Need advice: Top three Tigers...

[Tigermojo]

25 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Speaking of which: where is Miggy today? Is he actually living in Detroit and doing actual work for the Tigers as a special assistant to the president of baseball operations? Because I haven't heard boo about him since he hung out on the field in Lakeland for exactly one day on March 12.

He was with the team for a week in spring training and he talked about taking time for volleyball and softball with his family after that.

[Sports_Freak]

51 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I guess by any objective metric, this is true. Miggy is firmly in the 99th percentile of all players. He has a Triple Crown and a ring. He has 3,000 hits, 500 HRs, and a .300 batting average—all the traditional benchmarks that constitute baseball greatness. And, barring anything horrific occurring in the meantime, he will make the Hall of Fame in five years on the first ballot with well over 90% of the vote.

That said, Miggy will not be considered an inner-circle Hall of Famer in the long run. Sure, he will be referred as such while the voting is going on, because he is alive and current and the people who will be talking about him on The Network know him personally and all that. Recency counts.

But ten or twenty or thirty years after that, Miggy will recede to the background of baseball consciousness, more or less in the same way Frank Thomas and Eddie Murray and Paul Molitor have. All great players in the 99th percentile, to be sure—but when you are talking about The Greatest Players in Baseball History, you have to name a whole lot of names before you get to theirs. And the same will be true of Miggy.

Miggy had a chance to be a true inner-circle Hall of Famer once, and to us, he is, because he was ours for a while, plus he's been gone for less than a year. But to the rest of the baseball world, he will be considered just another pretty good Hall of Famer. Nothing to be ashamed of, of course, but it will be an appropriate consideration for a guy who finished with a lower career bWAR than Dwight Evans, Craig Nettles, Robinson Cano, Kenny Lofton, and Bobby Grich—and, not for nothing, also lower than Frank Thomas, Eddie Murray, and Paul Molitor.

The casual baseball fan who has NO idea of advanced stats may not agree. Many of these casual fans only use the usual stats...batting average, home runs and RBI when looking at player results. And there are a lot of fans who will remember Miggy as a great RBI producer. The same way I remember Wade Boggs as one of the best 2 strike hitters I've ever seen. Can I prove that? No, I'm not that deeply into stats. Many people are and that's fine but I think your under-selling just how good Cabrera was. Using stats, you can probably make your point but I promise you that opposing pitchers didn't care a bit about stats when he came to the plate with runners on base. It was...gulp!! 😁

[Sports_Freak]

And speaking of Cabrera, I think I read one time that he's the only player with 3000 hits, 500 homers and over a .300 BA? It may be wrong because I'm going from a very distant memory.

[oblong]

He limped to 3000 hits and 500 HR.

 

[Sports_Freak]

28 minutes ago, oblong said:

He limped to 3000 hits and 500 HR.

 

Yeah, that last extension was crazy. It was almost like the Tigers were paying him as a reward for his glory years. He sure didn't estn that huge money. I still remember Tigers fans assuming we would spend that same money when his contract came off the books. They were/are disappointed. 

[chasfh]

36 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

The casual baseball fan who has NO idea of advanced stats may not agree. Many of these casual fans only use the usual stats...batting average, home runs and RBI when looking at player results. And there are a lot of fans who will remember Miggy as a great RBI producer. The same way I remember Wade Boggs as one of the best 2 strike hitters I've ever seen. Can I prove that? No, I'm not that deeply into stats. Many people are and that's fine but I think your under-selling just how good Cabrera was. Using stats, you can probably make your point but I promise you that opposing pitchers didn't care a bit about stats when he came to the plate with runners on base. It was...gulp!! 😁

Fair post. If a casual fan looks at Miggy's baseball card and see those stats, he will conclude that Miggy is an all-time great. And of course he is: out of the 10,000+ position players in history, he is in the Top 100.

If another casual fan remembers seeing in 2012 when he won the Triple Crown, he might conclude that Miggy an inner-circle Hall-of-Famer.

If yet another casual fan remembers him as he was after 2017, he might conclude that Miggy was an overrated, over-the-hill DH.

And if a fourth casual fan remembers all those, he might conclude that Miggy was on track to be one of the greatest players in history, only to limp along to an ignominious seven-season finish, wondering what might have been.

I don't think a fan would have to be a sabermetrician, or even more than a casual fan, to conclude any one of those things, depending on what stage of Miggy's career looms largest in his mind.

I will hypothesize, though, that the average casual fan outside of Detroit gives Miggy approximately the same consideration as the average casual fan outside of Chicago gives Frank Thomas.

[Tigermojo]

43 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

And speaking of Cabrera, I think I read one time that he's the only player with 3000 hits, 500 homers and over a .300 BA? It may be wrong because I'm going from a very distant memory.

Aaron and Mays as well. Pretty good company.

[Sports_Freak]

Just now, Tigermojo said:

Aaron and Mays as well. Pretty good company.

I remember hearing Rod Allen talk about it, it was that long ago. Miggy will be remembered by many but I do agree he'll be less talked about in the future as more recent players set records. A first vote Hall of Famer though, I think most will agree to that.

[gehringer_2]

16 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Fair post. If a casual fan looks at Miggy's baseball card and see those stats, he will conclude that Miggy is an all-time great. And of course he is: out of the 10,000+ position players in history, he is in the Top 100.

If another casual fan remembers seeing in 2012 when he won the Triple Crown, he might conclude that Miggy an inner-circle Hall-of-Famer.

If yet another casual fan remembers him as he was after 2017, he might conclude that Miggy was an overrated, over-the-hill DH.

And if a fourth casual fan remembers all those, he might conclude that Miggy was on track to be one of the greatest players in history, only to limp along to an ignominious seven-season finish, wondering what might have been.

