Is any other great baseball player’s Hall of Fame case met with less objective thought than Larry Walker’s?
In 1997, Walker hit .366/.452/.720. He hit 49 home runs and 46 doubles, stole 33 bases, played his typical stellar rightfield defense, and, for good measure, was hit by 14 pitches. Five other times, Walker’s on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) topped 1.000, something no player in either league accomplished in 2014.
As is the case with Barry Bonds’s otherworldly 2001-2004 seasons, any observer’s instinct upon viewing Walker’s monstrous numbers should be to consider context. Balls were flying around, and out of, ballparks at an alarming rate in 1997, and Coors Field, where Walker played half his games, was the primary culprit. To judge Walker against his contemporaries or the greats of yesterday based on the raw numbers cited above would be irresponsible.
Sadly, though, many observers, including those charged with populating the Hall of Fame, take an even less responsible tact, “considering context” by wiping the page clean, as if Rocky Mountain air so profoundly impacts a hitter’s ability to get on base that anyone could have accomplished what Walker did that year.
In truth, no National Leaguer in 1997 matched Walker in home runs, total bases, on-base percentage, or slugging percentage, all of which reflect, to some extent, Walker’s surroundings. Neither, though, did anyone match Walker’s WAR (9.8, per baseball-reference), a figure adjusted for the effects of era and park advantages. Some great hitters have played for the Rockies in their 20+ years. Here are the top OPS marks in Rockies history:
1.172, Larry Walker, 1997
1.168, Larry Walker, 1999
1.162, Todd Helton, 2000
1.116, Todd Helton, 2001
1.111, Larry Walker, 2001
1.075, Larry Walker, 1998
Sure, Walker took advantage of the comforts of Coors in a way that Roberto Clemente and Pete Rose never got to do. But isn’t it illustrative that he put up better numbers there (.381/.462/.710) than any player in team history?
WAR Batting Runs (Rbat) are park-adjusted. Walker accumulated 420 Rbat in his career, more than Hall of Fame rightfielders like Clemente (377), Tony Gwynn (403), or Andre Dawson (234). Walker could also run (40 WAR Baserunning Runs) and field (94 WAR Fielding Runs, more than enough to offset the 75 runs he’s docked for playing right field). Adam’s Hall of Stats, which combines WAR and WAA, both park- and era-adjusted, gives Walker a Hall Rating of 150, seventh all time among rightfielders, right between Al Kaline and Reggie Jackson.
What fans and Hall voters tend to neglect is that Walker was a great hitter, and a great all-around player, for six seasons in Montreal (Expos Booder) prior to becoming Rockies Booger, and parts of two seasons in St. Louis (Cardinals Booger) at the end of his career. Let’s separate Walker’s career into three eras based on the team he played for and find comparable players to the three Larry Walkers (or are they Larrys Walker?).
Expos Booger
From 1989 through 1994, Walker kept his passport ready, playing his home games in his native Canada and his road games in the states. During these formative years, Walker batted .281/.356/.509, culminating in a breakout year in which the Expos had the league’s best record at the time of the strike and Walker finished eleventh in NL MVP voting.
Raw comps: In terms of raw numbers, Walker’s age 22 to 27 seasons rival those of two of history’s great rightfielders. Al Kaline, one of the game’s great young players, had an .876 OPS over that age range, while Reggie Jackson‘s was .871 in a period that ended two years into the Athletics’ title threepeat. Both narrowly topped Walker’s .865, while Walker’s 52 Fielding Runs fall right between Kaline’s 89 and Reggie’s 37.
Adjusted comps: Kaline and Jackson both played more frequently than Walker in their age 22 to 27 seasons, so WAR gives them more credit for accumulated accomplishments. If we’re looking for an adjusted comp, Joe Morgan precisely matched Walker’s 81 Batting Runs, and earned 21.5 WAR, to Walker’s 21.2. This predates Morgan’s MVP years with Cincinnati, but it speaks to the quality of Walker’s all-around game that his early years are comparable to those of one of the game’s most rounded players. If you’re looking for an outfield comp, Roberto Clemente fell short of Walker’s Batting Runs (49), but used his lethal arm to match Walker’s WAR (22.8). Walker didn’t need Coors Field to look like an all-time great.
Rockies Booger
Walker’s Colorado years, during which he was 28 to 37 years old, correspond well with his prime. This is slightly later than the typical player’s prime, but the typical player doesn’t spend his youth dreaming of a career as an NHL goalie. After a slightly late start, Walker joined the ranks of the game’s stars at age 25 in 1992, and maintained that status well into his thirties.
Raw comps: Almost no one has done what Larry Walker did from ages 28 to 37. He batted .334/.426/.618 for a decade, still playing above-average defense and finding time to steal 126 bases. The closest comp I could find was Stan Musial, whose 1.008 OPS from 28 to 37 was .036 points lower, but who kept it up for almost 1,800 more plate appearances. Jimmie Foxx had three 1.000 OPS seasons over that span (Walker had six), but stumbled toward the end of his career and finished the span with a .991 OPS. If you’re looking for better raw numbers than what Walker did in Colorado, you’re in Ruth/Williams territory.
Adjusted comps: Again, Walker had some trouble staying on the field in his late prime, averaging just under 500 plate appearances per season, and Coors Field was obviously more friendly to him than Sportsman’s Park was to Musial. From a value standpoint, Walker’s Rockie years were more akin to those of Mickey Mantle, who earned more Rbat (350 to 313), but fewer WAR (48.2 to 42.4). Willie McCovey, who earned 335 Rbat and 42.6 WAR, is in similar territory.
Cardinals Booger
It comes in a very small sample, but Walker’s final season-and-a-half in St. Louis tells us a lot about what he might have accomplished had he never played in Denver. He batted .286/.387/.521, joining a team loaded with should-be future Hall-of-Famers on the ride to two NLCS and a World Series.
Raw comps: It’s harder than you think to find someone with a .908 OPS at ages 37 and 38, in any era, in any park. Ruth, Aaron, and Bonds were better. Basically everyone else was worse. I’m digging way back to find a comp in Honus Wagner, whose .909 OPS was almost identical to Walker’s. If you’re uncomfortable with the advantage Walker had playing in a hitter’s era, remember that he faced fresh-armed relievers throwing 98 miles per hour in the eighth inning in 2004 and 2005, while Wagner played in an all-white league when tiring starters routinely completed what they started. If you want an outfield comp, you might not do much better than Ty Cobb and his .947 OPS.
Adjusted comps: Busch Stadium didn’t work to Walker’s advantage like Coors did, but he earned fewer WAR (3.2) over his last two seasons because he only came to the plate 545 times and wasn’t the runner or fielder he’d been in his earlier years. That WAR total looks a lot like that of Derek Jeter, who earned 3.3 WAR at ages 37 and 38 with just 15 Batting Runs, benefitting from a 17-run advantage in Positional Runs.
If one doesn’t believe in adjusting for the effects of ballpark and era advantages, Larry Walker was a young Al Kaline, an in-his-prime Stan Musial, and a late-career Honus Wagner. Anyone who’s been paying attention can see that such an assessment oversells Walker’s value. Rather than dismissing those numbers entirely, though, let’s appreciate that Walker was a young Joe Morgan, an in-his-(late-)prime Mickey Mantle, and a late-career Derek Jeter.
ALRIGHT, WE GET IT, YOU GUYS ALL THINK PARRY WALKER SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AN ELITE PLAYER AND AN IMMEDIATE HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE.
Jesus, you’ve all beaten this horse to death so hard, I’m amazed there’s any horse left.
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
AGREED!!!!!!!!!!!’
Larry Walker was Chuck Klein in Baker Bowl. I’d go so far to say that Larry Walker wasn’t even Reggie Smith.
Nice player? Absolutely
Cooperstown? Not in his lifetime
Paul E, surely you know that many of us think Reggie Smith was a HOFer?
The median OPS+ of modern HOF outfielders is 133 (Billy Williams, Al Simmons, Earl Averill, Chick Hafey, Fred Clarke). Smith’s OPS+ was 137.
His career was not one of the longest. But of the 12 HOF OFs with OPS+ from 133-140, Smith had more PAs or more games than five of them — Chuck Klein, Joe Medwick, Averill, Hafey and Larry Doby. (BTW, Smith’s edge on Doby’s career length is more than what Doby lost to segregation.) Smith’s career length, OPS+ and WAR are just a hair under Duke Snider’s.
Smith’s a 7-time All-Star, 7-time MVP vote-getter, a Gold Glover. Everyone has their own standard for the Hall — but as for what the de facto Hall standard *is*, Smith seems to belong.
And so does Walker. 🙂
Hi, Ugh. Thanks for the feedback. We’ll be keeping this horse alive until Larry Walker’s in the Hall of Fame. That’s 317 voters to convince.
Sounds like there’s a lot more horse left to me.
In 597 games at Coors, Walker went .381/.462/.710 for an eye-popping 1.172 OPS. His career away from Coors was very good, but let’s have some perspective, please. And while we’re at it, take a look at Tulo’s career Home/Away splits.
Tulowitzki’s splits
Unassisted triple plays: 1 home, 0 away (he led off the bottom half of that inning and was hit by a pitch)
Cycles: 1 home, 0 away
Other players with both:
None
(George Henry Burns hit for the cycle in 1920, and three years later George Joseph Burns had an UTP)
In Coors:
Troy Tulowitzki: 481 games, .323/.397/.565.
Dante Bichette: 397 games, .358/.394/.641
Vinny Castilla: 490 games, .333/.380/.609
Andres Galarraga: 246 games, .333/.394/.631
Matt Holliday: 376 games, .361/.427/.656
Todd Helton: 1141 games, .345/.441/.607
Did I miss any of the usual suspects?
