Game 72, Reds at Mariners
Dave · June 24, 2007 at 12:30 pm · Filed Under Game Threads
Arroyo vs Batista, 1:05 pm.
At this point, I’ll be driving back from Atlanta. Still nothing pithy to say.
Arroyo vs Batista, 1:05 pm.
At this point, I’ll be driving back from Atlanta. Still nothing pithy to say.
To suggest that Frank Thomas is not a Hall of Famer is absurd. Compare him to Griffey. Griffey has about 90 more home runs, but Thomas’ career OPS is 50+ points higher than Griffey’s. If you think Griffey is a Hall of Famer (and you should), then certainly Frank Thomas is
Meant to add that other than that their numbers are fairly similar. Why is there no edit function on this forum?
It’s not a forum.
247: Didn’t the electorate vote against the stadium? And for the monorail, six times? Yay democracy.
247. Do you really think the politicians AND taxpayers would care enough about a team like the Mariners if it didn’t have a player like Ken Griffey, Jr., or a year like ’95, for that matter?
Without KGJ, the Mariners would have been what the Devil Rays are now, and any city that wanted them, LIKE Tampa Bay-St. Pete, could have had them, either in ’92-93 or later, when the Kingdome was starting to fall apart… the Mariners would have demanded another stadium and those politicians and taxpayes would have said, “Bye-bye.”
254 Technically the electorate didn’t reject “a stadium,” what it rejected was a particular plan to build a stadium.
And although I voted for the monorail several times, given the current cost estimates, I wouldn’t vote for it again.
No, the electorate didn’t vote against the stadium. The electorate voted against one particular financing plan for the stadium.
To suggest that Frank Thomas is not a Hall of Famer is absurd. Compare him to Griffey. Griffey has about 90 more home runs, but Thomas’ career OPS is 50+ points higher than Griffey’s. If you think Griffey is a Hall of Famer (and you should), then certainly Frank Thomas is
Defense matters.
251 I have no doubt that either the Kid or the Big Hurt should be in the HOF. They are textbook cases, even if both have faded since the 90’s. But it should be noted that even if Thomas had 50+ points of OPS on Griffey, Griffey had more than a decade of gold glove defense in center field, while Thomas was playing first base and DH.
257, 258 Ralph, are you my long lost twin brother?
257: Similar to what happened in SF at first. Once the Giants ownership had the funding for PBP secured, though, basically all that was left to vote on was the piece of land.
I want the 3-2 pitchers’ duels with lots of strategy back.
There are plenty of them, even in today’s environment. And we’ve already TRIED the “let’s expand the strike zone” trick- this was done in 1963.
What we ended up with is a lot of 2-1 games where it was waiting for one team to hit a HR, batting champions who hit .301, leagues that hit .235-.240 with an OPS around Willie Bloomquist’s career OPS.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL_1967.shtml
Is THAT good baseball? No, in my opinion- it’s BOOOOORING watching teams not score and look totally inept at the plate. And the fans think so, too- attendance and league scoring generally correlate pretty closely.
Defense matters.
Right, but defense matters enough so that you’d exclude one of the best offensive first basemen to ever play the game from the HOF?
I’m just not seeing it.
We’d probably have to unload Balentien for Jr, but I think the move would be worth it for the PR impact alone.
Next year’s OF: Jones-Ichiro-Griffey
Anyone think Jr. would take Adam Jones under his wing? I do.
If Frank Thomas isn’t a Hall of Famer, then exactly what criteria are you using for HOF admission? Anyone who don’t think Thomas is a HOF’er is out of touch with reality. He is 11th all-time in career OPS, ahead of such lightweights as Mays, Mantle, DiMaggio, Cobb, Aaron, FRobinson, McGwire. He is one of the greatest hitters of all-time. OF COURSE he will be in the HOF….
Defense matters? Not that much.
I think people are looking for arguments here where none exist.
Incidentally, Edgar’s career OPS is better than Aaron’s….
Has a dominant pitcher ever been excluded from the HoF because of his defense?
Gold gloves weren’t awarded until 1957, so it’s hard to say how much defense played a role in early HOF selections. Obviously, defense had some impact, because there are several HOF’ers who don’t have impressive offensive numbers.
He is 11th all-time in career OPS, ahead of such lightweights as Mays, Mantle, DiMaggio, Cobb, Aaron, FRobinson, McGwire…
Well, OPS isn’t era-independent. Many of your examples played in the 1960’s, when a .500-.550 SLG led the league.
Or Cobb- when entire LEAGUES slugged .350. So judging Thomas on that standard’s not fair.
For OPS+ (which IS adjusted for era, park, league and so on), Thomas is 16th.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/OPSplus_career.shtml
He’s comparable to guys like Mize and Greenberg, who ARE in the HOF. That sounds about right.
Granted, but Thomas did lead the AL in OPS 4 times in 7 years, which seems to indicate that he was among the best hitters of his era for an extended period of time.
Interesting that Edgar and ARod have identical career OPS+ numbers, and both are ahead of Griffey.
Hrmmm….I’d say that was enough ta START a Hall of Fame discussion…
At that level, someone’s gotta make the argument he ISN’T Hall material…”Defense counts” isn’t anough…
If Thomas had spent his whole career playing in a city the media actually likes (i.e. New York, Boston), he’d probably be a slam-dunk for the HOF on the first ballot.
What I’m amazed about is where Pujols is already on this list and he’s only 27…WOW!
