If WAR is what it takes to get into the HOF, count me out. HOF has lost it's relevance, and no longer matters. More stupid, irrelevant BS.

When the math doesn't agree with one's view, it is the math that must be wrong.

A lot of the HOF voting is based on how popular a player is with the press, and to some extent where they play. And to some extent who retires in the few years after any particular player retires. Evans is a good example of this, might have gotten in after a few years of eligibility, but came up against a year with something like 3 first ballot players and went off the ballot.
Parker was someone I could see being a hofer, but my recollection of him is that he wasn't particularly press friendly.

There was that stretch where he said he had trouble getting charged up for games and had fans throwing batteries at him in the field. A player with a better relationship with the press would have that quote handled differently, put in a better context, or maybe not even mentioned.

He did fall short in most career milestones, but the good years are what makes it a harder choice. How much should any player be penalized for a strike shortened year like 81?

And for the WAR above all else guys, how much should a player be penalized for just happening to play at a time when their position had lots of great players? Or for playing a slightly different position? Is Lynn better than Rice because he played center? Despite annually pulling his groin trying for long drives to the wall? Better than Evans? Why should he or any player get a bonus for playing a different position?

I agree with most everyone here, Parker is borderline. I am not unbiased and was a big Parker fan during his days in Pittsburgh and would have loved to see him get in, maybe still...

The fact remains that the direct reason for such low vote totals from the writers association has all to do with his drug connection in Pittsburgh. Aside from that, he would do doubt have been up in the 50-75% range over 10 years and maybe gets in towards the end there, maybe not. All the 27% max vote numbers prove is that the drug connection totally destroyed his 50/50 chance of getting in based on his playing ability/career.

BTW later in his career, no one was more highly regarded as a good character guy for his teams than Parker. Of course, he played for enough of them. lol

Yeah but you're one of those "Big Hall" guys :)

Also I would argue Parker ever being considered the best player. I'd give you "among the best players" but Martinez was among the best hitters of his era.

Finally, a cannon does not make for a great defender. Guy made a TON of outfield errors. Yes he had a cannon, but catching the ball is kind of a big thing too.

WAR is a stat, that's all it is. Its a tool to use to judge players. Saying it doesnt make sense because Jose Cruz had a higher WAR than Tony Perez is like saying batting average doesn't make sense because Rusty Greer had a higher career BA than Reggie Jackson or Harmon Killebrew.

I would argue against Parker being the best in baseball from 1977-1979. Seems most ignore more precise measurements like OPS+ and rely mostly on the traditional AVG/HR/RBI.

So if just going by the traditional AVG/HR/RBI then George Foster and Jim Rice are better than Parker from 1977-1979.

Their average per year in that span:

Foster .301/41/122 w/ a 157 OPS+
Rice .320/41/128 w/ a 153 OPS+
Parker .327/25/100 w/ a 150 OPS+

If defense is added, then you have to add all the other positions and the ones with higher positional value where their offense may not have been as high.

That being said, WAR fails when it comes to defense measurement and that is where you get the mistakes of Bret Garnder being listed as good. The WAR defensive component is far from accurate. So is the positional adjusment in WAR. It does make a difference when a SS hits 30 home runs compared to a RF, but how much so is debatable and the WAR component that adds that adjustment has a guess element to it as well.

So I would take Parker's offensive contributions and weigh those much heavier than the defensive metrics.

A lifetime 121 OPS+ from Parker is good, and is borderline, but he also played almost every day and had a couple 160 game seasons, so he didn't get the platoon advantage in his rate stats that most LH hitters did.

Considering all of that, and that Parker lost playing time in a crowded OF when he just came up...and the strike year too....I say yes to Parker.

I think the drug stuff is being oversold honestly. I think the traditional drug stuff has long ago been forgiven. I mean, it only delayed Fergie Jenkins induction by a couple years.

Though they got there with different ebbs and flows of their careers, Parker has almost identical lifetime stats to Dale Murphy.

Dale Murphy, who was beloved by fans, won 2 MVP Awards, 5 Gold Gloves (as a centerfielder no less, whether they were deserved is another argument), 7 time All-Star, 4 time Silver Slugger. Absolutely crushed it for about a 6 year span from 1982-87.

Unfortunately, past his age 31 season, he was barely a replacement level player anymore.

Support through the years from HOF voters compared to Parker. Nearly identical. Parker maybe even got slightly more support, though it's negligible.