Ellis Burks: 248 games, .334/.407/.626
You know what none of those are: .381/.462/.710. None of those guys is within 20 points of AVG or OBP (only Helton is within 35 points in OBP), or 50 points in SLG. Walker’s numbers get adjusted just like everyone else who played there – Bichette went .331/.357/.509 in 161 games in 1998, and he got 7 Rbat. Larry Walker went .363/.445/.630 – and got 43 Rbat because his raw OPS was 200+ points higher than Bichette’s. Is Walker getting an unfair advantage? In 1997 he had a raw OPS 198 points higher than his teammate Galarraga – and had 38 more Rbat.
2000 Seattle Mariners – Edgar Martinez had a 1.002 OPS and Mike Cameron was at .803. Edgar was about 60 points above in OBP and about 140 above in SLG, so not quite the same split in OBP/SLG. Edgar – Rbat of 52. Cameron – Rbat of 9. The gap between Walker and Bichette 1998 isn’t as large as the gap between Edgar and Cameron, but it’s partially due to playing time.
1989 Blue Jays – Fred McGriff .924 OPS, Tony Fernandez .680. McGriff, 47 Rbat. Fernandez, -3 Rbat.
1987 Mets – Strawberry .981 OPS, Gary Carter .682. Strawberry, 50 Rbat, Carter, -13 Rbat. But that’s a 300 point gap in OPS.
1979 Cardinals – Hernandez .930 OPS, Brock .739. Hernandez, 40 Rbat, Brock, -0 Rbat (Brock didn’t play quite as much as Hernandez, otherwise the gap might be larger as Brock seemed to be negative).
1949 Red Sox – Ted Williams 1.141 OPS, Stephens .930. Williams, 82 Rbat, Stephens, 31 Rbat. And these two were 18 PAs apart in playing time.
1933 Phillies – Klein is about 300 points ahead of Chick Fullis in raw OPS, and he has 61 more Rbat.
It seems like there’s a fairly consistent pattern for players who have raw OPS numbers up in the .900+ range and out perform their teammates by 200 or so points. It doesn’t look like Walker is getting any additional credit. Unless somehow Ted Williams is getting extra credit. And Hernandez, Strawberry, McGriff, and Edgar.
I don’t even care about Larry Walker – never voted for him in the COG. What I care about is interpreting the stats correctly, and people seem to have a visceral reaction to Walker’s numbers because they seem so out of whack. But his hitting numbers are getting the same adjustment as everyone else when looking at how he outperforms his teammates.
Our field adjustments are crude. They treat all parks with the same score to all players who played there. That’s why you see things like a neutral factor for Yankee stadium in some years even though it’s quite a pitchers park to a right handed bat and quite a hitters park to a left handed bat. You have to consider with Coors field in that era that the benefit was all for power hitters. You put Ben Revere in 1998 Coors Field and he’s going to hit maybe 3 home runs. Staggeringly high, but it’s not going to give him significantly better results. you put Barry Bonds there, well, he’ll do what he did: 30 HR’s in 396 AB’s (he got walked so much it actually lowered his OPS substantially).
Walker was the perfect type of hitter to benefit from Coors. He was also the prefect type of hitter to be pummeled by the outfield cavers of Chavez Ravine. Here’s his line there: .275/.365/.443/.808 mostly during those same years. Keeping in mind you’re at the offensive peak of baseball history, those are not HOF numbers unless you’re at a premium defensive position. That’s a knee-jerk reaction the other way though. Had all games be played in LA, the era would have looked very different.
You have to decide if you’re a right man for the job kind of guy or not. Should the Guy get value because he went to Colorado rather than LA? Clearly that worked out for him. He would have had a very productive career in LA and gotten a decent boost from a park adjustment but it wouldn’t have gotten him this attention. But true too is the argument that he was in Colorado and took advantage of it like nobody else did. Very few other guys could have done that. The value he brought to Colorado above a more typical outfielder was clearly comparable to what pretty much any other outfielder was giving over a long period of time.
If Colorado had traded Walker in ’95 for Tony Gwynn, they would have likely gotten a lot less value out of their outfielder over the next half a dozen seasons, even if you magically make up for the 7 year difference in age. Walker was the right fit for them and being the right fit helps both the player and the club be successful.
Glavine probably doesn’t sniff the hall of fame if he was traded from Atlanta to Colorado in 1993 let alone sail in on the first ballot. Post season and the triumverate make that smoother for him but a lot of it was being a finesse pitcher in a pitcher’s park. You can’t be nearly as successful with that strategy in a hitter’s park.
I guess I do have a little extra correction for Walker when I look at his Colorado years. I also have a little extra correction for anybody’s numbers during that era of baseball too. Between the two of them it makes Walker a great player but one below the line for me. I don’t ignore his Colorado numbers but I also don’t ignore the difficulty in correctly biasing extreme statistical outliers and give a free pass to HR hitters in the steroids era.
Great analysis, mosc. I’m curious where your line is for rightfielders. Would you put Reggie Jackson in? Dawson? Winfield?
Your point about the right guy in the right place is a great one, but what if Walker never played at Coors? Honoring your argument, I’ll knock his OPS+ and Rbat down a few points, from 141/420 to 135/375, but rather than .313/.400/.565, maybe he stays in Montreal and hits .290/.380/.525 for his career. His defense and baserunning are the same (minus a few baserunning opportunities, I suppose), so he comes in around 68 WAR, way above the established borderline. Is he a Hall of Famer now?
mosc, good post overall but you’ve got Glavine wrong. He DID pitch in a hitter’s park for most of his prime. Remember the Braves played in The Launching Pad until the 1997 season — Glavine had a 103.9 PPF through his age-30 year.
After that, Turner Field has sort of oscillated back and forth between a slight pitcher’s park and a slight hitter’s park, but not enough to definitively state either way. Glavine’s overall Braves PF is 102.1, excluding his brief swan song at age 42.
I can’t even picture the stadium before Turner’s field anymore. Wow. He was already 31 before he pitched there…
Brian, I’m not a big hall guy. I don’t include some of the more dubious inductions in calculating the bar. I think Jackson and Dawson were good choices and I think Winfield was slightly above the line though his support was stronger than you’d expect (like Glavine and Smoltz). I don’t think Walker would be a bad choice per say, but I’d rather have Raines or Trammel and I’m not sure Walker’s that better a case than Sheffield.
Any numbers 93-07 I discount. This particularly condemns Piazza, Bagwell, Walker, and Edgar Martinez let alone the guys with actual connections Bonds, Sosa, Palmero, McGuire, Ramirez and Sheffield. We already have HOFers who hit in that period and I’m sure Chipper and Jeter will soon follow so it’s not like it rules out these guys just that there needs to be a correction. I’m not sure how much Paul Molitor needed 93-98 to make the hall of fame but even cutting a few RBAT if you must he seems fine. Dawson and Winfield clear those years almost entirely and Henderson was above any bar lobbing off as many years as you want at the end of his career. Am I missing somebody? Biggio I guess, who seems to escape by having power be a small part of his value.
Point is there is a “Steroids Era” correction to consider with Walker as well. I do wonder if it was even possible to put up offensive numbers in coors at the height of offensive baseball and with steroids around that anybody would believe were historic at all.
I wouldn’t be so sure about Revere’s three home runs: Juan Pierre only hit one homer in Coors in 943 PA!
@9
“Our field adjustments are crude. They treat all parks with the same score to all players who played there. That’s why you see things like a neutral factor for Yankee stadium in some years even though it’s quite a pitchers park to a right handed bat and quite a hitters park to a left handed bat.”
Amen. I’ve been trying to make this point for years here!
@98,
For example, Yankee Stadium is usually treated as about neutral, or a slight pitcher’s park. But in reality, it _hurt_ right-handed pull hitters such as Joe DiMaggio, and helped left-handed pull hitters such as Babe Ruth, Bill Dickey, and Roger Maris.
Park factors often are not a ‘one size fits all’ adjustment.
The guy was a legitimate MVP candidate playing in Montreal. It’s not his fault the ’94 Expos didn’t get to play for the WS. You know, a year in which he had a 151 OPS+ while not playing any home games at Coors Field.
Walker’s career road splits: .278/.370/.495. That’s still a damned good player, especially when factoring in that he was a well-regarded defender (both by casual observers and his 94 career Rfield) and put up 40 baserunning runs in his career (including still-positive values at age 38).
But, there’s like 17 guys on the current ballot who should probably be in the HoF and Walker isn’t even the first Expos outfielder who ought to be elected… it’s probably going to be a long wait. But he should be there.
Walker is also 33rd in career WPA, which seems appropriate given his well-known affinity for the number 3.
I feel like one of the things I’ve often heard brought up about Walker is that his 1997 MVP was unmerited because of Coors. Here’s the H/R split for him in 1997:
.384/.460/.709/1.169
.346/.443/.733/1.176
The top one is home, in case you couldn’t tell. He was a machine that year, in Coors or out of it.
I get that some small-hall type people could not vote for Larry Walker. But really, there’s no denying that he had a great career and was a remarkably good player. I’d be more than happy to take him on my team, and it would be great to see him make the HOF.
That is one hell of a road line. Especially considering that unlike say Bonds, he didn’t get any road games in Coors! Can we have some historic context for that road OPS? Anybody know how that would rank?
The guy Walker most resembles has barely received a mention here—Chuck Klein. Walker at Coors and Klein at the Baker Bowl are barely distinguishable:
Games: K 581; W 597
Runs: K 550; W 555
Hits: K 931; W 814
2B: K 179; W 178
3B: K 29; W 31
HR: K 164; W 154
RBI: K 554; W 521
BA: K .395; W .381
OBP: K .448; W .462
SLG: K .705; W .710
Career H/R splits: Klein BA .354/ .286; OPS 1.028/ .817
Walker BA .348/ .278; OPS 1.068/ .865
Walker played longer and had no career decimating injury to drag his performance down prematurely. As a fielder, Klein was a diamond in the rough compared to Walker, and that plus the injury are the major differences between them.
Not that it’s important but Walker is one of 5 players who had an OPS+ of at least 120 in each of in his last 5 seasons (300 PA min. in each season).
Where’s that Like button!
Nice observation, nsb.
