hall of fame, next vote...

Bonds went up 2.7% vs Clemens' 2.2%. That's like a yearly L.A. rent control increase.

Posnanski says that McGriff is a lock the minute he shows up on whatever VC ballot he fits. At which point the Delgado situation reemerges--it never ends!

Andruw Jones went up 0.2% over last season. Manny 0.8%.

who the hell voted for placido polanco

I'd bet probably a beat writer from Philly or Detroit.

Polanco played a long time and was a solid middle infielder. The guy added up 10 more WAR runs than Ray Durham or Brandon Phillips in just about the same amount of games. I was mildly surprised Polanco's career batting average was .297.

Polanco is possibly a more arguable vote than Michael Young. That dude had six (emptier than you think) 200-hit seasons, was basically a Steve Garvey type with a far lower WAR, all minus the essential key party vibe.

i don't really mean to poop on placido; he was a good player

not to mention that he matched harold baines in fWAR and beat him in bWAR. but if you have a sub-100 career OPS+/wRC+ you better have been a legendary fielder like ozzie

Stoked for Mussina, that's great

if Twitter had always been around, lotsa players woulda got 100%

The threat of being shamed on social media helps in getting voters to toe the line, yeah. But I think there's more to it, in the past, a voter could claim that he never really got to watch players in the other league, giving him a somehat plausible reason for not voting for a clear HOFer. Now there's no excuse for anyone not to be fully informed. We've almost worked through the candidacies of the so-called steroid era stars, so there won't be any more "excuses" to leave someone off.

such a lot of fuss over a guy who threw one inning a night

I thought the longtime no-unanimous-selections was primarily grounded in sportswriters who objected to the early guys--Ruth and Cobb especially--not being voted in unanimously, and if they weren't, they'd make sure that no one would be. I'm not sure what the window on that factor was...from the '40s right through to the '70s? Mixed in with pockets of racism when it came to a Mays or an Aaron.

even w/ white guys like Seaver or Mantle, they were just being dicks.

That's almost the only explanation as to why, say, a Seaver or Ripken wasn't unanimous--stray voters who held to the silly if-not-Ruth-no-one principle.

The first question for the Hall of Famers is about Edgar's batting average against Mo. "Why do you have to say that," Mo said jumping up. "Why do you have to say the number???"

— Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) January 23, 2019

.579/.652/.1.053 in 23 plate appearances...

https://www.mlb.com/cut4/edgar-martinezs-amazing-stats-vs-pitchers-in-his-hall-of-fame-class/c-302992870

rivera becomes the third hall of famer with zero hits, following jack morris and walter alston (who isn't in for his playing)

rivera: 0-for-3, K, BB, RBI
morris and alston were both 0-for-1, but morris did score four runs

trevor hoffman also had more RBIs (5) than hits (4)

James seems to have taken on a new cause: Bobby Abreu.

So I’m actually (possibly irrationally) annoyed that Halladay isn’t going inas a Jay. Like wtf does his wife have against it?

It's weird--not quite as weird as when Maddux did the same, but still weird. I don't think it's irrational for a Jays fan not to be happy.

plaque cap is not "going in as," for the X000th time

most visitors to Cooperstown are too old to see the caps clearly anyway

Mussina had more value as an Oriole, but i'm not placing bets there

It's still a symbolic thing that registers with hometown fans. Surely you would have been baffled if Seaver had decided he'd be wearing a Reds cap on his plaque.

I won't steal James's poll, but he has a good one up: "If you could put one (but only one) second baseman from the '70s/'80s on the 2020s Eras Committee ballot, who would you choose: Grich, Whitaker, Randolph?" Jaffe has them 8/13/17, and they're separated by under 10 WAR for their careers.

Hall of Fame announces what caps will be worn on plaques of incoming class. No surprise on Edgar after 18 seasons in Seattle:

Harold Baines – White Sox.
Roy Halladay – no logo
Edgar Martinez – Mariners
Mike Mussina – no logo
Mariano Rivera – Yankees
Lee Smith – Cubs .

— Greg Johns (@GregJohnsMLB) January 25, 2019

http://www.naomiklein.org/files/images/NL-10thcover.jpg

makes sense for Smith, he was at his best with the Cubs, his bWAR over his eight seasons w/Chicago compares favorably w/Rivera's first eight seasons w/NY. However his subsequent career does not...

