A thousand Bobby Grich's?

Name them.

He is one of the ten best 2B ever.

Tom C

I'm talking about average second basemen. They're everywhere. Maybe Bobby Grich was a little better, but nothing sets him apart from the plethora of guys like him. Decent stats, above average, but not the all time hitter Kent was.

Name another second basemen who could hit like Kent. You can't.

I just did. Bobby Grich was a better hitter than Jeff Kent.

He was also a better hitter than Ryne Sandberg and Roberto Alomar. And Frankie Frisch.

Tom C

Was surprised and kind of sad to see Jim Edmonds dropped off after one year...I think he got lost in the shuffle...one of the better outfielders in during his time....

Ricky Y

Grich
 

Tom there are none so blind as those who cannot see, eh?

That mustache alone is Hall Of Fame worthy.

Tom C

Hornsby, Lajoie, Collins, Morgan, Robinson, Alomar, Biggio, Gehringer, Carew, Grich, Sandberg, Utley, Frisch.

I would add Cano as well.

Tom C

Whitaker maybe as well.

I'm not going to quote JAWS but I don't remember any of them driving in 100 runs six years in a row. I'm also not going to compare people like Hornsby, Lajoie and Eddie Collins to Jeff Kent. Clearly we are talking about the modern era and the modern game.

Why not? They are second basemen. You said no second baseman ever hit like Jeff Kent. They are relevant.

As to driving in x amount of runs x years in a row...first off RBI is a stat that requires the performance of other players (to be on base). It is one of the most flawed measurable stats out there when used to compare one player from one team against another from another team in a different situation (let alone from different eras). Secondly, again, 100 RBI during Kent's playing career meant far less than it did at other times. Scoring was sky high league wide. 100 RBI in 2004 might have meant the same as 75 or 80 in 1975.

Tom C

So you think it's apt to compare say Cy Young to Pedro Martinez?

I was just saying that there was a very brief time when Lee Smith was considered the top closer in baseball.

Not that it should translate into the HOF.

And I will have to admit to loving Campy Campaneris. :)

Not in terms.of raw numbers as you are doing. But in terms of Youngs performance versus a league average pitcher of his time and Martinez performance versus a league average pitcher of his time, absolutely.

How much better than an average pitcher of his day was each one? That is quantifiable and thus each can be compared based on that.

Tom C

Whatever you say. I think players like Morgan and Carew were better pure hitters and for a longer amount of time, but they couldn't do what Kent did with the bat. Only Jeff Kent could and to an extent Sandberg. And with 3 decades between debuts, I think that says something about the special player Kent was considering there's no one on your list in between.

Well so far you, Darren, and one out of seven voters are the only ones buying. :D

There's never been a player unanimously elected, so how does that fit in with your narrative as you try to pivot to me being wrong because he only got 15% of the votes?? So in your world, all of the people who didn't vote for Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, WIllie Mays, Roberto Clemente and others were correct, because in your mind the HOF voters are infallible? Isn't that your implication?? Let's imagine for a moment that those people were the only ones allowed to vote. Wouldn't The Hall of Fame be empty, devoid of ANY players?? And, of course, leave it to you to completely ignore the blatant fact that Kent had a horrible relationship with the press corps, so it's pretty damn obvious to anyone with a brain cell that many, many of them have a personal animus towards him and will never vote for him no matter what. So the 15% isn't what I would call a realistic number by anyone's measurement, wouldn't you agree, Peter?? I'm sure you can find some new sabermetric to back that up.

And as for your reliance on sabermetrics since, I guess, it's the only thing you base all of your never-ending opinions on, you realize WAR is theoretical, don't you?? Theoretical. I'm reminded of Kevin Costner in the movie JFK:
"Theoretical physics can also prove that an elephant can hang off a cliff with its tail tied to a daisy! But use your eyes, your common sense."

Jeff Kent had 9 ridiculously great years in a row (with a few different teams) while the bookends of his career were still pretty darn good for run producing. This guy batted .290, is the all-time leader in HR's for a second baseman and #3 or 4 all time for the position in RBI's, yet in your THEORETICAL WAR-based world he was barely better than some bottom of the barrel schmuck they could've replaced him with??? Really? That's your common sense?? Sure, makes sense to me.

