The First Seven Candidates

In Alphabetical Order

1.  Dave Concepcion

                The shortstops on great teams sometimes are granted Hall of Fame stature, even if their hitting numbers don’t make this inevitable.   The 1950s Dodgers and the 1970s Cincinnati Reds, as teams, match up extremely well.    Johnny Bench, Roy Campanella.    Tony Perez, Gil Hodges;  Perez is in the Hall of Fame and Hodges is not, but it is not entirely clear why this should be the case.    Joe Morgan, Jackie Robinson.    Unimpressive starting pitching on both teams. 

                Concepcion’s answer on the 1950s Dodgers was Pee Wee Reese, who is in the Hall of Fame.   This, in essence, is the argument for Concepcion.    Reese played 2,166 major league games, which would probably be about 2,600 were it not for World War II.    Concepcion played 2,488.   Reese had a .743 OPS, against a norm for shortstops in his era of .680; Concepcion had a career OPS of .679, against a norm of .629.     Concepcion hit a career-high 16 home runs, and a career total of 101; Reese hit a career-high 16 homers, and a career total of 126.  Reese was selected to ten All-Star teams and was mentioned in the MVP voting in thirteen seasons; Concepcion was selected to nine All-Star teams, but was mentioned in the MVP voting in only three seasons.

                Pee Wee is not the only Hall of Fame shortstop whose most obvious credential is being a part of a great team; the same can also be said of Phil Rizzuto, Joe Tinker, Hughie Jennings and perhaps others.

                Of course, being part of a great team is not a real qualification for the Hall of Fame to serious analysts; it is, rather, a part of the haze that surrounds the discussion, and prevents us from seeing the players clearly.   In my view, Concepcion fell substantially short of a Hall of Fame career.    I credit him with a career won-lost contribution of 264-242, a winning percentage of just .521:

                Concepcion won five Gold Gloves in his career, in the years 1974-1977 and 1979.    My method agrees that those are his best defensive seasons, and agrees that he was a spectacular shortstop in those years, with a won-lost record 42+1.   Negative one losses; the credit he is assigned for defensive successes is larger than the space allocated to represent his defensive responsibility.   In the rest of his career, his defensive won-lost record was 56-24, which is still extremely good. 

                But he was, at his best, little more than an average hitter, and for his career much less than an average hitter, with a won-lost contribution of 166-219, a winning percentage of .430.   If he was relying on his bat to keep him in the league, he would have had about a ten-year career, 1973 to 1982.     Putting offense and fielding together, I credit him with won-lost contributions of 22-12 (1974), 19-11 (1975), 23-10 (1976), 19-14 (1977), 20-11 (1978), 23-11 (1979), 16-7 (1981) and 18-13 (1982).   That’s a very good player.   But it is not a Hall of Famer.  

                Among the 12 candidates listed here, I would rank Concepcion 11^th.

2.  Bobby Cox

                Bobby Cox is one of the most successful managers of all time, and an obviously well-qualified Hall of Famer.

                My best effort to discern the Hall of Fame standards for a manager was a three-part series posted here on February 18, 19 and 20 of this year (2013).   The article argued that there are five accomplishments that put a manager in the Hall of Fame:

                1)  Winning Games,

                2)  Winning more games than you lose,

                3)  Winning more games than your team could be expected to win, given their performance in the previous seasons,

                4)  Winning championships (that is, winning the league or the division), and

                5)  Winning the World Series.

                That article. ..that series of articles. ..set up Hall of Fame point totals for managers based on these accomplishments, and the method resulting generally predicts Hall of Fame selection for managers, with some very minor discrepancies and one serious anomaly.   The one serious anomaly is the 1945 selection of Wilbert Robinson, whose record falls far short of the standards met by every other Hall of Fame manager.

                Anyway, Bobby Cox ranks (by that method) as the #3 manager of all time, the third most-qualified manager ever, behind John McGraw and Joe McCarthy.    Among the 12 candidates listed here, I would list him second on my ballot.

3.  Steve Garvey

                This is Steve Garvey’s career record, stated as Win Shares and Loss Shares:

                Garvey has, by my math, a .617 career winning percentage as a hitter, .522 as a fielder, .594 overall.

                My criteria state that if a player has neither 300 Career Win Shares nor 100 more Win Shares than Loss Shares, that he is not a viable Hall of Fame candidate. . .

                except that that logic fails to persuade, in this particular case.   Those guidelines are intended to help us clarify our thinking about Hall of Fame candidates.   They are not intended to be statistical fiats which we must obey when it is too close to call.    They are not intended to be fiats which we must obey because, to re-state my earlier point, we could be not exactly correct.    We do our very best to calculate precisely what a player’s value to his team has been—I do, Tom Tango does, Sean Foreman does--but our calculations are not perfect.  