Except Chuck Klein played in an arguably more extreme park in the highest run-scoring environment in MLB history (slightly more than Walker’s era), and also in a non-integrated, 8-team league. And Walker’s home and road OPS both outperform what Klein did.
Neutralizing Walker’s stats to the 1934 Phillies:
.318 .405 .572 .977
Neutralizing Klein’s stats to the 1997 Rockies:
.337 .397 .569 .966
So yes, they were similar batters. I’ll grant it.
However, Walker did it in a much more difficult era. It is simply irrational to believe batting in 1930 against the same 40 white pitchers all season is equivalent in degree of difficulty to batting in 1998 against 100+ starters and relievers from all over the globe.
Oh, and Walker has 94 Rfield compared to -40 for Klein and has more Wins Above AVERAGE than Klein has above Replacement.
And Klein is in the Hall of Fame, so if Walker is at worst comparable and slightly better than Chuck Klein, then that’s just another reason to vote for him.
I agree that Klein is a great comp for Walker, as both were great hitters who played in great hitters’ parks in great hitters’ eras. Let’s take a look at them from a value standpoint:
OPS
Walker 141 Klein 137
Walker was a slightly better hitter than Klein, in both raw (.965 OPS to .922) and adjusted terms.
Rbat
Walker 420 Klein 340
For all his health issues (some of which may be attributable to that same Rocky Mountain air), Walker played more than Klein, so his slightly better rate stats beget 24% more offensive value. The season is 5% longer today, so I’m happy to shave that much off of Walker’s edge.
Rfield
Walker 94 Klein -40
I won’t pretend we can accurately compare fielders who played 60 years apart with modern fielding metrics, but Walker’s seven Gold Gloves back up the numbers. B-R suggests Walker was about 13 wins better with his glove. Whether that’s really 6 wins or 20, it’s most certainly an edge.
Rbaser
Walker 40 Klein -2
Larry Walker stole 230 bases. Why is this buried so deep in the case we use to evaluate him?
WAR
Walker 72.6 Klein 43.6
Make all the pro-Klein adjustments you want. He only played 154-game seasons. He didn’t have the same medicine and nutrition to help get him back on the field. Maybe Walker was more fit for Coors than Klein was for Baker. How far can you close this gap? 65-45? 60-50? Even so, as others have mentioned, Klein is in the Hall of Fame. How can a better hitter, better runner, and better fielder who played more baseball be stuck at 10 percent of the vote?
Well, but Klein wasn’t a great Hall choice in the first place, so “better than Klein” isn’t a sufficiently high bar to clear to be a HoF’er.
Agreed, but as Bryan stated – Walker was definitely better in all areas. Walker was considered a 5-tool player for a large chunk of his career.
If your closest hitting-only comp is in the HOF (weak choice or not), and you’re definitely better in all other areas, then you have a reasonable HOF case.
I think Walker’s baserunning is buried in the discussion of him because it doesn’t fit the narrative of the ignorant who believe Walker only has good numbers because he played at Coors. Walker is not Dante Bichette, or even Ellis Burks, who was a fine player in his own right.
A few comments:
1) Yeah, he was a young Al Kaline or Joe Morgan. He was also a young Roy White, or Wally Berger, or Andy Van Slyke or Nick Markakis.
Basically you’ve cherry picked the best of the best. Walker clearly was a very good young player but there are a lot more non-HOFers than HOFers with similar WAR at that age.
2) Not sure I get the Mantle comparison. Why not Mel Ott or Frank Robinson, both of whom are closer to Walker in WAR for ages 28-37, both were still active at age 37, both were primarily Right fielders, etc?
3) I’m getting several more recent players who beat Walker’s .908 OPS from ages 37-38 (most with more PAs): Palmiero, Ortiz, Edgar Martinez, Moises Alou, Galarraga, Frank Thomas, Stargell, Gwynn, Manny Ramirez.
Beyond that Walker was still clearly benefiting from his Home Park (.989 vs. .780) in 2005. Plus he was clearly being platooned (81.5% of PAs vs. righties vs. 72.9% for the team).
And again the Jeter comparison is a bit strange. Why not Kaline? Or Mize? Or Stargell?
4) As for comparing Walker to other Rockies (the post plus Artie Z), keep in mind that most of his Rockies career was pre-humidor. Also, as Bill James noted years ago, teams in extreme hitters parks tend to overrate the quality of their hitters. For the most part the Rockies simply haven’t had quality hitters. They’ve had players who looked like they were great hitters but really weren’t. (Bichete, Castilla, etc.)
Excellent points, David. I’ll admit to having done all my fishing in the Hall-of-Fame side of the pond. The basic adjusted numbers (WAR/OPS+/Hall Rating) consider Walker a player of that caliber so I looked for comps to back up that position.
As to the Mantle comparison, I wanted to be conservative with the Denver era of Walker’s career. Robinson was better during that time, so that comp wouldn’t have been fair. Ott, who was worth 48.6 WAR over that stretch, would have been a great comp, though like Mantle, he was done putting up quality seasons by 36. The other argument for using Mantle is that he was a well-rounded player- fast and agile, especially in his early years, while Ott and Robinson battled rightfield to a draw at best in their thirties. Robinson could run a little; Ott not so much. Walker, like Morgan, Mantle, and Jeter (if we’re feeling generous), was good at everything.
Lots of reasonable comps in your third point, though I went out of my way not to invoke PED conversations, and focused on Hall of Famers. Wagner matched his OPS almost precisely. Cobb was probably off the mark.
As to your fourth point, I don’t understand what the Rockies’ possible overrating of Walker has to do with the public’s overrating him? He’s the best hitter they’ve ever had, raw or adjusted. Whether they think he’s Babe Ruth or Yuniesky Betancourt, the numbers say he was better than Reggie Jackson.
Ott 48.7
Thanks for your reply Bryan! And my apologies if I came on too strong in my response. I get that you want to help Walker get elected to the Hall. It just seems to me that you’re overselling the case and in doing so could actually hurt his case as much as helping it.
As for my 4th point, I agree that Walker was the best hitter the Rockies have had (or perhaps neck and neck with Helton). The point I was trying to make is that the competition isn’t very strong because the Rockies haven’t done a good job of identifying who is a quality hitter. It wasn’t a comment directly about Walker – mostly about Walker vs. other Rockies.
Bryan,
You’ve thrown some names out there like Kaline, Jackson, Morgan, Clemente, Mantle, Foxx, and Stan Musial at different points of their careers. I imagine you realize that Walker wasn’t any one of these guys when his career was finished? We could probably do this exercise for just about any large Hall, borderline case and come up with a “sum total” less than its parts.
Just a little perspective: Dick Allen from age 22-25 is third (3rd) all-time in oWAR behind Cobb and Mantle. At age 30, his OPS+ of 199 is 2nd all-time amongst qualified batters and his OPS+ for his career (156) and all careers of over 7,000 PAs is highest amongst all retired, non-HoF’ers is 3rd behind Bonds and McGwire. If you place Allen on b-ref’s “scenario builder” with the 1999 Rockies, he breaks Ruth’s run scored record in 1964 and Hack Wilson’s RBI record in 1972. Dick Allen was a Hall of Fame talent. However, he is not a Hall of Famer. Neither is Larry Walker.
Sorry, I just don’t get it. Mea culpa……………..
Looking at Walker’s career road splits (.278/.370/.495), the comp I can’t ignore is Jeff Kent (.290/.353/.504). The two played in the same era (Walker 1989-2005; Kent 1992-2008), although Kent missed less time to injury (he had almost 900 more road PA). Walker had the higher road walk rate (11.6% to 7.8%) and an edge in road HR rate (1/20.7 AB, vs 1/21.7 AB), but slight edge to Kent in road BABIP (.312 to .301). In 77 games at Coors (345 PA), Kent’s slash line was .368/.436/.686. In fairness, these numbers don’t equal Walker’s Coors production (.381/.462/.710, in several-fold more PA), but they hint that other players might have exploited the thin Denver air to nearly the same extent that Walker did.
But Kent seems like a perfect example to show why Walker was a HoF player. Walker was better than Kent on the road, better than him in Coors. Also better at running and fielding. Kent is generally acknowledged as either a “large/very large hall” candidate for the HoF, and Walker is a step up from that. He seems to belong in the actual, pretty big HoF that exists now.
If not Kent, then how about Jim Edmonds?
Higher career Road OPS than Walker (.890 vs. .865). Similar OPS in Coors (1.149 vs. 1.172).
Gold glove CFer vs Gold Glove RFer.
Walker the better baserunner.
WAR gives Walker a huge edge. But I have a hard time seeing that. And if I were a GM, I’m definitely taking Edmonds since he plays a more important defensive position while providing similar offense.
Will we ever get an Edmonds for the Hall post?
Pro Larry Walker Hall of Enthusiasts:
Please go to his b-ref page and put Walker in the environment of the NL 1975 “neutral” park. He becomes a .286/.369/.516 hitter 27 HR 87 RBI 65 BB and roughly 280 TB every 162 games. Not bad, but a little over stated since he didn’t frequently play more than 150 games in a season. This “environment” is similar to Reggie Smith’s career environment that produced.287/.366/.489
Now, put Smith in an environment that is similar to Walker’s entire career environment: Namely, the 1993 Colorado Rockies. How about .318 .400 .541 with 29 HR 112 RBI 321 TB and 84 BB for Smith? And, Walker’s final line? .313 .400 .565 with 31 HR 107 RBI 318 TB 74 BB. Again, these stats are per 162 games.
You are deluding yourselves if you believe Larry Walker is a Hall of Famer. Unless, of course, you believe Reggie Smith is Cooperstown material. THAT, is an awful large Hall of Fame
Paul, you can find my personal Hall of Fame, along with those of several other HHS writers, here: http://www.hallofstats.com/consensus.
I’ve got by far the smallest Hall- smaller than the real one, in fact, and I’ve got Reggie Smith well above the borderline, as does everyone else. Walker tops Smith in OPS+, Batting Runs, Fielding Runs, Baserunning Runs, and WAR. If the Hall kicked out half its members, Smith would be a bit of a reach, but I would still support Walker’s induction.
