HoustonGM's Personal Hall of Fame

[HoustonGM]

not to be argumentative here how can you ignore career value when evaluating a career? dude has a career WAR of 65.3 which puts him between Andrew Jones at 59.3 and Jim Edmonds at 68.3. correct me if i'm wrong but didn't you say in another thread you thought both those guys should make the hall?

I never said I ignore career value, but neither do I ignore peak or prime value. I don't rank players simply by their total career WAR.

[Wassit3]

I never said I ignore career value, but neither do I ignore peak or prime value. I don't rank players simply by their total career WAR.

i never said that you said that, i feel that was what you were doing by proxy tho. what is wrong with a player providing solid all around consistent value? why isnt that as valuable as a guy with similar WAR but higher peaks and valleys? 60 plus WAR over early equally long careers, seems to me if one is hall worthy the other has to be too...






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[filihok]

i never said that you said that, i feel that was what you were doing by proxy tho. what is wrong with a player providing solid all around consistent value? why isnt that as valuable as a guy with similar WAR but higher peaks and valleys? 60 plus WAR over early equally long careers, seems to me if one is hall worthy the other has to be too...

Sort of agree...

If Player A has 10 years and 60 WAR with 30 WAR coming in 3 of the years and
Player B has 10 years and 60 WAR with 6 WAR per year

I don't know why you'd say that Player A was better because he had a higher peak, Player B was better in more years.

[filihok]

In this specific case though:

Lofton: 9234 PA, 65.3 bWAR, 65.1 fWAR = 4.24 bWAR / 600 PA, 4.23 fWAR / 600PA
Jones: 8173 PA, 59.9 bWAR, 70.5 fWAR = 4.40 bWAR / 600 PA, 5.18 fWAR / 600PA
Edmonds: 7980 PA, 68.3, bWAR, 68.1 fWAR = 5.14 bWAR / 600 PA, 5.12 fWAR / 600PA

Edmonds was clearly more productive than Lofton per PA (as a proxy for playing time)
Jones is a bit more interesting as much of his value came from defense, but still was probably more productive than Lofton per PA



You can see the Lofton's graph is below Edmonds' and Jones' for the highest ten years.

Lofton only gains on them in the lesser years and by playing more years

or

Lofton was better than Edmonds in 5 years but Edmonds was better than Lofton in 9 years

[HoustonGM]

i never said that you said that, i feel that was what you were doing by proxy tho. what is wrong with a player providing solid all around consistent value? why isnt that as valuable as a guy with similar WAR but higher peaks and valleys? 60 plus WAR over early equally long careers, seems to me if one is hall worthy the other has to be too...

Higher peaks are more valuable because they do more towards the team's goal. Basically, one player providing 7 WAR is more valuable than two players that each provide 3.5 WAR, because the value is concentrated in one player.

Plus, there is an element of greatness to the Hall. A player that provides 3 WAR a season over 20 years was never a great player. He was just consistently above average. A player with the same 60 career WAR but 5 seasons above 7 WAR and the 25 other WAR spread out over 10 years was clearly a great player for an extended period of time, an MVP candidate for a five year stretch. I don't know how one can conclude that those players are equivalent. The second player was clearly better.

Filihok displayed the specific case of Lofton/Edmonds/Jones well. For their top 10 years, Edmonds and Jones were 1-2 wins better each year than Lofton's top 10 years. Playing a few extra years and adding a couple WAR per year is good, but adds little to a Hall of Fame case in my opinion. Edmonds and Jones were both clearly better players than Lofton, and not just for a year or two.

Sort of agree...

If Player A has 10 years and 60 WAR with 30 WAR coming in 3 of the years and
Player B has 10 years and 60 WAR with 6 WAR per year

I don't know why you'd say that Player A was better because he had a higher peak, Player B was better in more years.

In that instance, both players would make my Hall, but as for how I'd rank them, I'm not sure. 3 all-time great seasons and 7 roughly All-Star caliber seasons of about 4.3 WAR, or 10 All-Star caliber seasons of 6 WAR that are not quite MVP-candidate years?

I suppose it would depend on contextual things...like did Player B, despite not posting an "MVP level 7 WAR season:", lead his league in WAR a few times?

[Wassit3]

Higher peaks are more valuable because they do more towards the team's goal. Basically, one player providing 7 WAR is more valuable than two players that each provide 3.5 WAR, because the value is concentrated in one player.

Plus, there is an element of greatness to the Hall. A player that provides 3 WAR a season over 20 years was never a great player. He was just consistently above average. A player with the same 60 career WAR but 5 seasons above 7 WAR and the 25 other WAR spread out over 10 years was clearly a great player for an extended period of time, an MVP candidate for a five year stretch. I don't know how one can conclude that those players are equivalent. The second player was clearly better.

Filihok displayed the specific case of Lofton/Edmonds/Jones well. For their top 10 years, Edmonds and Jones were 1-2 wins better each year than Lofton's top 10 years. Playing a few extra years and adding a couple WAR per year is good, but adds little to a Hall of Fame case in my opinion. Edmonds and Jones were both clearly better players than Lofton, and not just for a year or two.


