Jeff Kent to the HOF and not Murphy
- Thread starter Krgrecw
- Start date
Mad Dog Murph
Well-known member
All HOF’s, but especially baseball, are and will always be a joke.
44 war outfielders just aren't gonna make it. He's the Johan sanatana of position players.
Kent was always borderline and it's hilarious he got in before bonds considering their issues.
I will say this bodes well for andruw in a future committee vote if the writers don't get him in this year or next.
Kent was always borderline and it's hilarious he got in before bonds considering their issues.
I will say this bodes well for andruw in a future committee vote if the writers don't get him in this year or next.
Lou Whitaker never gonna get in at 75 WAR lol
He def should be in. Wild that he's not. Not sure what eras committe he belongs to at this point but the next one should vote him in.
edit: Looks like he belongs in the cotemporary era. No idea why he wasn't even on this ballot. Kinda absurd.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
Murphy is in my pantheon of all-time Braves' favorites and I think he deserves HoF recognition, but (and everyone has a big but) Kent's numbers were better. Part of that is longevity, but as great as Murphy was in the early-1980s, he fell off pretty badly later. Still and all, Murphy is one of baseball's nice guys and that should give him a few bonus points.
DirkPiggler
Well-known member
I know this isn't the way it should be done objectively, but I'm always going to look at it this way and a Braves and a Dale Murphy fan.
Any hall of fame that includes Jim Rice, and Harold f**cking Baines should also include Dale Murphy. If Murph had played the bulk of his career in NY, CHI, LA, or BOS he would have been in easily on the writer's vote.
No real argument there since Rice and Baines are in. But id rather not just keep putting in the hall of good players in
DirkPiggler
Well-known member
Why does Murphy have to be the dividing line though? Let him in and then raise the bar.
Just because he's a Brave? Murph just wasn't good enough for long enough. For an OF the Andruw/Lofton types are my diving line and anything below that level shouldn't be in.
Gotta compare Murphy to players in his era. Dude was pretty good
DirkPiggler
Well-known member
Yes because he's a Brave. I as a fan am under no obligation to be objective.
And what @kgrecw said. He was one of the top five players in the game from 1982 through 1988. You could make an argument that he was #2 in the NL behind Schmidt, at least for the first few years of that period.
It bothers me that some players (generally those in the larger markets I mentioned above) get passes for being elite for a short time and having their careers cut short due to injury, while others do not.
Yes he was great for 7 years. That still doesn't make a HOFer when the rest of your career is meh at best.
Mattingly is very comparable to Murphy. And he was in the biggest market of them all and still hasn't gotten in.
Pretty good is not a HOFer.
Among position players in the 80s Murphy ranks 12th in WAR despite having the most games played among anybody of that decade. And he was virtually non existant in the 70s or 90s.
Mrs. Meta
Well-known member
What caused the murph to (still) be so good at 31 only to fall off a cliff at 32 onwards?
Mrs. Meta
Well-known member
Also, another question for your heavy head, if you don't mind. And maybe it's Occam's needle shaped razor, but what do you feel was the catalyst for Lonnie Smith to have had a career year at the age of 33, while the Murph was definitely nose diving at the same time, (and somewhat ironically being a year younger?) ...n what I find really amazing is that Lonnie popped 21 home runs that year, in 89, while not reaching double digits in any other season of his career.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
(1) Murphy had a long swing. Maybe he got dinged up over time and his bat slowed down. He's not the first player in the history of the game that hit a wall in his early-30s. That's when a lot of guys start tailing off a bit and Murphy wasn't brimming with raw tools. It sometimes hits those guys hardest.
(2) Lonnie Smith could flat out hit, but no one would ever place him in the Phi Beta Kappa of great baseball intellect. His career BABIP of .326 was .040 higher than the MLB average during his career and he exceeded that by .026 in 1989. Murphy's career BABIP was .292 and starting in 1988, he only exceeded that in the 1990 half-season after he was traded to the Phillies. His HR% followed a similar downward trajectory. EDIT: I did a little more looking and a couple of things that stood out in the analysis is that Lonnie's FB% and Pull% were both higher than his career norms during his best year with the Braves. Might explain the home run spike.
1989 was Lonnie's departure from his norm and you do see that with a number of players. I think of Brady Anderson as an example when he hit 50 HRs in 1996 and never got half that many in his other seasons.
As a side note, Murphy's 7-year peak (41.2 bWAR) exceeded Kent's (35.8 bWAR). Both are borderline when you look at the HoF standards on Baseball Reference.
Side note #2 is that Harold Baines is probably the biggest outlier in the HoF in terms of production at 38.8 bWAR for this career and meets none of the aforementioned standards.
(2) Lonnie Smith could flat out hit, but no one would ever place him in the Phi Beta Kappa of great baseball intellect. His career BABIP of .326 was .040 higher than the MLB average during his career and he exceeded that by .026 in 1989. Murphy's career BABIP was .292 and starting in 1988, he only exceeded that in the 1990 half-season after he was traded to the Phillies. His HR% followed a similar downward trajectory. EDIT: I did a little more looking and a couple of things that stood out in the analysis is that Lonnie's FB% and Pull% were both higher than his career norms during his best year with the Braves. Might explain the home run spike.
1989 was Lonnie's departure from his norm and you do see that with a number of players. I think of Brady Anderson as an example when he hit 50 HRs in 1996 and never got half that many in his other seasons.
As a side note, Murphy's 7-year peak (41.2 bWAR) exceeded Kent's (35.8 bWAR). Both are borderline when you look at the HoF standards on Baseball Reference.
Side note #2 is that Harold Baines is probably the biggest outlier in the HoF in terms of production at 38.8 bWAR for this career and meets none of the aforementioned standards.
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Mad Dog Murph
Well-known member
He had extra power from all the Newports he smoked. Not to mention his giant badonkadonk. Definitely the PED of his day
DirkPiggler
Well-known member
His knees had a lot to do with it. Granted, he's pretty old now but he doesn't get around very well. Being such a big guy playing that much CF took its toll. Maybe if they had left him at first he would have stayed healthy a little longer too.
Knee surgeries, treatments, rehab, etc. weren't nearly as advanced in his day. Modern medicine might have squeezed a few more productive years out of him. And of course he could have taken the Bonds/Clemens route and probably put up another 200 HR.
On a related note, for the low low price of $699 you can join Murph in a suite at Truist Park for a Braves game. My wife actually suggested this for a Christmas present for me as we're going to be in Atlanta for one of the games where it's available (Brewers series in mid June). If I hadn't gotten to meet him a couple of years ago I likely would have taken her up on it.