SBNATION: Why Ex-Oriole Bobby Grich will never make the HOF (+ why Jeter should not be first ballot)

[Frobby]

I never said Jeter could not be elected. Or that I would leave him out. I just say that Grich was a better player.

One thing about Grich, he played the game very hard and was hurt fairly frequently. By the time this year ends, Jeter likely will have played about 700 games more than Grich did. Some of that is because Jeter played longer, some because Grich missed a fair number of games during his career. Jeter therefore has the higher WAR totals.

[DrungoHazewood]

I never said Jeter could not be elected. Or that I would leave him out. I just say that Grich was a better player.

And you know that WAR says Jeter was better, and that's before any credit for 734 pretty good postseason PAs that probably had the pennant/trophy/revenue impact of 1500 or 2000 regular PAs.

[El Gordo]

I don't see why someone who votes against Jeter would be any more vilified than someone who voted against Cal, or Greg Maddux, or others. There are plenty of baseball fans who don't love Derek Jeter. Probably more of them than for the other two players I mentioned.

Fans don't vote, maybe they should. Writers do and for the most part they are self serving IMO. Which way the wind is blowing matters more to them in terms of their careers. In todays' climate they would be vilified in the media. who cares what the fans think. For the most part they think the way the media tells them to. If they don't the media ignores them. Today they are being told to genuflect at the name of Jeter. In 5 years who knows? It depends on how he promotes his brand. How did how Cal was perceived at the time he broke Gehrig's streak compare with how he was perceived at the time of his HOF vote? I'm sure it had diminished somewhat.

[DrungoHazewood]

I know. We could include spring training stats too. Not to say that playoff stats are not real. Just that they aren't. It's not Derek's fault that his team pays an average of 200 million a year to give him that privilege.

But they are real. If you're comparing guys pre-1961 to today you don't go all Ford Frick and say the last eight games of the season don't count. You don't mentally adjust up Willie Keeler and John McGraw because they played in a 130-game schedule for a while. Jeter and his buddies really did play in all those games. You can't just decide they didn't happen, especially when they really were more important. I hate that the Yanks spent the cash to get Jeter an extra 730 PAs. But it happened.

[weams]

One thing about Grich, he played the game very hard and was hurt fairly frequently. By the time this year ends, Jeter likely will have played about 700 games more than Grich did. Some of that is because Jeter played longer, some because Grich missed a fair number of games during his career. Jeter therefore has the higher WAR totals.

Mostly because he played younger. I blame Buck.

[weams]

But they are real. If you're comparing guys pre-1961 to today you don't go all Ford Frick and say the last eight games of the season don't count. You don't mentally adjust up Willie Keeler and John McGraw because they played in a 130-game schedule for a while. Jeter and his buddies really did play in all those games. You can't just decide they didn't happen, especially when they really were more important. I hate that the Yanks spent the cash to get Jeter an extra 730 PAs. But it happened.

I'm permitted to ignore them. Jeter deserves to be in. Just not first ballot.

[Frobby]

To me there is a backlog that needs to be worked through.

Once those that I think deserve it more get in, I will look at Mike's case.

Moose's 270 wins is short of what today is considered an automatic ticket for the HOF. However, when you look at the win totals of today's top pitchers, it could be a very long time before anyone gets a whiff of 270.

Hudson: 213 at age 38

Sabathia: 208 at age 33 (but is he done?)

Colon: 197 at 41

Buehrle: 196 at 35

Burnett: 153 at 37

Lackey: 148 at 35

Arroyo: 145 at 37

Verlander: 145 at 31

Lee: 143 at 35

Lohse: 139 at 35

Santana: 139 at 35

Realistically, only Sabathia and Verlander on that list have a shot to get to 270. I think that accomplishment by Mussina will loom larger as the years pass. (Yeah, I know, wins are a stupid stat, etc. I'm just referring to it since it obviously has been an important criterion for the voters.)

[O'sLaw3087]

I know. We could include spring training stats too. Not to say that playoff stats are not real. Just that they aren't. It's not Derek's fault that his team pays an average of 200 million a year to give him that privilege.

I'm not sure how playoff stats are not real. I think people are misconstruing what the word "relevant" really means. If you want to take the legal definition, relevance means any tendency to make a fact of consequence (material fact) more or less probable then it would without that fact. In this case clearly significant postseason success at least has a TENDENCY to make a fact of consequence (whether Jeter is a deserving hall of famer) more or less likely than if for example he had never made the playoffs. Spring training stats are much more likely to be irrelevant because they really don't have any tendency to prove anything based on the fact that you have random double AA pitchers throwing, no one is watching the games, players are trying to get off rust, etc (you could come up with a million reasons).

