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1982willie…Pujols should have won at least 5 MVP’s. He had 4 second place finishes. In two of those years he had better numbers than both Howard and Votto and we all know about Bonds in his other 2 second place showings. I think the worst injustice was the ’06 season. I my view 2006 was Albert’s best season and Ryan Howard beat him out on the strength of 58 HR’s and 149 RBI’s. That’s all well and good, but Pujols led his Cardinal team to a WS Championship that season. Who’s more valuable?
1toughdominican, pujols was great, all time great. People just don’t realize what he did those first ten years. Statistics don’t really show what he did. Far as him not having more mvps. Doesn’t matter to me. Usually though they don’t count those world series wins in that though. Tom Brady would have more mvps and Aaron Rodgers less if that was the case.
Yeah, he was something like I’ve never seen straight out of the gate for 11 years in his first go around as a Cardinal. I mean, his rookie season looks like .329/37/130…Haha! In 2006 Pujols posted .331/49/137 and he missed almost the entire month of June with an injury. A lot of people forget that Chris Duncan replaced some of the power while Albert was on the DL. The Cardinals probably don’t win the division that year and then go on to a WS Championship if not for Duncan picking up the slack while the great slugger was out of the line-up. Pujols carried that Redbird team for the rest of that season and to me he was far and away the NL MVP in ’06. I’ll also say that even though 2022 had a disappointing end, it’s probably my favorite Cardinal season in which the Redbirds didn’t win a WS only because of the thrills the great slugger provided on his way to 703 HR’s and 2218 RBI’s. There won’t be another like him in my lifetime.
Dale Murphy, Mattingly, Munson. I think they all clearly suffer from the same thing, which is lack of longevity.
HOF Voters in the past took an especially hard-line approach to players accumulating 400 homers, 2,500 hits, etc.
As far as Donnie Baseball’s prime is concerned, during his best 4-year stretch (’84-’87) he was certainly as good a hitter as there was in the sport. But others could make the same claim, as a bunch of guys were equally great at the plate.
1984-87, ranked by wRC+ (almost exactly the same as OPS+)
1) Jack Clark 157
2) Pedro Guerrero 155
3) Mattingly 152
4) Boggs 152
5) Schmidt 148I love that the top 2 on that list were acquired by the Cards at one point. Part of the tradition of adding star bats — like Larry Walker, Reggie Sanders, Carlos Beltran, Paul Goldschmidt, Jim Edmonds, Nolan Arenado, Scott Rolen, and so forth. (Honorary mention to Cesar Cedeno and Will Clark as well.)
Speaking of Rolen, I suspect he’ll be the sole inductee in 2023 via the BBWAA ballot. Don’t know about the special committees, but I’d be surprised if Bonds/Clemens/Rose get in during their lifetimes.
Bob Reed…I’m not sure that the first four guys on the list can compare to Mike Schmidt. In my view Schmidt was the most feared hitter in either league for a decade. I’d also have to say that of the first three guys you mentioned in your comment, Munson deserves special consideration. His lack of longevity almost has to be viewed in an entirely different light than that of Murphy and Mattingly. I agree that Rolen is looking pretty good insofar as being voted in.
Looked up some numbers and cannot really argue with Murphy, McGriff or Schilling. Murphy was the single most important player that turned the Braves around from some poor seasons, to being a solid club in the early ‘80s. McGriff was a little better than Murph, but Murph also has the back to back MVP hardware.
Schilling was a bit of a poor man’s Bob Gibson. Similar to Gibby in a lot of ways, but just a step below. Maybe a bit self-promoting with the whole bloody sock bit and all, but still a Hall worthy career.
Munson and Mattingly were real good. Mattingly did not age real well, and with Thurm you have the “what if?” Thought (can’t get my iPad to not capitalize the “T” – one of those times a computer would be better).
My candidate for the Hall that no one knows anything about is Vada Pinson. You never see him mentioned by the Golden Era committee, or whatever that group is called. He was real good – world class speed, some pop, solid defense, over 2700 hits. He should at least be talked about when they bring up those borderline guys. I mean Harold Baines got in and Pinson was a much better player than Baines. Probably better than quite a few guys who are enshrined.