Absolutely dominant stretches for both guys, but cumulatively, they are just on the outside looking in.

I'm a big Hall of Fame kind of guy, so I won't ever begrudge either of them getting in, but it might be a long wait.

You sound like Gregg Jeffries! Sticks and stones bruh!

With Baines’ induction lowering the bar, a number of candidates suddenly seem viable.

Well, there are such things as imaginary numbers, right?

If the question is "should Dave Parker be elected to the HOF based on the current inductees that are enshrined?" The answer is simply - YES.

If the question is "should Dave Parker be elected to the HOF based on his career?" The answer becomes debatable.

In 1986 he led the league with 304 total bases and scored a .3 WAR. Something just doesn't seem right with that number.

Overall, I think he'd be a borderline yes due to his batting titles, MVP and all-star appearances.

Which stats do you think are not imaginary? I’m happy to use other stats instead of WAR, as I’ve written several times in this thread. I don’t think it is reasonable to use completely subjective things like awards. Parker is similar to several other 120’s OPS+ players of the period, Hernandez, Lynn, Rice, Madlock, etc. of whom only Rice has been elected. The consensus seems to be this group is not HOF worthy.

I’d love to use other math. I’ll accept any objective standard. No objective case has yet been made for Parker. Each one has been an appeal to subjective standards.

Yes, during that period, he was better than Foster. In the 1980 baseball preview issue, Sports Illustrated had Parker and Jim Rice on the cover under the headline “Who’s the Best?” And made the case that at that moment, they were the two best inbaseball.

He wasn't better than Foster in 1977. He wasnt better than Rice in 1978. He wasnt THE best player in baseball 1977-1979.

Fred Lynn was better in 1979. I am guessing Schmidt too though I didn't check.

Didn’t say he was better than Foster in 1977 or Rice in 1978. Or the best player in baseball for those three years.

I voted "No" but I'd take him over several HOFers (including recent inductees like Hodges and Baines) who seem to beat him out based on "character" points.

In the moment (or at the time) the Cobra (later the Whale) sure felt like a HOFer. He was charismatic, talented, and a winner. The more recent metrics take him down a few pegs. Sort of the opposite of Bobby Grich, Ted Simmons, and Bert Blyleven.

My leading "sure felt like a HOFer" when he played who is still on the outside looking in is Steve Garvey. IF you asked a baseball fan about him during his playing days even the haters would have conceded he was a HOFer.

Dave Parker belongs in the HOF

10 time all star and all those 200 hit seasons, but the metrics hate him. I think though it was before the metrics became in vogue that he failed to get in -- was he punished in part for his personality, I don't know. Maybe his relative lack of power?

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Parker was on the ballot from 1997-2011... Never cleared 25% and peaked his second year, 1998.
He wasn't either a one-team guy or a major market star so those factors don't help him either.
Not sure if he was punished for his personality (like Richie Allen) but I don't think he's gotten the benefit that guys like Hodges, Baines, and Oliva got. Maybe he will get in, he's not as far out from his career as those three and it seems like the committee of last resort is willing to let in statistically lower-end candidates. To my thinking Parker's a bit below average all things considered.

I was talking about Garvey.

If you make a list of players deserving to get into the Hall of Fame, there will be a lot of names before you get to Parker.

Some more obscure stats that point to Parker's limitations: He averaged only about 35 walks per season. His career on base percentage was a pedestrian .339. And he made 134 errors in right field, an amazingly high number.




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While I definitely agree that Willie McGee should not have won the MVP in 1985, Dave Parker shouldn't have either. Dwight Gooden was, by far, the best player in the NL in 1985. If you don't like pitchers winning the MVP then I'd probably go with Dale Murphy instead over Parker. Similar average, OBP, SLG, and homer stats but Murphy was a significantly better defender.

Gooden got absolutely robbed in '85.

If we aren't allowed to pick a pitcher, I'd give it to Pedro Geuerrero that year. WAR has him a hair below McGee but I think he had the better year. Really only hurt by the fewer games, but he had the best rate production.

McGee was as good a pick as anybody in 1985, if you're going with a non-pitcher.

Garvey was a corner infielder who didn’t hit for power so WAR doesn’t like him. Parker didn’t walk and had a low OBP and those things weren’t valued in his time. Had they been, he might have been a different hitter. Wade Boggs, who DID walk a lot and had a high OBP, and was coming along at the same time, was kept in the minors by Boston until he was 25 because he was a third baseman who didn’t hit for power. Different times with different values from today. Our values today are heavily influenced by the relatively new metrics.