                Garvey is the odd case where a player is not only right on the Hall of Fame line with regard to one standard, but very near the line with regard to both standards—300 Win Shares (he has 291) and +100 (he is +92).     In the ordinary case, if we have made a small error in designing our method, the player who is in the gray area might be a fully-qualified Hall of Famer, or he might be a non-qualified.    Garvey is the odd case where our math says that he is not a viable Hall of Fame candidate—but that if he was just a little bit better then he would be not merely a candidate, but a no-questions-asked Hall of Famer.   That’s a logical absurdity; a player can’t be outside the gray area but a small distance from being an obvious Hall of Famer—thus, we have to conclude that Garvey actually IS in the gray area, even though the letter of the law would say that he is not.     Garvey in his career played in 50 post-season games—a lot for his era—and hit .335 in the post-season.   He had the reputation of being a clutch hitter.   If he is given credit for either one of those benefits, he could well be seen as deserving of a plaque. 

                Garvey and Dave Parker. . .Parker is also right on the line with regard to both standards, even more so than Garvey.   Garvey and Parker are contemporary players, both National League Most Valuable Players in the 1970s.   In some ways they are opposites:  an infielder and an outfielder, a right-hander and a left-hander, white and black.   In more profound ways they present the same problems.

                Both Garvey and Parker come with a lot of baggage, and I suspect that most of you know what that is.   They are both flawed human beings, as we all are.   A few years ago, maybe ten years ago, I participated in a made-for-ESPN production in which both Garvey and Parker were also participants.    We spent a day or so spending hours sitting around the green room telling stories, or in my case listening, and I liked both men very much.     I thought then, and I think now, that guys like me have talked too much about their personal failings, that it is really none of our business and we really don’t know that much about it, and we should just shut up about it.

                That is still what I think, and if it seems to conflict with what I am going to say next, I don’t mean it that way.   I am not talking about their personal failings.   But when I am making recommendations for the Red Sox, I don’t recommend that they sign players like Steve Garvey and Dave Parker; I recommend that they avoid signing players like Steve Garvey and Dave Parker.    Garvey and Parker, once they got past their MVP seasons, were pretty good ballplayers who had the reputation of being superstars.   It is my opinion, and I suspect that 99% of General Managers would agree with me, that when you are putting together a championship team, absolutely the last thing you want is a pretty good ballplayer who has the reputation of being a superstar.   What you want is a pretty good ballplayer who will do whatever he has to do to help you win a game, like Ron Cey or Phil Garner or Jonny Gomes.

                In my opinion, Steve Garvey is in the gray area with regard to the Hall of Fame, but would I vote for him?  No.    On this list of 12 candidates, I would rank him 9^th.   

4.  Tommy John

                I know a lady who was going to have Tommy John Surgery, and asked me who Tommy John was.   Tommy John, of course, has given his name not only to the language of baseball but to the language of medicine and to the English language.   John is also the archetype of a family of pitchers:  left-handed, good control, controls the running game, gets ground balls.   A pitcher of that type can win 70% of his decisions with a good team behind him, and John, because his ground ball rate was exceptionally high, defines the category better than any other pitcher.

Tommy John is the polar opposite of Nolan Ryan—Ryan being right-handed, John left, Ryan’s game being dominated by strikeouts and walks, John’s game focused on avoiding them, Ryan getting fly balls, John ground balls, Ryan allowing many, many stolen bases, John relatively few.    In careers of comparable length, Ryan allowed 757 stolen bases; John allowed 240—and with a stolen base percentage far below the break-even point.    Ryan struck out 5,714 batters; John, 2,245.   Ryan walked 2,795; John, 1,259.    Ryan got 314 double plays in his career; John, 604.

                I mentioned earlier that pitchers often have about the same Win Shares/Loss Shares as their official won-lost record, and John illustrates the point, with an official won-lost record of 288-233, and a Win Shares won-lost record of 291-233.    In his case, what you see is what you get.

                In 1970 John had a 12-17 won-lost record, but earned 20 Win Shares for the only time in his career.   That team lost 106 games; 12-17 was a pretty good record with the 1970 White Sox.   John was 12-17, 3.28 ERA in 1970, 13-16, 3.61 in 1971, which looks pretty much the same—yet we credit him with a .583 winning percentage in 1970, .388 in 1971.   Why?

