I just learned that Mazeroski did NOT win the 1960 WS MVP. And it wasn't because the HR was his lone shining moment. He hit 320 and had an OPS of 960 for the series, which was easily the best of Pittsburgh's regulars (Clemente put up 621 and Dick Groat had a 500, among others).
So who won? Bobby Richardson, who drove in an impressive 12 runs and hit 367. But as long as you were going with a Yankee, Mantle hit 400 and drove in 11. Did they vote before the end of Game 7?
As a reminder on how a player looks as time goes by, the evaluation methods evolve, and the evaluator him/herself changes: the original comparison was Ruth, Cobb, Williams and Aaron while a few years ago it was revealed that Joe's top player of all time is Mays.
So I'm usually the guy crashing in to bitch about Bryce Harper. As I've said, I've relented a bit given his postseason heroics the last few years—as the late Maz shows, magic moments on the biggest stage can push a guy without a strong case into the Hall, and Harper at least has a strong case.
But let's get real about the "2 MVPs" thing: Harper's 2021 MVP is literally the worst MVP award in the past 18 years, and will likely be the worst one of the rest of our lives. First of all, it's just literally the worst MVP season since 2007, and it's not close: other than Pedroia in '08, every other MVP season has been worth at least 1.5 rWAR over Harper's frankly embarrassing 5.9. Second of all, Harper's 2021 was (almost) 1.5 rWAR behind Soto; that's a lot of daylight. But—and this is third—there were a bunch of other players in that daylight. Harper was not a top 7 position player, and 4 different guys were worth at least half a win more.
Simply put, a huge part of Harper's Hall case relies on an MVP vote so bad that it should be named alongside historic failures like the ones for JuanGone, Morneau, and Mo Vaughn. I guess it is historic, in that such a bad vote is unlikely ever to happen again.
PS - His FG WAR is better, but still behind Turner, Soto, & Tatis. Trea at least made the playoffs.
OK, fine: Soto played the same position with much better defense (15 runs, per Total Zone, 12 by DRS), created more runs, played more games, got on base 48 more times, and his OPS+ was 175 vs 179 for Harper. There's no good argument for Harper over Soto ("somewhat higher OPS" is not a good argument, it's a straw to grasp at).
Meanwhile, Turner had 44 more hits than Harper, 23 guys had more RBI, Tatis had 7 more homers.... What, exactly, is the argument for Harper? Please, show me the pre-WAR stats that say that 6th in HR, 24th in RBI, and 3rd in AVG for an 82-game winner equals MVP. It's not like anybody thought Harper was Clemente in RF.
In this case—as in most cases—WAR is one stat that summarizes a bunch of other ones, and complaining that it doesn't capture everything is a way to avoid arguing about all of the specific stats that go against what you wish to be true.
Harper's 2nd MVP is the worst of the last 18 years, and I'm even more convinced of it than I was before.
I'm not of the opinion that Harper should have won the MVP, though I don't think it was as awful as you do.
My problem with WAR occurs when it is the only basis for the argument being made. I look at WAR frequently as a quick snapshot, but feel people get overly reliant on it as a stat. The mere fact that there are 2 different versions of it, which sometimes are in agreement, and sometimes very much are not, makes me pump the brakes on it's use. I still think defense and positional adjustments are too much of a guessing game to put full reliance on it as a stat.
For what it's worth, I would have given it to Turner, but I think playing for 2 teams that year may have worked against him.
So obviously Trout (not in list) is in if he retires today. His 87 WAR just dwarfs Harper who came up at the same time. This really hurts Bryce. If Bryce is great, a HOF’er, then what exactly is Trout, best ever? Meh on Schwab’s. I would never vote for him. His a slugger and that’s it, not a baseball player. Clutch for sure, but other than singers the numbers just don’t look great.
Kyle Schwarber? He's a lot of fun, don't get me wrong. I live near Philly and he's a hero here, of course. He's signed for the next 5 years, through age 37, but if he's still useful at the end of that I'll be astonished. Guys like him, who start their career with "old player skills" (i.e. walks, homers, low BA, no defense) tend not to age well. His similarity score through age 32 list is not encouraging:
Dave Kingman (908.4) - Averaged 30 HR from age 33-37, but retired after the 1987 when he couldn't find a decent contract due to collusion, IIRC. So probably an encouraging data point.
Chris Davis (889.7) - Already in severe decline, starting at age 30, largely because he went off Ritalin, apparently.
