Baseball

[Syt]

The Bucs are playing .500 ball ... not since 2005(!) have they been that good this late in the season - only 128 more games to go!

Seriously, I believe they will break down some time soon ... no regular batter with a .300 avg (Neil Walker has .295)?

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7YH1imPOEU

Maybe someone who understands the balk rule to can explain it to me.

I thought the rule was if the lead foot starts toward home the throw has to be to the plate.  No?

[HVC]

IIRC it's up the the umpire discretion

[The Minsky Moment]

To celebrate HOF induction day, let's do a little comparison
Player 1 vs Player 2 - both hitters, both played in the same era.

Player 1 lifetime batting avg/OBP/Slug = .286/.380/.552
Player 2 lifetime batting avg/OBP/Slug = .292/.393/.514

On a per 162 game basis player 2 was getting a few extra hits and walks, but player 1 was getting a lot more doubles (+14 per year)

However, player 1 spent his career in better hitter's parks, that favored doubles. Their career OPS+, which adjusts the park is virtually the same - 141 to 140

Both were terrible defensive players - player 2 spent much of career in the outfield and played it badly. Player 1 was even worse and spent most of his career as a DH.

Player 2 won a world series and generally well in the post-season; player 1 won 3 rings and was an outstanding post-season player with 2 world series MVPs.

Player 1 is David Ortiz, inducted into the Hall of Fame his first year eligible with 77.9%
Player 2 is Gary Sheffield, well off the pace at 40.6% of votes in his 8th year.

Looking at it objectively, Sheffield was probably a little better overall as a player, at least in the regular season.  Ortiz's post-season performance makes up the gap, maybe overtakes it.  But its odd to see 2 players with such similar skill sets and performance be treated so differently.

[The Minsky Moment]

Comparison Part 2

Is there someone on the HoF ballot equivalent to Ortiz as a post-season performer?

Sure. His old teammate Curt Schilling, another post-season legend.  Schilling's post season record is arguably even more impressiv, 11-2 2.23 ERA, 8.1 strikeouts per 9 innings, only 1.7 walks.

Over Schilling's regular season career of 20 years, he allowed about 1.38 runs less per 9 innings than an average pitcher - that's close to 500 runs better than average over a career.

David Ortiz, also over a 20 year career, was about 455 runs better than an average hitter.  But that exaggerates his contribution, because although a fearsome hitter, he was a frightful fielder.  And thus the fair comparison is not to an average hitting position player, but an average hitting DH, which lowers his overall value.

Schilling was on the Hall of Fame ballot with Ortiz.  And off the ballot for good in his 10th and last year eligible, with only 58.6% of the ballots naming him.

So it's not just about post-season performance.

[jimmy olsen]

David was very likable, Curt was abrasive. That's the difference

[The Minsky Moment]

There is no mystery here.

Big Papi was one of the most beloved players of his generation, celebrated by fellow players and fans of all teams, and lionized by an adoring press.

Sheffield was respected by regarded by the press as prickly to the point of surly. Schilling's personality issues and controversies both during and after his playing career have been painfully detailed.  There are understandable reasons why Ortiz is far more well liked in baseball than the other two.

But if Hall of Fame voting comes down to personality contests, what does that say about the institution?

The other narrative driving HoF voting in recent years is drug usage.  But here again the voting this year demonstrated the hypocrisy and double standards.  Ortiz was implicated in PED usage; the voters chose to ignore it or to credit his denials. 

That's fine, but meanwhile Bonds, Clemens, and Arod were not merely the best players on the ballot, but among the best in the history of the game.  So what is the standard here and how is it being applied?  You can parse out the PED-related evidence and make fine distinctions, but what seems to be happening is the same with Sheff and Schilling - Bonds and Clements were selfish pricks, and ARod was perceived as self-absorbed and narcissistic.   There is an asshole discount and a heavy one.

To be clear the point is NOTthat Ortiz should have been kept out.  David Ortiz absolutely 100% deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. 

But from I sit, the HoF voting process is rotten, more like a cliquey high school election than a serious effort to identify and enshrine the best performers from each generation.

