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2018 Hall of Fame vote debate
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 29, 2018 11:07:13 GMT -5
Innings pitched is a function of the time period a lot more than the ability of a pitcher.
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 29, 2018 11:15:52 GMT -5
Innings pitched is a function of the time period a lot more than the ability of a pitcher. At some level. But pitchers were pacing themselves more, and delivering weaker rate stats as a result. It does make pitchers hard to compare across generations. Again, though - this is a situation where WAR or other similar valuation methods are useful: it values, say, Palmer's 1977 more than Mussina's 2001, despite Mussina having an ERA+ advantage of 143 to 131, because of a 319 to 228 innings advantage... even though Mussina had the disadvantage of being a RHP in Yankee Stadium in the high-powered 2001 environment. That seems... about right. There are a lot of factors to consider, and WAR is reductionist in ways that can be good but also lazy. Taking it at face value, like "Palmer's 7.5 WAR in 1977 means he was better than Mussina's 7.1 WAR in 2001" is an oversimplification. But it gives the conversation a nice starting point.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Jan 29, 2018 11:19:34 GMT -5
You can make a really easy solid case Mussina was better than Smoltz and Glavine. Just look at the numbers. Smoltz only 2 seasons in top 10 war for pitchers, Mussina has the higher war season. Glavine only has 6 top 10 war seasons compared to Mussina 11. Mussina has the better career ERA plus and whip by a good size margin, even though Glavine played in the NL and Mussina in the AL East.
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 29, 2018 11:26:04 GMT -5
You can make a really easy solid case Mussina was better than Smoltz and Glavine. Just look at the numbers. Smoltz only 2 seasons in top 10 war for pitchers, Mussina has the higher war season. Glavine only has 6 top 10 war seasons compared to Mussina 11. Mussina has the better career ERA plus and whip by a good size margin, even though Glavine played in the NL and Mussina in the AL East. Glavine was a neat, weird pitcher. If a pitcher had one Tom Glavine-esque season, with too many walks and not enough strikeouts, and weirdly high strad rates and a FIP more than half-a-run higher than his ERA, we'd kind of write him off as a mirage. But then Glavine did it for two decades. Like, I'll be plenty skeptical about 180 innings of "situational pitching" but if you give me 4,400 I'm paying attention. It makes him hard to compare to other guys, though, for sure.
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Post by manfred on Jan 29, 2018 11:32:05 GMT -5
Mike Mussina was never a teammate of CC Sabathia. Reuschel's best season was better than Mussina's best season. However: Mussina had two 7.0+ WAR seasons, Reuschel had one. Mussina had four 6.0+ WAR seasons, Reuschel had two. Mussina had ten 5.0+ WAR seasons, Reuschel had six. Mussina had twelve 4.0+ WAR seasons, Reuschel had seven. EDIT: You're doing the same thing you were doing in the McGriff discussion - finding players who were clearly, demonstrably worse but had some single similar accomplishment and using that to discredit the argument as a whole. It's.... really easy to show Mussina was a better pitcher than Reuschel (who was a damn good pitcher, for what it's worth). Saying Reuschel isn't a Hall of Famer doesn't really move the needle on Mussina. I don’t mean to do that. It may appear so as I focus on pieces at a time... I fear my posts are too long as it is. My primary concern to this point has been the emphasis on the WAR case, which I don’t find nearly as compelling as others. To me, the WAR case overemphasizes things that are not necessarily essential for the Hall, ignores others, and has a presentist bias towards contemporary style of play (how are numbers calculated for baserunning for older players to name one very simple issue). Thus, my other point is to suggest that guys like McGriff and Mussina may, after the fact, have god WAR numbers, they did them in a deafeningly quiet way much of their careers, rarely being mentioned as the peak players in the game etc. is that fair? Maybe only partly. But old stats... what you do before my eyes... don’t creep up on one. I get, too, the Hall’s bias against pitchers, so many of the old numbers have to be reevaluated. 300 wins may never happen again. 10+ complete games — much less 20 — may be exceedingly rare. But that doesn’t mean pitchers won’t still have magic seasons. Schilling’s 300+ k seasons, Halladay from 2008-2011, etc. Both are guys for whom aloeance must be made in career wins, and I am for that. But that’s because they had many multiple insane years — I don’t know nor do I need to know what their WAR was. Mussina was... workman-like. But so far the case for him makes a dull plaque: Mike Mussina was a 1-time win leader, no-time ERA leader, 1-time inning leader, no-time strikeout leader, a no-time Cy Young, etc etc.
