The Library of Congress has made a bunch of old baseball photographs available over at Flickr. The photo above is of Les Nunamaker, a catcher for the Red Sox, Yankees, Browns, and Indians from 1911 to 1922.

Nunamaker’s career line: .268/.332/.339. Among his 10 most comparable players are the excellently named Johnny Peacock and Clyde Kluttz, as well as “The Colonel,” Hall of Fame broadcaster Jerry Coleman.

This particular photo was taken in 1912. Little did Mr. Nunamaker realize that a century later, folks all over the world would be able to watch him playing catch on something called the Internet…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

The St. Louis Cardinals have traded third baseman Scott Rolen to the Toronto Blue Jays for third baseman Troy Glaus. Fun trade. Rolen is 33 and has battled shoulder problems, while Glaus is 31 and has battled foot problems.

Career lines:

Rolen: 6380 PA, .283/.372/.507, 126 OPS+
Glaus: 5203 PA, .254/.358/.500, 121 OPS+

2007 lines:

Rolen: 441 PA, .265/.331/.398, 89 OPS+
Glaus: 456 PA, .262/.366/.473, 120 OPS+

Yikes, Rolen’s power has disappeared.

Peak lines:

Rolen: 593 PA, .314/.409/.598, 157 OPS+ (2004, age 29)
Glaus: 678 PA, .284/.404/604, 150 OPS+ (2000, age 23)

Both of these guys at one point in their careers appeared to be headed along a Hall of Fame career path. Well, maybe not Glaus, but still, a guy who puts up those numbers at age 23 has to be considered dangerous. Unfortunately, he’s missed huge chunks of three different seasons since then and settled into the “useful when healthy” category of player.

Rolen? I have a soft spot because I drafted him in a Scoresheet league when he was at Double-A Reading (come to think of it, I drafted Glaus in another league before the Angels even signed him). Anyway, he hit .290/.391/.532 at age 23, which also maybe gave a little false hope of things to come.

Here’s what I don’t get. When the Phillies moved Rolen in 2002, I thought part of the problem that he couldn’t play on artificial turf. Either technology has improved since then, or that was really code for “Get me the heck away from Larry Bowa.”

Post from: Knuckle Curve

I’ve been thinking about ways to bring you stuff that just isn’t available anywhere else. News and analysis is great, and I’ll certainly continue to do my share of that, but one thing I thought might be fun is to use Baseball-Reference’s “random” function and highlight whoever happens to appear when I give it a spin. We’ll do this every Wednesday because, well, in keeping with the spirit of things, I actually chose the day at random.

Anyway, our first player is Harry Lord, a left-handed hitting third baseman who played for the Boston Americans/Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and Buffalo Blues (of the old Federal League). His career spanned from 1907 to 1915, and he posted a career line of .277/.326/.356. Those numbers might appear anemic to us now, but back then it was good enough for an OPS+ of 104.

In 1909, Lord placed fifth in the AL with a .311 batting average. The only players ahead of him that season were Sam Crawford, Nap Lajoie, Eddie Collins, and Ty Cobb. You may recognize those names — they are all in the Hall of Fame.

Although Lord spent most of his time at the hot corner, he also saw some action in the outfield while playing for the White Sox in 1912. He finished seventh in the American League with five home runs that year. (Philadelphia’s Frank Baker and Boston’s Tris Speaker tied for the league lead, with 10 homers. Like I said, it was a different era.)

Not surprisingly, Lord’s list of most comparable players is littered with guys who played before WWII. There is one name, however, from more recent years. Some of you may remember Alan Bannister, a utility player from the ’70s and ’80s.

And that, my friends, is an all-too-brief look at Harry Lord. Until next time…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

As promised, my take:

• The voters finally stopped screwing Goose Gossage. This business about Bruce Sutter paving the way for him is absolute garbage. Gossage came first and was a better pitcher.
• They completely dropped the ball on Tim Raines. There is no way in Hades that Jim Rice was a better player than Raines. Why folks in charge of this sort of thing fail to recognize this is beyond me.
• Speaking of outfielders, if Andre Dawson is a legitimate borderline candidate, then Dave Parker deserves much more serious consideration than he’s getting.
• Jack Morris was not a better player than Alan Trammell. Sorry, he just wasn’t.
• How many years will it take Lee Smith to overcome the idiocy that kept Gossage out for so long?

