Poor troll attempt, everyone on this thread knows why bonds and clemens aren't in the hall.

The Stanton talk does interest me. He's got an MVP award, and with the injuries he's had, it's actually pretty remarkable that he's got a chance at 500. He'd likely have had a good shot at 600 without the injuries which would have made him a near lock. So for me the discussion again turns to the same one I brought up for Mattingly and Murphy. Should injuries that derail counting stats be a deciding factor in whether a guy makes the hall or not. Usually I say no, but with Stanton it feels less clear cut. He just doesn't feel like a hof'er to me. Watching him jog the bases for fear of hurting himself seems wrong.

AggieEP said:

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Poor troll attempt, everyone on this thread knows why bonds and clemens aren't in the hall.

The Stanton talk does interest me. He's got an MVP award, and with the injuries he's had, it's actually pretty remarkable that he's got a chance at 500. He'd likely have had a good shot at 600 without the injuries which would have made him a near lock. So for me the discussion again turns to the same one I brought up for Mattingly and Murphy. Should injuries that derail counting stats be a deciding factor in whether a guy makes the hall or not. Usually I say no, but with Stanton it feels less clear cut. He just doesn't feel like a hof'er to me. Watching him jog the bases for fear of hurting himself seems wrong.

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Not a troll attempt. I HATE Barry Bonds. I LOVE McGwire. I HATE Clemens.

So the same baseball writers that voted Bonds to win 7 NL MVP awards won't vote him into the MLB Hall of Fame? Was it a secret that he was using back during his SF days?

You don't win gold gloves with steroids. Bonds won 8 gold gloves. Kent won 0.

If you just took Bonds' skinny years at Pittsburgh and ended his career then . . . it's still more impressive than Jeff Kent's career.

Kent was a clubhouse dewsh bag too.

I don't see any argument for Stanton. He's a lot closer to Justin Morneau than he is any HoF guy.

The Hall of Fame should be reserved for the elite and part of being elite is being healthy and/or maintaining excellence for at least 7 seasons.

At his best, Stanton was a great (with one elite season) home run hitter. That's it.

South Platte said:

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AggieEP said:

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Poor troll attempt, everyone on this thread knows why bonds and clemens aren't in the hall.

The Stanton talk does interest me. He's got an MVP award, and with the injuries he's had, it's actually pretty remarkable that he's got a chance at 500. He'd likely have had a good shot at 600 without the injuries which would have made him a near lock. So for me the discussion again turns to the same one I brought up for Mattingly and Murphy. Should injuries that derail counting stats be a deciding factor in whether a guy makes the hall or not. Usually I say no, but with Stanton it feels less clear cut. He just doesn't feel like a hof'er to me. Watching him jog the bases for fear of hurting himself seems wrong.

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Not a troll attempt. I HATE Barry Bonds. I LOVE McGwire. I HATE Clemens.

So the same baseball writers that voted Bonds to win 7 NL MVP awards won't vote him into the MLB Hall of Fame? Was it a secret that he was using back during his SF days?

You don't win gold gloves with steroids. Bonds won 8 gold gloves. Kent won 0.

If you just took Bonds' skinny years at Pittsburgh and ended his career then . . . it's still more impressive than Jeff Kent's career.

Kent was a clubhouse dewsh bag too.

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Don't cheat and you don't have any issues.

_lefraud_ said:

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I don't see any argument for Stanton. He's a lot closer to Justin Morneau than he is any HoF guy.

The Hall of Fame should be reserved for the elite and part of being elite is being healthy and/or maintaining excellence for at least 7 seasons.

At his best, Stanton was a great (with one elite season) home run hitter. That's it.

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I totally agree.....but I could very easily see reaching the 500 Club putting him in.....especially since he will have done it in Yankee pinstripes which will make the east coast voters wet themselves

Even in the modern era where we've become inured to a certain extent about the number of homers that guys hit, 500 is still an impressive number.

Stanton over 162 games averages 43 homers and 110 RBIs with a .874 OPS and 4.4 WAR.

Jeff Kent who just got in the hall averaged 3.9 WAR, 27 homers and 107 RBIs per year with a .855 OPS. On a per game basis, Stanton fits a profile that could hypothetically get him in to the hall of fame.

