"And the starter will pitch in, what, five or six games, but he will probably be the key factor in all of those games." That's a pretty broad generalization, Joe, "the key" and "all" are loaded terms. I'd like to see some support for them. As others have pointed out, a starter who gives up four runs in five innings but gets 12 runs of offensive support isn't doing a great job of pitching. Give up the same four runs while the offensive is being shut out, you're "key" but not in a good way. And today, since no one goes more than about six innings except in extraordinary circumstances, you have not just the closer but the middle relievers to consider. I'd be pretty loathe in today's game to say a starter's role is "key" in "all" games.
Irving Fryar had a brilliant career offset by playing with inconsistent QBs in New England for years. Most of his pro bowls came after age 30. A shame people don't remember him. But speaking of New England QBs, man I love Steve Grogan. Sooo many injuries, but hey, he threw more tds than Joe Namath and rushed for as many as Randall Cunningham. Also went 75 and 60 as a starter. Favorite QB from that era. 💜
Namath was a force of nature as a player in spite of not the best stats only in retrospect and those of us who saw him play considered him an all time great even before his astonishing guarantee in Superbowl III.
I don't really think so. Holmes had more rushing yards, more receptions, more touchdowns, he had 2247 more yards from scrimmage. His PFR AV is higher, and his best 3 years are higher than Davis' best 3 years. He not only had 24 more yards from scrimmage per game in his 52 game prime (half a season shorter than Davis prime, to be fair) he had 1 and a half more rushing yards per game as part of it, and of course 0.48 TDs per game. I honestly don't think there was anything Davis was better at than Holmes.
Davis is in because of the 2 Super Bowl titles. His shortened career otherwise falls well short of Holmes' shortened one. But he is seen as the difference between Elway always falling short, and Elway getting his rings, and that is why he is in. Great Back for 4 years. (Not as good as Holmes best, but still great) But he isn't ever even mentioned as a finalist without the 2 titles - and he needed both to get there.
Davis also benefited from playing behind what was widely considered to be the best line in the league. Really nice player, didn't think he was a Hall of Famer.
Yeah, football is so much harder to compare, especially at the RB position due to very short careers including short peaks and quality of players around them. Davis was good right away, then couldn't stay healthy and was done before 30. Not a HOF career except...143 yards and 1.5 TDs average over 8 playoff games leading to 2 championships.
Holmes didn't get a starting gig until being traded to the Chiefs at 28 and then had 3.5 awesome years. He only played in one playoff game with the Chiefs but he was fantastic in it.
You're right about the Chiefs O-line. They didn't have a very good running attack, then the combo of Holmes from Baltimore and then Roaf from the Saints turned that around. After Holmes was injured/declining in his 30's, Larry Johnson was a stud. After Roaf retired, followed by Shields, the running game was back to meh. A RB and his blockers are entwined.
I don't think it is all about the line. I did mention in another comment that Holmes is about the best I have seen at avoiding negative plays with penetration. That penetration came from somewhere.
It wasn't just the line with LJ in the year and a half he ran like a crazy person. He was running angry, with speed and talent, and then having proven something, lost his desire.
I will note that in Holmes' best year 2002, ( 2287 all purpose yards in 14 games before being injured. 163.36 yards per game. The most in history, and on pace to shatter the record for most yards from scrimmage in a season.) with the same line, Chiefs backs ran 35 times for 93 yards (2.66 yards per carry) the final 9 quarters of the season after his injury. It turned out it was Priest, not the line.
But, great lines can help a great back be even better. I mean, the line all time rushing leader Emmitt Smith ran behind is in the conversation in all time offensive lines, and that may not be a coincidence.
Agreed. Was Priest Holmes a great back with a small window or was the offensive line great? Yes. It gets even more intertwined - Holmes and that line with that offensive scheme may have been a perfect combination. I think of La'Veon Bell with the Steelers' line - it worked. I think this is a factor for many players and coaches in football which adds to the discussions/arguments and makes rankings very contentious, but if also fun if one doesn't take it too seriously.