Sigh. I’ve probably missed some others, but I hate to work myself up over this stuff. I just would like to see the folks in charge of these things do a better job of it. Is that so much to ask? Apparently it is.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Congratulations to Rich “Goose” Gossage on his election into the baseball Hall of Fame. Gossage received 86% of the votes. He will be the only member of the Class of 2008.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Williams was unbelievably good from 1995 to 2002, while playing a premium defensive position. His offensive line for that stretch was .321/.406/.531. You know how many guys put up better numbers during that period (minimum 4000 PA)? It’s a pretty short list, and all but a few of them (Mike Piazza, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr., Chipper Jones) played at the wrong end of the defensive spectrum. That’s assuming you’re willing to concede that Griffey and/or Jones had superior numbers.

Point? Williams was a better player than I’d remembered. Maybe we’ll talk about White one of these days…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Jeff at Brew Crew Ball goes so far as to claim that he hates the Hall of Fame. That’s a bit strong for my taste, but I totally understand it.

Here’s how I look at the situation. For me, baseball is almost like religion. The ballpark is my church, and Cooperstown is my Mecca. Okay, technically we’re talking about two different religions now, but just bear with me.

I’ve been to the Hall of Fame twice in my life: once in August 1988, and again this past summer to see Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. inducted. It’s one of the coolest places I’ve ever visited, and I’ll go again the next time it’s feasible for me to do so.

The building, the environment, the history — I’m down with all that. What doesn’t really work for me is the poor attention to details that ought to matter. Doubleday Field? It’s named after a Union general in the Civil War whose connections to baseball are dubious at best rather than, say, the guy who invented the sport.

When I see voters give absurd reasons for letting guys into the Hall or keeping them out, it doesn’t bother me all that much. I figure they’re just keeping in the tradition of poorly documenting our national pastime’s legacy.

Well, okay, that does bother me. But not enough to keep me from enjoying the place when I visit. Does that make sense? Eh, probably not…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

1. Billy Williams (133 OPS+)
2. Tony Perez (122)
3. Dave Parker (121)
4. Al Kaline (134)
5. Harold Baines (120)
6. Dwight Evans (127)
7. Ernie Banks (122)
8. Dave Winfield (130)
9. Luis Gonzalez (119)
10. Vada Pinson (110)

As a point of reference, Dawson’s OPS+ was 119. Anyway, five of these guys have been enshrined in Cooperstown: Williams, Perez, Kaline, Banks, and Winfield. Of those five, three were clearly superior players: Williams, Kaline, and Winfield.

The other two guys? Banks spent half his career playing shortstop and hit 500+ homers. Yeah, Dawson spent half his career playing center field and fell a little short of the mystical, magical home run total. He also didn’t get quite the same media coverage in Montreal that Banks did in Chicago, although of course that changed later, when Dawson played for the Cubs. Unfortunately that version of Dawson — MVP in ‘87 notwithstanding — isn’t the one that was headed toward a potential Hall of Fame career before his knees stopped doing what knees are supposed to do.

That leaves us with a lot of really good players. Parker basically is the same as Perez, only he got hurt, had a drug problem, and didn’t play for the Big Red Machine. Baines was a brilliant hitter, but thanks to the American League’s designated hitter experiment, he wore a mitt in just 81 games over his final 15 big-league seasons. Make him play the field, like in baseball, and he’s not even part of the discussion.

Luis Gonzalez is still playing, but he doesn’t fit my idea of a Hall of Famer. That is a poor justification for keeping someone out, but I’m sure I could find better reasons if I looked. Oh, here: Dwight Evans. He was a much better player than Gonzalez, and he’s not in Cooperstown. In fact, you could make a very strong case for Evans over Dawson (or Perez, for that matter).

Evans’ main problems were that he played alongside flashier guys (i.e., Jim Rice) and that his career year coincided with a players strike. Evans still has the Fenway thing working against him (though not to the degree that Rice does), but I’d be more inclined to buy into his candidacy than Dawson’s.

The big issue for me with Dawson is that I find myself making excuses for the guy as a way to get him into the Hall. Well, if he hadn’t rotted in Montreal for the first decade of his career. Or if he hadn’t gotten hurt. The thing is, he did rot in Montreal and did get hurt. If we’re willing to cut him slack for those “transgressions,” then we need to start lowering our standards and admit guys like Dale Murphy and the aforementioned Parker.

If you do that, then what do you tell Bobby Grich, Tommy John, Jim Kaat, Alan Trammell, and probably dozens of others? Oh, sorry, you’re too late; better luck in some other universe…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

On second thought, let’s take a look at someone else taking a look at Gossage. In this case, we’ll check in on a couple of guys with a vote, ESPN’s Phil Rogers and Sean McAdam.

