Jim Thome: Hall of Famer?

this shouldn't even be a question

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100814155216AA7nGzW

yes

I agree with you guys, but I figured there might be some debate.

How would you rate Frank Thomas, Thome, and Edgar Martinez against each other?

Thomas would win in a fight.

Wow, I would have never guessed that Thome had so many fans insisting he was clean.

JIM THO

ME

Wow, I would have never guessed that Thome had so many fans insisting he was clean.

I would also vote for Bonds and Clemens.

I clicked yes, but would reconsider if etc. Absent that, it's not even close--he's basically Harmon Killebrew, right? Of the three you mention upthread, I'd say Thomas was definitely the best for the first part of his career, and Thome and Edgar are close--you'd have to start looking at park factors to sort them out.

An easy yes compared to the "really?" Johnny Damon HOF talk of late

Johnny Damon is not a Hall of Famer. Not even close.

who the fuck has been calling Damon a HOF'er?!

well he's closing in on 2700 hits, and I heard at least one ex-jock color man call him one last week.

"How would you rate Frank Thomas, Thome, and Edgar Martinez against each other?"

1) Thomas
2) Thome
3) Martinez

Small gap between 1 and 2 and 2 and 3. Thomas was the single greatest non-Bonds pre-Pujols hitter I ever saw and Thome's longevity and slight defensive advantage isn't enough to make up that gap.

My ranking too, with one extenuating circumstance regarding Edgar: Seattle's inexplicable slowness in getting him into the lineup from '87 to '89. Look at his AAA stats for those three years and it's puzzling why Martinez didn't get a full season in until he was 27--he's almost got a Roy Campanella/Ichiro career in terms of getting a late start (obviously different reasons for them).

Well part of the problem was that he didn't hit particularly well in 88-89 in the majors.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

So who said no?

Neyer doesn't think he's a shoo-in:

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2011/8/15/2352500/jim-thome-600-home-runs-hall-of-fame

After snubbing Jeff Bagwell I wouldn't be too surprised if the voters didn't put him in on the first-ballot, but Thome is undoubtably one of the greatest fastball hitters ever and would be a much bigger deal had he not played in the Steroid Era or had he played for teams that were more notable than the Indians or Twins.

I mean owning a .404 OBP through like 30 seasons is reason enough to get into the Hall, not to mention a .559 SLG

Interesting, but I think Neyer is nuts. Absent complications, Thome will be voted in by the writers--what rationale would there be for not voting him in? Neyer mentions somewhere in the article about Thome and a group of players including Andruw Jones being comparable in WAR. That's where reality and WAR part ways for me: the idea that, taking into consideration the trajectory of their careers, Thome and Jones are in anywhere near the same place with regards to their HOF chances.

The only way I can see it not happening is because the voters are just weird and won't vote people in for reasons that make sense to literally nobody else. Joe Posnanski speculated that Jeter won't get 100% of the vote because nobody has ever gotten 100% of the vote and some HOF 'purist' voter will likely try to keep it that way.

"what rationale would there be for not voting him in?"

He didn't rack up any awards over the course of his career, more of a compiler, etc...

Well if he hadn't peaked in the era of Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, etc. he most definitely would have

Coulda, shoulda, woulda...

more of a compiler

??? Thome seems like the ultimate rate guy to me--on-base, slugging, etc. I also don't understand this movement where compiling a lot of counting stats is now held against you. I can certainly understand making the necessary adjustments to give them context, but the phrase "counting stats" is becoming like a character flaw or something.

Not winning an MVP should be given some weight in my eyes, not a whole lot. But he did finish Top 10 four times, and drew votes in nine different seasons, so in his case I don't think it's a negative at all--maybe even a positive.

I didn't claim it was a good argument (and it's obviously not my argument.)

Okay. Another plus may be that he's supposedly a great guy, and presumably has good relations with the writers. (Posnanski's thing today is partly about that.) I've always thought that being a jerk doesn't necessarily hurt you in HOF voting--writers will grit their teeth and vote for you anyway (e.g., Steve Carlton)--but that being really well liked probably helps a bit for players who aren't automatic.

They won't grit their teeth and vote for you if you're borderline.

No--I meant with guys like Carlton. Dick Allen might be an example of a guy whose bad relations with writers kept him out.

I'm curious what woulda happened to Albert Belle if he'd been a nice guy who everyone liked.

If Belle had stuck around for three or four more reasonably productive years, his case would have fascinating.

you know, i was looking at this last night & i'd have to vote no on this

he's a tough one -- personally i lean more towards guys who had a string of really special peak years, and w/ thome that just didn't exist. there were only like 2 or 3 seasons out of his whole career where he was really one of the 5 or 10 best players in baseball. now, a lot of that has to do w/ the insane numbers that jokers like richard hidalgo & brian giles were putting up in the height of the steroid era, but i'm not even sure how to process a lot of the stats from that era. but yeah, i'm not a longevity guy. i'd vote no on damon too.

