2025 MLB Thread

[gehringer_2]

30 minutes ago, tiger2022 said:

Eddie Murray is an interesting case.

In 22 seasons, Murray hit 30+ HRs only 4 times with a high of 33.  

And age 31 to the end of his career, outside of 1 season, he was pretty mediocre.

People think he was this big basher and amazing hitter because he got to 3000 and 500, but he was always healthy and wouldn't retire...just kept getting at bats.  His last 10 years he had 12.2 WAR and his first 13 he had 56.6.  A lot of counting stats were just those of an average player for a lot of his career.

I didn't really start paying attention to baseball until about '86 or so and by that time he was kind of on the downward part of his career, which is why I wasn't too impressed with him.

Well that's the thing, you can't expect a guy to quit just because he's not as good as he used to be, at least if he is still being reasonably productive. So that's going to be the story for most good players who aren't forced to quit early by injury.

That said, it is getting to be more extreme with teams having given out so many contracts that run well past when the player has any real chance to still be productive. The team is then reluctant to release the non-productive player because they don't want to pay him to play out the string somewhere else, or they are still hoping for a little reprise performance season like Murray had at age 39 (2.4 WAR), or sometimes it's marketing the star chasing milestones (Cabrera), and sometimes it's just dumb all together.

Edited 5 hours ago by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

42 minutes ago, tiger2022 said:

Eddie Murray is an interesting case.

In 22 seasons, Murray hit 30+ HRs only 4 times with a high of 33.  

And age 31 to the end of his career, outside of 1 season, he was pretty mediocre.

People think he was this big basher and amazing hitter because he got to 3000 and 500, but he was always healthy and wouldn't retire...just kept getting at bats.  His last 10 years he had 12.2 WAR and his first 13 he had 56.6.  A lot of counting stats were just those of an average player for a lot of his career.

I didn't really start paying attention to baseball until about '86 or so and by that time he was kind of on the downward part of his career, which is why I wasn't too impressed with him.

I was thinking about him just the other day.  I remembered him as a big slugger back in the 80s.  When I looked him up, I was surprised that he never came close 40 homers.  There weren't as many home runs back then, but I thought he would have reached that mark at least once.  He was really good in his prime though - more of an all around hitter with high a batting average, lots of doubles, 30 homers per year.  He was also a good defensive first basemen.  He was also very consistent.  He had almost the same OPS+ every year from 1981-1984:

1981 156

1982 156

1983 156

1984 157

[buddha]

1 hour ago, tiger2022 said:

But the HOF is a joke anyway.  David Ortiz, failed PED test, is in the HOF but his roider teammate, Manny Ramirez, a much better hitter, isn't in there.  I think the Raiders should all be in there but it doesn't make sense how Ortiz, Bagwellz IRodriguez are in there but other roiders aren't.

david ortiz is in the hof because he was a red sox hero and the media loved him.  if manny was a fat POS like ortiz who laughed and made the media feel special, they would forget about the roids in 5 seconds.

just like they forgot about ortiz's positive test.  is ortiz still looking for the culprit who faked his test?  or is too busy recovering from getting shot in the bahamas?

[buddha]

whitaker was never the best second baseman.  he was quiet.  he played in an after-thought media market.  he was never an mvp candidate.  he was a really good lefty bat in a park that made his power numbers look better.  

like everyone else here, i'd put him in because he was one of my favorites growing up, but he's not a lock by any means.  neither was trammell, the difference being trammell played a more glamorous position, stuck around the game longer, had a great playoffs where he was mvp, should have been the mvp in 87, and had more great seasons than whitaker did.

now dont get me started on jack morris, probably the least deserving non-friend of frankie frisch who was voted in this side of harold baines.