Edgar Martinez and the HOF

Professional Hitter.  What more is there to say about one of the best all time right-handed batters?  5 Silver sluggers were given to Edgar; 4 at Designated Hitter which is supposed to be a position for great hitters and the other at 3B.  He won the Roberto Clemente Award in 2004.  The Award is given annually to the Major League Baseball (MLB) player who "best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual's contribution to his team".  Edgar went to 7 All-Star games in his career.  And remember, at this time the DH was only a starter every other year (when the AL hosted). 

His 71.6 fWAR ranks him 80^th all-time position players.  According to bWAR, he is better than 12 of the 18 1B in the HOF.  If you compare him to the 3B, he is better than 5 of the 10 HOF’s according to bWAR.  The 67.2 bWAR places him 71^st among position players.  His bWPA of 44.1 is good for 44^th for players since 1950 and his fWPA is 45.21. His Hall of Fame Monitor and Standards score of 132 (100 likely HOF) and 50 (50 Avg HOF) show him as a likely HOF. 

If we take a look at his career compared to 3 in the HOF, we notice one thing right off the bat.  According to fWAR, his ten best seasons are better than Gwynn’s, Molitor’s and Murray’s ten best.  He was actually better than Gwynn for their 12 best seasons.  This is a big deal. 

Looking at this second graph shows that his career parallels the three Hall of Famers.  He started playing full time at a later age but still had a better career fWAR than Gwynn.  His short career hinders his overall counting stats considerably.  He “only” hit 309 Home Runs. This is still good for 116th all-time.  His rate stats show that he was still a great player; BA .312, OPB .418, SLG .515, OPS .933.  He hit great. His OPS+ was 147, good for 43^rd place all-time.  He won the AL batting title twice (once at 3B and DH each) as well as leading the league in OBP 3 times. 

One thought though is Martinez started his career later than the rest of these guys.  He was good throughout this time though.  From age 31-41 he was better than these three HOFs.  He posted 10 seasons with over a 4.0 bWAR. 

Some people say he did not play a real position and hold this against him.  There are already great hitters who did not field well in the HOF.  Why is this different?  Is this different because he did not have to make up runs if he was a bad defender? Well that makes no sense.  He is more valuable as a DH than a bad fielder who hits just as well as he does.  He does not seem to be a bad fielder on either FanGraphs or Baseball Reference for the years he did play in the field.  He would have been serviceable at 1B for a team.  He just was not needed in the field at the time and was kept at DH for his health.  His bat was too valuable to take out of the lineup.  If we discount him for being a DH, Molitor’s stats from his time as a DH should not count, and Mauer’s DH stats should not count toward his MVP votes or his career accomplishments.  The DH is a part of baseball.  Do not punish Edgar for his team playing by the league rules.  Fight the rule if you do not like it, but do not discount a great player career. 

Sorry about that quick rant.  Edgar is just one of the great hitters.  Edgar and Frank Thomas are probably the two best right-handed hitters of that generation.  I just hope people can see how good Edgar is.  I hope this shines a little light on it.  

Definitions

This is the definitions of some of the abbreviations used in this blog.   I will try to update this as I use new stats and abbreviations. 

HOF= Hall of Fame/Hall of Famer

WAR= Wins Above Replacement

WPA= Win Probability Added

F= FanGraphs stat

b= Baseball Reference stat

OPS= On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage

OPS+= Adjusted OPS; adjusts for league and ballpark; can compare across eras

wOBA= Weighted On Base Average; a statistic created that uses linear weights to account for all outcomes of a plate appearance of a batter and putting a value on it; 0.340 is around average; 0.400 is great

Bill James Creations for measuring how likely a player will get into the HOF

Black Ink- Player is awarded points for leading league in important statistics; 27 and 40 are average for HOF position players and pitchers respectively

Grey Ink- Player is awarded points for being in the top 10 in important statistics; 144 and 185 are average for HOF position players and pitchers respectively

Hall of Fame Monitor- A Monitor of statistics that shows how likely a player is to be in the HOF; 100 is likely in the HOF

Hall of Fame Standards- A test created with a score of 50 for the average Hall of Famer 

Ron Santo

I know I said I would cover the players left on the ballot for next year.  But I believe Ron Santo will be up for consideration by the Veteran’s Committee this coming fall.  I am sad to think he will finally get in this year after he passed away.  He has long been a Hall of Famer in my book. 

