TruffleShuffle

I say the same thing during football season. they always do, usually in painful fashion

Bitter Derwood face

yes, go away Eagles

I agree. I also think it's not a good idea to judge their big league careers by comparing their brief minor league careers. I do think Marshall will be better big leaguer because (over the course of their minor league careers) he has better control, gives up fewer HRs and has better stuff than Hill. I think Rich Hill's raw stuff is better... his control is obviously not, though.

Just to add some info, here's how Bill James ranks various Cubs, all-time, at their position. C: Gabby Hartnett - 9 Jody Davis - 90 1B: Cap Anson - 11 Frank Chance - 25 Mark Grace - 32 Phil Cavaretta - 59 Bill Buckner - 66 2B: Ryne Sandberg - 7 Johnny Evers - 25 Manny Trillo - 49 3B: Ron Santo - 6 Stan Hack - 9 SS: Ernie Banks - 5 Joe Tinker - 33 Don Kessinger - 72 Shawon Dunston - 82 LF: Billy Williams - 11 Hank Sauer - 60 CF: Hack Wilson - 19 Rick Monday - 42 RF: Sammy Sosa - 19 Andre Dawson - 20 Kiki Cuyler - 39 P: Greg Maddux - 9 Three Finger Brown - 20 Fergie Jenkins - 23 Bruce Sutter - 57 Rick Reuschel - 81 Hippo Vaughn - 96

Sandy Koufax ERA+: 1961-124-5 1962-143-3 1963-161-2 1964-187-1 1965-160-3 1966-190-1 He didn't have a long career, but he was probably the best pitcher during the 1960s. I'd rank him higher than many who discount him due to the pitcher's era of the 1960's. Yes, it was a pitcher's era, but he and Bob Gibson were the best of that era.

I'd still have a hard time arguing that the last 5 years of Koufax's career is among the best 5-year stretches for any pitcher in baseball history. He had an ERA+ during those years of 143, 161, 187,160, 190, which is outstanding, and he threw over 300 innings in 3 of those years. He is very much like Ralph Kiner - easily brilliant enough for a stretch to propel himself into the HOF and into the discussion of the all-time greats at his position.

I'm starting to get the sense that Dusty Baker has no idea what the hell he's talking about.

I accept that people feel this way, but I'd like to see someone provide better empirical evidence that Sammy is better than people like Billy Williams or Santo.

maybe, but imagine the outrage had I left him out Probably almost as bad as the outrage for Tom Petty has been. Or, in my case, Bob Dylan.

I think you're asking this question to the wrong group. There probably aren't a lot of Cub fans who believe Santo does not belong in the HOF, excluding everything he has done since he retired. Right, but can everyone be THAT wrong? You're asking this about the Baseball Writers of America, right? Remember, these guys inducted Bill Mazeroski into the Hall basically for one swing of his bat. (career OPS: .666) No they didn't, the Veterans Committee put him in the Hall. They're way more clueless than the BBWAA, who are only mostly clueless.

I was a huge Sammy fan. I loved watching him sprint out to RF, and the way he'd interact with the fans in the bleachers. I loved the production he gave the Cubs during his peak. I think it'd be really hard to exclude him from a list of top 10 Cubs of all-time, but there are valid arguments to exclude him from the top 5. It's like making a top 5 of Yankee players. You'd probably go with Ruth, Gehrig, Berra, DiMaggio and Mantle. This isn't to diminish what players like Ford and Jeter did, but they're just not quite good enough to be among the very best in Yankee history.

Don't most companies have some kind of requirement of rehab when this type of thing happens? Why is it that everyone seems to always jump to unnecessary conclusions about people getting fired? I'm pretty pissed at this organization right now, but if Speier is being granted time to get the help that he needs, I'm happy with it. I really don't think that a lot of people who drink and drive need to see a shrink or are alcoholics. They're people who get drunk and feel like they drive home after doing so. Most probably don't have an alcohol problem, they just need to understand that they can't behind the wheel after they've been drinking.

That's amazing... the opposition basically pitched a perfect game, and Mesa still wins. Don't know if I've ever seen that before. Even Harvey Haddix ended up giving up a hit and a walk after pitching a 12 inning perfect game.

I think you're asking this question to the wrong group. There probably aren't a lot of Cub fans who believe Santo does not belong in the HOF, excluding everything he has done since he retired. I don't think it's fair to say that. Bill James, who isn't a Cub fan, writes: and . If you believe Bill James, Rob Neyer, and numerous other baseball writers, Santo belongs in the Hall. According to James, Santo is easily the highest ranked player at his position who isn't in the Hall of Fame. Yes, I'm a Cub fan, but I can discuss this subject objectively. Ron Santo was a Hall of Fame third baseman.

