Is Gary Sheffield A Hall Of Famer?
After being forcibly retired against his will, Gary Sheffield made it official today – he’s done playing baseball. And, now that he’s filed his papers, the clock has started ticking on his five year waiting period before he becomes eligible for election to the Hall Of Fame. According to The New York Post, Sheffield certainly feels like he belongs in Cooperstown:
“I am sure it will be mentioned and debated but from my standpoint I know who is in the Hall of Fame,” Sheffield told The Post. “A lot of them don’t belong in the Hall of Fame. If someone wants to debate me, check the stats.”
Checking the stats is something we’re particularly good at, so let’s take him up on his offer. By the numbers, is Sheffield a Hall Of Famer?
The first number he’ll undoubtedly point to is his home run total. With 509, Sheffield stands 24th all time, Most of the members of the 500 home run club are in Cooperstown, though as Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire will tell you, that number no longer gets you automatic entry, especially if you’ve been linked to PEDs. Sheffield was named in the Mitchell Report, so he’s going to have to overcome the suspicion of sluggers from the era, and simply pointing to his home run total won’t be enough. So, let’s look at his overall performance and compare him to some of his peers.
At +65.8 WAR for his career, Sheffield’s overall value leaves him squarely on the bubble. The +60 to +70 WAR range is the gray area of players who have better cases than a decent amount of players already enshrined, but didn’t have the kind of dominant careers that make them easy calls when their time comes. While Sheffield might hope that his home run totals get him compared to the likes of Frank Thomas, he’s actually comparable to guys like Jim Edmonds, Larry Walker, and Edgar Martinez. As Edgar’s results on his first two opportunities have shown, voters are not overly eager to put these great-but-flawed players into Cooperstown.
Whether they should or not essentially depends on how large of a Hall Of Fame you’re in favor of. There are arguments to be made for all of these guys, but smaller hall supporters can legitimately argue against putting any of them in. The problem for each of them is that there are quite a few players in the same boat, and electing one means that you’re probably electing all of them. It’s tough to argue that Sheffield should be in but Walker should not be unless you just give defensive value no consideration whatsoever. If you do take the stance that defense doesn’t matter, than you probably have to put Edgar in. Either way, Sheffield is going to find himself linked with others who are not viewed as slam-dunks, and with a crowded field of similar players, he’s likely going to have a hard time getting in.
That’s just considering the performance. Once you factor in the Mitchell Report appearance and the line that some voters drew in the sand this year – especially with Jeff Bagwell, a demonstrably better player who is simply suspected of use despite a complete lack of evidence – it is hard to see Sheffield gettting elected. His numbers aren’t overwhelming enough for voters to look past his link to PEDs, and as a home run hitter during the wrong era to be a home run hitter, I don’t expect Sheffield will do all that well when he comes up for election.
I think you can make a case both for and against his election. He’s at least worthy of consideration. When it comes to predicting whether he’ll actually get in or not, though, I don’t think he has much of a chance.
I don’t think he’ll get elected in 5 years. But maybe in 20.
Not a chance.. Sheffield has the double whammy of suspiscion of PED’s and not being liked (to put it kindly) at all by the media.
I don’t think there’s much suspicion. He used the Cream and the Clear when he was in Atlanta during the time he trained with Bonds.
I think people should consider the suspicion of PEDs like this: assume he did do steroids, look at his performance at the time he did do them, and see if you can come up with any evidence that his performance was affected. I don’t see that at all. His power was already there because of bat speed. Also, I note that his body did not fall apart toward the end of his career. He still had some athletic ability at the end.
Hawkinscm, the problem with that is for almost all players we have no idea when the did or didn’t do steroids.
That approach works great with Bonds as there was a ton of investigation into him, but he’s the exception, not the rule. Most of the guys who did admit to using steroids admitted to as little as possible.
As for Sheffield, his body did fall apart at the end. He dealt with a bunch of injuries as a Yankee. Detroit used him as a DH because of that. And with the benefit of steroids, there’s two issues at hand. There’s the Bonds like case of massively bulking up and gaining power, but there’s also the players who didn’t use them as heavily and used them more to combat their decline.
Hawkinscm, though you cannot repeat history and say how many HRs he would have hit without PEDs, it is not possible to argue plausably that they did not affect his total at all. Even if you buy the case that PEDs don’t increase HRs for anyone (which I do not), it is beyond question that PEDs in general and steriods in particular allow the body to recover faster from injury. It is extremely likely that Sheff would have missed quite a bit more time, particularly in his declining years, due to injury without them. Since his HR total is barely above the magic level of 500, it’s almost certain that without them, he would not have much of a case (since that’s his main one).
Bonds, Sheffield, Clemens, Pettitte, Plamiero. McGwire, Sosa, McGriff, Bagwell…HOF Class of 2204.
Let’s elect Kal Daniels Darryl Strawberry and Greg Vaughn right away too. Oh and Ken Caminiti.