Paul E, re: your last statement — that a Hall with Reggie Smith is “an awful large Hall.”
There are 23 actual HOF right fielders, using a threshold of 45% of games at that position. (Smith played 47% of his games in RF, 43% in CF.)
Bill James ranked Smith #20 among right fielders in the 2001 Historical Abstract. (He had Walker at #55, but that was without his last 5 seasons — almost one-third of his career, during which he raised all his career rates.)
JAWS ranks Smith 16th among RFs, and Walker 10th.
Hall of Stats ranks Smith 13th, Walker 7th among RFs.
You may not respect any of those methods. But at least you must grant that their advocating Smith and Walker does NOT lead to a large Hall of Fame.
Since you think that a Hall with Smith and Walker would be very large, will you list *your* HOF outfielders?
If you don’t have an actual list, maybe you’d say which of these 51 actual HOF outfielders who debuted since 1893 you would exclude:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/share.cgi?id=pPfPU
Whether the Hall is big, medium, or small, the standard is defined by who’s in and who’s out. Without your list, this debate is fruitless.
John:
If I have to ask, “Is John Doe a Hall of Famer?”, then he isn’t. Who is the best hitter the CoG passed on, so far? Allen? If this group believes Allen the inferior of Walker because, perhaps, the didn’t see Allen play and they’re depending on WAR to justify that belief, then so be it. I saw Walker play and at no time in his career did I believe I was watching a Hall of Famer. I don’t believe Walker to be better than Berkman, either. I don’t know if he was better than Helton when Helton was healthy. Also, you can cite all the fielding metrics in the world, but we”re talking RF, not SS or C.
As far as Rf, Ruth Aaron,Ott, Robinson, Kaline, Clemente, Jackson (put him in Coors), Winfield, Crawford (?), Sheffield, Gwynn off the top of my head. I would have liked Gwynn more as a .300/25HR guy in San Diego more than a singles hitter.
I would not be one of those BBWAA who fills in 10 names of guys when 2 earned it. For instance, Scott Rolen and Dick Allen? Hall of Fame talents, not Hall of Fame careers. Ditto, curt schilling. Smoltz-no. Sorry. Cooperstown is supposed to be a special place. Let’s keep it that way
Paul — OK, you’re an “eyeball” judge. So tell me this: Did you watch Tom Glavine pitch? Did he pass your eye test for the Hall?
If I judged Glavine by what I saw him throw, and not by his stats, there’s no way in hell he makes my Hall.
Glavine started 682 games and never struck out more than 12, which he did once. 104 different guys fanned 13+ during his career, and 44 did that twice.
He never threw a no-hitter; 43 different guys did that during his career. It took almost 550 starts for Glavine’s only one-hitter; 38 guys threw at least two of those during Glavine’s career.
His best Game Score was 92; 73 different pitchers topped that during his career.
Every HOF pitcher of the last 30 years had a 200-K seasons, and all but Maddux had three or more — except Glavine, with none.
Glavine never looked great to me. Never. He looked like the luckiest sonofagun ever born. Wouldn’t throw a strike in a tight spot; rarely challenged anyone.
But he won 305, and lost 203, with a good ERA. And since winning games is more important than looking great, I vote the stats, not the images.
P.S. You named 11 right fielders, which is just under half the actual HOF total. Shall we assume you think the Hall should be half the size it is now? And do you feel Cooperstown isn’t a special place now, since roughly half the guys enshrined don’t meet your standard?
John:
Re Glavine and Smoltz, I SAW them both pitch and, frankly, Glavine was going 20-10 while Smoltz was going 14-12. Just because Glavine didn’t throw as hard as Koufax and Smoltz threw as hard as Clemens, doesn’t mean Glavine was inferior. Game score is a tool (or toy) that has a power pitcher’s bias. Glavine wasn’t Jamie Moyer throwing 83 mph. And, he won. Maybe he “pitched to the score”? I don’t know. But, he was the superior “pitcher” to Smoltz and that’s based on results. If you want to tell me Smoltz was the superior “talent” who threw harder, fine. If you want to tell me Smoltz was the better post-season pitcher, fine. I just think 15-20 years of regular season results clearly indicate Glavine’s superiority.
Cooperstown is a place that honors individuals who play a team sport. Like Canton, it has many borderline cases that played for “winners’ and that bias is a real head scratcher. However, Cooperstown is a distraction, an amusement park for baseball fans to enjoy. Enjoy it.
I would consider myself a baseball fan who enjoyed the game for a long time. I, like those that vote for Cooperstown, often subjectively judge ball players. What you see on b-ref regarding “Hall Monitor”, etc.. at the bottom of a player page is an analysis of the results of highly subjective voting. The superior ballplayer to me is the guy who was the best player on the field, before the game even started. I generally judge a player by his peak, when he was his greatest, and compare that peak to his contemporaries. Kind of like the “real” (top of his game) Joe Louis wasn’t the guy who got his rear-end kicked by Rocky Marciano or Ali losing to Larry Holmes at 39 years of age….
I believe Rich Lederer did a great service to MLB when he campaigned for Blyleven’s induction. It is an absolute mystery to me how it took so long. However, the exclusion of Larry Walker from the Hall of Fame, to me, is no such enigma. That road slash of .280/.350/.485 (or in that vicinity), for the era in which he played, is not Hall of Fame material. Sorry. But, if you guys want to expound the virtues of this guy, feel free to do so ‘until the cows come home’. But, when you throw in rField or Base Runs, that (to me) is a bit of a stretch compared to the really fine-tuned, solid nature of hitting statistics
As far as RF’ers above, I imagine I could name more (..Paul Waner) but that was off the top of my head. I think Reggie Smith was a great talent, a guy with very close to Hall of Fame ability. As previously stated, it’s enough for me to know guys like Allen and Rolen were Hall of Fame “talents”. If their careers didn’t work out that way ( i.e. 2,400 games played in good health – Stargel and Beltre) and get them to Cooperstown, that’s OK too.
Paul, that is almost exactly the way I saw it during the Braves ’90s run. Glavine was the more dependable one, not Smoltz. Smoltz was a guy with talent who took a long time to find his best form.
I’m going to say something, and it might not be nice, but I really don’t care:
HHS has gone on and on and on about Larry Walker so much, I actually HATE him, through no fault of his own. Like, there are three or four articles a year solely about Larry Walker. I couldn’t possibly care less about him, and it’s the fault of this site.
I’m interested in this point of view, Mike, because it’s not the first time I’ve seen it here. Adam wrote about Walker and responsible park factoring almost two years ago. Around the same time, there was some heated discussion as we elected Walker in the Circle of Greats. If there was anything about him in the interceding 22 months- and it’s very possible that there was- I missed it.
After Walker’s vote total plummeted close to 10% this year, I vowed to commit the majority of my 2015 baseball writing to boosting his vote total, with the ultimate goal of getting him inducted. I’ve engaged several other writers, most of whom will use this forum, among others, to help me in this quest. If HHS’s readership is sick of Larry Walker talk after the first missive, I fear widespread burnout by the middle of the year.
Do others feel the same way? I don’t care if you hate Larry Walker, but do you feel like we’ve obsessed about him in these pages? Because the obsession is coming.
Larry Walker was also a switch hitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDazoAWUvH8
Bryan, I found only those two HHS posts centered on Walker. He has been discussed a lot in the COG ballots, getting elected on his 11th(?) try, which must be why Mike thinks there were many posts about Walker. But one can hardly complain about folks debating what interests them.
There might only be a couple of posts DIRECTLY about Walker, and it’s totally possible that my perception has overtaken reality, but reading through the COG voting threads was EXHAUSTING for those couple of months before he was elected, solely because of Walker. I know (at least, I think I know, but again, perception vs. realtiy) that there were other posts about ’90s hitters in which the comments focused strongly on him. I can speak only for myself, and it’s not like I’m going to stop coming to this excellent website, but I simply have no interest in ever hearing about Walker again.
@34,
All due respect, it seems to me that you’re missing the point of the discussions about Walker. To my reading, the heat of the discussion is not unlike the heat that produced all that (digital) ink we spilled on the case of Whitey Ford. The player as such is not the locus of interest as much as how WAR/adavanced stats rate the player. Walker is really interesting to talk about as a test case of the capabilities and/or limitations of the interpretive tools that most HHS readers put a lot of (or at least some) stock in.
For Ford, there was a huge disconnect (for many readers) between his WAR and his actual value. For Walker, you have the question of extreme hitter’s park, extreme Home/Road split, extreme hitter’s era in general. The question we always come back to is how successful is WAR at neutralizing those extremes. I don’t know what to say– I find that an interesting question.
For whatever its worth, I don’t think WAR does that great a job with Walker, overestimating his value considerably. Any time one says, well, if he had not gotten lucky and instead had ended up in a pitcher’s park he would have had significantly less WAR, you are de facto admitting that there are significant limits on WAR’s ability to neutralize.
Would Walker have had a really good career anywhere he played? Absolutely. But I wouldn’t put him in the Hall of Fame, much less in the COG. With more durability? That’s a different story. But when you combine his lack of durability and his massive LUCK in playing for the Rockies, I don’t think there’s that strong a case for him.
The goal of WAR is to measure how much value a player contributed to his team in a common currency called “wins”, in particular in “wins” compared to the number of “wins” a generic replacement level, minimum salary-type player would have produced in the same context.
No matter what kind of park a game is played in, the real common currency is fixed — there is only win available per game. Wins are therefore always a park-neutral currency in that sense.
What changes park to park is how many runs it takes to get a win. That measurement is the single key to WAR park adjustments. In higher scoring parks, it takes more runs to get that common currency win. A hitter who creates 100 runs in such a park is awarded fewer “wins” than if he created them in a lower-scoring park.
