2025 MLB Thread

[Tiger337]

I have been reading Michael Humphrey's book: Wizardry where he explains his Defensive Regression Analysis stat.  According to this statistic, the second basemen we have been talking about had the following runs saved:

Grich 133

Whitaker 101

Sandberg 79

Kent -11

Best second basemen ever:

Frisch 224

Gordon 191

Mazeroski 149

Hubbard 137

Whitaker was 9th.  

Other Tigers

Vina 51

Easley 38

Polanco 29

Gehringer 14

McAuliffe -4

 

[Tenacious D]

Is that a Glenn Hubbard sighting?  His beard game was as good as his D.

[oblong]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

I have been reading Michael Humphrey's book: Wizardry where he explains his Defensive Regression Analysis stat.  According to this statistic, the second basemen we have been talking about had the following runs saved:

Grich 133

Whitaker 101

Sandberg 79

Kent -11

Best second basemen ever:

Frisch 224

Gordon 191

Mazeroski 149

Hubbard 137

Whitaker was 9th.  

Other Tigers

Vina 51

Easley 38

Polanco 29

Gehringer 14

McAuliffe -4

 

Where was Alomar?

 

[buddha]

22 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Whitaker was better than Kent.  Kent hit a liitle better, but Whitaker's superior fielding more than made up for it. 

Sandberg was better, but Whitaker lasted longer.  

Grich was slighly better for a short period, but Whitaker had more good years.  Grich missed more time to injuries.  

Utley was better, but Whitaker had more good years.  

I'd put them all in expect maybe Kent.  I've always had Kent on the bubble.  

You talk about the end of Whitaker's career like it was nothing.  He hit a lot better than most platoon players and it wasn't a strict platoon.  He accumulated enough plate appearances to get 4.7, 4.1, 2.5, 1.5 WAR from age 35 to 38.  Lots of great hitters can't do what he did in the end.  He also could still handle middle infield capably up until age 37 which is rare.  His consistency and endurance was pretty special and I'm not just saying that as a fan boy. 

kent's peak was better than whitaker.  he slugged over .500 for like 8 years in a row (after he started juicing and batting behind bonds).  kent hit home runs and voters notoce that kind of thing.

i dont downplay whitaker's end of career, i just noted that he was much more of a platoon player at that point in his career.

look, i think he should be in the hall, but i understand why he isnt: low peak, low media attention, out of the game after his career, played in a minor media market, overshadowed by bigger personalities on his team.

[oblong]

I honestly don't think those reasons are valid.  He was only on one ballot by the writers and if a lot of the knew ahead of time that would be their only chance to vote for him they would have given him a vote just to keep him on.  They have this hangup about not voting for too many people and there were a lot of players on that ballot.

The various veterans committees responsible for him since then should know better.  That's why they exist.  To correct BBWAA mistakes of the kind you list.   But I think those committees are too small now.  Only 16 members.  It should be more like 30 and they should have a serious discussion among themselves.   I understand the fallacy of "well if this guy is in, then that guy should be in..." because logically there's always going to be a "worst player" in the HOF.  But he wouldn't even be in the lower half of 2B if he were in. 

 

[Tiger337]

49 minutes ago, oblong said:

Where was Alomar?

 

21 runs saved.  

[Tiger337]

26 minutes ago, buddha said:

kent's peak was better than whitaker. 

His hitting peak was better.  There is a a lot of uncertainty in fielding statistcs, but Whitaker ranks way ahead of Kent on every advanced metric I've seen, so I've got to believe he's got a big edge defensively.   And Kent isn't that far ahead offensively overall (123 OPS+ vs 118).  I do understand why Whitaker is not in.  Leaving aside all the BS reasons, he never had an MVP type season which is pretty odd given how many really good sesons he had.   You would think that he would have randomly had one elite season in all that.   

Edited Friday at 08:52 PM by Tiger337

[oblong]

2 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

His hitting peak was better.  There is a a lot of uncertainty in fielding statistcs, but Whitaker ranks way ahead of Kent on every advanced metric I've seen, so I've got to believe he's got a big edge defensively.   And Kent isn't that far ahead offensively overall (123 OPS+ vs 118).  I do understand why Whitaker is not in.  Leaving aside all the BS reasons, he never had an MVP type season which is pretty odd given how many really good sesons he had.   You would think that he would have randomly had one elite season in all that.   

He came very close to signing with Atlanta one year. When Lajoie was there. Supposedly they had a press conference planned. Then he’d have been given the Terry Pendleton treatment and made to be the reason they won. His calming and veteran presence would have been hailed. 

[Stormin]

Random thought: How many posts have appeared on the Padres message board over the years regarding the selection of Matt Bush #1 in the 2004 draft when Justin Verlander was selected #2 by the Tigers?

[Stormin]

Apparently Jose Rameriez  is worth $25M AAV, Bo  Bichette is worth $42M AAV, and Kyle Tucker is worth $60M AAV.   hmmm ...

 

I would think the Rameriez contract would be a desirable comparison for the Tigers front office in Skubal's arbitration case.

Edited 22 hours ago by Stormin

[Tenacious D]

16 minutes ago, Stormin said:

Apparently Jose Rameriez  is worth $25M AAV, Bo  Bichette is worth $42M AAV, and Kyle Tucker is worth $60M AAV.   hmmm ...

Seems like he has consistently signed team friendly deals.  Must be nice for the Guardians fans.  And horrible for us—7 more seasons of this Tiger Killer.

[Tigermojo]

Deferred money over the next three years so Cleveland might look to add now which makes me nervous. 