I think he’d be an eventually veterans’ committee guy. There’s just too much bad “juju” around Sheffield for modern writers to ignore, in my opinion.
You can ask Dick Allen what can happen when you have this situation.
A few more points that will probably hurt Sheffield:
(1) the jerk hurdle, he was notoriously ornery to teammates and the press. This seems like it can be pretty crushing to a borderline case – look at Kevin Brown’s results this past year.
(2) I think that he actually did admit to using steroids before the BALCO grand jury, he used the ‘I didn’t know they were steroids’ excuse, if so that is more than a mere suspicion of using PEDs.
As for Bagwell, it is ridiculous to say that there is ‘a complete lack of evidence’ that he juiced, unless the only thing you will consider as evidence is getting caught red-handed or a failed drug test (which was not even a possibility for most of his career).
i.e. Bagwell, that’s a specious argument. There is zero publicly available physical evidence that Bagwell used PEDs. That’s verifiable. Evidence is a strong word, it has a very clear and delineated definition. Bagwell’s sudden collapse is NOT evidence.
Is it suspicious? Yes. Yet it doesn’t prove a single thing. It’s nothing more than unsubstantiated gossip.
It’s circumstantial evidence. But you’re right, it’s not enough because there are too many other possibilities that can be argued based on common sense.
Evidence is not at all strong word, and can be defined as is anything that tends to help prove or disprove the truth of an assertion. Nor does it have to be verifiable, that concerns the weight to be given to it. Something as simple as an increase in strength can be evidence of steroid use, b/c while certainly not conclusive, it makes the possibility of steroid use more likely than it would be in the absence of an increase in strength.
While there is no powerful evidence that Bagwell used steroids, or even enough reasonably conclude that he did, there are certainly some facts that show an increased probability that he did use steroids, i.e., there is some evidence.
@Dr. Bingerloo: by that “standard” of evidence, you could say that the fact that Jeff Bagwell played professional baseball in the US in the 1990s and 2000s is evidence that he used steroids. Damn strong evidence, in fact!
Actually, it seems like that’s about the standard of evidence that some HoF voters are using.
Evidence that Bagwell used steroids… Dr. Bingerloo, rather than bicker over semantics, why don’t you share with us all what you consider to be “evidence”?
Dr. B is right about what’s evidence. The deal is that the type of evidence he’s talking about is what (I think) they call insufficient evidence: “evidence that is insufficient to prove or support a finding of something.”
re: Bagwell. Really? Point to any shred of evidence that Bagwell used steroids. Have you any? Even any quotes from teammates linking him to steroids?
Injuries are a far more likely explanation of Bagwell’s decline than anything else. His shoulder socket was completely destroyed. He’s had several surgeries on it over the past decade. He’s had bone chips removed multiple times, and he even had the socket itself shaved down.
I’m just plain confused as to what the “evidence” even is though, whatever it is. What exactly is the evidence for Bagwell juicing?
1. That he broke down quickly?
Didn’t we just say earlier that steroids might have helped Sheff extend his career? Now we’re saying they lead to a quick decline? Is anybody else confused by this? So… if you play a a long time, you must have juiced. But if you break down quickly and can’t play as long, you must have juiced. …?
2. That he played in an era when lots of other guys were juicing?
3. That he hit dingers?
I mean, there might be information out there, but I just plain am not even sure what the rational argument is? Where are the needles? Who is the link? Where’s the connection? Who’s making the allegations? What has Canseco said on the matter? I simply haven’t even seen secondary source info on this.
I know Edgar Martinez doesn’t get a lot of love on this site, but I’m 29 years old and he’s the probably the greatest right handed hitter I’ve ever seen. I used to love watching Sheffield swing the bat as well, so it’s a shame that some of the more iconic players during my short time watching baseball probably won’t be immortalized in Cooperstown.
By the way, I think that Edmonds is a better comparison because Walker’s career WAR years were in Coors Field. I know the park effect has been discussed ad nauseum, but Sheffield played most of his games in Average to slightly above average ballparks.
Ummm… Edgar gets a ton of love on this site.
apparently a ton of love is not enough for Andrew!
Albert Pujols says hello.
I’ll second the Edgar love!
3rd
Andrew, I do understand your disappointment. However, in the case of Sheffield, he is entirely to blame — i.e. steroids, biggoted comments about latinos, demands of being “paid”, and a generally egocentric attitude.
I could overlook most of those things (although most voters can’t) if the numbers were there. As this post points out, they are not.
In my opinion, “complete lack of evidence” is disingenuous. As I recall, he was open about Andro in the late 90s, as was McGwire. It wasn’t banned, but it is what it is – a steroid.
You mean a steroid precursor that every study has shown gives absolutely no benefit, right?
It wasn’t banned or illegal or anything at all. If you’re in favor of punishing someone for using something you could buy at GNC that wasn’t in any way regulated by the sport at the time, kindly never try to say anything on this subject again.
