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leecemark · 03-28-2005, 09:38 AM

--Reggie is behind some guys who played less than half as long as he did. He was surely better than them in his prime. That he played into his 40s, dragging his rate stats down, while some pretenders on your list quickly disappeared from the scene speaks to his quality not theirs.
--A large number of other players on this list played long ago against much weaker competition than Reggie faced. It is much more difficult to compile high relative numbers against tougher competition.
-- Quite a few more got much of their slugging from BA. That may make them better hitters than Reggie, but it does not make them better sluggers.
--Reggie is definately not one of the top 10 sluggers in history. He may not even be top 20. However, it takes a very flawed argument to keep him out of the top 50.

DoubleX · 03-28-2005, 09:39 AM

Originally posted by leecemark

--He was arguably the best player in the AL for the decade of the 70s. He is AT WORST one of the top 10 RF of all time (I'd say top 5). He is one of the greatest World Series performers of all time. We can argue about where he ranks amoung the all time greats, but asking if he was a great player is ridiculous. Of course he was.

Couldn't agree with you more (though I think Reggie falls around 8 or 9 in my top 10 RF). He was the most dominant player in the AL for a decade and that has to count for a lot. If he played in an era more-friendly to offense, he could have topped 600 homeruns. Additionally, the fact that when he retired, there were only 5 players who hit more homeruns than him, says to me that he was one of the very best ever at what he did, and that too says quite a bit.

Bill Burgess · 03-28-2005, 09:41 AM

This is great! Thanks guys. Just what I was going for. A good, old-fashioned fist-fight. All views represented. A debate is great when it divides the house right down the middle.

My absence of defining the word "great" was deliberate. Wanted everyone to use their own individual definitions, which you have.
Some are great for a season (Joe Wood, Hack Wilson), some are great for a Series (Babe Adams), some are great for a moment (Don Larson/Harvey Haddix/Van Der Meer), some are great most of the time. Some are great at one thing, some at a lot of things. The beauty here, is that everyone can use their own feelings. That's what makes a great debate. No one is defining for you. By refusing to impose my own criteria, you have been forced to bring your own to the table. Which is so much more interesting than if I had imposed them and framed the debate for you.

Some might feel that all in the Hall of Fame merit the term. I most certainly do not. Even with proposed Hall tiers, we will still throw rocks in defense of our personal definitions. Dueling Definitions! Just the thing!

Bill Burgess

Pitching Beats Hitting · 03-28-2005, 11:04 AM

Jackson had 8 great seasons to go along with his tremendous career numbers. Just because a guy piles up the strikeouts doesn't mean that he isn't a great player. Jackson has an m.v.p., 4 home run titles(first and last were a decade apart), an r.b.i. crown, 2 run scoring titles, 2 silver sluggers(at different positions), and he's all over the all-time leaderboard in a variety of statistics including runs, total bases, homers, ribs, walks, intentional passes, and times on base.

Add on 2 w.s. m.v.p.s merely as the icing on the cake and there is no denying that Reggie Jackson is an upper eschalon player in baseball history.

ElHalo · 03-28-2005, 11:05 AM

Originally posted by Pitching Beats Hitting

Jackson had 8 great seasons to go along with his tremendous career numbers. Just because a guy piles up the strikeouts doesn't mean that he isn't a great player. Jackson has an m.v.p., 4 home run titles(first and last were a decade apart), an r.b.i. crown, 2 run scoring titles, 2 silver sluggers(at different positions), and he's all over the all-time leaderboard in a variety of statistics including runs, total bases, homers, ribs, walks, intentional passes, and times on base.

Add on 2 w.s. m.v.p.s merely as the icing on the cake and there is no denying that Reggie Jackson is an upper eschalon player in baseball history.

You do realize that, in the context of all time greats, those stats you quoted are wholely uninspiring, right?

santotohof · 03-28-2005, 12:25 PM

Reggie was a great player on many fronts. If you wanted to win the AL pennant from oh 71-81 it was a safe bet he was your cleanup hitter. He had a great arm and is often abused unfairly as a fielder and he loved to turn it on . he was great

trosmok · 03-28-2005, 12:32 PM

Noah Webster says:

great 1 a: notably large in size: huge b : of a kind characterized by relative largeness - used in plant and animal names 2 a : large in number or measure : numerous b : predominant 3 : remarkable in magnitude, degree, or effectiveness 4 : full of emotion ........ 9 : markedly superior in character or quality 10 a : remarkably skilled

Hmm, at six foot and 200lbs. definitions 1 a and b don't apply. The only large number that comes to mind, def. 2 a & b is that record 2597 whiffs. Totally unremarkable as to definition 3. If you consider delusional egostism an emotion, definition 4 is a bit of a stretch. Therefore, I suppose definitions 9 & 10 constitute the case in point and I respectfully disagree. He had no "great" qualities, character, or skills that I can tell; Mr. Swinganamiss is responsible for two going on three generations of young ballplayers that are all or nothing, swing for the fences, and if you're lucky enough to make good conduct, stand and admire your good fortune for as long as possible. He wasn't the first pseudo-slugger to admire his work after a bomb, but he was the first I recall that didn't get drilled the next time up, as per the unwritten rules. Why he got away with showing guys up without retaliation is beyond me, but I would have tried to throw one through his helmet if he tried that bush b.s. against my team.

