Ryan Braun

[Sockeye]

He's 26 and has played 4 seasons. I know it's very early on his career but I'd like to get some thoughts on his career so far and his future HOF chances.

[Greg Maddux's Biggest Fan]

He's 26 and has played 4 seasons. I know it's very early on his career but I'd like to get some thoughts on his career so far and his future HOF chances.

And so it begins...

[Greg Maddux's Biggest Fan]

He's 26 and has played 4 seasons. I know it's very early on his career but I'd like to get some thoughts on his career so far and his future HOF chances.

My thoughts: It's impossible to tell because he's played 4 seasons.

[Sockeye]

Ryan Braun's career projections

1868 games
7399 at-bats
1248 runs
2222 hits
457 doubles
44 triples
440 home runs
1395 RBI
153 stolen bases
46 caught stealing
664 walks
1511 strikeouts
4089 total bases
185 GDP
93 HBP
0 SH
56 SF
32 IBB
.300 AVG
.363 OBP
.553 SLG

Ryan Braun's 2011 projections

108 games
444 at-bats
81 runs
138 hits
27 doubles
4 triples
29 home runs
89 RBI
12 stolen bases
3 caught stealing
42 walks
92 strikeouts
262 total bases
11 GDP
6 HBP
0 SH
4 SF
2 IBB
.311 AVG
.375 OBP
.590 SLG

[Cowtipper]

It is way too early to tell. It is impossible to say one way or the other. One must err to "no" however.

[Sockeye]

It is way too early to tell. It is impossible to say one way or the other. One must err to "no" however.

2500+ PA's, 140 OPS+, through age 26 already puts him in pretty elite company.

[jjpm74]

Yet another mediocre player who has barely smelled the MLB who you think is HOF worthy? Your personal HOF must include 1000s of players.

[Cowtipper]

2500+ PA's, 140 OPS+, through age 26 already puts him in pretty elite company.

That means nothing. Really. There is absolutely no telling what he is going to be doing at ages 29, 32, 35.

John Mayberry of all people had 2500+ plate appearances and an OPS+ through age 26. So did Darryl Strawberry, Don Mattingly, Bobby Murcer, Charlie Keller, Oyster Burns, Denny Lyons and Mike Tiernan...all good players, but not Hall of Famers.

[Sockeye]

Yet another mediocre player who has barely smelled the MLB who you think is HOF worthy? Your personal HOF must include 1000s of players.

140 OPS+, .687 OW% is now Mediocre?

[jjpm74]

140 OPS+, .687 OW% is now Mediocre?

4 seasons in MLB=ridiculous to even speculate about. How many seasons does a player have to be in MLB to be a HOFer for you, since you think he is a HOFer after 4 seasons? A player with 4 seasons in the MLB is a HOFer to you, but Ichiro, who has had 10 straight seasons with 200 hits, something no one has ever done before is not? I'm just trying to figure out whether or not you are actually serious here.

[Sockeye]

4 seasons in MLB=ridiculous to even speculate about. How many seasons does a player have to be in MLB to be a HOFer for you, since you think he is a HOFer after 4 seasons? A player with 4 seasons in the MLB is a HOFer to you, but Ichiro, who has had 10 straight seasons with 200 hits, something no one has ever done before is not? I'm just trying to figure out whether or not you are actually serious here.

How about you stop saying things that aren't true? He ISN'T in my personal hall of fame NOR do I think after 4 seasons that he is deserving of the HOF at this point in time. NO player is ever HOF worthy after only 4 seasons no matter how good those seasons are. You could take the best 4 seasons in baseball history put them back to back to back to back to start a career and that player would NOT be HOF worthy after their 4th season. Do I make myself clear?

That said Ryan Braun is most definately on a HOF pace and I believe all signs point to him remaining on a HOF pace.

[jjpm74]

How about you stop saying things that aren't true? He ISN'T in my personal hall of fame NOR do I think after 4 seasons that he is deserving of the HOF at this point in time. NO player is ever HOF worthy after only 4 seasons no matter how good those seasons are. You could take the best 4 seasons in baseball history put them back to back to back to back to start a career and that player would NOT be HOF worthy after their 4th season. Do I make myself clear?

That said Ryan Braun is most definately on a HOF pace and I believe all signs point to him remaining on a HOF pace.