It’s not a steroid, it’s a precursor.
It’s more scam than steroid.
and it was legal according to baseball policy until seen in McGwire’s locker. Even McGwire shouldn’t be vilified for using andro.
But where will the sportswriters unleash their righteous indignation then?!? To whom shall they wag their finger?!?
(On second thought, I’m sure they can find a new target or ten in about 0.003 seconds.)
Biggio shouldn’t get in either. 3,000 hits? What’d he play, 26 years? Why not Julio Franco too? You elect tjose guys for longevity, gotta elect Tommy John too.
Being on the bubble, the link to PEDs will almost certainly keep him out. I’m also surprised at how well Edmonds, Walker, and Martinez compare to Sheffield. Although I think Edmonds belongs, out of this group of four it’s likely that none will make it.
Another thing that’ll hurt his case is that he had a number of excellent years, but didn’t really have a sustained peak of excellence. I think that pattern of achievement makes a player like Sheffield seem not quite as good as he really was, because his best years appear a little fluky.
In a 10 year period (94-03) he had 5 years of 1.000+ OPS and another 3 besides those in the .950-.999 range. If that isn’t a “sustained peak of excellence” I don’t know what is.
Well yes, I suppose it depends on how you define excellence. What I was getting at is, Sheffield put up four seasons of 6+ WAR, but none of them came back-to-back or even particularly close together. His great 1992 season was preceded and followed by poor seasons. His great 1996 season was preceded and followed by seasons where he put up about 2.5 WAR.
He did have a four-year period of 6.8, 5.0, 5.0, and 7.8 WAR and that’s outstanding, no doubt. But for a HOFer, four years is kind of a short peak. And outside of those four years, and aside from ’92 and ’96, he was basically a 2-4 WAR player.
So that’s what I’m saying: the fact that his best seasons are more isolated makes him look a bit worse than he actually was.
No.
He’s a steroid dude. And he admitted he dogged it when he was with Milwaukee.
Belongs in Hall of Shame. Case closed.
Damn, Dave is going to be disappointed he wasted 500 words on this closed case.
its ok everyone, we’ve found the ultimate authority on all things baseball; disband the veterans committee and the BBWAA, someone make this guy commissioner!
He’s awesome at wiffle ball I hear! Probably kept his own stats and everything…
It doesn’t help that the most games he’s played for any one team (Marlins) is 558 (about 3.5 full seasons). Are there any position players currently in the HOF who have played fewer games in their longest tenure with a club? I would think not.
Sheff had a HOF peak 15 years (1992-2007) but those age 19-22 years in Milwaukee and 38-40 years in DET/NYM bring down his rate stats to a bubble level. Those 7 seasons comprise of 2500+ PA of .750 OPS are killers.
HOF is more about career totals than intensity. Short career players have a problem. Only the most intense (i.e. Pedro Martinez) have a good chance. Look up Smoky Joe Wood Syndrome.
While I can appreciate the fact that his first couple of years and last couple bring down his rate stats, the fact that he didn’t play with one team for an extended period of time is entirely irrelevant. I will judge HOF voters as much as anybody for using poor metrics in their decisions, but I can’t imagine any of them that would care about this one.
Hard to say. I’m more of a large-Hall guy, and he’s worthy of consideration, but the PED question (since there is some actual evidence against him) bothers me. Plus, he’s a douchebag, and I have never pretended to be totally objective in these question.
What I do find interesting, however, is how much value he lost by playing the field. If I’m reading his player page right, he docked himself a good 20 wins (from the same offensive numbers by an average defender) over his career through his defensive ineptitude. Some dudes just shouldn’t wear a glove, for the good of the team.
He admitted to using the Cream and the Clear, he just didn’t know what it was at the time.
Remember how mad he was at Bonds for not letting him know it was illegal steroids.
Of course, Bonds didn’t knowingly use illegal steroids either.
Ignorance is bliss … or … Ignorance feeds deniability. Your choice.
Interesting. Seems to me he’s shifting the blame instead of genuinely owning up to taking PEDs. Willful ignorance might be a defensive tactic used by a number of steroid users, as you said, to create deniability. In my opinion, this behavior calls into question a player’s integrity and character. As I recall, these are two of the factors the writers are supposed to consider when voting on a player’s election…
Or maybe we just shouldn’t care that much about defense. I’ve always thought WAR overstates the impact of defense (both on the game and on a player’s individual numbers), and that it just doesn’t contribute to (or detract from) a player’s value as much as we think.
After being subjected to Raul Ibañez patrolling the outfield for a few years, I know that we should definitely care about defense.
How to measure it, accurately, is a legitimate question. But, after a career as long as Sheffield’s, we can pretty reliably say he was an awful defender that detracted from his overall value by playing the field. Even if you distrust extreme UZR and TZ values and cut his career defensive statistics in half, he’s still a negative 10 win defender over that time. Pretty ugly, if you ask me.
