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Blyleven, Alomar Get In, Brown Falls Off Ballot

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 3:09 pm 3 Responses »
Jan 052011

The Hall of Fame results are in, and as expected, Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven were elected to the HOF. Here is the final tally (the list got cut off at the end. Surhoff, Boone, and Santiago also got at least one vote):

Alomar and Blyleven were absolutely deserving of induction, and as Rob Neyer has been tweeting all afternoon, both are strong Hall of Famers and do not lower the bar for inclusion at all. Barry Larkin made enough progress to suggest he may get in in the near future, while Jack Morris stagnated a bit and may have maxed out his support. Jeff Bagwell actually did fairly well considering the commotion surrounding him, and it seems likely that he will get in eventually. Tim Raines also saw a bump, and I think he will get in at some point, possibly as his eligibility reaches its final years.

From a more negative point of view, Alan Trammell looks to be finished as a viable candidate, and the steroid boys (McGwire and Palmeiro) did poorly enough to suggest that even guys like Clemens and Bonds may struggle to garner votes in the near future. Edgar Martinez actually lost support, but I think his status as the best DH will become clearer over the coming years, and his base of support should be strong enough for him to get close. Finally, Kevin Brown fell off the ballot entirely, which is really a shame. His statistical profile is similar to that of Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina, and John Smoltz. I believe he is the worst of the four and may be just on the wrong side of the in-out line, but he deserved better than falling off the ballot in his first year of eligibility.

For a more comprehensive look at the implications of this ballot, check out this post from Craig Calcaterra.

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Writers Who Whiffed On 'Roids Need To Avoid Sanctimony

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:19 pm 6 Responses »
Jan 052011

A few days ago, Mike Vaccaro of the Post made the following comment on Twitter:

1 more on Hall/PED: I think we did way too little to find out what was happening in ’90s, seem way too hellbent on meting out justice now

I think that Vaccaro is right on the money, and a search through the TYU archives will bring you to a number of articles in which I decry the inherent hypocrisy of writers condemning steroids well after the fact. This morning, Jim Caple of ESPN wrote a stunning article in which he rants about this point. I strongly encourage you to read it, but here is the money quote from my perspective:

Hey, I get that you think steroid use is really, really bad. Or at least, that this is your view now. Your anti-steroid stance wasn’t so clear when we were all glorifying these players a decade (and less) ago. And I’m with you — I wish steroids had never entered the game and I’m very glad they’ve been banned. And I sympathize with voters who are simply uncertain about the whole issue and the stats of the era and are holding off until they sort it out better.

But as for the rest of you? I would agree more with your pompous Hall of Fame voting stance if it weren’t so hypocritical, inconsistent and impossible to defend…..

It’s also hypocritical. We knew Mark McGwire used androstenedione during the 1998 season. We didn’t know he also used steroids but if we didn’t suspect it, we were even more naive than bloggers accuse us of being. And we didn’t care! We held the great andro debate for a couple of weeks and then decided it didn’t matter. We were having too much fun following McGwire and Sammy Sosa around for two months, glorifying both. Sports Illustrated printed special editions in their honor and declared them the Sportsmen of the Year, posing them on the cover in Roman togas with olive leaf crowns. I even compared McGwire to the original Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh, saying that he carried the entire nation on his broad shoulders that summer.

We continued to praise these players up until 2002, when the excellent baseball writer Tom Verducci got Ken Caminiti to admit he used steroids. Two years later, President Bush used the bully pulpit of the State of the Union address to decry steroid use (though it would have meant more if he had mentioned this when he was the Rangers president and Jose Canseco and Rafael Palmeiro were on his team). And ever since then we’ve cared a great deal about steroid use, vilifying the players we previously glorified.

In other words, we are holding them to a standard now that we didn’t during the majority of their careers. We are vilifying them for actions we not only condoned but unintentionally encouraged with our praise.

Vaccaro’s comments sent me into the archives to see how some prominent reporters treated this issue in 1998, and Caple’s comment provide the perfect segue into these articles.
Continue reading »

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New Hall of Fame Criteria

Posted by EJ Fagan at 3:36 pm 8 Responses »
Dec 022010

Earlier this week, my post on John Franco and the Hall of Fame inspired some great discussion. Posters commented on my opinions and the HOF cases for Trevor Hoffman and Goose Gossage. This topic interests me quite a bit, so I’d like to open it up a bit more. What should we use as criteria for Hall of Fame membership?

