Who's a Hall of Famer?

[Internet Apex]

Blyleven, Dawson, Rickey, Jack Morris, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Lee Smiff

And yes, I only voted for Rice because I voted for Dawson, but putting Jim Rice in the HOF is a small price to pay for having Andre in.

This'n. Minus Raines. WTF?

I hate to be the one to piss in your wheaties, Pex...but when you ignore homer thoughts and look at independent metrics *puts on Saberweenie cap*, Dawson had a weaker career than not only Raines, but also Harold F'in Baines.

Career OPS+
Raines 123
Baines 120
Hawk 119

Even if you don't weight it and just look at the raw OPS, you get:
Baines .821
Raines .810
Hawk .805

Other than Rickey, Raines was the best leadoff hitter in baseball for most of his career.  He was a monster on-base machine.  Dawson wasn't very good at getting on base, with a few years excepted.  He hit for the best power of the three.  Baines was almost a perfect hybrid between the two.  It gets worse when you look at Jim Rice, and his OPS+ of 128.  He was Baines with more power.

You can't vote for Dawson and dismiss the other three, unless you're cool with the hall of fame being about as accurate a judge of baseball ability as, say, a gold glove.

8 year olds, dude.

[Yeti]

Blyleven, Dawson, Rickey, Jack Morris, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Lee Smiff

And yes, I only voted for Rice because I voted for Dawson, but putting Jim Rice in the HOF is a small price to pay for having Andre in.

This'n. Minus Raines. WTF?

I hate to be the one to piss in your wheaties, Pex...but when you ignore homer thoughts and look at independent metrics *puts on Saberweenie cap*, Dawson had a weaker career than not only Raines, but also Harold F'in Baines.

Career OPS+
Raines 123
Baines 120
Hawk 119

Even if you don't weight it and just look at the raw OPS, you get:
Baines .821
Raines .810
Hawk .805

Other than Rickey, Raines was the best leadoff hitter in baseball for most of his career.  He was a monster on-base machine.  Dawson wasn't very good at getting on base, with a few years excepted.  He hit for the best power of the three.  Baines was almost a perfect hybrid between the two.  It gets worse when you look at Jim Rice, and his OPS+ of 128.  He was Baines with more power.

You can't vote for Dawson and dismiss the other three, unless you're cool with the hall of fame being about as accurate a judge of baseball ability as, say, a gold glove.

8 year olds, dude.

Dude may be right, but De Jesus is still a fucking douchebag

[Quality Start Machine]

Raines? Not better than Dawson.

He was a lot better.

This statement is asinine.

OPS (or OPS+) is a 4-point margin, with Raines having the margin in either. So the huge OPB gap is basically negated by Dawson's slugging - in other words, Raines was as good a leadoff man as Dawson was a middle-of-the-lineup guy.

As far as any of the real statfaggotry (Gray Ink, Black Ink, HOF Monitor, HOF Standards) goes, it depends on which one you go by - some of them Dawson ranks higher, some Raines ranks higher.

As DeJesus pointed out, they're in the same echelon.

Which means, it depends on what is important to each individual. I like cleanup hitters better, so I think Dawson is better.

But not by a lot.

BTW, if I voted, and I had to rank by merit, leaving sentiment completely out of it, it would be:

Alomar, Blyleven, Smith, Larkin, Dawson, Morris, Trammel, Raines, Martinez, McStiff.

[Yeti]

Raines?  The guy who slid head first so as to not break the cocaine vials in his back pocket?  Talent-wise, perhaps.  But in-no-universe on a character basis.

I'm not even looking to start a Dawson argument.  Just saying that if the Hawk got in, those three guys should be in as well.  Specifically Alomar.  I really hate the "make-a-guy-wait" concept.  Either someone is a Hall of Famer or he's not.  And Alomar is definitely a Hall of Famer.

BTW, I think I should just THIS the shit out of this comment. Never thought of that (but that's not new for me). Thinking of the idea of someone getting into the HOF because the rest of class is meh just astounds me. Real prestigious group

[Quality Start Machine]

Raines?  The guy who slid head first so as to not break the cocaine vials in his back pocket?  Talent-wise, perhaps.  But in-no-universe on a character basis.

I'm not even looking to start a Dawson argument.  Just saying that if the Hawk got in, those three guys should be in as well.  Specifically Alomar.  I really hate the "make-a-guy-wait" concept.  Either someone is a Hall of Famer or he's not.  And Alomar is definitely a Hall of Famer.

BTW, I think I should just THIS the shit out of this comment. Never thought of that (but that's not new for me). Thinking of the idea of someone getting into the HOF because the rest of class is meh just astounds me. Real prestigious group

Believe it or not, I actually agree with guys who file blank ballots - even though the HOF desparately wants at least one BBWAA electee every year, because of the revenue from Induction Weekend.

Unless it's Mariotti - in that case, open the fucking doors for Moonlight Greenberg.

[MAD]

"For the most part of six years I was there, I really enjoyed the reception and the fact that I got to play in front of fans who really didn't put any pressure on you."

Fuck you Ryan Dempster and Mark DeRosa.

Hawk also played every single one of his home games in his MVP season of '87 under the afternoon sun.  Fuck you, Lou Piniella and every other ass machine who uses day games as a ready-made excuse for failure..

[Chuck to Chuck]

"For the most part of six years I was there, I really enjoyed the reception and the fact that I got to play in front of fans who really didn't put any pressure on you."