Congratulations to Jason Bay, Ryan Dempster, former #BlueJays GM Gord Ash and longtime MLB coach Rob Thomson for making up the 2019 Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame induction class. That's a strong group.

— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) February 5, 2019

Not sure if you can access this or not, but you may want to fill it in if you can.

http://joeposnanski.com/hall-of-fame-polls/

Has there been momentum to include baseball pioneers outside of the US in the past? I'm thinking the first great Cuban, Japanese, Dominican players for example.

I knew that Tony Perez was Cuban, so I went looking and also found this player named Martin Dihigo voted in 1977 by the Senior Negro League committee.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=dihigo002mar

I would think that putting in at least Sadaharu Oh while he is alive as even a "pioneer" would be a big deal and probably should already be done anyway.

if, like me, you use fangraphs as your primary source of baseball data/stats, you'll be excited about their addition of pitch framing data and it's incorporation into WAR. in some cases it makes a BIG difference in catcher WAR, career and single-season.

https://i.imgur.com/sBOCtG8.png

much more here:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/war-update-catcher-framing/

That's definitely huge--from ~25% of Posey's value up to almost ~40% for McCaan. It's the kind of thing I have to take on faith; I just don't see it when I watch a game. (Certain pitches, sure.) But Big Data Baseball, the book about the Pirates' resurgence, made a convincing case for the value of someone like Russ Martin, and those numbers certainly line up better with the idea that Molina should go into the Hall of Fame.

the HoF factor is one reason i posted that here - comparing catchers is going to be a mess because the pitch framing data only goes back to 2008.

this is terrible

i mean god bless hank conger, who should maybe not be out of baseball, but is

i am totally willing to admit that WAR has historically undervalued catchers, but this just suggests that WAR is an inadequate measurement that will be adjusted up or down willy nilly. hey, suddenly brian mccann is 150% what he used to be, just because!

oh hey, here's some recent data that completely wrecks the standard we've been using for years

Is WAR is zero-sum? If so, then the catcher's gains would be offset by the pitcher's reductions.

There are accompanying pitcher charts if you go to the site, and the pitcher adjustment is minimal.

I didn't say so, because I'm the dinosaur James guy--that's basically what I meant by "I just don't see it," though--but I agree with mookie: those adjustments are drastic.

brian mccann 8.9 war season haha ok

2007? doesn't seem far fetched to me. 135 RC+, .896 OPS – plus his contributions behind the plate (which he was much better at back then).
the swing we saw with their calculating pitch framing does seem extreme – but they could very well be otm. catchers are on the receiving end of every pitch thrown by their team in a game, sometime (not always) calling all those pitches – and I think we have way underestimated how much they can affect the game from back there.
a catcher who is talented behind the plate and also an asset as a hitter being worth 9 wins make sense to me.

I think the problem is that some people (on this thread?) are confusing "game-calling" with "pitch-framing"...

Pitch framing is literally stealing strikes: with borderline pitches that an umpire would tend to call balls, certain catchers tend to get called strikes via supple hands, soft wrists, steady posture... The catcher framed a borderline (or out of zone) pitch as a strike.

So with all the pitch fx data available (hence since '08), the analysts have come in and measured which catchers excelled at getting more strikes called on non-strike pitches. Extra strikes (& less balls) = extra outs (& less runs against) = extra wins.

My zero-sum concern upthread is that this shift of WAR towards catchers should come at the expense of offsetting the corresponding pitchers' WAR, but as each team carries 11-12 pitchers, there is from a ratio aspect more WAR to share.

ok so i don't know THAT brian mccann (it was 2008 btw) because i didn't start getting back into ball until... 2011? maybe he really was that good. currently listed as fangraphs #1 player that season, above near-peak pujols. maybe pitch framing really does count that much. but also, why does his framing fall off in later years? strikes me as a skill you wouldn't unlearn. did umps figure him out? or framing in general? does everyone's framing take a dip after 2008? i should probably be reading something, eh?

also all this hank conger shittalk upthread wtf you will NOT speak poorly of MY president

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTLkDfg_HI

but also, why does his framing fall off in later years?

He got picked up by the Yankees who were real early on this statistic...

But the other problem was the Yankees were also running deep in high velocity pitchers as well.