“I know that we should definitely care about defense.
How to measure it, accurately, is a legitimate question.”
^^This. I second that notion.
I said care “that much.” Yes, we should care some. But I think generally we overstate the value of defense. Think how many defensive opportunities a LF gets per season vs. how many AB. To say defense should be considered as making up about half of a player’s value seems like too much.
It’s frustrating that Bagwell did not get more support for the hall. I guess the line will be set for stats vs character when Bonds is eligible. Are the writers not going to admit the most dominant and greatest (modern) baseball player in the game to the HoF? The all-time home run leader with 170 WAR? Really?
As Posnanski said “2. Jeff Bagwell — though he never tested positive for steroids, never was implicated in any public way, was not named in the Mitchell Report or by anyone on the record as a suspected user, and is not even on this rather comprehensive list of players linked to steroids or HGH — seems to have become in some voters’ minds a player who used performance-enhancing drugs. I can’t even begin to describe my disgust at No. 2 … it makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. This is PRECISELY what I was talking about when I said how much I hate the character clause in the Hall of Fame voting. I think it encourages people to believe their own nonsense, to stand up on high and be judge and jury. It’s something that my friend Bill James calls the “I see it in his eyes” tripe”
http://joeposnanski.si.com/2010/12/30/hall-of-fame-the-eight-definites/
Bagwell will almost certainly make it. He has 14 more tries, and people who get 40% on their first try tend to get in.
15 years is a long, long time. The biggest risk for Sheffield is falling off the ballot entirely — but not even Palmeiro did that.
kevin brown did…
Honestly, if Kevin Brown had won 300 games, he wouldn’t have. It’s a lot easier to knock a guy off the ballot if he doesn’t have one of the “magic” numbers.
Sheffield and Brown have a fair amount in common, though. PED suspicions, disliked by the media, and they bounced around between a lot of different teams. That doesn’t mean he’ll do as poorly as Brown did, but all of those things tend to hurt a player’s chances at the hall.
The JoePos article lists the HoF criteria, which in addition to character, include sportsmanship and integrity. I can understand wanting to abolish a test for character. It’s the sort of word that really lends itself to prejudiced judgments. I can’t conceive of wanting to enshrine people to baseball’s Hall of Fame without considering their sportsmanship or integrity. Steroid users score poorly on both. So their record, playing ability, and contribution to their teams will have to overcome those poor marks.
Bagwell will make it in. He wasn’t a character-clause victim (for the most part), he was a victim of “first-ballot” silliness. Which is silly. But he’ll get in. Bonds will make it in. His record, his playing ability, and his contributions to his teams were mammoth. His impact was too big to ignore. He might not make the first ballot either… even though I typically think manipulation of ballots to prevent players from making it “too soon” or to prevent unanimous voting is stupid, I actually think a first-ballot boycott of Bonds would send something like the right message.
I probably wouldn’t vote for him. He has good but not elite numbers and I’m more of a small hall of fame guy. The guy cheated and he should be punished accordingly.
Bingo! And the steroid factor shouldn’t even come into play, because his numbers are not HoF numbers.
If you think his stats don’t measure up, that’s perfectly acceptable. But don’t give a “bingo!” to the asinine sentiment:
“The guy cheated and he should be punished accordingly.”
That standard has never been consistently applied until now and there is no way to know definitively who did and didn’t “cheat”. We don’t need the sportswriters playing morality police.
In 1993, as a 24-year-old, Sheffield some how managed to put up a -32 UZR in about 550 plate appearances.
Has that young a player ever played such bad defense over such a sustained period of time? I can’t seem to figure out if FanGraphs leaderboards have a way to look for this, but I’d guess not.
As such, shouldn’t we count this as a complete outlier? Say Sheffield put up -12 that year instead of the unbelievable -32. That adds 2 extra wins and starts to make him look a bit better. Again, I really think defense plays too much of a factor in how we’re evaluating Sheff.
I’m no fan of his, and I think he’s a borderline HOF guy, but when we’re looking at players, let’s just look at stats that we know make sense, as opposed to ones we’re not sure of.
he did have 34 errors (.899 FP) that year, so it must’ve been pretty bad. Is it that hard to believe that a guy with such poor defensive performance would cost his team a 0.5 to 2 wins any given year?
It’s one thing to separate his offensive and fielding performances when comparing him to other sluggers, but I don’t think you can ignore it completely. Especially for a player like Sheffield which every defensive metric seems to rate pretty horribly
His fielding percentage that year at 3rd was .899 in over 1100 innings. I know that can be one of the more misleading stats out there, but .899 is really bad. I don’t see it split up that far back but that could easily be -15 from errors alone. It’s not too hard for me to believe he could have been -20 or -30 playing at a position where he just didn’t belong.
