Major League Baseball thread

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by tsunamiSD

What about these two? I think that they went on the 'juice' both because they thought that their skills were diminishing and that others would pass them because those others were thought to be using steroids. In their cases, they did it because of hubris, believing that no one else should be thought of as being as good or better than them. I'll admit that their records before they took the stuff were good enough to gain them entrance to the HOF, but they couldn't leave it at that - so now they are paying for that.

It is alleged that Bonds and Clemens used steroids while playing major league baseball. Neither man was ever suspended by MLB or charged with possession of steroids. Neither man failed a drug test administered by MLB. The Justice Department charged both with perjury when they denied under oath knowingly using steroids before a grand jury and Congress. Both men were acquitted by juries of perjury, but Bonds was convicted of a single count of obstruction of justice. The conviction was overturned on appeal.

The last I checked defendants are innocent until proven guilty in this country. and once tried and acquitted may not be tried again. So, those demanding Bonds and Clemens be excluded from the Hall are advocating vigilante justice. We try people in the courts in this country, not the press. Anyone who does not like it is free to move to China, Russia, or a Muslim country where things are done differently.

The Department of Justice spent $70-$100 million on the witch hunts. Most of the "evidence" was excluded by the judges. I trust judges more than sportswriters.

[JBeesting]

If you have any doubts that Bonds took steroids you should read the book 'Games of Shadows' by Lance Williams and Marc Fainaru-Wada which deals comprehensively with the whole Balco affair.

Very conspicuously Bonds has never sued the authors of this book despite the fact that they state explicitly he took steroids continuously over a number of years. To do so would mean going into court and hearing evidence, something it would appear he's not keen to do.

Don't forget Lance Armstrong managed to evade the clutches of the law through a mixture of financial power, influence in high places, political expediency and the governing body of the sport turning a blind eye. Would you say Armstrong was innocent?

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by JBeesting

If you have any doubts that Bonds took steroids you should read the book 'Games of Shadows' by Lance Williams and Marc Fainaru-Wada which deals comprehensively with the whole Balco affair.

Very conspicuously Bonds has never sued the authors of this book despite the fact that they state explicitly he took steroids continuously over a number of years. To do so would mean going into court and hearing evidence, something it would appear he's not keen to do.

Don't forget Lance Armstrong managed to evade the clutches of the law through a mixture of financial power, influence in high places, political expediency and the governing body of the sport turning a blind eye. Would you say Armstrong was innocent?

Oh, I was just pointing out the legalities. If I really believed that Bonds was really duped into using steroids, I would have to believe that the LAPD try to frame O.J. for his ex-wife's murder.

The fact remains that if Bonds had refrained from using steroids he still would have at least 3 MVPs to his name and be the only player with 500 HRs and 500 SBs. We do not know how many players from the 1970s, 1980s and 1980s used steroids and were inducted into the Hall of Fame. (I have been told Nolan Ryan was a user.) Whitey Ford, Gaylord Perry and Don Sutton scuffed the ball or threw spitters and were elected.

There are some real jerks who were inducted into the Hall. Bonds definitely belongs in that wing. Maybe we should have a poll who was the worst: Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Cap Anson, Roger Clemens, or Barry Bonds?

I have always thought condemning Lance Armstrong was bogus. Every other top rider on the circuit was doping. The whole sport might as well be supervised by Russia's anti-doping crew. His big mistake was winning so often.

[Arturo2nd]

To my mind there is a real difference between Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens HOF candidacy and guys like Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, and Sammy Sosa. Bonds and Clemens had careers that merited induction before steroid use artificially enhanced and extended their careers, placing their careers among the greatest ever. Only Palmeiro of the latter trio exceeded the average production for a Hall of Fame performer at his position. The BBWAA clearly has a preference for players with a WAR7 rating above 41.5 and Palmeiro falls short at 38.7. McGwire and Sosa had career numbers below the average for Hall of Famers at their positions. Given the reasonable belief that McGwire, Palmeiro, and Sosa's achievements were substantially aided by steroids, it is not surprising that the BBWAA chose not to induct them. I suspect that the veterans committees will choose to honor people like Alan Trammell and Kenny Lofton rather than the steroid stars.

Given that we now know that somewhere between a quarter and a third of the players of that era availed themselves of chemical help, separating the sheep from the goats or the deserving from the undeserving will not be that easy. But I am pretty sure that the players, managers, and executives from that era have a very good idea of who was juicing and who was not, and will compare notes and choose wisely.

[Arturo2nd]

I am reading through this year's Baseball Prospectus. It may not show up so much this year, but the San Diego Padres have gathered up a large group of intriguing prospects. It will not be surprising if many teams find themselves unexpectedly roughed up by a group of young players just playing baseball and not knowing that they are supposed to be over matched.

