Hey, if there was EVER a case of steroid use, wouldn't it be Dante Bichette ? i know we dont have proof, especially because he played in Coors. but he turned into a humongous guy when he left Milwaukee.

Basically, how did he get 3 votes ?

Also, Gwynn never played half his games on the East Coast.

Also, Gwynn never played half his games on the East Coast.

You mean that same stronghold that got Jeter the MVP this year... wait a minute. If anything, there's an anti-East Coast bias out there.

In Ripken's last 10 seasons, he only had an OPS+ over 100 3 times!!! (and one of those seasons was only half a season) That's horrible! He was a below average hitter for his last 10 seasons. If you add in his below average fielding during those 10 seasons, you'll find him a significantly below average player for half his career.

Gwynn, on the other hand, never had a season, NEVER, where his OPS+ was below 100 (though, to be fair, his defense the last half of his career was pretty bad, too).

What's your problem with JAY BUHNER!?!?!?!

His haircut.

I run a blog (click my name to access it) whereby I use Baseball Prospectus' MORP statistic (Market value over replacement player) to rank the best players in history. The system considers total value as well as peak value with necessary adjustments for forced segregation, military service and a couple of smaller ones. By this methodology, Ripken rates as the fourteenth best player ever.

David or anyone else, I'm curious as to what argument against Ripken exists.

Phil, I just gave one. Granted it was a quick shot over the bow, but still, a player who was below average for half his career, to me, doesn't necessarily deserve to be admitted to the HoF.

Sabernar: The problem with your analysis is that it ignores position. Ripken was a league average hitter after age 30, true, but at a time when the average SS was still a .700 OPS hitter. So he was well above average at his position. And according to BPro's FRAA stat, he was basically an average fielder in those years (it's not a great stat, admittedly, but what is the evidence he was below average?). An average fielding SS is much more valuable than an average fielding RF (if Gwynn was even that).

And then you have to deal with the fact that Ripken was a LOT, not a little, more valuable than Gwynn during the first half of their careers. According to WARP, Ripken was good for about 114 wins above replacement in his first ten seasons, compared to about 80 for Gwynn.

Wow, above average for his position? No wonder he got inducted!

Wow! The exchange above has been pretty retarded. Ripken was the best shortstop of his generation, and he brought baseball back before Mark and Sammy "saved" the game. Gwynn was arguably the best hitter of his generation (Boggs?). Neither of them ever won, but they are both no-brainer hall of famers. Crunching the numbers to that degree just sounds dumb.

It seems a lot of people have forgotten how good Ripken was defensively. If we look at range factor, Cal made 4.14 plays per game over his career, vs. a league average of 3.68 -- basically an extra play every 2 games. That's a total of 1369 plays, or over 950 runs! Now, that probably overstates his real value. I don't know, for example, if the Os had an unusual # of GB pitchers at that time. But let's compare to Gwynn: +.15 plays per game, 349 career plays, or about 280 runs. It would take Gwynn more than 7 years at the plate to make up that 670 run difference on defense.

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Good point, Adam. I'm sure there are a lot of non-HOFers who produced 9 seasons of above-average production after the age of 30? Right? Sheesh.....

Oh yeah, and Ripken the 14th best player of all time - that should tell you that your system is not working!

I'm of the belief that the HOF should have not only the best players of all time, but the players who were the best at certain aspects of the game.

I think the biggest arguement I have against Gwynn is a sabermetric one. He didn't hit for power, and his OBP was pretty unimpressive (lifetime .388). However, I'd still vote for him because he was one of the best hitters of his era, in terms of making contact, getting hits, and not striking out.

Likewise, I'd vote Schilling into the HOF for sure. He was a very good pitcher, but he's got the best K/BB ratio of all time (for modern era pitchers). So he's the best control artist out there.

Ozzie Smith is likely not one of the best shortstops of all time, in terms of overall production. His adjusted OPS+ is 87, which is pretty bad (even unimpressive for a SS). But, he might have been one of the top fielders in the history of the game. So that's why I'd include him.

Ripken, I think, has a very good resume as a good-hitting SS. And he also has his consecutive game streak (he's the best all-time at that, obviously). So I'd vote him too.

In short, I'd say in answer to your questions David,, Gwynn might not have gotten the sabermetric vote. And to answer the commenters who think Ripken is undeserving, I'd say that part of how I (and likely some writers) see the HoF is a place for great players, and very good players who were exceptionally great at some aspect of the game. Ripken and Gwynn both fall under the latter for me; a very good SS who was exceptionally hardy, and a productive batter who was perhaps second best at pure average hitting (to Boggs) during his era.

OK, I was probably overreacting. Ripken deserves it for his 1982-1991 production, and the rest was just gravy. But I do think it's true that there's an argument against him, namely, that he spent ten years as a merely above-average player. And you could argue that Gwynn is overrated because batting average is overrated. I mean, yeah, there's an argument there, but it's outweighed by their other accomplishments.

I'm bothered less by the handful of guys who don't vote fr Ripken or Gwynn and more by the two people who thought Bobby frickin' Bonilla deserved induction.