In that instance, both players would make my Hall, but as for how I'd rank them, I'm not sure. 3 all-time great seasons and 7 roughly All-Star caliber seasons of about 4.3 WAR, or 10 All-Star caliber seasons of 6 WAR that are not quite MVP-candidate years?

I suppose it would depend on contextual things...like did Player B, despite not posting an "MVP level 7 WAR season:", lead his league in WAR a few times?

obviously for a given season a higher WAR per player is better. however we are talking about career value per player over nearly equal career lengths. from a team perspective all 3 players provided me exactly the same numbers of wins (value) in the same time span, so from that perspective i still won just as many games in that time frame as I would have regardless of which three I chose for that time span, therefore one was no more valuable than another to my team over time. For me the hall should evaluate a players career, anyone can be good for a few short seasons - are we gonna start putting the Ron kittles of the world in the hall because of a couple of good seasons while ignoring guys that are steady producers? Greatness is sometimes defined as prolonged goodness.

[HoustonGM]

obviously for a given season a higher WAR per player is better. however we are talking about career value per player over nearly equal career lengths.

I agree that they have similar overall career value. Again, though, I am not ranking players based solely on overall career value.

from a team perspective all 3 players provided me exactly the same numbers of wins (value) in the same time span, so from that perspective i still won just as many games in that time frame as I would have regardless of which three I chose for that time span, therefore one was no more valuable than another to my team over time.

Concentrated value is more valuable towards the goal of winning a pennant. A player who provides 1 WAR each year for seven seasons didn't provide is team equal value to a player who had one 7 WAR season...at least not when it comes towards the goal of winning a pennant. That one 7 WAR season was 7 wins towards winning that season's pennant, all provided by one player - extremely valuable and hard to replace. A single WAR over 7 seasons is one win provided towards winning 7 different pennants, BUT that one WAR each year is much easier to replace than an MVP caliber season.

For me the hall should evaluate a players career

It should, but peak and prime are part of a player's career.

, anyone can be good for a few short seasons - are we gonna start putting the Ron kittles of the world in the hall because of a couple of good seasons while ignoring guys that are steady producers? Greatness is sometimes defined as prolonged goodness.

I don't know what Ron Kittle has to do with this conversation, he didn't even have a peak to speak of. His best season was league average.

I'm not arguing for pure peak value. If I was, Al Rosen would be in my Hall. But neither do I believe in ranking players strictly by career value. My rankings are a mix of a variety of factors - overall career value, peak value, prime value, etc.

According to what you're saying, Sandy Koufax would be a borderline Hall of Famer who was just as good as Chuck Finley, Bret Saberhagen and Dave Stieb. Sorry, but I can't buy that line of thinking. Koufax may have had his value concentrated in 5-6 year period, but he was the top pitcher in the game for that period, while a guy like Chuck Finley, good for for 11-12 years, was rarely ever in that conversation. Despite providing overall career value similar to Koufax, Finley isn't close to Koufax when it comes to a Hall of Fame conversation.

[ragecage]

I think there is a new pitcher to consider.

Soon, the forgotten pitcher had a volunteer army. Gorton’s network unearthed an 18-inning, 31-strikeout game, a 27-strikeout game and four 19-strikeout outings. But a bigger world awaited Gorton when his group began unearthing Donaldson’s career with the All-Nations team, which was the forerunner to what became Negro League baseball’s most prestigious club.

Theres also footage here, and his windup does look like a mirror Bob Gibson.

[Jeffy25]

I am sad to not see Sidd Finch on here

[HoustonGM]

None of the new players on the 2012 ballot made my personal Hall of Fame.

[boomboom]

I am glad you put Martinez in. Just looking at his Baseball Reference Page, it is amazing how good of a hitter he was. I wish I saw more games because he is one of those once in a generation type of player when it comes to talent vs. heart. Pete Rose comes to mind as another. Ichiro once said there was no player who prepared more for games than Edgar. Crazy that he was the best hitter on the Mariners during the nintes not Griffey (allthou griffey offered more value because of defense)

[HoustonGM]

None of the new players on the 2012 ballot made my personal Hall of Fame.

The new players on the 2013 ballot that have made my personal Hall of Fame:

Craig Biggio, 2B, Houston Astros
Barry Bonds, LF, San Francisco Giants
Roger Clemens, SP, Boston Red Sox
Mike Piazza, C, New York Mets
Curt Schilling, SP, Philadelphia Phillies
Sammy Sosa, RF, Chicago Cubs

[acetoolguy]

Still holding out on Dwight Evans huh?

[HoustonGM]

Still holding out on Dwight Evans huh?

I haven't gone back and reassessed any former players. As I did say previously, Evans was right on the cusp when I originally made this.

[dickay]

I appreciate the request, but I have to decline the offer of induction into your HOF.