Dale Murphy had one of the oddest careers ever. WAR totals, 4 years terrible (-0.8 WAR), 9 years very good to AMAZING (45.5 WAR), 6 years terrible (1.8 WAR).
1976 20 -0.1
1977 21 -0.4
1978 22 -0.6
1979 23 0.3
1980 24 6.6 AS,MVP-12
1981 25 1.7
1982 26 6.1 AS,MVP-1,GG,SS
1983 27 7.1 AS,MVP-1,GG,SS
1984 28 5.5 AS,MVP-9,GG,SS
1985 29 5 AS,MVP-7,GG,SS
1986 30 2.6 AS,MVP-21,GG
1987 31 7.7 AS,MVP-11
1988 32 3.1
1989 33 1.6
1990 34 1
1990 34 0
1991 35 0.8
1992 36 -0.7
1993 37 -0.9
18 Seasons 46.5Good call on Vada Pinson. Career WAR 8 points higher that Murphy. Not sure why he doesn’t get more credit.
(And 15.5 higher WAR than Baines.)
This thread got me going through Baseball Reference WAR stats. One I never figured, even though I was a kid. Higher than just about anyone above and a WHOLE lot of Hall of Famers.
Sal Bando
Career 61.5 WAR.
Hall of Fame 0.7% in only year on the ballot.1967 1.2
1968 3.3
1969 8.3 AS,MVP-16
1970 6.2 MVP-27
1971 6.4 MVP-2
1972 5.6 AS,MVP-30
1973 6.5 AS,MVP-4
1974 4.9 AS,MVP-3
1975 3.7
1976 5.8 MVP-13
1977 3.6
1978 5.7
1979 0.7
1980 -0.7
1981 0.1The Reds cultivated quite a few outstanding ballplayers in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Pinson, Flood, Robinson, Rose, Perez, May and later on Bench. If they’d have held on to all those guys there may have been numerous Big Red Machines.
I see that Sal Bando’s closest brush with an AL MVP was a 2nd place finish in 1971 when he was edged out for the award by his teammate Vida Blue for AL MVP. Blue also won the AL CYA that season. My old dad absolutely despised those early 70’s Oakland A’s teams and I vividly remember my younger brother and I rooting for the A’s as we were watching WS games with him just to see him get riled up…Haha! I think he played it up a little bit just because we both thought it was funny…
Bando is another good one. There was an article I read one time about the 25 least deserving Hall of Famers, and the guys that should be there instead. Some of those “replacement” guys have made the Hall since then.
Had the Cardinals simply hung on to their players and not made so many trades, we would have seen two Big Red Machines in the ’70s. The Cardinals could have had a rotation headed by Carlton, Reuss and Mike Torrez. Then add guys like Jose Cruz, Bake McBride and Bobby Tolan (before the Achilles injury) to Ted Simmons, Keith Hernandez and Garry Templeton and you have a solid club. And maybe you let the deal for Dick Allen go through, but then keep Allen.
Probably would not have Reggie Smith, unless they could have worked a deal with another pitcher that is not one of the big three listed above. But in true ’70s fashion, the Cardinals ended up undoing that rare good trade by more-or-less giving Smith away a couple of years later.
Carlton for Wise is obviously an all-time Cardinal trade fiasco, but Hernandez for Allen may be as bad. I remember standing in line at a convenience store and overhearing the clerks’ radio behind the counter announce the news of the Hernandez trade during the ’83 season. For a second, I thought I was drunk.
The results are in… The Crime Dog is a Hall of Famer!
The committee sometimes changes but this bodes very poorly for Bonds and Clemens https://t.co/yQAzqh0Ukv
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 5, 2022
I am glad that the “Crime Dog” got in but the real crime is that Curt Schilling didn’t. He has HOF numbers and has done nothing to deserve the treatment that he is getting.
Nice to see mcgriff get in. I’ll never consider him all timey but he definitely belongs. Mattingly came in second. Didn’t think he would get in anyway. I would have voted for Clemens and bonds as well myself but oh well.
