Joe Mauer...HOF yay, or nay?

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by pilight

All the haggling about WAR and it's objectivity/subjectivity is missing one very important point: Stats don't tell the whole story. They are evidence, but not proof.

To be its arguing about something had was settled in the mid 2000s. And arguing about a single stat is pointless. To get a good handle on a player you have to look at a lot of different metrics.
And this is what most front offices do.
I am also sure they have access to proprietary data that the general public does not and their own analytics departments are looking at things like exit velocity, steps taken to field a grounder, steps taken off a batted ball to judge a player recognition on defense and hundreds of other such things.

This war (not the stat) the war of using data has been fought and data won many years ago. Every front office uses it to some extent.

And yes, all of these stats are created by human beings who may or may not have played the games they choose to follow. But when you create a stat that more or less falls in line with other stats and those stats create a general consensus of a players value then we can judge it as a good stat.

And baseball is lucky in that we have about 120 years of good data of which to go on and a sport that has largely not changed.
And once you start creating advanced stats that vindicate the historical greats then you have created a stat that passses muster and can be used to analyze current players.

A lot of the advanced stats used in this very thread, do you know if you look at all time leaders in them who they tend to favor?
Players who are consensus all time greats
Ruth, Williams, Musial, Cobb, Bonds, Mays, etc

Almost every advanced stat has Ruth as the best player ever by a somewhat wide margin. And that is consistent with what what we know even with the more traditional stats.

There is no one all or be all stat. To have one is folly. You have to take into account many different ones to get a true measure of a player.
And that is what real front offices do.

And you don't necessarily need to have played the game to create these. You just need to have a strong passion for the game, be very skilled with mathematics and be able to defend what you create and be willing to make adjustments as flaws are pointed out and make corrections as new data emerges.
The advanced stats that have survived for more than 10 years or so have met that criteria and that is why they are still kept in use.

[CMH]

Originally Posted by Curve Ball Dave

And that base line is subjective.

.

Stop. You're embarrassing yourself.

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[CMH]

This entire thread is a group of stubborn guys admitting that they don't look at advanced stats or try to understand them but then say those stats are worthless.

We live in wonderful times.

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[pilight]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

A lot of the advanced stats used in this very thread, do you know if you look at all time leaders in them who they tend to favor?
Players who are consensus all time greats
Ruth, Williams, Musial, Cobb, Bonds, Mays, etc

Shockingly, they were consensus all time greats long before advanced stats ever existed. It's almost like you could recognize them without a spreadsheet.

[CMH]

The opinion that WAR is based on a subjective is false.

WAR is based on a formula the same way batting average is based on a formula.

WAR does have a base line of 0. And the VALUE of WAR is based on that baseline of 0 being the league average.

You know what also has a baseline? The value of batting average. That baseline is .300. Which, if you want to argue that WAR's baseline is subjective, it would also mean that batting average is as well.

You can't know the value of anything without a baseline. Wins might be 20, or 15 if you're kind. Batting average is .300, or league average if you want to dip your toes into a bit more in depth look at someone's skill value. WAR is 0 which is league average.

All baselines so everyone here can argue whether or not someone is below average or above.



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[CMH]

Originally Posted by pilight

Shockingly, they were consensus all time greats long before advanced stats ever existed. It's almost like you could recognize them without a spreadsheet.

Who needs a spreadsheet?

The point is the advanced stats are proving what people thought. And what people think is proving that the stats are right.

Don't be so shortsighted.

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[Jeffy25]

Originally Posted by CMH

The opinion that WAR is based on a subjective is false.

WAR is based on a formula the same way batting average is based on a formula.

WAR does have a base line of 0. And the VALUE of WAR is based on that baseline of 0 being the league average.

You know what also has a baseline? The value of batting average. That baseline is .300. Which, if you want to argue that WAR's baseline is subjective, it would also mean that batting average is as well.