Something about harder to frame flamethrowers.

I think the problem is that some people (on this thread?) are confusing "game-calling" with "pitch-framing"...

I totally understand the difference, which is my I'm a little skeptical of such a drastic upgrade. If game-calling were included--except how in the world could you measure that, without making all sorts of assumptions?--along with fooling umpires, I'd be less skeptical.

ya, these are good points.

and i had only mentioned game-calling as a general reason why a catcher could produce more value than any other position player, btw.

you'd also have to account for how often a manager is calling for pitches

i am totally willing to admit that WAR has historically undervalued catchers, but this just suggests that WAR is an inadequate measurement that will be adjusted up or down willy nilly.

i don't know if inadequate is the word, but imperfect would definitely be accurate. i would guess this kind of large noticeable sudden adjustment will happen again, as analysts keep honing in on the best way to measure defensive value at other positions. but i'd also guess that this pitch-framing adjustment will be the biggest of its kind.

oh hey, here's some recent data that completely wrecks the standard we've been using for years

it does wreck the standard, especially because it only covers the last 10 years. there's no way to see how much more godlike johnny bench would be, or someone like gabby hartnett. even for some contemporary players like yadi, the data is missing for the first few years of their careers. it's a fucking mess. people like jay jaffe are probably popping boners left and right because it means they get to spend the next year re-writing their hall of fame articles AGAIN.

but also, a lot of old schoolers were pissed when the dinosaur James people started gaining influence. the cardinals broadcasters still can't say "OPS" (AN INCREDIBLY BASIC STAT) without using the "i can't believe i'm saying this" tone of voice, and they i'm sure they'd think any sort of index-based stat like OPS+ is like totally incomprehensible rocket science nerd shit. i'm sure they got pissed when people started messing up the baseball card stat standards of .300, 500 home runs and Wins, or whatever.

ultimately i do think that new stats will kind of hone in on a new equilibrium, but it's going to be different in the statcast era, and there are likely going to be more of these standard-fucking adjustments before it's all said and done

catchers are on the receiving end of every pitch thrown by their team in a game, sometime (not always) calling all those pitches – and I think we have way underestimated how much they can affect the game from back there.
a catcher who is talented behind the plate and also an asset as a hitter being worth 9 wins make sense to me.

i think this is otm. Those of us familiar with WAR have gotten really comfortable with the idea of a very good player being worth 5-6 WAR. a very good non-catcher position player is worth about that much over the course of a season, playing nearly every game. a good starting pitcher is also worth about that much, which really is just a huge coincidence - starting pitchers participate in much fewer games, of course, but it's almost perfectly balanced out by them being so important when they do play, and it still comes out to 5-6 WAR for a very good SP.

we've also internalized the idea that a good relief pitcher, even an elite one, won't be worth 5-6 WAR, because they just aren't involved in enough plays over the course of a season.

and we've also gotten used to the idea of catchers of very good catchers being worth maybe 4 WAR or so, because they tend to play fewer overall games per season. that's part of the reason that this bump to give people like brian mccann a 8.9 WAR season is kind of an extra shock. even for the more renowned elite guys, it seems strange. mike trout no longer had the highest fWAR in 2012, with 10.1. now it's buster posey, with 10.4.

but when you think about it, catchers are kind of like Shohei Ohtanis - when they play, they're part of every single play on the defensive side, and they're also contributing offensively. it makes sense that their WAR would settle in a little higher than a normal position player, just like the WAR for a relief pitcher is lower than other positions. i think that's just something we'll have to have to get used to.

I've thought that WAR undervalues catchers for a while now, I hope these adjustments are just the beginning.

does it undervalue them systematically though? it seems that if some are better than average at pitch-framing, others must be a negative in terms of value

I guess that's still an open question. I'm sure there are other "hidden" values for catchers, I'm sure not all of them are systematic undervaluations. Once we can assign numbers to some of them then it might become clearer.

If you were to add on 2 WAR each for pitch framing, game calling, game management, effective blocking (plus whatever other skills might belong on the list) then you'd have 15 WAR seasons from catchers which I don't think anyone would believe. But I also can't believe that the best catchers, taking into account the physical and mental tolls of the position, don't sniff the top 20 or 30 overall leaders in WAR most years.