Offensively Kent was special. No question. If I try real hard I could make a case for him to be in the top ten second basemen in terms of just offense. And because I don't value defense as much as others might, Kent may be around #14 or 15 all time at the position. That's a HOFer in my book. Not a slam dunk, but deserving. Certainly way better than his voting percentages thus far.

Tom C

You make less than no sense to me. Somebody not being unanimous has nothing to do with somebody getting 15 percent of the vote. Total straw man argument. Or just a meaningless one. Oy vey. Is that seriously your argument, that HOF voting is meaningless because Willie Mays wasn't unanimous? Huh?? Here is a challenge for you, identify the best players ever who initially got 15 percent or less of the vote. Then we have something meaningful to discuss.

Yes, WAR and JAWS are theoretical. They are statistical efforts to compare players, and while you may not like them, many people find them informative.

It's so funny reading your constant passive aggressive BS. But what's even funnier is how you so obviously think you're always the smartest person in the room.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It took you this long to get ad hominem, congratulations on your restraint LOL. Passive aggressive? It was a good-natured jab at you, Jesus what the bleep is your problem?

Oh sure, Peter, it's not obvious to me or anyone else (because we're so stupid) that you want to direct the conversation in a completely different way. To steer into some other area that has nothing to do with anything being talked about. You think I'm going to fall for that BS?? Lemme take a wild guess, you're a lawyer???

Straw man argument?? You imply that the voters are the say all, know it alls of baseball. So if these folks are the arbiters of who belongs in the Hall, how in hell did any of them leave those inarguably great players off their ballots?????

Many people like you, right? You? If that's the metric, then I will gladly ignore all of them and rely on reality instead.

Not all sabermetric stats are theoretical. OPS+ is quantitative. Kent is not a top ten second baseman in OPS+. Barely top 20 for players with 6,000+ plate appearances.

Tom C

I just read this thread, since I haven't been here all day and you mentioned me numerous times. That's passive aggressive, not jabs, you tool.

Let me take a wild guess, you're not. :D

I think in the aggregate, yes, the voters are a pretty good barometer of who is Hall-worthy. Obviously there are some idiots voting but overall, someone getting 15 percent in their first three tries, is pretty relevant. Now if it's true that the reason people aren't voting for Kent is steroid suspicion, then I would have to modify that. But wasn't Kent leading the charge for testing? And wasn't he even speaking out against HGH?

http://www.sfgate.com/giants/shea/ar...ra-4197014.php

Perhaps more than any other ballplayer, Kent lobbied for testing when it wasn't trendy, when the union and much of its membership fought against it. In a clubhouse in which Greg Anderson once had free rein as a drug runner for Bonds and other Giants, Kent often stood at his locker and called for Major League Baseball and the union to iron out a legitimate steroids policy.

How about Larry Doyle ?

Peter--- you're a passive aggressive lawyer ? Darn.

If WAR and JAWS is the only way you can understand a player you watched that's sad. People like you will look at a player like Bernie Williams' stats forever and have no idea about how clutch he was when it mattered. But I will because I used my eyes.

How many of his 2076 games did you see?

More aggressive than passive I would say.

Nearly all of them. But his ability is much better represented on paper as you prefer.

That's a lot of games, wow. So do you think he should be in the Hall?

No but I'd pick him for my team if I wanted to win a championship. Hell, I'd pick Orlando Hernandez before a ton of HOFers too. But if you only looked at JAWS and WAR you'd probably cross them off your list pretty fast.

I always liked Bernie, but it was on the basis of a much smaller sampling of games obviously.

The thing is, I would bet you are quite unusual having seen that high a percentage of a given player's games. For most of us, we just have ideas based on a smaller sample, or we never saw them at all, which is why stats do matter.

If you lived in NY and were a Yankees fan, it was pretty easy to watch the Yankees play. I don't think I'm particularly special because I'm a loyal hometown fan. My point is there are things you don't need stats to tell you. But you are only relying on stats in your analysis of anyone.