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Post by manfred on Jan 29, 2018 11:41:37 GMT -5
You can make a really easy solid case Mussina was better than Smoltz and Glavine. Just look at the numbers. Smoltz only 2 seasons in top 10 war for pitchers, Mussina has the higher war season. Glavine only has 6 top 10 war seasons compared to Mussina 11. Mussina has the better career ERA plus and whip by a good size margin, even though Glavine played in the NL and Mussina in the AL East. Glavine was a neat, weird pitcher. If a pitcher had one Tom Glavine-esque season, with too many walks and not enough strikeouts, and weirdly high strad rates and a FIP more than half-a-run higher than his ERA, we'd kind of write him off as a mirage. But then Glavine did it for two decades. Like, I'll be plenty skeptical about 180 innings of "situational pitching" but if you give me 4,400 I'm paying attention. It makes him hard to compare to other guys, though, for sure. Glavine also hits the magic number for career wins, which (and I’m not saying this approvingly) makes it moot. No 300 game winner is getting left out. But to the question of how good was he really.... he did lead the league in wins 5 times, with 3 in a row. He won a WS MVP. He was the ace for a good portion of one of the big team runs of the generation. To some degree, this is my case against stats like WHIP. Glavine’s secondary stats are... weird. But the dude got it done. One could then fairly ask me... if Mussina won 30 more games (which he could have, if his last season is any indication) would I vote yes? Well... far more likely. Is that fair? Yeah, I think so. Guys do what they do and get jusged on that.
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Post by manfred on Jan 29, 2018 11:53:07 GMT -5
Innings pitched is a function of the time period a lot more than the ability of a pitcher. Well, if you stink, you aren’t making 300 innings. But beyond that... let’s be fair to guys like Seaver and Palmer. They were pitching 3 seasons by our standards every 2. This seems to me to put longevity in a whole different light. How long would the best starters today last in their careers if they were expected to go 300 innings? Throw 20 complete games? If, that is, a starter is assumed to complete his start, it means he pitches until he can’t.... meaning he’s gotten into trouble. Now, guys leave after 6 or 7 even if all is clean. That is going to have a dramatic effect on stats. Again, even taking Jack Morris, who had a 162-game average of 11 complete games... what if he was told he was a 6-inning pitcher? I don’t know, but it is virtually impossible to see how he’d have worse statistics (except maybe wins). Hell, his strikeouts might actually go up.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Jan 29, 2018 12:02:56 GMT -5
Wins and ERA as a way to judge pitchers is so 30 years ago. As we know team, league, division and ball park can greatly effect those. ERA plus which is adjusted for a players ball park is a lot better.
Ask yourself if you switched Mussina with Glavine and Smoltz what their careers would look like? Go from the best hitting division with great DHs and small hitter friendly parks to the NL facing pitchers in bigger pitcher friendly parks. There would be a massive difference in things like ERA and WHIP. I would bet Mussina averages more innings because of the easy outs he would get facing pitchers instead of guys like David Ortiz. The NL as a whole is just a lot more pitcher friendly.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Jan 29, 2018 12:06:09 GMT -5
I’ll give you one example: DRS. Much of this about range, what you should catch, “good plays,” etc. But that is as much counterfactual as evidence based: it assumes the play would be made (and other gaffes would not be). This ends up being crucial when specific number of runs saved or lost are calculated. That seems to be pretending to have a scientific scale for something usually unknowable (barring the literal... 2 out error with baserunners or catching a homerun). Then, when one looks at the impact defense has on WAR (my Kevin Keirmeier example), it all starts getting less clearly scientific than it seems. I don’t want this to get too far away from my original point: some of the guys that are champuoned by WAR numbers were simply not HOF-level players, and in some cases, the numbers seem unaccountable. In a discussion about Bichette's oWAR, your best example of how WAR is broken is a defensive statistic which not only doesn't affect offense but only affects bWAR and only after 2003, at which time Bichette was retired. If you don't like bWAR then use fWAR. No DRS included.