You can't know the value of anything without a baseline. Wins might be 20, or 15 if you're kind. Batting average is .300, or league average if you want to dip your toes into a bit more in depth look at someone's skill value. WAR is 0 which is league average.

All baselines so everyone here can argue whether or not someone is below average or above.



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Exactly

[Jeffy25]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

You quoted my post and even separated my question in answering......but you never saw it..............

There was clearly plenty of back and forth.

So I did answer, you just didn't like the answer/didn't find it satisfactory.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by Rain King

A.) He caught a significant amount of games during 9 seasons (arbitrarily throwing out years with 70+ starts is pretty misleading, particularly because it had to do with injury).

B.) Nobody is saying his career has been as a "full-time catcher". Everyone is fully admitting he moved off of the position...in fact WAR (the stat getting attacked) absolutely accounts for that as almost all of the WAR he accumulated was during the seasons he was catching.

What is ridiculous is calling him "not a catcher".

He's not a catcher.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by dsvitak

He's not a catcher.

If you take catching away from him, he's basically Bill Madlock

[Jeffy25]

Originally Posted by dsvitak

He's not a catcher.

Originally Posted by David Watts

If you take catching away from him, he's basically Bill Madlock

Except he's not. Because he caught the 145th most games of all time.

That's a catcher

[pilight]

Originally Posted by CMH

Who needs a spreadsheet?

The point is the advanced stats are proving what people thought. And what people think is proving that the stats are right.

Don't be so shortsighted.

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If these stats are telling us what we already know, why do we need them?

[Jeffy25]

Originally Posted by pilight

If these stats are telling us what we already know, why do we need them?

Stats don't always tell us what we believe.

Stats aren't here to agree with our preconceived ideas. They are just facts. Have your opinions all you want, but if the data doesn't support your opinions, maybe investigate those opinions.

data isn't here to support or descent what we believe. It's just data.


It's like having your checking account, and thinking you have x amount of money, then checking online and seeing it say 'y'

It's good to keep data.

[CMH]

Originally Posted by pilight

If these stats are telling us what we already know, why do we need them?

Please welcome to the "Is Mauer a Hall of Famer" thread.

You might see that the discussion is about whether or not his stats qualify him for a spot in the Hall.

Players like him are exactly why we need advanced stats. He's not Bench. But he's also not Benito Santiago. And some people only want to look at traditional stats to make a decision when there's more happening here.

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[rudel.dietrich]

Stats are also extremely helpful when determining how a team should spend their resources.
Every team has finite resources, even the Red Sox and Yankees. The more data you have the better you can spread those resources around and try and turn them into wins.
You can use statistics to look for market inefficiencies, overpaid and underpaid players, try and predict how a player will develop or age etc.

As I said before, this is a war that has been fought and won for over a decade. Every north American franchise has bought into data analytics to a certain degree.

And over on my side of the ocean it is occurring too, European football, basketball, hockey, even handball are adopting data analytics or paying for it from third party firms.

I work for an sports economics firm and one of our current assignments is looking at how how Euros spent on data analytics equates into games won.
And so far the signs are encouraging, it is looking like per Euro invested it is one of the better ways to spend money in terms of front office spending.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by David Watts

If you take catching away from him, he's basically Bill Madlock

Bill Madlock, Don Mattingly, Keith Hernandez, Jim Edmunds,

They all have 3-5 amazing years, and then an insufficient number of "filler" years that they would have needed to be in the HoF.