I love seeing Irving Fryar and Priest Holmes in the same article. Fryar was a fantastic player at Nebraska who didn't get many balls thrown to him in the run-heavy offense but man, he was a playmaker.
Happily I guessed Plunkett, Namath, and Terrell Davis. I will note that in comparison to Priest Holmes, other reasons Davis was elected to the HoF is are that in addition to 2 OPOY awards, he won League MVP , Super Bowl MVP, had over 100 yds rushing in 7 straight playoff games, and currently has the 2nd and 3rd highest single playoff season rushing yards. So he took advantage of an areas Priest Holmes never had a shot at.
That's what I don't like about these comparisons. Yeah, they are fun if you use them as a way to think about the HOF, but most of the time, it uses numbers that aren't the reason the guy is in the Hall.
But Jim Plunkett should be in. His late career revival is inspiring. Is any eligible quarterback with multiple Super Bowl rings out, other than Plunkett? OK, Morrall, but he was a backup. Plunkett was really good in those playoffs and Super Bowls, not a mere passenger. Plunkett is on the Len Dawson track.
Game 6 1973 World Series. Outdueled Seaver to push series to Game 7.
Hunter was the first free agent to really draw wide spread attention. He didn’t invent free agency- Curt Flood & Marvin Miller did that. He showed what free agency could look like for the elite player. I’d argue this fact alone requires his plaque to hang in Cooperstown.
One shouldn’t compare numbers across eras - especially the new fangled measures such as WAR. They’re not as infallible as some want to believe. Joe’s column inadvertently proves it. (Inadvertent bc Joe has some faith in those newer stats.)
The HOF has never been about only the elite. It would be incomplete without Pee Wee & Scooter, for example. Their WAR numbers stink. But their peers/HOF teammates say their teams don’t win without those guys. That’s intangible and immeasurable.
I think one *has* to compare numbers across eras, if one is going to have a Hall of Fame. That doesn't mean a one-to-one comparison; one has to adjust for the specifics of those eras (dead ball versus live ball, etc.).
But also, I don't see why comparing across eras is necessary here? I mean *you* were the one who brought up Schilling and Bumgarner, and while I appreciate you bringing up 1973 Game 6, I'm not sure why that is supposed to outclass those pitchers. Take the Bloody Sock Game: Schilling went 7 innings, 1 ER, 4 hits, 4 strikeouts, to Hunter's 7.1 innings, 4 hits, 1 strikeout. Schilling was facing Jeter, ARod, Sheffield, and Matsui in Yankee Stadium, a hitter's park on the road; Hunter was facing Wayne Garrett, Felix MIllan, Rusty Staub, and Cleon Jones in the Coliseum, a pitcher's park at home. Oh and Schilling was playing on a bum ankle! I'm not saying this one game proves that Schilling was better than Hunter, either in general or in big games specifically. I'm saying this one game doesn't seem sufficient to establish that Hunter made Schilling look like nothing special.
Who *I* brought up were Hunter's contemporaries: Gibson, Palmer, Carlton (feel free to add Marichal, say). No one would argue that Hunter was anywhere close to as good a pitcher as them, I think, so was he a better big-game pitcher than them—the premier big-game pitcher of that era, as you said?
I don't understand how Joe's column proves that WAR isn't as infallible as people believe? Do you mind expanding on that?
If we were sitting in a bar, talking while watching a game, this would be fun. But, we’re not.
If I recall/researched properly: You write for a living; I don’t. In essence, to invoke Captain America: You can do this all day.
I see your points, I’ve made mine. I’m done. No disrespect intended. (In fact, I’m writing back rather than ignoring out of respect.) Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
I don’t recall anyone saying that WAR is infallible. In fact, the sharpest posters here are pretty unanimous in saying that it isn’t. But they are also pretty unanimous in saying that it’s better than some of the things we used to believe in, like pitcher wins, RBIs and Uncle Larry’s “gut”.
