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July 16, 2009

Bill speaks out

Bill James has stubbornly refrained from commenting on the steroids scandal and the Hall of Fame ... until now. Bill James Online subscribers can read James' latest post, in which he finally tackles the controversy of our day. The bottom line is that Bill thinks the inclusion of steroid users into the Hall is inevitable.

Bill takes a more nuanced and thoughtful view than my one-phrase summation implies, calling on examples and touchstones from Dick Allen to Will Clark. It's a good read, and I think you'll hear more about it in the coming days.
Posted by: Dave Studeman

January 12, 2009

Jaffe vs. the BBWAA

Our own Chris Jaffe did a fine job of predicting the Hall of Fame results, correctly forecasting that Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice would make it, and Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven would fall short. I'm sure he'll brag about this himself, but here's a close look at his predictions vs. the actual voting:
Click for more...

Posted by: Dave Studeman

December 30, 2008

Was Jim Rice feared?

Wezen-ball has a nice research piece on whether Jim Rice was the most "feared" slugger of his time. Personally, I find this whole "feared" thing to be an bizarre way of judging a player to be Hall of Fame material. Dick Allen was feared in his day, but that seems to work against him.

For what it's worth, I did a quick search in the New York Times archives and found two references to Rice being feared. In June, 1978, Reggie Jackson said "He's the most feared hitter in the game right now." In a 1979 article about Rice's golf game, Dave Anderson reported "But his quiet pride as baseball's most feared home-run hitter was apparent..."

Make of that what you will.
Posted by: Dave Studeman

December 11, 2008

And WAR says…

Sean (Call me Chone) Smith is putting together his own WAR (Wins Above Replacement) system for the Retrosheet years, and he has found that there are five players who are in the "gray area" of Hall of Fame worthiness (high ranking, but not yet in the Hall). They are Tim Raines, Lou Whitaker, Reggie Smith, Willie Davis, and Ron Santo.

You don't hear much about Reggie Smith, though I've mentioned his Hall worthiness before. But you never hear Willie Davis mentioned as an overlooked Hall member. After all, Davis is 140th in Win Shares Above Bench all time (far below the others on Sean's list). Plus, he's 837th in Batting Wins, according to Baseball Reference.

I have a feeling there's a story there.
Posted by: Dave Studeman

December 09, 2008

If Gordon, then why not Grich?

Rich Lederer asks a great question: if Joe Gordon can make it into the Hall (I would have picked several players ahead of him—but they didn't ask me), shouldn't Bobby Grich? I'll be honest about this: Bobby Grich is one of my all-time favorite ballplayers. Every time I saw him play, I had the distinct impression he was the best ballplayer on the field. He was a superb fielder and batter, particularly for a second baseman.

As I wrote two years ago, if Grich had come up to the majors two years earlier in his career, he'd be in the Hall right now. When he was 21, he batted .383 in 235 at bats in Triple-A and played a fine shortstop. The next year, still blocked by Mark Belanger and Davey Johnson, he was the International League MVP, hitting .336 with 32 home runs. Think he'd be in the minors that long these days?
Posted by: Dave Studeman


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