Who's a Hall of Famer?

[Oleg]

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.

Just because we finally have metrics that measure such skills, doesn't mean those skills didn't exist before.

Furthermore, this isn't something all that new.  Earl Weaver certainly understood the concept of doing the most with yoru 27 outs.  The idea that you can't score unless you get on base isn't such a modern concept either.  The point isn't to look at one stat and start to compare players, that's what CFIHP keeps trying to do.  The idea is to looks at a player, objectively, and see what he contributes to his team's success.  That may be getting on bae, it may be hitting home runs or doubles.  It's this whole "he's a .290 hitter" thing when talking about a guy who still makes an out in 68% of his plate appearences that bugs me.

I will also admit that my Hawk-for-HoF is purely based on his time as a Cub and how fucking awesome he was.  His numbers are most definitely HoF-borderline at best.  Eli, get with the program, though.  He was pretty damn cool.  And he was most certainly a bad-ass.  Him and Lee Smith.  Jules's wallet in Pulp Fiction was based on them.

[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.

Just because we finally have metrics that measure such skills, doesn't mean those skills didn't exist before.

Furthermore, this isn't something all that new.  Earl Weaver certainly understood the concept of doing the most with yoru 27 outs.  The idea that you can't score unless you get on base isn't such a modern concept either.  The point isn't to look at one stat and start to compare players, that's what CFIHP keeps trying to do.  The idea is to looks at a player, objectively, and see what he contributes to his team's success.  That may be getting on bae, it may be hitting home runs or doubles.  It's this whole "he's a .290 hitter" thing when talking about a guy who still makes an out in 68% of his plate appearences that bugs me.

I will also admit that my Hawk-for-HoF is purely based on his time as a Cub and how fucking awesome he was.  His numbers are most definitely HoF-borderline at best.  Eli, get with the program, though.  He was pretty damn cool.  And he was most certainly a bad-ass.  Him and Lee Smith.  Jules's wallet in Pulp Fiction was based on them.

Earl Weaver relied on pitching and waiting for the big inning.

Another instance of Dawson badassery - can you imagine any player today approaching a team he wanted to play for with a blank contract?

[Eli]

Another instance of Dawson badassery - can you imagine any player today approaching a team he wanted to play for with a blank contract?

He did that?  I've never heard this story before.  Tell me more.

[Tony]

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.

I'm going to go ahead and speak for all the statistical laypersons and say that if that equation is the alternative, we are fine with using OPS.

[Yeti]

Another instance of Dawson badassery - can you imagine any player today approaching a team he wanted to play for with a blank contract?

He did that?  I've never heard this story before.  Tell me more.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-07-mitchell-andre-dawson-jan07,0,6989682.column

[Quality Start Machine]

Another instance of Dawson badassery - can you imagine any player today approaching a team he wanted to play for with a blank contract?

He did that?  I've never heard this story before.  Tell me more.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-07-mitchell-andre-dawson-jan07,0,6989682.column

Lost in there was Sutcliffe offering to take a $100K cut in pay to get Dawson signed.

[Eli]

Another instance of Dawson badassery - can you imagine any player today approaching a team he wanted to play for with a blank contract?

He did that?  I've never heard this story before.  Tell me more.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-07-mitchell-andre-dawson-jan07,0,6989682.column

Um, thanks.

[Yeti]

Another instance of Dawson badassery - can you imagine any player today approaching a team he wanted to play for with a blank contract?

He did that?  I've never heard this story before.  Tell me more.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-07-mitchell-andre-dawson-jan07,0,6989682.column

Um, thanks.

Oh, that was that one thing where you say something but really mean the opposite? Fuck. I'm going to Kermit myself.

[Internet Apex]

Another instance of Dawson badassery - can you imagine any player today approaching a team he wanted to play for with a blank contract?

He did that?  I've never heard this story before.  Tell me more.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-07-mitchell-andre-dawson-jan07,0,6989682.column

Um, thanks.

Eli is bordering on Chuck level of knobbery here. When something good happens to players that we like, we don't need to question it. We need to sit back, smoke a doob, listen to some Mellenstein and enjoy it. "This is ooooour country. From the East Coast to the West Coast..."

Like when the Cubs retired Fergie Jenkins' number. That was good times.

[MAD]

I don't have a problem with Eli nit-picking Dawson's career for credit worthiness.