I've come around to the following thought on relievers, and it's the argument a lot of people made before Edgar Martinez broke the seal on DHs in the Hall. Reliever is a position and I don't think it's really fair to hold it against the player for playing the position he was told to.
No, Billy Wagner probably would not have been as effective as a starter. And a great closer is probably less valuable than an average starter. But Wagner did what he was asked to do and did it almost as well as anyone ever.
I had considered that, at least the pinch hitter part, because it's the most obvious comparison. But I don't think there is any real equivalence. There isn't a pinch hitter who was exclusively a pinch hitter for 15 years and also excelled. Manny Mota started more games than he pinch hit. Zobrist and Nelson, meanwhile, had a normal workload, so there's no real need to separate out their role. And I think there's a difference between a backup and a reliever.
I think an interesting thought experiment is the overall value of an excellent career pinch hitter. A guy who gets 150 plate appearances a year for 15 years strictly in a pinch hitting role and posts something like .300/.400/.500 slash line. Obviously that would never happen because after a month of that he'd have a starting job.
Or what if there was a Herb Washington-type player who did his thing for 15 years and pinch ran 100 times a year. How much value would he ultimately provide?
I always knew you and Mike were completely misreading Mookie's hugging abilities. He's small, wiry, and energetic. That just can't possibly add up to great hugging.
I can't prove this -- but David Cone won 14 games 3 times and he won 13 games once. If he just had those 5 extra wins to get 5 additional 15-win seasons, he'd have been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago. Another way to get David Cone into the Hall of Fame is to watch him pitch. But that's another chat for another time. ... I didn't realize that Jim Edmunds' fielding numbers are so much worse than Scott Rolen's. It didn't seem that way to me at the time ... Jim Edmunds is like Lou Whitaker or Kenny Lofton. They were just so smooth it's hard to tell how good they were ... Carlos Beltran was also a super-smooth player. His "casual" approach annoyed a lot of Mets fans. Many complained that Beltran never ran. But that's because Carlos was always in the right place to begin with .... One of the funny things about Beltran's slow train to Cooperstown is that no one is arguing whether Beltran is good enough to get in the Hall of Fame. An argument it seemed we'd have when Beltran retired. After all, Beltran ended the 7th game of a Dodgers-Mets NLCS series by taking a called third-strike. Now all we're arguing about is how much to penalize him for, IMHO, a non-scandal in Houston.
If there really is some magic in the "high leverage versus "low" leverage (and I truly don't believe there is), riddle me this. Why shouldn't NFL teams have their reserves play the first half. This would have the advantage of preparing them to play in second halves should a true first string player get hurt. It also would avoid first half injuries and hard hits during the low leverage first and second quarters. It would keep them fresher and possibly healthier when they play in the high leverage third and fourth quarters. After all, our Seahawk mantra has recently been "Can you win.a game in the first quarter? No! Can you win a game in the second quarter? No! Can you win a game in the third quarter? No! Can you win a game in the fourth quarter? Yes, We Can!!!!" That even seems to be a battle cry for the high leverage advocates. If you reject my "start the reserves" scenario, let me ask a second question. Who would you rather have? Quarterback 1 whose grade is consistently C for quarters 1-3 and A for quarter 4, or Quarterback 2 whose grade is consistently B for all 4 quarters. Or in baseball terms would you rather have Player A, age 30, ag whose last 4 seasons have been OPS+ of 100, 100, 100, 120 or Player B, Age 30, whose last four season have been OPS+ of 110, 110, 110, 110?
But games ARE different in the final minutes. It's not magic.... it just is. That's what happened. Over half of NFL games are decided by a single score, so performance in the final minute is going to have an outsized effect on wins and losses. The rules change in the final minutes, the tactics change, and scoring, resultingly, goes up.
It's like playoff games. It doesn't mean there is some magic to being a playoff performer, but if you did well in the playoffs... it has a disproportionate impact on your team. It's not that there is playoff skill, but there is a playoff records. Same with clutch. There may be no clutch gene, but there ARE clutch situations. And whatever happened is part of the record and had an outsized effect on a team's success. It matters.
