What does a typical HOF third basemen look like?
Avid baseball fans and casual fans alike want to jump to an immediate question: is this player a Hall of Famer? It’s a fascinating question and one sure to inspire debate no matter the player or the position. There’s just one problem. We are putting the cart in front of the horse. In order to ascertain whether any particular player is a Hall of Famer, we have to answer the question of what a Hall of Famer looks like.
If you’ve been a religious reader of these articles or have read either of my two books, you already have a pretty good idea of what that is. However, each position has its own individual qualities and third base is a perfect example of the implications of that problem. There are fewer third basemen than any other position in the Hall of Fame. Dick Allen officially marks the 18th such player although John McGraw could technically qualify since his numbers as a player probably warrant it.
We establish this standard by eliminating outliers on the upper and lower end. It is not fair to compare current candidates to Mike Schmidt. They simply won’t measure up. Similarly, it is not particularly helpful to compare them with Freddie Lindstrom either. The nature of his selection is one of those idiosyncrasies that we probably should set aside and not use as a standard for anyone else. Others like George Kell and Pie Traynor are in the same boat.
So, what we do instead is look at the ten remaining players that fall between 80 and 120 percent of the overall positional median. We then find a median score for each category using those ten players. Those median scores will be much more indicative of what a Hall of Fame player will look like and it will be the scores we use from now on to look at players on the outside looking in or current active third basemen.
More than anything else, these numbers demonstrate the difference between perception and the reality of the limitations of the position. Voters keep waiting for guys to get to 2500 hits, 400 home runs, or 1500 RBI. That just isn’t the norm for the third base position and one of the reasons why third basemen are underrepresented in the Hall of Fame.
Those numbers may make sense for outfielders or first basemen. It is just one of several reasons why we only compare players from the same position. It makes little sense to compare Jimmy Collins even to a first basemen from the same time period. The physical demands of the position were far different and so the comparison breaks down.
I should point out that we use the median and not the mean because there are always one or two cases that will skew the results. We want the number in the middle. That will tell us what a typical Hall of Famer will look like in that category. As you will see above and throughout this piece, individual players will be outliers in individual categories. All of these players belong in the Hall of Fame. That’s not the question. The question is whether we can determine a discernible standard for everyone else.
Those of you that are math nerds or who have an attention to detail will notice a problem with the chart above. Unfortunately, there is no way to completely avoid the problem. The actual median index score is lower than the one reported. This is because we added up all of the individual medians to come up with that score. The actual median is between Edgar Martinez and Scott Rolen.
Sometimes it is helpful to attach a name to a number. It provides a context for people that see things through those lens and not through the lens of pure numbers. If we included every Hall of Famer it probably would have turned out exactly the same. However, we stay true to the process because sometimes there are not an equal number of outliers above and below the zone.
Collins has many of the same issues as Deacon White from the last article we did, so he really doesn’t fit in something like the index. His case is one of the reasons why we go through the individual tests. If we remove him we notice how tight the distribution is. Therefore, it becomes a lot easier to determine whether any particular player fits the profile of a typical Hall of Fame third basemen.
One of the pitfalls of evaluating Hall of Famers is that we begin to have an idealized view of what a Hall of Famer must look like. They have to be good at everything. The reality is much messier. The range we see here is much bigger than the range we see in the overall index. While these players had very similar values, they arrived at those values in very different ways.
Some, like say Dick Allen, hit their way into their value. Others, like say Brooks Robinson, fielded their way into their value. Robinson was pretty much an automatic selection, but Allen had to wait for multiple decades. Simply put, voters focused on his deficiencies and not the overall value he brought to his teams.
No player will reach the median in every single category. There will always be areas where they are deficient. If they go above the median every time then they likely will be an outlier like Schmidt, Boggs, Brett, or Mathews. At that point there won’t be a need for analysis. The messy work comes when we have players that don’t get there in some categories. Do they get there in enough to deserve enshrinement?
Here is one set of numbers where the median and the mean are radically different. There are four brilliant fielders here (all likely better than any from the positive outliers) and two dreadful fielders here. The rest wind up somewhere in the middle. The median is somewhere in between Frank Baker and Ron Santo.
While I hesitate to compare fielders from different positions, Robinson could go down as the single best fielder at any position on the diamond. Of course, there would be heavy debate there and it all depends on the methodology involved. Are we looking at runs above average at the position or are we looking at overall defensive value? Are we throwing in a more simplistic approach like Gold Glove awards? In any case, his name has to be on the short list.
Players like Martinez and Molitor highlight the issues with methodology. Both were above average third basemen when they played the position, but both also had extensive time as designated hitters, so their value was greatly reduced. Allen might be one of the few players in history that would have been more valuable as a designated hitter defensively. That takes some doing.
Going with something like the average is problematic because of players like Collins. There were no awards in the 19th century so his MVP total will obviously skew the results. It is just one of the few reasons why the BWAR points are included. The most important reason is because we want to see whether players were accurately perceived during their playing career.
There can be any number of reasons why players don’t get the votes they should. The biggest reason is that the good teams tend to get the benefit of the doubt. Players on bad teams will always be at a disadvantage. We have also discussed before about the bias towards offensive numbers. This particularly impacts guys like Rolen who were Gold Glove level fielders, but weren’t exceptional at the plate.
However, when we get to Allen we get to the last major consideration. Allen was one of those players that just wasn’t well liked. He finished his playing career before I started watching baseball. I couldn’t really tell you how deserved that reputation was. My sense is that if he had come up in the 1970s or 1980s with the designated hitter and more modern attitudes he likely would be viewed differently. However, I cannot speak about this topic as intelligently as I’d like to. Suffice it to say, that perception likely cost him so votes.
You’ll notice how much Chipper Jones stands out here. The main issue I have with playoff numbers are the historical challenges that come with it. Most of the older players played in a period where one team represented the league in the World Series. They did not get league championship series or even the divisional round and wild card round as we have today.
This has two immediate drawbacks. Obviously, the sheer volume of numbers matter. On a long enough timeline the survival rate drops to zero. Numbers find their level. Jones’ playoff numbers come pretty close to his career numbers. Those plate appearances represent between four and five months worth of baseball. That gets reasonably close to a full season.
The second consideration is that the level of competition goes up at each level. It is easier to rake in the wild card or divisional round. You sometimes will face more marginal pitching then you will in a league championship series or World Series. This is why looking at these numbers with a critical eye is so difficult. A .600 OPS in the World Series is not an example of someone choking. It is more often simply an example of a player running into superior pitching.