I think that there are two smart schools of thought, and the old school dumb school of thought. Everyone is familiar with the old school way – how many hits does he have? How many home runs does he have? How many wins does the pitcher have? Today, how many saves does he have? These are all dumb criteria for entry that I don’t think I need to address.

The first smart school of thought is that the Hall of Fame should contain the players who contributed to winning games the most over their career, represented by a holistic statistic like WAR. This has a lot of intellectual and intuitive feel. The best players both played a lot and played very well. Players who didn’t play a lot or didn’t play very well just weren’t as good. Under this logic, Barry Bonds is the best post-WWII hitter of all time, followed by Willie Mays and Stan Musial, and Roger Clemens is the best post-WWII hitter of all time, followed by Tom Seaver and Greg Maddux. Using this view, very little is up for debate. You check out the WAR leaderboards at Baseball Reference and make a decision.

The second school of thought is that the Hall of Fame should look for some combination of dominance and longevity, though not strictly in the form mentioned above. Under this view, guys like Scott Rolen (66 career WAR and counting, easily in HOF range) should be omitted, on the basis of their long but only very good careers. Hall of Famers should be the best of the best: the undisputed stars on their time. Scott Rolen has never been the best at anything. Traditionally, we cite awards voting like Cy Youngs, MVPs, Gold Gloves, All Star games, etc in these debates.

The second school of thought is also intellectually appealing, because it allows for some wiggle room. If you ask me who the best post-WWII pitcher of all time is, I’m probably going to answer “Pedro Martinez or Randy Johnson”, even if they are a bit lower down there in WAR, based on dominance factors. However, awards voting is a poor way of measuring this. There are plenty of examples where the awards voters were just plain wrong in the player that they picked.

I like the second school of thought, though I want to find a way to debate it better. So, I propose three new statistics, which I will do my best to calculate some time in the next week. These statistics are xCy, xMVP and xAllStar. They represent as follow:

xCy: The top 5 pitchers in each league every season as measured by WAR.

xMVP: The top 10 hitters in each league every season as measured by WAR.

xAllStar: The best player at a given position in each league each season as measured by WAR.

So, for example Mike Mussina’s career:

  • 1992 – xCy 3rd
  • 1994 – xCy 3rd
  • 1995 – xCy 3rd
  • 2000 – xCy 3rd
  • 2001 – xCy 1st

Want to argue that Mike Mussina never won a Cy Young Award? Well, he should have. And he should have finished 3rd on four separate occasions. Mussina was never so lucky, in part because he played much of his career with the Baltimore Orioles.

For Derek Jeter:

  • 1998 – xMVP 2nd
  • 1999 – xMVP 1st
  • 2005 – xMVP 5th
  • 2006 – xMVP 5th
  • 2009 – xMVP 5th

Derek Jeter should have won the MVP award in 1999, and xMVP gives him credit for that. In reality, he finished 6th in voting that season.

How about Mr. Pedro?

  • 1995 – xCy 8th
  • 1997 – xCy 1st
  • 1998 – xCy 3rd
  • 1999 – xCy 1st
  • 2000 – xCy 1st
  • 2001 – xCy 6th
  • 2002 – xCy 5th
  • 2003 – xCy 2nd
  • 2004 – xCy 5th
  • 2005 – xCy 4th

Pedro was actually pretty well represented by voters, winning all of 1997, 1999, and 2000 and coming in 2nd in 1998 and 3rd in 2003.

You can also take these finishes and make them into one score, where 10 points is assigned for 1st place and 1 point for 10th place. For reference, Pedro would score 69 while Mussina would score 38.

These statistic aren’t meant to be a substitute for measuring longevity and dominance, but instead to substitute for actual awards voting when debating a player’s case. Hopefully I’ll assemble all the data together (my database skills aren’t all that advanced) sometime next week and be able to put out some actual rankings. Who got robbed the most from Cy Young Voters? Who got the most undeserved recognition? What does the average HOFer’s expected record look like?

