Craig Biggo, Hall of Famer
Posted by Andy on September 16, 2009
Friend of Baseball-Reference Peter Abraham noted that only 6 players have 2700 hits, 1500 runs, 220 homers, 300 steals, and 1000 RBI:
Cnt Player **RBI** H R HR SB From To Ages G PA AB 2B 3B BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP CS BA OBP SLG OPS Positions Teams +----+-----------------+--------+----+----+---+----+----+----+-----+----+-----+-----+---+---+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+-----------+ 1 Barry Bonds 1996 2935 2227 762 514 1986 2007 21-42 2986 12606 9847 601 77 2558 688 1539 106 4 91 165 141 .298 .444 .607 1.051 *78/D9 PIT-SFG 2 Willie Mays 1903 3283 2062 660 338 1951 1973 20-42 2992 12493 10881 523 140 1464 192 1526 44 13 91 251 103 .302 .384 .557 .941 *8/39675 NYG-SFG-TOT-NYM 3 Paul Molitor 1307 3319 1782 234 504 1978 1998 21-41 2683 12160 10835 605 114 1094 100 1244 47 75 109 209 131 .306 .369 .448 .817 D543/6879 MIL-TOR-MIN 4 Craig Biggio 1175 3060 1844 291 414 1988 2007 22-41 2850 12503 10876 668 55 1160 68 1753 285 101 81 151 124 .281 .363 .433 .796 *4287/D9 HOU 5 Rickey Henderson 1115 3055 2295 297 1406 1979 2003 20-44 3081 13346 10961 510 66 2190 61 1694 98 30 67 172 335 .279 .401 .419 .820 *78D/9 OAK-NYY-TOT-OAK-SDP-TOT-NYM-SDP-BOS-LAD 6 Derek Jeter 1065 2723 1564 223 300 1995 2009 21-35 2120 9729 8593 437 58 873 33 1454 142 77 44 211 80 .317 .387 .459 .846 *6/D NYY
Of the four eligible guys, all are in the Hall of Fame. Biggio comes up for election in a few years and in my opinion he should be a first-ballot HOFer. He and Jeter are the only two guys to play for one franchise (although there has been rampant speculation that the Yankees will let Jeter walk when his contract expires. Personally I highly doubt this speculation.)
I wrote a post 2 years ago about Craig Biggio during his final season. He was an All-Star at two different positions and played plenty of catcher, infield, and outfield in his career.
His career total ranks as of now:
Runs scored 1,844 (13th) Hits 3,060 (20th) Doubles 668 (5th) Stolen bases 414 (62nd) Times on base 4,505 (16th) Hit by pitch 285 (2nd) Power-speed # 341.8 (9th)
His Hall of Fame Monitor is 169 (63rd).
Anyway, the guy was simply incredible and I think the case is very clear. As PeteAbe wrote in his post (linked at the top here) a lot of voters seem to completely ignore Biggio but when the time comes, I think he'll get the votes.
September 16th, 2009 at 8:25 am
I found 7 ballplayers who are in the top 150 in hits, runs, homers, and steals: Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Rickey Henderson, Craig Biggio, Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson...and Steve Finley.
September 16th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Yeah, the "I can make a group" argument was debunked by Bill James many years ago in his Hall of Fame book. It gets dicier the more stats you pick. I think James manages to find a group that paired Amos Otis and Willie Mays as the only players to achieve a certain set of criteria.
That said, I think Biggio is indeed a great candidate and should eventually be inducted. My only concerns with whether the induction will actually occur involve how crowded the ballots will be in a few years with other great candidates. The writers don't like inducting too many players at once and middle infielders often have to wait.
September 16th, 2009 at 10:41 am
I agree that Biggio is a certain HOFer, and maybe even on the first ballot, but I found it odd that your headline was even about Biggio. Your number threshholds were clearly designed to include Jeter, not Biggio. If it were really about Biggio, you could have made it far more exclusive (3,000 / 1,500 / 250 / 400 / 1,000) and ended up with only Biggio and Henderson. That said, I think Jeter is a certain HOFer and first ballot guy as well, and deservedly so.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:28 am
David, I don't think James exactly "debunked" the idea as much as demonstrated that it was by no means a foolproof method. The problem with career totals is that there are many ways to get there--including sticking around for a long, long time at just an above-average level.
The real issue with lists like the one above (designed to include Jeter, yes, JDV--because that's what Peter Abraham wrote about and I was just following his criteria) is that the player of interest (Jeter in this case) always JUST qualifies as compared to the other guys who are usually well above at least some of the criteria. A little bit up in some areas and a little bit down in others, and usually the guy of interest is excluded from the list and others join in. It's not all that meaningful in the end.
