Torre, La Rusa & Cox get the call.....

[Beatles Guy]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

I agree with you, Jason. I had the good fortune of seeing Simba several times in person once he was traded to Milwaukee. He was, of course, in his early thirties by then, but he could still rake. People that look at his career numbers and see 248 home runs have no idea how hard this man hit the baseball. I grew up seeing some great hitters, including Cecil Cooper, Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and some great power hitters in Gorman Thomas and Ben Oglivie. Simmons hit the ball as hard as any of them. There were times I wondered how County Stadium kept some his blasts from going out. And he was underrated defensively. More on that below.



When Ted Simmons was acquired by the Brewers, he immediately assumed his place behind home plate. Charlie Moore, who was our #1 catcher before Ted arrived in Milwaukee, moved to right field.

In 1981, Simmons caught 75 of the 100 games he played (strike season).
In 1982, Simmons caught 121 of the 137 games he played.
In 1983, Simmons caught 86 of the 153 games he played.

From 1984 going forward, yes, he was pretty much a full time DH, catching occasionally. But he didn't move to DH because of any defensive deficiencies. His knees were giving out. He was 34 then, and had played nearly 2,000 games.

You are being a bit unfair in suggesting that Simmons was a liability defensively. In 1982, when we went to the World Series, he had the highest fielding percentage of all AL catchers, and threw out 36% of all base stealers, which was league average. Earlier in his career, he was better. In 1971, he threw out 42%. In 1973, he threw out 44%. In 1976 he threw out 44%, second in the NL. In 1972 and 1978, he led all NL catchers in assists. In 1973, 1974, and 1976 he was second. in 1975 and 1979 he was third. So while he was not the top defensive catcher in the National League, and there are much better methods of evaluating his defensive prowess now in the Saebermetric age, using these old standards shows he was not exactly a slouch behind the plate.

Johnny Bench was clearly the best catcher of the 70s. Then there's Fisk, Carter and Simmons (I'd include Thurman Munson in this discussion, but I don't think he played long enough at a high level). Two are in, and Simmons should be as well.

Nice work sir. Do you think that being overshadowed by Bench in the 70's hurt his chances?

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by Beatles Guy

Nice work sir. Do you think that being overshadowed by Bench in the 70's hurt his chances?

Thanks

It's certainly possible that Bench hurt his chances, but I don't think it's likely. It's difficult to extrapolate why Simmons was shunned by the voters without knowing who the voters were, and what biases they may have had. Bench was part of that Big Red Machine in Cincinnati that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He was an elite player defensively, winning ten gold gloves, and offensively he was without peer. By the time he was thirty, he'd led the National League in home runs twice, RBIs three times, and had amassed over 300 home runs, and 1,100 RBIs. He was also a two-time NL MVP. That's why I feel that the other great catchers of this era should be compared against each other. Bench was on a level of his own.

When you look at the next tier of catchers in the 70s, the disparity between their initial Hall of Fame votes is puzzling.

Gary Carter received 42.3% of the vote, or 200 votes, his first year of eligibility in 1998. He was elected in 2003, his sixth year of eligibility.
Carlton Fisk received 66.4% of the vote, or 330 votes, his first year of eligibility in 1999. He was elected in 2000, the next year.
Thurman Munson received 15.5% of the vote, or 62 votes, his first year of eligibility in 1981. He remained on the ballot for 15 season, but never again attained over 10% of the vote. Is it possible, even likely that he gained additional votes his first year because he died tragically in a plane crash? Yes. While Munson was a very good player, and for a short time a great player, there's no way that I would consider him more worthy of a Hall nod than Simmons.
Ted Simmons only received 3.7% of the vote, or 17 votes, in his first year of eligibility in 1994. That eliminated him from further consideration by the BBWAA.

Bill James' Hall of Fame monitor (HOFm) attempts to quantify a player's likelihood of being elected into Cooperstown. A score of over 100 means a player is a likely inductee.

Ted Simmons HOFm was 124, which well exceeded the threshold for Hall worthiness in James' estimation.

Even if you look at the initial HOFm of Simmons' peers, there wasn't a disparity that would shed light on why they were elected (or in Munson's case, remained on the ballot for 15 seasons), and Simmons was not.

Gary Carter's HOFm in 1998: 135
Carlton Fisk's HOFm in 1999: 120
Thurman Munson's HOFm in 1981: 90

Ted Simmons HOFm in 1994: again, 124

Now, the HOFm metric, like WAR, is far from perfect. It considers a number of factors. But it is puzzling that, based on the merits this metric considers, only Gary Carter was considered more "worthy" of Hall induction than Simmons, yet Carter, Fisk and even Munson all received substantially more votes.

When one again compares their career numbers, and their per 162 game averages, there is nothing that suggests Simmons would be a less deserving member of the Hall:



I cannot logically come to any conclusion as to why Ted Simmons did not at least gain enough votes to remain on the ballot beyond his first year of eligibility.

