Are Any of These Guys HOF Bound?

Age: Ramirez-29, Reyes-30, Tulowitzki-28
Career WAR (as of today): Ramirez-31.2, Reyes-31.8, Tulowitzki-30.7
Career slash lines: Ramirez-.302/.374./504, Reyes-.292/.343./441, Tulowitzki-.295/.366./512
Career hits: Ramirez-1238, Reyes-1535, Tulowitzki-912

I included career hits because I would think 3,000 hits, even a decade down the road, will still get a shortstop into the Hall of Fame.

Reyes is obviously odd man out--much less power, gets on base less often. Tulowitzki has the best numbers, but he plays out of Colorado and seems to be the most fragile. None of them has a full MVP share yet: Ramirez has received votes in three different seasons, Reyes in five, Tulowitzki in four. Nomar succumbed to injuries at 30--one, two, or three of them may turn out to be Nomar (who was obviously better than any of them--41.2 career WAR by 29).

Inclined to say lack of hardware and general health is going to doom all these guys.

they all seem like guys who will get some votes but fall short

unknowable tbh

i love reyes but i don't really see any of them making it.

maybe hanley, if the last few seasons were a blip. he might put up more war in two thirds of this season than he did in the last three years combined

Reyes' path is as narrow as can be: get 3,000 hits to even have a chance. He's in pretty good position now--1500+ at 30--but 10 more years as an everyday player seems unlikely.

Tulowitzki would probably take the Barry Larkin path: relatively modest career totals, strong sabermetric numbers. He'd probably also have to win a World Series and an MVP like Larkin. (He had a good 5th/5th/8th run.)

Ramirez has the most points on James's HOF Monitor (64), but I don't know how useful that is anymore--I don't know if he ever adjusted for the offensive boom years, and voters are slowly changing.

Also, until somebody from Colorado gets in, I don't know if you can say anybody will. Walker's not doing much thus far; we'll see about Helton.

They are all pretty good players, but they are all three kind of injury prone and I figure none of them will end up with any of the big counting number stats. Tony Fernandez had some good stats too when he was 30. I could believe that Ramirez or Tulowitzki could still win an MVP. Tulo could also still have the one-team for a solid long career arc to his story like Larkin, that is definitely worth something for HOF voting.

Fernandez is a good comparison: through age 30 (finishing his second year with the Padres), he had 31.6 WAR, 1465 hits, and four seasons drawing MVP votes. Only a .390 SLG, though; a lot of triples, not many doubles or HR.

i like tulo the most but its hard to imagine his 30s are going to be productive enough.

clemenza all the espn/grantland dudes are currently arguing about single greatest seasons by a pitcher on twitter right now

Thanks...I don't ever look at Twitter--can you post link that would give me access?

not really, but here is a portion: http://twitter.com/jazayerli/status/363152650860113920

Steve Carlton's 1972 year is the one that I have seen posted for greatest season. How much he pitched and how well he did on such a cruddy team is really impressive.

Greg Maddux 1995 year is another season performance that is pretty off the chart, especially considering that is in the beginning of the "chicks dig the long ball" period.

plus his (according to BBR) 9.7 WAR came in a strike shortened season.

Pedro in 2000?

Anyway I'm gonna agree w my man H4A, tulo is the one I like the most of this bunch but I can see him pulling a nomar once he hits his 30s.

In context, Pedro's 2000 is hard to beat: 9-1 K/BB ratio, 5.3 H/9, and a 1.74 ERA in Fenway, and in the middle of the offensive boom. (His ERA was almost two full runs lower than the #2 guy.) About the only thing he didn't do was pitch a lot of innings--only 217. I don't remember the details, but if you check his game log, he didn't pitch between June 25 and July 13 for some reason. In 29 starts that year, Pedro only had three game scores under 60; 18 were 70+. By comparison, Gibson had 34 starts in '68, four game scores under 60, and 23 of 70+.

shit i didn't even realize how few innings pedro pitched w/a WAR that high.

