Quote:Raffy Palmeiro and the Hall of Fame
By Marc Normandin
Posted on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 06:55:49 AM EST

There have been a few Rafael Palmeiro for or against the Hall of Fame recently, which makes me feel like I need to put one up that is a little different.

Here we have a for the Hall article by Aaron Gleeman over at The Hardball Times and here we have an against article by Skip Bayless over at ESPN.com. Personally, what Skip Bayless usually presents to me is counterpoint and not opinion, so when someone said Palmeiro is a Hall of Famer Bayless's instinct to argue just for the sake of arguing kicked in, and his newest article was born.

Oh, I also want to mention that he left some all-time greats off of his list at the end of his article of "no-doubters", like Jimmie Foxx, who has a higher peak value than Gehrig and is second in career value to him among first basemen. But do not fret, he remembered to include Johnny Mize of all people, and George Sisler...and left out Wade Boggs who actually has the same JAWS score as Mike Schmidt...I expect no less from Bayless though. Here's a thought Skip, stick to football, that way if you say something statistically incorrect Aaron Schatz can correct you in the same article.

Back to the point, Rafael Palmeiro is extremely qualified for first base. According to the metrics Aaron Gleeman used today (RCAA and Win Shares) Raffy is one of the top 12 first basemen of all-time, on his way to becoming top 10 if he can keep it up. That is enough to merit attention and get Palmeiro and his moustache elected to the Hall of Fame, but I think we should try some other metrics as well to see where they lead us. Time for the DT Test. I just finished making spreadsheets for every Hall of Fame position player with their Wins Above Replacement Level (WARP3), Peak WARP, JAWS, Batting Runs Above Replacement (BRAR), Batting Runs Above Average (BRAA), and Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), so I want to use them. BRAR is a good indicator of career value, whereas BRAA is a good indicator of peak value. Wins Above Replacement Level is pretty self explanatory, and Peak WARP is the 5 best consecutive seasons added together into one number (with allowances made for injuries that really cut into a season's value). JAWS is the combination of these two numbers: [(Career WARP3 + Peak WARP) / 2].

Powered by the Rollie Fingers-esque mustache of The Giraffes, Here we go.

Let's assume Palmeiro retires today, and is immediately placed in the Hall of Fame. Let's see what the player averages would be with and without him in the Hall; basically, we'll be seeing if Palmeiro's inclusion makes it more difficult to make the Hall of Fame at a later date, or easier.



The players in the table above are ranked according to their JAWS score, which is an approximation of both career and peak value combined that Jay Jaffe developed. This is my favorite statistical method for determining Hall of Fame worth, as those who read this site often will attest for. On to Cooperstown with Palmeiro at first:



Before we get into ranks, let's see how Palmeiro affected the averages:

Average Hall 1B With Palmeiro
Career WARP3: +2.0
Peak WARP: +0.1
JAWS: +1.07
BRAR: +15
BRAA: +11
FRAA: +3

Well, Palmeiro adds to the average Hall of Famer in every regard, even making the defensive portion of it league average rather than below (you can blame Willie McCovey for a large portion of that defensive problem; the sheets changed dramatically once I added his name on).

Where does Palmeiro rank among Hall of Fame first basemen for all of these categories listed?

Career WARP3: 2nd (behind Gehrig)
Peak WARP: 8th (behind Foxx, Gehrig, Greenberg, McCovey, Murray, Mize)
JAWS: 3rd (behind Gehrig and Foxx)
BRAR: 2nd (behind Gehrig)
BRAA: 3rd (behind Gehrig and Foxx)
FRAA: 4th (behind George Kelly, Roger Connor and Tony Perez.

Now that my friends, is what I like to call an impressive resume. Behind only Foxx and Gehrig in most categories, and even the 4th best fielding first basemen in the Hall (of course if the world was right, Keith Hernandez would be in the Hall to put them all to shame, but alas, that time has passed for now.)

Make your own decisions about Palmeiro's candidacy for the Hall of Fame, but as you can see, the numbers do not betray you; just Bayless's emotions and instincts do.

