ONE MAGIC LOOGIE: Ahead of tomorrow's Baseball Hall of Fame announcement, Baseball Think Factory has been compiling votes by the writers who have voice their opinions. With 99 full ballots in, the returns indicate that Roberto Alomar, Bert Blyleven and Andre Dawson should start booking motel rooms for their friends and family in Cooperstown this summer. As for the much-disccussed Edgar Martinez? He's currently running 7th in the voting with 41.4%, behind the aforementioned trio, plus Barry Larkin, Jack Morris, and Tim Raines. My prediction for tomorrow is Alomar and Dawson get the call with Blyleven falling just short.
Leaving Edgar aside -- 41% is better than I expected, frankly, and the writers who are solid "nos" tend to be more of the old-school idiocracy, so it looks like in the next few years it may actually happen for him -- can somebody please explain the case for Jack Morris? Without just saying that he had a winner's mentality or anything meaningless like that? The best you could say of him is that he was slightly above average for a long time.
ReplyDeleteDuring an arbitrarily defined period of time ("the Eighties"), he was the American League's best starting pitcher. He won (and completed) a lot of games, and was a great pitcher for two World Series champions, including during the playoffs themselves. Jack Morris would get my vote long before Hall-of-the-Very-Good first ballot inductee Andre Dawson would.
ReplyDeleteMy 2009 ballot would be:
Alomar, Blyleven, Larkin, McGwire, Martinez. Blyleven's a close call for me -- it's become such a crusade for staheads that I start to resist it, but the numbers are clear.
I've read several pieces now that suggest that the case for Morris is built almost entirely on Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. That, plus the entirely arbitrary "most wins in the 1980s" stat (which is arbitrary twice, in duration and in the particular statistic measured). I'm not sure I think that's all there is, but I am sure in my belief that Morris does not have as strong a case as Blyleven among SPs.
ReplyDeleteI still can't pull the trigger on McGwire, for which I expect Isaac will pillory me. And I agree with Adam about the Hall where Dawson belongs. But yes on Alomar, Blyleven, Larkin and Edgar, and I'd also vote for Rock Raines.
Would you be willing to vote for McGwire if his plaque included the sentence: "His statistics were under scrutiny because of McGwire's admitted use of over-the-counter supplements since banned by MLB" or words to that effect?
ReplyDeleteYa might, rabbit....ya might. May need to throw in a line about his Congressional testimony to get me more fully on board.
ReplyDeleteCan his plaque just say, "I'm not here to talk about the past"?
ReplyDeleteDawson was, is, and will be a Hall of Famer.
ReplyDeletePerfect! If his plaque says that, then count me in.
ReplyDeleteMorris's case is not really built on Game 7 alone, but that is part of it. Among the voters pushing his candidacy, there is a belief that the Hall of Fame should include the players who seemed to dominate their eras, even if later review of the stats shows that the dominance was illusory. Thus, the support for guys like Morris, Dawson and Rice and the lack of support for guys like Blyleven. In the 1980s, Jack Morris was regarded as one of the best pitchers in baseball and it isn't fair to say this is an arbitrary period because he still have been considered one of the best pitchers in baseball if the 10-year period was 79-88, 81-90, 82-91, etc. The point is, based on his win totals, he was considered much more than a better than average pitcher for at least a 10-year stretch. But, that perception was based on statistic that has since seen its reputation tattered more than any other statistic. There is a great resistance to go back and re-calibrate their memories in either direction simply because of the evolving importance of certain statistics (the devaluation of wins in the Morris/Blyleven cases, the increased importance of OBP in the Dawson and probably even Edgar Martinez cases). Nevertheless, if you want to make a case for Jack Morris, it isn't found by advocating for him. It is found by advocating that the Hall of Fame is a place where you recognize the players who were seen as dominant when they played, regardless of how history has come to see them (also known as the "focus on the Fame" argument). That is a Hall of Fame that has a place for Morris and Dawson and Jim Rice. But it isn't the real Hall of Fame. If it were, there would be no five-year cooling off period before voting on a player or allowing 15 years on the ballot or induction by a veterans committee (designed to find guys who were overlooked, a de facto disqualification for the HoF under the focus on the Fame argument).
ReplyDelete<span style="color: #808080;">I am sure someone (or a thousand someones) has already calculated this, but could Andre Dawson have contributed enough in power, speed and defense to make up for his lower than average ability to not make an out? If Dawson had an OPS over 800, does it matter how much of that was slugging and how much OPB? I realize outs are the most precious resource in the game, but how much higher would one player have to slug in order to overcome the negative effect of a 10, 20, 30 point gap in OBP? If, as a ludicrous example, a player hit three home runs every ten at bats and struck out the other seven times, would he be more valuable than an on-base machine with no power? </span>
ReplyDeleteCrap, I looked at this some time ago when Willie F. B[allgame]loomquist was having a weird stretch where his OBP was over .400 but he had literally zero extra-base hits (it was comical, because he actually had a game-winning hit that would have been a double, but the winning run crossed the plate, he slowed down, and then he got mobbed before he could reach second, so the singles-only streak continued). I am a lazy researcher, but I think I found an article (using only one year's worth of data) suggesting that OBP was something like 1.5 or 2x as important as SLG. But I don't remember exactly.
