FriarReb98: I don't know what it means in the long run, but it's not the worst idea ever, apparently.

Ron Santo had both an above average playing career and a good broadcasting career. If he had never had the latter, he would not be in the Hall of Fame. Dewey played 20 seasons at RF and 1B, both at the bottom of position scarcity. Bill James has a hard on for walks and his employer. There is more to baseball than walks.

If Dewey is allowed to get in with those numbers then Donnie Baseball should be in already, and Donnie Baseball should not be in the Hall of Fame. Even though he was my favorite player growing up.

mitchcumstein1: See also: Dale Murphy.

If Dale Murphy played today he would be a guy that would get a Prince Fielder type contract. He was hot for about five years and was done by the age of 32.

Was he "feared"? This is important.....

This is one of those articles where Bill James should really have used an editor.

About halfway down, he starts making exactly the same mistakes that he attributes to Dewey's detractors:

"I don't know how they calculate that, and, because defense is so hard to measure, I prefer to use more conservative measurements. The difference between an average team and a championship team, in a season, is only about 150 runs. Saying that the fielding difference between two right fielders is 25 runs is a little like saying that a 150-pound woman gave birth to a 25-pound baby. Ouch. I'm not saying it's not possible; it's just hard to believe. I have Evans as being only about eight runs better than Parker in the field, not because I don't believe the 25-run difference is possible, but just because I just don't think that we know for certain how large the difference was."

First, that pregnancy analogy is ridiculous. There have been seasons where one player accounted for a huge fraction of his team's value-- here I'm thinking of Steve Carlton and the 346 IP of amazing pitching he gave the otherwise laughable 1972 Phillies, or the fully-roided Bonds years. (Carlton was ~12 WAR on a team that won 59 games. ZOMG 31-pound baby!)

Second, it's not that unbelievable that the gap between an excellent outfielder and the fat version of Dave Parker is 25 runs. Using very simple records from the year he's discussing:

Evans: 280 putouts in 149 games in RF, 5 E9's.
Parker: 278 putouts in 159 games in RF, 9 E9's.

It's not hard to project Evans (ignoring pitching staff and park differences for simplicity) as turning ~21 outfield hits (plus 4 errors) into outs, mostly at the edges of his range. Those are the kinds of balls that end up as gappers, or doubles off the wall, passing just over the RF's outstretched glove.

Without getting into the numbers, assuming that turning 25 plays from (approximately) doubles into outs is worth 25 runs sounds about right to me. Yeah, sometimes it's a flare in front of the slow outfielder that turns into a two-out single with no one on. But sometimes it's a two-RBI gapper (leaving another runner in scoring position to boot) that should have been an inning-over running catch. ~+8-10 marginal runs turns into +1 win, so Evans probably meant about 3 more wins with his glove than Parker gave. +3 wins is the difference between a good season and a HOF season.

I'm not saying Evans should go in (he's on my fringe), but it's silly to say that defense is as arbitrary as James tries to make it.

mitchcumstein1: See also: Dale Murphy.

Yup. Murphy had maybe 7 good years. Evans had a 20-year career where he was a below-average offensive player once, at age 21, and was a significantly better overall hitter because of his higher OBP.

Murphy split his time between CF/RF, which would be an edge, except by most metrics he was a below-average defensive OF over his career as a whole. Peak Murphy was good, but he hurt his teams as he aged. Evans added value with his glove/arm almost his entire career.

Mattingly is a lot like Murphy, but neither of them should be in. A few great years isn't the same as having a great career.

Ron Santo was well ahead of any of the three when you measure him against his era and other third basemen. Put Santo even into the 1980s environment (let alone the 1990s) and his offensive numbers would pop. It's easy to make a top-10-all-time case for Ron Santo among 3Bs, and to me, if you're in the top ten at any position that's more than enough justification.

Meanwhile, in Canton, they are inducting Dermotti Dawson.

Your move, MLB.

...ok

Babwa Wawa: If you argue that OBP and walks are irrelevant to a player's value to his team, maybe you're functionally illiterate.


We're off to a roaring start... wtf are you on about?

Dwight Evans was a player who did many things very well - hitting almost 400 home runs, drawing a lot of walks, winning a long string of Gold Gloves, and even registering pretty decent batting averages, .290 or better five times in eight years. His batting average, however, was not his specialty, particularly early in his career, and given that batting average was at that time regarded as the center of the baseball universe, so to speak, this also caused him to be underrated.

This paragraph was all I needed to read to confirm my opinion that Evans is NOT a Hall of Famer.

WTF Indeed: If Dale Murphy played today he would be a guy that would get a Prince Fielder type contract. He was hot for about five years and was done by the age of 32.

Dale Murphy was the last honest man in baseball and probably the only guy who never took steroids OR GREENIES, which essentially everyone took. They should enshrine the man for his pure heart if nothing else.