Mark McGwire (888.6) - hit 254 HR with a 179 OPS_ from ages 33-37, but took a LOT of steroids to do it. Presumably not a useful analog here.
Greg Vaughn (887.3) - Had a couple of decent, mostly healthy seasons from age 33 on, but only hit 108 HR and missed a bunch of time after age 34 due to injuries and ineffectiveness.
Jay Buhner (878.6) - Never had a healthy season after age 32, hit 57 total HRs after that and retired at 36.
Darryl Strawberry (877.6) - Already a part-time DH by this age. Played less than 250 total games over 5 seasons with the Yankees after age 32.
Roger Maris (873.2) - already in decline by 32, retired at 33.
Cecil Fielder (871.6) - Hit 39 HR at age 32...then just 30 total the next two seasons and retired at 34.
Mark Reynolds (868.6) - Kind of a right handed Schwarber. Similar build, similar approach, just never caught on anywhere quite so well as Schwarbs has in Philly. Hit 47 HR in a shade over 300 games from ages 33-35 and retired.
Richie Sexson (856.1) - Lanky, 6'7" power hitter with huge holes in his swing was out of baseball at age 33.
Anyway, assuming decent health, and anormal career trajectory, Schwarber probably loses some bat speed going forward, and his HRs drop to 35, then 25, then 20, with concurrently fewer walks, lower BAs, and less playing time. He would need to average ~32 HR a year to get to 500 by the end of this contract, and I just don't see that happening.
Joe - Along a similar vein of thought(s) about aging, as in the "parking" issues mentioned in another post, while writing this i noticed my Aveeno lotion squeeze bottle has it's manufactured Lot # on it. Lot 49 - so my aging, minutiae driven mind - went directly to the book "Crying of Lot 49" by Pynchon. Re-reading the summary online, about the not-so subtle names of the characters.... Concommitantly, in my mind, reminding me of these ballplayer listings we explore.... (maybe it's a Cleveland thing?).
I'm not saying he will, but playing Devil's Advocate here, the distinction would run as follows:
Clemens and Bonds were not suspended for PEDs, no, as there was no policy in place for that for most of their careers, but there is a mountain of evidence against them, and a reasonable narrative making everything they did from the late 90s on as suspect. (One could reasonably argue that 3 CYAs and an MVP for Clemens and 3 MVPs for Bonds should have qualified them for the Hall before the PEDs ever became a Thing, but anyway.)
With Tatis, he was suspended at age 23, and is still only 26. He's come back form that reasonably strong, presumably without PEDs now, and if he plays another 10-15 years at a high level, amassing, say, another ~50 bWAR over the next decade and change, he'd have put up 75 or 80 bWAR and would have demonstrated that he can be very good without the PEDs. (The other side of this (the Angels' Advocate??), of course, is that before the suspension he averaged a 160 OPS+ and 8 bWAR/162 games as a shortstop whereas since the suspension he has averaged just a 130 OPS+ and 5.9 bWAR/162 as a RF, not nearly as impressive.)
But there is a precedent for a guy getting dinged for PEDs early in his career and then having a long, productive career after that and getting elected to the Hall. Just ask David Ortiz! His was not a publicly available test result, but stuff he said implied that he must have been one of the players who got caught in 2003, because of all the testing he says he had to do later on in his career. It's not the same as having been suspended for it, but I'm sure some sportswriters must have known and voted for him anyway.
My favorite Roger Maris data point for his HOF candidacy is his first MVP was in 1960, the year before he hit 61, so two years in a row he was considered the best player in the American League, and that is with Mantle as a teammate
I became a baseball fan in 1964. I read every baseball book I could, with a small gap in the early 70s, but I read those after I came back to the game. I don't remember a single one that listed Mazeroski's home run ahead of Bobby Thomson's.
1) There is nothing in that phrase which explicitly states that those are Joe's pick for the top four players in history - I take it to be Joe's reference of some of the pantheon of the baseball HOF gods; 2) Joe wrote those words 40 years ago. Even if that had been his top four, subsequent analysis has yielded a different #1. Forty years is a long time for people to rethink things. Subsequent analytics have also changed the way a lot of people evaluate players; 3) You should have written "Really odd," not "Real odd." Adverb, not adjective.