I like your answer but have to point out a few things. And forgive me, but a lineman's perceptions skews my thinking. When a game is close at the end, a single play can seemingly turn the game around. Just think back a few weeks ago to the seemingly blown 2 point conversion call in the Dallas-Detroit game was the decisive play. Or was it? There were 100 plays or so before the play, any one of which could have had a dramatic effect on the game. If you don't properly play those first 100, the game may not be close late. It's the same in baseball. If the starter hands over a 4 or 5 run lead, the game is not technically over but his bullpen would have to collapse to lose the game. Now back to the lineman thing. Those 100 plays all start the same way. The two opposing lines collide. If you've never been involved in that situation, my best description would be to say it sounds and feels like a car wreck. The noise is incredible and very large men are doing very violent things to each other. As the game progresses, it becomes a battle of wills. Who will flinch first? The answer oftentimes depends on how the game is going. It becomes progressively harder to summon the resolve and physical reserves if things are not going well. So trust me, those 100 plays set the stage for the final few. As dramatic and exciting as those final few can be, they only have importance if the teams have kept it close until those final minutes. Put it this way. If Rosejcrantz and Guildenstern did their job, Hamlet is a 4 act play that no one remembers.
Back when Jerry Sloan coached the Utah Jazz the rotation of players into the game was pretty much a fixed routine. This meant that in the second quarter both Stockton & Malone took a break. As a fan you held your breath that the team wouldn't fall too far behind. Usually, the other team also rotated its stars out of the game in the second quarter so that part of the game was a battle of the bench.
Back when the Thunder were the Sonics and played in Seattle, a cynic described NBA games as (and I paraphrase): "In the first quarter the starters get reacquainted, with updates on what was going on in their city and how the family was doing. In the second quarter, the reserves did the same thing. In the third quarter the starters and reserves got warmed up. In the fourth quarter the game began for real."
Had a thought about HoF relief pitcher conundrum. Babe Ruth pitched 1221.1 innings. Should we just make a Babe Ruth rule where pitchers are ineligible if they haven't pitched more innings in than the Sultan? This would end the Billy Wagner debate for good. For those interested - Mariano and Lee Smith make it, but Sutter and Hoffman would not. Seems fair to me.
Man, that should be a series. Get an ex-player on the show, open up packs of cards from his playing days, and have him tell stories about the players whose cards you pull. I could listen to that all day.
Joe, thanks for the Priest Holmes mention. Priest was so amazing, but isn't remembered that way by many. He's one of the most underrated players of the last 25 years IMO.
Beyond his amazing receiving game, he had a LOT of 2-yard gains that should have been 3-yard losses (and he probably ran 10 yards or more on some of them). He always knew where the first down marker was and where the goal line was, and if he didn't get there, then it probably wasn't possible for anyone to get there.
1. The 8th and 9th inning of a close game — winning or losing — are more important than the average inning, and thus the innings pitched by a closer or even a setup man are more important/valuable than the average innings by a starter. Or in short, leverage is real.
2. If the bar for Hall of Fame pitchers is “more impactful to his teams’ winning than Billy Wagner” then Jacob deGrom clears the bar. And do 200 other starting pitchers.
At the risk of looking like a fool, I’ve only read the subject and know this is going to be a disaster, though a disaster in the way Joe expects.
It’s trivial to find a player in the Hall of Fame who is generally perceived to be a good selection and a second player who was just as good if not 10-20% better for his career but who is not in the Hall and not really seen as a slight.
"And the starter will pitch in, what, five or six games, but he will probably be the key factor in all of those games." That's a pretty broad generalization, Joe, "the key" and "all" are loaded terms. I'd like to see some support for them. As others have pointed out, a starter who gives up four runs in five innings but gets 12 runs of offensive support isn't doing a great job of pitching. Give up the same four runs while the offensive is being shut out, you're "key" but not in a good way. And today, since no one goes more than about six innings except in extraordinary circumstances, you have not just the closer but the middle relievers to consider. I'd be pretty loathe in today's game to say a starter's role is "key" in "all" games.
