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Nice Article on why Barry Larkin Should be in the Hall of Fame


Jason

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[size="5"][b]Barry Larkin, Alan Trammell to the HOF[/b][/size]

Link: http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/hof11/insider/columns/story?columnist=meyers_matt&id=5963187

By Matt Meyers
ESPN Insider

When you're a kid playing Little League, it seems the best player on the team is always at shortstop; that's because the shortstop sees more action than any other position and requires the widest range of skills. As you get older, the best shortstop from Little League stays there, while others find new positions. The best overall are guys good enough to stick at short through high school and college -- and then get a chance to play there as a pro.

To make a long story short, shortstop is the toughest position to play on the diamond. (As you'll often hear scouting directors say about a good young shortstop with questions about his defense, "We'll let him stay there until he proves he can't." That's because the hardest thing to find is a shortstop who can hit.) And if you're one of the greatest to ever play the position, it means you're a uniquely talented player who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Ergo, both Alan Trammell and Barry Larkin should be enshrined in Cooperstown.

The easiest way to establish Trammell and Larkin's greatness is to look at wins above replacement, a comprehensive metric that incorporates hitting, fielding and baserunning. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Larkin (68.9 WAR) and Trammell (66.9) rank sixth and seventh all time in WAR among those who played 75 percent of their games at shortstop, ahead of Hall of Famers such as Ozzie Smith, Joe Cronin, Luis Aparicio and Lou Boudreau, not to mention questionable Veterans Committee choices Rabbit Maranville and Phil Rizzuto. WAR isn't the final word on player evaluation, but it's certainly a good starting point when comparing career value. And if you're in the conversation for one of the seven best players in history at the toughest spot on the diamond -- let alone any position -- aren't you a Hall of Famer? So how is it possible that Trammell, in 10 years on the ballot, has topped out at 22.4 percent of the vote, and Larkin got just 51.6 percent in his first year on the ballot?

Once again, it comes down to the electorate's inability to understand stats within context, which particularly hurts Trammell's case. His prime spanned the mid-to-late 1980s, which was a modest era for offense (with the exception of 1987). So his numbers look pedestrian compared to Hall of Famers from more robust offensive eras. But from 1983-88 Trammell hit .303 AVG/.366 OBP/.467 SLG, which was good for an OPS+ of 128. For comparison's sake, in 2002 Miguel Tejada hit .308/.354/.504 and won MVP as the Oakland A's shortstop. But despite all those extra points of slugging, his OPS+ was also 128. That's because power has been so much easier to come by in Tejada's era. In Derek Jeter's six-year peak from 1998-2003, his OPS+ was, you guessed it, 128; some say Jeter will be the first player to ever be unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame. During Larkin's six-year peak, from 1991-96, he had a 133 OPS+ and won an MVP award.

In examining the cases of Larkin and Trammell, that MVP award seems to be a big reason why Larkin got so much more support in his first year on the ballot than Trammell ever has. Because Larkin and Trammell's career WAR numbers are almost identical, and they are each other's most similar players based on Bill James' similarity scores, which aren't even adjusted for context. In other words, Larkin and Trammell are such similar players that if you voted for one, it's crazy you would ignore the other. (The one major difference is baserunning; Larkin was successful on 377 of 456 career stolen-base attempts, an astounding 82.7 percent.)

It's dangerous to use awards as barometers for the Hall of Fame because often the same people vote for the awards and the Hall. So if you were wrong the first time, you're only compounding the mistake when you use it as a component of your Hall vote. As undeserving as Andre Dawson was of the 1987 MVP, that's how badly Trammell got shafted in the AL voting that year. He finished second to Blue Jays left fielder George Bell, despite putting up a higher OPS+ while playing a far more demanding defensive position for a Tigers team that beat out the Jays for the AL East title.

And even if folks weren't hip to advanced metrics 23 years ago, they should be able to see the error of their ways now and realize that Trammell was a lot more valuable than we realized. Even without WAR, voters should have realized that a shortstop who can hit and field like Trammell is a lot harder to find than a corner outfielder like Bell, who brings little to the table other than power. And they should recognize now that multidimensional talents such as Trammell and Larkin are much harder to come by than the likes of Jim Rice and Andre Dawson, two outfielders recently elected by the BBWAA.

Voters need to forget about raw numbers when comparing candidates, and instead adjust for context, which includes position played and era played in. When you do that, you see that both Trammell and Larkin were among the best all time at the most difficult position in baseball.
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For the record, Barry Larkin is one of my 3 or 4 all time favorite Reds, and I'm not 100% sure he belongs. He missed a ton of games due to injury during his career (about 26% not counting 1986 and 1994, his first year and the strike year). Had he not missed so many games, he would be a no brainer for me.
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[quote name='Jason' timestamp='1293725820' post='955135']
For the record, Barry Larkin is one of my 3 or 4 all time favorite Reds, and I'm not 100% sure he belongs. He missed a ton of games due to injury during his career (about 26% not counting 1986 and 1994, his first year and the strike year). Had he not missed so many games, he would be a no brainer for me.
[/quote]

What % of games did Ken Griffey Jr. miss due to injury (honest question), and would that affect your opinion of his worthiness for The Hall?

Larkin is one of my all-time favorites as well, and I think he belongs; I just think the comparison would be interesting...
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[quote name='Elflocko' timestamp='1293727041' post='955149']
What % of games did Ken Griffey Jr. miss due to injury (honest question), and would that affect your opinion of his worthiness for The Hall?

Larkin is one of my all-time favorites as well, and I think he belongs; I just think the comparison would be interesting...
[/quote]

About 25%, and it does not affect my opinion. If Barry Larkin had 630 career home runs, the injuries would not have made any difference to me for Larkin either. But he doesn't. And while Larkin may have been considered one of the best SSs of his time, he was never considered the best player of his time, and junior was for a good chunk of his career.
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I half expected the article to be written by Wild Man Walker. Not that he can form complete sentences, mind you. Barry should get in the hall merely for hitting Marge Schott in the face with a line drive into the 3rd base seats after she mouthed off about something she shouldn't have. Anyone remember that?
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[quote name='CincyInDC' timestamp='1293745100' post='955237']
I half expected the article to be written by Wild Man Walker. Not that he can form complete sentences, mind you. Barry should get in the hall merely for hitting Marge Schott in the face with a line drive into the 3rd base seats after she mouthed off about something she shouldn't have. Anyone remember that?
[/quote]

No, but I wish it was on YouTube...
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[quote name='BigDawgBengal' timestamp='1294254452' post='958761']
Well Barry did not get in this year. Got 62% percent of the vote this year. Will probably get in next year.
[/quote]

That's a nice bump over last year. I wonder who is a first year next year? If there are several big names that may keep him out another year.
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[quote name='Jason' timestamp='1294258051' post='958797']
That's a nice bump over last year. I wonder who is a first year next year? If there are several big names that may keep him out another year.
[/quote]
No big names next year. The biggest name eligible next year is Bernie Williams and he will be lucky to get 10% of the vote. Larkin is a lock for next year.

He will need to get in next year cause the 2013 class that will be eligible is crazy deep.
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