The names of the all time hits leader, all time HR leader and the pitcher with the most CYA’s in Big League baseball history continue to be excluded from the HOF. This is what could be called a contradiction and is certainly a situation that is not present in any of the other 3 major team sports. I don’t really have a firm stance either way, but I do think it’s a sad situation for baseball fans.
“Does anyone think Pujols and Molina will be elected to the HOF in the same year?”
I do. Very much, in fact.
But just to get this out of the way, as we all know, Albert Pujols will immediately sail in with 90% or more of the vote. So the question obviously is about Yadi Molina.The ONLY objection to Molina is raised by
jerkspeople like Keith Law who want to pretend that career or peak WAR is the only yardstick by which HOF candidates should be measured, and furthermore that Baseball-Reference WAR is the only yardstick by which catchers should be measured.The trouble with this, is that Baseball-Reference does not acknowledge the contributions of catchers, vis-a-vis pitch framing. Far as I know, every other reputable resource does, but not B-Ref. And thus, Yadi loses a substantial chunk of value at that highly idiosyncratic website. (Of course, there is also Mr. Law’s assertion that pitch-framing itself is somehow an unethical act by the backstop, since he is “misleading the umpire.” No, I’m not kidding. Law is passionate about putting numerous steroid cheats in the Hall Of Fame, but he would keep an elite pitch-framer out, in part on the basis of ethics. Don’t send your kids to Harvard, folks; they could turn out like that guy.)
At any rate, I suspect that within the next 3 or 4 years Baseball-Reference will join the rest of the civilized world and include pitch-framing data.
Or within the next 3 or 4 years, more mainstream research will be done to quantify the value of game-calling. (Initial number-crunching by the highly respected Mitchel Lichtman nearly a decade ago indicated that Molina’s game-calling had been worth nearly 9 runs per 150 games for his career. There is no website right now that includes that contribution in their WAR totals.)
Or within the next 3 or 4 years, the holdouts who are less stubborn and stupid than Keith Law will come to their senses and think this thing through. What we have in Molina is probably the best defensive player in history at his position — a decidedly defense-first position. In fact, Yadi Molina may be the greatest defensive player ever, at any position. Here are the numbers at Fangraphs:
Top 5 catchers by defensive runs:
1) Molina 393 runs
2) Ivan Rodriguez 320
3) Russell Martin 305
4) Brian McCann 289
5) Bob Boone 232Top 5, all positions:
1) Molina 393
2) Ozzie 375
3) Brooks 360
4) Belanger 346
5) Pudge 320So Molina is quite possibly the greatest single defensive player in baseball history. And in terms of overall career, he is also one of the better hitters at his position, thanks in large part to his durability. Only 15 catchers in history have more RBI’s than Molina. Only six have more hits!
Pudge Rodriguez and Jonathan Lucroy were good-hitting catchers, maybe even very good, while Yadi was of course mediocre. Right?
Career wRC+
Molina 97
Lucroy 102
Pudge 104So we see that the gap just ain’t that big. Despite popular perception (including my own, admittedly), the gap just Ain’t. That. Big.
A well-regarded national baseball writer very recently said that Yadi Molina was the Omar Vizquel of catchers. He misspoke. Yadi Molina was the Ozzie Smith of catchers. And that IS a big gap.
If you google ‘worst players in MLB HOF’, there are quite a few articles, each with its list. The list varies depending on this and that. Some are pure math, the ten members with lowest career WAR for example, and other have various rationales. Certain Cardinals tend to show up on those lists, Brock, Sutter, Jesse Haines, Jim Bottomley, for example.
We love our HOFers, same as we love or prospects, and the same would apply to the followers of the other teams. I see the HOF thing as similar to the All Star selection every year. Some think it should be the All Stats team, and within that group, some think those with the best stats for the few months from opening day until the vote happens is all that should count. Others think body of work matters more. Others think value to the team, or hometown fan favorites. Its probably the same with the HOF vote. If your guy doesn’t make it, the system stinks.
When first the sportswriters and later, a group of peer players (plus execs) won’t vote you in, that says a lot about where you stand in the game.
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