Bill Mazeroski is about a lot more than that magnificent home run. Who holds the MLB record for turning a total of 1,706 double plays? Bill Mazeroski. He won eight Gold Gloves and he led the National League in double plays turned every season from 1960 to 1967. His super quick transfer is legendary - he didn’t really catch the ball, but instead allowed it to ricochet — from his glove webbing to his throwing hand to save time. He set the single season record for double plays back in 1966. Almost sixty years later, no one has been within twenty of Maz’s record of 161 double plays that season. Frank White, Joe Morgan and Roberto Alomar are are excellent, but Bill Mazeroski is the best defensive second baseman of all time, I think that alone should get him into the HOF!
The double play thing is cool, and I've never seen him play, so I'll concede that he must obviously have been a slick fielder, but the game has changed significantly since the 1960s. IN 1961 the major leagues averaged 8.9 hits per 9 innings, 3.5 walks and 5.3 strikeouts. Last year those numbers were 8.4, 3.2 and 8.5, respectively. That's almost one less baserunner per game, and more than three extra strikeouts per game, per team. There are a lot fewer opportunities for double plays, across the board, than there were in Maz's day. That doesn't mean he wasn't great. But the fact that nobody has surpassed him may be as much a function of the lack of opportunity as it is a testament to his skill.
I seriously doubt he’d be in the Hall without that home run. The player in the Hall most identified with defense- Ozzie Smith- has double the WAR as Mazeroski. And a much higher OPS+
Harold Baines, whom most people on here are dead set against him being in the Hall has a higher WAR.
I just don’t see it. I’m not against him being in the Hall. Just without that home run don’t think he’d be in .
I just learned that Mazeroski did NOT win the 1960 WS MVP. And it wasn't because the HR was his lone shining moment. He hit 320 and had an OPS of 960 for the series, which was easily the best of Pittsburgh's regulars (Clemente put up 621 and Dick Groat had a 500, among others).
So who won? Bobby Richardson, who drove in an impressive 12 runs and hit 367. But as long as you were going with a Yankee, Mantle hit 400 and drove in 11. Did they vote before the end of Game 7?
As a reminder on how a player looks as time goes by, the evaluation methods evolve, and the evaluator him/herself changes: the original comparison was Ruth, Cobb, Williams and Aaron while a few years ago it was revealed that Joe's top player of all time is Mays.
Trea Turner should be in for his beautiful and graceful slides, if nothing else.
So I'm usually the guy crashing in to bitch about Bryce Harper. As I've said, I've relented a bit given his postseason heroics the last few years—as the late Maz shows, magic moments on the biggest stage can push a guy without a strong case into the Hall, and Harper at least has a strong case.
But let's get real about the "2 MVPs" thing: Harper's 2021 MVP is literally the worst MVP award in the past 18 years, and will likely be the worst one of the rest of our lives. First of all, it's just literally the worst MVP season since 2007, and it's not close: other than Pedroia in '08, every other MVP season has been worth at least 1.5 rWAR over Harper's frankly embarrassing 5.9. Second of all, Harper's 2021 was (almost) 1.5 rWAR behind Soto; that's a lot of daylight. But—and this is third—there were a bunch of other players in that daylight. Harper was not a top 7 position player, and 4 different guys were worth at least half a win more.
Simply put, a huge part of Harper's Hall case relies on an MVP vote so bad that it should be named alongside historic failures like the ones for JuanGone, Morneau, and Mo Vaughn. I guess it is historic, in that such a bad vote is unlikely ever to happen again.
PS - His FG WAR is better, but still behind Turner, Soto, & Tatis. Trea at least made the playoffs.
Your argument is why I hate WAR.
OK, fine: Soto played the same position with much better defense (15 runs, per Total Zone, 12 by DRS), created more runs, played more games, got on base 48 more times, and his OPS+ was 175 vs 179 for Harper. There's no good argument for Harper over Soto ("somewhat higher OPS" is not a good argument, it's a straw to grasp at).
Meanwhile, Turner had 44 more hits than Harper, 23 guys had more RBI, Tatis had 7 more homers.... What, exactly, is the argument for Harper? Please, show me the pre-WAR stats that say that 6th in HR, 24th in RBI, and 3rd in AVG for an 82-game winner equals MVP. It's not like anybody thought Harper was Clemente in RF.
In this case—as in most cases—WAR is one stat that summarizes a bunch of other ones, and complaining that it doesn't capture everything is a way to avoid arguing about all of the specific stats that go against what you wish to be true.
