MLB 2010: The Second Half

[jmh]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

Well, they were right next to each other on the screen, and "Burnett" does look a lot like "Beckett".

One looks like a moon-faced clown, the other is a tattooed inconsistent freak.

I meant their NAMES.

By the way, if you thought the Hall of Fame steroids debate was already intense... just wait until December when 569 HR, 3,020 hits, and 1,835 RBI isn't a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

It will be an interesting discussion in that some of the members of the BBWAA might have to stray from the intellectually lazy benchmarks they're accustomed to relying on, but if McGwire hasn't gotten in in his first few then I don't see how an inferior hitter has any business going in on his first ballot.

Edit to add: An inferior hitter with essentially the same PED issues, for the sake of comparing apples to apples.

[MountieBoyOz]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

If A-Rod was playing for the Marlins and sitting on 599 homers, they'd still cut away to show it. I hope this isn't lost on you rubes.

Besides, being in Cleveland sucks enough as it is. I mean, this illustrates it all so perfectly.

The only thing named Cleveland that is having any success is the former Family Guy character.

[Red Cloud]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

It will be an interesting discussion in that some of the members of the BBWAA might have to stray from the intellectually lazy benchmarks they're accustomed to relying on, but if McGwire hasn't gotten in in his first few then I don't see how an inferior hitter has any business going in on his first ballot.

Edit to add: An inferior hitter with essentially the same PED issues, for the sake of comparing apples to apples.

An inferior hitter? McGwire's career average was 25 points less and he had almost half the hits in only four less years. An inferior power hitter, perhaps, but not an "inferior hitter."

500 HR and 3000 hits? That's Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray. All first ballot hall of famers.

[jmh]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

An inferior hitter? McGwire's career average was 25 points less and he had almost half the hits in only four less years. An inferior power hitter, perhaps, but not an "inferior hitter."

500 HR and 3000 hits? That's Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray. All first ballot hall of famers.

Ask the 2010 Kansas City Royals how important batting average is as a measure of actual productivity. McGwire had a 20 point edge in OBP and a 70 point edge in slugging. Yes, McGwire had massively fewer hits (in four fewer seasons, yes, but in 4400 fewer plate appearances), but by 162-game averages the two averaged almost the same number of times on base. The edge in hits is something that people will talk about, but it's not as important as it's cracked up to be.

On the other hand, while McGwire's rate stats are significantly better, there is value in Palmeiro's durability - between 1988 and 2004 he played over 150 games every year except for two (one of them being the strike year), and you if you have McGwire on your team you don't have fictional 162-game construct McGwire, you have injury-prone McGwire who you can count on for more like 120 games. Plus Palmeiro provided some positive value with his glove, which you can't really say about McGwire.

They're different test cases, I suppose, for the PED issue: Palmeiro was very good for a long period of time but was never as good as McGwire in his best years. McGwire is a Kiner/Koufax and Palmeiro is a Murray/Rice (but way better than Jim Rice).

[Hammer]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

They're different test cases, I suppose, for the PED issue: Palmeiro was very good for a long period of time but was never as good as McGwire in his best years. McGwire is a Kiner/Koufax and Palmeiro is a Murray/Rice (but way better than Jim Rice).

Maybe so, but outside of McGwire's best 4 seasons (1997-2000) his career looks much more pedestrian. Much more often than not, Hall of Famers do not have years in the middle of their careers like McGwire had from 1989-1991. Go look at those numbers. That's not HOF material there, unless that HOFer is on the wrong side of 40 and at the end of his career.

Mark McGwire was a one-trick pony. His other totals, outside of his homers, are simply not Hall of Fame worthy. Look especially at his doubles totals. Great power hitters average more than 16 doubles a season. 252 doubles over 16 seasons = 15.75.

See for yourself

The PED issue is a non-issue for me. Baseball looked the other way and now they want to act all sanctimonius about it. No. Baseball allowed it, so now they've got to wear the results. If I had a ballot, Palmeiro, Bonds, Sosa and Clemens all go to Cooperstown. McGwire does not.

[Red Cloud]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

They're different test cases, I suppose, for the PED issue: Palmeiro was very good for a long period of time but was never as good as McGwire in his best years. McGwire is a Kiner/Koufax and Palmeiro is a Murray/Rice (but way better than Jim Rice).

Jim Rice is going to be the benchmark that allows a heck of a lot more players into the Hall who wouldn't have normally been there. But the HR/Hits numbers that Palmeiro put up, as for everyone else in MLB history who have ever accomplished them, would normally make him a first ballot hall of famer by precedent. Call me crazy, but I think we'll find 1 in 4 BBWAA voters who'll withhold their votes.

[Hammer]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

I also think Palmeiro is going to have a hard time gaining access to Cooperstown without a ticket.

[Hammer]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

The edge in hits is something that people will talk about, but it's not as important as it's cracked up to be.

The edge? 200 hits over a career is an edge. 1,394 hits isn't an edge, it's a cliff the size of the Grand Canyon.

That's like saying Hank Aaron has an edge over Al Kaline when it comes to home runs.

[JF_Gophers]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

As long as Blyleven finally gets in this time around.

[Hammer]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

Apparently Roy Oswalt is going to okay a trade to Philly.

[Red Cloud]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

Apparently Roy Oswalt is going to okay a trade to Philly.