The issue obviously is that Stanton never gives you 162 games, and in actuality has only averaged 108 games per season for his career.

Jim Thome is probably my best comp on what Stanton's case would be if Stanton had remained healthy or if he could stack 3-4 more seasons and get up to something like 550. The obvious difference between them is that Thome walked way more often leading to a big lead in OPS, but on a per 162 basis, they are remarkably similar with Thome having a 4.6 WAR, 39 homer, 108 RBI average, but with a .955 OPS due to the increased walk rate.

But being made of extremely fragile glass and being unwanted by all the other teams in the league because of the lack of positional value and durability combined with his HIGH salary doesn't really make you think of Stanton as a hall of famer. Thome had a bit of an "it" factor and had some clutch moments that endeared him to fans despite being a DH in the back half of his career in addition to the gaudy final HR total.

An interesting name to keep an eye on will be Kyle Schwarber. He's at 340, is extremely likeable, and with his new contract, I'd put his odds of getting to 500 at better than 50/50. His WAR numbers though are TERRIBLE. But I can imagine a scenario where he gets 1-2 more chances in the postseason and continues to build on his clutch reputation and that serving as enough of a counterweight to the WAR numbers to get him significant consideration when he retires if he's sitting at like 525 career homers. As of right now, only the juicers with 500+ aren't in, so how Kyle or Giancarlo are treated if they get to 500 will be an interesting test case for whether or not certain magic numbers still hold their place in voters minds.

Good thought on Thome....definitely a different vibe from him....he always felt like someone everyone really enjoyed being around and was more of a country strong "man's man", whereas Stanton comes across, like you said, as glass.

Schwarber definitely leans more towards Thome in terms of likeability. He's easily my favorite current player, but I would still wouldn't be comfortable voting for him as a HOFer without something more than a couple more HR titles. His 2016 was legendary - tore his ACL in the 2nd game of the season, doctors said he couldnt be back during the regular season, worked his butt off rehabbing on the off-chance the Cubs make it to the World Series, and then they do, the Cibs activate him and he comes back and completely RAKES in his first live action in months.

Yeah, his 2016 post season is one of the more remarkable things in baseball history with making it back that fast and raking, and that's without even considering that his performance helped end one of the more painful championship droughts in MLB history.

I'm not sure exactly what to do with DH's, but I think the WAR formula as currently computed is unnecessarily harsh in how it punishes them. I assume that Schwarber could easily play a competent 1st base having been a catcher earlier in his career, and that alone would have given him about 1.5 WAR back per year. It's not really his fault that he's been blocked by Rizzo and now Harper from playing first. In fact if I remember correctly, he actually looked pretty good at 1st with Boston in a small sample size. I think it'd be much fairer for everyone if oWAR and dWAR were separately listed so we could do a more apples to apples comparison. Schwarber's -12.7 dWAR drags down his total WAR and makes him look like a JAG, when in reality he's a real star on offense.

Ohtani currently has a -9.0 dWAR for his career. In Ohtani's case it's ludicrous that they punish him for it even in years that he pitches. I don't see them giving Mariano Rivera -1.7 WAR per year, why should Ohtani take that penalty while also pitching 100 plus innings?

You can't compare a corner OF/DH to a 2B offensively. The bar is lower for for middle INF, CF, & C because their defensive positions are so much more important / demanding.

Farmer1906 said:

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You can't compare a corner OF/DH to a 2B offensively. The bar is lower for for middle INF, CF, & C because their defensive positions are so much more important / demanding.

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This is an interesting point, and one I don't 100% agree with. In theory you are correct, but the magic numbers of 3000, 500 etc. are not adjusted by position and those are still big for hall of fame resumes. There's a lot of extra context that goes into a Hall of Fame career and positional value (IMO) has traditionally made up a very small part of what seems to sway voters. Chase Utley is a good example here as he was a good defender (16.5 dWAR) and a slightly less prolific offensive player than Kent. As of yet, Utley hasn't been able to get in despite having a higher overall career WAR than Kent, likely because of his low counting stats. Lou Whitaker and Bobby Grich aren't in either with a pretty similar story of being lesser offensive players but stronger defensive players with better overall WARs than Kent. Looking at the list of highest career dWAR you find a good number of hall of famers, but also a lot of guys who played premium positions and never got recognized for it because their offensive profiles were a bit weaker. Gary Carter, Kenny Lofton etc.