I do, on the other hand, have an issue with him promoting Tim Raines to the degree he has.   Dawson was a better player, period.  The case can certainly be made that neither is Hall-worthy, but Raines wasn't anywhere near the all-around ballplayer Dawson was; he came up  a middling second baseman who, after one year in center field, whiled away the rest of his career in the lesser of the 2 corner outfield positions.  Despite his strength, he didn't have the arm for right field.  Despite his speed, he didn't have the range for center.  Dawson had both.

Raines had some really nice offensive years in the mid-to-late 80's, but there's no way he had a better all-around career than Hawk.  And no amount of statfaggery will convince me otherwise.

Also, Bert Blyleven can be forgiven for going on a murderous spree.

[Andy]

That nasally douche Brian Paruck was killing a half hour last night on the Score, and he decided that by leading the list of players who have made the most outs:

Pete Rose, Hank Aaron, Rickey Henderson, Willie Mays, etc. that he was proving that the Sabermetric idea that avoiding outs is the most important thing was crap.  "Because hey, the best players in history made the most outs!"

I don't know how you even mount an argument against this lunacy.

[Ivy6]

I don't have a problem with Eli nit-picking Dawson's career for credit worthiness.

I do, on the other hand, have an issue with him promoting Tim Raines to the degree he has.   Dawson was a better player, period.  The case can certainly be made that neither is Hall-worthy, but Raines wasn't anywhere near the all-around ballplayer Dawson was; he came up  a middling second baseman who, after one year in center field, whiled away the rest of his career in the lesser of the 2 corner outfield positions.  Despite his strength, he didn't have the arm for right field.  Despite his speed, he didn't have the range for center.  Dawson had both.

Raines had some really nice offensive years in the mid-to-late 80's, but there's no way he had a better all-around career than Hawk.  And no amount of statfaggery will convince me otherwise.

Also, Bert Blyleven can be forgiven for going on a murderous spree.

Here's an intelligent case for Raines from another Kansas Citian:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/12/17/posnanski.tim.raines/index.html

[MAD]

Another instance of Dawson badassery - can you imagine any player today approaching a team he wanted to play for with a blank contract?

He did that?  I've never heard this story before.  Tell me more.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-07-mitchell-andre-dawson-jan07,0,6989682.column

Um, thanks.

Eli is bordering on Chuck level of knobbery here. When something good happens to players that we like, we don't need to question it. We need to sit back, smoke a doob, listen to some Mellenstein and enjoy it. "This is ooooour country. From the East Coast to the West Coast..."

Like when the Cubs retired Fergie Jenkins' and Greg Maddux' number. That was good times.

Did some say knobbery?

[PenFoe]

I don't have a problem with Eli nit-picking Dawson's career for credit worthiness.

I do, on the other hand, have an issue with him promoting Tim Raines to the degree he has.   Dawson was a better player, period.  The case can certainly be made that neither is Hall-worthy, but Raines wasn't anywhere near the all-around ballplayer Dawson was; he came up  a middling second baseman who, after one year in center field, whiled away the rest of his career in the lesser of the 2 corner outfield positions.  Despite his strength, he didn't have the arm for right field.  Despite his speed, he didn't have the range for center.  Dawson had both.

Raines had some really nice offensive years in the mid-to-late 80's, but there's no way he had a better all-around career than Hawk.  And no amount of statfaggery will convince me otherwise.

Also, Bert Blyleven can be forgiven for going on a murderous spree.

Here's an intelligent case for Raines from another Kansas Citian:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/12/17/posnanski.tim.raines/index.html

Que Chuck's outrage about Paul Molitor's drug use...

[Oleg]

Another instance of Dawson badassery - can you imagine any player today approaching a team he wanted to play for with a blank contract?

He did that?  I've never heard this story before.  Tell me more.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-07-mitchell-andre-dawson-jan07,0,6989682.column

Um, thanks.

Eli is bordering on Chuck level of knobbery here. When something good happens to players that we like, we don't need to question it. We need to sit back, smoke a doob, listen to some Mellenstein and enjoy it. "This is ooooour country. From the East Coast to the West Coast..."

Like when the Cubs retired Fergie Jenkins' and Greg Maddux' number. That was good times.

Did some say knobbery?

I think Pex was being ironic, even self-defecating.