He was obviously favorably viewed in his time considering he was invited to 9 All-Star games.  His defense was also was viewed favorable considering he has 5 Gold Gloves.   He even received the 1973 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award for exemplifying Lou’s integrity and character both on and off the field.  He was a player that just carried greatness with him.  He is currently the 47^th best position player occording to fWAR with 79.3.  His bWAR is 66.4.  Ron Santo has a bWPA of 34.5 with incomplete records.  He was in the top 10 for MVP votes 4 times, and in the top 25 for MVP votes 7 times.  The Gray Ink score for Sanot was 147 (144 is average for the HOF).  Gray Ink rewards players for appearances in the top 10 of different batting statistics. 

He could just flat out hit the baseball.  The OPS of .826 and OPS+ of 125 speak for themselves.  He also went on to hit 342 home runs amd drive in 1331 runs.  He finished his career with 2254 hits and scored 1138 times.  He played consitenly as well.  He needed to to be 8^th in games played at 3B, have the 13^th most putouts, and the 5^th most assists from 3B as well.    He had 7 straight years of over a 6 fWAR and 10 straight years over a 4 fWAR.  For 13 years he hit 17+ HR, 74+ RBI, 137+ Hits.  He did this with only watching his OPS drop below .775 or OPS+ drop below 109 once. 

Out of Hall of Fame Thirdbasemen, Ron Santo falls smack in the middle according to bWAR.  There are 10 primary 3B in the Hall, Santo falls behind 5:

Mike Schmidt

Eddie Mathews

Wade Boggs

George Brett

Brooks Robinson

These are 5 are the greates alltime players.  It is no slight to be listed behind these five players.  I think this list shows where Santo belongs in the history of the game.  Frank Baker is the sixth best 3B in the Hall of Fame.  Here is a graph created on FanGraphs comparing Brooks, Frank, George and Ronnie:

As seen in the above graph, Santo was always better than Frank Baker.  He was also better than Brooks Robinson through age 33 and comparable at Age 34.

The second graph shows the bWAR from best to worst seaosns for thes plaeyers.

As is seen here, Santo was always better than Frank Baker except for his 10^th best season.  Santo’s career also lasted longer.  Santo’s 8 best seasons are better than Robinson’s and Brett’s (except for Season 5) with similar seasons for 9. 

Looking at similar graphs based on fWAR, Santo’s best season was better than Mike Schmidt’s, Eddie Mathews’ and Wade Boggs’.  The top 4 seasons were on par with these 3 (the best 3B in the HOF).  It helps that Ronnie started earlier but he had a better cumulative fWAR through age 31 compared to Mike Schmidt.  He also had a higher cummulative fWAR than Wade Boggs through age 33 but again he started out earlier. 

Please visit FanGraphs for making very cool graphs and Grids:

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphswd.aspx

Tim “Rock” Raines/

He of Expos, White Sox, and Yankees fame.  His resume shows that he deserves the strongest possible consideration for the Hall of Fame.  He was picked for 7 All-Star games.  He won one Silver Slugger as well as the 1987 All-Start MVP. 

Tim Raines the Base-Stealer: He will always be known for what he did on the bases.  He led the league in stolen bases 4 times, and was in the top ten 7 other times.  He is fifth all time in steals with 808.  He stole those bases at a success rate of 84.7% while Ricky Henderson and Lou Brock (also in the 800 steal club) stole bases at the rates of 80.8% and 75.3%. 

He was no slouch with the bat.  His wOBA was a respectable .374.  His career OPS is .810.  The OPS+, adjusted for park and league for his career was 123.  This puts him somewhere between Rickey(127) and Lou (109).  He had 14 years in a row with over 100 hits and a lifetime OBP of .385.  He was the ideal leadoff hitter (2^nd to Rickey of course).  Raines led the league in runs scored twice and scored 1571 runs in his career. 

Time Raines is a winner.  His fWPA of 50.39 shows he improved his teams likelihood of winning a ball game.  He was dependable.  He has the 5^th most defensive games, 4^th most putouts and assists in LF in baseball.  Individual OF positions were not recorded until 1954, he has the 36 most games in the OF in all baseball history. 

