Bonds begins HOF campaign

It has also become too easy, and too fashionable on the Internet, to dismiss the Bagwell steroid question and to mock anyone who considers the possibility. In 1998, when the McGwire andro controversy blew up, the very first other name that surfaced as an andro user was Jeff Bagwell. It's a little difficult for me to believe he would be on the cutting edge of those training techniques and yet refuse to go where so many other sluggers went.

It is also worth noting that Bagwell fell off the face of the Earth as soon as baseball started testing. In 2003, he had an OPS of .897 and 39 home runs. In 2004 -- the first year of testing -- it was .842 with 27 home runs. In 2005 he played in only 39 games and then was out of baseball forever at age 37.

 

Nice attempt at attaching an inferior player's numbers to Bagwell, but again you are vastly overrating the impact of playing in different eras. You are trying to subtract over 150 points in OPS (from Bagwell to Garvey) and that is way too much of an adjustment. You are also discounting Bagwell's superior on-base skills and speed. If anything, he would have stolen even more bases in the '60s and '70s.

You are also putting far too much stock in batting average, which is exactly what people were doing when Carew played. That is the problem with using how the guy was judged within his era only. You are using that era's method for evaluating players, which is outdated. In this case, overrating batting average. The difference in eras doesn't account for the huge advantage Bagwell has in so many offensive categories, especially OPS and home runs.

Like I said. Your argument is in your heart. Mine is in my head. Star among stars? Sorry. That is vague to the point of being meaningless. Toughest out there was? That's a little better, but you need to back it up with more than your own opinion.

 

Guesswork instead of evidence. Sorry. Not enough to convict the guy of using steroids, which is exactly what Hall of Fame voters are doing if they keep him out for that reason.

Wake me when there is some real evidence.

 

oop - a few questions here, and they are questions ... so don't get all defensive and shit.
wasn't the average ball park larger in the '60s and '70s than when bags played?
weren't the league era and batting averages (and other averages) lower in the '60s and '70s?
and weren't stolen base percentage rates higher when bagwell played?

i think the answer to those questions are yes, but i'm guessing here.

 

To further confuse things, the mystery of "fame":

When he was active, was Jeff Bagwell ever thought of as one of the ten best players in baseball?

Was Rod Carew ever thought of as anything else?

 

I think this has been a good debate but are you really saying OPS is not a valuable metric in evaluating hitters?

 

ha. let me throw this out: from '77 to '81, i'll say people thought of steve garvey as a more valuable first baseman than carew.

 

Just one quick note while I'm still reading all the other posts here:

The only person on this thread using straight-up OPS as a means of evaluating players from different eras is you.

No one else here has said Derrek Lee or anyone else you've cited is better than Carew.

 

OK, fair enough. I may or may not have been able to read the post you responded to until you quoted it. 8)

Yes, I agree that comparing Berkman/Bagwell to Garvey/Stargell (or whatever 1970s pair you prefer) using one stat that doesn't account for era is not a wise analysis.

OPS+, while also flawed, does a better job of that. Although as you noted, Ichiro's OPS+ is pretty low for someone who's going to soar into the Hall of Fame. What that means is two things: 1) He plays in an era with a lot of power hitters, so any stat that incorporates slugging percentage is going to hurt him; and 2) He's not nearly as productive offensively as his reputation would have you believe.

"Pure contact hitters" are never as productive at creating or producing runs as power hitters, just on principle. Singles hitters need to rely on their teammates to drive them in. That's partly why Carew didn't score as many runs as he probably should have for someone who reached base in 39.3% of his plate appearances. Also because he got thrown out a lot as a base-stealer (9th all-time in CS and only 106th all-time in SB.) Also grounded into a lot of double plays.

On the other hand, Carew (along with Joe Morgan) was the toughest out in baseball for a complete decade (1969-78). And he was, statistically, one of the top baserunners in the game in terms of taking extra bases without making outs (talking about going 1st-to-3rd on a single, 1st-to-home on a double, scoring from 2nd on a single, etc.)

So he was quite skilled at getting around the basepaths, even though he wasn't blessed with the Big Red Machine behind him in the lineup. Both of them were far more aggressive, and successful, in taking extra bases than Ichiro, who often stops at third on doubles when he's on 1st and singles when he's on 2nd. I thought that might be a statement about their eras, but Jose Reyes and Derek Jeter are both pretty aggressive in scoring from second on a single (more aggressive than Carew and Morgan, believe it or not.) So it's more a statement about Ichiro than it is about baserunners being less risky in the 2000s than they were in the 1970s.