Quote:Raffy and the Hall
by Aaron Gleeman
July 18, 2005

He didn't quite make the picture-perfect swing that produced most of his first 2,999 hits, but Rafael Palmeiro went the other way with a Joel Pineiro pitch Friday night, lining it down the left-field line and into the corner at Safeco Field. The double drove in a run to give the Orioles a 4-1 lead over the Mariners and also made Palmeiro just the 26th player in baseball history to reach 3,000 career hits. "I was just trying to drive the runner in," Palmeiro said afterward.<br />
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Palmeiro was already a member of the 500-homer club, and in becoming the first player to reach 3,000 hits since Rickey Henderson in late 2001, Palmeiro has all but sealed his Hall of Fame fate. His candidacy, wrapped up in just one sentence, would probably be that he is just the fourth player in baseball history to reach both 500 homers and 3,000 hits, joining Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray.<br />
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While Palmeiro has slowed down considerably in recent years, he is still piling up numbers at the age of 40. After a slow start, he has turned things around and enters play today at .276/.347/.475 with a 25-homer, 90-RBI pace. Since the end of April, Palmeiro is hitting .286/.372/.527 with 15 homers and 45 RBIs in 67 games. If he can stay healthy for the rest of this season and come back next year, at 41, and put up similar numbers again, Palmeiro has a chance to top 600 home runs by the end of the 2006 season. By that time he will also have likely moved into the top 15 all time in hits with around 3,200.<br />
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And yet despite all of that, there are still some doubters when it comes to Palmeiro's Hall of Fame case. For instance, in discussing Palmeiro's impending 3,000th hit last week, Newsweek's Mark Starr wrote:<br />
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<blockquote>Judging a Hall of Famer should be far more akin to assessing obscenity, at least in the fashion of the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who famously put it: "I know it when I see it." Well I know a Hall of Famer when I see one. And Rafael Palmeiro isn't one.</blockquote><br />
Or as ESPN.com's Skip Bayless put it:<br />
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<blockquote>Most baseball writers will also tell you he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer.<br />
<br />
But is he? If you had to stop and think about it for even a moment, he isn't.<br />
<br />
[...]<br />
<br />
Retire his number.<br />
<br />
And go ahead, put him in the Hall of Never Was On the Disabled List.<br />
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Or in the Hall of Sweetest Swings.<br />
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Or in the Hall of Very, Very Good.<br />
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But not the Hall.</blockquote><br />
There are a few knocks against Palmeiro that are often cited in making the case against his being a Hall of Famer. His career was more longevity than peak. He posted his numbers in a high-offense era. He benefited from playing his home games in good ballparks for hitting. He was selected to just four All-Star teams. He never finished higher than fifth place in an MVP vote.<br />
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Some of those things can likely be dismissed off hand. For instance, does it strike anyone else that the same people complaining loudly about Derek Jeter being left off the American League All-Star team this year are also the ones who bring up things like Palmeiro making just four All-Star teams when discussing his Hall of Fame resume? As if the fact that Danys Baez was an All-Star in 2005 and Jeter wasn't should somehow be used against Jeter when judging his career.<br />
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With that said, for the most part those are certainly the types of issues that need to be considered when thinking about someone's Hall of Fame candidacy, and in Palmeiro's case each of the above statements are more or less true. However, those things are merely factors in evaluating a player's career, they do not preclude him from being a Hall of Famer. The beauty of baseball is that such factors can be quantified with varying degrees of confidence.<br />
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If you think Palmeiro benefited from playing in hitter's ballparks during an era in which offense was plentiful, you don't have to simply write off his career numbers. Instead, you can examine them more closely, with an towards comparing his home numbers to his road numbers:<pre> G AVG OBP SLG OPS HR RBI
Home 1412 .287 .377 .531 .909 310 930
Road 1399 .291 .366 .502 .868 257 897</pre>As you can see, there is little question that Palmeiro has benefited from friendly home ballparks. His on-base percentage and slugging percentage are each higher at home, and he has 53 more homers at home in just 13 more games. Of course, performing better at home than on the road is true of many players throughout big-league history, and Palmeiro's home advantage essentially boils down to an extra 2-3 homers over the course of a season. Take a look at the home/road splits for the other members of the 500-homer club:<pre> HR HOME ROAD DIFF