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Closers and the Hall of Fame

Posted by EJ Fagan at 1:02 pm 13 Responses »
Nov 302010

To me, the most interesting new name on the 2011 Hall of Fame ballot (which has no shortage of debatable, interesting candidates) is John Franco. His career numbers:

Year Age Tm Lg W L ERA G GF SV IP H R ER HR BB SO ERA+ WHIP SO/BB
21 Seasons 90 87 2.89 1119 774 424 1245.2 1166 466 400 81 495 975 138 1.333 1.97
162 Game Avg. 5 5 2.89 68 47 26 76 71 28 24 5 30 59 138 1.333 1.97
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/30/2010.

As far as closers go, Franco was one of the best of his time. He pitched a ton of innings deep into his 40s, posted a 138 ERA+, and is 4th all time in saves. He will no double garner a few Hall of Fame votes this year based on the saves alone. But does he really deserve to be there?

It has been my long-held belief that relief pitchers for the most part should not be in the Hall of Fame. Relief pitchers have the playing time, relative to starters, of a backup first baseman. If you ask yourself, “How good would my backup first baseball have to hit for me to recommend him for the Hall?”, the answer would probably be, “Pretty damn Bonds-like.”

Now, relief pitchers, unlike bench hitters, generally pitch lower ERAs than their starting peers. They are often used in higher leverage situations where the fate of the game hangs on every pitch. But that doesn’t mean that their contributions are all that much more worthwhile than starters. If Sabathia holds the game to 1-0 through 8 innings, Mariano Rivera may feel pressure, but he’s only doing for one inning what Sabathia did for 8. And also unlike bench players, relievers don’t simple graduate into the rotation after they’ve proven that they can play well.

But imagine if you had that Barry Bonds bench player? You’re in the National League, and this guy is just physically incapable of playing the field for more than 1-2 innings a game. But damn, he can hit lefties late in the game really well. He hits an OPS+ of 180+ over his career, 250+ during his best years, but never exceeds 100-150 at bats. Is he a Hall of Famer?

By my count, current HOF relievers include Goose Gossage, Dennis Eckersley, Bruce Sutter, Rollie Fingers and Hoyt Willhelm. John Franco is about as good or better than Gossage, Eckersley and Sutter, and pitched in a significantly different-enough era to fail to compare to Fingers and Wilhelm, who pitched much more. And at the same time, was arguably better than Trevor Hoffman. Hoffman’s statistics to date:

Year ERA G GF SV IP H R ER HR BB SO BF ERA+ WHIP SO/BB
18 Seasons 2.87 1035 *856* *601* 1089.1 846 378 347 100 307 1133 4388 141 1.058 3.69
162 Game Avg. 2.87 68 56 39 72 56 25 23 7 20 74 288 141 1.058 3.69
ERA G GF SV IP H R ER HR BB SO BF ERA+ WHIP SO/BB
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/30/2010.

Franco has pitched more to a basically equal ERA+ compared with Hoffman. Hoffman has the saves statistic, but I don’t think that in this day and age we need to debate its merit.

Besides Fingers and Wilhelm – old-school relief pitchers who played a lot more than their modern peers and were much better when they pitched than Gossasge and Eckersley – I strong believe that there is only one relief pitcher in all of baseball who deserves a spot in the Hall of Fame – Mariano Rivera. His statistics:

Year Age Tm Lg ERA G GF SV IP H R ER HR BB IBB SO ERA+ WHIP SO/BB
16 Seasons 2.23 978 829 559 1150.0 887 309 285 62 267 34 1051 *205* 1.003 3.94
162 Game Avg. 2.23 67 57 38 79 61 21 20 4 18 2 72 205 1.003 3.94
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/30/2010.

Those are some Bonds-like numbers. While Hoffman, Franco, et al pitched like Gary Sheffield hit – at a solid,  arguably HOF-caliber level for a starter – Rivera has blown his competition out of the water. He’s the backup first baseman who is so good that he forces his way into the Hall of Fame. But the other guys? Overrated.

