Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
July 08, 2004
Bobby Socks

Bobby Abreu beat the Mets tonight with four hits, two doubles, and a walk-off HR in the 9th. He's putting together a very impressive season, and a very impressive career. I look at his numbers and think Rickey Henderson with more power. In a lower scoring era he would have had a lot more stolen bases; his percentage is very good (74%). If he can maintain the .300/.400/.500 averages, we may need to start talking about the Hall of Fame for Mr. Abreu.


Posted by David Pinto at 10:30 PM | Sluggers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Abreu's always put up the good numbers and I've always noticed, but I've never thought Hall of Fame for him before. Now, though, it seems worth looking into. I don't catch Philly games often, but his mug shot makes him out to be rounder than that good a base stealer would be. Weird.

BTW, David, you've such a popular blog, why isn't there more commenting?

Posted by: Jake at July 9, 2004 12:50 AM

He's hugely underrated. Bobby has been a model of consistency here, even last year when he played on one leg for the final two months. It's amazing though, there's a large amount of phans that hate him. There's even a prominent sports show host that has an agenda against him for one reason or another. Common complaints:

"He doesn't hustle enough."
"He strikes out too much."
"He's not clutch."
"He's just looking to walk."

It goes on and on.

As Gleeman pointed out the other day, "No hitter has ever had the combination of 40+ doubles, 30+ homers, 120+ runs, 100+ RBIs, 120+ walks and 30+ stolen bases -- all of which Abreu is well on pace for right now."

He's finally coming into the limelight and that's good to see because he's certainly deserving.

Posted by: Jim T. at July 9, 2004 01:35 AM

Bobby's on pace now for six straight seasons with over 100 walks drawn...neither Thome nor Bonds has achieved that yet.

Is this really his first all-star call? I guess it's what you get when you toil at the bottom of the division for so long. I'm glad the Phillies are doing well enough for the national fan base to notice him for that final roster spot...surprised that he didn't get voted in by the baseball insiders.

Posted by: Dave S. at July 9, 2004 08:32 AM

Well, HOF may be a bit premature. Looking at Abreu's comps on baseball prospectus and baseball reference, the only HOF'er he's even close to is Carl Yastrzemski, and he's not particularly close. Actually both have Abreu ranked pretty close to Brian Giles, which intuitively sounds right to me--great hitter, but not upper-echelon/HOF worthy...yet.

Posted by: Daniel at July 9, 2004 09:01 AM

I agree with Daniel. Isn't it AWFULLY early to be talking about the Hall of Fame for Abreu? It's not like he's 35 and had a glorius career behind him. Plus, he's played in the juiced up ball (and juiced up player) era, so it should be harder for him to get in. I agree that he's a fantastic player, but let's wait another 5 years or so before we start the HoF conversation in respect to Abreu.

Posted by: sabernar at July 9, 2004 09:29 AM

Bobby Abreu has a good chance of another 30-30 season since he has 18 homers and 18 stolen bases at the halfway mark. At his age he is on track for 3000 hits.

Posted by: Andrew Godfrey at July 9, 2004 10:55 AM

Re: Bobby Abreu

I've watched the Phillies and Abreu closely the past eight years and also looked at the numbers, and last year Abreu and Thome were among the leaders in On Base Average in the league and in slugging average; and they are again this year. Abreu and Thome consistently walk over 100 times a year and Abreu has a very high secondary average, hitting lots of doubles and home runs every year. If he has a weakness it's that he has a platoon differential and refuses to bat anywhere but third, and also refuses to play centerfield, even though that's where he would most help the team. He also is a warm weather player who statistically hits the highest in June-August and falls off a bit in April and September (they ran a chart on this in the paper recently) being Venezeulan.

As far as HOF, in his case it may hinge on his getting 3,000 hits. He is a career .300 hitter or close to it, and his career .400 oba and career .500 slugging average is also good. He's also 30 or close to it, so we'll have to see how the next ten years play out. He does score a lot of runs and his defense is above average in terms of range and fielding at this stage of his career.

He seems similar in my view to Yastrzemski or Musial, except that he's never dominated the league like those guys in any one statistical category. Darrell Evans comes to mind--a guy who got on base a lot, hit a lot of homers, scored a lot of runs, played his position well, LH.

--AJK

Posted by: Art Kyriazis at July 12, 2004 02:26 PM