[The Minsky Moment]

David was very likable, Curt was abrasive. That's the difference

 

[Syt]

I guess you could make an argument that it should enshrine the best performers, but also those who best embody the spirit of the game?

(Though I assume that would retro-actively disqualify a whole slew of current members )

[The Minsky Moment]

I guess you could make an argument that it should enshrine the best performers, but also those who best embody the spirit of the game?

(Though I assume that would retro-actively disqualify a whole slew of current members )

I think the ship has long since sailed on that - for example Don Mattingly and Kirk Gibson were dumped off the ballot with less than 10 percent.

For the best really because the "spirit of the game" is very much in the eye of the beholder.  For me, it would include characters like Luis Tiant, Bill Lee, Mark Fidrych and profiles in courage like Curt Flood. But I suspect others would feel differently.  Joe Torre would fill the hall full of backup middle infielders with "grit" and "veteran presence" for example.

As it turns out, there already is a hall of fame of sorts that operates this way: the Shrine of Eternals at the Baseball Reliquary: https://baseballreliquary.org/shrine-of-the-eternals-alphabetical-list-of-electees-2/

[HVC]

Mattingly would have made it if he cut his damn sideburns.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I can somewhat justify keeping Curt out because there is some degree to which the HOF can justifiably argue that it doesn't want people who aren't good ambassadors for the game. Schilling has been involved in a ton of controversies over bigoted and inappropriate things he has said over the years.

But what of Ty Cobb? Sure--we could bring up a guy who has been dead 70 years and was inducted in an era when black people couldn't vote in a large swathe of the country, or we could recognize the standards for behavior in the press have evolved a little in the interim.

I have a much harder time justifying keeping Barry and Clemens out if you're letting Ortiz in. Bonds is a top 3 batter in baseball history, and you could make an argument he is the best all time (I don't make that argument, but I think you could.) Clemens was one of the most dominant pitchers of his generation--probably slightly edged out by Randy Johnson (although you could argue that one), and easily a peer of guys like Greg Maddux and Pedro who got into the HOF easily. Letting a glorified Fred McGriff like Ortiz into the Hall and keeping out two of the best players of their generation--and in Barry's case of any generation, for something that we just ignored about Ortiz is shocking.

[The Minsky Moment]

Cobb's legacy is a lot more nuanced than the popular impression, which is still shaped greatly by Al Stump's fraudulent hit job, amplified by the Tommy Lee Jones movie that used Stump's narrative because it made for a better screenplay than the truth.  He was probably less racist than the average Georgian of his day, although admittedly quite a bit more violent and with an awful temper.

As for Schilling, he has his share of feuds during his playing days, but the knock on him is really his post-career conduct.  Which basically comes down to expressing the typical view of a MAGA-idiot, i.e. views shared by about 1/3 of the country.  I don't like it; I wish he'd shut up. But it should have no bearing on his candidacy for the Hall.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm well versed in Ty Cobb-ology. I was actually a participant on a message board years ago where one of the most prominent (maybe the most prominent) community members was a guy who was a mega Ty Cobb fan. He literally spent decades of his life writing articles and highlighting his huge archive of Sporting News magazines from the actual era, debunking Al Stump's shitty writing from the 1950s. This was Bill Burgess over on Baseball Fever, he passed away some years ago (at a relatively young age, I think his mid-50s at the time), and while he always came off as being a little Aspergy to me, he was a very passionate fan of Cobb and crazily involved hobbyist baseball historian.

But at the same time, it's become such a meme in baseball that most people if you raise the specter of keeping people out of the HOF for "personal" issues will retort "but Ty Cobb is in!"

[The Minsky Moment]

Cobb certainly engaged in violent behavior that would be unimaginable today in a ballplayer, regardless of motivation or racism.  And it isn't too hard to find other negative examples, like Cap Anson. 

One can try to contextualize these behaviors with their times but apply the standard to Schilling.  His post-career antics are noxious, but sadly not that much out of step with our times.  There are tens of millions of Americans who think and say things like him.

And anyways, Curt being Curt hasn't stopped me or others here from buying from MMP, even after he made himself a German officer in ASL.