Well when you get caught cheating on your wife AND your mistress it does tarnish your All-American Boy reputation. He was my hero growing up I remember being so crushed when that whole thing came out.

It is amazing that with 200 hits and between 25 and 35 home runs 3 times the dude never slugged .500. By WAR he was the 3rd best guy in that famous infield, and not all that far ahead of Bill Russell!

The main reason those players didn't walk is because they were most likely high volume swingers who needed to do that approach to produce exactly what they did. Every generation has those guys, even now.

Every generation of hitters also has players who have the ability to be both selective enough to take walks and also still maintain a high slugging percentage and/or batting average(relative to their league averages). Those guys are called the elite.

It isn't really a choice to wake up one day and say "Hey, I'm going to take 50% more walks while also maintaining my slugging percentage and batting average." That is a rare ability.


What would surprise many is that the base on balls rate in MLB the last 15 years is actually lower than what it was in the 1950's, and very similar to that of the late 1970's/early 80's.

Since 2014 the walk per game rate has ranged from 2.88 to 3.39 per game.

From 1977 to 1979 it was 3.27, 3.24, and 3.23.

If it were as easy to do what Mike Schmidt did with walking 100 times a year and still leading the league in Home Runs AND Slugging percentage....then more people would do it...but they can't because they don't have that ability. It is rare. Players simply fall on different lines of that OB%/SLG% ability spectrum. It isn't the choice that many seem to think it is.

The 1950's ranged from a low of 3.29 to a high of 4.02.

It doesn't say much for Parker if he spent 19 years in the majors and never learned that walks are valuable. Most of us knew that when we were 12 year old kids playing Little League.

To add to the above post, that generation of the 70's/80's had several guys who could take walks and still maintain batting averages and slugging percentages as good as Parker.

Eddie Murray in his prime, 1982-1985 had a slash line of .306/.394/.529, OPS+of 155. He is what I would call a hybrid of someone like Schmidt and Parker. Murray was selective enough to take his walks while also maintaining a higher volume of swings than someone like Schmidt. Murray had extreme elite hitting with men on base those years as well.

What really hurt Parker is that he had some very average years right after his peak. From 1980-1983 his OPS+ was only 107. Traditional stat-wise He averaged 11 HR and hit .280 with 56 RBI per year in that stretch.

Maybe it exists but it would be interesting to have a metric that assigns relative weights to walks, each type of hit, stolen bases, sacrifices and sac flies, etc and divides it over plate appearances. Maybe you even get a negative for GIDP and Ks.

I've always been kind of fascinated by good hitters who didn't walk...but also didn't strike out very much either.

Think Tony Gwynn, Don Mattingly, Yogi Berra, etc....

Those guys just believed in making contact, and could almost at will foul pitches off until they got something they liked.

Not saying it was the best way to go about things "analytically"....but interesting....

You could also throw in, making contact and moving a runner over. Doesn't count as a sacrifice, but definitely more valuable of an out, then a strikeout.

The Mattingly's and Gwynn's I mentioned above, did that regularly.

Yes, wouldn't that be great? You could do the weightings based on how each of those individual stats contribute to team wins. Then you could compare players' overall results to each other or even to a replacement level player.

Somebody should do that.

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Right. I think deducting for Ks as I suggested would capture that.

Maybe. I guess the issue is that strikeouts aren't frowned upon anymore. At least it's not a Double Play, is kind of what the thinking goes, I guess.

It's all about launch angle now, and not cutting down your swing later in the count.

That's what analytics have decided is more valuable.

I'm self-aware enough to know, I'm not smart enough to dispute that.

You can count exactly how many times a player made an out that moved a runner. It isn't a mystery and that positive is already included in the better measurements. Don't forget though, that guys who strike out a lot also move runners up with their contact outs too...so in the end the difference is pretty small in its positive impact. It does help, but not to the degree that many seem to make it out to be.

I think everyone forgets that over half of your at bats come with nobody on base, so right off the bat, half of your outs, whether they are line outs, fly outs, or strikeouts, accomplish the exact same thing. Nothing.