Honestly, I don't get that. (I'm assuming "cloud of steroid era, however unfair" did not factor in.) I don't know how long "peak" means for you, but I use Koufax as the benchmark, seeing as he's probably the ultimate example of a guy who's in the HOF for peak value. So for me, peak means four or five years--Koufax was '63-'66. With Thome, I'd isolate his peak as 2001-2004. Yes, the numbers were insane then--it's hard to know for sure how writers are going to treat that era. But here's Thome for those four years: .283/.410/.611, 48 HR and 120 RBI (higher when pro-rated to 162 games), and, if you need it, 5.9 WAR per season. I guess the WAR is a little low for peak. But still.

That's where reality and WAR part ways for me: the idea that, taking into consideration the trajectory of their careers, Thome and Jones are in anywhere near the same place with regards to their HOF chances.

OK, I don't know what you're saying here. That Andruw is overrated, by WAR or in general? Cuz he was a brilliant player for his first decade or so (ie a Peak Value candidate), whereas Thome has been very good for a long time (ie a Career Value guy).

WAR is not measuring HOF chances, it's measuring quality, or Santo and Grich would've been in long ago.

Neyer said that it's far from certain that he'll be voted into the HOF, not that he shouldn't be in the HOF. I wouldn't have believed that a year ago, but all bets are off after Bagwell got only 40% support on his first try.

It's true that Thome doesn't have the dominant HOF peak (IMO it takes 7-8 great peak years, not 4-5) but it's not hard to figure out why the voters have favoured guys like Ryan Howard (and David Ortiz) over Thome -- they are/were the high profile sluggers on pennant and WS winning dynasties, and Thome wasn't. Voters usually favour guys who can be strongly identified with a specific team too.

clemenza otm

neither ryan howard or david ortiz are in the fall of fame btw

I meant MVP voting, but the guys who get MVP votes every year are usually the same ones who get HOF votes down the road. I was semi-responding to Neyer's comment about it being somewhat of a mystery why Ryan Howard gets MVP votes every year but Thome didn't, but it's really not much of a mystery IMO.

600 home runs with .400 OBP and .550 SLG over the course of 20+ years is good enough.

Exactly.

In connection to Thome and Jones, I just meant that Neyer brought up WAR as if it had any bearing on their HOF chances. I'm sure that in the great majority of cases, there is a very strong correlation between WAR and HOF chances when comparing two players. But because Jones, at least as of right now, appears to have achieved pretty much all his career value by the age of 30, I think his HOF chances are way below what would usually be indicated by a 70 WAR. He's an unusual case--I'd say he has virtually zero chance.

all bets are off after Bagwell got only 40% support on his first try

If Thome is viewed by writers just as skeptically as Bagwell is when it comes to steroids, then I'd agree with this 100%. My sense was that they were much more suspicious of Bagwell, but maybe that's not true.

Placed on waivers today:

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/08/twins-place-jim-thome-on-waivers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MlbTradeRumors+%28MLB+Trade+Rumors%29

If he ever did make it back to Philadelphia (which the article says is very unlikely), he and Halladay would be enough to get me to pull for them in the post-season.

the dodgers picked up thome in a waiver deal in 2008 (or 2009?) and he did absolutely nothing because his foot was busted. if we had made it to the world series and he was healthy enough to dh I would have pissed my pants with glee.

He seems to be in good health and reasonably productive right now.

xxp nothing would make me pull for the Phillies.

alex otm

Jim Thome was a very good and consistent power hitter for a good long time. From 1996 to 2008, age 25 to 37 minus one lost season for injury in Philly, you could pencil in some big power numbers each and every year. The guy was pretty much a walk machine too. .961 career OPS is pretty high, so with that Thome is ahead of some pretty big names.