For better or worse stats are the common denominator. Suppose you were very knowledgeable about Bernie Williams, and another guy was very knowledgeable about Bagwell. Both of you claim their guy was great way beyond what his stats show, based on their personal observation. Do we just take both of your words and vote em both in (or if you don't think Bernie was worthy pick someone else, who it is is irrelevant to the problem)? If not, how do we test your claims? In baseball it seems, where EVERYTHING shows up in a stat sheet, what we have to make comparisons are stats. Because nobody has seen everybody.

I think stats are useful when you're discussing a player you never saw play or a player who played a different kind of baseball, like say a deadball era player. But when we're a group discussing players we all saw play out their entire careers, I don't think stats are as important as personal experience. Years from now people may look at Vlad's numbers and think they're puny compared to a guy like Griffey. But if you saw Vlad play, you know he could hit with just about anyone. That's the difference.

I saw Vlad, but maybe in 25-30 games, not a meaningful sample. Maybe more than that but still, not hundreds. Griffey maybe more than that, but still, overall, a very small percentage of his games and very few for the second half of his career as I am in an AL city. Those samples can be deceptive. When you test, for example, some of the great clutch hitter type claims based on subjective impressions (a la Munson), they don't hold up.

Right but I'm talking about the perception a stat sheet gives you vs. first hand watching the player. Vlad's numbers aren't going to jump out at anyone 100 years from now. But anyone who saw him play even once would tell you the guy was a pure hitter amongst pure hitters and it's going to be a while before you see another one like him. A stat sheet won't tell you that and since we're discussing players of today, I think there's room for debate without a stat sheet in front of you.

If you can come up with a game situation, there is a stay for it. Driving in the go ahead run with two out in the seventh inning or later? That can be gotten. Whatever your definition of "clutch" is it can be quantified. It may not agree with a preconceived notion, bias, or emotion. But it can most certainly be quantified.

Tom C

I don't think so. Tommy Henrich's nickname is Old Reliable. I don't know why. I never saw him play and his 262 WS average doesn't jump out at me. But I bet someone on the board who did see him play will defend him forever.

My only point is that we shouldn't be so stringent in our discussions about modern players that we've all seen play. Stats don't need to fill in the blanks for these players. We all saw them and we should be able to debate them without being reduced to JAWS or WAR. That's for guys you never saw.

Impressions, and memories, are highly subjective. And often biased.

In recent years the Hall of Fame has turned into the Hall of Mediocrity

I really think there is an eye test that is being missed here. What we do know is that Kent moved to Astros in 2003, and joined Biggio there. However, Kent is the player who stayed at 2nd base, and Biggio moved to the outfield. If Biggio were the better player at 2nd, wouldn't the team have kept him at 2nd and moved Kent to the OF?

I really think it's pointless to continue to argue this because I'm pretty confident that Kent will eventually make the HOF even if it is via the Veteran's Committee (unless of course, he is implicated for using PEDs). Every other player who leads his position (excluding pitchers) in home runs all time is in the Hall of Fame (taking out PED users). He's obviously not a first ballot HOFer, and he doesn't have the 3000 hit credentials like Biggio. However, he is someone like a Gary Carter who will get in eventually.

What does moving Biggio to the outfield have to do with whether he or Kent was the better hitter? Or maybe Biggio was more adaptable and Kent couldn't play outfield?

I agree he will eventually get in barring some PED issue real or imagined keeping him out.

But Biggio went to center field because he was a good enough athlete to move there. He was also a good enough athlete to have started his career as a catcher. Jeff Kent in Center field?

Oh. My. Freaking. Goodness. No.

No.

Tom C

Peter, please just read your comments again. Seriously, if that doesn't get through, how about Kent had a higher WAR than Biggio those two years that both played for the Astros? Would that prove to you that Kent was the better hitter then during those years?

Tom, Biggio had a negative defensive WAR during those 2003 and 2004 when he played OF when Kent was there. In fact, Biggio's career defensive WAR is -3.9 while Kent's career defensive WAR is -0.9. Therefore, just maybe Kent was the better athlete.