Ryan Braun’s rookie season was comparably bad on D, though his playing time was a bit less.
I agree with that especially given that there is still a healthy amount of skepticism regarding the efficacy of fielding data. For example, using wRC+ he’s definitely an HOFer.
What territory do my fellow commenters see Gary getting on the first ballot? Not whether you would vote for him, or think he deserves to be in, or will get in eventually, but where do you think he’ll actually start out with his first time on the ballot?
0-5%? 5-10? 10-15? 15-20? Over 20?
FWIW, I think he’ll be somewhere in the 5-7% range, and may come close to falling off the ballot after his first appearance.
There will be so many other great players on the ballot with him (http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hof_2015.shtml), that I could definitely see him getting only a couple of votes and dropping out immediately. granted some of those guys will be in already, but it’ll still be a packed ballot.
Sheffield should be in the .06-.09 range, and should be eligible again in 2195.
I wouldn’t put Sheffield in, but I will point out that he’s got something going for him that his comparables don’t. He played for a lot of teams in a lot of different markets, especially some very big markets, and I’m still not completely convinced that the BBWAA will always vote the right criteria. He had a great career, he played for the Dodgers and the Yankees, he hit that home run against Boston in the playoffs, and familiarity can get in the way of objectivity.
Right. He made a lot of enemies in a lot of different cities. Hurts his case more than helps it, I’d imagine.
Is it true that his five-year waiting period starts now? I thought it turned on when he actually played his last MLB game (so, a year ago), not when he filed his papers.
His waiting period starts after the season of his last game. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t file his papers. Look at Rickey Henderson – he was still tryin gto sign on with someone when he was elected.
Yeah, that’s what I thought. Thanks.
Yes, he’ll be on the 2014 ballot.
I know that this won’t be a very popular argument on this site, but it is called the Hall of Fame, rather than the Hall of Most Valuable Performance. Jim Edmonds and Larry Walker were probably better all-around players. Edmonds was a pleasure to watch in the field, and Walker had that stunning arm, but few players of this past generation generated the fear and excitement Sheffield did when he came to the plate, menacingly waggling his bat and ripping line drives (often foul) down the third base line. On that score, Sheffield’s comparables were closer to Manny, Bagwell, and Thomas. I think there’s room to consider these impressions in a Hall of Fame debate.
On a vaguely related not, I’m not sure players should be penalized too greatly for their supposed negative contributions in the field, especially at positions that require better defensive skills. Sheffield spent a lot of time in right field, third base, and short when teams could have been utilizing him at first, left, and DH.
That’s not an argument, it’s fantasy. It’s *called* the Hall of Fame, but in practice, it’s *been* the Hall of Most Valuable Performance. They haven’t always gotten it right, not at all, but it’s pretty clear that that’s what they’ve always been trying to do.
Except for Tinker, Evers, n’ Chance. Damn poem.
The problem with your argument is that you can’t quantify “fear and excitement”. You really have to use some sort of value metric for these predictions, and see where it gets you. I think the only real metric for “fame” that isn’t directly correlated to value is All-Star Appearances. In that regard, Sheffield again, as the analysis indicates, is right on the border. He has 9 appearances in the All-Star Game. Of the 62 players that have in between 8 and 10 appearances, only 34 are already in the hall, and while some others are likely likely 1st Ballot Guys not yet eligible (Maddux, Glavine, Pujols, etc), there are plenty of players that were regarded as roughly as famous for roughly the same amount of time who don’t make the cut.
My point is that, even taking into account the intangible “how famous and fun to watch he was” doesn’t necessarily kick him over the line into HOFer.
Sheffield does have as many top-10 MVP finishes as Bagwell (six each, although of course Bagwell actually won one with his sick ’94 season), and more than his supposed comparables Larry Walker (4), Jim Edmonds (2), or Edgar Martinez (2), which says something in support of his perceived star value.
Or displayed in terms of points, from 10 for a 1st-place finish to 1 for a 10th-place finish:
Bagwell 37
Sheffield 35
Walker 21
Edmonds 13
E. Martinez 13
Yes, but was he as feared as Jim Rice?
Edmonds doesn’t have the counting stats that sheffield has
sheffield has roughly
600 more hits
500 more runs/rbi
200 more SB
100 more HR
400 BB
Sheffield has about 2000 more PA, but sustained performance counts for something. Edmonds was a much better defender but defense doesn’t count for much regarding the HOF. Unless the players were the best at their position durring their era. Edmonds was not, Andruw Jones was.