PS. I like mine with brown mustard and a few onions, thank you.

Honus Wagner Rules · 03-28-2005, 01:10 PM

Originally posted by [email protected]

You Want, You Got.

The furthermost column at the right,beginning with 172.5, is the all time Relative Slugging % list.

The second furthermost column, beginning with 134.5, is the Relative onbase % list

Code:

  1    2    1   Babe Ruth          10504   207.0   134.5   172.5 
  2    1    2   Ted Williams        9786   189.5   134.6   154.9
  3   11    3   Lou Gehrig          9554   180.4   126.4   154.0
  4    3    4   Barry Bonds        10963   180.0   131.6   148.4
  5    8    5   Rogers Hornsby      9259   174.7   127.4   147.3
  8   16    6   Joe Jackson         5559   168.7   123.9   144.8
 16  102    7   Hank Greenberg      6061   157.3   113.5   143.9
  6    5    8   Mickey Mantle       9895   172.1   128.3   143.8
 11   40    9   Mark McGwire        7657   162.8   119.0   143.8
 13   43   10   Jimmie Foxx         9599   161.6   117.9   143.7
 21  122   11   Joe DiMaggio        7657   155.6   112.7   142.9
 17   78   12   Johnny Mize         7351   157.0   114.9   142.1
  7    4   13   Dan Brouthers       7656   170.9   129.4   141.4
  9   10   14   Ty Cobb            12777   168.4   127.0   141.4
 22   83   15   Hank Aaron         13919   155.2   114.6   140.6
 18   54   16   Dick Allen          7295   156.7   116.8   140.0
 20   53   17   Willie Mays        12480   156.0   116.8   139.2
 25   52   18   Mike Piazza         6007   154.7   117.0   137.7
 14   24   19   Stan Musial        12677   158.2   121.1   137.1
 38  192   20   Willie Stargell     9017   147.1   110.0   137.1
 19   36   21   Manny Ramirez       5910   156.5   119.8   136.7
 26   41   22   Frank Robinson     11726   154.0   118.5   135.5
 12    9   23   Frank Thomas        8167   162.6   127.3   135.3
 10    6   24   Pete Browning       5315   163.2   128.0   135.3
 15   18   25   Tris Speaker       11679   157.4   123.0   134.3
 23   25   26   Mel Ott            11228   155.0   120.9   134.1
 48  215   27   Albert Belle        6669   142.9   108.9   134.0
 33   60   28   Nap Lajoie         10239   150.0   116.1   133.9
 35   86   29   Ralph Kiner         6247   148.0   114.4   133.7
 40  111   30   Mike Schmidt       10046   146.8   113.2   133.6
 41  131   31   Sam Thompson        6497   145.4   111.9   133.5
 29   42   32   Ed Delahanty        8340   151.5   118.1   133.4
 42  159   33   Ken Griffey Jr.     8161   144.0   110.9   133.1
 32   48   34   Honus Wagner       11518   150.4   117.6   132.9
 36   77   35   Willie McCovey      9681   147.7   114.9   132.9
 43  153   36   Alex Rodriguez      5671   143.9   111.1   132.7
 24   21   37   Roger Connor        8834   154.9   122.2   132.6
 46  158   38   Sam Crawford       10353   143.5   110.9   132.5
 93  514   39   Juan Gonzalez       7014   133.3   100.8   132.5
 49  163   40   Frank Howard        7346   142.8   110.7   132.2
 57  226   41   Jeff Heath          5540   140.4   108.6   131.8
 64  272   42   Wally Berger        5636   138.8   107.2   131.6
 39   66   43   Harry Heilmann      8683   147.0   115.7   131.2
 30   35   44   Jim Thome           6420   150.9   119.8   131.0
 27   20   45   Jeff Bagwell        8626   153.4   122.3   131.0
 44  118   46   Hack Wilson         5454   143.7   112.8   130.9
 50  125   47   Harry Stovey        6832   142.8   112.5   130.3
 58  165   48   Babe Herman         6134   140.2   110.6   129.6
 66  205   49   Darryl Strawberry   6325   138.6   109.3   129.3
102  419   50   Sammy Sosa          8462   132.4   103.1   129.3

This shows that, going strickly as a slugger, Reggie Jackson's name does not appear in the top 50, all time. Perhaps he is 51st. But he ranks below Strawberry, Babe Herman, Wally Berger, etc. Study the bottom 10 names, and ask yourself, "How is Reggie below these guys?"

Where's Dave Kent when we need him?

This is one of my pet peeves, trying to use ONE STAT to compare players. Come on Bill, I know, you know better than that!