Of course, there's a whole other Hall of Fame argument there -- how much we ought to weight peak value versus career value. If Ripken had retired after '91, how would our perspective on him differ? If Koufax had played another 10 injury-riddled and ineffective seasons, we probably wouldn't still think of him as Sandy Koufax.

I can't imagine anyone voting Bobby Bonilla for the Hall. Now that guy deserves to have his vote taken away.

I imagine Schilling will draw some support from romantic journalists who credit him with "Breaking The Curse", but I'd be surprised if he makes it without a few more strong seasons. Yes, he's a great power/control guy, but that's an awfully specific niche to be electing people to the Hall for.

I think the biggest arguement I have against Gwynn is a sabermetric one. He didn't hit for power, and his OBP was pretty unimpressive (lifetime .388).

Um, that's not a sabermetric argument. A .388 OBP over 10,000 PA is pretty damned impressive.

I agree Jurgen. Sabermetrically, Gwynn was a top notch ballplayer. Not only did he have a career BA of .338 (20th all time), but he had a career OPS of .847 and a career OPS+ of 132. Never once in his entire career did he have an OPS under 100 for a season (including his last season). He led the league in BA 8 times. And the guy never struck out - the most in one season for him was 40 Ks. He averaged about 20 Ks per season for his entire career. And if you look at Baseball References Black Ink/Gray Ink/HOF Standards/HOF Monitor, he far outpaces the average Hall of Famer.

I do not want McGwire in the hall. Has any Hall of Famer ever received as many votes on their first ballot as Juice Mac?

"Oh yeah, and Ripken the 14th best player of all time - that should tell you that your system is not working!"

This is the worst kind of reasoning: "one of your conclusions is inconsistent with my beliefs/intuition, therefore your system is obviously wrong." Ripken is 33rd all time in Win Shares, and James ranks him as the 3rd best SS ever. (BTW, Ripken earns 137 fielding WS, vs. 140 for Ozzie.) The BPro "WARP" metric puts him in the top 20 all-time. He probably isn't #14, but it's hardly an absurd claim.

Gwynn is 46th in career WS. Both are clearly HOFers, and it's not a close call. But it's not hard at all to make the case that Ripken was the fmore valuable player.

I guess (and hope) Gossage goes in next year, too. I suspect McGwire will go up into the 40-45 % range.

I believe Tim Raines will be eligible, too. He richly deserves to go in, although he probably won't. The next year, Rickey Henderson goes in, first ballot, over 95%.

Did I read something about Gwynn's short seasons didn't give his average a chance to go down? Somebody needs to look up his career averages for the months of August/September.

I just answered my own question. According to
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hof/hofball9.shtml
Bruce Sutter had only 121 votes in 1999. McGwire got 128 votes.

The guy I wonder about is Blyleven. What have people got against him? 13 more wins and he would have been at the magic 300. But that's not his only stats... 5th all-time strikeouts, consistently in the top 10 for ERA, WHIP, and K/BB ratio.

I guess the arguments against him were the 50 HR allowed in a season and the lack of Cy Young and All-Star support. It seems like he was never the best pitcher in the league, but up there on the leaderboard for close to 20 years. That and the strikeouts ought to outweigh any arguments against him.

Black Ink has him below average for an HOFer, but Gray Ink has him above average (always a bridesmaid, never a bride), HOF Standards has him right at average, and HOF Monitor has him above likely for an HOFer.

His time on the ballot is running out, though. Let him in!

Sabernar... I hate to get in a pissing contest here about whose "sabermetrics" are more "sabermetrical" - but I disagree.

Indeed, a 132 OPS+ is pretty good. But it's not HOF-worthy. Not sure where it ranks all-time, but it's not in the top 100 according to baseball-reference. And it's well behind current players like Edmonds, Abreu, Delgado, Chip Jones, Sheffield, and Berkman. None of whom I'd call locks for the HoF at this point, and none of whom I'd actually vote for myself if they retired tomorrow. It also puts him behind such legends as Pedro Guerrero, Darryl Strawberry, and Jack Clark. Again, on the merits of his contribution at the plate, he's just not HoF-caliber. And I'd bet he's considered pretty below-average at fielding, so that drags his contribution down further.

Using BA and K's as support of a sabermetric arguement is sort of contradictory I think. But like I said before, his numbers in those categories were so outstanding that they make up for his overall production woes. He had a good career, and was one of the best contact hitters ever. But in terms of his actual contribution towards his team winning ballgames, he's certainly not in the top 100 of all time, and likely not even in the top 150 when you consider both hitting and fielding.

Clay Davenport at BPro changes WARP slightly from time to time, so I just redid Ripken and he fell to 16th from 14th.

The MORP system ranks Ripken 16th because he has two HUGE years (17 and 15 WARP-3) that give him $68 and $53 million of MORP alone. Those years rate highest because the DT cards have Ripken with unusually high fielding numbers (FRAA/FRAR) for those years. FRAA/FRAR are good statistics over the long-term as far as evaluating a player's defensive prowess. They're not so good on a year to year basis whereby random fluctuations in the data can adversely affect the end result. For instance, Ripken goes from 24 runs above average in 1986 to seven runs below average in 1987. I can't see any way he, or any other player, could decline so precipitously in the field over a one year span. In Ripken's case, hs best offensive years coincide with his better defensive ones, thus giving him a deceptively high peak.

