Arenado traded to Cards.

[Frobby]

16 hours ago, OrioleDog said:

Haven't looked at the Manny-Arenado comparison in a couple years, but seems an okay time to check back.   2020 abbreviated another MVP vote getting Machado season.

Seeing the Arenado good hitter/great fielder stuff reminded me of Cal on a whole other level --nearly double Arenado through Age-29 already, and about to have his 1991.

Machado down by 7 WAR to Cal through Age-27 season, with covid maybe costing him staying within just a few wins.

https://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx?players=9777,11493,1010978&wg=2

Considering Cal finished 24th all time in rWAR among position players, a player can be a good distance behind Cal and still have a pretty good shot at being a first ballot HOFer.    It’s notable that Cal had about 46% of his total career WAR in those first 7+ seasons.    If that ratio applied to Manny and Arenado, they’d finish at 87 and 67 WAR, respectively.    87 is a first ballot total, 67 is a borderline case for HOF candidacy.   

Of course, with all younger players who get off to a nice head start towards HOF, much depends on having a healthy and productive career after age 30.    BB-ref is full of guys who were great for 6-10 years but fell off the table after that.   
 

 

[bpilktree]

I am going to be watching Arenado numbers now that he doesn’t play in Colorado to see how great of player he is.  So far he has been just a good player outside of Coors. 
 

career numbers at home and away

.322/.376/.609/.985 home 

.263/.322/.471/.793 away

[DrungoHazewood]

18 hours ago, Frobby said:

Of course, with all younger players who get off to a nice head start towards HOF, much depends on having a healthy and productive career after age 30.    BB-ref is full of guys who were great for 6-10 years but fell off the table after that.  

That depends on how you define great.  Here's a list of everyone by WAR in their first eight years.  Only a handful of the top 50 aren't HOFers, and probably 90% of the top 100 is in or probably will be.  Not too many players were epic for 6-10, then bad afterwards. Nomar, Wally Berger, Vada Pinson, Ken Boyer (I guess)... Cesar Cedeno.  Sisler had the eye thing.  Hughie Jennings had a five-year run of 35 wins, and an entire career worth 42.  But 80-90% of the time if you're really great in your mid-20s you're at least pretty good for a while after that.

Although when you put up 40-50 WAR in your first eight you might go to the Hall if you get hit by a train in year 10.

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

That depends on how you define great.  Here's a list of everyone by WAR in their first eight years.  Only a handful of the top 50 aren't HOFers, and probably 90% of the top 100 is in or probably will be.  Not too many players were epic for 6-10, then bad afterwards. Nomar, Wally Berger, Vada Pinson, Ken Boyer (I guess)... Cesar Cedeno.  Sisler had the eye thing.  Hughie Jennings had a five-year run of 35 wins, and an entire career worth 42.  But 80-90% of the time if you're really great in your mid-20s you're at least pretty good for a while after that.

Although when you put up 40-50 WAR in your first eight you might go to the Hall if you get hit by a train in year 10.

Well, there are 181 position players in the Hall.   Looking at your list, here are the number of players over various thresholds through 8 seasons:

60+ 6

50+ 21

45+ 38

40+ 63

35+ 111

31.3+ 181

Looks like 45 is the cutoff for guys who have such a big head start they are virtually automatic.   Ken Boyer was at 45.0 and didn’t make it.    Of the 37 players ahead of him, all are either in the Hall or not yet eligible, except for Barry Bonds.    Below that it immediately gets much more dicey.   Of the 23 eligible players in the 40-44.9 group, 9 have not made the Hall of Fame.    Presumably it gets worse below that threshold.

[BohKnowsBmore]

On 1/31/2021 at 1:32 PM, Frobby said:

Considering Cal finished 24th all time in rWAR among position players, a player can be a good distance behind Cal and still have a pretty good shot at being a first ballot HOFer.    It’s notable that Cal had about 46% of his total career WAR in those first 7+ seasons.    If that ratio applied to Manny and Arenado, they’d finish at 87 and 67 WAR, respectively.    87 is a first ballot total, 67 is a borderline case for HOF candidacy.   

Of course, with all younger players who get off to a nice head start towards HOF, much depends on having a healthy and productive career after age 30.    BB-ref is full of guys who were great for 6-10 years but fell off the table after that.   
 

To add to this, the steep part of the HoF probability "S-curve" (for position players in particular) is generally from ~60 WAR to ~70 WAR.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]