Posted by edsortails on 1/23/2017 3:55:00 PM (view original):
A steal is not worth a home run, but could easily be as valuable. And I am not a rah rah Raines guy.

People miss this fact. They minimize it to "A HR is worth more than a SB...DUH!"

In the 70s and 80s, guys didn't hit a ton of homers. The ballparks were bigger and the "game" wasn't juiced yet. Small ball was king and SBs were a key part of that. Not only did Raines have a lot of them, but his efficiency rating was pretty phenomenal - 4% points higher than Rickey and the best ever for anyone with 400 SBs. In other words, guys with half his SB total still weren't as efficient.

As Grover and Farkus have repeatedly argued, you can't penalize players for playing in an era when the game was played differently. So stop evaluating Raines by steroid-era criteria.

Posted by edsortails on 1/23/2017 3:55:00 PM (view original):
A steal is not worth a home run, but could easily be as valuable. And I am not a rah rah Raines guy.

This is actually backwards, but I guess in this discussion it's not particularly important... In proper English, value is intrinsic, worth is extrinsic. A home run is always more valuable than a steal, but a steal could be worth as much if it leads to the run that wins the game.

FWIW tec, I think that the modified Raines you posit is still a borderline HOF candidate. He's basically Gwynn without the batting average. Look it up - everything else matches up pretty closely. He's not a shoe-in, but given the volume and an OPS+ over 130 he's still close.

Posted by Jtpsops on 1/23/2017 4:23:00 PM (view original):

Posted by edsortails on 1/23/2017 3:55:00 PM (view original):
A steal is not worth a home run, but could easily be as valuable. And I am not a rah rah Raines guy.

People miss this fact. They minimize it to "A HR is worth more than a SB...DUH!"

In the 70s and 80s, guys didn't hit a ton of homers. The ballparks were bigger and the "game" wasn't juiced yet. Small ball was king and SBs were a key part of that. Not only did Raines have a lot of them, but his efficiency rating was pretty phenomenal - 4% points higher than Rickey and the best ever for anyone with 400 SBs. In other words, guys with half his SB total still weren't as efficient.

As Grover and Farkus have repeatedly argued, you can't penalize players for playing in an era when the game was played differently. So stop evaluating Raines by steroid-era criteria.

Yep. The other key points are the fact many parks had that blasted astro turf. Put that with the big parks where Oakland or Kansas City or St. Louis or Houston etc played then, it's easy to understand why they had speed in the outfield (not HRs boys). So you had use what you had on offence. If that was speed, then off to the races. Also speed is intimating, in a different way than power but still there. That has to be taken into account as well as, #2 hitter sees more fastballs, pitcher pitches from the stretch (less MPH and less movement etc) and the pitcher has to pay attention to the runner more... All this is matters, far more than most give it credit. As well, the infield had to play in a little with speed...etc etc.

It is impossible to factor all the things speed brings to the table.

Posted by dahsdebater on 1/23/2017 4:19:00 PM (view original):
I misread your initial statement, tec. I actually am on board with what you did looking back at it.

Please explain it to PSBL. You know, the guy who injected himself into the discussion by first telling me I'm wrong and then insisting he doesn't want to talk about it.

Posted by tecwrg on 1/23/2017 5:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 1/23/2017 4:19:00 PM (view original):
I misread your initial statement, tec. I actually am on board with what you did looking back at it.

Please explain it to PSBL. You know, the guy who injected himself into the discussion by first telling me I'm wrong and then insisting he doesn't want to talk about it.

I don't care who's on board with it, it's dumb. You're taking away the value of the SB and taking away the value of 101 hits and walks, but only replacing the value of the SB.

He converted singles and walks to HRs, he didn't remove hits (actually increased career hits by 34 since he factored 34 walks into HRs).

Posted by dahsdebater on 1/23/2017 5:57:00 PM (view original):
He converted singles and walks to HRs, he didn't remove hits (actually increased career hits by 34 since he factored 34 walks into HRs).

He took away 808 SB and changed those into 101 HR.

Then he took away 64 singles and 34 walks. What did he change those into?

I also took away 146 caught stealing. Why are you ignoring those?

Plus, I thought you didn't want to be part of this discussion.

Would it make sense to evaluate other player's HOF cases by shifting around their stats? Should we convert some of Jeter's singles into steals and see what his case looks like?

I never said I didn't want to be part of the discussion, I said the thing you are doing is dumb.

Posted by bad_luck on 1/23/2017 2:59:00 PM (view original):
I'm not interested in an event conversion. He's a Hall of Famer. His career merits it.

Dahs converted stolen bases into home runs. We started discussing it.

If your not interested in an "event conversion", why have you inserted yourself into the conversation? Just looking for attention?

Posted by tecwrg on 1/23/2017 6:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 1/23/2017 2:59:00 PM (view original):
I'm not interested in an event conversion. He's a Hall of Famer. His career merits it.

Dahs converted stolen bases into home runs. We started discussing it.

If your not interested in an "event conversion", why have you inserted yourself into the conversation? Just looking for attention?

To call you dumb. How many times am I going to have to repeat myself?

If the relative value of actual Raines and modified Raines is the same, then why isn't it a valid theoretical discussion?

Aren't you the "value" guy?

Posted by tecwrg on 1/23/2017 6:48:00 PM (view original):
If the relative value of actual Raines and modified Raines is the same, then why isn't it a valid theoretical discussion?

Aren't you the "value" guy?

If you want to look at total offensive contribution, in terms of relative value, we can.

Over his entire career, Raines was worth 408 offensive runs above average. Tony Gwynn was worth 401 offensive runs above average. Derek Jeter was worth 332 offensive runs above average.

Posted by tecwrg on 1/23/2017 6:48:00 PM (view original):
If the relative value of actual Raines and modified Raines is the same, then why isn't it a valid theoretical discussion?

Aren't you the "value" guy?

His value isn't the same. To keep it technically the same you'd have to just add HRs without removing anything, because those run values are relative to nothing. That said, the value of a single is .475 runs and the value of an unintentional walk is .323 runs, so voiding 146 CS, 66 hits, and 34 walks has actually ostensibly improved his value by about 26 runs.