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Discussion: Hall of Fame Ballot Debuts

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 3:00 pm 24 Responses »
Nov 292010

The 2011 Hall of Fame Ballot was released today. I’ve broken up the candidates into 3 groups: those I think should get in, those who have a case, and those who have no chance. Chime in with your list in the comments. I’ll discuss the borderline candidates in greater detail over the next few weeks.

No Chance
John Olerud
BJ Surhoff
Marquis Grissom
John Franco
Bret Boone
Al Leiter
Benito Santiago
Carlos Baerga
Raul Mondesi
Bobby Higginson
Wilson Alvarez
Rey Sanchez
Charles Johnson
Jose Offerman
Ugueth Urbina
Ismael Valdez
Dan Wilson
Paul Quantrill
Cal Eldred
Kirk Reuter
Steve Reed
Harold Baines
Juan Gonzalez
Tino Martinez

Has A Case
Don Mattingly
Fred McGriff
Rafael Palmeiro
Jack Morris
Dale Murphy
Dave Parker
Lee Smith
Larry Walker
Kevin Brown

Should Get In
Roberto Alomar
Jeff Bagwell
Bert Blyleven
Barry Larkin
Edgar Martinez
Tim Raines
Alan Trammell
Mark McGwire

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A Hall Case, Part Two

Posted by Matt Imbrogno at 1:00 pm 2 Responses »
Jan 132010

Yesterday, I examined the Hall of Fame case for Mike Mussina by comparing him to Tom Glavine. Today, I’m going to further that argument using the CHONE WAR system.

Both players rank in the top 30. Mussina ranks 24th and Glavine ranks 29th. What I did to further compare them was order their top WAR seasons to see how they stacked up. First, let’s get to the raw numbers:

Mussina:
High: 7.4
Low: 0.3
Range: 7.1
Average: 4.20

Glavine:
High: 7.4
Low: -0.2
Range: 7.6
Average: 3.05

So, while they had the exact same high of 7.4, Mussina had a higher low and a higher average. To further this point, I charted the data. The Y-Axis is the WAR and the X-Axis is the “nth” best season.

Moose/Glavine WAR

As you can see, Mussina’s line is consistently higher than Glavine’s. If you’re a Hall of Fame voter and you’re looking at your ballot in the winter of 2009, if you’re going to put Tom Glavine in, you’d damn well better elect Mike Mussina. While he may not have pitched as long–and Glavine should get points for longevity–he put up better numbers (see previous post) but he was also, as this post and the graph and the chart on the CHONE site prove, more valuable than Glavine despite pitching fewer innings, games, and years.

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Mark McGwire Deserves A Vote For The Hall of Fame

Posted by EJ Fagan at 11:54 am 26 Responses »
Dec 022009

A lot of very unqualified writers are going to be voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame over the next few months. Unlike the seasonal awards voting process, many of the BBWAA members who vote for the Hall are no longer actively covering the game, and because of this have not been exposed to the baseball information revolution. Generally, Hall of Fame debates follow the quantitative vs. emotional theme (I refuse to call it quantitative vs. qualitative, because they gives too much credit to the people voting against Bert Blyleven and co.), where really scary and memorable players like Jim Rice and Goose Gossage get votes, but objectively better players get left behind.

The Mark McGwire debate is very different. Nearly every writer will probably acknowledge that Mark McGwire was one of the best hitters of his day. Sure, they may point out that he played poor defense, call him “one-dimensional”, or mention his short career. But when push comes to shove, they’ll admit that McGwire’s .263/.394/.588 batting line and 162 career OPS+ (12th all time!) would, all else being equal, qualify him for the Hall of Fame.

Of course, all else is not equal. McGwire has implicitly admitted to using steroids, which was and is considered cheating. This has disqualified McGwire in many minds. I say: so what?

Baseball has always been a cheaters game. One of my favorite baseball books is The Cheaters Guide To Baseball. Some of our favorite Hall of Fame players made their careers through cheating. Former Yankees Whitey Ford and 300 game-winner Gaylord Perry have openly admitted to both scuffing balls and applying all sorts of foreign substances to them. Perry was frequently searched in the middle of nationally broadcast games, and would even taunt umpires into trying to find where he hid his stash of pine tar or Vaseline. Whitey Ford used to bring sandpaper with him on the mound.

