Modern Era HOF Ballot: Who do you think should get in?

[rats60]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

For those arguing Garvey and besmirching Simmons they have nearly the same stats except one of them played catcher and is 9th in fWAR all time as a catcher and the other played 1b and is 61st all time for 1b.


Simmons is one of the ten best catchers of all time and he's not a HOF'er? That seems.... well I'm fairly "small hall" and even I think he's overdue.

It is your opinion that Simmons is a top 10 catcher. I disagree. One of my problems with WAR is that it undervalues defense. It is particularly important for catcher. Simmons was below average defensively. In my opinion, that negates a positional bonus.

Bench
Carter
I Rodriguez
Fisk
Piazza
Berra
Dickey
Cochrane
Hartnett
Campanella

Those guys are all better than Simmons. Josh Gibson is high on that list, but how do you compare him? From not in the HOF, I have Munson, Freehan, probably Posey, maybe Mauer. So, that puts him 16th and as I said, if the Veterans Committee is liberal with their selections, after Garvey, Munson and Freehan are in, I have no problem with Simmons. I just wouldn't put him in ahead of Trammell, Garvey, Murphy, Mattingly or Parker.

[btcarfagno]

Simmons Munson Freehan and Hartnett are all in one big bunch to me. I agree with you that Campy, when you take his work in the Negro Leagues and extrapolate that to major league equivalency, was ahead of Simmons. Not if you look just at his major league numbers, but you just can't do that. So Campy is ahead of Simmons.

But I have Simmons slightly ahead of Hartnett who is slightly ahead of Munson who is slightly ahead of Freehan. Posey is not there yet. Mauer may be ahead of Simmons by this point.

If you're still convinced that Garvey is a HOFer there's not much else I can say. He is borderline way bottom top 50 1B of all time. That's just not HOF material. Parker isn't there either but I don't feel like getting into that discussion. Below average fielder. Had he not taken 5+ years off in the middle of his career....that would be another matter. But he did. Dale Murphy and Donnie Baseball are legitimate discussions for sure. But Simmons is an all time leader at his position unlike these other players.

Tom C

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by rats60

It is your opinion that Simmons is a top 10 catcher. I disagree. One of my problems with WAR is that it undervalues defense. It is particularly important for catcher. Simmons was below average defensively. In my opinion, that negates a positional bonus.

Bench
Carter
I Rodriguez
Fisk
Piazza
Berra
Dickey
Cochrane
Hartnett
Campanella

Those guys are all better than Simmons. Josh Gibson is high on that list, but how do you compare him? From not in the HOF, I have Munson, Freehan, probably Posey, maybe Mauer. So, that puts him 16th and as I said, if the Veterans Committee is liberal with their selections, after Garvey, Munson and Freehan are in, I have no problem with Simmons. I just wouldn't put him in ahead of Trammell, Garvey, Murphy, Mattingly or Parker.

Ya'll need to make up your mind, one side says WAR overrates defense and says Andruw Jones isn't a HOF'er then the other says it underrates defense and claims Simmons isn't.

According to the number, without you assigning arbitrary, biased values to it, both are HOF'ers.

[SAllen2556]

Of the all-time top 80 players ranked by WAR, who is not a member of the Hall of Fame?

Answer:
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Albert Pujols
Adrian Beltre
Chipper Jones
Mike Mussina
Curt Schillling
Pete Rose

and...
Lou Whitaker.

Of the top 16 second basemen ranked by WAR, there are 3 players NOT in the Hall. They are Bobby Grich, Robinson Cano, and...Lou Whitaker

Among 2nd basemen, he's ranked 7th in games played, 14th in JAWS (ahead of Alomar, Biggio, Doerr, Fox), 10th in home runs, 5th in walks, 4th in double plays turned, 11th in putouts, 18th in range factor (ahead of Morgan and Sandberg, Kent, and Cano), and 6th in assists.

1978 Rookie of the year, 3 gold gloves, 4 time silver slugger, 5 time all-star

And he's not even on the damn ballot!