Harper's 2nd MVP is the worst of the last 18 years, and I'm even more convinced of it than I was before.
I'm not of the opinion that Harper should have won the MVP, though I don't think it was as awful as you do.
My problem with WAR occurs when it is the only basis for the argument being made. I look at WAR frequently as a quick snapshot, but feel people get overly reliant on it as a stat. The mere fact that there are 2 different versions of it, which sometimes are in agreement, and sometimes very much are not, makes me pump the brakes on it's use. I still think defense and positional adjustments are too much of a guessing game to put full reliance on it as a stat.
For what it's worth, I would have given it to Turner, but I think playing for 2 teams that year may have worked against him.
So obviously Trout (not in list) is in if he retires today. His 87 WAR just dwarfs Harper who came up at the same time. This really hurts Bryce. If Bryce is great, a HOF’er, then what exactly is Trout, best ever? Meh on Schwab’s. I would never vote for him. His a slugger and that’s it, not a baseball player. Clutch for sure, but other than singers the numbers just don’t look great.
Kyle Schwarber? He's a lot of fun, don't get me wrong. I live near Philly and he's a hero here, of course. He's signed for the next 5 years, through age 37, but if he's still useful at the end of that I'll be astonished. Guys like him, who start their career with "old player skills" (i.e. walks, homers, low BA, no defense) tend not to age well. His similarity score through age 32 list is not encouraging:
Dave Kingman (908.4) - Averaged 30 HR from age 33-37, but retired after the 1987 when he couldn't find a decent contract due to collusion, IIRC. So probably an encouraging data point.
Chris Davis (889.7) - Already in severe decline, starting at age 30, largely because he went off Ritalin, apparently.
Mark McGwire (888.6) - hit 254 HR with a 179 OPS_ from ages 33-37, but took a LOT of steroids to do it. Presumably not a useful analog here.
Greg Vaughn (887.3) - Had a couple of decent, mostly healthy seasons from age 33 on, but only hit 108 HR and missed a bunch of time after age 34 due to injuries and ineffectiveness.
Jay Buhner (878.6) - Never had a healthy season after age 32, hit 57 total HRs after that and retired at 36.
Darryl Strawberry (877.6) - Already a part-time DH by this age. Played less than 250 total games over 5 seasons with the Yankees after age 32.
Roger Maris (873.2) - already in decline by 32, retired at 33.
Cecil Fielder (871.6) - Hit 39 HR at age 32...then just 30 total the next two seasons and retired at 34.
Mark Reynolds (868.6) - Kind of a right handed Schwarber. Similar build, similar approach, just never caught on anywhere quite so well as Schwarbs has in Philly. Hit 47 HR in a shade over 300 games from ages 33-35 and retired.
Richie Sexson (856.1) - Lanky, 6'7" power hitter with huge holes in his swing was out of baseball at age 33.
Anyway, assuming decent health, and anormal career trajectory, Schwarber probably loses some bat speed going forward, and his HRs drop to 35, then 25, then 20, with concurrently fewer walks, lower BAs, and less playing time. He would need to average ~32 HR a year to get to 500 by the end of this contract, and I just don't see that happening.
Vladdy Jr
Joe - Along a similar vein of thought(s) about aging, as in the "parking" issues mentioned in another post, while writing this i noticed my Aveeno lotion squeeze bottle has it's manufactured Lot # on it. Lot 49 - so my aging, minutiae driven mind - went directly to the book "Crying of Lot 49" by Pynchon. Re-reading the summary online, about the not-so subtle names of the characters.... Concommitantly, in my mind, reminding me of these ballplayer listings we explore.... (maybe it's a Cleveland thing?).
Freddie Freeman to Matt Olson: Has there been a more perfect immediate replacement player for a departed legend?
Will Clark repeatedly taking Raffy's job was kind of entertaining in the 90s
Good one!
If Clemens and Bonds can't get in with zero failed PED tests, how is Fernando Tatis Jr. (with a failed PED test and suspension) getting in?
I'm not saying he will, but playing Devil's Advocate here, the distinction would run as follows:
Clemens and Bonds were not suspended for PEDs, no, as there was no policy in place for that for most of their careers, but there is a mountain of evidence against them, and a reasonable narrative making everything they did from the late 90s on as suspect. (One could reasonably argue that 3 CYAs and an MVP for Clemens and 3 MVPs for Bonds should have qualified them for the Hall before the PEDs ever became a Thing, but anyway.)