Where does he rank against his peers at first base? Albert Pujols obviously ranks higher. I think Frank Thomas was better, but The Big Hurt kept getting injured in his 30s so his career total numbers aren't as good. That said, FT is one of the best right handed power hitters ever. Jeff Bagwell was probably a better all around hitter, but didn't quite have the same power over his whole career - some of that was the ERA, but he also started out in the Astrodome his first couple years. Mark McGuire's HR to at bats is unreal, but he got hurt quite a bit - so I'd probably take Thome over him if I had to choose. Todd Helton had freaky good seasons in Colorado in the middle of the roid era then kind of turned into Mark Grace from a combination injuries, the humidor or testing, so I don't even know how to compare the two. Helton hit like .370 one year with over 100 extra base hits. That's just crazy. You need a guy for 15 years you go with Thome, you need a guy for their best two seasons you obviously take Helton with those caveats. Just how many HR's would have Bonds, McGuire or Sosa hit if he spent a season in the height of the roids era in Denver? 80?

everyone loves thome; he's a good guy, he can fucking hit homers, he looks like us more or less

the coors thing is hard to quantify, but todd helton's case does not seem to rely on naked power, at least. dude is on pace for his 12th season over .300 and is a career .323/.422/.552. probably should have been mvp in 2000. not a great baserunner tho

Walker got 20% of the vote this year, his first time on the ballot. I don't know if that means anything in terms of Helton's chances or not. Probably not

speaking of which -- we don't have a canadian hofer, do we

all eyez on joey votto

Fergielicious.

o cool

Todd Helton is going to be a hard, hard one for HOF voters to figure. That one season at .373 was insane, it looks like Ruth's power numbers on top of a Rogers Hornsby peak season. It is freaky good and looks like a statline out of the 20s. He kind of keeps it up for a few years then the guy turns literally into later career but a bit better John Olerud (who also had a couple of crazy outlier seasons).

All that said, but really I think dudes like the Crimedog and Paul Konerko are only a step or so below Thome all said. You definitely could do a heck of lot worse putting those guys at firstbase for your club for a decade, they were pretty consistent too.

I didn't even mention Palmiero, who is got busted and looked stupid considering his performance in DC but was just as consistent hitting for a higher average but got less walks than Thome. Giambi also got busted but also had some nice peak seasons in there too.

In a way, this time period has been pretty big on power out of first base.

The Helton/Giambi 1B combination leads the NL in wOBA this season!

it's palmeiro who's a step below thome

Yeah but it's not Palmeiro was some HoF slam dunk even before the drug nonsense.

An objective appraisal of what would have happened absent the steroids issue: Palmeiro would have gone in on the first try. I'm well versed in the arguments that people have made against him. Realistically, though, I just can't see that more than a quarter of the writers would have looked past 500/3,000. Those numbers may not carry much weight with voters in 10 or 15 years, but right now, I think they still do. Again, I'm speculating as to what would have happened, not arguing for or against. Myself, I'd definitely take Thome ahead of Palmeiro.

"An objective appraisal of what would have happened absent the steroids issue"

Do you mean absent the positive test? Or absent any suspicion of steroids at all? Because the latter sure. The former not I'm not so sure.

Good question...I meant absent the positive test, but based on Bagwell's showing last year, you're right, suspicion itself might have been enough to do Palmeiro in. But I still think that 500/3,000 would have been a firewall for at least three-quarters of the voters.

on the BP podcast last week, Jason Parks said something like "If you hit 600 homers, I don't care if you're shooting shit into your spine before every game."

methinks that would not be a net benefit.

Rafael Palmiero had over 3000 hits and 569 HRs and 585 doubles to go with those HRs - so that's alot of extra base hits. Yeah the guy was probably never the best at any one point, but neither was Al Kaline, but they were both very good and consistent for years. Palmeiro though looked like a bigger douche than McGuire pointing his finger at congress THEN getting caught on a drug screen- f'ing bad career move there and probably killed that Viagra sponsorship (Ha!). Production wise, I got no beef, Palmiero was a good hitter for a long time. I'd take Thome over him though.

yeah palmiero was a fucking lock -- although the sort of lock that subsequently might make one reconsider one's standards

^^^ this

Whenever I read about Kaline they always talked about he was the youngest ever batting champ but never said much about his career afterward (besides getting 3000 hits). I think that standard summary of his career underrates him a lot. His career OPS+ was 134, which is better than Palmeiro's. He played through the toughest years ever for hitters, which really hurt his counting stats -- his single season OPS+ numbers were better in the 60's than in the 50's. And most importantly for his HOF case, at his peak he was really good (on offense and defense), with nine years of 5+ WAR, whereas Palmeiro has just three years of 5+ WAR. And the MVP voting supports the statistics, i.e. Palmeiro hardly ever drew MVP support because even at his peak he just wasn't that good.

I guess it depends what you mean by support--in the middle of his career, he did draw votes in nine out of 10 years, 10 out of 12; only three times did he finish in the top 10, though. This is not directed at NoTime specifically, but I find it a little confusing when a) the widespread deficiencies of MVP voting is always brought into question on ILB, while b) MVP voting will be used to back up an argument when convenient.

I think when the reason why MVP voting is brought is because the question is what would HoF voters have done or what will HoF voters do. Now why any of us cares about HoF voting is a good question, but I think the reason is most of like to argue about baseball stuff even silly baseball stuff.

