Jeff Kent
Posted by Andy on January 21, 2009
Jeff Kent has just announced his retirement.
I don't have the time to write a full column right now, but I think a reasonable HOF argument can be made for Kent. I believe it's possible to successfully argue that he's the 3rd-best offensive 2B of all time, behind Rogers Hornsby and Joe Morgan, and just ahead of Ryne Sandberg.
His HOF Standards is 50.9 (average HOFer is 50) and his HOF Monitor is 122.5 (likely HOF is > 100.) A lot higher than you thought, eh?
Let's hear your arguments for why Kent deserves to be in the HOF.
January 21st, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Thom Brennaman told me he just might be the GRRRREATEST offensive second baseman in the HISSSTORY of the game.
My gut reaction is that he deserves it. Almost 400 HR and over 1500 RBI for a 2B is pretty compelling.
I doubt his defense was that bad if he stayed on the position right to the end, age 40.
I'm not so sure you can put Kent ahead of Lajoie, Collins, and Gehringer offensively, but after those guys he may rank at the top.
There are 21 men who have played at least 1750 games at second base. If I'm counting correctly, 12 are in the HOF. Kent ranks 6th among them in career OPS+.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Jeff Kent is a hard guy to compare because of his talents. 377 HR and 94 SB for his career. He's one of 71 players all-time to get 300+ HR and less than 100 SB. He's the only guy to spend 50% of his career at 2B. The only primary SS is Cal Ripken. 4 Primary CF's: Duke Snider, Joe DiMaggio, Jim Edmonds, and Fred Lynn. Those are 3 positions we view today as speed first power later if at all. And of those 6 listed, 3 are Gold Glovers, while DiMaggio and Snider's primes came before the Gold Glove existed.
Also, if you look on Kent's page at his 10 most similar hitters: 5 Catchers are the Top 5 and Ryne Sandberg is the only Middle Infielder or CF.
Of note though is his most similar batter ages 30-33, probably the most relevant years as to the question of a young talent either aging really badly or staying strong and becoming a Hall of Fame Candidate, is new Hall of Fame inductee Joe Gordon, another power hitting 2B.
January 21st, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Jeff Kent surely is an abnormal second baseman, and while I have a feeling he will make his way into the HOF, there are some elements of his peer group working against him. Interestingly only one other second baseman in the HOF has over 300 HR (Hornsby at 301 who also played an ungodly long career) and his SLG of .500 puts him above everyone else except Hornsby who sluged .577. Also, only six second basemen have been elected in the HOF who played the majority of their careers after 1950, and of those six four have over 100 SB (Mazerowski and Schoendist are under 100, but were clearly known more than anything for their defensive play), plus his 1522 SO put him far and beyond the HOF leading second baseman (Ryno with 1260). What I'm getting at here is the HOF prototypical second baseman seems to be a defensively minded player who is usually a speedster and doesn't hit many HR (not that HR are nice, but it just seems HOF voters think that isn't the primary job of a second baseman). But like I said, I have a feeling Kent will make it to the HOF and break the mold for his position. More power to him.
January 21st, 2009 at 11:35 pm
By the time his name comes up Kent should have the most Runs Created of any second baseman not in the HOF.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/2yN7
Overall, among players who have played 50% of their games at second Kent is 7th in career RC.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/RFkw
January 21st, 2009 at 11:57 pm
ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? You are leaving out the best or second best 2b of all time. Robbie Alomar. Look at the numbers.
Career BA: .300
HR: 210
OBP: .371
Gold Gloves: 10
Come on. He is 1 or 2 all time for 2b. Get with the program.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:28 am
Boondock, I don't think 100 SB means anything to a HOF voter, and I doubt they much care unless you're over 500 or so. Schoendienst probably also received some managing credit.
I also doubt the strikeouts will matter much. If Kent consistently struck out 150 times a season and had over 2000 in his career, perhaps it would make an impact.
I think the important thing is that so few recent 2B have been elected. Grich is a guy who a lot of people think should be inducted. Off the top of my head I'm not thinking of any other obvious recent omissions, but I am a bit drunk. I know the Hall of Merit inducted Randolph; he seems marginal but if the defense was that good perhaps he deserves it.
Simba - Alomar was great, but no.
