players I remember him really advocating for would include Evans (Darrell first, Dwight later on), Grich, Tenace, Jose Cruz, Jack Clark, and Amos Otis. With Evans and Tenace it was the value of a walk, with Cruz it was his punishing home park, and with Otis it was his tendency to fall just shy of the benchmarks that made you famous--he'd knock in 97 runs, hit .295, etc.

Is Herr the only player to ever knock in 100+ with under 10 HR?

Paul Molitor went for 9/113 in 1996, his first season w/Minnesota. 39 years old!

Quite a few times mid-century, it turns out, but they're the only two since 1950.

http://www.statmuse.com/questions/5d8b3c9e-d855-413a-a9c7-ea939a809927

I don't know if it's worth trying to figure out who might do it today; nobody who plays full-time hits under 10 HR anymore.

(They must have arbitrarily started that list in 1930 or so--Cobb did it as late as 1917, and I'm guessing it was a regular thing pre-Ruth.)

if anyone did it today it would have to be a good hitter who’s in a place in the lineup (a very good lineup) where he gets lot of opportunities and stays in the lineup despite a power outage.

I could see some like Altuve or Bogaerts being that guy, but who knows.

*someone like

They're at 79 ballots/~20%, and Schilling, Bonds, and Clemens are all hovering around 75%.

please god

I’m not holding my breath on those guys, Bonds and Clemens have picked up exactly one vote apiece. I suspect lots of voters have drawn the line there or are waiting for them to reach their 10th and final year before casting the vote. Schilling has picked up 4, which is well off the enshrinement pace.

The guy who has picked up the most votes this year overall is McGriff with 16 (too little, too late!) and is tied w/Walker in terms of net gain at 14 votes (McGriff lost two, Walker hasn’t lost any.) I’m willing to bet the vets put McGriff in at some point.

Halladay appears to be a lock right now. Edgar too, obv. Mussina looks good for a close finish in his favor. Walker is a no, but I’m a bit more optimistic about him next season than I would have been before seeing his gains.

Only one? Surprised--I don't remember them ever approaching 75%, even early on; they always seemed to be stuck in the 50-60% range.

It won't happen (and would be quite meaningless if it did, at least in terms of the player's value; the why of it would be interesting to ponder, though...), but Rivera's still at 100%.

it might just be a matter of the historically more Barry and Rog-friendly voters getting their ballots out there earlier.

here's a spicy take (there's a twist ending though!)

https://www.telegram.com/news/20181222/bill-ballou-mariano-rivera-not-getting-this-writers-hall-of-fame-vote