Irving Fryar had a brilliant career offset by playing with inconsistent QBs in New England for years. Most of his pro bowls came after age 30. A shame people don't remember him. But speaking of New England QBs, man I love Steve Grogan. Sooo many injuries, but hey, he threw more tds than Joe Namath and rushed for as many as Randall Cunningham. Also went 75 and 60 as a starter. Favorite QB from that era. 💜
Namath was a force of nature as a player in spite of not the best stats only in retrospect and those of us who saw him play considered him an all time great even before his astonishing guarantee in Superbowl III.
Terrell Davis is in the HOF because he was simply better than Priest Holmes, though I'm a big fan of both.
I don't really think so. Holmes had more rushing yards, more receptions, more touchdowns, he had 2247 more yards from scrimmage. His PFR AV is higher, and his best 3 years are higher than Davis' best 3 years. He not only had 24 more yards from scrimmage per game in his 52 game prime (half a season shorter than Davis prime, to be fair) he had 1 and a half more rushing yards per game as part of it, and of course 0.48 TDs per game. I honestly don't think there was anything Davis was better at than Holmes.
Davis is in because of the 2 Super Bowl titles. His shortened career otherwise falls well short of Holmes' shortened one. But he is seen as the difference between Elway always falling short, and Elway getting his rings, and that is why he is in. Great Back for 4 years. (Not as good as Holmes best, but still great) But he isn't ever even mentioned as a finalist without the 2 titles - and he needed both to get there.
Davis also benefited from playing behind what was widely considered to be the best line in the league. Really nice player, didn't think he was a Hall of Famer.
although Holmes benefitted from a great line too. Roaf and Shields are in the HOF, Brian Waters was VERY Good and Wiegmann and Tait were good as well.
Yeah, football is so much harder to compare, especially at the RB position due to very short careers including short peaks and quality of players around them. Davis was good right away, then couldn't stay healthy and was done before 30. Not a HOF career except...143 yards and 1.5 TDs average over 8 playoff games leading to 2 championships.
Holmes didn't get a starting gig until being traded to the Chiefs at 28 and then had 3.5 awesome years. He only played in one playoff game with the Chiefs but he was fantastic in it.
You're right about the Chiefs O-line. They didn't have a very good running attack, then the combo of Holmes from Baltimore and then Roaf from the Saints turned that around. After Holmes was injured/declining in his 30's, Larry Johnson was a stud. After Roaf retired, followed by Shields, the running game was back to meh. A RB and his blockers are entwined.
I don't think it is all about the line. I did mention in another comment that Holmes is about the best I have seen at avoiding negative plays with penetration. That penetration came from somewhere.
It wasn't just the line with LJ in the year and a half he ran like a crazy person. He was running angry, with speed and talent, and then having proven something, lost his desire.
I will note that in Holmes' best year 2002, ( 2287 all purpose yards in 14 games before being injured. 163.36 yards per game. The most in history, and on pace to shatter the record for most yards from scrimmage in a season.) with the same line, Chiefs backs ran 35 times for 93 yards (2.66 yards per carry) the final 9 quarters of the season after his injury. It turned out it was Priest, not the line.
But, great lines can help a great back be even better. I mean, the line all time rushing leader Emmitt Smith ran behind is in the conversation in all time offensive lines, and that may not be a coincidence.
Agreed. Was Priest Holmes a great back with a small window or was the offensive line great? Yes. It gets even more intertwined - Holmes and that line with that offensive scheme may have been a perfect combination. I think of La'Veon Bell with the Steelers' line - it worked. I think this is a factor for many players and coaches in football which adds to the discussions/arguments and makes rankings very contentious, but if also fun if one doesn't take it too seriously.
I love seeing Irving Fryar and Priest Holmes in the same article. Fryar was a fantastic player at Nebraska who didn't get many balls thrown to him in the run-heavy offense but man, he was a playmaker.