It is not going to be much fun playing the Rockies anymore, either.

[Arturo2nd]

On the other hand, the Padres starting pitching looks horrible.

[tsunamiSD]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

On the other hand, the Padres starting pitching looks horrible.

Well, they are expected (by some 'experts') to lose as many as 100 games. Their roster certainly is full of very young players, except for the pitching, which is a bit older. They are even trying out one of their catcher/infielders as an emergency pitcher - he hasn't done that badly in the past or so far this spring. As it is spring, I hold out hope that the team will be better than people think they will be - but it will day 'career years' from the pitchers that they have to that...

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by tsunamiSD

Well, they are expected (by some 'experts') to lose as many as 100 games. Their roster certainly is full of very young players, except for the pitching, which is a bit older. They are even trying out one of their catcher/infielders as an emergency pitcher - he hasn't done that badly in the past or so far this spring. As it is spring, I hold out hope that the team will be better than people think they will be - but it will day 'career years' from the pitchers that they have to that...

They may with those starters, but Arizona has plenty of problems, too. For some reason, it is never easy to predict game outcomes when NL West teams play each other.

[Arturo2nd]

I was recently reading one writer's choice of the 25 greatest players of all time. It struck me that it is really impossible to compare players across different eras and how often park effects are ignored. It is possible to make choices of players, with the caveat that players are ranked to the extent that they dominated their own era. We cannot really judge how an old time player would fare in the modern era or a modern player would cope with the past. Modern players do not have to cope with discolored, mishapen, and mushy balls being used on fields that were nowhere near as well kept as todays ballparks. At the same time, the old time players did not have to fly between cities every third day and face three or four different pitchers' deliveries all thrown much harder, and against defenses that turn a far greater percentage of batted balls into outs. Let me comment on some of the writer's choices to elaborate.

The writer ranked Christy Mathewson above Grover Cleveland Alexander and left Tom Seaver, Lefty Grove, and Warren Spahn out of the top 25. Many folks ignore Alexander which is pretty short sighted. His best years were in the dead ball era, but he was still a dominant pitcher after the trick deliveries were banned . Between 1915 and 1917, he went 94-35 with 36 shutouts while leading the league in strikeouts and ERA all three years. What made these achievements even more remarkable was that his home park was a hitters paradise, 241 feet down the right field line and 300 feet to the right center field power alley. Mathewson had the benefit of pitching in the Polo Grounds, a pitchers park, in front of the skilled defensive teams manager John McGraw put together. Mathewson was a great pitcher and dominant in his time, but ranks just outside the top 25 in my estimation.

Lefty Grove clearly belongs there, however. He compiled a 300-141 record and led his league in ERA nine times while spending his entire career in hitters parks He also led the league in strikeouts for the first seven years of his career. What really makes him a great pitcher is that he continued to dominate after an arm injury robbed him of his great speed. In this respect he is similar to Warren Spahn, who continued to rack up 20 win seasons for over a decade after a knee injury slowed his fastball. Spahn last won 20 games at the age of 42 and 363 total, the most ever for a left handed pitcher. He ranks outside the top 25 because he was not as dominant as Randy Johnson and others at their peak and he was blessed with pitching in pitchers parks. But there is something to be said for winning 20 or more games 12 times and leading the league in complete games nine times. His overall record was likely hurt by his managers overusing him for many years.

The writer has Walter Johnson ranked as the greatest pitcher of all time with Cy Young second. While Young was only clearly dominant in the early years of the American League (oops, Young threw so hard that he was a big reason the pitching distance was moved back 20 feet. He still completely dominated hitters for the next three years. My bad) and did pitch in the dead ball era, his lifetime time totals are so staggering and so much greater than anybody else's that it is impossible to leave him off the list. Johnson is the the consensus choice for the greatest of all time, ranking second only to Young in many cumulative stats. He ranks first all time in shutouts with 110 ahead of Alexander with 90 in second place. I remain a little skeptical, noting that his glory years were during the spitball era and in an extreme pitchers park. He may not have doctored the ball, but the infielders stained it with licorice and tobacco juice, and it must have been hell trying to hit a darkened ball in the twilight thrown by the hardest throwing pitcher in baseball. But then again, no pitcher has dominated like Walter did from 1910 to 1919, and he was still among the best starters in his later years.

