Light the Hot Stove fires

Rich is a columnist in Toronto who used to be an Expos flak. Not a Ricciardi fan. And forget about the .270 average. It's an essentially meaningless stat for a guy like Thomas. Instead, take note of the .381 on-base average and .926 OPS. Also note that his home run every 11.9 at-bats this season was the fourth-best in baseball. For you Moneyball fans, only Kevin Youkilis and Jason Giambi saw more than Frank's 4.36 pitches per plate appearance. And only Travis Hafner topped Thomas' 11.78 RBI percentage. (The Bill James Handbook)

 

And there you go.

Finley's numbers have to be taken in context to his era. He didn't hit 30 home runs until he was 31 years old, in a suspicious 1996 season that saw his brother-in-law (a player similar to Finley, previously) go off and hit 50. Finley spent the decade before that playing like Dom Dimaggio, playing like Willie Davis, playing like Jose Cruz Sr. -- good contact hitter, good fielder, good speed, a sometime All-Star ... NOT even remotely a Hall of Famer.

Finley's numbers, when looked at without context, are pretty impressive. But career numbers -- especially home run numbers -- are easier to put up in this era than in the last 130 years of professional baseball. (Did you know that Gary Gaetti, the big Rat, has one more career home run than the Big Cat, Johnny Mize?) Finley doesn't deserve to be in a single discussion for Cooperstown.

 

Buckweaver - here's the thing - your post insinuates Finley as a steroids guy. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence but by the same token the guy was 6'2" 180 (hardly a steroids type body). From everything I've read about Finley - he is a flexibility nut who is very into organic foods - again the anti-steroids profile. The insinuation may be very unfair to Finley but that's what makes steroids so insidious.

 

No -- I'm insinuating that his numbers are a product of his era. That's all.

I don't think Finley had anything to do with steroids. I don't think there's any reason to even suspect that.

I do think his numbers are a product of his era. And there's no denying that a lot of strange things happened in 1996 -- Brady's 50 being chief among them. There's also no denying that a lot of players like Finley (including Bernie Williams, Reggie Sanders, et al) are going to end up with career numbers that absolutely dwarf similar players from other eras (like Cruz and Willie D.)

 

Clearly, Finley isn't a Hall-of-Famer. He is an above-average player, a complementary player, never his organization(s) focal point.

 

Nice threadjack you guys have going on here.

 

Just an observation you can ignore:

These mass-topic threads are the death of this board. It's like a newspaper running one big headline 'BASEBALL' and then mashing forty different stories together under it.

No one wants to read through 18 pages of disconnected subjects, just to find out what's up with Frank Thomas. There's no fee for starting threads...why does every thread have to be an enclyclopedia? So there's more room for Muslims and Britney's divorce?

For the record, I like Steve Finley very much. Thank you for your time.

(ps, this does not apply to hockey. Hockey needs to stay on its own thread.)

 

None?

Let's face it: Steve Finley is the Marion Jones of baseball. It seems like everyone around him is juicing except him.

Related by marriage to Brady Anderson. Turned into a 30-HR hitter at age 31 while he was playing in Steroid Central, San Diego. Set a career-high with 36 HR in 2004, the last year before steroid testing. Has 18 HRs since then. Is one of those guys who continues to insist the steroid controversy is overblown. Teammates this year with--gasp!--Barry Bonds.

As for the contention he doesn't look like a steroid user...neither did Alex Sanchez. Or Guillermo Mota.

If Finley's not juicing, no one is.

 

I think Vance Law was underrated. Discuss.

 

He was no Julio Cruz, that's for sure.

 

Why should this not apply to hockey and not to the others? There's just as many hockey people on here as well as football, baseball, etc.

 

But hockey sucks.