Happily I guessed Plunkett, Namath, and Terrell Davis. I will note that in comparison to Priest Holmes, other reasons Davis was elected to the HoF is are that in addition to 2 OPOY awards, he won League MVP , Super Bowl MVP, had over 100 yds rushing in 7 straight playoff games, and currently has the 2nd and 3rd highest single playoff season rushing yards. So he took advantage of an areas Priest Holmes never had a shot at.
That's what I don't like about these comparisons. Yeah, they are fun if you use them as a way to think about the HOF, but most of the time, it uses numbers that aren't the reason the guy is in the Hall.
But Jim Plunkett should be in. His late career revival is inspiring. Is any eligible quarterback with multiple Super Bowl rings out, other than Plunkett? OK, Morrall, but he was a backup. Plunkett was really good in those playoffs and Super Bowls, not a mere passenger. Plunkett is on the Len Dawson track.
Game 6 1973 World Series. Outdueled Seaver to push series to Game 7.
Hunter was the first free agent to really draw wide spread attention. He didn’t invent free agency- Curt Flood & Marvin Miller did that. He showed what free agency could look like for the elite player. I’d argue this fact alone requires his plaque to hang in Cooperstown.
One shouldn’t compare numbers across eras - especially the new fangled measures such as WAR. They’re not as infallible as some want to believe. Joe’s column inadvertently proves it. (Inadvertent bc Joe has some faith in those newer stats.)
The HOF has never been about only the elite. It would be incomplete without Pee Wee & Scooter, for example. Their WAR numbers stink. But their peers/HOF teammates say their teams don’t win without those guys. That’s intangible and immeasurable.
I think one *has* to compare numbers across eras, if one is going to have a Hall of Fame. That doesn't mean a one-to-one comparison; one has to adjust for the specifics of those eras (dead ball versus live ball, etc.).
But also, I don't see why comparing across eras is necessary here? I mean *you* were the one who brought up Schilling and Bumgarner, and while I appreciate you bringing up 1973 Game 6, I'm not sure why that is supposed to outclass those pitchers. Take the Bloody Sock Game: Schilling went 7 innings, 1 ER, 4 hits, 4 strikeouts, to Hunter's 7.1 innings, 4 hits, 1 strikeout. Schilling was facing Jeter, ARod, Sheffield, and Matsui in Yankee Stadium, a hitter's park on the road; Hunter was facing Wayne Garrett, Felix MIllan, Rusty Staub, and Cleon Jones in the Coliseum, a pitcher's park at home. Oh and Schilling was playing on a bum ankle! I'm not saying this one game proves that Schilling was better than Hunter, either in general or in big games specifically. I'm saying this one game doesn't seem sufficient to establish that Hunter made Schilling look like nothing special.
Who *I* brought up were Hunter's contemporaries: Gibson, Palmer, Carlton (feel free to add Marichal, say). No one would argue that Hunter was anywhere close to as good a pitcher as them, I think, so was he a better big-game pitcher than them—the premier big-game pitcher of that era, as you said?
I don't understand how Joe's column proves that WAR isn't as infallible as people believe? Do you mind expanding on that?
If we were sitting in a bar, talking while watching a game, this would be fun. But, we’re not.
If I recall/researched properly: You write for a living; I don’t. In essence, to invoke Captain America: You can do this all day.
I see your points, I’ve made mine. I’m done. No disrespect intended. (In fact, I’m writing back rather than ignoring out of respect.) Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Enjoy yours! Thanks for the conversation.
I don’t recall anyone saying that WAR is infallible. In fact, the sharpest posters here are pretty unanimous in saying that it isn’t. But they are also pretty unanimous in saying that it’s better than some of the things we used to believe in, like pitcher wins, RBIs and Uncle Larry’s “gut”.
If you have better tools, why not use them?
I've come around to the following thought on relievers, and it's the argument a lot of people made before Edgar Martinez broke the seal on DHs in the Hall. Reliever is a position and I don't think it's really fair to hold it against the player for playing the position he was told to.
