Inducted:
R Alomar: 48 (of 51) votes (94.12%)
J Bagwell: 43 votes (84.31%)
B Blyleven: 40 votes (78.43%)
Ouch:
B Larkin: 38 votes (74.51%)
T Raines: 36 votes (70.59%)
Significantly Supported:
M McGwire: 28 votes (54.90%), A Trammell: 25 votes (49.02%), E Martinez: 23 votes (45.10%)
Pockets of Support:
J Morris and L Walker, 12 votes each (23.53%)
Still on the Ballot:
D Murphy, 6 votes (11.76%), K Brown 5 votes (9.80%), D Mattingly and R Palmeiro, 4 votes (7.84%), H Baines 3 votes (5.88%).
At Least Got One Vote:
J Franco, F McGriff, D Parker, L Smith, A Leiter, T Martinez, J Olerud.
Friday, December 31, 2010
AMERICA VOTED: The results of this year's ALOTT5MA balloting for the National Baseball Hall of Fame are in, which you can compare with the ongoing BBTF compilation of disclosed BBWAA ballots (we're much higher on Jeff Bagwell, and lower on Jack Morris and Lee Smith):
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The Ellsworth ballot came in after I posted this; it would have put Larkin at 39/52, or exactly 75%.
ReplyDelete3 votes for Baines, a better player overall than McGwire? Sheesh.
ReplyDelete"Overall"? I feel like you're separating out singles, doubles, triples and home runs as separate skills. The job is "hitting," and McGwire provided far more value in that role than Baines. What, it'd have been better had he hit 20 fewer HRs per year but increased his doubles rate? Even separating out OBP from SLG, McGwire wins -- he walked a TON, even before The Years In Question.
ReplyDeleteBaines was an average RF until age 30, then more-or-less stopped fielding altogether; McGwire an above-average 1B. No advantage for Baines there.
Neither of them was a base-stealer.
For the half-plus of you who didn't vote for Edgar, I am no longer speaking to you.
ReplyDeleteGood on us for the three people we chose. But I still shake my head about Raines lack of support. How do people not see how great he was?
ReplyDeletePlaying the bulk of your career in Montreal will do that to a player.
ReplyDeleteBaines was a good player for a long time, but he was never a great player. His two best OPS+ seasons were in years when he had fewer than 400 ABs, and other than those, he never had an OPS+ greater than 144. He was a RF for the early part of his career (-7.5 runs/year) and a DH for the latter part (-17.5 runs/year). So even if he was a great RF when he was playing the field (and the switch to DH suggests he wasn't), his numbers were just not great.
ReplyDeleteMcGwire, his offensive numbers were eye-popping. His OPS+ was better than Baines's <span>best</span> OPS+ in 10 of McGwire's 15 full seasons. And it wasn't close. McGwire had offensive seasons that put him in the company of Bonds, Ruth, and Pujols. Even with the 12.5 run adjustment for playing first base (which, by all accounts, he played reasonably well), he was just a much, much better player than Baines.
Raines is another one of those players whose offensive numbers just don't seem that great to me. Peak three years of adjusted OPS+ are 145, 149, and 151? I know people say he was an incredible fielder, but without data, the offensive numbers just don't seem to make the case, even taking into account the extra net ~30 bases a year he gets on steals.
ReplyDeleteHis career WAR is 64.6, right in the Hall of Fame area. OPS+ leans a little too heavily on slugging, not where Raines is going to shine. He was a great baseruuner, a really good fielder and one of the greatest leadoff hitters of all-time. He is about the equivilent of Alomar in terms of value.
ReplyDeleteI think it's closer to 45 net extra bases/year factoring out the end of his career, and 60-75 per-year during his six peak years. Plus, seven straight ASGs should say something about how he was regarded, and given that he had Carter, Dawson and Wallach as teammates these weren't quota picks.
ReplyDelete[I'll also note that in strike-interrupted 1981, he had 71 steals in 88 games.]
He's not a *clear* HOFer, but he's enough of one for me.<span> </span>
No, it's more like 30 during the peak years and less than that in other years. You use a 75% success rate as break-even. Below 75%, you're hurting your team by making outs when you didn't need to; above 75%, you're helping it. So if Raines stole 71 bases in 1981 and got caught stealing 11 times, he broke even at 44 steals, and then had a net 27 steals beyond that. I rounded to 30.
ReplyDeleteI'll buy this, though I haven't really looked at the numbers in a lot of detail. I admit that for older players, I tend to look mostly at OPS+ because the more advanced numbers just aren't that easy to find. I didn't realize how great his OPS was. Incidentally, I assume your WAR is offense-only. I don't know how much of a difference that would make -- at -7.5/year defensive adjustment, if he was a decent fielder it probably wouldn't affect the numbers at all.
ReplyDeleteBut I do take issue with the notion that Raines was the equivalent of Alomar in terms of value. Assuming their offensive numbers were the same, the defensive position adjustment alone is 10 runs a year (-7.5 to +2.5), which translates into a full two wins a year, assuming that they were roughly equal defenders.
ReplyDeleteBaines was a better defensive player, I believe. Since McGwire's offensive numbers are all suspect and I feel free to disregard them all, I can safely say that Baines is the better player. Yeah, I'm one of those people when it comes to steroids users.
ReplyDeleteWait, my math is stupid. With 11 caught stealings, he would break even at 33 steals, not 44. So that's 37 extra bases in 1981. Let's call it ~30-40 bases a year.
ReplyDeleteIf Baines was a plus defender, why was he a DH for most of his career?
ReplyDeleteI voted for Harold Baines because he grew up about 10 minutes from where I did.
ReplyDelete