Rex_Banner: Was he "feared"? This is important.....

I actually think it is important. I think Parker was feared for some time, but the cocaine connection will finish off any possibility that he might have for consideration. I certainly knew who Evans was back then, and this was without ESPN letting us know which teams were cool to be fans of, but I don't know that I consider him feared in the same sense that Jim Rice or Andre Dawson were.

If you have to establish a baseline by using Cowens as a low bar and then pretending that Cesar Cedeno was borderline HoF so you can then argue that a better player (Evans, Dwight, not Dale) is therefore clearly HoF worthy...
Why the limitation to players born in the same year instead of players of the same era? I found it odd. Maybe it was to shrink the size of the comparative pool.
I think Winfield is the borderline HoF'er in this list. Evans is, I think, clearly short of Winfield. I'd take him on nearly any team, for sure, but his numbers don't scream Hall of Fame. Too many .260 type seasons for my blood to say he's a lock.

JohnBigBootay: Dale Murphy was the last honest man in baseball and probably the only guy who never took steroids OR GREENIES, which essentially everyone took. They should enshrine the man for his pure heart if nothing else

I have a hard time Frank Thomas was taking greenies given the way he packed on the fat. And he's about a sure-shot as anyone for not taking steroids, seeing as he was biatching about it in the 90s and was the only active player to cooperate with Mitchell.

stebain: I actually think it is important. I think Parker was feared for some time, but the cocaine connection will finish off any possibility that he might have for consideration. I certainly knew who Evans was back then, and this was without ESPN letting us know which teams were cool to be fans of, but I don't know that I consider him feared in the same sense that Jim Rice or Andre Dawson were

The problem with "feared" is it's pretty much limited to power hitters and often totally made up after the fact for people's arguments. For example, Dawson wasn't really "feared" until he had the emptiest 49 HR season of all time. Tim Raines, on the other hand, was a better player yet probably never qualified as "feared" and no one's going to argue now that he was.

JohnBigBootay: WTF Indeed: If Dale Murphy played today he would be a guy that would get a Prince Fielder type contract. He was hot for about five years and was done by the age of 32.

Dale Murphy was the last honest man in baseball and probably the only guy who never took steroids OR GREENIES, which essentially everyone took. They should enshrine the man for his pure heart if nothing else.

2.5/10

//Dewey is not a HOFer

GQueue: stebain: I actually think it is important. I think Parker was feared for some time, but the cocaine connection will finish off any possibility that he might have for consideration. I certainly knew who Evans was back then, and this was without ESPN letting us know which teams were cool to be fans of, but I don't know that I consider him feared in the same sense that Jim Rice or Andre Dawson were

The problem with "feared" is it's pretty much limited to power hitters and often totally made up after the fact for people's arguments. For example, Dawson wasn't really "feared" until he had the emptiest 49 HR season of all time. Tim Raines, on the other hand, was a better player yet probably never qualified as "feared" and no one's going to argue now that he was.

I think you misremember Andre Dawson. I don't know your age, so I can't know whether you actually remember when he was with the Expos, but that trio of he, Warren Cromartie, and Ellis Valentine was considered among the top outfield squad in baseball at the time. Andre Dawson was a solid RBI guy and, per my recollection, one of the better clutch guys at the time.

Additionally, if you think Tim Raines never qualified as "feared", then I think we need to hash out the definition of the word. [I think Raines is HoF]

mitchcumstein1: Frank Thomas was an asshole though.

Really? I don't live in Chicago, so I can't know of the local spin on him but I don't recall him being worthy of the moniker.

ya know i sit here and say wont happen, but i said the same thing about rice... playing for the yankees/sox has its privileges

/with these kinds of cases i guess we can just change the name to hall of really good

GQueue: I have a hard time Frank Thomas was taking greenies given the way he packed on the fat. And he's about a sure-shot as anyone for not taking steroids, seeing as he was biatching about it in the 90s and was the only active player to cooperate with Mitchell.

Agreed.

mitchcumstein1: From about '82-'85 Dale Murphy was as good as it got. Prince Fielder is a very apt comparison, but if Dale Murphy isn't in the Hall, Dwight Evans has no business being there.

Actually it was about '82-'87. During those years he averaged 35 homers, 105 rbis, and batted .285. Those were age 26-31. Most players don't reach free agency until 27-28, half way through the prime years. GMs for some reason still think players are good till 40 like they were when steroids were in the game. The reason most of these guys in the 90's hung around so long is because they were on the juice. It will be interesting to see what happens to Pujols and Cabrera when they hit 35.

stebain: I think Winfield is the borderline HoF'er in this list. Evans is, I think, clearly short of Winfield. I'd take him on nearly any team, for sure, but his numbers don't scream Hall of Fame.