For Kent in particular, he was rated by dWAR as below average for his career and my personal memories of him seem to confirm this. He was not overly athletic and in today's game would most likely have been moved to 1B or DH to make room for a better middle infielder. So for me it's not so much a case of not being able to compare a 2B with a DH full stop, you have to look at the context, and here IMO Jeff Kent was a DH playing 2B and that makes comparing his hitting stats to DHs fair game. Kent had essentially no value with the glove making his HoF case purely about his bat.

And perhaps about pissing Barry Bonds off by letting Kent get in while Barry still sits there.

It's not just theory; it's how the voters have treated it. WAR is supposed to take into account other things besides offense (like the importance of defensive position) and even things out a bit more.

A quick and simple way to check. It might not be perfect, but it'll get the point across.

Fangraphs filter by HOF by primary position: 2B vs RF

Median
WAR: 60.9 vs 59.7
wRC+: 118 vs 134
OPS: .819 vs .847
Hits: 1860 vs 2717
RBI: 1133 vs 1310
HR: 141 vs 230

25th Percentile
WAR 49.0 vs 45.1
wRC+ 108 vs 124
OPS .724 vs .814
Hits 2016 vs 2076
RBI 839 vs 950
HR 47 vs 75

And to bring it back to Kent vs Stanton.

Fangraphs DEF
Kent: 1.2
Stanton: -88.2

I don't know exactly how this will impact the total WAR number, but I am willing to wager that this more than makes up for the gap between Kent's 56.0 and Stanton's 44.6.

Even an average defensive 2B, gets tons of credit for a guy who played a bad corner OF and DH.

What do those numbers look like if you filter out Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Frank Robinson from the RFs?

With the number of HoFs so small those 3 outliers really have an outsized impact on the comparitive stats you posted. I don't disagree that 2B is a more important and more demanding defensive position but I do think that offensively the expectations for HoF 2B are not as different from the typical RF. This is particularly true if we omit the guys who played before 1950.

Again, I agree with you in principle, but in reality we've seen guys like Sandberg, Kent, Whitaker, Utley not be rewarded immediately for playing 2B and it's taken years for them to build momentum toward election.

It's median, not mean so those handful don't pull the rest up.

AggieEP said:

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What do those numbers look like if you filter out Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Frank Robinson from the RFs?

With the number of HoFs so small those 3 outliers really have an outsized impact on the comparitive stats you posted. I don't disagree that 2B is a more important and more demanding defensive position but I do think that offensively the expectations for HoF 2B are not as different from the typical RF. This is particularly true if we omit the guys who played before 1950.

Again, I agree with you in principle, but in reality we've seen guys like Sandberg, Kent, Whitaker, Utley not be rewarded immediately for playing 2B and it's taken years for them to build momentum toward election.

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Because guys like that are borderline players. If they were corner OFers, they wouldn't be in.

Compare Bobby Abreu, Lance Berkman, Jim Edmonds, & Gary Sheffield to that group of 2B. I think they're clearly better offensively, yet not in the HOF. If they were 2nd baseman, they would have gotten in.

Edit:

Sanberg, Kent, Whitaker, Utley (2 HOFers with another ~40% on the current ballot)

WAR: 56.0-68.1, 61.2 median
wRC+: 115-123, 118 median
OPS: .789-.855, .809 median
HR: 244-377, 282 median
Hits: 1885-2461, 2378 median

Abreu, Berkman, Edmonds, and Sheffield (0 HOFers with another ~20% on current ballots)

WAR: 55.9-64.5, 60.9 median
wRC+: 129-144, 137 median
OPS: .870-.943, .870 median
HR: 288-509, 380 median
Hits: 1905-2689, 2210 median

Great post and I admit freely to missing the median/mean distinction there. That makes the difference much more apparent.