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:56 am
Kent had pretty much the same batting stats as Jim Rice - look it up! When a left fielder is in the Hall (whether he deserves to be there is another matter), and a second baseman is his equal at the plate, you can't say no to the second baseman.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:05 am
Simba4, Alomar's HOF candidacy is an interesting topic, one that I will be tackling shortly on a new baseball card blog. He may or may not be a good HOF candidate, but your particular argument is quite flawed. His career BA, HR, and OBP are all subject to the incredible offensive era in which he played. A .371 OBP is very good, but not meaningful without correcting for his era. His career OPS+ is 116--which is definitely very good, but not immediately clearly HOF worthy.
(I'll telegraph my opinion here, though, and say that I think Alomar is definitely a HOFer, actually clearer than Kent.)
Also, about Kent, there's another interesting argument. He won an MVP award although most think that was due mainly to hitting next to Bonds. Most of Kent's best numbers came during his Giants years when Bonds was having the best years of his career, and Kent owes a lot of success to Bonds. I think the association with Bonds will hurt Kent, even though the two players clearly and famously disliked each other.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:16 am
I wonder if his SF stats are a bit bloated from batting so close to Bonds, but even if so, he's definitely a serious candidate. I remember when he was a kid with the Blue Jays, there was a game where he absolutely torched the Yankees. "This kid's going to be something," I kept saying, so I was surprised how bad his average was at the end of the year. Well, he became something. And except for 1997, his Ks aren't that out of touch with good-hitting middle infielders. Are we going to hold it against Jeter or A-Rod, who strike out more? Bobby Grich struck out 100+ three times. Even Roy Smalley, the proto-Ripken (HR hitting, non-base stealing middle infielder), struck out more than 100 times twice. Kent is at least a good selection as Rice.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:51 am
Alomar may or may not deserve it. He's a guy i've never really given much thought to. But i do know one thing. The voters are probably gonna remember him spitting on an umpire. Wherever the voters end up sending him, it's probably gonna be a longer wait than his stats merit.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:17 am
Of course when discussing the qualifications of HOF second baseman you need to figure out why Lou Whitaker wasn't even worthy of a second year of voting.
In an unrelated note: Another stat to keep in mind when evaluating Jeff Kent- He is the all time leader in GIDP among second basemen.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/8Z5C
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:24 am
Lou Whitaker presents an interesting case for my HOF thinking. The guy was terribly underrated outside of Detroit. His career achievements, stat-wise, are remarkably similar to Alan Trammell's despite the fact that Trammell is thought of as a much better offensive player. That being said, I don't feel like Whitaker (or Trammell) is a HOFer. So on the one hand, I don't have a problem with Whitaker falling off the ballot. However, if somebody like Baines stays on, then Whitaker should stay on. BUT--what is the point to staying on the ballot when we know damn well that Baines is never going to make the HOF? I guess what I'm saying is that I think the 5% cutoff is too low. A guy should need 15-20% of votes to stay on, I think. I'm sure there's no case of a guy ever starting as low as 5% of the vote and then eventually getting the 75% needed. I like Baines, I like Mattingly, I like Whitaker, I like Trammell. All great players. None are HOFers. Why bother keeping any of them on the ballot?
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:39 am
Andy, what's the point of changing the cutoff? Why does a player needs to be voted on in more than 1 year. Jim Rice did nothing over the past year to make himself more qualified.
With regards to Whitaker, I found this list surprising:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/nyq9
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:51 am
Well Raphy, you're sort of arguing my point for me. You're just suggesting changing the cutoff to 75%. So either a guy gets voted in the HOF in year 1, or he's off the ballot.
I will say this much--giving things some TIME does make sense. It's obvious now more than ever. Voters over the next 10-20 years are going to need some time to think about McGwire, Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, Bagwell, and other guys who have been associated, perhaps wrongly, with PEDs. Voters will need time to see how things shake out--are players going to get convicted of crimes? Will they be vindicated? Will it be discovered that 95% of players were using PEDs? Do offensive levels change dramatically and permanently once stricter testing is in place? All of these things both A) affect any given player's HOF candidacy and B) take time to determine. So we could raise the voting bar to 75% but we'd probably need to wait 20 years for the vote (which is the equivalent to the last year of a guy's eligibility in the current system.)
And to answer about Jim Rice, of course nothing changed about his career in the last 15 years. But his numbers are put more and more into perspective as time passes, plus some voters may have had the opportunity to think in more depth or discover new arguments about Rice's performance.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:08 pm
"I’m sure there’s no case of a guy ever starting as low as 5% of the vote and then eventually getting the 75% needed."
