Barry Larkin to Hall of Fame

[crewcrazy]

I think Pettitte is a case where steroids are the tipping point for a guy being left out.

Pettitte's going to be an interesting case. On one hand, you'll have the PED moralists trying to keep him out. On the other, he's a Yankee and is like the Jack Morris of the 2000s (some pretty average seasons, but big-game reputation on World Series winners).

 

I actually think Pettitte has a better HOF resume than Morris (neither are really HOFers to me), but I will fully admit that I'm probably too young to remember Morris, while I can recall most of Pettitte's career.

[RockCoCougars]

I think that Trammell was just as good if not better than Larkin. His prime was during an era in which offense was limited relative to Larkin's prime in the 90's. I wouldn't put much stock in the MVP thing either. Trammell was screwed out of the MVP in '87, while I remember scratching my head a bit when Larkin got his. Trammell was also considered one of the best defensive SS of his era. I'm not discounting Larkin at all, but I do think that it's odd that he gets in so quickly while Trammell is still out there with only a few years left on the ballot.

[Baldkin]

I don't understand the case for Trammell. Looking at his b-ref page, there's nothing that stands out to me as "HOF player". He had one fantastic season (1987) and a handful of good ones. Is it because of defense? His highest season was 1.5 dWAR.

 

Larkin at least has an MVP award and a career OPS that's .050 higher.

 

Somebody tell me what I'm missing.

Larkin makes the case for Trammell: http://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx?players=335,1013157,1010978,1014396

OPS is a poor way to compare as the first 8 years of Trammell's career were a much lower run environment than Larkin's last 8 (when they didn't overlap). Trammell was probably the 2nd best SS in MLB over his career (behind Ripken).

I threw in Yount and Ripken to show how close Yount was to both Larkin and Trammell, and how Ripken was pretty much a full step above all 3 of them.

[MNBrew]

I think Raines & Lee Smith keep getting unjustly screwed largely because the numbers or ways in which they dominated their respective eras don't fit today's standards (though Smith as a closer was just this side of Gossage-Sutter-Eck-Fingers but really pretty much on a similar level for an amazingly long time). I honestly don't get how folks view Larkin as a HOF SS and yet Raines wasn't a HOF OF.

 

To those suggesting McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, & possibly Palmeiro don't deserve being let into the HOF due to their connection to the steroid era . . . then, by the same token, A-Rod sure had better not be let in. . . . Gaylord Perry -- CAUGHT red-handed doctoring the ball -- had better get thrown out (I don't get why this is NEVER brought up!) . . . . and Molitor (cocaine's generally considered a stimulant, certiainly not a depressant) and all the other guys who took various forms of greenies, amphetamines, and other "uppers" -- arguably the PED equivalents of their day because they, like steroids, simply enabled the body to recover faster or just never let down in the first place -- had sure better get thrown out, too!

 

Actually I don't want any of those latter things to happen. Way too many things could be brought into question with WAY too many current & potentially future HOFers. The standards of morality & character being applied seem largely convenient & ultimately arbitrary (outside of directly cheating in the game itself). McGwire & those guys DIDN'T break the laws of baseball at the time and therefore deserve HOF induction. You could claim issues of character, but that's a slippery slope, too. Eckersley, then, shouldn't be let in because he essentially "stole" teammate Rick Manning's wife out from under him . . . or is that layer of morality & character somehow fundamentally different?

 

Trammell was good, but in the grand scheme of things, I just don't think he was HOF good.

[clancyphile]

Gaylord Perry's presence really does make all the steroid controversy seem like pious hypocrisy. Perry cheated his way to some of his 300 wins, and was unrepentant about it - writing "Me and the Spitter" should have been an automatic disqualifier for the Hall of Fame.

[JimH5]

Gaylord Perry's presence really does make all the steroid controversy seem like pious hypocrisy. Perry cheated his way to some of his 300 wins, and was unrepentant about it - writing "Me and the Spitter" should have been an automatic disqualifier for the Hall of Fame.

 

Are you unwilling to recognize the difference between a guy doctoring up a ball and another guy doctoring up himself? One results in an altered ball, while another results in an altered body, without knowledge or regard to how that body will respond years later. Lyle Alzado's died as a result of using steroids. Nobody died because of a shine ball.

