Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Barry Larkin Hall Of Fame
Barry Larkin garnered 62.1% of the vote in his second year of eligibilty for the hall of fame, this tops the returning candidates for next year putting him in a prime spot for consideration. Next years ballot has no locks for the hof, and in
fact Bernie Williams is probably the only new candidate to have a chance of breaking the 5% barrier(Brad Radke, Tim Salmon and Brian Jordan head the class for next year) He should be the only one that will get enough votes next year to make it in the hof, the induction of Roberto Alomar who is pretty equivalent player also helps his case, barring a drug scandal, or being caught in bed with a live boy or dead hooker, there is really no reason to think he won't generate a tremendous bump in the voting next year.
Of course this is about his case. Let's take a look at the traditional numbers first. His career line is .295(avg), .371(obp), .444(slg) and .815 ops along with 116 ops+. For a shortstop that is a solid line, For the record among players who have played 50% of their games at shortstop(this is 71 players) with over 6000 plate appearances in their career(Larkin has 9057) Larkin Rank at the rate stats are average(10th), On Base Pct(9th), Slugging(12th), OPS+ (9th) (he's 16th all time in plate appearances so no real knock on his short career Rate wise he is one of the ten best offensive shortstops in the
history of the game.
Counting numbers(rank among ss in parentheses) , he has 198(9th) hr's, 1329(9th) runs scored, 960(12th) rbi's, 2340(12th) hits, 379(9th) stolen bases, 3527(10th) total bases, 3334(12th) times on base. Any knock on shortness of his career is busted here, as this shows he's at worse the 12th best compiler at his position in history. (note three active shortstops beat him
in most of these compiling stats Vizquel, Jeter and Arod)
Traditional offensive stats show he was one of the 12 best hitting shortstops in baseball history. How about contemporary opinion, he appeared in 12 all star games(missing it one year when he won the mvp) 9 times silver slugger winner, 1 MVP, 3 Gold gloves, and 6 times garnering MVP votes. He is hurt on the gold gloves, but it wasn't because he wasn't considered a good fielder, it's that he had to compete with Ozzie Smith. Ozzie stopped winning Gold Gloves in 1992, Larkin won three consecutive starting in 94.(he only played 100 games in '93) Being second to Ozzie is nothing to sneeze at. Larkin is widely considered to be an above average defensive shortstop and that is probably enough along with his numbers to leap frog a few of his competitors.
By traditional methods, I feel fairly confident saying that Larkin is one of the ten best shortstops in baseball history.
Going by less traditional methods, I have my complaints against WAR(wins above replacement) but it still has a useful ability. It's useful for comparing players at the same position, although it's defensive component might be a little off, still it's a useful tool. We are still sticking with career value for now.
Career War rankings for shortstops.
1. Wagner* 116.5
2. Arod 101.9
3. Ripken* 89.9
4. Yount* 76.9
5. Vaughan* 75.6
6. Jeter 70.1
7. Appling* 69.3
8. Larkin 68.9
9. Trammell 66.9
10. Reese* 66.7
11. Ozzie* 64.6
12. Cronin* 62.5
13. Boudreu* 56
14. Aparicio* 49.9
15. Tinker* 49.2
16. Sewell* 48.4
17. Bancroft* 46.4
18. Wallace* 46.3 (note better than this, but I'm counting from 1901 on)
22. Travis Jackson* 43.3
23. Vizquel 43.1 (putting him in here to highlight the silliness of thinking he is a hofer)
27. Rizzuto* 41.8
31. Maranville* 38.2
just using these rankings, again Larkin falls into one of the ten best of all time, there are 18 shortstops in the hof for their shortstop career (I didn't include George Davis on this list as most of his career is prior to 1901) I also didn't include Ernie Banks on this list as played majority of his career at first base, if he was included(and I understand the arguments) he would have been 12th on the list with 64.4. Of those 18 shortstops, by this method Larkin would be 6th best.
Larkin career argument is not for a borderline candidate, he is an upper echelon candidate,not inner circle of course but he is a no brainer based upon his career numbers.
Larkin's big knock is that he had health issues and missed out on some high quality years because of that, again using War(wins above replacement) and noting that 2 War is considered to be an average season, 5 war is a good standard for all star seasons. Larkin broke 5 war 7 times in his career.(and would have done it an eighth time if it wasn't for the strike in '94). List of shortstops with more than 5 war and times in their career that they have done it.
1. Wagner 12 times
2. Larkin 7 (8 if you count 94 as 5.1 roughly speaking that is slightly below what his rate was for that year)
2. Trammel 7
2. Ripken 7
2. Vaughan 7...
that is it. Jeter, Garciaparra and Arod has six(Arod has several seasons at third over that threshold also)(for the record 46 shortstops have done it at least twice,)
let's say you prefer even higher peak. at 5.5 it really doesn't change a thing, Wagner is first with 11, Ripken second with 7 and Jeter, Arod, Nomar, Banks, Larkin and Trammel with 6.
when you hit 6 War it separates a lot more, as Wagner and Ripken stay where they are at, while Larkin drops to 3seasons(his '95 was 5.9 with miss credit it should be around 6.5) and tied for 13th with Reese. His peak isn't as high as a few players but his career compares well to every shortstop not named Wagner or Arod
fact Bernie Williams is probably the only new candidate to have a chance of breaking the 5% barrier(Brad Radke, Tim Salmon and Brian Jordan head the class for next year) He should be the only one that will get enough votes next year to make it in the hof, the induction of Roberto Alomar who is pretty equivalent player also helps his case, barring a drug scandal, or being caught in bed with a live boy or dead hooker, there is really no reason to think he won't generate a tremendous bump in the voting next year.