Madlock:
-- 3 time All Star
-- Lifetime .305 hitter, with over 2000 hits
-- Won FOUR batting titles
-- Career OPS+ of 123
-- Career OPS of .807
-- Career WAR of only 41, with 49 oWar, and minus 8 dWar
-- No Gold Glovers. Terrible fielder

Mattingly:
-- 6 time All Star
-- Lifetime .307 hitter, with 2153 hits
-- Won ONE batting title
-- Career OPS+ of 127
-- Career OPS of .830
-- Career WAR of only 40, with 47 oWar, and minus 6 dWar
-- Nine Gold Gloves

Keith Hernandez:
-- 5 time All Star
-- Lifetime .296 hitter, with 2182 hits
-- Won ONE batting title
-- Career OPS+ of 128
-- Career OPS of .821
-- Career WAR of 46, 45 oWar, and +1 dWar
-- Eleven Gold Gloves
He's in the Hall of Very Good

Jim Edmunds:
-- Four time All Star
-- Lifetime .284 hitter, with 1949 hits
-- No batting titles
-- Career OPS+ of 132..best of this bunch
-- Career OPS of .903
-- Career WAR of 57...significantly higher than the rest
-- Eight Gold Gloves


Let's now look at Mauer stats:
-- Six time All Star
-- Lifetime .308 hitter, with 2025 hits
-- Three batting titles
-- Career OPS+ of 126
-- Career OPS of .832
-- Career WAR of 53
-- Three Gold Gloves

If you put Mauer in, RIGHT NOW, then you have to put in all five, plus another 15 players I can mention...Dave Parker and Harold Baines, Dale Murphy, Sheffield, Crime Dog, Jim Rice....they're everywhere.

IF Mauer plays another five years, with decent stats, then maybe. He will not get 3000 hits, he will not have a career .300 average, he will not be an All Star again, and his cumulative stats just aren't anywhere near high enough.

His career OPS+ of 126 is very, VERY low for a future Hall of Famer.

His career OPS of .832, as compared to Edmunds' .901, clearly doesn't measure up.

The ONLY advantage Mauer had is his defensive position as a catcher. In this position, his defense sucked so hard (minus career dWar) that he was moved away from being a catcher, into a prime offensive position, DH. I can argue that he sucks as a DH as well..limited power.

The elephant in the room is that Mauer, just once, drove in more than 85 runs. This is TERRIBLE. Yeah..Piazza did it 11 times.

Mauer is in the Hall of Very Good..in no way, shape or form a Hall of Famer.

[Timofmars]

Originally Posted by dsvitak

The elephant in the room is that Mauer, just once, drove in more than 85 runs. This is TERRIBLE. Yeah..Piazza did it 11 times.

That's kinda like a pitcher's ERA, isn't it? Put Mauer on a better team and he'll get more RBIs, just as a pitcher with a better defense behind him will have a lower ERA. I would disregard RBIs since the number of opportunities is out of his control.

[slic1149]

There does not seem to be enough evidence to induct Joe Mauer into the HOF at this point. But it does seem possible that playing another 3 or 4 years might give him a chance to achieve the numbers that will make him hard to keep out. Whether we like it or not a near great player with an extraordinarily long and productive career will likely get inducted. If Mauer plays at a high level for another few years, I think he will make it in. If he trails off and retires in a year or two it might be hard to do so.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by slic1149

There does not seem to be enough evidence to induct Joe Mauer into the HOF at this point. But it does seem possible that playing another 3 or 4 years might give him a chance to achieve the numbers that will make him hard to keep out. Whether we like it or not a near great player with an extraordinarily long and productive career will likely get inducted. If Mauer plays at a high level for another few years, I think he will make it in. If he trails off and retires in a year or two it might be hard to do so.

I agree with this. A career OPS of .832, for a SHORT career, just isn't getting it done. Jim Edmonds' was .901, with a lot more at bats, and tremendously better defense, and I don't see a parade to get him into the HoF.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by Jeffy25

Except he's not. Because he caught the 145th most games of all time.

That's a catcher

Forcing us to accept that he is a catcher isn't helping your cause. He sucked so hard as a catcher, that they made him a DH/1B.

A career OPS of .832 as a designated hitter is awful. He just isn't a good enough hitter to justify a pure hitters position, and his fielding is so awful that he lost his catcher position.