Regarding Bernie Williams and "clutch", Fangraphs has a stat called...well...clutch. It measures a players stats in such " clutch" situations versus his stats overall. Someone with better stats in the clutch situations will have a positive "clutch" value. Generally a number greater than zero but less than two. So conversely, a negative number means that person did worse than their normal in clutch situations.

Bernie Williams clutch number is -.99.

Tom C

Does this clutch factor into playoff games or only regular season?

Only regular season. Doing just playoff games would be too small of a sample size to be meaningful.

Tom C

lol.

HOF Voting
 

Peak value for a 4/5 year period, Joe Morgan was a better hitter than Kent...case closed. Historically speaking, Hornsby, Lajoie and Collins are all better pure hitters, with Hornsby arguably the greatest right handed hitter ever along with Aaron and Foxx.

HOF Voting
 

Well said Peter. Jeff Kent couldn't run down a beach ball in the outfield, let alone a batted baseball!

Postseason is what I was talking about when I said clutch. I said I'd pick Bernie for my team if I wanted to win. He hit 280 with 22 homers and 80 rbi's in 121 postseason games. That's nearly an entire season of postseason games and he played that well when it mattered most.

Then there's a guy named Carew who won 6 batting titles in 7 years.

Why in the World do we keep talking about Jeff Kent? What am I missing?

A little more power, but relatively consistent with his regular season stats where he had a 162 game average of 22-98-/297

Because he's an obvious HOFer, the best hitting second baseman of the modern era, who has been shafted by the voters. :eek:

In my opinion, Jeff Kent should be in the HOF. Bobby Grich should not be. Kent was considered elite during his peak years. I don't recall Grich being perceived the same way.

Kent made five all star teams, Grich six.

Yes that's true but you're not factoring in the importance of the games he played in. The guy was a winner. He's who I want in centerfield if I'm trying to win a championship. If I want a guy to play well all year and crap out when I need him most I'll look elsewhere. Anyway we're getting away from the central point I was trying to make which was that I don't need a stat sheet to tell me about a player I watched. Your JAWS, WAR, and anything else you want to throw in means nothing to me if I saw the player and we can discuss the player independent of those stats.

Good article on Kent and his HOF case.

http://www.si.com/mlb/2014/12/16/jaw...llot-jeff-kent

I know, but Kent won the MVP and seemed to me more dominant than Grich in his prime.

I am not saying anything against Williams, as I said I liked him a lot. But my point is that impressions, memories, etc. are subjective and don't always hold up to reality.

Of course not but we're talking about players who retired less than 10 years ago. Memory isn't that fluid. And like I said, when you look back on the game as an old man, are you bringing up WAR? Is that how you want to remember a player like Griffey? Can't we talk about what we saw on the field?

Of course, but when the question is raised who is better, X or Y, I think the argument will be made far more persuasively with statistics than memories.

Turning to peak WAR, covering his best seven seasons, Kent's 35.6 ranks 25th, about nine wins behind the average Hall of Fame second baseman and below 13 of the 19 enshrined. Kent is hurt on both WAR fronts because he had just three seasons of at least 5.0 WAR, all of them from 1999 to 2001, and two more seasons of at least 4.0 WAR. By comparison, Morgan had 10 seasons of at least 5.0 WAR. Alomar, Cano, Grich, Sandberg and Utley had six apiece, and Biggio, Rod Carew and Dustin Pedroia recorded five. Even at the 4.0 WAR bar, 11 post-expansion second basemen had more big seasons.

In the end, Kent's 45.4 JAWS is 12.6 points below the Hall standard for second basemen, 18th all-time but below 11 of the 19 Hall of Famers, and too far to be made up by the parts of his resumé that the system doesn't capture, mainly the awards and the postseason (a characteristic .276/.340/.500 with nine homers in 189 PA). Outside of his 2000 MVP award, his highest finish was sixth, and he made just five All-Star teams. He scores 122 ("a good possibility") on the Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor, but the average score for a Hall of Fame second baseman is 161.