No, Billy Wagner probably would not have been as effective as a starter. And a great closer is probably less valuable than an average starter. But Wagner did what he was asked to do and did it almost as well as anyone ever.
I'm sympathetic to this argument too, though it makes me wonder where to draw the line.
Closer isn't quite a position. It's a role.
Meanwhile, pinch hitter is a role. Utility player is a role. Backup catcher is a role. Middle reliever is a role.
Should Manny Mota, Ben Zobrist, David Ross, and Jeff Nelson be in the Hall for being among the very best ever in those roles?
If Billy Wagner is a Hall of Famer, Ben Zobrist definitely should be.
I had considered that, at least the pinch hitter part, because it's the most obvious comparison. But I don't think there is any real equivalence. There isn't a pinch hitter who was exclusively a pinch hitter for 15 years and also excelled. Manny Mota started more games than he pinch hit. Zobrist and Nelson, meanwhile, had a normal workload, so there's no real need to separate out their role. And I think there's a difference between a backup and a reliever.
I think an interesting thought experiment is the overall value of an excellent career pinch hitter. A guy who gets 150 plate appearances a year for 15 years strictly in a pinch hitting role and posts something like .300/.400/.500 slash line. Obviously that would never happen because after a month of that he'd have a starting job.
Or what if there was a Herb Washington-type player who did his thing for 15 years and pinch ran 100 times a year. How much value would he ultimately provide?
I always knew you and Mike were completely misreading Mookie's hugging abilities. He's small, wiry, and energetic. That just can't possibly add up to great hugging.
I can't prove this -- but David Cone won 14 games 3 times and he won 13 games once. If he just had those 5 extra wins to get 5 additional 15-win seasons, he'd have been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago. Another way to get David Cone into the Hall of Fame is to watch him pitch. But that's another chat for another time. ... I didn't realize that Jim Edmunds' fielding numbers are so much worse than Scott Rolen's. It didn't seem that way to me at the time ... Jim Edmunds is like Lou Whitaker or Kenny Lofton. They were just so smooth it's hard to tell how good they were ... Carlos Beltran was also a super-smooth player. His "casual" approach annoyed a lot of Mets fans. Many complained that Beltran never ran. But that's because Carlos was always in the right place to begin with .... One of the funny things about Beltran's slow train to Cooperstown is that no one is arguing whether Beltran is good enough to get in the Hall of Fame. An argument it seemed we'd have when Beltran retired. After all, Beltran ended the 7th game of a Dodgers-Mets NLCS series by taking a called third-strike. Now all we're arguing about is how much to penalize him for, IMHO, a non-scandal in Houston.
If there really is some magic in the "high leverage versus "low" leverage (and I truly don't believe there is), riddle me this. Why shouldn't NFL teams have their reserves play the first half. This would have the advantage of preparing them to play in second halves should a true first string player get hurt. It also would avoid first half injuries and hard hits during the low leverage first and second quarters. It would keep them fresher and possibly healthier when they play in the high leverage third and fourth quarters. After all, our Seahawk mantra has recently been "Can you win.a game in the first quarter? No! Can you win a game in the second quarter? No! Can you win a game in the third quarter? No! Can you win a game in the fourth quarter? Yes, We Can!!!!" That even seems to be a battle cry for the high leverage advocates. If you reject my "start the reserves" scenario, let me ask a second question. Who would you rather have? Quarterback 1 whose grade is consistently C for quarters 1-3 and A for quarter 4, or Quarterback 2 whose grade is consistently B for all 4 quarters. Or in baseball terms would you rather have Player A, age 30, ag whose last 4 seasons have been OPS+ of 100, 100, 100, 120 or Player B, Age 30, whose last four season have been OPS+ of 110, 110, 110, 110?
But games ARE different in the final minutes. It's not magic.... it just is. That's what happened. Over half of NFL games are decided by a single score, so performance in the final minute is going to have an outsized effect on wins and losses. The rules change in the final minutes, the tactics change, and scoring, resultingly, goes up.