If an individual player happens to play in park where he is particularly valuable, compared to most other players, because of his handedness or power tendencies or whatever, that is not something that WAR is going to discount for, because it is value that is the very thing that WAR is counting. When Larry Walker creates 100 runs at Coors, and it takes 5 runs a game to win in Coors instead of 4 in the rest of the league, Walker’s 100 runs in Coors is discounted in the conversion to Wins. But to the extent Larry Walker creates 100 runs at Coors, and that is more than other guys would have created at Coors because Walker’s talents were uniquely tailored to Coors, then yes, Walker was “lucky” to have found a home well-tailored to his talents, but that is not something that it seems to me he should be dinged for — it merely reflects that a fortuitous match of park and player allowed the player to create a great deal of value. Not really that different than a player being “lucky” to find a hitting coach who gives him the right guidance or a manager with whose temperament he is sympatico.
@99/birtelcom,
Perfectly tenable position; what can I say, I just don’t agree with it. To me, the luck of finding a home park “well-tailored to [one’s] talents” is absolutely something I take into consideration when evaluating a player’s greatness.
Likewise, I take it into consideration the other way around. Building on the point made by mosc above (comment 9), I don’t see how it makes sense *not* to take into account how old Yankee stadium treated RH hitters compared to LH hitters. To me it is just a weird idea to conclude that had DiMaggio simply gotten lucky enough to play his home games in Fenway he would have been a greater player. No; he was the player he was, and the bad luck (so to speak, of course) that he had in playing his home games in the Stadium must be taken into consideration when evaluating his place on the all-time totem pole. And this is not something that WAR does because it bluntly looks at the total run-scoring environment of Yankee Stadium as opposed to the specifics of the place. (Not to turn this into a DiMaggio problem – I’m just using him as an example because he’s such a prominent, and to my mind, obvious one.)
Walker’s home OPS was 10.7% higher than his overall mark. Here are some HOFers in that vicinity:
Bobby Doerr, +12.8%
Chuck Klein, +11.5%
Hank Greenberg, +10.2%
Ron Santo, +9.6%
Roy Campanella, +9.5%
Wade Boggs, +8.9%
Earl Averill and Kirby Puckett, +8.6%
(Data from the B-R Split Finder, min. 3,000 known PAs at home.)
I agree with Bryan that you can’t just dismiss home stats for guys with big splits. Lots of guys got a big boost at home. Boggs on the road hit .302 with .093 ISO; at home, .354 with .137 ISO. Fenway helps everyone — but only Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx and Manny Ramirez had a higher OPS in Fenway than Boggs (min. 2,000 PAs). Boggs’s Fenway OPS was higher than David Ortiz, way higher than Jim Rice or Yaz. Whether by accident or by intent, Boggs used the park better than almost anyone.
And those games really happened; those wins and losses counted in the standings. We can’t ignore things just because of extreme park effects.
Coors Field may be the most extreme park in MLB history, but those are still real major-league games where one team has to outscore the other to win. In Walker’s 9 full years there, the Rockies played .572 ball at home, and he was the biggest single reason for that. His BA, OBP, SLG, Runs, RBI, Hits, HRs and 2Bs were all #1 in Coors Field for that period. His career BA, OBP and SLG are by far the best of anyone with 500 PAs there. By intent or by accident, he used the park better than anyone, and that helped win ballgames. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
Either you believe that measures like OPS+ and WAR can fairly neutralize ballpark effects, or you don’t. If you don’t, at least be consistent — start clamoring for the expulsion of guys like Greenberg and Campanella.
On the road, Hank hit .289 with 126 HRs, in a short career with no defensive value. In one MVP year, he hit .289 with 14 HRs on the road, .394 with 27 HRs at home. Detroit won that pennant, going 50-29 at home, 40-35 away. But if you’re tossing all big home-park edges, then that season means nothing to Greenberg’s HOF case.
Campanella’s 3 MVP years show a whopping 21% OPS edge at home (1.086-.900). Brooklyn played .711 at home in those years (akin to 115-47 in a modern schedule), .582 on the road. They won two of those pennants and missed the other in a playoff. Those years are absolutely crucial to Campy’s HOF case. But lots of guys had better road stats than Campy in those years. If he’s just a “good” player in those years — and if his great home stats leading to many home wins don’t count — then he’s no HOFer.
Consistency is all I ask. If you take a position, follow it to its logical conclusion. If you don’t think Walker was the hitter suggested by his 141 OPS+, or his 420 Rbat (11th-best during his career), just apply the same logic to every player with a big home advantage.
Another way to look at it:
BA .296; OBP .413; SLG .541.
Not bad stats, but this particular player had these career marks:
BA .344; OBP .482; SLG .634.
Using the “what if” approach—what if the player only played on the road, what if he played for a different team, what if he played his entire career, trapped in a “Groundhog Day”-like nightmare 1975 “neutral park”—you can make any player seem like almost anything not absolutely outrageous. The stats above are those of Ted Williams, first his performance in Comiskey Park, then his career performance. What if Ted played his whole career on the south side of Chicago?
The truth is that what we have is not a “what if” but the record of real men playing in real circumstances. Walker—or Klein or Doerr or Greenberg or Campanella—did the best they could with what they had, given the situations they faced. Walker’s record is what it is, and that’s pretty darn good.
nsb:
Per b-ref, amongst players with 5,000 PA’s, only Mantle and Williams attained career numbers of .296 .413 .541 in the AL from 1939-1960. There is one additional National Leaguer.
From 1988-2009, 30 major leaguers with at least 5,000 plate appearances attained the equivalent of Walker’s road slash of .278/.370/.495 But, then again, we’re talking about the greatest hitters’ era of the last 75 years
But, then again, Williams and Mantle were great hitters 🙁
nsb,
Sorry for the erroneous info. Walker played from 1989-2005 and the list “reduces” to 26 players of his road ilk with the shorter time span.
I hope this helps
I think this is a tremendous thread. Won’t at all get tired or sick about hearing Walker’s name, or reading the comments about his merit.
I am a “small Hall” guy. If I were to eliminate the Hall completely, and start over from scratch, I may not have 100 players in it. I most definitely would have less then 1% of all the players who ever played (which currently sits at 18,408).
Using this method, I would not include Walker, for the simple reason of career length. Well that really isn’t right, more like how many years he just missed time. Bill James wrote a great piece years ago about Norm Cash, and you kind of can use Walker as a comparison. James wrote that Cash (and I am going by memory) “would miss 20-30 games a year due to various injuries, which kept his seasonal at bat totals down, along with the fact he walked a lot”. You take the air out of his numbers, BUT ADD, lets say another 1000 PA’s, you have a very good candidate. Imagine what his credentials would be if he had those 1000 PA’s with the Coors Factor added. We would be talking close to “Inner Circle”. Now I am not saying he should be an iron man and play 155 games a year, but too many times he was in the 120’s-130’s, which takes some luster off the total package.
If this thread is about whether Larry Walker should or will make the Hall of Fame, we have to start looking past his WAR, his OPS+, and Coors Field, because that isn’t the whole story. A big reason why Walker hasn’t received much support for the Hall and likely won’t is because of his poor durability and short career.
Walker has 8000 PAs for his career. Looking at the players from the last 50 years of baseball, here are the position players who have been elected via the BBWAAA route with 8000 or fewer PAs:
-Kirby Puckett
That’s it (unless I missed someone). Walker was a better player than Puckett, no argument there. But the BBWAA has sent a strong message over the years that you need to play longer than Larry Walker did if you’re going to get voted in by the writers. Heck, 4 of the 5 catchers elected since 1975 (Fisk, Berra, Bench, Yogi) had more PAs in their careers than Walker did. Campy is the only exception there.
Voters don’t like the fact that Walker missed 30 or 40 games, on average, over the length of his career. Again, is there a BBWAA-elected Hall member who played in the last 50 years who was less durable than that? I can find one guy: Barry Larkin, who averaged 119 games per full season, including the strike years. Larry Walker averaged 123, 125 excluding 1994-5. Even the catchers saw more action than that.
I followed the Hall votes as they trickled in this year more closely than I ever have, and a common refrain I heard from the voters about Walker was, “Great player, just didn’t play long enough.” They have a point.
If there are going to be more Larry Walker threads coming to HHS, I would love to hear from a pro-Walker author about his durability issues and have it addressed with some honesty. Only focusing on his rate stats isn’t seeing the whole picture. And comparing him to guys like Musial, Mantle, Morgan, and Cobb isn’t going to convert anyone to that side — it’s just going to create more anti-Walker zealots.
bstar @40 – “should or will” in your first sentence neatly hits the point most posts seem to glide over – they’re two different things and always will be. The writers, being writers, have a “story” about each candidate – part of Walker’s story really is that he had poor durability. But in fact he averaged about the same number of games per season over his career as his contemporaries Barry Larkin (as you point out) and Tony Gwynn., who didn’t have durability stories associated with them. True, those players had 19 or 20 year careers, vs Walkers 17. Duke Snider was elected by the BBWAAA and has a “short ” 16 year career,with about 8200 PA’s (and 10% fewer batting runs than Walker)
Logically, were we to consider solely hitting then it is harder to produce 440 adjusted batting runs over a 17 year career than a 20 year career (Walker vs Gwynn) – you have to be a better hitter to do it , (particularly if you are not “durable” ).
I am convinced you are right that the BBWAAA “will” not elect Walker. Whether they “should” not, I’m kind of on the fence – he was better than some guys who are in, but I’d like to see Lou Whitaker elected first, and that’s not gonna happen…
bstar, Walker’s durability is absolutely relevant. But I would like to address a tangential aspect of your comment — the distinction between BBWAA selections and those of the Veterans Committees.
The distinction has general relevance in a HOF discussion, in that most of us would endorse more of the writers’ decisions than the others. But you seem to imply that there *should* be different standards for the two voting bodies — i.e., that Walker should be left to the VC, because they have been more inclined to honor shorter careers. I disagree with that.