I'm not sure he's worse than Winfield, but I agree that Winfield is a guy who was elected from the fringe. How many Winfields and Evanses you want in the Hall is a matter of opinion based on what you think the role of the Hall should be.

Too many .260 type seasons for my blood to say he's a lock.

*headdesk*

Batting average is a small piece of the overall puzzle. Dwight Evans was excellent at everything else (except baserunning). He got on base, hit for power, played excellent defense, and had excellent longevity. Juan Pierre is a ~.300 career hitter, and Juan Pierre sucks.

The job of a player is to help his team win baseball games. I hope you don't look at a guy like Rickey and say "Meh. .279 career hitter.", because Rickey knows that Rickey was awesome despite Rickey's average. Evans isn't Rickey by a long shot, but you can be both a no-doubt Hall of Famer and a ~.270 career hitter.

stebain: I think Winfield is the borderline HoF'er in this list

Dave Winfield has over 3000 hits and over 1800 rbi. Some of that is because he had such a long career but come on. The guy's way past borderline.

Dwight Evans is borderline. My gut says put him in if Rice and Dawson are in.

/Sheesh. Dawson's career OBP is a point worse than the league average was for his career. You could argue he was barely even good.

//OBP isn't everything. But it's a whole lot.

jdamaral: 2.5/10

I don;t kno wwhat you are talking about but I certainly was not trolling

//Dewey is not a HOFer

agreed. I think he merits discussion but ultimately falls short.

mitchcumstein1: I think people had a fairly healthy respect for Andre Dawson before 1987, there wasn't a whole lot he couldn't do.

Ugh. Andre Dawson didn't do one very, very important thing: Not make lots of outs. It's a huge hole in his otherwise impressive game, and ignoring it is like ignoring that Edgar Martinez didn't play defense.

They should just rename OBP the "Not out" percentage. It's actually easier to explain than batting average to a non-fan.

chimp_ninja: stebain: I think Winfield is the borderline HoF'er in this list. Evans is, I think, clearly short of Winfield. I'd take him on nearly any team, for sure, but his numbers don't scream Hall of Fame.

I'm not sure he's worse than Winfield, but I agree that Winfield is a guy who was elected from the fringe. How many Winfields and Evanses you want in the Hall is a matter of opinion based on what you think the role of the Hall should be.

How the hell is Dave Winfield a borderline HoFer?

Look at his stats and tell me where they are lacking. (new window)

chimp_ninja: *headdesk*

I never said that .260 = terrible player because a poor BA = sucky guy.

get over yourself. You are the one who decided to read more into the statement than I put. I fully understand the import of just getting on base.
chimp_ninja: I hope you don't look at a guy like Rickey

I look at Rickey and I say "that's Rickey. He's the Rickiest."

Dafatone: Dwight Evans is borderline. My gut says put him in if Rice and Dawson are in.

That's the problem with the entire HOF conversation. If you keeping putting "borderline" players into the Hall, the line moves downward.

WTF Indeed: How the hell is Dave Winfield a borderline HoFer?

First rule is: if you have to think about it without someone being deliberately contrarian, then you are near the borderline.

I see others above talking about Ron Santo. Hearing his name doesn't ring "clear HoF" to me.

Like I said w/Winfield: He is in and it doesn't offend me. If he wasn't in, I also wouldn't be offended.

chimp_ninja: They should just rename OBP the "Not out" percentage.

Exactly.

chimp_ninja: mitchcumstein1: I think people had a fairly healthy respect for Andre Dawson before 1987, there wasn't a whole lot he couldn't do.

Ugh. Andre Dawson didn't do one very, very important thing: Not make lots of outs. It's a huge hole in his otherwise impressive game, and ignoring it is like ignoring that Edgar Martinez didn't play defense.

They should just rename OBP the "Not out" percentage. It's actually easier to explain than batting average to a non-fan.

I'd argue Dawson is in BECAUSE of his low OBP, which is what's so stupid about non-averaged stats.

10769 PAs. 9927 ABs. 589 walks. Let's say he walked another ~25 times a season and take away 500 ABs from him.

2774 hits becomes 2600ish. 438 HR becomes a little over 400. 1591 RBI goes down to 1500, maybe a little less. Obviously this is oversimplified, and doesn't factor in situations and whatnot. But it makes sense. Not walking HELPED Dawson get in.

Similarly, Edgar Martinez is boned because he walked too much.

Dafatone: Dave Winfield has over 3000 hits and over 1800 rbi. Some of that is because he had such a long career but come on. The guy's way past borderline.

My standards are high!?!? ;) I don't object to him being in, but I wouldn't declare the hall invalid if he weren't.

