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Feb-12-10
 | | Phony Benoni: <JB> Agreed; certainly not first ballot. Kent may have been the best-hitting second baseman of his era with 377 home runs and a .290 average, while Mussina pitched consistently well for years. But they don't stand out like the other three. Maddux and Glavine for sure. Frank Thomas might be put back a year, but only if there simply aren't enough votes to go around. The regular committee rarely elects more than two in a single year, 1991 being the last time they elected three (Rod Carew, Ferguson Jenkins, Gaylord Perry). |
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| Feb-12-10 | | Jim Bartle: I just think if you filled the HOF with Kents and Mussinas there would be 500 members. And that's looking at two Bay Area guys, a Giant and a Stanford pitcher. |
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| Feb-13-10 | | playground player: <Jim Bartle> It's most annoying that there are two Frank Thomases. I keep getting this one mixed up with the Frank Thomas who was Birdie Tebbets' 1954 All-Star left fielder. Is it just me, or are there getting to be too many players in the Hall of Fame? Maybe we need something like a Hall of More Famous Fame to separate the Jeff Kents from the Rogers Hornsbys. What? I never saw Hornsby play? OK, then--separate the Jeff Kents from the Ryne Sandbergs. |
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| Feb-13-10 | | Jim Bartle: "Hall of More Famous Fame"
I've heard that suggested. Sort of like determining who are super-GMs and who are just regular GMs. You know what would happen. We'd start arguing about who belongs in the HMFF (Brooks Robinson? Billy Williams?), and it would be consider a putdown if Robin Yount or Luis Aparicio is left out. And there'd be a tendency to let all the Cashes (Norm and Dave) into the Regular HOF. |
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| Feb-13-10 | | Jim Bartle: To a certain extent the HOF is already divided into those elected by the writers and those elected by the Veterans Committee. (A friend of mine is a good friend of Aparicio, and says he makes a big distinction between the two groups.) So maybe there could be another distinction, those elected on the first ballot. That would keep a lot of great players out of the first group, though. |
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Feb-13-10
| | Phony Benoni: I don't know about the first ballot distinction simply because of the numbers game. Frank Thomas the Hurtful would be first ballot in most years, but he might be denied by Maddux and Glavine getting so many votes. (Or Glavine denied by Thomas, perhaps). A two-tier Hall of Fame will only be possible when baseball feels a need to rekindle interest in the Hot Stove League by provoking arguments. |
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Feb-13-10
| | Phony Benoni: Recalling our earlier discussion of good-fielding first basemen, here's a recent research paper analyzing the statistics of 3-6-3 double plays. Albert Pujols shows up quite well here, and you might find it interesting who holds the single-season record for most opportunities without attempitng to make a 3-6-3. http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/... (Opportunites: a ground ball to the first baseman with a runner on first and less than two outs. Attempts: 1B throws to the shortstop.) |
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| Feb-13-10 | | Jim Bartle: Hard to believe the studies people will make sometimes. Not that I don't appreciate it. Steve Garvey leads in most opportunities without an attempt, and lowest percentage of attempts. Really, no surprise there. He just hated to throw. I'm not really clear on what a 3-6-3 shows of a fielder's ability that a 3-6-1 doesn't. Maybe the quickness of the player to get over to the base. |
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Feb-13-10
| | Phony Benoni: Yes, I would expect it's the extra agility involved, especially if he has to move or go down to get the ball. Still, wouldn't they would be holding the runner on in most of those situations? I found that Garvey number interesting, but I was pleased to see how Pujols seems well able to turn the play. |
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| Feb-13-10 | | Jim Bartle: "Still, wouldn't they would be holding the runner on in most of those situations?" Ah, good point! |
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| Feb-14-10 | | playground player: Willie Montanez had it all over Steve Garvey, but Garvey kept getting the Golden Glove. Odd, isn't it? |
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| Feb-14-10 | | Jim Bartle: Yes. Garvey could catch but couldn't throw. GGs are supposed to reward the best fielder, but players' hitting still comes into it. |
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| Feb-14-10 | | A.G. Argent: Gents, of course you know what week we are entering. Life is good. |
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| Feb-15-10 | | Jim Bartle: Right! The NCAA tournament is just around the bend? |
