WAR Games

[Sour Masher]

Without looking them up, guess who had the higher career war:

Torii Hunter or HOFer Kirby Puckett

David Wright or HOFer Ralph Kiner

Mark Grace or HOFer Lou Brock

Mike Trout right now or HOFer Derek Jeter for his career

Mike Trout through his age 24 season or the 22 year career of HOFer Harold Baines

[Sour Masher]

BTW, not to give away the last answer, really just a non-related comment--I think the HOF bar for a hitter should be that you have to have a higher career WAR than Mike Trout got before he was able to rent a rental car on his own.

[chancellor]

The only choice is not to play.

[joncarlos]

I'll guess Hunter (that his D is preferred over Puckett) and Wright. Also Grace (Brock's D was really not good) and Trout in both cases.

[Sour Masher]

I'll guess Hunter (that his D is preferred over Puckett) and Wright. Also Grace (Brock's D was really not good) and Trout in both cases.

Right on all counts. The HOF is a capricious club.

[cavebird]

The answers to all were obvious. Kiner, it wasn't really fair. He was truly great, but lost almost three seasons due to military service during WWII and then had an injury that ended his career early. Puckett couldn't draw a walk, and also had his career ended early by injury; he was an iffy HOFer to start with (and now, if voted upon, would probably not make it past two ballots). Brock was elite in one way---that WAR doesn't particularly care for. Jeter is a completely legit HOFer, but well, Trout is inner circle HOFer already, more or less. And we all know about Baines.

[Judge Jude]

"Brock was elite in one way---that WAR doesn't particularly care for."

do you mean stolen bases?
because he was good at that but not close to elite.

Rickey SB 1406, CS 335
Brock SB 938, CS 307
Raines SB 808, CS 146

if you do a crude but not so inaccurate measure and use SB minus 2x CS:
Rickey 736
Brock 324
Raines 516

I remember the latter part of Brock's career, and remember him getting into the HOF on the first ballot.
but a mediocre-fielding LF with a 109 career OPS+ .....

he's not nearly the worst HOF selection, though.
a few dozen have never even appeared on any of the 15 ballot slots for each Hall of Merit voter.
Brock still hasn't been elected to HOM, but he still gets a handful of lower-ballot votes.

even a WAR-hater (I'm not a huge fan) can recognize how Brock's skillset was so badly misunderstood.

the first Bill James essay I read, circa 1977, blew my mind.
he noted that of course most offensive stats had a strong correlation to winning - the more singles, the more doubles, the more homers you hit, the more walks you draw, the better your team tends to be.
triples was shakier, James noted - but it was something.

but stolen bases? James also noted the IDEA that a fast baserunner distracts the pitcher, creates havoc, leads to more scoring, etc sounded good. but he could find basically no correlation between teams that stole a lot and teams that rarely did in terms of W-L success.

I don't know that he found the answer himself, but ultimately it came down in many cases to the dancing runner off first being as distracting to the batter as to the pitcher - and thus not a driver of enhanced run-scoring at all.