Dwight Evans is borderline. My gut says put him in if Rice and Dawson are in.
I kinda don't like that argument. Rizzuto is in. Concepcion isn't.

Dafatone: Not walking HELPED Dawson get in.

It's interesting to see something like that worked up. Ta.

MugzyBrown: 3 time all star
2 time silver slugger
top 5 in MVP voting twice.


very meh.

Hall of Good
not even Hall of Great.

Certainly not "meh", but I don't get tingly down there reading his numbers.

WTF Indeed: How the hell is Dave Winfield a borderline HoFer?

Look at his stats and tell me where they are lacking. (new window)


well just look at his 10 similar hitters listed down there... ONE of them isnt in the hall



/yet

Dafatone: Similarly, Edgar Martinez is boned because he walked too much.

That and he didn't have to play defense for most of his career.

Also, the likelihood that he juiced doesn't help.

stebain: First rule is: if you have to think about it without someone being deliberately contrarian, then you are near the borderline.

I see others above talking about Ron Santo. Hearing his name doesn't ring "clear HoF" to me.

That's the weakest argument for the HoF you can make. That's the kind of argument a sports radio jock from New York makes because "If he ain't big in NYC, he ain't big."

PowerSlacker: Also, the likelihood that he juiced doesn't help.

Which one could read into Dwight Evans post-32 increase in productivity.

mitchcumstein1: Cabrera is going to have a heart attack and die before 35 if he keeps eating.

Cabrera is going to be this generations Mickey Mantle. In 20 years we are going to saying "Imagine what he could have done if he took care of himself."

WTF Indeed: How the hell is Dave Winfield a borderline HoFer?

Look at his stats and tell me where they are lacking. (new window)

1) He's overrated as a defender-- he has the reputation (7 Gold Gloves), but his playing history suggests he was a (slightly) below average defender at a less-than-demanding position. This is the major equalizer between him and a guy like Evans.

2) He had incredible longevity, but his peak wasn't that high. Maybe 4 seasons where he was legitimately one of the top 5 or so offensive players in baseball, surrounded by a whole lot of above-average. He's the type of player that looks very good in terms of counting stats, but not as good in terms of rate stats. His 130 OPS+ is... 163rd all-time.

3) I don't place as much value on postseason play as some others do, but Winfield clearly fell down there. Small sample size, but the voters place a ton of value on this (Jack Morris) if it's the other way, so I feel like they should consider poor postseasons equally.

I'm not upset than Winfield is in, but I think he's closer to the line than his reputation suggests. He's not a bad pick like Jim Rice or any number of the doofuses the Veterans' Committee let in.

WTF Indeed: That's the weakest argument for the HoF you can make.

From the guy who argued "Look at the stats!". I understand your point ( on both ), but didn't just call you out for looking at numbers.

That's the kind of argument a sports radio jock from New York makes because "If he ain't big in NYC, he ain't big."
Huh?

WTF Indeed: Cabrera is going to be this generations Mickey Mantle. In 20 years we are going to saying "Imagine what he could have done if he took care of himself."

Not long ago, I was trying to find player who hit like Albert Pujols up until their 32nd (*) birthday. Mantle is an excellent match, which made me wonder what Albert Pujols would have signed for if he was also a good defensive CF.

(*) I know, I know.

chimp_ninja: I'm not upset than Winfield is in, but I think he's closer to the line than his reputation suggests. He's not a bad pick like Jim Rice or any number of the doofuses the Veterans' Committee let in.

yes but the list of players with over 3k hits that are not in the hall

1> pete
2> jeter
3> biggio
4> palmeiro

its really weird, it used to be an automatic qualifier, get 3k hits or 500 home runs and you were in.... palmeiro has both while not going to be a first ballot guy will eventually have to get there? right? and biggio is one of those guys who probably isnt a hofer without the 3k hits,

but there is that 2nd tier of guys not quite good enough to get in, you let in evans dont chili murph parker baines mattingly and i guess damon get in as well?

MugzyBrown: 3 time all star. 2 time silver slugger. top 5 in MVP voting twice. very meh. Hall of Good, not even Hall of Great.

Using voting is part of the argument James in making, though-- that Evans wasn't appreciated in his day because no one knew how to count for defense, and no one except a few managers valued getting on base as highly as they do today.

That said, it also underscores a good argument against Evans-- his peak wasn't that high. He was very good for a very long time, but he was never amazing.

Thought exercise: Let's say a genie offers you a deal where he makes your next draft pick the Nth-best player in your league, who will stay on your team and perform at that level for N years. What N do you pick?

You clearly don't pick 1. Having the 5th-best guy in baseball for 5 years is worth a lot more than one MVP season. I think you pick something like 20-30. Dwight Evans' average season is more like a 15 guy, vs. a Dale Murphy or Don Mattingly, who is more like a 7 guy.