Mel Ott 511 323 188 +135
Ernie Banks 512 290 222 +68
Jimmie Foxx 534 299 235 +64
Frank Robinson 586 321 265 +56
RAFAEL PALMEIRO 567 310 257 +53
Sammy Sosa 583 309 274 +35
Ken Griffey Jr. 519 275 244 +31
Hank Aaron 755 385 370 +15
Willie Mays 660 335 325 +10
Harmon Killebrew 573 291 282 +9
Willie McCovey 521 264 257 +7
Reggie Jackson 563 280 283 -3
Mickey Mantle 536 266 270 -4
Barry Bonds 703 346 357 -9
Mark McGwire 583 284 299 -15
Mike Schmidt 548 265 283 -18
Eddie Murray 504 243 261 -18
Babe Ruth 714 347 367 -20
Ted Williams 521 248 273 -25
Eddie Mathews 512 238 274 -36</pre>Palmeiro's 53-homer home advantage ranks fifth among the 20 members of the 500-homer club, behind Mel Ott (+135), Ernie Banks (+68), Jimmie Foxx (+64), and Frank Robinson (+56). And right on Palmeiro's tail in sixth and seventh place are Sammy Sosa (+35) and Ken Griffey Jr. (+31). In other words, Palmeiro benefited from his home ballparks no more than a half dozen other great home run hitters did and not even close to as much as an extreme case like Ott. Oh, and if you simply ignore his home numbers and just double his road stats instead, Palmeiro would have 514 homers.<br />
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Now, none of the home/road stuff accounts for the fact that Palmeiro has also benefited from playing in a high-offense era. Over the course of Palmeiro's career the average hitter, adjusted to Palmeiro's playing environment, has hit .270/.339/.421. Over the course of, say, Willie McCovey's career, the average hitter batted .261/.326/.388, for a difference in slugging percentage of nearly 10%. That is significant and without question should be accounted for when comparing Palmeiro's credentials to other great hitters. Luckily, we have plenty of metrics that do that (and look beyond his raw numbers).<br />
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One such metric is Runs Created Above Average (RCAA), which calculates each player's Runs Created and then compares it to the league average. Doing so more or less wipes out whatever advantage Palmeiro has had by playing in the 1990s and 2000s instead of the 1950s and 1960s. And here is the all-time RCAA leader board among first basemen:<pre>Lou Gehrig 1247
Jimmie Foxx 985
Dan Brouthers 967
Roger Connor 807
Frank Thomas 803
Cap Anson 730
Jeff Bagwell 681
Johnny Mize 667
Mark McGwire 665
Willie McCovey 606
RAFAEL PALMEIRO 574
Jim Thome 561
Hank Greenberg 549
Harmon Killebrew 516
Dick Allen 511</pre>Over the course of his 20-year career, Palmeiro has been worth 574 runs more than an average hitter. That number is good enough to rank him 11th all time, within shouting distance of a Hall of Famer like McCovey and ahead of Hall of Famers Harmon Killebrew and Hank Greenberg.<br />
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Another metric that attempts to even the playing field for players across different eras is Win Shares, which has the added benefit of also accounting for a player's defense (which was a strong point of Palmeiro's game for many years). Here is how Palmeiro ranks among first basemen in Win Shares:<pre>Lou Gehrig 489
Eddie Murray 437
Jimmie Foxx 435
Willie McCovey 408
RAFAEL PALMEIRO 392
Jeff Bagwell 388
Cap Anson 381
Harmon Killebrew 371
Roger Connor 366
Frank Thomas 363
Dan Brouthers 355
Tony Perez 349
Mark McGwire 343
Dick Allen 342
Fred McGriff 341</pre>This time Palmeiro ranks fifth, once again right behind McCovey and ahead of Killebrew. Ah, but what about the issue of peak versus longevity? There's no easy way to determine how good a player's peak was (does it have to be consecutive seasons, and what qualifies as a great year?), but I'll make a quick-and-dirty attempt. Below is a list of two dozen of the best first basemen in baseball history and how many times they reached a) 30 or more Win Shares in a season (what Bill James calls an MVP-caliber year), and b) 50 or more RCAA in a season (which just seemed like a nice round number):<pre> WS RCAA TOT
Lou Gehrig 12 12 24
Jimmie Foxx 8 9 17
Dan Brouthers 2 11 13
Frank Thomas 5 8 13
Johnny Mize 6 7 13
Hank Greenberg 6 6 12
Roger Connor 3 8 11
Jeff Bagwell 5 6 11
Mark McGwire 3 8 11
Jim Thome 3 6 9
Dick Allen 5 4 9
Willie McCovey 4 4 8
RAFAEL PALMEIRO 3 4 7
Harmon Killebrew 4 3 7
Cap Anson 1 5 6
Eddie Murray 3 3 6
Tony Perez 3 2 5
Bill Terry 2 3 5
Will Clark 3 2 5
Don Mattingly 2 3 5
Orlando Cepeda 2 2 4
Fred McGriff 1 2 3
George Sisler 1 2 3</pre>Palmeiro clearly can't compare to guys like Lou Gehrig or Jimmie Foxx when it comes to peak seasons, but not many players in baseball history can. Instead, Palmeiro ranks tied for 13th with seven total 30-Win Share/50-RCAA seasons, amazingly sandwiched between McCovey and Killebrew once again. He also compares favorably to Hall of Famers Cap Anson, Eddie Murray, Bill Terry, Orlando Cepeda, and George Sisler, not to mention contemporaries Will Clark, Don Mattingly, and Fred McGriff.<br />
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I think it is clear, from his raw career numbers, statistical milestones, and rankings in more advanced metrics like RCAA and Win Shares that Palmeiro is already one of the dozen greatest first basemen in baseball history. The fact that he is still going strong makes it likely that he will end up as one of the top 10 of all time, if he isn't there already. Regardless of what your criteria for a Hall of Famer is, being among the top 10 players at a position should meet it.