Well, Santo was a third baseman, but I will answer your question in two parts. One, hitters in pitchers eras tend to be rated unfairly. Hall of Fame voters are pretty simple minded, and in terms of history, they tend to not differentiate between numbers of one era or another. Think about the home run chase... people talk about Bonds versus Aaron, not Bonds in the smallpark era versus Aaron. Players don't have their raw numbers adjusted based on the era that they played. So, as Bill James notes, the most overlooked players in the HOF discussion are (a) hitters in pitchers eras, and (b) pitchers in hitters eras. As Rob and I discussed above, Santo's numbers, when taking the era into account, are comparable to Sosa's. But when you look at their raw numbers, clearly Sosa is ahead. OK, so there's one explanation for what you talked about above. The other is that third basemen are the most under-represented group in the HOF. There are a few undeserving HOFers at 3B - see Fred Lindstrom - but there are also a few third basemen who belong in the Hall who are not in there. People have the impression that the corner positions on the diamond are the offensive positions - LF, RF, 1B and 3B - but the truth is that 3B is much less of an offensive position than the other three. Compare the best third baseman of all time (we'll say Mike Schmidt) to the greats at 1B (Gehrig, Foxx), LF (Ted Williams, Musial, Bonds, Henderson) and RF (Ruth, Aaron). The top guys at other positions are better. Finally, players who have monster years get more recognition than players who are consistently good for many years. People remember Sosa and McGwire in 1998, and that year will be talked about in 30 or 40 years down the road. Santo was consistently good for many years, but didn't have the one signature year that people remember him by. And, while it's unfair to blame the Cubs' incompetence on Santo, they didn't make the playfoffs during his time on the team. So, combine the facts that Santo was a hitter in a pitcher's era, played an the most underappreciated position, didn't have a signature year, and didn't play for a winner, and he's probably the most glaring omission from the HOF.

His life wasn't cut short (he died in 1993 at age 72), but his baseball career did end at age 35 due to an automobile accident that paralyzed him from the waist. It's also a shame that he had to play in the Negro Leagues from 1941-1947. If he'd had a chance to play a full major league career, he'd be regarded possibly the best catcher ever to play the game.

And Sosa... 1998 - 4 1999 - 6 2000 - 5 2001 - 2 2002 - 6 Really not a huge difference there. Sosa in his prime was slightly better than Santo, but Santo was better outside his prime than Sosa. When you factor in position and defensive ability, I'm siding with Santo. To be honest, it's not even that close in my mind.

Thanks for the convincing counter-argument. I don't really have the time right now to give too convincing of an argument, but I'll say a couple things. Ron Santo was a very good ballplayer, an admittedly better one than I had always thought after I just checked his numbers again. But to say that he was better than Sosa is just ridiculous. First off, can we please throw this WARP crap out the window? We're simply talking about a ballplayer, not who was better at his respective position relative to his peers, but the "greatest Cub." See, I don't buy that. If you move Michael Barrett to 1B, all of a sudden he's not that valuable, because he's playing a position which isn't as difficult defensively. What makes a player like Miguel Tejada so valuable is that he puts up huge offensive numbers at a position where most players don't produce very much. Think of it in terms of the HOF. Is Yogi Berra a hall of famer if he played first base his whole career? It's pretty borderline. Is he a hall of famer as a catcher? Undoubtedly, yes. Or, here's another way to look at it. Who do you consider a better player, Raul Ibanez or Miguel Tejada? I'm not talking about just this year, I'm talking about overall. In terms of career OPS and OPS+, they're very close. But you ask anyone who is better, and they'll tell you Tejada, and it's not even that close. It's because Tejada is great for a shortstop, while Ibanez is not really much better than the average RF. I guess I can't put it any more clearly than that. If you're going to compare players to their peers when rating them for the HOF or in transactions, why should this not be taken into account when comparing Santo and Sosa?

That's what the numbers say. Though Santo has played in 3 more games than Sosa... so if Sosa were to go 16 for 16 with 16 HRs, maybe he'd take it up to about even. Rob is moving up my list of favorite posters with his efforts in this thread.

Thanks for the convincing counter-argument.

I don't get the motivation for the dump, although I have been sort of predicting something like this for about 2 years. The ridiculous thing would be if the Cubs don't get involved. Abreu is exactly what they need, and while they will have money to improve, they won't have the players to spend it on. I understand dumping Abreu. They do have Victorino who needs PT and is ready. This shouldn't change whether or not the Phils trade Abreu, but Victorino should not be an everyday RF, at least not for a team that hopes to contend. He just doesn't produce enough offense.

Bump in hopes that some of the people who are talking about the all-time Cubs will join in this discussion as well.

Yeah, in his book, Bill James gives an award for the biggest a-hole for each decade of baseball -- the "Cap Anson Award." He was, by most accounts, a pretty terrible person.

Yeah, but people aren't going to their shows to hear new crap they just wrote. If people pay to see Lynyrd Skynyrd and they don't hear "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Freebird," there's bound to be a riot.