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Hitting: 540 points Fielding: minus-100 points League leaders: 45 points (on-base percentage three times, doubles twice, batting twice, runs once, RBIs once) Dozens of pitchers, including Pedro Martinez and Mariano Rivera, say he's the best hitter they ever faced: 50 points Beloved guy, credit to the game, etc.: 10 points...
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1. Yes, Edgar is a hall of famer
2. I should just open baseball reference before I start reading any of these, instead of reading two paragraphs, then going there
3. The one thing that caught me in this one was Klapisch’s seemingly casual “He was the game’s best right-handed hitter from 1992 to 2000.” This comment isn’t a fact like other statements similar can be, for example “Albert Pujols was the game’s best right-handed hitter from 2001 to 2010”, and needs to be validated with at least some evidence. Two other players instantly came to mind, for me, and then I added a couple more to the comparison after looking a bit deeper. So let’s play this game, using only 1992-2000:
Player A: .286/.434/.679, SO/BB of 886/824, 376 HR, 188 OPS+ in 1000 games
Player B: .320/.438/.584, SO/BB of 669/1006, 305 HR, 167 OPS+ in 1312 games
Player C: .327/.436/.560, SO/BB of 669/762, 208 HR, 159 OPS+ in 1154 games
Player D: .303/.417/.553, SO/BB of 525/761, 258 HR, 156 OPS+ in 1155 games
Player E: .300/.378/.574, SO/BB of 801/645, 345 HR, 147 OPS+ in 1345 games
Aside: All of these were defensive liabilities at best!
bWAR/oWAR/dWAR:
A: 43.4/46.9/-8.3
B: 49.5/55.4/-13.9
C: 45.7/46.1/-7.7
D: 31.6/43.3/-14.7
E: 37.7/43.8/-11.3
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A is Mark McGwire
B is Frank Thomas
C is Edgar Martinez
D is Gary Sheffield
E is Albert Belle – He retired after his age 33 2000 season
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So, according to bWAR, Edgar cost his team less defensively by DH’ing than any of these players cost their teams by playing the field instead. This is not what I expected. I’d still take Thomas as “best right-handed hitter 1992-2000”, but Edgar stacks up better than I expected, especially by WAR.
I would take Piazza as being a better right handed hitter than Edgar during that time frame as well.
Jeff Bagwell fits nicely in that group also.
He was a better defender than any of those guys, so his total WAR is a good bit higher, but on hitting alone, he’s right there.
1320 G
.306/.421/.566
295 HR
906/917 SO/BB
161 OPS+
57.5/53.4/-3.5 bWAR/oWAR/dWAR
I will be glad Edgar is in. I never understood why people penalized DHs while giving credit to guys who played a position, but did it poorly hurting their overall value.
Despite a severe built in WAR penalty for DHs, Edgar has more WAR than anyone mentioned above other than Thomas or Bagwell, who are already in.
Edgar had 7 consecutive seasons playing 50% or more of his games at DH with 4.8 WAR or above. 13 other players combined for only 20 of these seasons. He had 4 seasons of 5.6 WAR or above. There are 5 players who combine for 7 others in history. Of course, Edgar had 3 other seasons of 5.6 or above when he wasn’t a DH as well.
All time great hitter.
I don’t know of any evidence that being a DH “penalized” Martinez. First, the “penalty” is tiny: waiting a few years to get elected. Second, a huge chunk of Edgar’s value was in drawing walks, and his career totals for standard stats are not large, and it’s well-known that Hall voters -do- penalize players for those two things. So his walks and low career totals amply account for a delay of a few years in getting elected.
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Third, Frank Thomas was mostly a DH, and he got in on the first ballot. Why wasn’t he penalized for being a DH?
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The truth is that Martinez is a borderline Hall of Famer, well short of the achievements of (at least) Larry Walker and Curt Schilling, and maybe Mike Mussina. It’s fine that he’s in now, but any outrage over his delay in getting elected is just silly.
Wow. That’s a good post, invitro. I agree 100%. If anyone has complaints about delayed election, it should be guys like Duke Snider, Lee Smith, Tim Raines, and eventually Fred McGriff. Those guys all deserved much more love than they received and that’s a shame.
I don’t think it’s fair to say Thomas was “mostly” a DH. Career total wise, he was more of a DH. But his two MVP years, which are carrying a lot of weight for him, he started 248 games at first and just 17 at DH
Fair enough, but Edgar was a 3B in three of his best (>=5 WAR) seasons. I don’t think there’s that huge a difference in their DH-ness. 🙂
Caveat: if I had a ballot, I’d vote for Edgar.
With that being said, I worry that we may be getting to the point where WAR is given too much weight in our discussions of baseball players. Two players on the ballot:
Player A 8674 PAs with 933 OPS and 147 OPS+. Offered no defense and no baserunning. One top 5 and one more top 10 MVP finish.
Player B 7814 PAs with 943 OPS and 144 OPS+. Slightly below average fielder at positions pretty far down the spectrum. No baserunning. Four top 5 MVP finishes and two more top 10 finishes. A had the higher BA; B had higher isoOBA and isoSLG.
Both A and B lead the league in doubles twice and RBI once. A added two BA crowns and three OBA titles. A’s teams made the playoffs four times, never making it past the LCS. B’s teams made the playoffs five times, the series twice including winning it all once. In that one WS title, B hit over .400. For their post season careers, A had a slash line of 266 / 365 / 508 in 148 PAs while B had a slash line of 317 / 417 / 532 in 224 PA.
A, of course, is Edgar Martinez who will go in on this year’s ballot. B is Lance Berkman who, as of the incomparable Ryan Thibideaux, is presently polling 1.2% and will almost certainly not make it to next year. Is there really enough difference between the two to have that result?
I mean, you’re sort of handwaving away a lot of stuff. An extra 800 PAs might mean an extra 200 hits and 40 HRs for Berkman, putting him over 2,000 and 400. Also, two batting titles and three time leading the league in OBP are going to be meaningful for a lot of voters.
Patrick ~ Thanks for the response. I did note the difference in PAs and additional league leading numbers, so I’m certainly not ignoring them. I do think that the added 1 1/2 seasons worth of playing time have value and, because of that, I’d have Edgar ahead of Berkman. But, well, Martinez is cause celeb for the saber crowd while Berkman will be one-and-done and largely forgotten. Obviously there has to be a line somewhere between in and out; I’m just not comfortable drawing it between these two who have such similar raw numbers and it is only when looked at through the lens of WAR that there appears to be as much difference. And WAR, for all I love and often cite it, is still a work in progress. We know with 99.99999% certainty how many hits or homers each had; we use our best efforts to estimate how many wins above replacement those hits, homers, and everything else contributes.
I agree with you. But I don’t put all emphasis on career WAR… peak WAR means just as much to me, and postseason performance might mean as much as well. Berkman’s .949 OPS in the postseason is out-of-sight, but that may even underestimate his contibutions, and his 2.69 WPA is one of the highest I’ve seen lately (for one comparison, Brett had a 1.40 WPA in 43 G; Berkman had about 52 G). I’d vote for Berkman.
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FWIW… some of Berkman’s numbers look a lot like Minnie Minoso’s. They’re about even in WAR and WAR7, and Minoso also had several top-5 MVP finishes without winning. Minoso is, I think, Bill James’ current favorite tout for the Hall.