The other two pitchers in the writer's top 25 GOAT list are Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson. I have to agree with this assessment and would probably add Tom Seaver. Clemens maybe a world class jerk, and we must strongly suspect that his later career was chemically enhanced and extended, but his Boston years rank among the most dominant ever seen. Park effects tend to mask his dominance. Both Clemens and Pedro Martinez lead the league four times in ERA while pitching in Fenway, but the Rocket pitched many more innings. As for Randy Johnson, I am old enough to have seen Sandy Koufax pitch many times. (Giant vs Dodger games were always televised in the Bay Area.) Koufax made more starts and pitched more innings in his dominant years (which is probably why he had to retire at age 30. IMO, both he and Drysdale were wrecked by overuse.) The Big Unit was every bit as dominant as Koufax for a longer period, thus winning 138 more games.

We will resume this discussion with the position players in another post.

[Arturo2nd]

I am continuing the earlier discussion of the 25 greatest baseball players of all time. The article that sparked my thinking was by Andrew Gould at Bleacher Reports. Here are the links to that article and to the career WAR ranking of players at baseball-reference.com.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2...rs-of-all-time

http://www.baseball-reference.com/le...R_career.shtml

I was working off memory when I wrote my earlier post and forgot that Mr. Gould had Greg Maddux ranked at number 16 on his list. Maddux ranks 25th in career WAR. At this point I am withholding judgment on whether to include him in my rankings. As we will see, some players must be dropped to make room for other choices. There is not much difference between the lists, particularly at the top, where Ruth, Mays, Aaron, Cobb and the like clearly belong. I will spend a little time here explaining my thinking for removing players from either list.

Kid Nichols ranks 17th on baseball-reference.com's list and is omitted from Gould's list and from mine. I believe he was a terrific pitcher and better than his contemporary Cy Young in several years when both were active. He won 361 games in 15 major league seasons and could have won more. He spent 1902 and 1903 pitching for a minor league team in Kansas City when he was still a quality major league pitcher, as evidenced by the 21-13 record he posted for the fifth place St, Louis Cardinals in 1904. But I don't know how to rank him. 299 of his wins came before 1901, his two best years came before the pitching distance was moved back to 66'6” in 1894. He was a major reason that the Boston Squad dominated the National League in the 1890s, but the rules and playing conditions were different enough that I don't feel comfortable ranking him ahead of more contemporary players.

Nap Lajoie ranks 23rd on baseball-references's list and is an honorable mention for Gould. I believe he ranks outside the top 25. He is another deadball star and had a couple of huge seasons in the early days of the American League before the spitball and other ball foreign substances came into widespread use. He was not consistent in year to year production, but this may have been due to injuries, which also effected the next man on the list.

Frank Robinson who ranks 24th on the baseball-reference.com list and gets an honorable mention from Gould. I am really tempted to keep him in the top 25, because I saw him play and thought he was the most dangerous hitter in the National League in the early 1960s, even ahead of Aaron and Mays. No hitter was more hated and feared by pitchers. Upon being traded to Baltimore prior to the 1966 season, he promptly won the Triple Crown in the American League. His numbers were somewhat inconsistent because of some severe beanings, and were diminished a bit when his playing career was cut short because he started managing. Of course, I am also biased because he grew up in Oakland. So he probably ranks just outside the top 25.

Jimmie Foxx who Gould ranks 24th and baseball-reference ranks 33rd does not quite make my list. He was greatly feared as a hitter and amassed awesome numbers in a relatively short career. I am not sold on rating him higher because he played his entire career in hitters parks and played in the pre-integration, pre-night baseball, pre-multiple reliever 1930s. Plus, we need room for a couple of other players.

Joe Dimaggio is ranked 17th by Gould and 68th on the WAR list. Strictly speaking, it is hard to imagine that he would have generated enough value to move him into the top 25 during the three years he lost to World War 2. But, his team went to 10 World Series in the 13 years he did play and won 9 of them. He didn't do it all by himself, but he was the clearly the team's leader for the last 7 of those pennants. To me, one of the best arguments for Joe Dimaggio as a great player is the two batting titles and twice leading the league in home runs as a right hand hitter in Yankee Stadium. But do we include Joe D and leave the next guy as an honorable mention?

Jackie Robinson is tied for 166th with 61.4 WAR accumulated in 10 seasons. What is often overlooked in discussions about Jackie Robinson is that he was 28 years old before he played his first major league game. Thus he played his entire career in the decline phase of the aging curve. He only had 7 years to really show what he could do on the baseball field. (And as Ralph Kiner noted baseball was his worst sport.) He led the Dodgers to 6 pennants in 10 years and they lost two others in playoffs after finishing tied for first. They were only able to beat the Yankees once for the championship, but those series were all closely contested.

This is a good place to wrap up, but I will do one more posting to discuss some issues that I have with these rankings.