Fuck you Ryan Dempster and Mark DeRosa.

And Milton Bradley.  And LaTroy Hawkins.  And Corey Patterson.  And...

[MAD]

"For the most part of six years I was there, I really enjoyed the reception and the fact that I got to play in front of fans who really didn't put any pressure on you."

Fuck you Ryan Dempster and Mark DeRosa.

And Milton Bradley.  And LaTroy Hawkins.  And Corey Patterson.  And...

Fine.  You take the black guys, I'll take the white guys...

[Canadouche]

"For the most part of six years I was there, I really enjoyed the reception and the fact that I got to play in front of fans who really didn't put any pressure on you."

Fuck you Ryan Dempster and Mark DeRosa.

Hawk also played every single one of his home games in his MVP season of '87 under the afternoon sun.  Fuck you, Lou Piniella and every other ass machine who uses day games as a ready-made excuse for failure..

Don't forget a big, heaping fuck you to Dusty Baker, Milton Bradley, and Jacque Jones for their insinuations that the Cub fans in the outfield are racist and present a hostile playing condition.

Edit: forkfaced

[Eli]

So the huge OPB gap is basically negated by Dawson's slugging

OBP and SLG points aren't equal.

Edit: And I get it, I'm the lone idiot here who always goes on about Dawson and how he's not HoF-worthy. I was four when he won his MVP, so I don't remember any of the things that made him a mofo badass and all that stuff.  So all I have to judge him on is the numbers, which don't really impress me.  I apologize to everyone for ruining the Hawk's Hall of Fame thread. 

[Richard Chuggar]

"For the most part of six years I was there, I really enjoyed the reception and the fact that I got to play in front of fans who really didn't put any pressure on you."

Fuck you Ryan Dempster and Mark DeRosa.

And Milton Bradley.  And LaTroy Hawkins.  And Corey Patterson.  And...

Fine.  You take the black guys, I'll take the white guys...

I'll take "What Huey says when he goes out on a Saturday night" for $500, Alex.

[Waco Kid]

Congrats to one of my favorite Cubs, Andre Dawson.

[Quality Start Machine]

So the huge OPB gap is basically negated by Dawson's slugging

OBP and SLG points aren't equal.

If that's the case, why use OPS at all?

Edit: And I get it, I'm the lone idiot here who always goes on about Dawson and how he's not HoF-worthy. I was four when he won his MVP, so I don't remember any of the things that made him a mofo badass and all that stuff.  So all I have to judge him on is the numbers, which don't really impress me.  I apologize to everyone for ruining the Hawk's Hall of Fame thread.  

No, that's not it at all.

First of all, numbers only take you so far - while Ty Cobb's HR numbers are nothing on their own, the guy won Triple Crowns.

OBP is, in the context of baseball history, a pretty new tool for player evaluation. Dusty Baker's idea of "base clogging" is mind-numbing in modern terms, but before Bill James, it was never really emphasized - as stated earlier, Lou Brock's OBP is abysmal for a HOFer, and he spent his entire career in St. Louis as a leadoff hitter. His numbers tell us now that he's nothing more than Juan Pierre with longevity, but when he played, he was a superstar.

As for Dawson, as a cleanup hitter, on the occasions he walked it was because teams would rather pitch around him than have him put one in the seats. He always swung away because the understanding (until recently) was middle-of-the-lineup guys were at the plate to hit the ball, not walk down to first base.

If Dawson never played for the Cubs, most guys here would agree he's borderline at best. But he did, and he was a great player on some awful teams (his era's Banks - his 1987 season was absolutely insane compared to his teammates), and his one shot at the big time as a Cub (1989), you could see how much pain he was in. Fucking Les Lancaster.

This is one of those things that happens every year - fans wonder why their borderline guy doesn't go in (See: Mattingly, Don and Trammel, Alan) and they use numbers of guys who are in (Tony Perez and Ozzie Smith, respectively) as their arguments.

The Hall of Fame's stated purpose is to immortalize the greatest players in history. Its unintentional purpose has been to allow people to argue the merits/demerits of those in & out ad infinitum.

[ChuckD]

So the huge OPB gap is basically negated by Dawson's slugging

OBP and SLG points aren't equal.

If that's the case, why use OPS at all?

Because it's easily calculated and understandable to the statistical layperson. People understand (more or less) OBP and SLG, so adding them is an easy way to combine the two aspects in to a rough measure of total offensive performance.

wOBA is probably the preferred metric that accounts for OBP and SLG; it uses linear weighting for each outcome and is positively statfaggy as it was created by Tango.

((0.72 x NIBB) + (0.75 x HBP) + (0.90 x 1B) + (0.92 x RBOE) + (1.24 x 2B) + (1.56 x 3B) + (1.95 x HR) / PA

As you can see, it's not easily calculated, but it does improve on OPS.

Somewhere in between the two, runs created metrics are pretty good at providing a pretty accurate, pretty easily calculable account of total offense; they do so by multiplying OBP and SLG.

And with that, I'm done talking about this because the last time I brought up RC with respect to the HoF, I ended up declaring Fukudome to be a better theoretical baseball player than Steve Nebraska or something.

[Quality Start Machine]

WHEN ARE DEY GONNA PUT DAT SANTO IN? HE'S GOT WORSE KNEES DAN DA HAWWWK.