I’d put him in. couple reasons…
1) Even though he is in the 500 HR club, he never even came close to striking out 100 times in any year. Has a couple hundred more career walks than K’s. got on base well unlike many HOFers (ie dawson). I dont know how a rice-dawson HOF cannot also have Sheffield
2) The steroid thing is tough, but nobdy can convince me that some already enshrined werent just as guilty. Did anyone ever explain why Puckett went from a 4HR hitter to a 31HR hitter in 1 year, then after a couple years dropped back down to a 9HR hitter? Anybody have a logical explanation for Molitor being better at 40 than he was at 28? We know from his younger days he didnt have a moral obsticle in regards to illegal substances. Both Puckett and molitor saw these jumps within the steroid era
You’re an idiot. Puckett is the example you want to use? Did you see his body? And way to selectively cite the stats, because his 20-something power stroke returned. I suppose you think that he went off the roids in 1989 to win a batting title, and then back on them. Right?
And Molitor? Once again, did you SEE the guy? Neither of these guys were on steroids. Also, isn’t the “steroid era” typically defined by people like you as having begun when the offense started increasing? Puckett’s power spike was in 1986 — which predates the typical knucklehead definition as the start of the “steroid era”.
Yeah I saw Puckett’s body. I saw Neifi Perez’s too. did Neifi’s round body scream out PEDs?
You dont want to include 1986 in the roid era? Really? When were Canseco and McGuire breaking in? Lenny Dykstra?
come to think of it, Dykstra kind of resembled Molitor. But clearly by looking at molitor, you KNOW he didnt use. He’s just the one guy out of a million that peaks at age 38. Perfectly natural and common, right?
for somebody who likes to call others names, you dont present very strong arguments for your opinions
As if the Puckett/Molitor steroid comparison wasn’t stupid enough, you cite two questionable HoF choices as your benchmark? By this logic, you are in favor of the open the gates to the lowest common denominator approach. Problem with that is that it is incredibly unforgiving. One mistake and there goes the pot.
The mere fact that you are comparing Sheffield to two potential HoF mistakes and a steroid argument that is inherently flawed is proof enough that he’s a long shot. Sheffield actually has some circumstantial evidence and investigative evidence tied to him regarding ‘roids, and neither Molitor or Puckett do.
You’re a fool.
The #1 reason why Sheffield should never be in the HoF! He admitted that during his time in Milwaukee (lates 80s) he would intentionally make errors during games to get back at his manager. Intentionally! That to me is an automatic banning from the HOF. Sure that was 20 years ago, but still.
This is a major negative to me as well. It may be hard to define why successfully on such a numbers-oriented site but it has to do with that nebulous concept: respect for the game. Pretty much anyone who reads fangraphs on a regular basis would give his I-teeth for a cup of coffee in the big leagues as a utility infielder or long reliever. This guy had all the talent in the world, was better at baseball than approximately 6 billion people in the world and it wasn’t enough for him. He didn’t want to play here, he wanted to play there. Lots of people are unhappy at their jobs but if they were to admit to sabotaging their employers they would never work again. There is a professional way to go about it and there is the way Sheffield handled the situation. Even the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world don’t get everything they want, exactly when and how they want it. the ones that kick and scream about it are not looked upon well no matter what the profession. Now, I’m not saying every ballplayer needs to shut up, do what they are told and be happy to be a playing a game for a living but Sheffield took it way to far.
Well, honestly, what a player does as a kid in his rookie years is not something I would hold against a player if he was a model citizen thereafter, which clearly Sheffield was not (as I mentioned in another post earler). But it would be easier to overlook a lot of his crap, if the numbers were there, but they are NOT. His numbers are not HoF material. Oh sure, he had a few HoF caliber seasons, but not a HoF career.
Whoa.
First of all, 66 WAR is not the “bubble” in any reasonable sense. The Hall of Fame has like 240 members. The 240th-best player in MLB history probably has something like 55 WAR. *Everyone* who has over 60 WAR and any semblance of a peak should be a slam-dunk case.
Second, Sheffield is only at 66 WAR if you think he was *THE WORST PLAYER EVER TO DON A GLOVE*. He is being docked TWO HUNDRED RUNS for his defense. That is an astonishing total–it’s the difference between 117 home runs and 117 outs. If his fielding were really THAT awful, wouldn’t he have been moved to DH earlier? And if he wasn’t, can we blame him for his managers’ stupidity at continuing to run him out there when he was such an obvious liability (Adam Dunn/late-career-Griffey style)? I’d believe -100, but -200 is just silly. Sheffield’s offensive value of ~85 WAR puts him in elite, no-brainer Hall of Fame territory, and I can’t buy bad fielding dropping him all the way to the bubble.
I agree with the sentiment here – players are asked to play a position, or DH. It’s not entirely the fault of the player if they are asked to play out of position. At a ridiculous extreme, suppose a position player is the token “mop up guy” when the pen is tired, and gets used 2-3 times a year to pitch. He’s a terrible pitcher (by MLB standards), and ends up being “worth” –0.5-1 WAR a year, and -5-10 for for his career (maybe he throws a knuckler or something). In my head, there is no reasonable way this should be counted against him, even if it counts in his career total. In a weird way, he could get credit for it if he turned out to be a good pitcher (and added 5 WAR to his career), but shouldn’t be blamed for the bad outcomes (not his fault).