When I look at an individual’s path to the Hall, the only reason I care who elected him is for the narrative. The fact that Ron Santo was chosen by the VC does not affect my own judgment of his worthiness. If it were shown that Santo somehow represented a type of player that, in the past, tended more to VC selection than BBWAA, that would mean nothing to me in terms of the next Santo-type player to reach the BBWAA ballot.
And why is the “last 50 years” angle relevant to you? Here are some selections before that cutoff:
— Hank Greenberg, 6,097 PAs (writers). He missed almost 4 years in the war, but credit for that wouldn’t take him far past Walker’s total.
— Ralph Kiner, 6,256 PAs (writers). He was in the service before reaching MLB at 23, but I can’t see adding more than 2 years to his tab, since his minor-league career was not impressive.
— Joe Gordon, 6,537 PAs (noncontroversial VC choice). Credit for 2 wartime years leaves him short of 8,000.
— Home Run Baker, 6,666 PAs (noncontroversial VC choice). Sat out 2 years for personal reasons, but c’est la vie — it’s a short career no matter how you parse it.
— Lou Boudreau, 7,024 PAs (writers). Lou played through the war, with 2 of his best years in that time.
— Bill Terry, 7,108 PAs (writers). Got a late start, only 10 full-time years.
— Arky Vaughan, 7,772 PAs (noncontroversial VC choice). Sat out 3 years for personal reasons.
— Joe Medwick, 8,143 PAs (writers). Played through the war. Last full-time year at age 33. 1% more PAs than Walker.
— Duke Snikder, 8,237 PAs (writers). 2.6% more PAs than Walker.
So, do the more recent results — e.g., only Puckett elected with less than 8,000 PAs — reflect a true consensus of the BBWAA, or is it just coincidence? And even if it is a consensus, is it a fair one?
Walker’s playing time absolutely should be part of the debate. But let’s keep it in full historical context.
John, three reasons I stopped at 50 years. One, I didn’t want the truncated careers of players who missed years to WWII to cloud the study. When I ran across Lou Boudreau, I stopped. Pretending like a guy with 7000 PA actually has a chance to make the Hall via the BBWAA these days barring unusual circumstances is wrong/misleading. I was trying to assess his chances with the BBWAA, and they are slim.
Also, I wanted to stick to the 162-game era because later in the post I was using games played per year and thought it would be best to look at the players, like Walker, who only played under that schedule length for their entire career. Third, I wanted to best assess Walker’s chances and I don’t necessarily think the careers of players who played 100 years ago are that relevant to predicting how Larry Walker is going to do from here on out. I stuck to more modern players to better gauge his chances. Simple.
RE: is Puckett only being elected a coincidence? No, I think 50 years is enough to say the BBWAA definitely prefers that modern players play longer than Walker did. That is hardly a controversial statement. Or you could look at the careers of Bobby Grich (8200 PA) and Reggie Smith (8050 PA) and get a pretty good idea there. And Walker’s only got himself to blame — he voluntarily hung it up with gas left in the tank a la Mr. Mussina. I find it hard to cry tears for players like that, maybe you are different.
Okay, I’m a Walker-for-the-Hall guy. Here’s some honesty.
There’s a reason we use “replacement” as the thing to which we compare players. If you have Larry Walker on your team, you absolutely must have a backup outfielder who plays regularly. You would probably have a fourth outfielder on the roster anyway, but that doesn’t really matter right now.
Anyway, whenever you’re looking at Walker, from a GM perspective, let’s say, you have to ask yourself, “would I want Larry Walker+Replacement OF, or someone else?” I think it’s a perfectly reasonable response to say that, even though Walker will play 30 games fewer than someone else, his production in the other 130, plus the replacement player brought in, would add up to more than a different player – say a Tony Gwynn. I don’t think that’s crazy at all.
The other relevant person to bring up in this discussion, I think, is Willie Stargell. Stargell barely played as a rookie (10 G), and then didn’t play much his final three years (67, 38, and 74 G). In between, he played 17 seasons – just like Walker. In those 17 seasons, he had 8611 PA and a 149 OPS+. Walker, in HIS 17 seasons, had 8030 PAs (down significantly) and a 141 OPS+ (similar), while playing much better defense and as a better baserunner. And if you ignore Walker’s rookie season of only 20 games played, he averaged 123 games played – not a lot. Stargell (even over just his 17 most-played seasons) averaged 128, which is pretty much the same thing. Is there anyone here who thinks that Willie Stargell is an undeserving Hall of Famer? Larry Walker is THE SAME EXACT PLAYER, only, if anything, better. I don’t get it.
I agree with the concept completely.
Certainly a player who gives you 7 WAR / 150 games is more valuable than someone who plays 125 games at 6 WAR – because the replacement may or may not make up the difference.
But on the other hand, you DO have other guys on the roster to play RF. And most ballplayers will likely play better if they get two chances per week rather than one.
And the flip side is that most players over 30 would likely agree that they would play better at 120 games than 150.
And isn’t the ultimate goal to be playing your best ball in October? All that in play, if I’m running a team I take 120 games of Larry Walker and build a deep roster around him.
I’m going to quibble a little:
I don’t think Walker actually played 30 fewer games a season than the other guys, 1) because he often played more that 130 games; 2) because most of the other guys weren’t racking up 160 games themselves. Another point on this subject: In 1934 Chuck Klein, the Walker doppelganger, hurt his leg on May 30, 1934, but for numerous reasons kept going despite the injury and didn’t become inactive until August, with the result that he was never the same player afterwards. The modern perspective is far better: don’t try to milk the investment, nurture it; don’t give into pride. Walker’s production while he was playing was probably enhanced by his time on the DL. George Brett’s big season—the one he’s famous for, the MVP year—117 games played, 515 PAs.
I won’t say the durability issue isn’t there, but I think it’s something only slightly larger than a tempest in a teapot.
Yes. In Walker’s 14 year peak (ages 23-36), he averaged 128 games.
His age 29 and 33 seasons were cut in half with injury.
Throw those out and remove a healthy but shortened 1994 and he averaged 138 games over his 11 full peak seasons.
So he’s what, 10 games more a year short of there being no issue.
________
And that injury at age 29 was a broken collarbone, suffered crashing into a wall as a centerfielder.
Sure, Walker suffered more injuries than other players.
He was also a rarely gifted and intense athlete who did things other guys couldn’t. Who in history has played with that kind of intensity and maintained a spot in the lineup 150 days X 20 years?
Mays, Cobb, Rose… the list is short.
Actually, pro-rate 1994 and 1995 to a 162 game schedule, and give him credit for the pace he was on, and he plays 150 and 147 games in those years.
That bumps his average up to 140 games per year, after removing and acknowledging the two half years lost to injury.
At this point we are reaching to diminish his narrative, when we could be celebrating just how well he played despite the injuries.
Voom,
Between the ages of 23-36, Walker played in 1,786 games – 189th all-time, including his contemporaries who shared vacation time in 1994-95. For that 14 year period, age 23-36, a mere 13 players averaged 150 games played (2,100 total). However, these 13 include Jeff Bagwell, Eddie Murray, and Rafael Palmeiro
Right, since Troy Tulowitzki missing 40 games a year is a minor matter blown completely out of proportion. Every half-serious Rockies fan, even the kids, are well aware of how often Tulo isn’t in the lineup.
typo:
1995 would be pro-rated to 137, not 147
(this is what happens when I wake up at 3 am thinking about larry walker)
no, wait… not a typo.
147 is correct.
(this is what happens when i try to do math while my 3-year old demands that i be a Seal puppet)
I imagine this issue of durability will affect Troy Tulowitzki down the line as well.
Through their first nine seasons:
Walker: 4220 PA, 36.8 WAR
Tulo: 4064 PA, 37.6 WAR
Given Walker’s treatment by the BBWAAA, that’s not particularly auspicious comparison.
Ralph Kiner says hi.
Let’s be clear about the size of the durability issue – from his age 30 season until his retirement , Larry Walker played in an average of 122 games per season — HOF guys near him in rbat ; AL Ksline 124 games/yr after age 30, Wille Stargell 110 , Rod Carew 130, Tony Gwynn 127, Of this group, only Stargell hung on in a part time role past 40 – if you ignore his last 3 seasons his average goes up to 125 games/yr. All of these seasons were 162 game seasons. Walker had a short career, stemming from a latish start, a strike and a major injury in his prime , plus retiring with gas left in the tank. The short career is absolutely relevant to his HOF case – which itself is irrelevant ’cause he’s not gonna get elected; but to call him not durable is harsh – 125-130 games per year is pretty normal after 30. , and the HOF has guys who played less – Cepeda, Medwick, Hack Wilson at just a glance and probably a few more.
Stargell had an easily identified and easily explained peak, plus there was less doubt about his value, because unless Walker, Stargell didn’t play in an extreme hitter’s park.
Also, Stargell had fewer of those ugly injury-shortened years that Walker had in 1996, 2000, and 2004. Stargell did miss a fair number of games, but fewer than Walker during their peaks.
Lawrence; perhaps I wasn’t as clear as I should have been – I picked a range of guys in the HOF – some better than Larry ( Kaline) some worse (Stargell) and some about as good (Gwynn, Carew) and showed they played about as much after their youth – nobody is immune from injury, but to say that a player lacks durability implies more ; he’s missing a few games here , a few games there, not reliably in the lineup. Baseball is hard to play a a top level , the punishment to the body is cumulative and after 30 , missing 30 games a year is far from uncommon. Stargell never played more than 130 games after his age 34 season, and played 126 in his MVP year (walker played 153 in his) My point was not question Willie , who was a fine player , but to point out how common it is to miss 30-40 games a year in the second half of a career, even among great players that the manager would obviously write on the lineup card if he could.
To bstar @ #40, in response to “Only focusing on his rate stats isn’t seeing the whole picture.” This is why I avoided OPS+ when looking for adjusted comps. Rbat is a counting stat, as are Rfield, Rbaser, and WAR. Every one of these numbers is reduced by Walker’s durability issues. He was so productive when he was on the field that he could miss 20 games in a season and still put up 49 Rbat (2001) or miss 32 and still put up 43 Rbat (1998).
