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Continuing with your votes for the 100 best Hall of Fame candidates. No. 45: Keith HernandezScore: 49.90 Here's a good hint when looking at great players (like Keith Hernandez) who are not in the Hall of Fame: Check out the age of their last good season. For Hernandez, that...
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Palmeiro War7 – 38.9
Olerud War7 – 39.0
Oh, and Joey!
My lasting memory of Keith Hernandez (beyond Seinfeld) is that he spent a whole year hiding in the trainer’s room in Cleveland. Jerk. Glad he’s never sniffed the Hall.
Bret Saberhagen for first 8 years of his career as a Royal:
110-78, 3.21 ERA, 128 ERA+, 1660 innings, 40.8 WAR, 26.1 WAA, 2 Cy Youngs, and 1 world Championship, total salary $8,615,000.00
Bret Saberhagen for last 8 years of this career for Mets/Rockies/BoSox:
57-39, 3.58 ERA, 120 ERA+, 909 innings, 18.3 WAR, 10.8 WAA, 1 ALCS appearance, total salary: $28,960,239.
This is going to sound pretty mean spirited, but in the Free Agency system we currently have, this is exactly how any small market team with a star pitcher should use (and abuse) that pitcher. It not only increases their chances of winning while they still have him, it puts more miles on his arm so that the large market teams that pay a lot for his services later on are actually harmed by those contracts. We could say the same for Johan Santana, probably the A’s trio of Hudson, Mulder and Zito too. There are other examples of this.
Paetron worked like a charm this time!
As far as Olerud goes, I wish WAR teased out baserunning. We have oWAR and dWAR, and if you look at Olerud’s 1993 and 1998 seasons, you see these amazing numbers:
’93: .363/.473/.599
’98: .354/.447/.551
His B-R oWAR for those years were 7.5 and 6.2, respectively.
Now look at Mike Trout, all of his seasons (except for a shortened 2017) have a higher oWAR than Olerud’s best two seasons.
Even his “worst” hitting season in 2014: .287/.377/.561, oWAR 8.8
Your mention of Olerud made me wonder about this because he was notoriously slow-footed, if I recall correctly. I know the eras were different (i.e. 1998 vs. 2014), but the oWAR difference must largely be baserunning, correct?
So what are the best non WAR measures of hitting and baserunning?
Mark,
I think the context difference is larger than you think. Olerud’s two seasons were an OPS+ of 186 (93) and 163 (98). Trout, even though his slash line is substantially lower, put up a 168 in 2014. So he was hitting as well as Olerud did in 98, even though it doesn’t look like it at first. He also had 30 more plate appearance than Olerud did in 93, so that helps a little.
At least according to BB-Ref, the baserunning difference isn’t as big as I’d have expected. Trout has 2 base running runs in 2014, while Olerud was -4 in 93 and -3 in 98. If I understand WAR correctly (and I might not), that’s about half a win.
And I almost forgot: the biggest difference is probably position. oWAR is offense compared to a replacement player *at your position*. First basemen hit a lot better than center fielders.