What About Al Oliver?

 

When I made THIS POST last week commenting on the newest members of Baseball's Hall of Fame,  Carlos Beltran, Andrew Jones, and Jeff Kent, it prompted a response from Big Brother Bill Sproule similar to the question posed in the headline above.

Ask and you shall receive.....

	Carlos Beltran	Andruw Jones	Jeff                Kent	Al                     Oliver	Dave    Parker
Seasons	20	17	17	18	19
Games	2,586	2,192	2,298	2,368	2,466
Hits	2,725	1,933	2,461	2,743	2,712
Runs	1,582	1,204	1,320	1,189	1,272
HR	435	434	377	219	339
RBI	1,587	1,289	1,518	1,326	1,493
BA	0.279	0.254	0.290	0.303	0.290
OPS	0.837	0.823	0.855	0.795	0.810
per 162 games
Hits	171	143	173	188	178
Runs	99	95	93	81	84
HR	27	32	27	15	22
RBI	99	95	107	91	98
“Similarity Scores”	7 of 10 Hall of Famers	2 of 10 Hall of Famers	4 of 10 Hall of Famers	5 of 10 Hall of Famers	4 of 10 Hall of Famers

I also threw in the numbers for Pirates HOF'er and Al Oliver Bucco contemporary Dave Parker.  While Scoops had more hits and a better average than these four, he lags behind all of them in terms of home run power and OPS.  A case can certainly be made for putting Al in the Hall of Very, Very Good, and that seems to be what it takes to get into Cooperstown these days.

Interestingly enough, one of the five Hall of Famers that baseball-reference rates as "similar to" Al Oliver is Roberto Clemente.

The New Hall of Famers

It was announced earlier in the week that the Baseball Writers of America (BBWA) has elected Carlos Beltran and Andrew Jones into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  They will be joined by Jeff Kent, who was named to the Hall by Whatever They Are Calling The Veterans Committee These Days.

The question arose, as it always does when news like this arrives, do these guys really belong in the Hall of Fame, or should that just be in the Hall of Very Good?  Are they really baseball immortals?  This prompted the creation of a Grandstander Spreadsheet.

	Carlos Beltran	Andruw Jones	Jeff                Kent
Seasons	20	17	17
Games	2,586	2,192	2,298
Hits	2,725	1,933	2,461
Runs	1,582	1,204	1,320
HR	435	434	377
RBI	1,587	1,289	1,518
BA	0.279	0.254	0.290
OPS	0.837	0.823	0.855
per 162 games
Hits	171	143	173
Runs	99	95	93
HR	27	32	27
RBI	99	95	107
“Similarity Scores”	7 of 10 Hall of Famers	2 of 10 Hall of Famers	4 of 10 Hall of Famers

NOTE:  baseball-reference.com provides "similarity scores" that compare any player with every other player who has ever played.  I am only comparing the Top Ten of such players for Beltran, Jones, and Kent.

So what does all this tell you?  To be honest, I really don't know.  Would you like to have each off these guys playing on your team? Absolutely.  Are any of them Babe Ruth, Ted Willams, Mickey Mantle, or Willie Mays.  Not by a long shot, but I suppose that The Hall of Fame became the Hall of Very Good a long time ago.  Otherwise, they'd never elect anyone new and the place would cease to exist.  Not a  good business model for the institution, to be sure.

A couple of impressions from Yours Truly:

• Jones was considered one of the pre-eminent defensive outfielders of his era, which weighed heavily on his being elected.  I have neither the inclination nor the ability to evaluate defensive metrics.  I will only say that I know a great defensive player (Clemente, Mazeroski, e.g.) when I see one.  Also, Jones did win 10 Gold Gloves over the course of his career.
• Beltran was a key figure in the Astros sign stealing cheating scandal of a few years back.  I guess that unlike PED use, that carried no weight with the electorate.
• It surprised me to see just how many home runs Andrew Jones hit over the course of his career.
• Jeff Kent's 377 home runs are more that any other second baseman in history.  That really has to count for something.
• One of the two Hall of Famers to whom Jones is comparable is Gil Hodges.

Welcome to Cooperstown, Carlos, Andrew, and Jeff!