[bravos4evr]

Whitaker should be in, I wonder if the committee is still too beholden to offensive numbers to notice his stellar defense at 2b.

9th in fWAR all time for 2b. If you are top 10 at your position WAR you should be in the HOF.

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by SAllen2556

Of the all-time top 80 players ranked by WAR, who is not a member of the Hall of Fame?

Answer:
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Albert Pujols
Adrian Beltre
Chipper Jones
Mike Mussina
Curt Schillling
Pete Rose

and...
Lou Whitaker.

Of the top 16 second basemen ranked by WAR, there are 3 players NOT in the Hall. They are Bobby Grich, Robinson Cano, and...Lou Whitaker

Among 2nd basemen, he's ranked 7th in games played, 14th in JAWS (ahead of Alomar, Biggio, Doerr, Fox), 10th in home runs, 5th in walks, 4th in double plays turned, 11th in putouts, 18th in range factor (ahead of Morgan and Sandberg, Kent, and Cano), and 6th in assists.

1978 Rookie of the year, 3 gold gloves, 4 time silver slugger, 5 time all-star

And he's not even on the damn ballot!

From a prior post in this thread regarding players from this era:


These are the players that I feel are no brainer Hall Of Famers

Ted Simmons
Bobby Grich
Dick Allen
Ken Boyer
Dwight Evans

These are the others from the list that I would vote for

Dave Stieb
Keith Hernandez
Lou Whitaker
Graig Nettles
Alan Trammell
Reggie Smith

Tom C

[rats60]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

Ya'll need to make up your mind, one side says WAR overrates defense and says Andruw Jones isn't a HOF'er then the other says it underrates defense and claims Simmons isn't.

According to the number, without you assigning arbitrary, biased values to it, both are HOF'ers.

I don't need to make up my mind. Andrew Jones absolutely is a Hofer to me. When you are a better defensive C.F. than Willie Mays and bring the offense he did, you should be in. It is kind of my point, his WAR is on the low side for HOF.

Same for Munson and Freehan. As elite defensive catchers, I have them above a below average catcher who brought slightly better offense but only 18% above average and 2-6% better than those great defensive catchers.

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by rats60

I don't need to make up my mind. Andrew Jones absolutely is a Hofer to me. When you are a better defensive C.F. than Willie Mays and bring the offense he did, you should be in. It is kind of my point, his WAR is on the low side for HOF.

Same for Munson and Freehan. As elite defensive catchers, I have them above a below average catcher who brought slightly better offense but only 18% above average and 2-6% better than those great defensive catchers.

But as a catcher he was 26% above average. Thus even better than those "great defensive catchers". Also, note that Munson was a below league average hitter over the year and a half that ended his career. He was likely already on the downslope and that career OPS+ would have been well below 110 when all was said and done.

That said, I do believe Freehan is a HOFer and am willing to listen on Munson.

Tom C

[rats60]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

But as a catcher he was 26% above average. Thus even better than those "great defensive catchers". Also, note that Munson was a below league average hitter over the year and a half that ended his career. He was likely already on the downslope and that career OPS+ would have been well below 110 when all was said and done.

That said, I do believe Freehan is a HOFer and am willing to listen on Munson.

Tom C

From 1970-1980 when Simmons was 26% above average offensively, he accumulated 44.9 WAR. Over the same period Thurman Munson accumulated 45.6, despite playing 160 less games. Munson died in a plane crash on Aug 2, 1979 and missed the last 2 months of 1979 and all of 1980. Still with that advantage, he was worse than Munson. From 1980-1987, Simmons played 8 more seasons. He was below average offensively and below average defensively, but accumulated another 5 WAR. So, by sticking around as a bad player, he is now supposed to be a HoFer while Munson's career was too short to be inducted. That is what I mean by Simmons was a compiler.

[the 'stache]

Simmons had a peak on par with other second-tier Hall of Fame catchers, and had some of the best career stats of any of them. I'm not saying the guy is a slam dunk inductee, but I think he definitely deserved better than the 3.7% of the vote he received in 1994.