 

Plus, Perry's crimes were done in full stadiums, in front of opposing players, managers & coaches, in front of umpires, fans, tv cameras & spectators. Through sleight of hand, he fooled everyone. McGwire's crimes were done in the private locker room bathroom stall with Canseco on the other end of the syringe. There's a difference between the two. Guys who cork bats don't do it in the on deck circle. That's why people applaud Penn & Teller, while Bernie Madoff is in prison.

[brettac1]

Throwing down handfuls of amphetamines is doctoring yourself up, right?

 

As far as Alzado's death being due to steroids, that's media creation/myth.

[Mudville9]

Look at Michael Hunt from the JS as an example of the problem. He turned in a blank ballot this year.

He should do that with the majority of his articles as well.

Well played sir.

[JimH5]

Throwing down handfuls of amphetamines is doctoring yourself up, right?

 

As far as Alzado's death being due to steroids, that's media creation/myth.

 

It's not just the media. Alzado himself suggested steroids contributed to his illness.

 

Brettac1, your own avatar is of Curt Hennig (who I thought was an AWESOME wrestler). But he's dead, and his own father Larry The Axe Hennig thinks steroids and painkillers contributed to Curt's death.

 

I love wrestling, but have to acknowledge some conflict with my own selfish love of the show with the premature deaths of so many of it's stars.

 

That's a different thing than Gaylord Perry's ability to throw the spitter.

[RockCoCougars]

Brettac1, your own avatar is of Curt Hennig (who I thought was an AWESOME wrestler). But he's dead, and his own father Larry The Axe Hennig thinks steroids and painkillers contributed to Curt's death.

 

That's who that is! Loved Hennig going back to his tag team with Big Scott Hall. Speaking of a well-deserved HOF nod....

[brettac1]

I know Alzado did, but I think it was a situation of a guy searching for a reason why he was suffering. Everything I have ever seen is that the science behind it wasn't correct. He died from a brain tumor.

 

Obviously steroids contributed to the death of a lot of wrestlers, but it was usually due to heart-related problems that they caused. Hennig also officially died from a cocaine overdose, and recreational drugs were a HUGE problem for wrestlers of that era, as well. Certainly it is heartbreaking when I watch old wrestling and see a tag team match with all four guys being dead.

 

I'm not denying that steroids cause some health problems when abused, which they were in the '80s before athletes started to team with doctors and understand how to use them correctly. What I am saying is that Alzado's case was used by the media and whatnot to create a stigma around them that wasn't correct.

 

That's who that is! Loved Hennig going back to his tag team with Big Scott Hall. Speaking of a well-deserved HOF nod....

 

 

He's possibly my very favorite of all-time, aside from Ric Flair.

[joepepsi]

I'm still waiting to hear a good argument why it's OK to have surgery to repair and strengthen a body, but taking certain medications is cheating.

[JimH5]

I'm still waiting to hear a good argument why it's OK to have surgery to repair and strengthen a body, but taking certain medications is cheating.

 

One is done to get a person back to their full natural health. It is also done with the approval of authorities.

 

The other is done to take a person beyond their natural abilities. It is often done in secret, without authority approval, and without knowledge of or regard to long-term impact.

 

I may wear eyeglasses, but I may not inject fertility drugs.

 

Isn't that it? Are you just against there being an authority figure being able to tell people what they can and cannot do in the world of athletics?

[Oxy]

I'm still waiting to hear a good argument why it's OK to have surgery to repair and strengthen a body, but taking certain medications is cheating.

Well, the easy answer is that surgery fixes something that is broken while steroids artificially enhances something for the short term with possibly life-threatening results in the long term. The risk/benefit scales are far different for each case when it comes to a person's long term health.

[gregmag]

I don't think there's a bright-line difference. I think ideas about appropriate and inappropriate, or normal and abnormal, body modification change over time. I cringe when I see so many kids with tattoos and piercings, but that's a norm that has changed a lot since I was their age. I'm not suggesting it's illegitimate to make negative judgments about players for steroid use -- I make those judgments myself. But I think the surgery question brings up a useful reminder that we really are talking about norms that society creates, not absolute laws of nature.

[JimH5]

. . .a useful reminder that we really are talking about norms that society creates, not absolute laws of nature.

Totally agree.