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Post by manfred on Jan 29, 2018 12:20:27 GMT -5
a really solid pitcher. But he was never — even for a moment — the best, was often not demonstrably his team’s best pitcher, etc etc. He led his team in pitching WAR every year from 1994 to 2004, which isn't really a Hall of Fame standard itself, but no - you're very, very wrong about him being "often not demonstrably his team's best pitcher." He was the best pitcher on a team that had Roger Clemens in his second prime on it. Your "I wouldn't have traded for him" argument doesn't really make sense. It's not a reinforcing piece of evidence. You can't say that you think someone isn't good enough, and then your evidence is that you don't think he's good enough. That's not a tangible thing. And your thing about peak doesn't make sense either. Because Mussina spread his best seasons over his career, rather than having him over one stretch, that somehow makes his career less valuable? His best seasons were 1992 and 2001. That doesn't mean his Hall of Fame case should be worse than someone who was less good but put his best years together (like Appier, who, for what it's worth, was probably the second best picther in baseball behind Maddux in the mid-90s). You can think the Hall of Fame is for "legends, superstars" but it never has been. Mussina is better than more than half of the pitchers in the Hall of Fame. He was better than Schilling, Halladay, Smoltz, Eckersley, and even arguably Glavine. He's better - clearly better - than Jim Bunning, Juan Marichal, Jim Palmer, Catfish Hunter, Don Drysdale, Hal Neuhauser - all guys who seem to be considered pretty standard Hall of Fame quality. If you want the Hall of Fame to be limited to Christy Mathewson and Cy Young and Greg Maddux, that's fine, but it's not the standard. I am curious... looking back at Marichal... why is Mussina clearly better? From 1962-1969 JM was 172-76. 2.46 ERA, 141 ERA+. He averaged 23 complete games. WHIP was1.027. For his career, he had a better ERA, ERA+, and WHIP. They had nearly identical winning percentages, and Mussina had 27 more wins in 2 more seasons (though basically 4, as Marichal had 9 starts and 2 starts in his last two years). Marichal beats Mussina in other categories... led league twice in ERA+, 2 times in WHIP etc. And I’m not even arguing Marichal’s stats should put him in the Hall. But I truly don’t see how Mussina is clearly better.