ReplyDeleteI realize ERA+ is a flawed statistic, but it's better than Wins or ERA. According to ajusted ERA+, the best Morris ever was was fourth in the AL (not in all of baseball, just in the AL) in ERA+. During the period from 1979 to 1992 -- the first and last years where he had an above-average adjusted ERA+ -- he was fourth in the AL once, sixth once, eighth once, and not in the top ten 10 times.
ReplyDeleteI agree that "the '80s" is an arbitrary period. Dave Stieb was a better pitcher for the first half of the '80s; Clemens, Saberhagen, probably Langston and maybe Viola were better pitchers for the second half. Overall, Stieb actually was a better pitcher than Morris during Morris's peak from '81-'87. I didn't know this, but it doesn't make me wild about Morris.
Of the 410 pitchers who have thrown more than 2000 innings, Morris's FIP -- again, flawed, but a stat is better than ERA at roughly the same idea -- is 320th. Reduce the threshold to 1000 innings and Morris's FIP is 743rd of 1147.
Just knew how to win? In 1992, for example, the Jays scored 4 or more runs in 18 of Morris's 21 wins. Those included wins where Morris gave up 7 runs in 6 innings, 6 runs in 6 innings, 5 runs in 7 innings, 6 runs in 5 innings, and 6 runs (4 earned) in 6 innings.
Yes, Jack Morris was considered one of the best pitchers in baseball at the time that he was playing. The people who considered him that (including, probably, me) were wrong. So we should have the opportunity to correct that mistake. In other words, I agree.
Well, a really quick, back of the envelope way to figure this out is based on run expectancy. Let's say there are two hitters, each of whom have 4 PAs to lead off innings. One goes 0-1 with 3 walks, for an OPS of .750. The other goes 1-4 with a 2b, for an OPS of .750. The first result creates a run expectancy of (I think) 2.859 runs (3 x .953). The second creates a run expectancy of 1.189. That certainly suggests that the first is twice as valuable as the second. If they're bases empty, two outs, the difference is similar - .753 runs for the first against .344 runs for the second.
ReplyDeleteThat guest, and the one about Morris, were me.
ReplyDeleteSo I just did some quick research. There was a 2004 SABR study based on one year of Oakland data concluding that OBP was twice as important as SLG. Another study (crossposted to BTF, I think) suggested that the range of OBP value depended upon batting order slot, with it being about 3x SLG in the leadoff slot and 1.6x SLG overall. A third study suggested 1.73x OBP. People who believe these studies will not be fans of Andre Dawson.
Given what everybody writes about his defense, though, I really wish we had something like UZR for that era.
One of the complaints people have about Blyleven is that when he was playing, when he was at his peak, he didn't "feel" like a Hall of Famer. I don't have a clue what that means and Blyleven would get my vote in a second. But I do know that as somebody who grew into his baseball fandom in the mid-80s, Jack Morris FELT like a Hall of Famer. Because "My People" are from Toronto and because I grew up in non-baseball locations before relocating to New England in high school, I was a Blue Jays fan and I have vivid memories of being convinced that the Blue Jays couldn't play the Tigers in any meaningful game because Morris would find a way to win. The way I look at it is this: Was Morris dominant? Probably not in a sabermetric way. But the guy was the unquestioned ace of many pitching staffs for many good teams and he was viewed as a horse, as a stopper. And I don't care if the arbitrary period is "The 80s" or "My Childhood," Jack Morris was one of the five central pitchers of that particular time and being that voting is subjective, Morris would get my vote without any question.
ReplyDeleteSo I'd go Morris, Blyleven, Alomar, Dawson, McGwire and Raines this year. I don't think I'd have voted Raines last year, but I've read enough persuasive prose to give him my vote.
Strangely, I have no Hall of Fame vote.
Anyway, next year's when things get interesting. Palmiero? Ugh. Bagwell? Never a real accusation, but how can one not suspect? And will Larry Walker get the consideration he deserves next year? Because Walker is, to my mind, a much more credible candidate than he'll probably be perceived as next year...
-Daniel
This is the application of my point above. And, growing up in Detroit in the mid-1980s, this post is also representative of how I felt about Jack Morris. The real question, as raised by Isaac's comment, is whether the way we felt about a guy when he was playing is important to the HoF discussion, or if we should use current ways of thinking to correct the misconception about Morris. I happen to think that the purpose of the 5-year waiting period is to allow some distance from a guy's career so that it can be objectively assessed regardless of how we felt about him. But, Jim Rice got in because during his 15 years on the ballot someone remembered that he once broke his bat checking his swing, so anything is possible.
ReplyDeleteA poll has been posted. See upper-right.
ReplyDeleteDid Morris even sniff the top two Cy Young spots during the years he pitched? If his peers didn't consider him the best pitcher in baseball, why should we, all these years later?
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm a Detroit Tiger fan!