When I lived in Houston I saw Phil Garner play at the Astrodome around 30 times. He probably hit 12 HR's in those games, which led me to believe that he was an incredible HR hitter. I also personally saw Sandy Alomar Jr hit the longest HR I've ever seen, t.v. or otherwise, leading me to believe that he was the strongest baseball player in history. We didn't have the internet back then, and I didn't have their baseball cards, so I would probably have voted both of them into the Hall of Fame. I also saw Edwin Correa carry a no-hitter into the 8th, and from what I remember about him, he always performed above average when I attended Rangers games, so I'm going to have to put him on my ballot as well.

I saw Griffey Jr. hit his last home run, and I also saw him asleep in the dug-out. I'm just glad he came back to wrap up things in Seattle; otherwise, I would never have gotten to see him play. Congrats to him for his election.

Regarding Edgar - there will always be those who argue against DH's in the Hall.
Regarding Sammy and McGwire - same thing for peds; however, it's kind of weird that Larry Stone (our local sports writer) voted for Barry Bonds, but left off Sosa and McGwire - where's the logic in that?
Regarding Kent and Grich - if you are going to let Rizzuto and Reese in, why not? On the other hand, are there any HOF'er baseball cards from Kent's days that you would trade for a Kent? for a Grich? I thought not.

Lots of nonsense in this thread, so I feel no guilt for adding mine.

I know, I have the JAWS stats on my favorites. WAR / JAWS is helpful but by itself is not a bright line for or against Hall induction, especially since defensive WAR is highly suspect and in some cases totally inaccurate. I know Bobby Grich's baseball cards were in the commons bin growing up. He was underrated but not considered an elite player during his day.

And Kent's were valuable?:confused:

LOL, by that time none of them were...

Where is BALCO located? Put up a PED Hall of Fame there and let all these guys in. That's where they belong. Will be fun induction ceremonies.

I take All Star appearances with a grain of salt in all sports where fans vote.

Example- Adrian Beltre(who I believe will be a HOF'er btw), hit 48 HR's with a .330 BA in 2004, second in MVP behind Bonds and didn't make an All Star appearance that year.

It looks good when you have them, but if you don't, I don't put into much consideration. I look more at the top 15 MVP each year.

Speaking of MVP-

Grich
MVP (yr lg (rk, shr))
1972 AL (14, 5%)
1973 AL (19, 3%)
1974 AL (9, 15%)
1979 AL (8, 15%)
1981 AL (14, 5%)
0.43 Career Shares (501st)

Kent
MVP (yr lg (rk, shr))
1997 NL (8, 20%)
1998 NL (9, 12%)
1999 NL (26, 0%)
2000 NL (1, 88%)
2002 NL (6, 30%)
2004 NL (13, 4%)
2005 NL (19, 4%)
1 MVP
1.58 Career Shares (145th)

I went back and checked the Mitchell Report and Sheffield, Sosa, Bonds, and Clemens were all mentioned and I believe that report still has enough influence to keep all those mentioned out of the Hall & I hope the commissioner and the voters would feel the same way.
.
.

I am not sure what the point of this is. It has already been established that Grich always has been overlooked as a player. "Cards in the common bin" and all that.

It has also been established that be was a better hitter than Kent when judged against the other players of his time, and when judged by WAR. Grich also won four gold gloves and likely should have won several more. He was a top defensive second baseman.

Kent no so much.

Better hitter. FAR better fielder. Vastly undervalued.

Tom C

Because someone brought up All Star appearances between the 2, and in my previous post I stated that...

Ehh, just scroll up and read it. I put MVP because All Star appearances are pointless.

Saves are a worthless stat.

Basically, you're saying, of all the relievers who played from 1980-1997 and finished with exactly 478 saves, Lee Smith was the premier guy. I certainly can't argue with that.

Premier closers put up sub-2.00 ERA seasons. Smith did that once. But he did have 13 over 3.00 - a by-no-means great number for a closer.

Very interesting thread. Comparing real world perceptions of player value (i.e watching guys play) to pure statistical analysis is something modern MLB upper management seems to have trouble balancing, and this thread is no different.