Here's a little example. Here is a list of the only 23 guys since 1901 to amass 2200 hits, 1000 runs scored, 400 doubles, 240 stolen bases, and 90 triples. I tailored these criteria for the first guy to pop into my head--Tony Fernandez. A quick scan of the top 23 names on that list shows that Fernandez is just about definitely the worst player on that list. He makes it into the group by barely squeaking on for each category. Look at some of the guys who just fell short on triples--Gwynn, Alomar, Bonds, Larking, Sandberg.....everybody a better career than Fernandez. That's what makes this exercise kind of silly.
Still, it does have some merit and that's why I made the post. To base a HOF argument on ONLY such a list would be foolish, but that's not what I (or Pete) was trying to do.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Oh...Steve Finley. Don't get me started on that guy. From a statistical standpoint, his career is utter nonsense in terms of which lists he qualifies for. I'm starting a new external blog that will delve into issues such as this. (Announcement coming sometime soon, and don't worry, I'm not leaving this blog.)
September 16th, 2009 at 11:54 am
STEVE FINLEY FOR THE HOF!
September 16th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
"Debunk" is a strong word, but its too easy to misuse the method and give bad results.
I mean, lists like these are "fun" and I like fun, but they shouldn't carry *any* weight at all. Giving them merit makes it too easy for people to say "oh, you can say anything with statistics".
Its easy enough to Jeter and Biggio are great players with standard metrics.
September 16th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Just the fact that some people are, jokingly or not, equating Steve Finley with Hall of Fame numbers, as others do, in the pitching department, with Curt Schilling, is another indication that the Glenn Davis trade has got to rank among Baltimore's worst, if not THE worst.
Incidentally, not being a fan of college football, not even those of the service academies despite living in the metropolitan area that hosts the Army-Navy game most years, for the longest time, I had no idea where Chris Berman's "Mr. Outside" nickname for Glenn Davis came from. Finally, out of boredom during Army-Navy week, I read an article about a long-ago player for, I think, Army whose name also was Glenn Davis and whose nickname was "Mr. Outside". I still don't know the genesis of Scott "Goalpost" Kamieniecki's Chris Berman nickname.
September 16th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Remember the Orioles also gave up Pete Harnisch in that trade, another guy who had some significant success afterwards.
Curt Schilling has been involved in 3 very lopsided trades in his career, actually. Go check out his main B-R page to see which 3.
September 16th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
As a youngster, I used to argue that if Glenn Davis was in the AL he would hit 40 HR a year. Well, that may have been true, but he got old fast and by the time he was traded to the O's he sure couldn't hit many at all.
I never heard the "Mr. Outside" nickname for him. Actually it never really occurred to me that he had the same name as the football player. Mr. Outside was teammates with Doc Blanchard, a fullback known as "Mr. Inside" who tended to (I guess) run up the middle while the speedy Davis ran outside. They played for Army during WWII and both won Heisman Trophies.
September 16th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
David, you and I are still not quite on the same page. If I had a vote for MVP and I said--well let's see who led the league in homers and I'm voting for that guy--that would be very foolish. I think we agree there. Simply leading the league in homers is not enough to warrant winning an MVP award. However, I do think that leading the league in homers is one thing among many worth considering when evaluating MVP candidates. It's a reasonable approach to discover who the guy is who led his league in homers, consider him as an MVP candidate, and put his HR-hitting performance in perspective in terms of his overall value to his team. I think we'd agree that in some of those cases the guy would be lacking as a deserving MVP winner but in other cases the guy who led his league in homers is the best choice for MVP. So, in a vacuum and with no other data, it's foolish to make important decisions based on only the lone piece of data. But used in concert with other info and put into proper prospective, it's worth something. I think lists like the ones I've discussed in this post are the same thing--not worth a whole lot as their own be-all end-all analysis, but a single useful piece of data when put into combination with other available info. That's my take on it.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:13 am
biggio is a definite HOFer. an amazing career statistically and non-statistically. it is news to me that he's not a lock.
abraham chose the "2700 hits, 1500 runs, 220 homers, 300 steals, and 1000 RBI" criteria to fit jeter's stats specifically (by the way if you change HRs to 210, you can add Roberto Alomar).
if you change the criteria to fit biggio's minimum stats ("3000 hits, 1800 runs, 290 homers, 400 steals, and 1175 RBI") instead of jeter's minimum stats, biggio is the only guy on the list (and jeter can match it in 4 or 5 years if he stays healthy and interested). you have to lower RBIs to 1115 to add henderson, and lower Hs to 2900 to add bonds.
September 17th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Andy, we're actually not that far from the same page. I like looking at multiple numbers and methods, prefer it actually. OBP and SLG tell you more together than OPS. When the "uber-metrics" are brought in, I like looking at more than one of those (VORP, RARP, WS) as they all have their own biases and quirks.
There's something specific to this "I can make a group" argument that I don't like. It usually results in a very odd collection of stats chosen with some eclectic cutoffs that are set high in lower-correlation stats (e.g SB or 3B) so that lower cutoffs can be set in higher-correlation stats while still keeping the list short. Its doing the analysis of multiple stats for you, but in a very unintelligent manner. Then the lists are almost always presented in isolation with very little discussion.