As Drungo stated, what weight you give to such stats is a much different question. But I've seen a bunch of people post in here that Jeter's postseason stats are irrelevant and that is simply untrue unless someone can point me to a particular place where that is stated for hall of fame criteria.

[weams]

But they are real. If you're comparing guys pre-1961 to today you don't go all Ford Frick and say the last eight games of the season don't count. You don't mentally adjust up Willie Keeler and John McGraw because they played in a 130-game schedule for a while. Jeter and his buddies really did play in all those games. You can't just decide they didn't happen, especially when they really were more important. I hate that the Yanks spent the cash to get Jeter an extra 730 PAs. But it happened.

That's ok. Grich could never have played 20 years anyway. So Jeter wins on longevity. Of course he does. It's just when Grich played, he was really a bit better.

We will have this discussion about Mike Trout some day. It's hard to get someone to pay you to play 20 seasons.

[weams]

I'm not sure how playoff stats are not real. I think people are misconstruing what the word "relevant" really means. If you want to take the legal definition' date=' relevance means any tendency to make a fact of consequence (material fact) more or less probable then it would without that fact. In this case clearly significant postseason success at least has a TENDENCY to make a fact of consequence (whether Jeter is a deserving hall of famer) more or less likely than if for example he had never made the playoffs. Spring training stats are much more likely to be irrelevant because they really don't have any tendency to prove anything based on the fact that you have random double AA pitchers throwing, no one is watching the games, players are trying to get off rust, etc (you could come up with a million reasons).

As Drungo stated, what weight you give to such stats is a much different question. But I've seen a bunch of people post in here that Jeter's postseason stats are irrelevant and that is simply untrue unless someone can point me to a particular place where that is stated for hall of fame criteria.[/quote']

I never said they were irrelevant. It's just another courtroom. Not the same one. His boss paid to get him a chance to prevail there.

[DrungoHazewood]

Moose's 270 wins is short of what today is considered an automatic ticket for the HOF. However, when you look at the win totals of today's top pitchers, it could be a very long time before anyone gets a whiff of 270.

Hudson: 213 at age 38

Sabathia: 208 at age 33 (but is he done?)

Colon: 197 at 41

Buehrle: 196 at 35

Burnett: 153 at 37

Lackey: 148 at 35

Arroyo: 145 at 37

Verlander: 145 at 31

Lee: 143 at 35

Lohse: 139 at 35

Santana: 139 at 35

Realistically, only Sabathia and Verlander on that list have a shot to get to 270. I think that accomplishment by Mussina will loom larger as the years pass. (Yeah, I know, wins are a stupid stat, etc. I'm just referring to it since it obviously has been an important criterion for the voters.)

For a while a bunch of people will continue to vote like 20 wins/300 wins is some hard and fast line in the sand. They'll rail about how it ain't like the good old days when only Men were allowed to pitch.

Then they'll slowly come around to the conditions that led to this woeful state, and understand that today's pitchers are as good or better than the ones who used to pitch 14-inning complete games, and the voting will slowly match that.

Then we'll look back in 2035 and realize that there were like 11 pitchers who didn't get in before the voters caught up to the game, and they'll send some hastily-improvised iteration of the Vet's Committee to fix things. And they'll get it 45% right. And our grandkids will wonder why Red Ruffing was so much better than Roy Halladay, even though he wasn't at all.

[El Gordo]

I'm permitted to ignore them. Jeter deserves to be in. Just not first ballot.

Wouldn't that depend on who else is on the ballot? Or was Jeter associated with PED's like 3000 hit Biggio so you exclude for that, or did he commit some other heinous act like Robby Alomar?

[Frobby]

If we are going to use WAR to judge who was the best player and deserving Hall of Famer: was Bobby Grich (70.9 rWAR) better than Eddie Murray (68.3)? weams, do you hold that opinion? Roy?

[ledzepp8]

Exactly... and who is more HOF worthy.

Who is more HOF worthy is not the same question as who is more likely to be voted into the HOF. I'm not slighting Jeter in this argument. I'm just demonstrating that the fairy-tale that has been created in regards to Jeter and his godlike prowess, is ridiculous. Especially when you can take a guy like Grich, who has pretty much been forgotten by anyone besides Orioles fans, who should be in the HOF, and whom a case could be made was at least on par with and/or possibly better than Jeter.

[weams]

If we are going to use WAR to judge who was the best player and deserving Hall of Famer: was Bobby Grich (70.9 rWAR) better than Eddie Murray (68.3)? weams, do you hold that opinion? Roy?

There was some positional issue for Eddie with WAR that would not enter into the middle infielder conversation. In fact, it probably slightly favors Jeter. I never said keep Jetes out. It's difficult to accumulate WAR as a DH and Eddie was essentially that for seven years.