I don't think a fan would have to be a sabermetrician, or even more than a casual fan, to conclude any one of those things, depending on what stage of Miggy's career looms largest in his mind.

I will hypothesize, though, that the average casual fan outside of Detroit gives Miggy approximately the same consideration as the average casual fan outside of Chicago gives Frank Thomas.

Well, Frank Thomas scared the **** out of me as an opposing fan so if other fans remember Miggy that way, it's still something. 😟

Edited April 23 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Well, Frank Thomas scared the **** out of me as an opposing fan so if other fans remember Miggy that way, it's still something. 😟

You most remember Frank Thomas's early days.

[Tiger337]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

I guess by any objective metric, this is true. Miggy is firmly in the 99th percentile of all players. He has a Triple Crown and a ring. He has 3,000 hits, 500 HRs, and a .300 batting average—all the traditional benchmarks that constitute baseball greatness. And, barring anything horrific occurring in the meantime, he will make the Hall of Fame in five years on the first ballot with well over 90% of the vote.

That said, Miggy will not be considered an inner-circle Hall of Famer in the long run. Sure, he will be referred as such while the voting is going on, because he is alive and current and the people who will be talking about him on The Network know him personally and all that. Recency counts.

But ten or twenty or thirty years after that, Miggy will recede to the background of baseball consciousness, more or less in the same way Frank Thomas and Eddie Murray and Paul Molitor have. All great players in the 99th percentile, to be sure—but when you are talking about The Greatest Players in Baseball History, you have to name a whole lot of names before you get to theirs. And the same will be true of Miggy.

Miggy had a chance to be a true inner-circle Hall of Famer once, and to us, he is, because he was ours for a while, plus he's been gone for less than a year. But to the rest of the baseball world, he will be considered just another pretty good Hall of Famer. Nothing to be ashamed of, of course, but it will be an appropriate consideration for a guy who finished with a lower career bWAR than Dwight Evans, Craig Nettles, Robinson Cano, Kenny Lofton, and Bobby Grich—and, not for nothing, also lower than Frank Thomas, Eddie Murray, and Paul Molitor.

This is a good summary.  It might not matter to most fans whether advanced stats consider Cabrera to be Hank Aaron or Frank Thomas.  Tigers fans might just consider him to be an all-time great and one of their boys and leave it at that.  However, if you are somebody that likes to rank players throughout history and construct Hall of Fame tiers, it does matter.    

[Tiger337]

2 hours ago, oblong said:

He limped to 3000 hits and 500 HR.

 

And the 3000 hit, 500 hrs, 600 doubles thing was just a set of arbitrary categories and cutoffs to make him look better than players like Ted Williams and Willie Mays who were clearly superior to him.  

[roarintiger1]

9 hours ago, UCFKNIGHT said:

All-time backup catchers: Dwight Lowry, Bill Fahey and Sal Butera. Dwight(R.I.P.)

You forgot Jim Price

[UCFKNIGHT]

I was too young and didn't see the Tigers win the World Series in 1968. I knew Dwight Lowry and Bill Fahey. I was a batboy for the Lakeland Tigers from 1981-1985. Dwight Lowry was our starting catcher in 1982 and Bill Fahey was our field manager in 1984. Dwight and Bill, two very good guys. Easy to get along with.

 

[RandyMarsh]

One thing with Cabrera and Verlander that stand out to me that give them "bonus points" in my eyes is that both were at times considered to be the best in all of baseball at what they do. For Cabrera he was almost unanimously seen as the best hitter in the world and Verlander either 1A or 1B in terms pitching. Granted both of those were only for 2-3 years but I don't think any Tiger since Cobb was viewed that way among their peers and national folks at any given time.

For Detroit sports in general guys that have been viewed as the very best of the best have been few and far between so for that reason I tend to put somebody like Cabrera on a higher pedestal than what his career total may say. 

Edited April 24 by RandyMarsh

[chasfh]

5 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

And the 3000 hit, 500 hrs, 600 doubles thing was just a set of arbitrary categories and cutoffs to make him look better than players like Ted Williams and Willie Mays who were clearly superior to him.  

Also Babe Ruth.

[gehringer_2]

18 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

And the 3000 hit, 500 hrs, 600 doubles thing was just a set of arbitrary categories and cutoffs to make him look better than players like Ted Williams and Willie Mays who were clearly superior to him.  

Getting back to Pujols for a second, what helped make Albert so extraordinary was his ability to stay on field. He averaged 140games/yr over 22 yrs. That puts him in rare company in the modern game. You wonder with how hard guys train and play today if careers like that, which have always been rare, just get rarer. It makes you think about Mike Trout, who probably won't hit many or any of the milestones that looked in easy reach for him a few years ago. Lots of guys in that boat today.

[oblong]

You can't realisitically project if anyone is going to even reach 3000 hits again.  Anybody who would reach it is just a guess right now based on the active leaders.

Freddie Freeman is the active leader at 2100+ and he's 34.

[romad1]

Man...you people...2008-2016 Cabrera was a treasure to watch.  Absolutely legendary.  He was broken for 7 years after that.  That's a long time to linger as a shell of ones self. 

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, oblong said:

You can't realisitically project if anyone is going to even reach 3000 hits again.  Anybody who would reach it is just a guess right now based on the active leaders.

Freddie Freeman is the active leader at 2100+ and he's 34.

For a very good hitter to get 3,000 hits in his career, he has to (1) start his career no later than their early 20s; (2) strike out and walk at below-average levels; (3) hardly ever get hurt; and (4) play into his late 30s at the very least. That's a tall order, especially #2.