HOF Analysis: 3B

[usnspecialist]

Shown below is a chart of all of the 3rd Basemen enshrined in the BBA HOF, along with their career stats. The green filled box indicates they are above their positional average, the red or white indicates they are below the average.

This chart shows how far away from the average each player is at a given stat. 1.00 is exactly the mean, higher numbers are good, lower numbers are bad. This is not a perfect chart because it gives every stat the exact same weight, which isnt exactly accurate but it gives a decent picture of what we are looking at.

[RonCo]

Weird Ks and AVG. distributions here. Almost reverse of the rest of the stat lines as far as above and below average.

Interesting to compare recently inducted Boogie in this list, given career length and games played.

[JimBob2232]

How abuot Mark Dempsey (Active)
http://montybrewster.net/BBA/HTML/news/ ... 21532.html

[Ted]

Demsey's a case that will need some thought. He's below the mean in his avg/obp/ops. He's well below on hits. He's well over on homers. He's below the mean on WAR. Now, he's "just below" for most of those. And from a pure numbers standpoint, some players who are below the mean HAVE to be oted in, otherwise the hall gets more and more and more exclusive, because the mean can only rise.

My reaction to Dempsey, before looking at him is Hall of Fame guy. I recall him being a key piece of so many very, very good Crawdad teams. He also played the first half of his career during what was essentially a deal ball era (for the new guys, the 2020-26 or 2027 era was decidedly low offense. There was a dramatic shift in the drafts around the middle portion of that decade and a few years later we started seeing offense again, and it's increased ever since. We are now in at or near an offensive peak). So his offensive numbers are better than they appear.

The fact that he was better than his numbers make you think is that he was something like an 8 time all star. 3B has always been a tad thin, and that helps, but Demsey really was one of the top couple 3B in the league for at least 5 years, and probably top 3-4 for another 3-4 seasons.

He's also maybe declined a tad early. Not much, but maybe a year and a half faster than a track that would have guaranteed a HOF spot. He's a tough one. I think he has to add a tad more value to his career to have a good shot. I'd probably vote for him, but I bet you'll have a tough time convincing the small hall guys or casual voters who don't want to get into the nitty gritty of how different playing environments shape numbers.

[JimBob2232]

Demsey's a case that will need some thought. He's below the mean in his avg/obp/ops. He's well below on hits. He's well over on homers. He's below the mean on WAR. Now, he's "just below" for most of those. And from a pure numbers standpoint, some players who are below the mean HAVE to be oted in, otherwise the hall gets more and more and more exclusive, because the mean can only rise.

My reaction to Dempsey, before looking at him is Hall of Fame guy. I recall him being a key piece of so many very, very good Crawdad teams. He also played the first half of his career during what was essentially a deal ball era (for the new guys, the 2020-26 or 2027 era was decidedly low offense. There was a dramatic shift in the drafts around the middle portion of that decade and a few years later we started seeing offense again, and it's increased ever since. We are now in at or near an offensive peak). So his offensive numbers are better than they appear.

The fact that he was better than his numbers make you think is that he was something like an 8 time all star. 3B has always been a tad thin, and that helps, but Demsey really was one of the top couple 3B in the league for at least 5 years, and probably top 3-4 for another 3-4 seasons.

He's also maybe declined a tad early. Not much, but maybe a year and a half faster than a track that would have guaranteed a HOF spot. He's a tough one. I think he has to add a tad more value to his career to have a good shot. I'd probably vote for him, but I bet you'll have a tough time convincing the small hall guys or casual voters who don't want to get into the nitty gritty of how different playing environments shape numbers.

I'd vote for him on numbers alone (and not just becuase he is my player). 500 HRs is an automatic HOFer IMO. He is at 443, which puts him in "close to a lock" territory, especially if he hits another 30-40 HRs over hte next couple seasons. Throw in 8 ASGs and at his position too. Probably not a first ballot guy, but I think he is pretty close to a lock.

[Ted]

Demsey's a case that will need some thought. He's below the mean in his avg/obp/ops. He's well below on hits. He's well over on homers. He's below the mean on WAR. Now, he's "just below" for most of those. And from a pure numbers standpoint, some players who are below the mean HAVE to be oted in, otherwise the hall gets more and more and more exclusive, because the mean can only rise.

My reaction to Dempsey, before looking at him is Hall of Fame guy. I recall him being a key piece of so many very, very good Crawdad teams. He also played the first half of his career during what was essentially a deal ball era (for the new guys, the 2020-26 or 2027 era was decidedly low offense. There was a dramatic shift in the drafts around the middle portion of that decade and a few years later we started seeing offense again, and it's increased ever since. We are now in at or near an offensive peak). So his offensive numbers are better than they appear.

The fact that he was better than his numbers make you think is that he was something like an 8 time all star. 3B has always been a tad thin, and that helps, but Demsey really was one of the top couple 3B in the league for at least 5 years, and probably top 3-4 for another 3-4 seasons.

He's also maybe declined a tad early. Not much, but maybe a year and a half faster than a track that would have guaranteed a HOF spot. He's a tough one. I think he has to add a tad more value to his career to have a good shot. I'd probably vote for him, but I bet you'll have a tough time convincing the small hall guys or casual voters who don't want to get into the nitty gritty of how different playing environments shape numbers.

I'd vote for him on numbers alone (and not just becuase he is my player). 500 HRs is an automatic HOFer IMO. He is at 443, which puts him in "close to a lock" territory, especially if he hits another 30-40 HRs over hte next couple seasons. Throw in 8 ASGs and at his position too. Probably not a first ballot guy, but I think he is pretty close to a lock.

If he gets to 500 HR, he's probably a lock. Not because I think 500 HR is "automatic" but because to get there, he'll have to play well enough over the next 2-3 years to significantly increase his entire case from where it is right now. If he retired this very moment, he'd be a borderline case to me, and a probably yes base upon my memory of how good he was relative to the league for the first half of his career (all those AS games show that).