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Post by manfred on Jan 29, 2018 12:36:37 GMT -5
Wins and ERA as a way to judge pitchers is so 30 years ago. As we know team, league, division and ball park can greatly effect those. ERA plus which is adjusted for a players ball park is a lot better. Ask yourself if you switched Mussina with Glavine and Smoltz what their careers would look like? Go from the best hitting division with great DHs and small hitter friendly parks to the NL facing pitchers in bigger pitcher friendly parks. There would be a massive difference in things like ERA and WHIP. I would bet Mussina averages more innings because of the easy outs he would get facing pitchers instead of guys like David Ortiz. The NL as a whole is just a lot more pitcher friendly. The imagine game can go on forever. Imagine if Smoltz (who had a better career ERA+ than Mussina) went to the mound knowing he had Rivera for later. Or Glavine’s crafty lefty-stuff negates Yankee stadium’s short right field. Who knows? Imagine if Sid Bream were slightly faster? 30 years ago wins certainly meant more, because pitchers weren’t going 6 innings, giving the ball to 2-3 fresh studs, and getting full credit. Let’s posit that a stat like ERA+ is a great equalizer inside seasons — it still doesn’t do much for comparing eras. If you want to play what ifs: what would Mussina’s ERA be if you added 100 more innings to, say, 5 of his prime seasons? His WHIP? etc. It returns me to a point I made much earlier regarding closers in the Hall: the nature of hitting statistics is far more constant than pitching. There have been shifts (the DH, obviously, or the changing attitude on walks and strikeouts), but even with the inflation of power stats, one can see reasonably what a Thome is to a Killebrew. Pitching, though, is like a whole different game. Asking a guy for a quality start is simply a different thing from saying go until you can go no more.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 29, 2018 12:37:25 GMT -5
He led his team in pitching WAR every year from 1994 to 2004, which isn't really a Hall of Fame standard itself, but no - you're very, very wrong about him being "often not demonstrably his team's best pitcher." He was the best pitcher on a team that had Roger Clemens in his second prime on it. Your "I wouldn't have traded for him" argument doesn't really make sense. It's not a reinforcing piece of evidence. You can't say that you think someone isn't good enough, and then your evidence is that you don't think he's good enough. That's not a tangible thing. And your thing about peak doesn't make sense either. Because Mussina spread his best seasons over his career, rather than having him over one stretch, that somehow makes his career less valuable? His best seasons were 1992 and 2001. That doesn't mean his Hall of Fame case should be worse than someone who was less good but put his best years together (like Appier, who, for what it's worth, was probably the second best picther in baseball behind Maddux in the mid-90s). You can think the Hall of Fame is for "legends, superstars" but it never has been. Mussina is better than more than half of the pitchers in the Hall of Fame. He was better than Schilling, Halladay, Smoltz, Eckersley, and even arguably Glavine. He's better - clearly better - than Jim Bunning, Juan Marichal, Jim Palmer, Catfish Hunter, Don Drysdale, Hal Neuhauser - all guys who seem to be considered pretty standard Hall of Fame quality. If you want the Hall of Fame to be limited to Christy Mathewson and Cy Young and Greg Maddux, that's fine, but it's not the standard. I am curious... looking back at Marichal... why is Mussina clearly better? From 1962-1969 JM was 172-76. 2.46 ERA, 141 ERA+. He averaged 23 complete games. WHIP was1.027. For his career, he had a better ERA, ERA+, and WHIP. They had nearly identical winning percentages, and Mussina had 27 more wins in 2 more seasons (though basically 4, as Marichal had 9 starts and 2 starts in his last two years). Marichal beats Mussina in other categories... led league twice in ERA+, 2 times in WHIP etc. And I’m not even arguing Marichal’s stats should put him in the Hall. But I truly don’t see how Mussina is clearly better. Because you refuse to acknowledge WAR as a legitimate stat. That's all any of this discussion is about.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 29, 2018 12:39:04 GMT -5