 

The science is ever changing. Today's climate will be looked upon with aghast (or quaintness or mockery) as we learn more and more about human health and the impact of various substances and treatments over time. But that needs to be done with the approval of the governing bodies, not in the shadows.

[topper09er]

I'm still waiting to hear a good argument why it's OK to have surgery to repair and strengthen a body, but taking certain medications is cheating.

Thank you, guys come back from Tommy John and throw harder than before, but thats OK? What about the advantage these guys have over Sandy Koufax who had to retire at age 30? Thats OK but Mark McGwire being able to lift weights more intensely than Mickey Mantle could is some unforgivable, unfair advantage?

 

You still have to hit the ball, there isno evidence steroids does anything besides allow guys to spend more hours in the weight room. The reason for the 90s power surge was a change in the baseball itself, which everyone just ignores because people are so angry that their childhood heros' stats look bad compared to all these 50 HR seasons that have been rare...since the the 1930s.

[RockCoCougars]

Right, but the modern advances in surgery are theoretically available to all players. Those who made the conscious decision to cheat had an unfair advantage over those who did not.

[gregmag]

I don't understand the case for Trammell. Looking at his b-ref page, there's nothing that stands out to me as "HOF player". He had one fantastic season (1987) and a handful of good ones. Is it because of defense? His highest season was 1.5 dWAR.

 

Larkin at least has an MVP award and a career OPS that's .050 higher.

 

Somebody tell me what I'm missing.

This is really where OPS+ can play a useful role. As others have pointed out, Larkin played in a better offensive environment than Trammell. By OPS+, it's Larkin 116 for his career, Trammell 110. That's a meaningful difference, but it's a lot less than 50 points of raw OPS because of when and where they played.

 

The argument that Trammell shouldn't get in because of his inconsistency is interesting, but I'm not inclined to buy it. Larkin had a 13-year run when his OPS+ never dipped below 100, but for three of those years it was 107 or lower. Trammell had an 11-year period when he was under 100 three times, but his other seasons were consistently excellent, plus he had another good year before that run. Their careers have slightly different shapes, and I can see the argument that value is worth a bit more when it's spread out, but they're really pretty close. Trammell was probably a better defender by a meaningful margin.

 

It seems pretty close to me. My gut says yes -- if Alan Trammell is in the HoF, it still seems to me like the HoF is doing what it's supposed to do. He's quite similar to Larkin, maybe a half step behind him, and I think Larkin is deserving. But Trammell isn't the best guy who isn't in; I'll be a lot more annoyed if Raines never makes it.

[brettac1]

Since we were sort of on the topic of PED's and whatnot, I just want to say that it's incredibly unfair to judge on body type and keep a player out of the Hall, especially one as great as Bagwell. There are certainly guys that are already in that likely used them, and there will be plenty more to join. There is such a bias toward power hitters that it's laughable. Clemens (who will go in) had actual physical evidence tying him to steroid use, but there isn't the cloud of suspicion surrounding pitchers. Randy Johnson springs to mind immediately, but the fact that he was tall and thin, he never would show as pronounced an effect as a hypothetical user like Bagwell. The thing is, Bagwell had a pretty natural career arc for a HOF talent level player, with his production dropping in his early 30's, never putting up insane HR totals (even after moving into Enron), and never being "freakishly" big. He played with Caminiti. That's pretty much all. Then you get to Johnson. The guy who was striking out 300 a season in his mid and late 30's, and punched out 290 at age 40. He played with a load of almost certain juicers, with that 2001 D'Backs team being the closest thing to poster boys for juicing since the '93 Phils or the Bash Brothers A's. You had the likes of Matt Williams, Luis Gonzalez, Jay Bell, and Steve Finley on that team, who all are quite suspect in their own right. To me, there is every bit as much to tie Johnson to PED's (actually, far more) as there is Bagwell, but every time Bagwell's name came up in the Hall of Fame discussion this year, steroids were in the same breath. Despite the fact that he wasn't in the Canseco book, wasn't in the Mitchell Report, never had his name leak out from the anonymous tests of '03, never had a teammate accuse him, never had one bit of reason to suspect him of wrongdoing aside from being a power hitter in the "steroid era" (who never hit over 47 HR in a season) and being short and stocky. It's just incredibly unfair. He was a truly great player and by all accounts a good guy who loved the game, especially if you remember watching him gut through the later part of his career after he had that shoulder injury. I'm almost never the fan who gets wrapped up in defending athletes, but to me the Bagwell case strikes a nerve.