Now I'll be inconsistent: is it possible that Palmeiro was the kind of player who was underrated by MVP voters? He never won a home run title, but finished in the top 10 eleven consecutive seasons; never won an RBI title, but finished top 10 nine times; never finished first in slugging or on-base pct., but finished top 10 seven times in each category. That seems like the kind of player who might be under-valued, especially if you think MVP is all about narrative.

MVP votes helps us to judge how a player was perceived while he was playing. That's not to say that some players aren't consistently overrated or underrated by the voters, but in most cases it does tell us who were among the best players in the league. IOW, they may not always pick the winner correctly, but if someone finished in the top five or top ten a bunch of times, then it's a good indication that he was one of the best players in baseball when he played.

With Palmeiro, the more advanced statistics and the MVP votes tell the exact same story -- he was rarely among the top ten players in the AL, and he has the lack of MVP support to show for it. Thome is different because even though he was rarely in the top tier of players (~ one of the top five in the league), he was definitely a class above Palmeiro and still drew almost no serious MVP support. The reasons for that are something of a mystery.

He never won a home run title, but finished in the top 10 eleven consecutive seasons; never won an RBI title, but finished top 10 nine times; never finished first in slugging or on-base pct., but finished top 10 seven times in each category.

So you're saying that he wasn't good enough to lead the league in anything, but was sometimes good enough to finish in the top 10. That's exactly my definition of a player who was good, but rarely great at his peak, and that's why I don't think he's a HOFer.

Plus the Ballpark in Arlington was basically from the time it opened a complete bandbox in an era where offense was up pretty much across the board. As good as Palmiero's numbers looks out-of-context, for the era and ballpark that he played in they were not as spectacular. And that's somewhat reflected in the MVP voting.

What I meant was that, if you believe MVP support disproportionately goes to guys who have one easily identifiable stat to hang a vote on--leading the league in RBI, HR, or BA, generally--then Palmeiro would be just the kind of guy might be undervalued, doing well in all categories but never dominating in any one. I put Thome ahead of Palmeiro too. But I just can't get my head around the idea that Palmeiro does not belong in the HOF, steroids aside. Even though I lean more in the inner-circle direction, I'm not absolute about that: I don't think the HOF should just be for Mays/Pujols-level players. I want the second tier in there, and Palmeiro is solidly second-tier to me--not spectacular, no, but a very good (and occasionally great, like in 1999) player for a long time. Anyway, this all academic, as Palmeiro is not going in anytime soon because of PEDs.

For what it's worth, I'm even flexible on those 500/3,000 benchmarks in isolation. I'm not convinced Sheffield belongs, and if Damon gets to 3,000, I probably wouldn't want him in, either. In combination, though, that's tough for me to rationalize away.

Sheffield and Palmiero have just about the same case as far as I concerned.

"and occasionally great, like in 1999"

It's funny that you bring up this year, because that's a year which WAR doesn't love him. He's not even top 10 in Offensive WAR (he was primarily a DH the entire year). I don't know what the average DH/1B types were doing in the league in '99 but whatever they were doing his awesome year didn't look so amazing by comparison.

Part of it was just that teams were averaging 5+ runs a game.

Am I the only one who thinks that (a clean) Palmeiro not only would go into the HOF, but also that he should? Somebody, anybody--help.

no, i agree.

Your cheque is in the mail.

aside from mvp talk i've pretty much agreed with everything you've said itt

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Al Kaline did have a good world series in 68 when the Tigers beat the Cards, so he got a title winning it in one of the better series of the last 40-50 years.

Palmeiro spent most of his career in Texas and the Orioles (long after the glory years), not exactly playing for the Sox, Dodgers, Chicago or NY. When he was in B-more, he was also not the biggest star as the guy played with Ripken at the end of his career. I'm sure he got a bit of a lift being the second big bat in a lineup with Juan Gone (there's a guy with a cliff career arc) and Ripken, but the guy got the hits - even if it wasn't MVP stuff, it was really good production for a long time.

Hold on a second:

He never won a home run title, but finished in the top 10 eleven consecutive seasons; never won an RBI title, but finished top 10 nine times; never finished first in slugging or on-base pct., but finished top 10 seven times in each category.

So you're saying that he wasn't good enough to lead the league in anything, but was sometimes good enough to finish in the top 10. That's exactly my definition of a player who was good, but rarely great at his peak, and that's why I don't think he's a HOFer.

11 consecutive top ten MVP appearances? There are, what, 500+ players in the league and he's in the top 10 EVERY YEAR? That's pretty much the definition of a HOFer.

No--top 20 nine out of ten years, ten out twelve. He finished top 10 three times: 5/6/8.

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