Wins and ERA as a way to judge pitchers is so 30 years ago. As we know team, league, division and ball park can greatly effect those. ERA plus which is adjusted for a players ball park is a lot better. Ask yourself if you switched Mussina with Glavine and Smoltz what their careers would look like? Go from the best hitting division with great DHs and small hitter friendly parks to the NL facing pitchers in bigger pitcher friendly parks. There would be a massive difference in things like ERA and WHIP. I would bet Mussina averages more innings because of the easy outs he would get facing pitchers instead of guys like David Ortiz. The NL as a whole is just a lot more pitcher friendly. The imagine game can go on forever. Imagine if Smoltz (who had a better career ERA+ than Mussina) went to the mound knowing he had Rivera for later. Or Glavine’s crafty lefty-stuff negates Yankee stadium’s short right field. Who knows? Imagine if Sid Bream were slightly faster? 30 years ago wins certainly meant more, because pitchers weren’t going 6 innings, giving the ball to 2-3 fresh studs, and getting full credit. Let’s posit that a stat like ERA+ is a great equalizer inside seasons — it still doesn’t do much for comparing eras. If you want to play what ifs: what would Mussina’s ERA be if you added 100 more innings to, say, 5 of his prime seasons? His WHIP? etc. It returns me to a point I made much earlier regarding closers in the Hall: the nature of hitting statistics is far more constant than pitching. There have been shifts (the DH, obviously, or the changing attitude on walks and strikeouts), but even with the inflation of power stats, one can see reasonably what a Thome is to a Killebrew. Pitching, though, is like a whole different game. Asking a guy for a quality start is simply a different thing from saying go until you can go no more. Wins mean absolutely nothing as a comparative pitching stat other than an indicator of which pitcher is on a better team.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Jan 29, 2018 12:42:04 GMT -5
www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/bat.shtmlMaybe because the stretch you list just so happens to be the lowest run scoring stretch in recent memory. If you refuse to use war, you have to factor all these things in. You can't just use raw stats from different era's and act like they are the same. Nevermind you still refuse to look at a pitchers complete career and just keep focusing on peak years, like that is the only thing that matters.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 29, 2018 12:42:50 GMT -5
I've always wondered how much being in the Atlanta Braves Rotation In The 1990s (R) affected perception of Glavine. He is the kind of pitcher who you'd assume would be under-appreciated, and he sort of was while also perhaps being over-appreciated because he was in that rotation. Maybe they balance out? I dunno. (And this doesn't consider how he may have benefitted strike zone-wise from pitching for the Braves, which is its own thing.)
He and Maddox deserved to be in just for Chicks Dig the Long Ball anyway.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Jan 29, 2018 12:47:33 GMT -5
I don’t mean to do that. It may appear so as I focus on pieces at a time... I fear my posts are too long as it is. My primary concern to this point has been the emphasis on the WAR case, which I don’t find nearly as compelling as others. To me, the WAR case overemphasizes things that are not necessarily essential for the Hall, ignores others, and has a presentist bias towards contemporary style of play (how are numbers calculated for baserunning for older players to name one very simple issue). Thus, my other point is to suggest that guys like McGriff and Mussina may, after the fact, have god WAR numbers, they did them in a deafeningly quiet way much of their careers, rarely being mentioned as the peak players in the game etc. is that fair? Maybe only partly. But old stats... what you do before my eyes... don’t creep up on one. I get, too, the Hall’s bias against pitchers, so many of the old numbers have to be reevaluated. 300 wins may never happen again. 10+ complete games — much less 20 — may be exceedingly rare. But that doesn’t mean pitchers won’t still have magic seasons. Schilling’s 300+ k seasons, Halladay from 2008-2011, etc. Both are guys for whom aloeance must be made in career wins, and I am for that. But that’s because they had many multiple insane years — I don’t know nor do I need to know what their WAR was. Mussina was... workman-like. But so far the case for him makes a dull plaque: Mike Mussina was a 1-time win leader, no-time ERA leader, 1-time inning leader, no-time strikeout leader, a no-time Cy Young, etc etc. If you don't want to discuss using WAR, then stop bringing it up. Mussina is: - 33rd all-time in wins (270) - 41st all-time in win% (63.83%) - 20th all-time in strikeouts (2,813) - During his prime (1995-2003) had an ERA 1.04 runs better than league average while averaging 222 innings per season - in the postseason he had a 3.42 ERA and 145k (5th all-time) in 139.2 innings pitched (10th all-time) Keep in mind, there are currently 79 pitchers in the Hall of Fame In somewhat freakish consistency he gave up 79-81 earned runs in 6 of the 9 years I listed as his prime. After reading your arguments I think the issue is that you watched him primarily with the Yankees when he was 32-39 years old. Most of his best years were with the Orioles when he was an undisputed Ace. (While he was a Yankee it was argued he was a #2 pitcher) Just remember, when he goes into the HoF, it will be as an Oriole.