In the numbers you posted, the WAR and hit numbers are pretty much identical, but a pretty big gap in the power numbers accounting for the expectations of a corner outfielder.

I think Bobby Abreu might get in eventually and he's being punished right now (IMO) for walking too much which dragged down some of his other counting stats. Even with that he's a high OPS guy that played solid defense and was a threat on the bases. He never "felt" like a true star, but his body of work is pretty strong. Never finishing in the top 10 of the MVP voting is a huge negative for me though. If I had a vote I'm not sure I could get to yes on a guy that was never close to being a league MVP.

With about 1/3rd of the ballots made public so far (HOF Ballot Tracker):

• Beltran is at 88.4%; he missed last year by 19 votes and has a net +7 on returning voters
• Andruw Jones is at 84.1%; he has a +9 so far and missed last year by 35
• Utley is at 66.7% with a +13 having missed by 139 votes

All carryovers on the ballot from 2025 are at least a net +1

Cole Hamels may be the only newcomer to stick around for the 2027 ballot; he is at 32.6%. All others are below 3%.

Felix Hernandez and Andy Pettitte are the only other players over 50%.

Mr.Ackar07 said:

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With about 1/3rd of the ballots made public so far (HOF Ballot Tracker):

• Beltran is at 88.4%; he missed last year by 19 votes and has a net +7 on returning voters
• Andruw Jones is at 84.1%; he has a +9 so far and missed last year by 35
• Utley is at 66.7% with a +13 having missed by 139 votes

All carryovers on the ballot from 2025 are at least a net +1

Cole Hamels may be the only newcomer to stick around for the 2027 ballot; he is at 32.6%. All others are below 3%.

Felix Hernandez and Andy Pettitte are the only other players over 50%.

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I am a yes for Beltran, Jones, and Utley. All fairly borderline, but ultimately worthy.

Beltran has the cheating mark on his record and an extraordinary old man peak with the Yankees in '15-'16.

Jones's defense is legendary. His bat was solid, too. He just aged poorly in an era when guys didn't age thanks to the magic juice. If we put guys like Ozzie in, I think Jones should be in too.

Utley is another name that only gets in due to this position. Short prime, but he stacks up solidly vs his 2B peers. In a group of Kent, Biggio, Alomar, Sandberg, and Utley he ranks: 3rd in WAR, 2nd in wRC+, 5th in Hits, 4th in HR, 4th in SB, 3rd in OBP, 2nd in SLG, and 2nd in OPS. I also lean yes, because the next 2B to get in are likely Altuve or Semien. That won't be for another 10ish years.

Farmer1906 said:

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And to bring it back to Kent vs Stanton.

Fangraphs DEF
Kent: 1.2
Stanton: -88.2

I don't know exactly how this will impact the total WAR number, but I am willing to wager that this more than makes up for the gap between Kent's 56.0 and Stanton's 44.6.

Even an average defensive 2B, gets tons of credit for a guy who played a bad corner OF and DH.

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I'm curious as well as to what extent the dWAR and DEF stats overall impact the WAR calculation. It's clearly not a 1 to 1 subtraction equation, and even for guys like Keith Hernandez having a +1.2 dWAR takes his oWAR of 46.3 and makes it an overall 60.3 WAR for him. I'm sure the baserunning WAR impacts this as well, but that one is also hard to see a direct 1 to 1 calculation and TBH I'm pretty skeptical of both the dWAR and baserunning WAR numbers in general. They seem to swing wildly from year to year for most players. Even someone like Adolis Garcia has gone from best RF in the league to worst RF in the league and now back to best in a short span of time based on however they calculate their formulas.

In a world where overall WAR has become a key component in the initial look at a HoF resume of a player I think that dWAR and baserunning WAR should just stay as separate stats allowing us to look at them with context, and we should look at oWAR mostly because it already has the positional adjustment built into it that gives us a rough idea how valuable a guy is offensively compared to others at his position. For 1B and DHs and corner OFs the overall WAR formula punishes them for playing those positions by having higher offensive expectations, then it punishes them on dWAR for not playing a demanding position, and THEN it further punishes them for likely not being a speedy baserunner (the reason they play 1B, DH or RF/LF) in the first place.

