Well at least you’ve come down from the Ruth/Cobb/Williams standard for Hall induction!!
Because I love a good baseball argument I'll continue to make the Rolen case in the face of opposition from the grumpy old timers that only want the greatest to get plaques.
Here's a good article in defense of Rolen.
An Alternate Hall of Fame populated by a mathematical formula.
hallofstats.com
Some snips:
Cooperstown generally doesn’t know what to do with third basemen. Out of 220 players in the Hall of Fame, only
12 are third basemen.
It takes a lot of talent in many different areas to last at third base. There aren’t many “bat only” third basemen who are complete defensive liabilities. Only two full-time third basemen in history—
Eddie Yost and
Bill Madlock—were were worth 100 or more runs below average at third base (per Baseball-Reference). Both of them hit well enough to make up for it (Madlock won four batting titles and Yost led the league in on-base percentage twice). Similarly, you don’t see too many glove-only third basemen like you see at shortstop.
Aurelio Rodriguez and
Clete Boyer come to mind, but both of them had some pop that kept them in the lineup in addition to their great gloves.
The best third basemen are the ones who do everything well—and those are precisely the types of players Cooperstown struggles to induct.
The reason Rolen’s Hall Rating is so high (142) is because his WAR total from Baseball-Reference (70.0) is so high. WAR contains several components covering many areas of a player’s value, such as batting, fielding, baserunning, and the value of the position he played. In order to decide if we trust Rolen’s WAR total, we must trust his components individually. So let’s take a look at them.
That’s right, as good as Rolen was with the glove, he was worth more at the plate. Let’s see if that holds up to scrutiny.
Rolen collected 2,077 hits, 316 home runs, 517 doubles, and 899 walks. Those are not overwhelming numbers, I’ll admit. Yet only 23 other players have achieved them and only 16 are eligible for the Hall of Fame. Of those 16, 12 are Hall of Famers. Of the four who didn’t make it, three are only on the outside because of connections to PEDs (Bonds, Palmeiro, Ramirez). The other is
Luis Gonzalez. “Ah ha!” you say. “Rolen is no better than Luis Gonzalez and he’s no Hall of Famer!” But was Luis Gonzalez one of the 2–5 best fielding third basemen of all time? He was not.
Let’s look at Rolen’s rate stats:
- He hit .281 when the league hit .268 (+13 points)
- He had a .364 OBP when the league got on base at .339 clip (+25)
- He slugged .490 when the league slugged .429 (+61)
A large amount of Rolen’s value comes from his defense. But was he as great a fielder as WAR suggests?
He ranks third in Baseball-Reference’s fielding component among full-time third basemen with 175 runs. Beltre is second with 230 and first is (of course)
Brooks Robinson. Defensive prowess is a hard thing to prove statistically if you don’t trust the advanced metrics, but let’s see if we can find reasons to believe (or reason to doubt) Rolen’s rating.
Rolen also happens to have won the third most Gold Gloves at third base in history with eight. Robinson is first with sixteen, but
Mike Schmidt sneaks ahead of him with ten. WAR also loves Schmidt’s defense, giving him 127 runs above average. After Rolen, three players have six Gold Gloves.
Buddy Bell is right behind Rolen in fielding runs too (with 174).
Robin Ventura isn’t far behind with 155. The only anomaly is
Eric Chavez, but Chavez won all of his Gold Gloves in his 20s and then proceeded to see his career decimated by injuries.
The correlation between Gold Gloves and fielding runs among third basemen seems surprisingly high.
theathletic.com