And who can forget the great Albert Belle corked bat caper? This has got to be my favorite story in baseball:

The Indians, knowing the bat was indeed corked, dispatched relief pitcher Jason Grimsley to retrieve the bat. Grimsley took a bat belonging to Indians player Paul Sorrento and accessed the area above the false ceiling in the clubhouse and crawled across with a flashlight in his mouth until he reached the umpires’ room. He switched Belle’s bat with Sorrento’s and returned to the clubhouse.[2] During the sixth inning, the umpires’ custodian noticed clumps of ceiling tile on the floor of the umpire’s room, plus twisted metal brackets in the ceiling. After the game, Phillips noticed the bats were different when he saw that the replacement bat was not as shiny and also was stamped with Sorrento’s signature. The Chicago police were called and the White Sox threatened charges against the burglar. An investigation that Saturday was carried out by a former FBI agent flown in by MLB.[3] The equipment room was dusted for fingerprints and the path the burglar took was discovered.

Grimsley had to replace the corked bat with Sorrento’s instead of a clean Albert Belle bat because… all of Albert Belle’s bats were corked. And great Yankee heroes aren’t exempt from corked bats either – Graig Nettles once broke his bat in a game, only to find a bunch of Superballs fall on to the field.

It happens! Cheating is part of the game. Sure, its something that we should police, but there is no precedent in baseball history to punish non-gambling cheating all that much. John McGraw and Ty Cobb were infamously dirty, cheating players, but they are known as some of the game’s best early pioneers. But Mark McGwire (and soon, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, and Sammy Sosa) is held to a different standard. Their method of cheating evokes an emotion in baseball fans that doctoring balls and corked bats do not. Gaylord Perry probably made a Hall of Fame career out of it, but we ignore that.

Like Perry, McGwire would probably have been a pretty damn good player without cheating. He hit 49 home runs in his rookie year in 1987 (an MLB record for a rookie, pre-steroids) and still holds the University of Southern California home run record. The man could hit home runs long before juicing up. Just like Gaylord Perry could probably throw pretty well before doctoring the ball. Baseball, when push comes to shove, is a game of talent and skill; two things that you can’t fake.

I also get a sense from writers that they feel is it their duty to correct history. McGwire and Bonds held and broke records that are held deep in the hearts of baseball fans. When Roger Maris broke Ruth’s record, he was not only threatened, but also was branded with an asterisk to let us all know that he wasn’t really the home run king.

There may be legitimate beef with both record breakers. Sure, Maris did it in more games. But Babe Ruth didn’t have to play against players locked in the Negro leagues, just as Roger Maris didn’t have to hit against pitchers who were pumped up on steroids, nor McGwire or Bonds have to hit against a high mound. My point is that history corrects itself. Writers don’t need to do it with silly little symbolic stands based on emotion.

The question for induction for the Hall of Fame should be pretty simple. How good of a baseball player was Mark McGwire? Was he good enough to qualify as a Hall of Famer. Let the off-field stuff be judged by history, tell-all books, and time. Stop trying to shape history. History shapes itself.

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What Active Players Belong In The HOF?

Posted by EJ Fagan at 1:06 am 30 Responses »
Sep 142009

This week, we saw two historic achievements by Derek Jeter and Ichiro Suzuki. They got me thinking: which active (and recently retired) players belong in the Hall of Fame? Our era has produced a lot of superstars – more than I realized before I tried to put together a list – and they could start crowding the Hall of Fame pretty quickly. My list:

The No-Doubters

  • Albert Pujols
  • Greg Maddux
  • Derek Jeter
  • Mariano Rivera
  • Ivan Rodriguez
  • Pedro Martinez
  • Randy Johnson
  • Ichiro Suzuki
  • Craig Biggio
  • Tom Glavine
  • Trevor Hoffman
  • Frank Thomas
  • Ken Griffey Jr.
  • Mike Piazza

We’re looking at an impressive list. Pedro Martinez sports the best ERA+ in MLB history. Ivan Rodriguez has a case for being best catcher of all time. Ichiro Suzuki may hit 3,000 hits despite his odd career path. Greg Maddux is somehow underrated, despite being one of the best pitchers in baseball history. Albert Pujols may be the closest thing that this generation has to a Lou Gehrig. Mariano Rivera has somehow compiled a ridiculous 202 ERA+ in his career, 50 points higher than anyone else who has pitched over 1,000 innings.