Yes, his numbers will be deserving of a place in the HOF.

Maybe you want to reword that since you are saying that he will be a HOFer. Not that he is on a HOF pace. The two are not mutually inclusive.

[willshad]

Braun's age 26 comps are interesting. I really don't think any of them are really all that similar to him, but the list does look promising. It does, however, show how tricky it can be to say a guy is 'on pace' to make the hall at such a young age. There are HOFers (Hafey, Ramirez, B. Williams, Kiner) mixed in with guys who flamed out early (Green, Mondesi, Heath, Keller). Braun is consistent, which is mostly a good thing, but which also means he really hasn't shown any improvement since his rookie season. I mean 25 100 .300 every year is nice and all, but nothing special for a corner outfielder; especially when guy like Bernie Williams was doing it while playing gold glove center. I think he needs to improve, or else keep up this level for a very long time... look at Gary Sheffield, who hit at the same level forever, and still who many people view as a borderline candidate. His numbers and consistency kind of remind me of a poor man's Vlad Guerrero; another guy who has kept up the level for a long time and has barely crept over the HOF border to some.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Braun's age 26 comps are interesting. I really don't think any of them are really all that similar to him, but the list does look promising. It does, however, show how tricky it can be to say a guy is 'on pace' to make the hall at such a young age. There are HOFers (Hafey, Ramirez, B. Williams, Kiner) mixed in with guys who flamed out early (Green, Mondesi, Heath, Keller). Braun is consistent, which is mostly a good thing, but which also means he really hasn't shown any improvement since his rookie season. I mean 25 100 .300 every year is nice and all, but nothing special for a corner outfielder; especially when guy like Bernie Williams was doing it while playing gold glove center. I think he needs to improve, or else keep up this level for a very long time... look at Gary Sheffield, who hit at the same level forever, and still who many people view as a borderline candidate. His numbers and consistency kind of remind me of a poor man's Vlad Guerrero; another guy who has kept up the level for a long time and has barely crept over the HOF border to some.

I think willshad pretty much hit the nail on the head.

[KCGHOST]

Call back in 6-7 years and we might be able to take a stab at this.

[Sockeye]

Call back in 6-7 years and we might be able to take a stab at this.

Barring injury by that time it will be a no-brainer.

[Brad Harris]

Barring injury and this same level of production by that time it will be a no-brainer.

This has been fixed.

[Sockeye]

This has been fixed.

Do you know what a players "prime" is? Usually players are MORE productive between the ages of 27-32 than what they are from 23-26. So if Braun follows the normal trend his numbers will increase and not decrease. Considering that Braun only needs to maintain his current numbers for the next 6 seasons during his prime. I'd say he stands an excellent chance at making the HOF.

[jjpm74]

Do you know what a players "prime" is? Usually players are MORE productive between the ages of 27-32 than what they are from 23-26. So if Braun follows the normal trend his numbers will increase and not decrease. Considering that Braun only needs to maintain his current numbers for the next 6 seasons during his prime. I'd say he stands an excellent chance at making the HOF.

"Normal" according to what? The 38 players out of 16,440+, or 0.002% of the players that have played in the MLB that you based your Projection model on where you have a player following a perfect bell curve and retiring at age 43?

[Sockeye]

"Normal" according to what? The 38 players out of 16,440+, or 0.002% of the players that have played in the MLB that you based your Projection model on where you have a player following a perfect bell curve and retiring at age 43?

Everybody knows that a players prime is late 20's to early 30's. My research just backed that up. The odds of Ryan Braun playing to age 43 are only 5.3%

Age 36: 97.4%
Age 37: 81.6%
Age 38: 73.7%
Age 39: 63.2%
Age 40: 57.9%
Age 41: 34.2%
Age 42: 23.7%
Age 43: 5.3%

[jjpm74]

Everybody knows that a players prime is late 20's to early 30's. My research just backed that up. The odds of Ryan Braun playing to age 43 are only 5.3%

Age 36: 97.4%
Age 37: 81.6%
Age 38: 73.7%
Age 39: 63.2%
Age 40: 57.9%
Age 41: 34.2%
Age 42: 23.7%
Age 43: 5.3%

For starters, those numbers are way off from the actual percentages of players who have played to that age, and they do not even begin to adjust for things like era, etc... Your research as you are delivering it would be dismissed as logically-flawed pseudo science in any stats 1 class. What separates Bill James and the SABR crowd from what you are doing is that they are not drawing from a miniscule data set when formulating their statistical analyses. You are, and what makes it worse is that you are saying that these players will reach those numbers. Not that they have a 50/50 shot of hitting them when you post your polls and projections. I won't be commenting on this further. I offered some advice on how you can improve your system. If you choose to ignore that and continue on this riduculous path, your approach will continue to be dismissed by the majority of users here.

