2012 Baseball Hall of Fame: Barry Larkin, SS Cincinnati

[DrungoHazewood]

There have been questions about Trammel's defense in the past and I think that's the issue. The Tigers were pretty notorious for having "high grass" back in those days. On MLB Network the Baseball Prospectus writer noted that BP had developed a new defensive rating system which showed Trammel pretty poorly. He said he had changed his vote on Trammel based on that data.

I guess that's plausible. He's not in the abosolute-no-doubt-inner-circle range, and if someone could really prove he was, say, -77 instead of +77 with the glove he'd move down in the gray area. I don't know, I'd have to see some revised data.

Even if he was -77 with the glove he'd be 10 or 15 wins better than Jim Rice or Jack Morris.

Heyman commented that it seemd unfair to be changing the opinion of someones defense 20 years after the fact. Kind of interesting.

I think you use the best information you have. Used to be folks thought all kinds of crazy stuff.

Also of note is that one of the researchers showed that Morris was not really a clutch pitcher per his reputation but his wins were pretty much base on offensive support.

Yea, it's been pretty well established that Morris didn't "pitch to the score" and really bear down when needed. Just look at bb-ref. His ERA when given 0-2 runs of support was half a run worse than when given 3-5.

[BaltimoreTerp]

That overstates the case. Guthrie and Burnett did allow runs at the same rate, but Morris came up at age 21 and lasted until he was 39. He pitched 3800 innings. If you tacked Burnett's career on to Guthrie's you get a pitcher who allowed runs at the same rate as Morris but pitched 2/3rds as many innings.

It's kind of like saying Marty Cordova is Johnny Damon (seriously both have OPS+es between 100-105).

Oh sure. I was just pointing out that this would be the kind of production we would be looking at (from an ERA perspective). Don't forget that Morris probably wouldn't be averaging 250 innings a season in this environment, either.

[mweb]

Pop quiz: Who had the better career between Jack Morris and David Wells?

[BaltimoreTerp]

Pop quiz: Who had the better career between Jack Morris and David Wells?

I saw the answer earlier, so I'll abstain

[mweb]

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/1/10/2697745/hall-of-fame-2013-craig-biggio

Take this man's (Ken Gurnick) voting privilege's away:

I'm not voting for anybody from the steroid era.

[Can_of_corn]

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/1/10/2697745/hall-of-fame-2013-craig-biggio

Take this man's (Ken Gurnick) voting privilege's away:

Better him then Hal Bodley. Bodley compounds Gurnick's sin by voting for Morris.

Are these guys so stupid that they don't realize steroid users are already in the hall?

[mweb]

Better him then Hal Bodley. Bodley compounds Gurnick's sin by voting for Morris.

Are these guys so stupid that they don't realize steroid users are already in the hall?

not to mention greenies.

I think some of them are that stupid/naive.

I think a lot of them are simply blissfully ignorant as I previously mentioned.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Better him then Hal Bodley. Bodley compounds Gurnick's sin by voting for Morris.

Are these guys so stupid that they don't realize steroid users are already in the hall?

Purposefully oblivious.

[DrungoHazewood]

Pop quiz: Who had the better career between Jack Morris and David Wells?

It's not cut-and-dried. Morris had 80% of Well's career value, but Morris had maybe four seasons better than or equal to Wells' best.

[DrungoHazewood]

not to mention greenies.

I think some of them are that stupid/naive.

I think a lot of them are simply blissfully ignorant as I previously mentioned.

I think some/many voters have basically drawn a line in the sand around 1993, forgive all sins prior to that, and issue a blanket death penalty for all who came after.

[MikeAD]

I think some/many voters have basically drawn a line in the sand around 1993, forgive all sins prior to that, and issue a blanket death penalty for all who came after.

This is so very frustrating. The Hall of Fame, ultimately, is not all that important. It is important because people put value in it, but its not the most important thing in the world (wouldn't every player rather win a few rings than be in the HOF?). I just don't get the mentality of these writers/voters who will keep out anyone from the era. Look at the NFL right now. Drew Brees broke Marino's single season passing yardage record this year, but so did Brady. Marino's record was 5,084, Brees had 5,476 and Brady 5,235. In addition Stafford eclipsed 5,000 yards and a total of ten QBs were over 4,000 yards. This would be insane in the early and mid 80s when Marino did it. The league right now is in an offensive explosion. When looking at 2011 in historical terms you would quantify what happened and compare the huge yardage through the air to the different style of offense in the 80s but you certainly wouldn't discredit the accomplishments of this season. When Brady goes in the Hall of Fame, should we just look at his Rings and not his offensive accomplishments because the league was going through a huge leap in offense during his prime? Same with Brees? That would be silly. But for some reason people get away with this in baseball. Steroids or not, the league was different in the 90s and early 2000s. Sosa broke the old home run record every year (it seemed like). It is what it is. If they stood out as the best of their era, they should get in.