Troy Tulozwitzki is the 2nd NL shortstop (played at least 50% of games at shortstop) to have at least 5 20-HR seasons in his career. The other is Ernie Banks (7).

(note: i am drunk) troy tulo having achieved actual things is so weird which is why he will never be in the HOF

i love watching troy picking guys off, he is a PROACTIVE short stop.

Nomar Garciaparra's career arc is another one that would have to be considered when looking at where these three guys career might go.

hey that wasn't a bad post considering i fell asleep in my puke. i meant that even if tulo keeps having these amazing 125-game seasons he'll still never "feel" like a HOFer to the old voters

Would you feel the same way about a starting pitcher who only made it to 200 innings a few times in his career?

Just did a quick check of post-war starting pitchers in the HOF (BBWAA picks only), and Koufax, of course, only hit 200 innings five times; Pedro will go in, and he hit 200 seven times. Everyone else, including guys on the horizon, are at 8+--most were over 10.

What am I saying?...If Tulowitzki's career ends up consisting of mostly 125-130 game seasons, that would be a big problem for me too. 200 innings seems about equivalent to playing 130 games; if you only reach that a few times in your career, I would require that your peak was as dominant as Koufax's or Pedro's before voting you in. That's not Tulowitzki so far.

It kind of depends on what they do in that first half of their 30s. Nomar put up a few just monster seasons, then he hit 30 and was just a shadow of what he was before. I could see Tulo going that way, he's already lost most of a season and then a good part of this one. Tulo might rip a 1/2 dozen seasons off in his 30s as a DH like say Paul Molitor and pad the stats or after Helton leaves, he might get moved to first or maybe left field (ala Robin Yount) to save the wear on his body as he gets older.

200 innings is not like playing 130 games. last year 31 pitchers hit 200 innings and 154 guys played at least 130 games.

last year verlander led the majors with 238.1 IP and six complete games. in 1980, 20 guys pitched more than that and 50 had more complete games.

starters just aren't used that way anymore -- they're not going to get the innings and they're not going to get the decisions/wins that they did in the past.

thanks obama

Is the pool of position players slightly larger than the pool of pitchers? That would make them somewhat more comparable.

Anyway, after I posted that, I realized that yes, 200 innings is much less common than it used to be. Which, if you adjust downward, only reinforces the point I was originally making: would you be okay voting a starting pitcher into the HOF who'd only reached (say) 180 innings a few times? I wouldn't, except in extreme cases like Koufax or Pedro.

By the way, I voted for Ramirez. He was great for four or five seasons, threw away two, now he's great again this year. Could go either way--just guessing.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i could see reyes and hanram doing another 4-6 years each as DHs. Tulo's counting stats seem WAAAAAAAAYYYYY off pace relative to those two

Reyes homered on Felix's first pitch of the game last night. Wants to win this poll bad.

have you used BJ's old Favorite Toy formula to project their career totals? Maybe easier at the end of this season.

I went ahead and tried anyway--Ramirez is day-to-day right now, the other two are playing, so I gave them all 40 games the rest of the year at their current BA. (Obviously optimistic for Ramirez.) I just wanted to see their chances at 3,000.

After getting halfway, I found an online calculator that does everything for you:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/billjames

So: Reyes is 13% to reach to 3,000, the other two guys are at 0%. Ramirez and Tulowitzki's chances plummet because of injuries and low "established hit level"s; Reyes, because he should squeeze out 110-120 hits this season, and because his big injury year (2009) doesn't figure into his established hit level, makes out okay.

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

Hanley is 4-4 today with a home run. He'll get at least one more AB, but right now, in only 315 PA, he's at .352/.404/.659, with 19 HR, 62 runs, 57 RBI, and, the really impressive part, a WAR that should be up to 5.4 or 5.5 by tomorrow.