However, if we smooth out Ripken's career and give him an equal amount of FRAR per year, thus keeping his WARP-3 total constant, his new MORP comes out closer to $400 million, rght around 20-25th all-time. Subjectively, that seems like a better and appropriate ranking.

Adam, re Blyleven, I think that is the reason. Same logic applies to Raffy. Sans roids issue, he is still a reach. He was never a dominant player, never the best at his position, never MVP worthy. The drug suspension has diluted the value of the only number that seems to mesmerize voters, HRs. But he never belonged. .

Mike:
There are three problems with your argument against Gwynn:
1) Edmonds, Abreu, Jones, Sheffield, and Berkman are all plausible HOFers, depending of course on what they do for the rest of their careers;

2) All of them will see their OPS+ decline by the end of their career, so comparing Gwynn to them now isn't apples-to-apples;

3) OPS undervalues OBP a bit, compared to slugging. Gwynn had a very OBP-heavy OPS, while SLG is a bigger part of their OPS for the other players you cite (except Abreu). So Gwynn's OPS+ is actually a bit better than it looks.

Poor Wally Joyner.
Buhner gets a vote. Bichette gets 3.

Nice guys do finish last.

Right, I understand that. Note that all of the active players we mention, except Edmonds, actually have a higher OBP than Gwynn. I thought about this, but I'd argue that Gwynn actually didn't have an OBP-heavy OPS at all. Plus it was easier than calculating 1.56OBP+SLG, or whatever the best coefficient is these days.

I really wish there was some fielding data on this, that would make my arguement a lot easier to make I think. I'm not suggesting that Gwynn had a Manny-like incompetance in the field, but solely based on his build I can't imagine he had anywhere near average range.

Guy: where would you rank Gwynn, all-time, at the plate? Even if you believe all active players will slip substantially as their career winds down, and even if you believe Gwynn's OPS underrates him because of his OBP being the better half of it, can you really put him in the top 100 hitters of all time? I just can't. and again, that's completely ignoring fielding.

Mike-

Gwynn won FIVE Gold Gloves. While those can go to undeserving players (Bernie Williams, anyone?) it should be an indication that he handle himself in the outfield.

Making an assumption based on build is pretty faulty logic...Kirby Puckett was rather rotund as well.

I'm ready to undermine my own point here... Gold Gloves are a joke. Bernie Williams won four in a row and is a terrible outfielder. He looks good with his graceful gait, but his judgement is bad, and he has one of the worst arms I've ever seen. Jeter now has three, and we all remember Palmiero's Gold Glove 15 games-in-the-field season.

Gwynn had an arguably GG year in 1986 with 19 assists and a .989 fielding percentage. He then probably coasted to his next four. Once you get one, you have to be knocked off, more than you actually earn them.

If you look at Range Factor (at baseball-reference.com), Gwynn was above-avg through age 32, about average from 33-37, and well below average from age 38-41. Overall he comes in a little above average. RF is by no means a perfect metric, but I'm not sure we have anything better prior to p-b-p data.

I think our mental image of Gwynn is shaped by his later years. This is a guy who once stole 56 bases, and averaged 34 SB from age 24 to 29.

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Mike: I think Gwynn probably is one of the top 100 hitters of all time. Just looking at OPS+ doesn't tell you the whole story. Look at that top 100 list. It includes guys with much shorter careers. For example, Gwynn had about 24% more PAs than Jack Clark, more than 3 full seasons' worth.

And the OBP/SLG ratio issue does matter. For example, Edmonds' OPS is 9% higher than Gwynn's (not adjusting for league/park), but only 6% higher if you use the more accurate 1.8*OBP+SLG. If you neutralize the stats for league/park, the two players are essentially equal on 1.8*OBP+SLG.

Also, position and defense are important. A LOT of these top 100 guys played 1B (or even DH), and often not very well (Jason Giambi, anyone?). Getting Gwynn's production from an above-avg RF is much more valuable than the same production from an average or below-avg defensive 1B. If we assume a replacement 1B is about 10 runs a season better at the plate than a replacement RF, that's probably worth about 6 points of OPS+. And 6 points gets Gwynn into the top 100, without even considering longevity and the OBP/SLG issue.

Nice work, Guy.

Yes, good work, Guy. Also, Joe, good point about Wally Joyner. Yeah, he obviously doesn't deserve to be in, but considering the schmoes who managed to convince a few writers to vote for them, it looks bad to see him as the guy with a goose egg up there.

I was pretty surprised that Canseco only managed 6 votes. Although, obviously, if anybody's burned his bridges, it's him. It's not just the steroids; everybody pretty much despises the guy. He always seemed like a "not-quite" guy for the HOF, but I wonder how many votes he would have gotten if he'd kept his mouth shut.

Poor Wally Joyner.
Buhner gets a vote. Bichette gets 3.

Nice guys do finish last.

We all used to think Wally was a nice guy... but didn't he admit to steroid use a year or so ago?