[Cougar]

Everybody knows that a players prime is late 20's to early 30's. My research just backed that up. The odds of Ryan Braun playing to age 43 are only 5.3%

Age 36: 97.4%
Age 37: 81.6%
Age 38: 73.7%
Age 39: 63.2%
Age 40: 57.9%
Age 41: 34.2%
Age 42: 23.7%
Age 43: 5.3%

Never mind 43...of all the 26 year olds in MLB in 2010, 23.7% will still be in MLB in 2026, when they are 42? Nearly one out of four?

It looks implausible -- really, it's an empirical question. How many players born in 1968 and active in 1994 (so age 26) played in 2010 (age 42)?

Matt Stairs
Russ Springer

That's it.

How about players born in 1969, just in case?

Ken Griffey Jr.
Brad Ausmus
Arthur Rhodes
Mariano Rivera (who actually didn't debut until 1995, but let's say he would have been a September call-up if there weren't a strike)

pre-1968 births still active in 2010:

1967: Omar Vizquel, Trevor Hoffman

1966: Tim Wakefield

1962: Jamie Moyer

That's 10 players over 40 still in MLB in 2010.

There are 30 teams with 25 roster spots -- that's 750 players, before September call-ups, players bouncing up and down from the minor leagues or the disabled list, etc., so the below figure is inflated substantially.

10/750 = 1.333 %

How can this be reconciled with your projections?

[Freakshow]

To be fair, if I'm understanding Sockeye's method correctly, he's using a Projection model based on "outstanding" players; the guys he's interested in knowing where current outstanding players will end up like. He's saying something like, "since Braun is, likewise, an outstanding player, his odds of playing to age 43 are 5.3%." What he has not shown is why he believes Braun should be numbered among the elite group his model is based upon in the first place.

Perhaps what could be done to improve the method is, rather than a group of 38 hand-picked stars, use the entire group of 20th century players in the BBFHOF, or something like that.

EDIT: Of course, when you don't adjust for position, era and things like that, it's really nothing more than his "Favorite Toy".

[brett]

Do you know what a players "prime" is? Usually players are MORE productive between the ages of 27-32 than what they are from 23-26.

The problem is that he is not developing as a hitter. Without 80+ walks a year he's got really no room for improvement, and he shows no desire to be more patient at the plate. Basically he's a corner outfielder who's maxed out on his hitting ability unless he gets an attitude change. When I think of Braun I think of a guy with great hitting talent who has a retarded hitting approach. In fact as a hitter, I see him as being another Jim Rice. Juan Gonzalez would be another similar. Without the walk buffer to his OB% he will need to put up .330 BAs not just .300s and I have found that guys like that do not improve in their late 20s and early 30s. George Brett was similar, but he did improve, or at least compensate because he drew more walks in the middle of his career. He is a good baserunner and his speed and arm make him a decent corner outfielder. He should have been moved after 40 MLB games.

[mwiggins]

The problem is that he is not developing as a hitter. Without 80+ walks a year he's got really no room for improvement, and he shows no desire to be more patient at the plate. Basically he's a corner outfielder who's maxed out on his hitting ability unless he gets an attitude change. When I think of Braun I think of a guy with great hitting talent who has a retarded hitting approach. In fact as a hitter, I see him as being another Jim Rice. Juan Gonzalez would be another similar. Without the walk buffer to his OB% he will need to put up .330 BAs not just .300s and I have found that guys like that do not improve in their late 20s and early 30s. George Brett was similar, but he did improve, or at least compensate because he drew more walks in the middle of his career. He is a good baserunner and his speed and arm make him a decent corner outfielder. He should have been moved after 40 MLB games.

Which is the crux of the issue. We know specifics about Braun as a player, now that he's 4 years into his career, that make generalized assumptions like "players usually peak between the ages 27-31" to be less than useful for making predictions.