Similarly, but less extreme, a player being asked to play defense in a spot they stink at it – why should he get the full blame? It’s up to the team/manager to find a spot they can succeed in, and in Sheffield’s case it appears to have taken too long for teams to put him where he couldn’t do so much damage to them.
I think it’s high time the Hall Of Fame stop these foolish “automatic” enshrinements for certain counting stat milestones. 3,000 hits is what, 150 hits for 20 years. All you’re really rewarding a player for is being healthy and playing a long time… Many 3,000 hit players are also impact players, but not all were considered elite. Biggio? 3,000 hits and an impact player for many seasons, but he had a career .281/.363/.433. He played 20 seasons, was only elected to 7 AS, won 3 GG, and has very few MVP shares. The fact that he was a 2B for much of his career with nice counting stats (particularly in doubles, and runs scored) is what will get him in. But did he have more of an impact in his prime than Larry Walker, or Gary Sheffield? Perhaps, but the case can be made very well that he did not.
Tom Glavine will get in with 300 wins, a 3.54 ERA and a 1.31 WHIP. His high wins total is what will get him in. Not only are wins a foolish measure for determining a pitcher’s value, but high wins totals on consistently good teams inflate that number even higher. And don’t get me started on the two Cy Young awards. 1991 was nice, but in 1998 he wasn’t even the best starting pitcher on his team!
This is what I can’t understand about this site:
You can’t use WAR in a vacuum to elect players to the HOF.
Besides straight stats, shouldn’t it be an asset to the guy’s HOF chances if he was identified by his manager, coaches, and other teammates (NOT the media) as a player who cared deeply about winning, exhibited and preached fundamentals, taught younger players, and was a positive force in the clubhouse?
Conversely, shouldn’t a guy’s case be hurt if he was known as a selfish prick who often showed up late, frequently loafed in the outfield, derided teammates, bitched constantly about his salary, called other people racist without the slightest proof of allegations, etc. ad infinitum?
Can you really judge whether a guy is a HOF based solely on a WAR table?
WAR should be a BIG part of the equation but not the “be all, end all”. Some really smart people write for this site, but articles like this just don’t make any sense to me. Hasn’t anyone reading this ever worked in an office with a person who usually performed their work product in a stellar manner, but who consistently ripped the boss and co-workers behind their back, showed up late, often complained about his salary, at times performed well below his capabilities (and deliberately so), hated the company that you worked at and constantly made demeaning comments about the industry, the enterprise, etc.? That type of person is a black plague in an office – the proverbial “clubhouse cancer” in a sports setting. Would you consider this person the company superstar just because he is performing his work at a stellar level? No – more goes into the equation.
Sometimes you have to think about this sports stuff in a real-world context. Just because somebody has the “stats” doesn’t mean that he is a HOF.
oh my god. Is Sheffield a hall of famer!?!?
You people are why Bill James gave up.
You can use all the acronyms you want, but he’s still a hall of famer.
Just inside the top 30 all time as a hitter. Played almost all his career in pitchers parks. But terrible fielder. Drops him to borderline.
I feel that Sheff is not being fully appreciated here.
Yes he was a bit of prick, and yes he has PED issues; but he was a damn fine hitter for a very long time.
Comparing WAR against Larry Walker and Edmonds is unfair because of they were different players, both known for good to excellent glove work (so gain WAR from defense), while Sheffield takes a huge WAR negative (about 20?)based on defense – so the hitting portion of their respective values quickly takes opposite directions.
Yes I value defense, but the HoF has traditioning emphasised hitting rather than defense (unless you are a wizard with the glove) – so the WAR value for defense argument should really only be used to help Edmonds and Walker as they are underappreciated, not a stick with which to beat Shef over for his HoF chances – if he doesn’t get in it won’t be because of poor defense.
I basically see Shef as a less good version of Manny or Frank Thomas (both 1st ballot HoF for me) – guys whose value is predominanlty with the stick. Whether the amount that he is ‘less good’ than those 2 is enough to force him under the bar for the Hall is a personal matter. If I had a yes/no vote of Shef for the HoF, It would be a yes for me.
Sheffield had more BB than K, considerably more. That is unusual and a sign of great modern hitter. In basic terms, his hitting numbers are plenty good for the HoF, but i understand there are negatives:-
Hardly any black ink (though is it fair to use this when he overlaps Bonds/Pujols?); not much MVP consideration; as well as PEDs and being a difficult character.
Cetaintly arguable and an interesting case.
P.S. The Bagwell stuff? HoF for me, but the self-righteous ‘where’s the evidence of PED use’ is BS.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/web/COM1180461/3/index.htm
Per Verducci – It is undisputed he used Andro (while not illegal). Andro is a steroid hormone and has the classic chemical structure of a steroid (so it is a steroid), it is on the current banned list, with studies not conclusive as to if it works in an anabolic nature, or whether it actually has a performance enhancing effect (i.e. NOW we think/know it isn’t a PED, but the guys taking it in the 90s probably thought it was a PED).