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| Feb-15-10 | | dakgootje: well I suppose March Madness should only start in... march.. Going to be interesting this time however since several of the usual terrific-teams have not done that well (take unc) and beloved syracuse suffered a painful defeat yesterday. |
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Feb-16-10
| | Phony Benoni: Here's the team I'm watching. In a perfect world, they would be a shoo-in: http://www.thomasmore.edu/athletics/ |
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| Feb-16-10 | | Jim Bartle: I saw a photo of the pitching rubber from Allie Reynolds' no-hitter against Boston in 1951, autographed by both teams. It might fetch a few dollars on ebay, having the signatures of two DiMaggios, one Mantle, Berra, Stengel, Crosetti, Dickey, Mize, Lopat, McDougald, Martin, Raschi, Henrich, Charlie Silvera (old friend, sorry), Houk, Bauer, Pesky, Stephens, Goodman, Dropo, etc. But there was no Williams, so I decided to look up the game and see if maybe he didn't play: http://books.google.com.pe/books?id... As it turned out, he not only played but made the last out--twice! Berra dropped a pop foul, pissing Williams off, before catching another. Now this seems odd to me. For all his ego, Williams typically seemed ready to give credit to outstanding efforts by opponents. Why he wouldn't sign (OK, maybe they didn't get it to him) seems out of character. |
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| Feb-16-10 | | Jim Bartle: I'm sure the Thomas More team will do well as long as they keep their heads. |
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| Feb-17-10 | | playground player: Pitchers and catchers report today, hooray! Now if only they'd get rid of quality starts, stadiums named after sponsors, over-expansion, interleague play, the DH, bullpen by committee, and 9-inning games that take four hours to play, we might get around to some baseball here. |
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| Feb-17-10 | | dakgootje: While you are driving those interventions through; might want to have a look at how the combined salaries of an MLB-team are higher than the GDP of a small african country. |
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| Feb-17-10 | | A.G. Argent: Yeah but can a small African country hit a curve ball? |
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| Feb-17-10 | | Jim Bartle: Let's see, I agree on some of those, pp, but...
Bullpen by committee: what's wrong with that? The time lost making the pitching changes? Quality starts? Actually I think that's a pretty good stat. Simple, means you gave your team a chance to win. I've seen a lot of other stats I could do without, concerning number of balls put in play, average number of pitches per at bat, etc. |
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| Feb-17-10 | | dakgootje: <Yeah but can a small African country hit a curve ball?> They could blackmail the referees with threats of... hitting them with sticks and stones... or giving them malaria. |
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Feb-17-10
| | Phony Benoni: Opinions? I actually have to express opinions? Oh, dear... <Quality starts>: Like most stats, fine if you take them with a grain of salt. Having a lot of quality starts doesn't make a great pitcher, just one who keeps his team in the game. A 4.50 ERA earns you a quality start, so it's not that good. <Stadiums named after sponsors>: No worse than naming them after owners, which used to be the general practice. Detroit, for instance, had Navin Field and Briggs Stadium before changing to Tiger Stadium. <Over-expansion>: I don't know. Surely the sheer numbers of talented athletes are growing, but relatively fewer of them are choosing baseball. Is the average player today better or worse than a player of the 50s? Interesting research project. <interleague play> Have to disagree here, though I'm a person who likes variety. The important thing for me is that the last month be intra-divisonal play as much as possible ; that's where the real excitement comes in. <the DH>: I'm not a big fan, but I could live with it or without it. Just make up your mind! This sport cannot endure half DH and half non-DH. It's been nearly 40 years, for goodness sakes. <bullpen by committee> If there are more talented pitchers, why not? (See expansion.) There was a book from the 1950s which recommended that all pitchers should pitch no more than three innings at a time, and throw every two-three days instead of every four to five. <9-inning games that take four hours to play> Easy enough. Get ride of radio and television broadcasting. In my youth, commercial breaks were 60 seconds; now, they're 90 seconds to two minutes, plus promos. Alas, I doubt we'll ever be able to get back to the glory days of the twenty-aughts... |
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| Feb-17-10 | | suenteus po 147: <Phony Benoni> Another for the index: Game Collection: Hastings 1951/52 |
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