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Post by manfred on Jan 29, 2018 12:54:58 GMT -5
I am curious... looking back at Marichal... why is Mussina clearly better? From 1962-1969 JM was 172-76. 2.46 ERA, 141 ERA+. He averaged 23 complete games. WHIP was1.027. For his career, he had a better ERA, ERA+, and WHIP. They had nearly identical winning percentages, and Mussina had 27 more wins in 2 more seasons (though basically 4, as Marichal had 9 starts and 2 starts in his last two years). Marichal beats Mussina in other categories... led league twice in ERA+, 2 times in WHIP etc. And I’m not even arguing Marichal’s stats should put him in the Hall. But I truly don’t see how Mussina is clearly better. Because you refuse to acknowledge WAR as a legitimate stat. That's all any of this discussion is about. That seems unfair. Yes, I am no fan. But allow me to make Marichal’s WAR case: Muss was over 8 once. Marichal had a 9 and a 10 season. Marichal was over 7 4 times, Muss 2 times. Yes, Muss wins over 5 10-6. And he wins career (again having pitched effectively 4 more years). If the answer to why he was “clearly” better is that he gad higher career WAR, ok. But don’t assert it is obvious that factoring WAR makes Muss better. When one considers that Marichal is better in the spectacular ways and not far off in the workman accumulation ways, I don’t see Muss being clearly better. And Marichal is a marginal statistical HOFer. He deserves to be in as much as a pioneering Dominican player (similarly, I’d likely put Tiant in even though he is statistically marginal).
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Jan 29, 2018 12:58:15 GMT -5
Wins and ERA as a way to judge pitchers is so 30 years ago. As we know team, league, division and ball park can greatly effect those. ERA plus which is adjusted for a players ball park is a lot better. Ask yourself if you switched Mussina with Glavine and Smoltz what their careers would look like? Go from the best hitting division with great DHs and small hitter friendly parks to the NL facing pitchers in bigger pitcher friendly parks. There would be a massive difference in things like ERA and WHIP. I would bet Mussina averages more innings because of the easy outs he would get facing pitchers instead of guys like David Ortiz. The NL as a whole is just a lot more pitcher friendly. The imagine game can go on forever. Imagine if Smoltz (who had a better career ERA+ than Mussina) went to the mound knowing he had Rivera for later. Or Glavine’s crafty lefty-stuff negates Yankee stadium’s short right field. Who knows? Imagine if Sid Bream were slightly faster? 30 years ago wins certainly meant more, because pitchers weren’t going 6 innings, giving the ball to 2-3 fresh studs, and getting full credit. Let’s posit that a stat like ERA+ is a great equalizer inside seasons — it still doesn’t do much for comparing eras. If you want to play what ifs: what would Mussina’s ERA be if you added 100 more innings to, say, 5 of his prime seasons? His WHIP? etc. It returns me to a point I made much earlier regarding closers in the Hall: the nature of hitting statistics is far more constant than pitching. There have been shifts (the DH, obviously, or the changing attitude on walks and strikeouts), but even with the inflation of power stats, one can see reasonably what a Thome is to a Killebrew. Pitching, though, is like a whole different game. Asking a guy for a quality start is simply a different thing from saying go until you can go no more. The AL and NL difference isn't imaginary though, stats back it up 100%. What does a closer have to do with anything ? Not in this era, it makes zero difference as starters almost never hand the ball off to a closer. You are trying to make up stuff, compared to legit things that we can measure. If you really don't think the NL is a pitchers league and the AL is a hitters league, than ok. No point even saying anything more. Look it up. No that's why we use war, they spent the time to adjust everything so you can compare players accross era's. It's really the only tool out there that allows you to do that. Absolutely pitching has changed and the value of relievers has sky rocketed. Which is why we use war to compare players, otherwise you are doing a research paper on each player to fairly compare them or you use raw stats and the picture you get doesn't tell you the true story. war isn't perfect, but overall it gets most things right and almost is never wrong if there is a huge difference. An 80 war player is always better than an 50 war player. Things get a little trick the closer the numbers get in my opinion. An 80 war player, might not be better than a 70 war player for example or an 80 vs. 75 war player.