One more thing.  At the Induction Ceremony in July, Cleveland sportswriter Paul Hoynes will be given the Hall's J.G. Taylor Spink Award, and broadcaster Joe Buck will be given the Hall's Ford Frick Award.  Note that Hoynes and Buck are being HONORED BY THE HALL OF FAME, they are NOT being INDUCTED INTO THE HALL OF FAME.  That will not stop either of them by attaching "HOF 26" to their names whenever they give an autograph, however.

The Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2025

My thoughts on the newly elected members of Baseball's Hall of Fame.

Ichiro Suzuki.  Slam-dunk, no questions about it Hall of Famer.  Eight of the top ten "Similarity Scores" for Ichiro listed in Baseball-Reference are Hall of Famers themselves.  I once saw Ichiro play when I went with my brother Jim to a game at Yankee Stadium when the Mariners played the Yanks.  Can't remember what he did at bat or in the field that day, but, yep, I saw him play.

One voter left Ichiro off of his/her ballot.  More on that a bit later.

CC Sabathia.  I had no strong feeling on this one, so I have no issue with it, either.  One of the guys on his Similarity Scores list was Bob Gibson, so if he's comparable to Gibson in some way, shape, or form, Okay, give him a plaque in Cooperstown.

A memory:  I remember watching a game on TV where Sabathia was pitching and calling a friend and asking "When did Casey Hampton leave the Steelers to become a baseball pitcher?"  The guy was HUGE.

Billy Wagner.  Strictly a relief pitcher, I say that Wagner belongs in the Hall of Very Good, and not necessarily at the HOF in Cooperstown, and Wagner's Similarity Scores includes guys like Jonathan Papelbon, Joe Nathan, and Tom Henke.  However, the Hall has long become a place of Very-Good-but-not-necessarliy-Great players, so no use fighting it.

These three will join Dave Parker and Dick Allen (see HERE) as the Class of 2025.

Pretty good group.

Oh, and that one voter who denied Ichiro a unanimous entry?  My guess is that it is either a New York-centric writer who doesn't want Mariano Rivera to share the honor of being the only player ever to get a 100% vote, or some hide-bound old bastard of a curmudgeonly sportswriter who thinks "If Ty Cobb or Christy Mathewson weren't unanimous entries, then I'm going to make sure that NOBODY else will be either."

 

Week 14 GPR and Other Sports Thoughts

The Grandstander Power Rankings for Week 14 of the NFL:

1. Ravens
2. 49'ers
3. Saints
4. Chiefs

Knocking at the door.....Bills, Packers, Patriots, Seahawks, Steelers, Vikings.

No change at the top; Niners jump two slots; Seahawks fall out; Chiefs are back; Steelers now knocking at the door.

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Speaking of the Steelers, we are destined to have nothing but anxiety-ridden experiences watching this team perform this season. No such thing as an "easy win."  I'm not sure what mirrors Duck Hodges is using in piloting this team to where they currently sit: 8-5 and in a playoff position.  The defense being played by this team is reminiscent of great Steelers teams of the past fifty years, and T.J Watt, if not the NFL Defensive Player of the Year, is easily the team's Most Valuable Player.

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The CFP semi-finals will be LSU-Oklahoma and Ohio State-Clemson.  The dual between Joe Burrow and Jalen Hurts will be fun to watch, and I'm not sure how to go in picking that second match-up.  Should be terrific game, and based upon the scare that Wisconsin put into the Buckeyes on Saturday, the smart pick just might be Clemson, but I'll be rooting for Ohio State (and who thought that I would have ever said that about the school the gave us Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel, and Urban Meyer?) for three reasons: (1) My niece Frances and nephew Brian are students at Ohio State, (2) who outside the state of South Carolina isn't getting tired of Clemson in the CFP every year?, and (3) I would love, love, LOVE to see Dabo Swinney get punched in the mouth, figuratively speaking, of course.

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The "Modern Era Committee" elected Marvin Miller and Ted Simmons into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  I have written about how Miller belongs in the HOF so often in the past that I'm not going to restate it all once more other than to say "It's about effin time."  As for Simmons,  he was for sure a good ballplayer, but nothing about him ever screamed "Hall of Fame" as I watched him play over the years, and you know that it wasn't his stint as Pirates GM back in the day that got him into Cooperstown.