Of course this is about his case. Let's take a look at the traditional numbers first. His career line is .295(avg), .371(obp), .444(slg) and .815 ops along with 116 ops+. For a shortstop that is a solid line, For the record among players who have played 50% of their games at shortstop(this is 71 players) with over 6000 plate appearances in their career(Larkin has 9057) Larkin Rank at the rate stats are average(10th), On Base Pct(9th), Slugging(12th), OPS+ (9th) (he's 16th all time in plate appearances so no real knock on his short career Rate wise he is one of the ten best offensive shortstops in the
history of the game.
Counting numbers(rank among ss in parentheses) , he has 198(9th) hr's, 1329(9th) runs scored, 960(12th) rbi's, 2340(12th) hits, 379(9th) stolen bases, 3527(10th) total bases, 3334(12th) times on base. Any knock on shortness of his career is busted here, as this shows he's at worse the 12th best compiler at his position in history. (note three active shortstops beat him
in most of these compiling stats Vizquel, Jeter and Arod)
Traditional offensive stats show he was one of the 12 best hitting shortstops in baseball history. How about contemporary opinion, he appeared in 12 all star games(missing it one year when he won the mvp) 9 times silver slugger winner, 1 MVP, 3 Gold gloves, and 6 times garnering MVP votes. He is hurt on the gold gloves, but it wasn't because he wasn't considered a good fielder, it's that he had to compete with Ozzie Smith. Ozzie stopped winning Gold Gloves in 1992, Larkin won three consecutive starting in 94.(he only played 100 games in '93) Being second to Ozzie is nothing to sneeze at. Larkin is widely considered to be an above average defensive shortstop and that is probably enough along with his numbers to leap frog a few of his competitors.
By traditional methods, I feel fairly confident saying that Larkin is one of the ten best shortstops in baseball history.
Going by less traditional methods, I have my complaints against WAR(wins above replacement) but it still has a useful ability. It's useful for comparing players at the same position, although it's defensive component might be a little off, still it's a useful tool. We are still sticking with career value for now.
Career War rankings for shortstops.
1. Wagner* 116.5
2. Arod 101.9
3. Ripken* 89.9
4. Yount* 76.9
5. Vaughan* 75.6
6. Jeter 70.1
7. Appling* 69.3
8. Larkin 68.9
9. Trammell 66.9
10. Reese* 66.7
11. Ozzie* 64.6
12. Cronin* 62.5
13. Boudreu* 56
14. Aparicio* 49.9
15. Tinker* 49.2
16. Sewell* 48.4
17. Bancroft* 46.4
18. Wallace* 46.3 (note better than this, but I'm counting from 1901 on)
22. Travis Jackson* 43.3
23. Vizquel 43.1 (putting him in here to highlight the silliness of thinking he is a hofer)
27. Rizzuto* 41.8
31. Maranville* 38.2
just using these rankings, again Larkin falls into one of the ten best of all time, there are 18 shortstops in the hof for their shortstop career (I didn't include George Davis on this list as most of his career is prior to 1901) I also didn't include Ernie Banks on this list as played majority of his career at first base, if he was included(and I understand the arguments) he would have been 12th on the list with 64.4. Of those 18 shortstops, by this method Larkin would be 6th best.
Larkin career argument is not for a borderline candidate, he is an upper echelon candidate,not inner circle of course but he is a no brainer based upon his career numbers.
Larkin's big knock is that he had health issues and missed out on some high quality years because of that, again using War(wins above replacement) and noting that 2 War is considered to be an average season, 5 war is a good standard for all star seasons. Larkin broke 5 war 7 times in his career.(and would have done it an eighth time if it wasn't for the strike in '94). List of shortstops with more than 5 war and times in their career that they have done it.
1. Wagner 12 times
2. Larkin 7 (8 if you count 94 as 5.1 roughly speaking that is slightly below what his rate was for that year)
2. Trammel 7
2. Ripken 7
2. Vaughan 7...
that is it. Jeter, Garciaparra and Arod has six(Arod has several seasons at third over that threshold also)(for the record 46 shortstops have done it at least twice,)
let's say you prefer even higher peak. at 5.5 it really doesn't change a thing, Wagner is first with 11, Ripken second with 7 and Jeter, Arod, Nomar, Banks, Larkin and Trammel with 6.
when you hit 6 War it separates a lot more, as Wagner and Ripken stay where they are at, while Larkin drops to 3seasons(his '95 was 5.9 with miss credit it should be around 6.5) and tied for 13th with Reese. His peak isn't as high as a few players but his career compares well to every shortstop not named Wagner or Arod