The Borderlines

  • Jorge Posada
  • Jeff Bagwell
  • Jim Thome
  • John Smoltz
  • Vlad Guerrero
  • Todd Helton
  • Lance Berkman
  • Chipper Jones
  • Omar Vizquel

Most of these guys will not make the Hall, but some will. Smoltz has an interesting relief/starting career and is well-liked by the press. Guerrero was more dominant than people realize. Guys like Helton, Berkman, and Thome will be a real test of Hall voters: can they distinguish between guys who were very valuable offensive players even if they didn’t hit 500+ home runs? We’ll see. I don’t give Hall voters much credit.

The Steroid Crew

  • Barry Bonds
  • Roger Clemens
  • Rafael Palmeiro
  • Alex Rodriguez
  • Manny Ramirez
  • Gary Sheffield
  • Sammy Sosa

What happens to these guys? Every one has hall-worthy numbers. There is a good case that Barry Bonds was a better player, strictly by the numbers, than anyone since Babe Ruth. Clemens could have gone down as the best pitcher ever. Alex Rodriguez could hit 700 home runs. Hall of Fame voters will likely spite a few and let the others in. Steroids or not, Bonds, Arod, and Clemens are inner-circle cooperstowners, and Manny and Sosa absolutely should get in too.

This seems like a huge list to me. When I look at the past few years of Hall of Fame ballots, I see few players that I truly believe deserve entry. Guys like Goose Gossage, Jim Rice, and Bruce Sutter would be near the bottom of the “Borderline” list if I had included them. Are we seeing more Hall of Famers for some particular reason today? Or are we (or I) inflating the value of present-day players?

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Revisiting The "Jorge To The HOF" Debate

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 12:02 pm No Responses »
Jun 032009

In the few months that this blog has existed, I have brought up Jorge Posada’s case for the Hall of Fame on a number of occasions. I posted the following from THT:

Jorge Posada may not be the most glamorous offensive player, but his high-OBP, grind-it out game has been a key element in the Yankees’ success over his career. Posada’s prime, at eight years, is a little on the light side—without his monster 2007 season, he’d clearly be an also-ran, and it doesn’t help him that his first year as a full-time starter was the last one of the Yankees’ postseason dominance, or that Posada has not put up good numbers overall in October.

But his offensive game, for a guy who was a durable catcher for eight seasons and never has a serious off year, is solid. Posada’s success against base thieves has been less than impressive (slightly worse than league average) despite a reputation as a guy with a good arm. He’ll be a legitimate contender for the Hall even if he isn’t able to have a second act behind the plate beginning in 2009.

At the time, I added this:

Personally, I have always thought of Jorge as a great catcher but not an all-time type player. However, if you think about it, he has certainly been a top 3 or 4 catcher in baseball for the last 8 seasons. His case is likely better than you think, and the numbers seem to suggest that he should get plenty of consideration. However, being that he played on various teams that had a glut of stars bigger than Posada, Jorge’s accomplishments may continue to be overshadowed. I do not think he will get in, but he should definitely hang around on the ballot for a while.

Over the last day or two, Rob Neyer and Jonah Keri have chimed in on the issue. Rob selected Posada as the catcher on his All-Decade team, but was less enthused with his HOF chances:

Ivan Rodriguez is going into the Hall of Fame. Posada isn’t, and shouldn’t; he just happens to have played the lion’s share of his fine career in a single decade.