Of local interest was the fact that Dave Parker once again fell short of getting elected, and the vote wasn't even close.  Twelve of sixteen were needed, and the Cobra only received seven votes.  Proponents said that Parker is Hall-worthy because for a "period of time", he was the best player in the game. True, but should a four or five season stretch of brilliance (and Parker was undeniably brilliant during that time) over a 19 year career qualify you for the HOF?  It is a point that is fun to debate.  I also remember how Parker acted when his time in Pittsburgh was coming to an end.  He let himself get fat, out of shape, and his recalcitrance with the media and the fan base left a sour taste in the mouths  of most everyone in Pittsburgh, and I remember THAT aspect of Parker every bit as much as I remember his MVP type seasons with the team.

To his credit, Parker has worked to make himself once again a part of the Pirates family and heritage over the years, and that has helped to make the bitter ending here recede quite a bit.  It would have been nice if he had made it, and, face it, there are guys in the HOF who are less deserving than Parker (like, say, Ted Simmons), but c'est la vie.

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The Pitt Panther football team is headed for the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit against Eastern Michigan on December 26.  Good luck to them there.  The big question is, will those  precious fifteen extra practice sessions they get from playing in bowl and that coaches love so much help propel them beyond another seven win season in 2020?

H2P.

The New Class at Cooperstown

Martinez, Mussina, Rivera

Two nights ago the newest induction class to the Baseball of Fame in Cooperstown was announced: Mariano Rivera, Mike Mussina, Roy Halladay, and Edgar Martinez.  Congratulations to them all, and I have no beef with any of them being enshrined.

The results of the balloting also showed that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are stalled in the voting, receiving in the neighborhood of 55-58 percent of the vote.  Seventy-five percent of the vote is needed and they each have, I believe, three years of eligibility left to be voted upon by the Baseball Writers.  Those who know me and read this blog, know my affinity for the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and the charming little Village of Cooperstown.  However, with each passing year, the institution is diminished, I believe, due to the fact that neither Bonds nor Clemens is enshrined. We all know the sins that were committed by these two players.  We also know that they were, quite simply, the greatest hitter and greatest pitcher of their era, and, possibly, among the top five or ten players ever.  They need to be included in the Hall of Fame.  Organized Baseball and the Hall of Fame should be capable of understanding that the fans of baseball and visitors to the Hall are intelligent enough to know the circumstances and controversies that surrounded their careers.

Plus, rest assured that there are players already with plaques on the wall in Cooperstown who made use of Performance Enhancing Drugs, and if we were to enhance the definition of PED's to include amphetamines, aka, "greenies", then that would include, well, just about any member who played in the post WW II era.

And perhaps the biggest bit of hypocrisy here is that fact that Bud Selig is in the Hall of Fame.  As Commissioner of Baseball during the "steroids era", Selig and his employers, the team owners, were more than happy to look the other way when guys like McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds were banging out home runs in record numbers and making the turnstiles spin.  They only got religion on the matter when Congress  got interested and threatened their precious Anti-Trust Exemption.

At least the "Museum" part of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum doesn't look the other way.  Go through that part of the institution and the accomplishments and records of Clemens, Bonds, McGwire and others are recognized.  So are the records of Pete Rose and Joe Jackson.

Come to think of it, the "Museum" part of the institution is probably far more interesting that the "Hall of Fame" part is.

My Collectables

As much as I love sports (you knew that, right?), I am not one for accumulating collectables, autographs, or memorabilia.  About the only such thing that I have is a large album....

that contains and displays post cards of all members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I bought this album and a complete set of postcards when we visited the HOF in Cooperstown back in 1999.  Each year, I purchase the postcards for the new HOF enshrinees.  In three of those years, 2001, 2011, and 2016, I purchased the additional cards when we revisited Cooperstown.

Today, the cards for the Class of 2018, Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones, Jack Morris, Jim Thome, and Alan Trammell arrived.

I will carefully place this cards in the album and return the album to its spot on my bookshelf.  Someday, many, many years from now, I hope, I will be in that great Grandstand in the Sky, and some great-niece or great-nephew of mine will come across this album and probably say something like, "Well, what in the hell are we going to do with this?"

Baseball Hall of Fame News....