[TheCrew07]

You still have to hit the ball, there isno evidence steroids does anything besides allow guys to spend more hours in the weight room. The reason for the 90s power surge was a change in the baseball itself,

I've read that entire article numerous times, but it's entirely based on Power Factor, which is an interesting concept, but certainly not proven fact.

 

I don't want to get into a debate about what steroid cycles will and won't do for an athlete, that information is available on numerous sites. I have not used steroids, however a good friend did cycle steroids while in the NFL in the mid 80s. No I will not share his name or the team, that's irrelevant to the discussion. We've talked at length about plateauing (which is the whole point of the cycle) and other side effects.

 

The author of the linked article above obviously doesn't know much about weight training and he assumes that steroids only effect power, which certainly isn't the case. Again, that information is all out there... steroids can make you "quicker" by impacting the strength of the muscles that load the bat for a swing or a pitch, thus making you hit or throw the ball harder. Baseball is all about fast twitch muscle movement, the quicker and more powefully you can react, the better off you'll be. The article also largely ignores how difficult it can be to play baseball with even something as minor as a sore back. Injury recovery is everything in baseball because every part of the sport relies on fast twitch muscle movements, you can't build your way into a movement the same way you can in football, there's no time for that in baseball. Relative health will play a huge part in the numbers a player can put up over his career or a single season, see Griffey Jr vs Bonds...

 

The article like all things Sabermetric has value, but also has plenty of holes. I have no doubt that ball effects will have a tremendous impact and MLB certainly capitalized on the home run chase which has been credited for bringing the masses back to the sport. However if you don't qualify and isolate the effect of a different ball, then how can you definitively measure power in either direction? This is why all metrics have holes because the true causes aren't isolated... most metrics and analysis are trying to come up variations in the effect without isolating the variables that cause the result. We end up discussing "noise" and "random variation" when there's really nothing random about a baseball game or sports in general.

 

In truth, it's as a simple as no one has figured how out to mathematically qualify the events of a pitch or batted ball, we just spend most of our time discussing what happens when the ball is in play, not what happened to get there. That's why I talk all the time about pitch f/x and location, because that's what truly matters in baseball. Give me velocity, break, and intended vs actual location for the pitcher, and bat speed, angle, and location of the bat through the hitting zone for the batter and simple physics will tell you where the ball is going to go. You don't have to know the mental chess game, generally speaking you can tell if the hitter was fooled or not by the type of swing he makes.

 

Finally as I stated earlier, just swinging bat if you're cycling steroids will improve your power, doing the repetitive movement will cause the affected muscles to get stronger just by repetition because it's easier to gain muscle when on a steroid cycle. MLB players use longer and heavier bats than most of any of us have used (maybe those of us that played in a college wood bat league have used similar). The bats require a significant amount of torque and force to swing, most players peak at certain bat speed precisely because the human body is prone to adjust and plateau physically. Steroids allow you to more easily break through those barriers and add bat speed. It's not about beach muscles and looking muscular, power lifting and body building have nothing to do with athletic movement or training. So much like my general view of sabermetrics, I find that anyone who's dismissive of the effects of PEDs in baseball based on what some lay person without direct knowledge of physiology, athletic training, steroids, or even a way to quantify the actually differing effects between baseballs is simply putting way too much stock in a single hypothesis that can't be proven either way.

 

For professional athletes, and I do know my fair share personally, I'll say this... If it doesn't aid them or help them perform better then they simply aren't going to waste time with it, there's too much going on in their lives on and off the field to waste their time. More simply put, if they didn't help, players in all sports wouldn't have used steroids in the first place.

[PKBadger]

It seems pretty close to me. My gut says yes -- if Alan Trammell is in the HoF, it still seems to me like the HoF is doing what it's supposed to do.

Just my personal opinion - the Hall isn't nearly as selective as it should be. I'd rather it be reserved for the truly larger-than-life guys. As a kid in the '80s, I never begged my dad to take me to a Brewers-Tigers game so that I could see Alan Trammell. The "Fame" in HOF deserves more consideration.

 

What the Fangraphs link told me was that Ripken was substantially better than his peers, and that the other 3 (even our own Robin Yount) have warts on their resumes. Yount scores bonus points because of his 2 MVP's, the 3K hits and because he was and is the face of the Milwaukee Brewers, while Trammell was just one of many great players who have worn the "D" on their chest.