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Post by manfred on Jan 29, 2018 13:11:47 GMT -5
I don’t mean to do that. It may appear so as I focus on pieces at a time... I fear my posts are too long as it is. My primary concern to this point has been the emphasis on the WAR case, which I don’t find nearly as compelling as others. To me, the WAR case overemphasizes things that are not necessarily essential for the Hall, ignores others, and has a presentist bias towards contemporary style of play (how are numbers calculated for baserunning for older players to name one very simple issue). Thus, my other point is to suggest that guys like McGriff and Mussina may, after the fact, have god WAR numbers, they did them in a deafeningly quiet way much of their careers, rarely being mentioned as the peak players in the game etc. is that fair? Maybe only partly. But old stats... what you do before my eyes... don’t creep up on one. I get, too, the Hall’s bias against pitchers, so many of the old numbers have to be reevaluated. 300 wins may never happen again. 10+ complete games — much less 20 — may be exceedingly rare. But that doesn’t mean pitchers won’t still have magic seasons. Schilling’s 300+ k seasons, Halladay from 2008-2011, etc. Both are guys for whom aloeance must be made in career wins, and I am for that. But that’s because they had many multiple insane years — I don’t know nor do I need to know what their WAR was. Mussina was... workman-like. But so far the case for him makes a dull plaque: Mike Mussina was a 1-time win leader, no-time ERA leader, 1-time inning leader, no-time strikeout leader, a no-time Cy Young, etc etc. If you don't want to discuss using WAR, then stop bringing it up. Mussina is: - 33rd all-time in wins (270) - 41st all-time in win% (63.83%) - 20th all-time in strikeouts (2,813) - During his prime (1995-2003) had an ERA 1.04 runs better than league average while averaging 222 innings per season - in the postseason he had a 3.42 ERA and 145k (5th all-time) in 139.2 innings pitched (10th all-time) Keep in mind, there are currently 79 pitchers in the Hall of Fame In somewhat freakish consistency he gave up 79-81 earned runs in 6 of the 9 years I listed as his prime. After reading your arguments I think the issue is that you watched him primarily with the Yankees when he was 32-39 years old. Most of his best years were with the Orioles when he was an undisputed Ace. (While he was a Yankee it was argued he was a #2 pitcher) Just remember, when he goes into the HoF, it will be as an Oriole. Now, I don’t want to conflate arguments, but it is hard because a number of people are putting forward different cases. That is partly why I return to WAR. I might not find it especially convincing, but if it is the ground we are on... Others have pointed out how meaningless wins are. I don’t think they are. I do think there is a context. So, for example, winning percentage. In Mussina’s Yankee years, he had an ERA+ of 114, a WHIP of 1.21, a 3.88 ERA, an average of under 200 innings a year... and a winning percentage of .631. Now, this is in a span when the Yankees won under 94 games once. So his winning % was about what the teams was (and he had 3 winning seasons with sub-100 ERA+). The Mussina with Orioles was qualitatively different, yes, but not ezcellent long enough or spectacular in that span enough to my mind to merit the Hall.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Jan 29, 2018 13:14:37 GMT -5
Because you refuse to acknowledge WAR as a legitimate stat. That's all any of this discussion is about. That seems unfair. Yes, I am no fan. But allow me to make Marichal’s WAR case: Muss was over 8 once. Marichal had a 9 and a 10 season. Marichal was over 7 4 times, Muss 2 times. Yes, Muss wins over 5 10-6. And he wins career (again having pitched effectively 4 more years). If the answer to why he was “clearly” better is that he gad higher career WAR, ok. But don’t assert it is obvious that factoring WAR makes Muss better. When one considers that Marichal is better in the spectacular ways and not far off in the workman accumulation ways, I don’t see Muss being clearly better. And Marichal is a marginal statistical HOFer. He deserves to be in as much as a pioneering Dominican player (similarly, I’d likely put Tiant in even though he is statistically marginal). This is actually fair I think. Mussina and Marichal were close with each having 123 ERA+. But Mussina pitched more years and innings, which gives him the edge on quantity of work. You have successfully argued that Mussina is better than a Hall of Famer. So does this end the argument? Also, please list your WAR. It is requested/required for these forums. (I realize this is bWAR but it should be cited for everyone's benefit)