[casimir]

On 1/21/2026 at 1:16 PM, tiger2022 said:

I imagine Bonds hit all those home runs for him too.  

The dude still did what he did, no matter how much you don't want it to be true.  

Also, Kent hit 3rd and Bonds hit 4th.  Whitaker had an actual HOFer hitting after him.  That Bonds fellow couldn't even make it in the HOF.

 

Whitaker hit leadoff.  Not a lot of RBI opportunities there.

[casimir]

On 1/21/2026 at 2:30 PM, tiger2022 said:

I just think WAR has a lot of drawbacks.  If someone hangs around amd is slightly above average for a long time, they will have a higher WAR.  I think Lou Whitaker should be in the HOF.  He was my favorite player growing up and I always tried to wear #1 whenever I had the chance.  But Kent was a much more feared hitter in my opinion.

Will Clark for example.  He retired at 36 and hit over .300 his last 4 seasons.  His last season he hit 21 HRs with a .319 average, .964 OPS.  4.0 WAR.  He just retired because he wanted to be with his family more.  He could have hung around for 4 or 5 years and racked up another 10.0 WAR possibly, but he didn't want to keep playing.  WAR punishes guys that don't hang around a long time because they have other things in life they want to do.

Kershaw has 80.9 WAR and Verlander has 81.7 WAR.  Who was a better pitcher?  Verlander is 5 years older than Kershaw.  One just retired and the other is playing another year

Cabrera should have retired at 34.  

I understand what you’re saying about extra seasons tacking on WAR.  JAWS is a measure of the best 7 seasons of a players WAR, so by that measure it ignores the “hanging on” effect.  Whitaker is at 56 and Kent is at 46.

And I don’t mean to be critical of a guy playing an extra season.  If a guy can do it, by all means do it.  Ichiro Suzuki couldn’t pull himself way from the game.  He ended up as a 5th OF with the Marlins.  So what?  He’s still a hall of fame player.  One of my favorite players to watch in his prime.

[casimir]

On 1/23/2026 at 1:04 PM, Tiger337 said:

I have been reading Michael Humphrey's book: Wizardry where he explains his Defensive Regression Analysis stat.  According to this statistic, the second basemen we have been talking about had the following runs saved:

Grich 133

Whitaker 101

Sandberg 79

Kent -11

Best second basemen ever:

Frisch 224

Gordon 191

Mazeroski 149

Hubbard 137

Whitaker was 9th.  

Other Tigers

Vina 51

Easley 38

Polanco 29

Gehringer 14

McAuliffe -4

 

Vina.  That’s an awesome pull.

[casimir]

On 1/23/2026 at 2:40 PM, oblong said:

Where was Alomar?

 

Not in spotting distance of the top of the list?

[casimir]

20 hours ago, oblong said:

He came very close to signing with Atlanta one year. When Lajoie was there. Supposedly they had a press conference planned. Then he’d have been given the Terry Pendleton treatment and made to be the reason they won. His calming and veteran presence would have been hailed. 

Interesting.  I thought Baltimore had serious interest in Whitaker and Cleveland had serious interest in Trammell in their final years.  I don’t recall the Whitaker and Atlanta tango.

[Tiger337]

31 minutes ago, casimir said:

Vina.  That’s an awesome pull.

I think his fielding along with his facial hair, grit and ability to get stars to sign with the Tigers is enough to get him into the Hall of Fame.  

[Tiger337]

31 minutes ago, casimir said:

Interesting.  I thought Baltimore had serious interest in Whitaker and Cleveland had serious interest in Trammell in their final years.  I don’t recall the Whitaker and Atlanta tango.

The Yankees were interested in Whitaker too.  What a tragedy that would have been.  

[tiger2022]

5 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

The Yankees were interested in Whitaker too.  What a tragedy that would have been.  

Instead, the Yankees ended up with Tom Brookens, quite a difference.

[Tenacious D]

5 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

The Yankees were interested in Whitaker too.  What a tragedy that would have been.  

Might have helped his Hall chances.

[Tiger337]

1 minute ago, Tenacious D said:

Might have helped his Hall chances.

It would still be filthy

[chasfh]

On 1/21/2026 at 10:26 PM, gehringer_2 said:

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.

Also, casual fans might mutiny if the franchise superstar they identify the team with is being benched for ineffectiveness, which would cost the team revenue. I think that would have been the case with Miggy here.

[Tiger337]

7 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Also, casual fans might mutiny if the franchise superstar they identify the team with is being benched for ineffectiveness, which would cost the team revenue. I think that would have been the case with Miggy here.

I think casual tuned out during most of that period.  Losing 100 games a year will do that.  If anything, they got pissed off about losing three stars that were actually still great - Verlander, Scherzer and Martinez - for practically nothing.  

[chasfh]

On 1/22/2026 at 12:10 AM, buddha said:

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?

On 1/22/2026 at 12:15 AM, buddha said:

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.

I think of these as explanatory ways to describe the idea that Lou Whitaker doesn’t fulfill the “Fame” requirement to get into the Hall of Fame. Neither do Grich or Buehrle or Stieb or probably anyone else you could have added who had great careers based on performance but are not in the Hall. They have no MVPs, or sexy season or career stats, or big games attributed to them, and if they have rings, then there are teammates who get more credit for the team winning it all that year instead of them.

But Jack Morris does have big games, and rings attributed mainly to him, so despite his lackluster overall numbers he’s in, even though he is far more suited more for the Hall of Famous than the Hall of Fame.