                The league ERA in 1970 was 3.71; in 1971 it was 3.46.   John’s ERA went up 33 points while the league went down 25.    More significantly than that, the Park Run index was 118 in 1970, 94 in 1971.   The park was hurting John badly in 1970—and perhaps hurting the team.   The White Sox may have moved some fences back, I don’t know, but in any case the park was pitcher-friendly in 1971, hitter-friendly in 1970.     John’s OPS as a hitter dropped 109 points in 1971.   When you add it up. . .he looks the same in 1971, but the impact is quite a bit different.

                I could make an argument, knowing my Win Shares/Loss Shares system as I do, that it discriminates against Tommy John and against Dan Quisenberry.    The argument is this.  The Win Shares/Loss Shares system assigns responsibility to a pitcher based, in part, on his strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed.    Since John had few strikeouts and walks, he is assigned less responsibility, per inning pitched, than Nolan Ryan would be, or Randy Johnson or Tim Lincecum.    Suppose that two pitchers are teammates, and that each of them is 16-11 with a 3.30 ERA.    The Win Shares system might assign the power pitcher a Win Shares won-lost record of 18-12, and the Tommy John type pitcher a record of 14-10.  

                Some people will say, "What kind of sense does that make.   If what they DID was the same, why shouldn’t their records be the same?

                But I know the answer to that argument, and I’m comfortable with my answer to that argument.    That two pitchers may have the same won-lost record and the same ERA does not mean that THEIR performance was the same.   It means that the performance of their TEAMS while they are on the mound happens to be the same.    But if you moved those two pitchers to a different team, the performance of THAT team (with this pitcher on the mound) not only might be different, it would be different.   On a bad team, the power pitcher has a better chance to overcome his team and struggle to a .500 record.   On a good team, the power pitcher will lose more games because he will walk people, and there is nothing the rest of the team can do about it.   So the performance of those two pitchers is NOT really the same; it merely appears to be the same, in this particular context.

                I buy that argument absolutely—except in a few cases, like Tommy John and Dan Quisenberry.   The argument is that the Power Pitcher is controlling the action to a greater extent—but Tommy John (and Quiz) were also controlling the action.   They were controlling the action by forcing the hitters to hit ground balls.    "Getting a ground ball" is different from simply "putting the ball in play".    I buy the argument above when it comes to putting the ball in play; I am less convinced that it accurately describes the expected outcomes for a ground ball pitcher.

                But Tommy John pitched for a lot of really good teams in his career.   He pitched for thirteen teams in his career that won 89 or more games, whereas he pitched for only five teams that finished worse than 79-83.    Most of his career was spent pitching for good teams.   His career won-lost record was 288-233.    We’re crediting him with a won-lost record of 291-233.   I think it’s a fair representation of his skills.

                Would I vote for him?   Well. ..I’m on the fence.  Tommy John is a terrifically nice person, and, as a college math major, was one of the first major league players to express an interest in sabermetrics.   If I heard that he was elected to the Hall of Fame, a smile would break out all over my face.    But I don’t honestly think that I could vote for him, and I would rank him about 10^th out of these 12 candidates.  

5.  Tony La Russa

                La Russa’s record as a manager is well above the established standards for selection to the Hall of Fame—96% above, according to my math.   He is almost two Hall of Famers.    He should be elected to the Hall of Fame, and on this list of 12 candidates I would rank him fourth.

6.  Billy Martin

                Like Dave Parker and Steve Garvey, Billy Martin appears to have squatted directly over the line which is supposed to divide Hall of Famers from non-Hall of Famers, leaving us with little methodological guidance as to his place.   I’m really not anxious to see him in the Hall of Fame, and I would rank him 8^th out of these 12 candidates.

7.  Marvin Miller

                As most of you know, I knew Marvin Miller, and I admire him greatly.    If the Hall of Fame had a Hall of Fame, Marvin should be in it.

                But Miller, in his last years, stated quite clearly and many times that he did not wish to be in the Hall of Fame.    I first heard him say that maybe fifteen years ago, over lunch, but at the time I took it to be a casual statement.   In the end, it wasn’t a casual statement; Marvin was a fierce person, sometimes, and this was a fierce sentiment.    He told people quite clearly that if they were asked to accept the honor on his behalf, after he was gone, they were to tell the Hall of Fame not "No", but "Hell, No."

                To disregard that clearly expressed sentiment, within months of his passing, would be extremely disrespectful, and it absolutely should not be done.   It should not even be on the table.   Marvin was a great man—but among these 12 candidates, he doesn’t rank in spots one through eleven as a candidate for immediate selection.