Well, what do you make "make up a run differential"? Andruw Jones in his prime wasn't "making up" anything...he was adding outstanding defense to strong hitting.
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And his hitting seems to have disappeared. His defense seems to have remained at the same above average level at least, but those saved runs can't make up for the loss of run production.
Anyway, let's pretend that his offensive production hasn't dropped off. How long should we give him? 5 additional years of slightly above average performance? If you give that to any of a few hundred players throughout history, that makes them instand hall of famers as well... that and he's always had a slight durability problem anyway.
I don't know, I might have put him in the "marginal" category with another year or two of good offense. That's probably as far as I would have gone, though.
Right. At this rate, Jones isn't a Hall of Famer. The question is "Before the last two seasons did you think Jones was having a HOF career?" And, considering he was coming off two of his best seasons, and was still just 30 years old, I think that with a 4-5 more years of 120 or so OPS+ and good defense, he'd be a solid HOFer. Now, it looks like he's just done and he's far from a HOFer,.
Maybe, but probably not, which is why I picked "No, he was a good player but not hall worthy". He has had good production, but he's always been plagued by durability questions... which are seemingly proving to be accurate concerns. Hall of famers need longevity.Quote:
Before the last two seasons did you think Jones was having a HOF career?
I guess Torii Hunter and Omar Vizquel are HOF'ers too then since they are great defensive players.
I'm not underrating defense IMO. I think great defensive players can get in but they need to go a long way. Ozzie Smith had over 2500 hits. Possible Jones will get there, but it's no guarentee. I know Andruw's had more HR's and RBI's so that probably evens the board. Ozzie was in like 12-15 all star games to Jones 5. Thats not a great stat as there are a ton of variables.
What separates it for me is Ozzie was a huge ambassador for the game. There are very few special players that elevate themselves to this special distinction. I think it's also hard to explain but most would understand it. Kirby Puckett, although I don't think he was hall worthy was borderline IMO and got in because of this distinction. Sure Jones could one day turn into this, but he's not at this point even close.
The way a player is perceived is often a product of the media and not alway fair...heck i'll say often is unfair. But regardless it is a big part of who gets in and who doesn't......and although Andruw isn't viewed as a bad guy he doesn't yet have enough of whatever you want to call it to justify overlooking his offensive HOF shortcomings.
Just my opinion.
Hunter has not been as good as Jones offensively, and Vizquel has been bad offensively.
But anyway, I haven't been saying that Jones is a Hall of Famer. At this point, he's not at all, and he needs to have a ridiculous turnaround to even get back into the discussion.
Well... technically, he's still a marginal Hall of Famer (HOF Monitor: Batting - 101.5 (143) (Likely HOFer > 100) ). He'd need to quit immediately to receive any consideration though, and even then most of the writers would realize what was up.
Yeah, but, Smith did it in a low-offense era while Vizquel has played in the highest offensive era ever..
Smith hit .262/.337/.328, which comes out to an 87 OPS+ while also stealing 580 bases at a 79% success rate.
Vizquel has higher rate stats - .274/.340/.357, which is an 84 OPS+, not that much lower but still lower. He's stolen 380 bases at a 71% success rate.
Plus, as good as Vizquel's defense has been, Smith's was STILL ridiculously better, which just goes to show how amazing Smith was.
Well, I agreed with almost all you said except for this. You have no way of justifying it and I don't know how anyone can be 'rediculously' better than Vizquel who's pretty much the standard bearer for defensive shortstops of the modern era. I'd also be curious how old you are and how much of the wizard you actually saw...if you claim that Smith was better by the eyeball test of course.Quote:
Plus, as good as Vizquel's defense has been, Smith's was STILL ridiculously better, which just goes to show how amazing Smith was.
And the stolen base argument is just as moot then as the batting argument as SB's were much more frequent in Ozzie's heyday.
We are both in agreement on Jones.....I'll actually state that Vizquel is much closer to HOF status than Jones IMO....and he's not a HOF'er either.
I'm too young to have ever seen Ozzie...well, technically, I could've seen him at the end of his career but I'd have been too young to remember.
I'm going by the defensive stats that do go back that far. Since they all agree that Ozzie was heads and shoulders above everybody else, and his reputation matches that, I'd say they're fairly accurate. For example, his Range Factor was 5.03 compared to a 4.10 league average. Vizquel is at 4.40 compared to a 4.11 league average.
Using Baseball Prospectus' Fielding Runs Above Average, Smith is at +254 for his career. Omar Vizquel is at +65.
You know, I amk increasingly finding myself hoping they just run out of freaking stats to create. It's nothing short of ridiculous! Seriously, you wanna know why a fair chunk of the population doesn't care about baseball? They don't want to hear a thousand different stats about every guy in every situation!
That settles it...in an earlier post, I threatened to beat up an old lady? Forget it...I'm going to kick Bill James' ***.
:D
Send Bill some numbers, any numbers, and I bet he could tell you which board member is most likely to actually kick his ***.:)
Lol. The official Bill James Who's Gonna Beat Me Down Abstract?
ok, much as I hate to admit it, the last 3 posts have made me loller.