Of the 20 LF already in the Hall of Fame*, Raines has a higher bWAR than 13 of them.  Of the 60 OF in the Hall, he has a higher bWAR than 35 of them.  He is also the 35 OF by fWAR All-Time and that list includes Bonds, Griffey and Rose.  He has a higher fWAR great than Gwynn, Winfield and Sosa.  He deserves the company of Greatness. 

* http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hofmenu.shtml

This Site is used to determine position played for the Hall of Famers

Players to be Discussed

Let’s take a look at the names I will be examining here over the coming days, weeks, months, years. 

Those players who will be returning to the ballot next year include (with this year’s percentage):

Barry Larkin                  62.1

Jack Morris                  53.5

Lee Smith                     45.3

Jeff Bagwell                41.7

Tim Raines                   37.5

Edgar Martinez         32.9     

Alan Trammel            24.3

Larry Walker                20.3

Mark McGwire          19.8

Fred McGriff               17.9

Don Mattingly           13.6

Dale Murphy              12.6

Rafael Palmeiro         11.0

Juan Gonzalez            5.2

These players are will be at least briefly talked about in the coming weeks.  When the ballot comes out for next year, I will cover any others listed as well.  I am guessing that these guys will be listed and hope to cover them in the coming weeks:

Bernie Williams

Brad Radke

Tim Salmon

Brian Jordan

Edgardo Alfonzo

Javy Lopez

Bill Mueller

I will be using two websites heavily for this project:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/

http://www.fangraphs.com/

I cannot recommend these sites more than enough.  I am sure most fans of the game know them well.  BR has a larger list for the 2012 HOF ballot.  I used a soft cut off of around 30 bWAR to decide on players to cover before the ballot is listed. 

bWAR is WAR on Baseball Reference

fWAR is WAR on FanGraphs

2013 Newbies:

Barry Bonds

Roger Clemons

Curt Schilling

Craig Biggio

Kenny Lofton

Sammy Sosa

Mike Piazza

David Wells

Julio Franco

Steve Finley

Reggie Sanders

Jeff Cirillo

Shawn Green

Ryan Klesko

Jeff Conine

Roberto Hernandez

2014:

Greg Maddux

Frank Thomas

Mike Mussina

Tom Glavine

Jeff Kent

Luis Gonzalez

Kenny Rogers

Moises Alou

Ray Durham

2015:

Randy Johnson

Pedro Martinez

John Smoltz

Gary Sheffield

Carlos Delgado

Brian Giles

Nomar Garciaparra

Tom Gordon

Bartolo Colon

As well as future ballots, I will go back and highlight some players I feel merited more discussion for the hall of fame.  Ron Santo in particular but three fell off the ballot this year that I think deserved more consideration:

Harold Baines

John Franco

Kevin Brown

I hope this eventually becomes more readable.  I am working at it.  My stream of conscience probably gets old.  

I am willing to take any suggestions of baseball topics as well.  I will definetely get a post in eventually about my favorite all-time player, the great Robin Ventura.  I do not necessarily think he was a Hall of Famer (Favorite player, cannot be rational) but I feel he should have had more consideration.

Idea

I am searching for a job as I just got done with Graduate school.  I love baseball and I like to debate things.  I decided that I would start a Baseball Hall Of Fame blog.  This blog is for inclusion of players.  I think I will start with those players who are still on the ballot.  Every post will be positive I hope.  This will be the argument for a players inclusion in the HOF.  Every player I discuss should be considered for the Hall.  I do not think that every player I talk about here should be in the Hall.  I am actually for a Hall of Greatness.  I do not want to water down the Hall of Fame.  But I hope this is a jumping off point for support for some of these guys.

As I stated, I will start with those people returning to the ballot.  Then I plan to cover the newcomers to the ballot for next year.  I may jump back and start to talk about those who may only be considered by the Veteran's Committee.  I will probably fast forward and cover years to come as well.  I do not think I will blog too much about people currently active.  I can wait until they are done to reflect on careers.  I may be only positive about the players, but I reserve the right to complain about the writers, voters, and procedures for the Hall of Fame elections.  I will announce if I am going to be overly negative in a post.  Thanks for reading.