In baseball news, Bud "Bud" Selig gets voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame by some committee.  Here is how I summarize the Selig Administration:

1. He presided over the sport when he and his bosses, the owners, looked the other way when steroid and PED usage ran amok among all of major and minor league baseball.
2. He then took credit for ending the "scourge of steroids and PED usage" only when the United States Congress began holding hearings on the matter and threatened to "look into" MLB's anti-trust exemption.
3. Completely over-reacted when an All-Star Game ended in a tie and decreed that, henceforth, home field advantage in the World Series would be given to the team whose league won the All-Star Game. (Honestly, did it really bother anyone when that game ended in a tie?)  Curiously, on the same weekend that Bud's election to the HOF was announced, this particular legacy of his was scuttled by MLB.
4. He presided over a labor stoppage that covered two seasons and led to the cancellation of the World Series in 1994.
5. Presided over an era that saw gross revenues for MLB increase to $9.5 billion (that's with a "B", folks).

In the end, point number five, trumps the preceding four points, so Bud gets a plaque.  And as far as points one and two are concerned, with Bud now in the Hall, there is no way that guys like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and other stars of the "PED Era" should be kept out.

To be fair, he also saw MLB expand to thirty teams, and introduced wild cards into the equation of baseball's pennant races.  Some purists will no doubt bemoan this forever, but it has made baseball more exciting theater, and that has also played a big part in producing those billions and billions of dollars for the Lodge Brothers who own those thirty teams.

Hey, I love the Baseball Hall of Fame.  It's one of may favorite places to visit, but Bowie Kuhn and now Bug Selig have plaques in the place, and Marvin Miller does not, and that tarnishes the place a good bit in my mind.

One final comment.   As I usually do when posting The Grandstander, I looked for a picture of Bud to post, and when you go to Google Images, you get an amazing array of pictures of Bud Selig.  I chose the one that you see at the top, but it was a difficult choice from among these other shots of the Commish Emeritus:

I hope that they choose a similar image for the bronze plaque that will hang on the wall in Cooperstown.

A Cooperstown Sojourn

Marilyn and I made our first visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY in 1976.  It was our Bicentennial Year vacation.  It was great trip, but little did we know that that we would return to this little village again and again as the years went along.  It took twenty-three years to make our second visit in 1999, but it was quickly followed by visits in 2001, 2006, 2011, and, once more, in 2016, just a little over a week ago.

If you've never been to Cooperstown, it is not an easy trip.  It's about a seven or eight hour drive from Pittsburgh, and it is in the middle of nowhere in east central New York state, and while that can be a pain, it is also a large part of its charm.  For this trip, we decided to break up the drive, and stopped in the town of Ellicottville, NY.  This is near the Senaca Allegeny Casino, where we stopped and dropped a few bucks in the slots (Marilyn) and the black jack and three card poker tables (me).  We also enjoyed the neat little town of Ellicottville, where we shopped and had a hard time choosing where to eat, before deciding on this place:

A good choice as it turned out.

The next day it was on to Cooperstown.  We love it there.  Yes, the Baseball Hall of Fame is there, but we find the Village of Cooperstown to be so much more.  It is a small town (one traffic light) as I imagine must have existed everywhere in the early years of the twentieth century.  People are friendly, and you can strike up lots of interesting conversations with the locals, and learn so much about the town and it's history, as we did with a gent named Ken, who was the desk man at our hotel, The Cooper Inn:

The Cooper Inn

(Stay there if you plan on going to Cooperstown!)

As for the Hall of Fame itself, what can I say?  I have written often of this place, and no doubt will continue to do so.  If you are a baseball fan and/or a student of history, it is a place you need to see.  I won't go into a lot of detail here, but will take this opportunity to salute the 2016 Inductees...

And will salute a couple of other stand-bys....

And share a piece of genuine baseball history that particularly stuck me on this visit, the letter that Curt Flood wrote to Bowie Kuhn in 1970, that can properly be called the Declaration of Independence for major league ball players...

Ironically, if a poll were taken today of all current major league players, I wonder how many of them would even know who Curt Flood was and what they owe to him.

I also got a chance to play golf at the Leatherstocking Golf Course.  Routed along Lake Otsego, the setting of this course may well be the most beautiful in which I have ever played golf.

Okay, enough of my vacation ramblings and pictures.  Not sure if we will ever get back to Cooperstown (of course, we have said that every time that we have visited), but it will always remain one of our very favorite places.

Oh, and let me finish this with just one final observation, and I am not sure that this is a development for the better, but we did see something new, some 21st century encroachment, in Cooperstown this time around, something that had never been there before:

Yep, parking meters now populate Main Street in downtown Cooperstown. Oh the humanity!