It's like playoff games. It doesn't mean there is some magic to being a playoff performer, but if you did well in the playoffs... it has a disproportionate impact on your team. It's not that there is playoff skill, but there is a playoff records. Same with clutch. There may be no clutch gene, but there ARE clutch situations. And whatever happened is part of the record and had an outsized effect on a team's success. It matters.
I like your answer but have to point out a few things. And forgive me, but a lineman's perceptions skews my thinking. When a game is close at the end, a single play can seemingly turn the game around. Just think back a few weeks ago to the seemingly blown 2 point conversion call in the Dallas-Detroit game was the decisive play. Or was it? There were 100 plays or so before the play, any one of which could have had a dramatic effect on the game. If you don't properly play those first 100, the game may not be close late. It's the same in baseball. If the starter hands over a 4 or 5 run lead, the game is not technically over but his bullpen would have to collapse to lose the game. Now back to the lineman thing. Those 100 plays all start the same way. The two opposing lines collide. If you've never been involved in that situation, my best description would be to say it sounds and feels like a car wreck. The noise is incredible and very large men are doing very violent things to each other. As the game progresses, it becomes a battle of wills. Who will flinch first? The answer oftentimes depends on how the game is going. It becomes progressively harder to summon the resolve and physical reserves if things are not going well. So trust me, those 100 plays set the stage for the final few. As dramatic and exciting as those final few can be, they only have importance if the teams have kept it close until those final minutes. Put it this way. If Rosejcrantz and Guildenstern did their job, Hamlet is a 4 act play that no one remembers.
Back when Jerry Sloan coached the Utah Jazz the rotation of players into the game was pretty much a fixed routine. This meant that in the second quarter both Stockton & Malone took a break. As a fan you held your breath that the team wouldn't fall too far behind. Usually, the other team also rotated its stars out of the game in the second quarter so that part of the game was a battle of the bench.
Back when the Thunder were the Sonics and played in Seattle, a cynic described NBA games as (and I paraphrase): "In the first quarter the starters get reacquainted, with updates on what was going on in their city and how the family was doing. In the second quarter, the reserves did the same thing. In the third quarter the starters and reserves got warmed up. In the fourth quarter the game began for real."
Had a thought about HoF relief pitcher conundrum. Babe Ruth pitched 1221.1 innings. Should we just make a Babe Ruth rule where pitchers are ineligible if they haven't pitched more innings in than the Sultan? This would end the Billy Wagner debate for good. For those interested - Mariano and Lee Smith make it, but Sutter and Hoffman would not. Seems fair to me.
Man, that should be a series. Get an ex-player on the show, open up packs of cards from his playing days, and have him tell stories about the players whose cards you pull. I could listen to that all day.
Joe, thanks for the Priest Holmes mention. Priest was so amazing, but isn't remembered that way by many. He's one of the most underrated players of the last 25 years IMO.
Beyond his amazing receiving game, he had a LOT of 2-yard gains that should have been 3-yard losses (and he probably ran 10 yards or more on some of them). He always knew where the first down marker was and where the goal line was, and if he didn't get there, then it probably wasn't possible for anyone to get there.
I’m 100% confident of two things.
1. The 8th and 9th inning of a close game — winning or losing — are more important than the average inning, and thus the innings pitched by a closer or even a setup man are more important/valuable than the average innings by a starter. Or in short, leverage is real.
2. If the bar for Hall of Fame pitchers is “more impactful to his teams’ winning than Billy Wagner” then Jacob deGrom clears the bar. And do 200 other starting pitchers.
At the risk of looking like a fool, I’ve only read the subject and know this is going to be a disaster, though a disaster in the way Joe expects.
It’s trivial to find a player in the Hall of Fame who is generally perceived to be a good selection and a second player who was just as good if not 10-20% better for his career but who is not in the Hall and not really seen as a slight.
Ok, on to read the column…