As fascinating to me as the discussions of why a player is or isn’t deserving of enshrinement in Cooperstown are the discussions of why voters think a player is or isn’t. The former question is, for the most part, pretty straightforward. You look at some numbers, compare them against those of other great players, and go about your merry way. As for what the voters are thinking, well, that’s where things get… interesting.

Here are a few tidbits from the linked article. PR is Rogers, SM is McAdam. Note that these are only excerpts; read the whole thing to get context.

PR: I think a lot of us have just been slow to recognize relief pitchers. I’m hoping Bruce Sutter’s election two years ago serves as a springboard to get Gossage in this time around.

Yeah, I can buy the “slow to recognize” argument. I don’t see how it would take Sutter to “serve as a springboard” when Gossage was a better pitcher, but I see the logic more or less.

PR: I was probably one of the few voters who put three relievers on their ballots in previous years when I checked Sutter, Gossage and Lee Smith. I’m down to one this year, as Smith has been passed by Trevor Hoffman for the all-time save lead and my vote for Lee Arthur was based on his being the leader. Sorry, Lee.

I’m having trouble here. Smith was Hall of Fame material before his record was broken, but now that someone has surpassed him, he isn’t. How does that work? If the record is meaningful, which Rogers implies it is through his acknowledgment of Hoffman’s achievement, then how does the fact that Hoffman broke it diminish Smith’s accomplishment? I seriously don’t get that at all. Hoffman’s status as the new all-time saves leader should have no bearing on Smith’s place in history.

Anyway, we’re talking about Gossage:

SM: I remembered Gossage’s hanging on at the end of his distinguished 22-year career and having ordinary — at best — seasons with the Giants, Yankees (Part II), Rangers, A’s and Mariners. In those last five seasons combined, he had a grand total of eight saves. Not exactly the stuff of legends, right?

Uh, Steve Carlton sends his regards.

SM: By then, of course, relievers were routinely posting 40-save seasons — Gossage never had more than 33 in a single year — and his numbers began to look pretty ordinary by comparison. He never won a Cy Young Award or an MVP — like Dennis Eckersley, Willie Hernandez and Rollie Fingers each did.

The only way in which Gossage’s “numbers began to look pretty ordinary” is if you were looking at the wrong numbers. Here’s what the relievers McAdam mentions did when they won their awards, with one of Gossage’s seasons thrown in for good measure:

Okay, so based on the above numbers, please tell me who won the MVP and Cy Young, and who failed to garner a vote for either award. (Note that ‘81 was a strike-shortened season.) Ironically, over in the American League, future Gossage teammate Sparky Lyle did win the Cy Young in ‘77 with slightly inferior numbers.

I’m not necessarily arguing that Gossage should have won an award in ‘77 — Carlton was fantastic that year — but the fact that he wasn’t even named on a ballot gives me considerably less confidence in McAdam’s appeal to authority here. He’s essentially saying that because the writers didn’t vote for him back in the day, they shouldn’t vote for him now. More accurately, McAdam (who has come around on Gossage) is providing his reasons for resisting in the past. Good on him for getting it right, but it troubles me that this type of thinking was employed in the first place.

McAdam offers a nice parting shot:

SM: I suppose, Phil, one of the reasons that people’s vote totals change is because of instances exactly like this one: A voter re-examines someone and reserves the right to change his/her mind. The stats don’t change, but sometimes, your perspective does. I’m not afraid to admit I erred in not voting for Gossage earlier, and I have made amends.

I can’t commend McAdam enough for coming clean on all of this. He sets a great example for other voters by admitting that, upon further review, he is reversing his original assessment of Gossage’s candidacy. The next step would be to provide voters with tools (and understanding of how to use them) so that they avoid making these mistakes in the first place.

But that’s a battle for another day…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

The most important finding is that Raines hangs pretty well with his contemporaries — Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, and Paul Molitor. I didn’t get to see Henderson and Molitor play much until later in their careers, but I watched a lot of Gwynn and Raines. As a huge Gwynn fan, I find myself agreeing with Dan that if he’s in, Raines has to be there as well.

Seems to me the best argument anyone can make against Raines is that he didn’t reach the magical 3000-hit plateau, which is silly. Lou Brock hit that milestone, but I like to believe that the voters would have elected him in even if he hadn’t. And you know what? Raines was a better player than Brock.

Post from: Knuckle Curve