With Tatis, he was suspended at age 23, and is still only 26. He's come back form that reasonably strong, presumably without PEDs now, and if he plays another 10-15 years at a high level, amassing, say, another ~50 bWAR over the next decade and change, he'd have put up 75 or 80 bWAR and would have demonstrated that he can be very good without the PEDs. (The other side of this (the Angels' Advocate??), of course, is that before the suspension he averaged a 160 OPS+ and 8 bWAR/162 games as a shortstop whereas since the suspension he has averaged just a 130 OPS+ and 5.9 bWAR/162 as a RF, not nearly as impressive.)
But there is a precedent for a guy getting dinged for PEDs early in his career and then having a long, productive career after that and getting elected to the Hall. Just ask David Ortiz! His was not a publicly available test result, but stuff he said implied that he must have been one of the players who got caught in 2003, because of all the testing he says he had to do later on in his career. It's not the same as having been suspended for it, but I'm sure some sportswriters must have known and voted for him anyway.
My favorite Roger Maris data point for his HOF candidacy is his first MVP was in 1960, the year before he hit 61, so two years in a row he was considered the best player in the American League, and that is with Mantle as a teammate
I became a baseball fan in 1964. I read every baseball book I could, with a small gap in the early 70s, but I read those after I came back to the game. I don't remember a single one that listed Mazeroski's home run ahead of Bobby Thomson's.
Agree with you 100%. I think (at least when I was a kid) the order would have been:
1-Thomson
2-Ruth’s “Called Shot”
3-Maz’s game 7 homer
4-Ted Williams final home run
"to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame means a spot in baseball history next to Ruth, Cobb, Williams and Aaron"
Real odd list of players to use here by a man who thinks Willie Mays is #1
1) There is nothing in that phrase which explicitly states that those are Joe's pick for the top four players in history - I take it to be Joe's reference of some of the pantheon of the baseball HOF gods; 2) Joe wrote those words 40 years ago. Even if that had been his top four, subsequent analysis has yielded a different #1. Forty years is a long time for people to rethink things. Subsequent analytics have also changed the way a lot of people evaluate players; 3) You should have written "Really odd," not "Real odd." Adverb, not adjective.
Bill Mazeroski is about a lot more than that magnificent home run. Who holds the MLB record for turning a total of 1,706 double plays? Bill Mazeroski. He won eight Gold Gloves and he led the National League in double plays turned every season from 1960 to 1967. His super quick transfer is legendary - he didn’t really catch the ball, but instead allowed it to ricochet — from his glove webbing to his throwing hand to save time. He set the single season record for double plays back in 1966. Almost sixty years later, no one has been within twenty of Maz’s record of 161 double plays that season. Frank White, Joe Morgan and Roberto Alomar are are excellent, but Bill Mazeroski is the best defensive second baseman of all time, I think that alone should get him into the HOF!
The double play thing is cool, and I've never seen him play, so I'll concede that he must obviously have been a slick fielder, but the game has changed significantly since the 1960s. IN 1961 the major leagues averaged 8.9 hits per 9 innings, 3.5 walks and 5.3 strikeouts. Last year those numbers were 8.4, 3.2 and 8.5, respectively. That's almost one less baserunner per game, and more than three extra strikeouts per game, per team. There are a lot fewer opportunities for double plays, across the board, than there were in Maz's day. That doesn't mean he wasn't great. But the fact that nobody has surpassed him may be as much a function of the lack of opportunity as it is a testament to his skill.
I seriously doubt he’d be in the Hall without that home run. The player in the Hall most identified with defense- Ozzie Smith- has double the WAR as Mazeroski. And a much higher OPS+
Harold Baines, whom most people on here are dead set against him being in the Hall has a higher WAR.
I just don’t see it. I’m not against him being in the Hall. Just without that home run don’t think he’d be in .
Joe -- you need to do a full explainer on WAR, ERAplus and any other new-fangled statistic you use to measure baseball players. Please.
He actually has. It’s called
My Favorite Advanced Stats (and Why I Like Them)
Just use the search feature on Joe’s profile and it should pop up!
I think this link will work. If not, assume user error on my end.
https://www.joeposnanski.com/p/my-favorite-advanced-stats-and-why?utm_source=publication-search
Joining the chorus of people who want to see the 40-year-old list
I think he's reproduced it elsewhere. Check the archives.