[MNBrew]

Gaylord Perry's presence really does make all the steroid controversy seem like pious hypocrisy. Perry cheated his way to some of his 300 wins, and was unrepentant about it - writing "Me and the Spitter" should have been an automatic disqualifier for the Hall of Fame.

Are you unwilling to recognize the difference between a guy doctoring up a ball and another guy doctoring up himself? One results in an altered ball, while another results in an altered body, without knowledge or regard to how that body will respond years later. Lyle Alzado's died as a result of using steroids. Nobody died because of a shine ball.

 

Plus, Perry's crimes were done in full stadiums, in front of opposing players, managers & coaches, in front of umpires, fans, tv cameras & spectators. Through sleight of hand, he fooled everyone. McGwire's crimes were done in the private locker room bathroom stall with Canseco on the other end of the syringe. There's a difference between the two. Guys who cork bats don't do it in the on deck circle. That's why people applaud Penn & Teller, while Bernie Madoff is in prison.

So the view from pulpit of morality is simply & ultimately determined by where things occurred? Creatively cheating in front of people is less wrong than cheating out of public view? Bah! One of the biggest media catch-phrases when the steroid stuff was going on was that PEDs, theoretically anyway, gave players an unfair competitive advantage. That's EXACTLY the same reason Perry threw the spitter: It gave him an unfair competitive advantage. Period.

 

If the issue is right vs. wrong, then location's immaterial. Clancy captured my sentiments in two words: PIOUS HYPOCRISY. This whole steroids business, the whole political grandstanding in front of Congress, the constant media-generated suspicion? Media-generated pious hypocrisy. Disgusting.

 

Perry joked about the spitter all the time but ended up dancing around it and ultimately always officially denied it -- until he couldn't deny it because he was caught in the act. What Perry did was in direct violation of the rules of the game. At the time those guilty among the '90s sluggers were allegedly taking whatever they were taking, they weren't violating the rules of the game. If you then argue the legality issue, so you must then also argue against the HOF elligibility of those who used illegal drugs & uppers.

 

Again, if the issue ultimately is right vs. wrong, then a large number of HOFers should have been denied induction. But they weren't. So let us judge the HOF-worthiness of these men by what they did on the field:

 

McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Clemens, Palmeiro, all those guys should be in. Raines & Lee Smith, too, even though "clean" & non-controversial is rather boring by comparison -- they're HOFers in my book. Trammell? I just don't think so. Morris was good but not anywhere as good a pitcher as Blyleven over the course of his career, but his HOF case is borderline at best. That said, short of seeing the Brewers win a World Series in my lifetime, I hold being in the 7th row of the Metrodome's LF upper deck for Game 7 in 1991 as the most memorable non-Brewers baseball event I've ever witnessed.

[RockCoCougars]

McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Clemens, Palmeiro, all those guys should be in

 

I disagree. Bonds would have been in regardless, but his ego got in the way and he had to cheat. Clemens was right on the cusp, but he was starting to wane quite a bit until his 'career resurgence' in Toronto. McGwire, Sosa and Palmeiro are all no's...look at their numbers in the years before they started juicing, with McGwire and Palmeiro you can trace their juicing to playing with Canseco, I'd guess Sosa got started in the 97/98 offseason.

[Ennder]

Are you unwilling to recognize the difference between a guy doctoring up a ball and another guy doctoring up himself? One results in an altered ball, while another results in an altered body, without knowledge or regard to how that body will respond years later. Lyle Alzado's died as a result of using steroids. Nobody died because of a shine ball.

 

Sure, the guy who risked his health at least had some sort of consequence for his behavior, the guy who just doctored the ball was just pure cheating with no chance for it to matter, that is so much worse.

 

I'll be honest, no matter what sport you like and no matter who your heroes are if you grew up in the 80s odds are your favorite players used steroids. Just because your hero wasn't linked to it doesn't mean he didn't do it and if your hero played something other than baseball the chances are even higher that he did it since football and NBA basically had no testing at all while baseball at least acknowledged it. If you want to hate a player because it was proven he did steroids that is fine but not putting someone in the hall because of some vague rumors about him doing them is just stupid.