What can’t really be disputed is that he took a substance because he thought it would give him some benefit. For me it doesn’t make him a baddie (no more than a guy having a cortisone shot) just means that he took a supposed PED (at the time) when it was legal.
Jim Edmonds retired today.
Jim Edmonds has more career WAR than Gary Sheffield.
Jim Edmonds is not a Hall of Famer.
Case closed.
Except you’re wrong.
god you’re almost as good as that guy up earlier who also is the final source for all matters baseball, how has no one in the media found you yet?
Thanks Ken – I thought your insightful was highly valuable. Edmonds is clearly not a HOF and neither is Sheffield.
I disagree completely. If you compare Edmonds to other CF, he fares well.
http://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx?playerid2=1153&playerid3=1012230&playerid4=1005270&playerid5=&wg=1
By career WAR, Edmonds, Griffey, and Jones are king.
Just found out that Sheffield is the career leader for WORST fielding component to his WAR on FG. I think the WAR graphs represent him unfairly.
I mean, how was the guy worth -204.7 FLD runs (with a -95.5 positional adjustment)???
Manny, 2nd worst, who i thought was the worst OF I’d seen play has been worth -155.7 FLD runs (with a -119.1 positional adjustment)
I just can’t buy that Sheffield was that bad in the field. He came up as a SS and he was a terrible fielder?? 50 runs WORSE than Manny?
Sheff, Manny and Bernie Williams (-152.5) are the only guys that have worse than -125.
Sheffield was a good player but no one likes him. A bit of a racist.
The players you chose aren’t a fair comparison. Jim Edmonds was a CF. Edgar Martinez got the majority of his WAR at DH. Walker works, though.
Here are better comps:
http://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx?playerid2=114&playerid3=1012201&playerid4=302&playerid5=1001157&wg=2
Bobby Bonds, Reggie Smith, and Sammy Sosa
- I definitely don’t think Sheffield will make the HOF in the next several years. He’s a proven PED user, and was a malcontent in every single city in which he played his entire career.
- His numbers make him a borderline, if not probably, HOF’er, though not necessarily a first-ballot HOF’er. However, part of the reason some of these numbers are so shiny is that Sheffield used steroids.
Those are the basic factors voters will have to weigh over the next 5-20 years.
If you followed his career at all you would know that he is a hall-of-famer!!
You know, I posted above all the reasons that I believe that Sheffield is not a Hall of Famer, and they are plentiful — in my mind, at least. But, I DO NOT discount him based on one silly stat. WAR is one measure. Only one. The HoF does not simply enshrine a player based on being above or below career WAR.
That’s just silly. And the Jim Edmonds and Gary Sheffield comparisons are even sillier.
I’m a big fan of the disbelief at -20 WAR fielding – after all if it is half that, he’s a +75 win player and a relative no brainer, not a bubble guy. baseball-reference’s top 10 hitter comparables are (in order): mel ott, reggie jackson, griffey, mcgriff, mantle, billy williams, frank robinson, frank thomas, al kaline and chipper jones. generally, those guys are considered all time great hitters, and the only one i’ve ever heard debated in the context of the HoF is mcgriff. Given the evident disparity in fielding stats between sheffield and anyone else to ever play baseball and the company he shares at the plate, the only real discussions to be having are the steroid and jerk factors
to put his hitting prowess in better context, according to fangraphs all time batting value, sheffield is the 33rd most valuable batter of all time.
Well, you have to remember those b-ref comps are raw, unadjusted numbers, not scaled to era at all. Had they been, I don’t think he’s going to show up next to Mantle and Frank Robinson. Everybody else? I don’t have a problem comp’ing him to those guys, although Griffey and F Thomas were obviously better.
Couldn’t agree more about the -200 runs fielding being completely ridiculous, but I’m glad it is coming up now. Perhaps some people will consider de-overvaluing(is that a word?) defense so much in WAR calcs overall.
Personally, I thought Sheffield was a great hitter. No one has mentioned that he put up these numbers as a right-handed hitter. That’s a harder thing to do. I would put him in, personally.
I don’t care about his stats, or whether or not he used PEDs.
The clincher for me is the following:
“Yeah, I tanked it to get out of Milwaukee.”
EFF Sheff.
Its a close call at first thought but as i have to rethink it and rethink it, that tells me in all honesty he is not destined for the HOF. Then you recall him intentionally throwing away the baseball as SS for the Brewers to get traded. Even not considering the drug issue and the grouchy personality, he just falls short despite the 500 plus HRs. its difficult to reject him outright because he was in fact such a feared hitter in his prime and did have great longjevity. He loved the next paycheck and loved attacking the ball. just dont place him in your little league outfield.