A close look at Walker’s numbers suggests that playing hurt depressed his rate stats as well. His OPS+ in the four seasons when he played 140+ games: 141, 178, 160, 121. When he played fewer than 100 games: 116, 110, 154.
I don’t see durability as a post-WAR adjustment like quality of competition or off-field issues. It’s baked into the numbers we should be paying attention to. If anything, Walker’s 150 Hall Rating is more impressive because it only took him 8,000 PA (and 15,000 defensive innings).
Walker is having trouble with the BBWAA because of the combined effect of his lower games played and the diverse nature of his talent.
Among all players who played at least half their games in right field, Walker is 8th all-time in Rfield and third all-time in Rbase (baserunning). He’s behind only Ichiro and Aaron, and just ahead of Bobby Bonds, amng Rfers in Rbase. Walker is 9th among right-fielders in Rbat, and 61st among all players. If he had been an average fielder and base runner, while concentrating all that above-average talent into his hitting, his batting numbers would have been so eye-popping (top 30 all-time in Rbat, despite the low number of PAs, with the associated raw hitting numbers that go along with that), I suspect he would have been irresistible to the BBWAA.
says it all
Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR
Home 986 911 3996 3429 789 1193 268 39 215
Away 1002 922 4034 3478 566 967 203 23 168
Split RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
Home 747 121 34 444 546 .348 .431 .637 1.068
Away 564 109 42 469 685 .278 .370 .495 .865
Walker away: .278/.370/.495/.865
Griffey Jr away: .272/.355/.505/.860
If it were as simple as all that then we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
At the end of the day, none of this matters. Walker’s NOT getting into the HOF any time soon. He’s certainly not getting in via the BBWAA and his VC chances are small as well.
First the BBWAA. Walker’s been on the ballot for 5 years and only has 5 years left. He’s averaged 17.4% of the vote with a range of 10.2% to 22.9%. There’s just no way that voters are going to change their minds that quickly.
And look at what just happened…Bryan presented a decent analysis and it’s been widely rejected by an audience that’s fairly stats savvy. The BBWAA voters are going to be even less receptive to these arguments, if they even see them.
As for the VC, forget about it. The VC is completely broken. Joe Posanski just did an article showing how, under current rules, it’s almost mathematically impossible for anyone to get elected. Maybe someday the rules will be changed but until then the backlog will continue to grow. And the VC isn’t at all advanced stats savvy…they’re going to look at Walker and wonder how he’s different than Jim Edmonds, or Ellis Burks, or Andres Galarraga, or Luis Gonzalez, etc.
I suppose Walker might make it someday but that day is likely 20-40 years in the future.
Paul @52 — Maybe I’m misunderstanding you. You said Glavine was superior to Smoltz “based on results.” That’s my point exactly — that we should judge players by recorded results, and not by how impressive they look while we’re watching.
So I’m puzzled. Why did you bring your gut sense about Larry Walker into the debate — “at no time in his career did I believe I was watching a Hall of Famer” — rather than judge by results alone?
I think there are several great players about whom most people didn’t believe they were watching a HOFer. Eyeball judgment is subject to large biases. A few spectacular plays witnessed live make a stronger impression than years of consistently making more plays than average. Narrow areas of greatness are much easier to see than a broad spectrum of goodness. That’s just human nature.
Extreme case: Dave Kingman and Dick Stuart were tremendous home-run hitters, which got them noticed, even though the rest of their game was negatives. Dozens of contemporaries were better baseball players — did more to win games — but were never All-Stars or MVP candidates, because many voters used the eye test.
We all use the eye test while enjoying the game. I would love watching Juan Lagares play center field, no matter what the stats said. But we don’t have to use the eye test in judging careers after the fact. I don’t think it helps choose the best players.
john,
we trust the eye test because we saw gary pettis play a great cf over 500 games. Yeah, Lagares can go get it, but he better figure out how to hit, sooner or later. But, by the eye test we know Lagares can play cf even after 200games. The eye test is tried over time, not merely post season trumpets blaring. I saw Devon White look like MickeyMantle in the 1993 ws. But,thanks to the true, regular season eye test we know White was a free swinger who did not take a walk, had moderate power,and was a .270 hitter who could play cf as well as his contemporaries.
Regarding Glavine, I saw him win by finessing batters. I saw Smoltz struggle, at the same time, with his “power” reportoire. Huge edge to Glavine.
As I posted, Walker did not appear to me while he played in the NL for all those years to be the equal of many great players I had seenin my lifetime. The fact that 26 other players during the course of his career equaled his lifetime road slash lines further convinces me of his lack of superiority as a hitter. THAT, is the results. I don’t believe the Rfield numbers to be as exact as most batting stats and I thoroughly mistrust whatever metrics they’re trying to adjust for Coors field. That place is theequivalent of a cow pasture while playing with balls filled with helium. Does he have the highest Rbaser of any 75% base stealer of his era?
1985-2010
Rbaser
75 percent+ steal rate:
101.8 .. Rickey
80.2 … Larkin
78.5 … Lofton
76.0 … Raines
75.0 … Coleman
74.1 … Damon
57.0 … Jeter
56.8 … Beltran
56.2 … Molitor
…
40.0 … in 30th place, Walker
_________
Among outfielders with at least 300 home runs, his 40.0 is 2nd to the 43.9 of Barry Lamar
voom
obviously, he is now behind carlos ivan beltran as well
More on Larry Walker in a baseball vs. politics perspective: Some of you know I’m a politics nut and write a political blog. So, friends, we actually have a test case of what’s more important, politics or baseball. George Will has written an ode to Bud Selig in the Washington Post, which he posted at 7:23 PM January 28th. Dana Milbank, also in WAPO, posted a piece on the Loretta Lynch confirmation hearings at 5:49 PM January 28. As of this moment, Will’s piece has 11 (yes, 11) comments. Milbank’s has 515, and it’s growing by the minute. We here, in our happy little community, have 69 just on Larry Walker, and can break 200 on a COG posting. BTW, believe me, it’s nicer here as well.
Mike L,
Let’s mix the two and, dare we, “go there”. A former girlfriend’s parents insisted LBJ was a great president because of the civil rights initiatives he helped nurture along. A few friends here insist Larry Walker was a great player in the heart of baseball’s greatest offensive era of the last 75 years.
Civil Rights? Could not Kennedy, Johnson, or Humphrey all got it done?
“Steroids Era”? Did not 26 major leaguers of the period 1989-2005 attain 5,000 plate appearances and match or exceed Larry Walker’s .278/.370/.495 road slash line?
On another note, I saw (briefly) Bud Selig talking to Charlie Rose about the utmost importance of the “integrity of the game”. Give me a #^@&!%* break!
Larry Walker, 8030 PA
All-Time, RightFielders (50 percent+)
7500-8500 PA
WAR:
72.6 … Larry
57.7 … Bonds Sr.
52.8 … Jack Clark
44.6 … Rocky Cola Vito
42.7 … Dixie Walker
38.8 … Paul O’Neill
38.5 … Magglio Ordonez
34.5 … Shawn Green
33.1 … Wally Moses
________
All Players, 7500-8500 (since 1901):
89.8 … Nap Lajoie (107.4)
78.2 … Joe DiMaggio
72.9 … Arky V
72.6 … The Controversial Booger
70.9 … Bobby Grich
66.5 … The Duke
64.5 … Reggie Smith (.44 RF)
62.8 … Ken Boyer
62.0 … 70 Home Runs
61.4 … Sal Bando
60.3 … Jim Edmonds
Paul E: Walker’s away slash is not some smoking gun (to further mix political metaphors). Twenty-five players bettered Ernie Banks’ away OPS over his career too (min 3000 away PAs). It’s reductive to pretend that one split is all that matters.
RJ
I’m not pretending that one split is all that matters. I just believe the Coors environment to be so out of the norm that I have to reduce Walker (and Helton, Castilla, and any other Coors lifer) to his road stats as a realistic way of interpreting his accomplishments and his talent. If we put Bobby Bonds in the environment of the 1993 Colorado Rockies (extremely close to the runs/game environment of Walker’s career) he scores 626 runs from 1970-1973! That’s 156 runs/year and there isn’t much deviation amongst those four seasons.
Regarding Banks (and Santo, Williams, Sandberg), it is the same story. Perhaps these parks (Fenway included) are too extreme? Perhaps these legends should be viewed with less awe?
On the road, Dick Allen hit .290/.372/.519. For the period 1963-1977 One guy, Henry Aaron matched him. That’s it. Maybe that’s reductive, too? Or, perhaps I should start writing articles touting him for Cooperstown.
It’s not realistic to assume road statistics are a “true” measure of a hitter. Most hitters hit better at home. Walker hit better at home in Montreal. He hit better at home in St Louis.
I’m all for attempting to weight Walker’s Colorado numbers appropriately, but I can’t get behind any argument that pretends a third of his career didn’t happen.
RJ:
The magnitude of the error you think Paul is making in not adjusting Walker’s road numbers slightly upward (to correct for the PF of Rockie road games being under 100) is dwarfed by the magnitude of the error we feel YOU are making by not adjusting his numbers at all.
And please stop saying that Paul or anyone else is suggesting that is the only split that matters. By not bringing up any other split data, he is effectively saying that is the only split that matters enough to affect our overall assessment of Walker. Those are two different things.
Tom Tango once estimated Walker’s OPS+ to be off by 9 points, and he used a similar method to what Paul is doing. And he didn’t adjust Walker’s road numbers up any, likely because it wouldn’t make as big of a difference as you think. What is 9 points of OPS+ worth for an 8000-PA career? It is around 80 or 90 runs. That is definitely enough to change our opinion of Walker.
bstar, is that Tango study available online?
RJ – Here’s a link to the Tango study. (note he says 65 runs/6.5 WAR).
http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/comments/is-larry-walker-being-overly-adjusted-because-of-coors
But right off there’s a problem. Tango starts off by saying:
“If I did this right, you can breakdown Larry Walker’s OPS as being close to .900 away from Coors, on 5529 PA away from Coors.”