Consider, also, some of the players who also appeared on the 1994 ballot, and were later elected to the Hall: Tony Perez (HOFm score of 81), Ron Santo (HOFm of 88), Bruce Sutter (HOFm of 91), and Joe Torre (HOFm of 96). Orlando Cepeda's HOFm score of 130 was close to Simmons', and eventually he was voted in by the Veteran's Committee in 1999 after falling 7 votes short in 1994, his final year of eligibility. Santo, too, was elected by the Veteran's Committee, while Perez and Sutter were elected by the BBWAA.

Will Simmons ever receive the consideration he is due by the Veteran's Committee? Or will they look at the era, and decide that three catchers being inducted was enough?

In his prime, from 1971 to 1980, Simmons averaged 19 home runs and 100 RBI, along with a .301 AVG and an .834 OPS per 162 games played. He also provided solid, if unspectacular defense. If you told me that a catcher for nearly a decade provided 100 RBI and a .300 AVG every season, I'd say that was definitely Hall worthy. We will see if the Veteran's Committee agrees.

[brewing]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

I cannot logically come to any conclusion as to why Ted Simmons did not at least gain enough votes to remain on the ballot beyond his first year of eligibility.

Neither can I. I also don't know why Lou Whitaker and Al Oliver received the same fate.

[the 'stache]

Whitaker and Alan Trammell were spectacular together. And I do find it interesting that Trammell continues on the ballot every year, yet Whitaker was off after his first shot. Consider their lifetime stats:


Trammell: 1,231 runs, 2,365 hits, 412 doubles, 185 HR, 1003 RBI, 236 SB. A slash line of .285/.352/.415/.767. 6-time AL All Star, 4 Gold Gloves, 3 Silver Sluggers. Only a career year from Jorge Bell kept Trammell from winning the 1987 AL MVP.

Whitaker: 1,386 runs, 2,369 hits, 420 doubles, 244 HR, 1,084 RBI, 143 SB. A slash line of .276/.363/.426/.789. 5-time AL All Star, 3 Gold Gloves, 4 Silver Sluggers.

If you look at the similarity scores on Baseball Reference, Whitaker most closely compares to Ryne Sandberg, Trammell, Roberto Alomar, Buddy Bell and Joe Morgan. Of course, Sandberg, Alomar and Morgan are Hall of Famers.

Al Oliver is a real head scratcher to me. Like Whitaker, I don't know if he should be in the Hall of Fame. But both men should have received more consideration than they received. Oliver was a seven time All Star. He was a career .303 hitter, with 2,743 hits, 529 doubles, 219 home runs and 1,326 RBI. He was a career .300 hitter in 6,768 career at bats in the National League, and a .313 hitter in 2,281 at bats in the AL. He hit over .300 eleven times, and won the 1982 AL batting title.

Originally Posted by the 'stache

I cannot logically come to any conclusion as to why Ted Simmons did not at least gain enough votes to remain on the ballot beyond his first year of eligibility.

Well, I think you're doing way more analysis than any of the voters would ever do. We're talking about a Hall of Fame - if you're sorely lacking in the fame department, it's much harder to get in.

Carter started 7 All-Star games and was named to 11 AS squads. He won 3 Gold Gloves. He won 5 Silver Sluggers. He was a fiery team leader who was the Mets team captain. He played some of his peak seasons in NY, and he had a lot to do with his team winning the 1986 WS, leading the Mets with 2 HR and 9 RBI. Gary was pretty famous for quite a few years, and accomplished a number of notable achievements.

Fisk started 7 All-Star games and was named to 11 AS squads. He won a Gold Glove. He won 3 Silver Sluggers. He was a ROY. He was a fiery team leader. He'll forever be known as the guy who waved that WS home run fair. He finished his career having caught more games than any one in history, and having hit more HR than any catcher in history. Carlton was famous for quite a few years, and accomplished a number of notable achievements.

Simmons started 2 All-Star games and was named to 8 AS squads. He never won a Gold Glove. He won only 1 Silver Slugger. He was not a fiery team leader. He didn't win any WS and didn't hit well in the post season. He never led the league in anything. He was never very famous for anything. Deserved or not, his reputation was good hit-no field. In 1,771 games caught, Simmons had a whopping 821 combined errors/wild pitches/passed balls. Fisk had 100 fewer in nearly 500 more games; Carter had 150 fewer in nearly 300 more games.

Simmons also didn't catch much his last 5-6 seasons, and played only 70% of his career games at catcher; Fisk and Carter caught in about 90% of the games they appeared in. I don't think Simmons is as strongly identified as a catcher as are the other guys.

All that said, I think Simmons is HOF-worthy if you base the argument on him being as good as some other catchers already in there. I'm one of those guys, however, who thinks the HOF already has 50+ guys that shouldn't be in there.

[Beatles Guy]

I think the most glaring stat in Bill's comparison chart is the number of strikeouts that Fisk had, double Simmons' career totals.