Christmas Day Trivia

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by familytoad

I guess no one figured in home field advantages and road splits for the first 175 players inducted into the HOF.

Maybe Chuck Klein and Mel Ott should be re-evaluated. But if they did, they had best look at all the ballparks that every great player played in, being careful to penalize them for playing wherever they played...

This goes to show how a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous and misleading in failing completely to show the whole picture. To quote a couple of expert sabermathematicians far more knowledgeable than any of us, Jay Jaffe and Bill James, on Ott and Klein respectively, please see the following:

First, Jaffe on Mel Ott (clearly one of the top 25 major league players of all time, carrying a well deserved ranking of the 4th best rightfielder of all time by both): "[While Ott] hit 323 homers there [in the Polo Grounds] compared to 188 elsewhere,...HIS OVERALL RATE STATS WEREN'T ALL THAT DIFFERENT (.297/.422/.558 at home, .311/.408/.510 elsewhere)[emphasis added]." A career .918 OPS over 20 years (here, ON THE ROAD, NO LESS, LET ALONE OVERALL), leading the NL in HR's six times, and 12 All Star appearances will get ANYONE elected to the HOF unless they kill the President!

James on Chuck Klein's abilities: "[T]here's just too much. You can't ignore THAT MUCH statistical evidence. Yes, I know the Baker Bowl was a hitter's park. A whole lot of other people played there, and they didn't hit .386. If you ignore the .386 you've got the triple crown year to deal with, or the time he hit 59 doubles, or the two straight seasons of 40 home runs, or the 170 RBI. He had hit totals of 219, 250, 200, 226, and 223. Klein had 44 assists in 1930, a modern record, and people would say, 'Oh yeah, but see in the Baker Bowl he could play so shallow that sometimes he'd throw people out at first,' so we have to ignore that too...
You just can't ignore THAT MUCH statistical evidence...I've become convinced that Klein was [at] the level of unquestioned excellence but marginal greatness...[I]t is obvious from the literature of the time that Klein WAS regarded, while active, as a great player; maybe not as great as Ott and Waner, but in the same group. He was one of those players...who was always the focus of attention wherever he went. The headline over every team he played for at the end of the season was always going to read 'Klein has great season' or 'Klein doesn't have great season [emphasis original]."

Indeed, many good hitters played for the Phillies at the Baker Bowl. NONE, ABSOLUTELY NONE, hit like he did for as long as he did! Walker and Helton would be hard pressed to say the same. Check out the career stats, just by way of a few examples among many, Tulowitski: .310 BA and .918 OPS at home, .269 BA, .791 road. And Carlos Gonzalez: .323 and .974 at Coors; .251 and .728 on the road. Never in the history of the game has the home field total offensive advantage been so in favor of hitters playing at home in one ballpark--Coors field! Always evaluate Colorado players on their road record, plus a little extra for a typical home field advantage, but that "little extra" doesn't even begin to approach what playing at Coors bestows upon them!

Klein and Ott were at least intentionally taking advantage of what their ballparks offered them, which is what they were supposed to have been doing. Walker and Helton, in contrast, were by comparison dropped off at a place where they could essentially play their home games in little league as full grown adults! What would Joey Gallo have been able to do playing his home games at the Baker Bowl? .228 and 50 HR's?

No one is "penalizing anyone" for where they play, but instead, are simply taking home/away stats as an additional factor in measuring how really good or great a given player ACTUALLY was.

'Nuff said,

Larry