Mike Piazza
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He wasn't a terrible catcher. He couldn't throw.
Jorge Posada was a terrible catcher. He couldn't block the plate, lots of passed balls.
http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24894949/hall-of-fame-candidate-breakdown-mike-piazza
The most important part of a catcher's job is handling his pitchers and in this area Piazza was superb. Here is one of the most telling statistics. In his career behind the plate, pitchers had a 3.80 ERA when Piazza was catching. If you look at all the other catchers who caught the same pitchers in the same year that Piazza did, they allowed a 4.34 ERA. That's a major difference, much more important than a few extra bases stolen. (In fact, Piazza's catcher ERA of 3.81 includes the run value of any extra stolen bases he allowed.)
Albert Belle is a great example, look at his numbers over ten years they are insane! Belle dominated the game for 10 years.
McGriff, I always liked but never thought of as HOF
Jim Edmonds - great ball player but not HOF.
Zappaa- what are your thoughts on Mussina. I loved Mussina on Yanks but still can't get to a point where I think he belongs in the HOF.
They have made overtures and he has spurned them. The guy even picked a fight with Vin Scully, who's a god in LA.
My understanding is that the Hall inquires as to preferences, but it does make the decision.
In any event, he is going in as a Met. It was announced today (and you actually could have figured it out yesterday, as he was listed as a Met if you searched for Mets in the Hall).
I loved Dwight Gooden, but he basically had a fine peak and not enough longevity. His career WAR is 109th among pitchers, and if you look at the Hall of Fame predictor gadgets, he's well below the standard for the average Hall of Fame pitcher.
Rose certainly belongs in the Hall based on his numbers, but he seems not to understand the terms of the deal he made very well, and seems unable to do what he needs to do to get back into baseball. I don't have a lot of sympathy for him.
McGriff probably has a better case than Gooden, but among 1st basemen he's not incredibly distinguished. Palmeiro has the numbers, but I think he's been sunk by his remarkably stupid decision to testify about PEDs while he was taking PEDs.
Be knighted: That was a great post. I understand what your saying about Gooden. What about the fact that he won 3 World Series. I understand that it's a team effort but Gooden was dominant in those World Series. Yes you are 100% correct it was for a short while but dam it for 12 years he was dominant. Fred McGriff almost hit 500 home runs and was a very good defensive 1st baseman. What about the fact that he was a HR leader twice in his career!
Gooden actually wasn't that good in the postseason - 0-4 in 12 appearances (9 starts) with an ERA just under 4 and a WHIP of better than 1.4. And his peak was a lot shorter than 12 years, unfortunately.
McGriff did lead the league in HR twice, but I think he ends up in that category of players who were very good, but not dominant. And the advanced statistics don't really help his case. 20 years ago, people would have looked at the HR totals and slotted him in, but not today.
IMO, Gooden is only NOT a Hall of Famer because his career ended with drugs AND a string of poor seasons on a weak team. If his career had ended early due to injury like Sandy Koufax's career was, he would have made for a terrific argument as to whether or not he was HOF worthy.
Koufax was 165-87 with 2396 strikeouts in 2324 innings
** if you remove the last 6 years of Gooden's career when he kept trying to make comebacks on poor teams his numbers would look like this:
Gooden at 173-93 with 2041 strikeouts in roughly 2324 innings
Overall, his career numbers was 194-112 for a +82 w/l record while Koufax was a +78 w/l record
Koufax was insanely dominant for about 6 years. Gooden had about 6-7 dominant years as well. The main problem imo is drugs vs natural injury.
Personally, one pitcher NOT in the Hall that really bugs me is Ron Guidry. Like Koufax, his career ended prematurely by injury. He also has rather similar stats to Koufax.
Guidry was 170-91 with 1778 strikeouts in 2392 innings. And he was 3-1 in the World Series (5-2 in postseason)
Watching both throughout their careers, I'd say both were among the top 2-3 dominant pitchers of their generation with a 5-8 year stretch definitely Hall of Fame worthy. Sometimes I wonder if people realize how many HOF players were part of eras where people just didn't last 15 years. They were inducted because of insanely good stretches. Gooden in 1985 (24-4, 1.53, 268ks) and Guidry in 1978 (25-3, 1.74, 248Ks) were two of the best seasons by pitchers in the last 50 years.
I can't really say that I disagree with that. Cocaine cost him a lot, and the last few seasons did drag him down.
Koufax's star did shine a bit brighter - 3 Cy Young Awards, 1 MVP (the same year as one of the CY's), but they're definitely comparable in a lot of ways.
A lot of my Dodger fan friends are bitter that he is not going as a Dodger. First it was the divisional playoffs and now, it's Piazza. I am sorry! hahaha
I think people are calling him one of the greatest HITTING catches, which is in fact accurate. As for terrible catcher, yes he was poor at throwing people out. However, according to many pitchers whom he caught including Hall of Famer Tom Glavine, he called a great game. Also as far as blocking the plate, pop-ups and all that he was fine. Overall, he was probably average to slightly above average at the position defensively. Otherwise, he would have ended up in the AL fairly quickly as a DH first and backup/spot-start catcher second.
When you say people are calling him a great catch, I think you mean catcher, unless you are talking
about Sam Champion, who did say Piazza was a great catch.:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
