Only two days to go until the 2014 Baseball Hall of Fame class is announced!
If you haven't picked up on it yet, I LOVE the HOF voting process and the announcement is tantamount to my Christmas. (Oddly enough, I don't care about the induction at all. I think I've watched three of them since 1996.)
Anyway, tomorrow's post contains the players who were selected for my ballot. Tonight I'm discussing three players who I didn't vote for who nevertheless have a very strong HOF case, and another player that I would vote for if there were enough spots on the ballot. Without further ado:
1. Larry Walker-From a pure statistical perspective, Larry Walker has a good case for the Hall. Of the players on this stacked ballot, he is ninth in career WAR and 8th in 7 year peak WAR. That's an impressive set of achievements no matter how you look at it.
Two things have kept him off my ballot. One, his value as a player was damaged somewhat by his frequent struggles with injury. The WAR stat does a good job of comparing a player to a more or less objective reference, but it's not very useful for quantifying the damage to a team when a player actually gets replaced by a replacement level player. And that happened quite a bit with Larry Walker.
I have to admit, though, that the biggest thing that keeps me from voting for Walker is a fairly vague belief that he got a bigger boost from ballpark effects than statistics can show. Sure, there are advanced metrics like OPS+ that attempt to include corrections for playing in a 'hitters park' or a 'pitchers park'. But there's no statistically meaningful way to correct for the interaction between an individual player and a ballpark.
The best example I can think of is the Minnesota Twins' erstwhile catcher, Joe Mauer. Mauer was and is a classic hitting for average guy who is fairly bereft of power, in the mold of Tony Gwynn. In the hitters' graveyard of Target Field, a Mauer home run has become an event notable for its rarity (33 HR in 4 years). Now, it's not too surprising that Mauer hit more home runs in the Metrodome, which was a hitter's playground. Thing was, though, in Mauer's last year inside he started hitting home runs at a rate that made him--well, not look like a power hitter but like a better power hitter than Paul LoDuca, at least. Mauer hit 28 out in his last year in the Dome, and (true or not) there was a perception that he might have picked up on some vagary of playing in that environment...perhaps the legendary current that supposedly carried balls to the outfield when the Twins were at bat, or maybe it was just that he found a giant Hefty bag to be a great batter's eye. Who knows? Point was, Mauer hit more home runs in the last season at the Dome than in the next three seasons outside of it. And while OPS+ dings Mauer for that year for playing in the Dome, the question is whether an adjustment standardized across all players accurately quantified the amount of his personal advantage.
Anyway, I digress, but the point is Larry Walker's whole career in Coors Field was like that. He was a better hitter in Coors Field, of course he was, just like Jim Rice and Wade Boggs were better hitters at Fenway and Kirby Puckett was a better hitter at the Metrodome. But does that really account for the one hundred points in batting average Walker gained for his career at Coors?
Honestly, I'm not sure. And if someone can provide me a convincing statistical argument proving that Walker's dominance at altitude was NOT an outlier from the normal boost players got from that environment, I may well support him in the future. But for now, he's a no.
2. Mike Mussina
3. Curt Schilling
Schilling came really close to making my ballot. If the writers put in four or five players like they should, he probably will make my ballot next year. Mussina--ah heck, I'll admit it. I'm biased against the guy because of his habit of coming up just small enough to lose in the postseason in the last several years he played for the Yankees. But no doubt both have a good case for the Hall of Fame.
By Jay Jaffe's 'seven year peak WAR' measurement, Mussina, Schilling, and Tom Glavine are each short of the HOF average for peak. All of them, on the other hand, exceed the average career WAR for HOF starting pitchers. So what we have here is the case of three 'accumulators'. A case can be made for any of the three over the other two. Schilling was the most dominant during his peak, as reflected by his 7 year peak WAR (49.0 vs. 44.5 for Mussina and 44.3 for Glavine). Mussina was (or so say the numbers) actually the most valuable in terms of total career WAR (83 vs. 81.4 for Glavine and 79.9 for Schilling). Glavine--well, Glavine hit a very nice round number that tends to make good things happen for pitchers who want to go to the Hall of Fame, which is why he is probably going to get a plaque this year, and if not this year then the next.
The two factors that still make me vote "no" on these two are:
A) Perhaps a bit unfair, but if I'm limited to ten votes it seems a bit odd to give 40 or 50% of those votes to pitchers. Both in terms of total roster and core playoff starters, starting pitchers are about 25% of a baseball team. Giving half of my votes to starters seems to overvalue them, given that consideration.
B) But most of all, there's this. There's no question that on statistics alone, the best four pitchers of the turn of the century were: 1) Roger Clemens; 2-3) Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson; 4) Pedro Martinez. So, whichever one of Mussina, Schilling and Glavine you like best is at most the fifth best pitcher of the era. And that makes the others 6 and 7, and that's before you even think about Mariano Rivera and conceivably even John Smoltz. Is being the 7th best starter of the late 90s and 2000s enough to be in the Hall? For now, my answer is no.
Lastly...I really can't believe I'm not voting for this guy. I had no intention of not voting for this guy until the week before I cast my ballot...
4. Craig Biggio
Craig Biggio was a great player, and he was a unique player. Only player ever to make All-Star at catcher and second baseman. The willingness to let a 95 mph fastball blast him in the elbow without flinching (OK, the armor helped, but still). And he hit the ball...three...thousand...times. Even more so than 300 wins, it's a golden number. After all, you can make or not make 300 wins on the basis of your teammates. Three thousand hits are yours alone. Even if, like Craig Biggio, to get there you had to hang around so long that you were visibly hurting your team by continuing to play.
This was supposed to be the spot for a valedictory for Rafael Palmeiro, who may well fall off the ballot this year.
But I looked at my own criteria. Was Biggio one of the best middle infielders in baseball for ten years? No, he just wasn't. His career overlapped Ripken and Sandberg on one end and Jeter and Alex Rodriguez on the other. He might have been the best second baseman in MLB for 3-4 years, but that's about it. Is he clearly better than some other recent middle infielder? No, he's in fact substantially below Barry Larkin's standard. So what we're left with is Biggio's case as an accumulator. 3000 hits. That was easy.
But which is, it so happens, Palmeiro's case as well.
And the thing is, Palmeiro was just better. It wasn't even all that close in terms of career value (71.8 WAR vs. 64.9). If you like JAWS, Palmeiro is over the standard by 1.3 and Biggio under it by 3.7. About the only argument that favors Biggio--apart from, well, you know--is that his peak was a little better, but neither one is really in the discussion (or out of it) on the basis of peak.
I realize that the reality is that the tribe has spoken: Biggio got 3000 hits and never tested positive for steroids. Palmeiro got 3000 hits and did test positive for steroids. And Biggio well get in the Hall soon, perhaps even this year, and Palmeiro almost certainly never will.
Nevertheless, Palmeiro was still better. And so the spot that was supposed to be his send-off...goes to Craig.
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