Keri disagrees (Check out the article, it has some good links at the end for more on this subject):

5 All-Star Games
5 Silver Sluggers
2 Top-10 MVP finishes (he had a legit MVP argument in 2007)
Career 277/380/479 hitter at the toughest position on the diamond
Multiple World Series, if that matters to you (I can see an argument either way)
Still hitting and likely to tack on a couple more decent to good years

And finally…Career OPS+ of 124

For comparison’s sake:

OPS+
Piazza 142
Cochrane 128
Dickey 127
Hartnett 126
Bench 126
Berra 125
Campanella 124
POSADA 124
Simmons 117
Fisk 117
Carter 115
I-Rod 110

Jorge Posada, to me, looks like a clear choice as one of the dozen best catchers of all-time, and that’s the relevant context here. It’s incredibly difficult (ostensibly impossible) for a catcher to put up huge counting stats in his career, because catchers can’t play every day, and because they tend to wear down over time, and are usually only able to prolong their careers if they move to another position (Craig Biggio, an automatic Hall of Famer) or they’re an all-time great (Fisk, etc.).

I never thought of Jorge in a “top 10 of all time” light, but the numbers are pretty compelling, even once discounted for his below average defense behind the plate. Jorge should get into the Hall of Fame, but it may take him a while on the ballot before people take notice of just how good his career was.

Do you agree?

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Posada's Quick Start And His Legacy

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 2:01 pm No Responses »
Apr 242009

Kat O’Brien talked to Jorge Posada about his return from last season’s injury:

“I have three more years, counting this year, with the contract,” said Posada, 37. “We’ll see after that. I would like to catch those three years. Obviously, I can’t play first base [with Mark Teixeira there]. I want to prepare myself every year that I can catch. I love catching. I love being behind the plate. I love being in charge……”

Posada is off to a good start at the plate, hitting .286 with three homers and 12 RBIs in 13 games. He has a .357 on-base percentage and .571 slugging percentage.

A Wrinkle in Time film

Said Posada: “My biggest thing is I have to be prepared. Every year I want to get better, I want to improve myself. So when I go in the offseason, that’s my main focus.”

Before the season began, I suggested that Jorge Posada was quite possibly the most important cog on the 2009 Yankees:

Jorge Posada is the one player that the Yankees cannot afford to lose. He is likely to bat 5th in the order, buttressing a lower half of the order that has plenty of question marks. His backup is good with the glove but so abysmal with the stick as to make him a drain on the team when he plays too frequently. Due to the Yankees added depth at outfield and first base, they are certainly more equipped to deal with the loss of their other injury concern, Hideki Matsui. Ultimately, the health of Jorge may be a major factor in deciding who wins the AL East.

Brian Cashman had similar feelings on the issue:

He’s feisty, he’s hungry and he wants to win. He doesn’t get enough credit for the leadership he has in that clubhouse. He is intense. We missed him both on that field and in that clubhouse last year.
Losing Wang and the way our pitching went last year was devastating. But our biggest loss was Jorge Posada.”

Jorge’s quick start has been, in my eyes, the most important development for the Yankees over the season’s first weeks. It allows the Yankees to tread water without A-Rod and gives the lineup excellent depth once Alex returns. Hopefully he can remain healthy and settle into the 5 spot for the duration of the year.

There was one other interesting quote from Jorge:

“Yogi Berra and Thurman Munson and Elston Howard and Bill Dickey . . . I don’t belong to that group,” Posada said. “Yes, I want to be like them and I would love to some day belong to that group. But right now, I feel like they are immortal. I’m very content that I’ve been here so many years and that I’ve been given the opportunity to be here. I feel very proud of putting on this uniform each day.”

A while ago, I quoted the following from THT:

Jorge Posada may not be the most glamorous offensive player, but his high-OBP, grind-it out game has been a key element in the Yankees’ success over his career. Posada’s prime, at eight years, is a little on the light side—without his monster 2007 season, he’d clearly be an also-ran, and it doesn’t help him that his first year as a full-time starter was the last one of the Yankees’ postseason dominance, or that Posada has not put up good numbers overall in October.

But his offensive game, for a guy who was a durable catcher for eight seasons and never has a serious off year, is solid. Posada’s success against base thieves has been less than impressive (slightly worse than league average) despite a reputation as a guy with a good arm. He’ll be a legitimate contender for the Hall even if he isn’t able to have a second act behind the plate beginning in 2009.

Jorge has been overshadowed for much of his career by flashier stars and more exciting names. However, he has quietly put together a decent Hall of Fame case. What do you think of his chances? Does he belong?

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