Most Times on Base for a LFer either in the HOF or on the ballot – Baseball-Reference PI
Posted by Sean Forman on November 26, 2007
Most Times on Base for a LFer either in the HOF or on the ballot - Baseball-Reference PI
With the HOF ballot released, I went in and added an option to the play index season finders (batting or pitching). In the second column, you now have options for Yes (in the HOF), Yes or on Ballot, No (not in HOF), No but on Ballot, or the default Any Player.
The list above is IMO, Tim Raines best bet to get into the HOF. He's better than Lou Brock who pretty much everyone sees as a HOFer. Better BA, better OBP, better SLG, better OPS+, more net steals (SB-2*CS) , more Home Runs, and 130 more times on base.
November 26th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
[...] Stat of the Day » Most Times on Base for a LFer either in the HOF or on the ballot - Baseball-Refer... [...]
November 26th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Lifetime times on base is a dubious statistic because.....the top three all time are Rose, Bonds and Cobb. 😉 4th is Rickey...a cocky Rickey-be-Rickey man of steel, but (to be fair) not nefarious. 5th is Yastrzemski, the first gentleman on the list.
Here's something interesting about leftfielders...Raines never won a gold glove. Leftfielders never win gold gloves, you say, and I say this:
305 OF Gold Gloves have been awarded, and 32 times it was given to a guy who played leftfield. That's only about 10.5%, even though it's 33% of the outfield. Actually from 1957 to 1960 I think there had to be a LF, CF and RF winner, so there HAD to be a LFer. So if I did my math right, since 1962 LF have won 25 of the 284 GGs at a rate of ~8.8%.
Only 14 players have won a GG for LF play. Who's done it the most? er....Barry Bonds. Not *HIS* name again. In 1998 Bonds did it for an 8th time (pre-roids), surpassing Carl Yastrzemski's seven times. Wait! There's Carl's name again.
Here's a breakdown.
*Bonds (8 times) (1990-1994, 1996-1998)
*Yastrzemski (7 times) (1963, 1965, 1967-1969, 1971, 1977)
*Joe Rudi (thrice) (1974-1976) (you be the judge as to whether 1975 counts. Rudi won the GG for OF, but played 44 games at LF and 91 games at 1B. Those most have been SOME 44 games)
*Minoso (thrice) (1957, 1959-1960)
*Winfield (twice) (1982-1983)
*Erstad (once) (2000)
*Rickey Henderson (there he is again) (once) (1981)
*Dusty Baker (once) (1981)
*Willie Wilson (once) (1980)
*Tom Tresh (once) (1965) (played 100 games at LF and 105 games at CF...and that is NOT a typo. As far as I can tell, he started in center and Mantle started in left, and in about 100 games, Mantle sat down mid-game, and Tresh moved to leftfield - and Tresh won a GG that year, maybe because of the madness.)
*Wally Moon (once) (1960)
*Jackie Brandt (once) (1959)
*Frank Robinson (once) (1958)
*Norm Siebern (once) 1958)
November 27th, 2007 at 1:15 am
The Tom Tresh note is insane.... anyone else ever do anything that crazy (play 100+ games at multiple positions)??? how about even as low as 80 for a half season at multiple positions? (and yes i know 81 is actually half....)
November 27th, 2007 at 7:01 am
Yaz being 5th career on-base is sort of a red herring since he makes it for playing so many years. (I mean, he was good...but his career OBP doesn't really make you think of him as being top-5 all-time for getting on base...)
November 27th, 2007 at 9:48 am
I am always pondering questions like: How could Mantle not reached 715 HRs? How could Steve Garvey not reach 3000 hits? And what's up with Carl Yastrzemski? Was he great? Or did he just stick around for a long time?
Part of Yaz's problem is his career started with the modern deadball era (1961 to 1972). One of Yaz's batting titles was at a clip of .301, while his OPS+ that season was 170! He was the only .300 hitter in the AL that year, and he won the batting title by 11 points. Between 1961 and 1972, only three players reached the 170 OPS+ plateau three times: Mantle, Yaz and Frank Howard (Frank Robinson and Killebrew reached the plateau twice in that span). Still, his lifetime OPS+ is 122, ONE POINT LOWER THAN TIM RAINES'.
Yaz played in ~90% of his team's games for 23 seasons. What if Garvey or Mantle had done such?
Yaz had Seven Gold Gloves. Three batting titles. A triple crown. Three runs titles. Four OPS+ titles. 4 Runs Created titles. 5 Adjusted Batting Runs titles. 5 Batting Wins titles. 5 Offensive Win% titles. Pretty impressive. 7th in all-time hits, but with a lowly .285 average. Is that because of his deadball era?
November 27th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Interesting comparison between Yaz and Raines, kingturtle! Let me add:
Yaz and Mickey and Tim Raines knew how to draw a walk. Steve Garvey didn't. Yaz's comparatively-low ba comes from the deadball era and also because he played a long time after his peak. (Despite his being a slick fielder, he played 411 games as a dh.) Tim Raines could also turn a single or a walk into a double.
Bill James's career win shares help give perspective to career accomplishments. For example, Mantle 565, Garvey 279, Tony Gwynn 398, Raines 390, Roberto Clemente 377, Billy Williams 374, Willie Stargell 370, Lou Brock 348, Joe Medwick 312, Tim Rice 282.
November 27th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
If you include reaching base on error (a number that Raines is surprisingly LOW in), Raines reached base over 4000 times safely. That plateau must be more impressive than getting 3000 hits.
November 27th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Sean, if you look at this report:
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/MZUr
What I think would be interesting is if you can make "HOF" a selection field, where you see
HOF
yes
no
---
If you see a single player with a "no" in a sea of "yes", that makes it more striking.
November 27th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
100 games at each:
LF & CF
Tom Tresh 1965
Kevin McReynolds 1986
CF & RF
Dusty Baker 1974
Any other logical combinations I tried yielded no results.