This is how we get things like Tommy Edman's 2022 where he had a 6.2 WAR while sporting a .725 OPS, 107 OPS+ while Freddie Freeman also finished with 6.2 WAR that year while carrying a .918 OPS and 156 OPS+.

AggieEP said:

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Farmer1906 said:

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And to bring it back to Kent vs Stanton.

Fangraphs DEF
Kent: 1.2
Stanton: -88.2

I don't know exactly how this will impact the total WAR number, but I am willing to wager that this more than makes up for the gap between Kent's 56.0 and Stanton's 44.6.

Even an average defensive 2B, gets tons of credit for a guy who played a bad corner OF and DH.

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I'm curious as well as to what extent the dWAR and DEF stats overall impact the WAR calculation. It's clearly not a 1 to 1 subtraction equation, and even for guys like Keith Hernandez having a +1.2 dWAR takes his oWAR of 46.3 and makes it an overall 60.3 WAR for him. I'm sure the baserunning WAR impacts this as well, but that one is also hard to see a direct 1 to 1 calculation and TBH I'm pretty skeptical of both the dWAR and baserunning WAR numbers in general. They seem to swing wildly from year to year for most players. Even someone like Adolis Garcia has gone from best RF in the league to worst RF in the league and now back to best in a short span of time based on however they calculate their formulas.

In a world where overall WAR has become a key component in the initial look at a HoF resume of a player I think that dWAR and baserunning WAR should just stay as separate stats allowing us to look at them with context, and we should look at oWAR mostly because it already has the positional adjustment built into it that gives us a rough idea how valuable a guy is offensively compared to others at his position. For 1B and DHs and corner OFs the overall WAR formula punishes them for playing those positions by having higher offensive expectations, then it punishes them on dWAR for not playing a demanding position, and THEN it further punishes them for likely not being a speedy baserunner (the reason they play 1B, DH or RF/LF) in the first place.

This is how we get things like Tommy Edman's 2022 where he had a 6.2 WAR while sporting a .725 OPS, 107 OPS+ while Freddie Freeman also finished with 6.2 WAR that year while carrying a .918 OPS and 156 OPS+.

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Yikes.

Fangraphs has a little more separation between the two. Stuff like this doesn't pass the smell test.

Freeman - 6.8
Edman - 5.4

If you want to get into the weeds on WAR, here you go.

https://library.fangraphs.com/war/war-position-players/

Every year there are a couple of extreme WAR outliers that seem to defy all logic. Nico Hoerner has been doing it for like the past four years now. Last year he put up a 6.2 WAR season good enough for the 9th best WAR in the game last year with a .739 OPS. He's a fine player, but no one in their right mind values him as a top ten player in the league.

In 2024 Daulton Varsho put up a 5.0 WAR season with a .700 OPS. Andres Gimenez put up a 5.3 WAR year in 2023 with a .712 OPS. Then probably my favorite stat line of all time, Ke'bryan Hayes somehow put up a 4.5 WAR season with a .659 OPS in 2022.

Defense is important. Baserunning is important. But a guy like Ke'Bryan Hayes has been borderline unplayable in his career despite his unreal defense because he provides nothing offensively. Gimenez is a fantastic defender, but his career WAR of 19.4 is just behind Kyle Schwarber's 19.9 in about half the amount of games played. Is there any world where Gimenez is twice as valuable as Schwarber?

Basically what I'm trying to say is that there is a happy medium that WAR should try to hit where it doesn't overly punish the bat only sluggers like Schwarber quite as heavily and doesn't reward the glove only guys like Hayes quite so lucratively.

For the stat to do what it's trying to do which is be a one stop shop to express the value of a player, it should be obvious that 2025 Schwarber and his 150 OPS+ was undoubtedly more valuable than 2025 Ceddanne Rafaela and his 95 OPS+ even though they both finished with a 4.7 WAR last year.

HoF related, but the return in the Arenado trade has to be the worst return on a trade of a future hall of famer ever. Had to send 31 million dollars and take back a non prospect just to unload him.