[DrungoHazewood]

This is so very frustrating. The Hall of Fame, ultimately, is not all that important. It is important because people put value in it, but its not the most important thing in the world (wouldn't every player rather win a few rings than be in the HOF?). I just don't get the mentality of these writers/voters who will keep out anyone from the era. Look at the NFL right now. Drew Brees broke Marino's single season passing yardage record this year, but so did Brady. Marino's record was 5,084, Brees had 5,476 and Brady 5,235. In addition Stafford eclipsed 5,000 yards and a total of ten QBs were over 4,000 yards. This would be insane in the early and mid 80s when Marino did it. The league right now is in an offensive explosion. When looking at 2011 in historical terms you would quantify what happened and compare the huge yardage through the air to the different style of offense in the 80s but you certainly wouldn't discredit the accomplishments of this season. When Brady goes in the Hall of Fame, should we just look at his Rings and not his offensive accomplishments because the league was going through a huge leap in offense during his prime? Same with Brees? That would be silly. But for some reason people get away with this in baseball. Steroids or not, the league was different in the 90s and early 2000s. Sosa broke the old home run record every year (it seemed like). It is what it is. If they stood out as the best of their era, they should get in.

Casual fans (and I include a lot of the BBWAA in that category) have always had a big problem with changing standards in baseball. They've usually assigned credit/blame to changing quality of baseball players*. There were really writers and Vet's Committee members who probably believed that runs scored were so high in the 1890s and 1920s because there were so many freakin' great hitters then. Koufax and Gibson didn't dominate the game because the strike zone was five feet high and three feet wide and the mound was 4' tall, it was because they were awesome!

Today the narrative isn't that a combination of factors from juiced balls to smaller parks to PEDs to strategy and techniques combined to jack up offense. No, it's evil players conspired to take drugs to get rich and famous. It's bizarre, kind of backwards. Before the PEDs really came to light the narrative was more like expansion had ruined baseball (despite all the obvious problems with that argument). Can you imagine if the Ruth-led offensive explosion was blamed on the fact nobody knew how to pitch anymore?

* and not even the factually correct way, with overall quality steadily increasing over time.

[MikeAD]

Casual fans (and I include a lot of the BBWAA in that category) have always had a big problem with changing standards in baseball. They've usually assigned credit/blame to changing quality of baseball players. There were really writers and Vet's Committee members who probably believed that runs scored were so high in the 1890s and 1920s because there were so many freakin' great hitters then. Koufax and Gibson didn't dominate the game because the strike zone was five feet high and three feet wide and the mound was 4' tall, it was because they were awesome!

Today the narrative isn't that a combination of factors from juiced balls to smaller parks to PEDs to strategy and techniques combined to jack up offense. No, it's evil players conspired to take drugs to get rich and famous.

I wrote a thesis in 2004 about smaller parks and the changes in baseballs and how that affected offense. Out of the 15-16 interviews I did hardly anyone brought up steroids. I bet if a High School Junior did the same sort of paper now it would be all about juicing them forearms.

[backwardsk]

Pop quiz: Who had the better career between Jack Morris and David Wells?

If you take salary out of the equation, I'd rather have Morris' career. Bb-reference and fangraphs may rank Wells ahead of Morris, and that's fine, but I'd rather have 3 rings to 1 and pitch a 10 inning game 7 win in the WS. Wells had a great career and had the perfect game (which I believe was on the same day as the Brandi Chastain World Cup game), but I'd take Morris' career if I had to choose.

[ShaneDawg85]

Watching ATH and Woody Paige yesterday, who is an unapologetic tool, reinforced everything that is wrong with the process. Hearing a hall voter essentially say that if I'm convinced in my own mind that someone did it, without any evidence, and with no set of criteria or objectiveness, then I will not vote for them is an absolute joke and a disgrace.