Oddly, no one bothered to check his math. And it turns out he didn’t do it right. Walker’s OPS outside of Coors isn’t .900, it’s about .870.
I then went through the same process Tango did, identifying the 4 players just above and just below .870 OPS (born between 1962-71, minimum 5,000 PAs). That group is Klesko, Canseco, Tartabull, Olerud, Burks, Sosa, Justica, and Wlll Clark.
The average OPS+ for that group is 130, 2 points lower than what Tango calculated (it probably should be even lower but Will Clark is a bit of an outlier – his 137 OPS is higher even than anyone in Tango’s groupings).
So if 9 points of OPS+ is worth about 65 runs over Walker’s PA, then 11 points would be worth about 80 runs or about 8.0 WAR.
And note that Tango applies his WAR reduction to BR WAR which just so happens to give Walker a lot more WAR than either Fangraphs or Baseball Prospectus.
David, to prove I wasn’t just making numbers up, here’s where I got the 80-90 runs.
I thought Tango has said that 10 points of OPS+ for a full season is worth about 8 runs. Keeping it simple, 9 points per season would be about 7 runs. Walker played about 12 seasons worth of games (8000/650), so 12 x 7 = 84 runs.
I don’t know where I’m off on that, actually.
bstar @92 — How do you find that Paul is *not* saying that Walker’s road stats are all that matters?
That’s just what he said @82: “I just believe the Coors environment to be so out of the norm that I have to reduce Walker (and Helton, Castilla, and any other Coors lifer) to his road stats as a realistic way of interpreting his accomplishments and his talent.”
That seems unambiguous to me. And it seems consistent with other things he’s said here.
I respect the opposing opinion on Walker, and I’ve given up trying to persuade anyone in this debate. But let’s allow each one’s position to stand as it was stated.
No worries Bstar, I was simply quoting Tango. I personally have no idea how to translate OPS+ into Rbat or WAR, particularly since it’s not one of the inputs into how they’re calculated.
Here is also exactly what he said in comment 82:
“I’m not pretending that one split is all that matters.”
What is it you’re after here? It seems like you’re the one not letting his words stand on their own.
Every time Tom Tango gets mentioned here a joke I once heard comes to mind:
A guy is standing in line at the pearly gates waiting to be checked in by St. Peter. The line is long and the going is slow. He finally reaches the portal when someone jumps the line, a man wearing a white medical coat with a stethoscope hanging from his neck. He rushes past with barely a wave to St. Pete and disappears into the clouds beyond. The guy at the gate is, as they say in France, nonplussed. He sputters, “Hey. That guy just busted through! I thought all of us were supposed to be equal up here. How come physicians get a pass?”
“Oh, calm down, fellow,” says St. Peter, “it’s nothing to worry you. That wasn’t a poor sinner. Sometimes God just likes to pretend he’s a doctor.”
Is this worth submitting? I doubt it.
bstar @105 — Apologies for using you as a surrogate foil. I’ll bow out of this thread … and save my ammo for the coming rounds. 🙂
nsb: please explain to me why it is perfectly fine for you to frequently reference the work of Bill James but not kosher for me to reference the work of another sabermetric pioneer, one whose fingerprints are all over both popular versions of the WAR framework.
And, for the record, Mr. James doesn’t think Larry Walker is a Hall of Famer.
And isn’t “let’s all hold hands and trust what WAR says” an odd position to take for a guy who’s spent the last several years driving home the point that Whitey Ford’s WAR is inaccurate and a poor representation of his career? How deliciously ironic.
bstar:
1) I apologize for being snarky. But, honestly, I mainly just wanted to tell that joke. As for referencing Tom Tango, Bill James, or anyone else, I think it’s an open field. In my first comment on this site I referenced John Stuart Mill, as I recall, with a lot of head scratching as a result. An inauspicious beginning.
2) I agree with maybe 85% of what James has said in the 2 Historical Baseball Abstracts, and I suspect I would agree with about 85% of what Tango has said, although I don’t follow him. What I have read of his stuff is fairly reasonable most of the time. James, however, to me and many others, not only has the gift of insight but a way with words that makes him memorable for citation. On the Larry Walker-HOF question, I have no difficulty seeing differing points of view, especially since I don’t have strong feelings about the Hall as a viable place of enshrinement, or rather, I think the election process is such a mess that it’s become irrelevant for current and future candidates. I basically agree with John Autin concerning how to evaluate Walker, however, so I do view Walker more favorably than his critics.
3) As for your final point, that I ascribe to the position “let’s all hold hands, etc.”—I plead not guilty in the extreme. I’ve not done any thinking about Walker’s WAR at all, having been sort of hung up on the home-road disparity thing. In the back of my mind, in fact, I’ve had vague intimations that, like Ford, Walker might be someone whose performance doesn’t match up well with advanced stats.
Again, I apologize for being obnoxious.
No worries, nsb. I apologize also for the obvious snark.
Paul E:
You keep harping on Walker’s away stats, fine, but you seem unaware that his away stats for sixty percent of his career have no visits to Coors to beef them up, whereas, for many of the magic 26 you seem to like so much, visits to Coors were part of the package. Also, I think the 5000 plate appearance level could use some honing for argumentative and comparative purposes. How about narrowing the range to between 7000 and 9000 and then name the names so the statistically challenged among us such as myself have an idea of who it is you have in mind.
I don’t know how old you are, by the way, but to someone who lived through the 1960s, your comment that JFK or HHH could have engineered the Civil Rights Act seems incredibly naive. Kennedy was getting no place with such legislation—his presidency, in fact, is nearly devoid of legislative accomplishment; and the image of Hubert Humphrey twisting arms and making deals is downright hilarious.
Indeed. LBJ’s ability to participate in the legislative process and even facilitate legislation from the executive branch was unparalleled before or since.
RJ, NSB, etc.
A few points of Walker’s road slash and Paul E.’s analysis:
1) Yesterday, or maybe the day before, I had independently run the exact same analysis. My results differ a bit however. I have him tied for 30th with John Olerud (not sure why I have more than Paul). And if you drop the criteria down to .850 then there are 40 names on the list.
2) Yeah it strips out a lot of Walker’s Coors visits but doesn’t do the same for other players. That’s a very small effect at best. Olerud, for example, only had 75 career PAs at Coors, less than 1% of his total.
3) 5,000 PA is a perfectly fine criteria. 1989-2005 were the exact years of Walker’s career but very few players are going to have those exact same years.
4) I don’t think Paul’s saying that it’s a smoking gun, But it is illustrative of the type of hitter he was.
Play Index / stat question:
I’ve been having difficulty looking up Walker’s home tOPS+ in Montreal. On the Play Index split finder I chose “find totals spanning seasons”, selected 1989-1994, set the split to Home and then set my parameters. It correctly returns the combined totals in that split for the seasons selected, but it only seems to return the tOPS figure for the first year selected.
In Walker’s case, it says his home tOPS for those years is 120 (confusingly, that’s the same as his career split), but when you look at the away split (and the figures for other players) it’s clearly only referring to 1989.
So to get the correct number I first had to work out what the formula for tOPS actually was. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was comparing OPS to OPS or OPS+ to OPS+ (it’s the former) and I also wasn’t sure if it was weighting PAs (it’s not). It looks like tOPS+ is just the formula for OPS+:
100*(OBP/lgOBP + SLG/lgSLG -1)
with OBP and SLG replaced with the player’s performance in that split, and lgOBP and lgSLG replaced by the player’s overall performance in the split. Using this formula I concluded Walker’s home tOPS in Montreal was 105.
So is there a quick way of doing this with the PI that I haven’t figured out or am I going to have to work this out manually every time I want multiple seasons, but not all, of a player’s career?
Some of that wording is not quite right (it should just be “…and lgOBP and lgSLG replaced by the player’s overall performance.”) and ignore the bit about weighting PAs, which is a remnant from when I was still trying to figure out the equation. Otherwise I hope you get my drift.
Yes, you are using the correct formula.
Walker home OBP, .364, is 2% better than his overall OBP of .357
Walker home SLG, .500, is 3.5% better than his overall SLG of .483
So, yeah, that’s a 105-106 tOPS+. I see what you mean.
I’m recalling a warning from JA about not trusing that “totals spanning seasons” tab. It is buggy.
The issue of the “total spanning seasons” tab was discussed by John Autin, Doug and me in December 2013.
My final comment was:
“December 23, 2013 at 3:34 pm
JA: This is to confirm my statement of post 22. I ran the PI for careers and for spanning seasons. I checked Carlos Baerga’s stats. The career PI run shows 308 PH appearances and 5895 total PA. The spanning seasons run shows 308 PH appearances but with 4710 total PA. The difference in PA is 1185. I then checked his career splits on BR.There were two seasons, 1992 and 1994, in which he had no PH appearances. His total PA in those two seasons was 1185. So doing a spanning seasons PI run counts only the years in which had had at least one PH appearance.”
It appeared in Doug’s article entitled “Seth Smith and the (almost) lost art of pinch-hitting”.
RJ, have you done 1995-2004? Including 40 or so games with StL in 2004, I’m getting a 124 tOPS+ for home Walker in that time period.
I think you are right about the tOPS+ spit out by the P-I being the first year number. I checked a few other players and that is what is going on.
You can retrieve his tOPS+ numbers and PA at home for each year from 1989 to 1994. Then by doing a weighted analysis I found his tOPS+ to be 108.
That would work, though it’s off by a couple points (probably rounding). It’s perhaps simpler to just use the sum function to get Walker ’89-’94 OBP/SLG from his main page and then get his home OBP/SLG for those years from the Split Finder. It’s a snap from there — just two ratios, converted to percentages, plus 100.
Thanks for the help bstar and Richard.
bstar: I’m getting 124 for 1995-2004 too. All the data on the split finder looks good (no missing PA or anything), it’s just the tOPS figure is lying.
Richard: I’m getting the same 105-106 tOPS+ figure for 1989-1994 as bstar.
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