For example, a guy who strikes out 130 times is viewed by many as an abomination. Then another who strikkes out 30 times as an instant HOFer. So the difference is 100 contact outs. Half of those occur with nobody on base, so the difference is really 50 contact outs. About 1/3 occur with two outs where it doesn't matter either, so the differnce is then about 32 outs. Then of those 32, not all of them move runners. Most don't, and of some of the ones that do, it is only when there are zero outs where the impact is felt more. So just thinking logically without even counting all of them, there is a difference, but not a big one.

Then just look at the play by play data and you don't have to guess. Those are included in the better hitting measurements, not WAR though.

I tend to think the modern analytics has it correct, strikeouts are not that detrimental to the offense. However, most pitching metrics continue to heavily weight strikeouts. If strikeouts are not that detrimental to the offense, then they are also not that helpful to the defense.

Those were his cocaine years. He stopped using in 1982 because he knew it was affecting his performance and had a resurgence in 1985-86.

A lot of great pitchers over the years have said they only got great when they came to realize that they didn’t need to strike everyone out.

Yet still struck them out. That has to do more with command. They got great by limiting the baserunners and home runs. When you limit the baserunners and home runs then it doesn't matter how many you strike out or not, just like in hitting.

The more BB, 1B, 2B, 3B, and HR you get, the better you become....even if you struck out in every single out you made, it wouldn't matter as long as you are getting the most BB, 1B, 2B, 3B, and HR.

Maybe. Situational stuff gets lost a bit, but maybe not enough to make much of a difference.

GIDP's is one of the WAR killers along with Caught Stealing and poor OBP (not taking walks, generally) K's are just another out though.

because any time you avoid contact as a pitcher you lessen the chance of a negative outcome for you.

Situational items are most definitely included in the more precise hitting measurements. They don't get lost at all.

Also, the reason why pitcher strikeouts are viewed a little differently than hitters strikeout is that pitcher strikeouts are a good indicator that the skill of getting the batter out was close to 100% done by the pitcher when it was a strikeout, whereas, if a pitcher induces a ground out, then the fielding ability becomes a factor into how much the pitcher or fielder was responsible for the out.

That comes into play when predicting future performance of a pitcher. That is why when measuring a pitcher, when you look at their strikeout and walk ratios that is a good indicator of how good they are as opposed to if it was good defense behind them. Same for home runs allowed by a pitcher. Home runs allowed by a pitcher removes teams' defensive ability from the equation.

That doesn't mean that pitchers can't induce weak contact too, because they can, and some can repeat that year after year...but it is not on the same level of predictability as strikeout to walk ratio and home runs allowed.

Yes, I understand that. I am saying it is not really possible, in a direct conflict between hitter and pitcher, for an event to be almost insignificantly harmful to the offense but hugely beneficial to the defense. That makes no logical sense. If it doesn’t really hurt the offense much, then it cannot help the defense much.

The reason why pitcher strikeouts are viewed a little differently than hitters strikeout is that pitcher strikeouts are a good indicator that the skill of getting the batter out was close to 100% done by the pitcher when it was a strikeout, whereas, if a pitcher induces a ground out, then the fielding ability becomes a factor into how much the pitcher or fielder was responsible for the out.

That comes into play when predicting future performance of a pitcher. That is why when measuring a pitcher, when you look at their strikeout and walk ratios that is a good indicator of how good they are as opposed to if it was good defense behind them. Same for home runs allowed by a pitcher. Home runs allowed by a pitcher removes teams' defensive ability from the equation.

That doesn't mean that pitchers can't induce weak contact too, because they can, and some can repeat that year after year...but it is not on the same level of predictability as strikeout to walk ratio and home runs allowed.


Other than that, from the pitcher's perspective, an out is still just an out whether a ground out or strikeout occurs. What it comes down to is limiting baseruners and limiting home runs. The better you are at that, the better pitcher you will be. That is why someone like Greg Maddux was superior to Nolan Ryan despite that vast difference in strikeouts.

Same for hitters, it comes down to getting on base and getting on base efficiently(done in the least amount of outs made with the most amount of bases taken in one plate appearance).

Hitting the most home runs while making the least amount of outs is the most optimal way of hitting.

Then you have a sliding scale of hitters who get the most BB, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR while making the least amount of outs....and it may make a 2% difference if the outs are batted ball outs or strikeouts, because what really matters is how many HR, 3B, 2B, 1B, and BB you get with home being the obvious most valuable in that line of importance.

Maybe poorly worded, but basically I was agreeing with you.