There are, actually, though many or most were back when the HOF had a huge backlog to work through.
Some players who seem like obvious HOFers didn't get elected in year 1, or get elected by the writers at all (Johnny Mize). There's no question that the process has some flaws but giving players more than 1 year to be considered is certainly not one of them.
Check the Bill James book (Politics of Glory) and Chris Jaffe's articles at Hardball Times for interesting information on the history and idiosyncrasies of the voting.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Among players elected by the writers since 1980, Duke Snyder had the worst initial showing at 17%. However, Nelie Fox started at 10.8% and finished a hair short of the Hall (74.7% in 1985).
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:19 pm
So if Alomar's stats are inflated so are Kents. Unless the cutoff is like 2001.
As far as Kent having an MVP, look at Alomar's '99 stats and it is clear he also should have an MVP. Compare his number's to Pudge's and it's clear Alomar was the victim of his own prickliness and a splitting of the vote with teammate Manny R. Alomar's '99 season was unbelievable. You could argue Pudge got it in part for his defense but Alomar's defense was also superb.
Also I would like someone to argue that there was a better Double Play Combo than Vizquel and Alomar. Alomar is devalued because his best years came in Toronto and Cleveland as opposed to Chicago like Sandburg. Who's numbers are not even close to Alomar's.
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Several players had an excellent argument for AL MVP in '99. Alomar would have been a worthy choice; so would Jeter, Martinez, Ramirez...
I agree Alomar probably deserves the HOF, just that there's no way he's one of the top two at his position ever. Top 10, possibly.
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Simba, your arguments aren't really helping Alomar. Mattingly had an incredible 1987, of the greatest years on record when corrected for era, etc. He won an MVP. He won a batting title. He won lots of Gold Gloves. Is he a HOFer? Nope, no way. You need to argue about Alomar's career achievements, not a good year here or there, and you need to put his performance into context of the era in which he played. Do that, and I think he comes out as a HOFer, just not by your arguments.
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Well everyone seems so think so highly of Sandburg. WHat do his career numbers say? And lets not forget Alomar won 2 World Series and finished with a .300 batting average. Thats after his last few seasons where he declined.
Career wise he may not be the greatest but take his best years and they are better than Kent and Sandburgs best years.
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:02 pm
simba4 the difference between Sandberg and Alomar is the context. When Sandberg was playing there was no question about who the best hitting second baseman was. Alomar was impressive, and his numbers might have been better, but he did it in a time when there was also Biggio, Knoblach, Alfonzo, Kent and others.
Consider these two lists taken from the key 11 years of each player's career. The numbers during Alomar's years are much higher, but look how many names are interspersed with his. When Sandberg was playing, it was him and then everyone else.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/cAzp
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/vTEe
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
simba...I think you're missing the key point. I haven't heard anybody here argue that Alomar shouldn't be a HOFer. We all think he is. It's just that your arguments aren't particularly convincing or cohesive. You keep posting that he was awesome, he was awesome, and yes we all agree.
January 26th, 2009 at 11:42 am
My arguemnt is that if you play in Chicago or Boston or New York you have a big advantage in getting into the hall and the way your legacy is looked at. If Jim Rice spent his career in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Milwaukee. There is no way he gets in.
If Alomar's best years were with the Yanks, Cubs or Red Sox people would consider him the best 2b ever.
January 26th, 2009 at 11:44 am
True about Rice, not true about Alomar.
January 27th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Please provide evidence of that, Simba.
Roger Maris (2-time MVP, HR record), Don Mattingly (MVP, considered best player in baseball), Luis Tiant (223 W, 2 ERA titles), Dwight Evans (385 HR, 7 Gold Gloves), and Minnie Minoso (7 All-Star teams with a late start due to segregation) aren't close to induction, despite solid arguments and those oh-so-important big city credentials.
Not to mention Ron Santo, a Chicago Cub and the consensus top guy outside the Hall. Close, but still not in...
January 27th, 2009 at 11:55 am
There's no doubt that Simba is right about Rice, though. He got in the HOF by the slimmest of margins, barely making it in his last year of eligibility. If he played in a smaller market, I'm sure he would have been less well-regarded and probably would be just on the outside like a guy like Santo.