J.A. Happ is the centerpiece for Houston, also includes Anthony Gose and Jonathan Villan according to renowned loser Ken Rosenthal.

[JF_Gophers]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

J.A. Happ is the centerpiece for Houston, also includes Anthony Gose and Jonathan Villan according to renowned loser Ken Rosenthal.

My Fantasy team does not approve of J.A. Happ going to Houston. I hope this deal fails.

[jmh]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

Maybe so, but outside of McGwire's best 4 seasons (1997-2000) his career looks much more pedestrian. Much more often than not, Hall of Famers do not have years in the middle of their careers like McGwire had from 1989-1991. Go look at those numbers. That's not HOF material there, unless that HOFer is on the wrong side of 40 and at the end of his career.

Mark McGwire was a one-trick pony. His other totals, outside of his homers, are simply not Hall of Fame worthy. Look especially at his doubles totals. Great power hitters average more than 16 doubles a season. 252 doubles over 16 seasons = 15.75.

See for yourself

OK, and nuclear weapons aren't good for much except blowing **** up. Yeah, McGwire was a one-trick pony, but the one thing he did very very well is the best thing a hitter can do. Yeah, he didn't hit a lot of doubles, but who cares?

And you're obviously tricking the numbers to make McGwire look like a worse doubles hitter than he actually was by counting each of those 16 seasons equally when there were seasons in there with 18, 27 and 47 games. Per 162 games Palmeiro hit 33 2B and 33 HR, McGwire hit 22 2B and 50 HR. I know which I'd take.

Yes, McGwire was crappy in 1991, but so what? Mike Schmidt had a poor year by his standards in 1978 at age 28, but it's a blip in the context of his whole career. (I'm certainly not saying McGwire is in Schmidt's league, I'm just saying a bad year isn't the end of the world.) I don't see how you can claim he wasn't good in 1990, though; he was 2nd in the AL in HRs, 6th in the AL in OPS (once again: batting average? not a good way to evaluate hitters), and 11th in the MVP voting. Even in 1989 he got MVP votes. And I don't see how you can call his 1992, 1995, or 1996 "pedestrian".

Now, if you want to take the stance that he would've been done after 1991 but started using PEDs and that produced the hitting that he did starting in 1992, that's a separate issue, but that doesn't jive with:

The PED issue is a non-issue for me. Baseball looked the other way and now they want to act all sanctimonius about it. No. Baseball allowed it, so now they've got to wear the results. If I had a ballot, Palmeiro, Bonds, Sosa and Clemens all go to Cooperstown. McGwire does not.

For what it's worth, I'm sort of leaning towards the same stance as you regarding the sudden sanctimony about PEDs (as if baseball was so pure back in the day, with greenies and coke and booze and racism and all the other stuff). At some point, guys with PED issues are going to have to get voted in. So many guys were using that it's awfully difficult to say anyone is entirely above suspicion, and when it comes down to it, the guys who stood out in that era probably would've stood out in other eras as well. But this highlights why you have to look at ways to compare players to their peers in the context of their era (whether you want to use something complicated like WAR, or something reasonably basic like OPS+, or something very rough like All-Star game appearances), rather than raw benchmarks (like 500 HR) that don't mean remotely the same thing now as they did back in the day.

Jim Rice is going to be the benchmark that allows a heck of a lot more players into the Hall who wouldn't have normally been there. But the HR/Hits numbers that Palmeiro put up, as for everyone else in MLB history who have ever accomplished them, would normally make him a first ballot hall of famer by precedent. Call me crazy, but I think we'll find 1 in 4 BBWAA voters who'll withhold their votes.

Yeah, Rice isn't a great benchmark overall, I just meant to use him as an example of a player who had a long very good career but whose high-water marks weren't really as high as some of his HoF peers. But like I said, it'll be interesting how the voters deal with a guy who made the traditional "benchmarks" but is a question mark for other reasons.

The edge? 200 hits over a career is an edge. 1,394 hits isn't an edge, it's a cliff the size of the Grand Canyon.

That's like saying Hank Aaron has an edge over Al Kaline when it comes to home runs.

I did say "massively fewer" earlier in the same post; calling it simply "the edge" was just shorthand. Obviously it's a lot fewer hits.

[Hammer]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

All right, let's compare the 500 homer hitters, since that's all McGwire could do

One of these is not like the others. Especially when the one in question has totals that are skewed due to the fact that 42% of his homers were hit over a 4 year span of a 16 year career (1996-1999).

When you look at the other 500-homer hitters (which is the only calling card McGwire has), the other hitters have some pretty **** good credentials outside of the raw HR totals. For example, Hank Aaron had over 3,000 hits other than HRs. Even Harmon Killebrew, who might be the least accomplished member of the 500 club, has an MVP award (1969), and Reggie Jackson does as well (1973). Mickey Mantle and Frank Robinson both have a Triple Crown. Eddie Murray was a **** good hitter for a long time. You don't get to 3,000 hits by accident, or just by longevity. Mike Schmidt has 3 MVP awards.

Simply put, McGwire must be judged among his peers in the HR totals, since he was unable to do anything else in his career. He just does not match up, especially with his totals skewed in the way they are. The others have a nice body of work outside their gaudy HR totals. It wasn't just the bombs that got them there.

[Terrierbyassociation]

Re: MLB 2010: The Second Half

Ed Wade needs to have his trading license revoked.