Here’s Thomas’ baseballreference HoF scores:
Black Ink: Batting – 21 (97) (Average HOFer ≈ 27)
Gray Ink: Batting – 202 (37) (Average HOFer ≈ 144)
HOF Standards: Batting – 60.5 (27) (Average HOFer ≈ 50)
HOF Monitor: Batting – 184.0 (49) (Likely HOFer > 100)
Top 50 in three standards, top 100 in Black Ink. 7 consecutive seasons with an OBP above .425, top 5 in OBP eight times. Career OBP 16th all time, career OPS+ 16th all-time. 7 top 5 finishes in SLG, one SLG title, 18th all-time.
And that’s before we even get to the counting stats. Top 5 in times on base and walks in 9 of his first 10 full seasons. 1594 walks, 12th all-time. 499 home runs. 976 extra base hits, 30th all-time. But the counting stats pale compared to Thomas’ ability to draw a walk.
In summary, Frank Thomas is such an obvious HoFer that not putting him in is a bigger travesty than Rabbit Maranville being in the Hall. He was the greatest right-handed hitter of the 1990s. Period. This shouldn’t even be a discussion.
255-
Thank you. Some people just don’t understand what Griffey meant around here. Maybe the don’t remember the late 70’s and all of the 80’s. He was an amazing draw at home and on the road. He legitimized this place as a baseball town. He had help on the field, but without him the Mariners would not be here. I don’t care what happened after 95. Many people pulled strings, but without Griffey the Mariners would not still be in this town. He was a national superstar.
Get a load of this… Griffey will be on FSN tonight at 10pm and say, I want to retire a Mariner.”
When I said “defense matters”, I didn’t mean Thomas isn’t HOF-worthy. Of course he is. Of course Griffey is also. I was responding to the implied suggestion that Thomas is a better player than Griffey. He isn’t, because a Gold-Glove caliber CF brings a lot more value to a team than a mediocre 1B-DH, all other things being equal.
Yeesh. I dunno if that’s more of an “okay with it” or “I want to”… he owes it to Seattle and himself? Wow. Gonna be hearing a lot about that.
It must be noted that the teams of the early 90’s, back when attendance floundered like the team did and the owners were ready to move it to Tampa, DID have Griffey. Griffey didn’t just show up in 1995: he had been with the team since the ealy 90’s, and the team STILL almost bolted for Tampa.
Did 1995 do a lot to inspire the fanbase, the government and the conglomerate of ownership to build Safeco? Certainly, it had an impact. But Junior did not do it alone, and if he was the driving force, then why was the team ready to bolt anyway even though he was here and doing well?
I mentioned it yesterday, but I’ll mention it again since I see some new names here: read Art Thiel’s “Out of Left Field” if you haven’t yet. It’s a comprehensive history of everything that led to the new ownership group getting Safeco built and keeping the team in Seattle.
I was a huge fan of Griffey growing up, he was an inspiration to the fanbase, a franchise star, and it’s nice to see him come back and get a nice reception… but to say he saved the Mariners from leaving town is flat out untrue.
Noblesse oblige?
280: What is your agenda exactly? B/c if it is to suggest that the M’s would still be in Seattle if Griffey had never come around, I don’t see it.
280-
I have to agree with 282. If Griffey hadn’t come around, do you truly, honestly believe the Mariners would still be in Seattle today? I don’t see it, and I doubt many others do either.
278- I think we mostly agree. I do think Griffey overall has had a better career than Frank Thomas and the difference is definitely the defense. Judged solely on hitting, I might lean towward Thomas, but it would be close to a dead heat. As others have pointed out, defense is nice, but it’s not gonna keep an obvious Hall of Fame hitter out of the Hall. I think we all agree that Griffey is a first ballot hall of famer. Since I think Thomas was at least as good a hitter as Griffey, that makes Thomas an obvious Hall of Famer…
anybody know where i can watch the junior interview online?
I’m interested if anyone here knows if anything has changed with Yorman Bazardo since he was traded to the Tigers. He’s pitched quite well for Toledo and even got called up for a little while. Has any of his velocity returned, or has nothing changed from when he was dealt and he’s not still worth lamenting over?
#255: 1995 saved the Mariners, you are correct. However, KGJ did not make 1995. Randy had more to do with it than any other player.
Go back and look at the numbers from that year if you don’t believe me.
1995 saved the Mariners, and 1995 was Randy and Edgar. But were it not for Griffey, the M’s would have moved before 1995.
don’t forget what junior did in 1989-1994 for baseball in seattle. all the posters, commercials, home run derbys, espn highlights…he sold tickets and created interested far before we knew who randy and edgar were. he is the single biggest reason people watched the mariners in the early 90’s. once they built around him and got some help, then 95 took care of itself. of course that summer was a collective effort. it’s not hard to remember how much the unit and ‘gar meant. but if we talk about saving seattle baseball, it started before then.
Rob… in 178:
“I believe there should be a Constitutiuonal ammendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter.”
I’ve never understood this attitude towards the DH. To me, watching pitchers hit is boring–they’re almost always an automatic out. Replacing an easy out with one of the better hitters on a team just makes sense. Tradition is nice and all, but if that’s all we went by teams would still be wearing 20-pound wool uniforms and fans behind the plate would be routinely beaned by balls fouled straight back. There’s something to be said for modern innovations that improve the game.
People dislike the DH position for the same reason they dislike having separate offensive and defensive teams in the NFL.