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Post by manfred on Jan 29, 2018 13:26:21 GMT -5
That seems unfair. Yes, I am no fan. But allow me to make Marichal’s WAR case: Muss was over 8 once. Marichal had a 9 and a 10 season. Marichal was over 7 4 times, Muss 2 times. Yes, Muss wins over 5 10-6. And he wins career (again having pitched effectively 4 more years). If the answer to why he was “clearly” better is that he gad higher career WAR, ok. But don’t assert it is obvious that factoring WAR makes Muss better. When one considers that Marichal is better in the spectacular ways and not far off in the workman accumulation ways, I don’t see Muss being clearly better. And Marichal is a marginal statistical HOFer. He deserves to be in as much as a pioneering Dominican player (similarly, I’d likely put Tiant in even though he is statistically marginal). This is actually fair I think. Mussina and Marichal were close with each having 123 ERA+. But Mussina pitched more years and innings, which gives him the edge on quantity of work. You have successfully argued that Mussina is better than a Hall of Famer. So does this end the argument? Also, please list your WAR. It is requested/required for these forums. (I realize this is bWAR but it should be cited for everyone's benefit) Ah. I only use Baseball Reference. That there are multiple WARs is another thing I find irritating. I don’t think I proved Muss is better. I can buy that he is on par with the lowest end HOFers, and, as I said before better than some. I don’t think that mistaken entries should permanently change the floor. I think I wrote before: I am in favor of a very restrictive Hall. So it really comes down to the fact that I don’t see a place for players who were never dominant, spectacular players and have no core, magic ticket. Mussina is a guy with really good career numbers playing for great teams and at the end of his career you kinda go... really? Wow! That guy did that? Some might view that as a reason to support him, but I see it as a guy who had a yeoman career but not an immortal one.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Jan 29, 2018 13:29:37 GMT -5
ave pointed out how meaningless wins are. I don’t think they are. I do think there is a context. So, for example, winning percentage. In Mussina’s Yankee years, he had an ERA+ of 114, a WHIP of 1.21, a 3.88 ERA, an average of under 200 innings a year... and a winning percentage of .631. Now, this is in a span when the Yankees won under 94 games once. So his winning % was about what the teams was (and he had 3 winning seasons with sub-100 ERA+). The Mussina with Orioles was qualitatively different, yes, but not ezcellent long enough or spectacular in that span enough to my mind to merit the Hall. Yes, he wasn't as good in his mid-to-late 30s as he was when he was younger. This is true of all pitchers. But you note that his win% on the Yankees was 63.1%, lower than his win% with the Orioles, who had some horribly bad years. He was excellent for 9-12 years (strike shortened season screwed him). How long is long enough? Few Hall of Famers have longer stretches of excellence. And we haven't even mentioned that he had an all-time great pickoff move which I'm sure affected his win% in being better than expected for his peripheral numbers. You keep going back to the Yankees, but he was in the HoF conversation before joining the Yankees. Then he was good, and sometimes excellent, for 8 more seasons. It's a marvel he had a 4.6 fWAR season at the age of 39.
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 29, 2018 13:36:29 GMT -5
Let's pretend wins aren't useless, and have any non-team value:
Mike Mussina has the most wins of any player who debuted after 1990.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 29, 2018 13:36:59 GMT -5
Mussina is 16th all time in career fWAR and 23rd all time in career bWAR.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jan 29, 2018 13:55:18 GMT -5
That's good, because that's the same exact article I think of every time this year.
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