Reggie's career was far far longer than Herman's and Berger

Games played:

Jackson 2880 G
Herman 1252 G
Berger 1350 G

14-time All-Star
1973 MVP
Black Ink 35 (~27 avg HOF)
HoF Standards 53.0 (>50 likely HoFer)
HoF Monitor 172.5 (>100 likely HoF)

He comfortably meets any objective criteria for a HoF. He was one of the dominant players of the 1970s. He was actually a better player with the A's and Orioles but was more famous with the Yankees of course. He had seven seasons of over 150 OPS+ plus a three more seasons over 140 OPS+

Whether he is a 1st tier HoF that is a more interesting debate. Right now I'm not sure. I'll get back to everyone on that...

Pitching Beats Hitting · 03-28-2005, 06:04 PM

El Halo

I don't think anybody here, especially not myself, is trying to paint Reggie Jackson with the same brush as Cobb, Henderson, or Maddux. But, this feeling that Jackson is undeserving of Hall status is absurd. That is the point that I am making.

ElHalo · 03-28-2005, 06:09 PM

Originally posted by Pitching Beats Hitting

El Halo

I don't think anybody here, especially not myself, is trying to paint Reggie Jackson with the same brush as Cobb, Henderson, or Maddux. But, this feeling that Jackson is undeserving of Hall status is absurd. That is the point that I am making.

It depends on where you place your Hall Standards.

Me, when I'm trying to determine whether someone is Hall worthy or not, I look at the guys who were selected for the Hall before WWII. If the guy measures up to them, then he's a worthy HoF'er; if he doesn't, then he's not. Reggie, by that standard, falls embarassingly short of the Hall.

mac195 · 03-28-2005, 06:26 PM

Only 12 men were elected to the HOF prior to WWII, and Jackson is better than 2 of them (Sisler and Keeler).

Honus Wagner Rules · 03-28-2005, 06:27 PM

Originally posted by ElHalo

It depends on where you place your Hall Standards.

Me, when I'm trying to determine whether someone is Hall worthy or not, I look at the guys who were selected for the Hall before WWII. If the guy measures up to them, then he's a worthy HoF'er; if he doesn't, then he's not. Reggie, by that standard, falls embarassingly short of the Hall.

Why compare him to pre-WWII players when the game was very different. Comaring Ty Cobb's power numbers to modern sluggers is absurd, right?

AG2004 · 03-28-2005, 06:57 PM

Bill Burgess wants to know if Reggie Jackson was a great player. Here, I’ll compare Jackson to Al Kaline and Roberto Clemente, two other expansion-era right fielders. Burgess rated Kaline as the eighth-best RF of all time, and Clemente the third-best RF of all time. If Jackson is better than both of them, I’ll have to admit that Jackson was a great player.

OFFENSE

Critics of Jackson like to start with his batting average, which isn’t that good compared with the other players.

Batting average
1. Clemente .317
2. Kaline .297
3. Jackson .262

However, batting average is only about half of offense. The other half consists of walks, power, and speed, and can be loosely measured by secondary average. Jackson’s much better than the other two here, and Clemente comes out very poorly, as he walked about half as often as the other two.

Secondary average
1. Jackson .379
2. Kaline .316
3. Clemente .227

Considering these two lists, the three players come out about even overall.

Some people like to use OPS+ as a comparative measure, so I’ll use that next.

OPS+
1. Jackson 139 (in 11419 PA); led league four times
2. Kaline 134 (in 11579 PA); led league once
3. Clemente 130 (in 10212 PA); never led league

Reggie Jackson had a higher OPS+ than Clemente over a longer career, and Kaline’s 160 extra PA’s don’t make up for Jackson’s advantage in OPS+.

We also have the ink tests for dominance.

Black Ink
1. Jackson 35
2. Clemente 23
3. Kaline 12

Gray Ink
1. Kaline 228
2. Jackson 175
3. Clemente 154

HOF Standards
1. Kaline 57.6
2. Jackson 53.0
3. Clemente 51.0

All of the three are over the HOF average for the HOF Standards and Gray Ink. Jackson, however, is the only one above the HOF average in Black Ink.

Jackson also didn’t get into as many DPs as the other two.

Least Grounded into Double Plays, Career
1. Jackson 183
2. Kaline 271
3. Clemente 275

Finally, let’s look at speed.

Stolen Bases
1. Jackson 228 (66% success rate)
2. Kaline 137 (67% success rate)
3. Clemente 83 (64% success rate)

I’d rate Jackson tops here; however, baserunning isn’t a large part of offense.

DEFENSE

Jackson was not a great defensive player by any means.

Gold Gloves Won
1. Clemente 12
2. Kaline 10
3. Jackson 0

But Jackson wasn’t a complete failure.

Range Factor
1. Clemente 2.09
1. Kaline 2.09
3. Jackson 2.00

Fielding Percentage
1. Kaline .986
2. Clemente .973
3.Jackson .967

It should also be remembered that right field is not a key defensive position. The last part of The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract lists the percentage of career win shares that came from defense for players with over 300 total career win shares. Using that information, we can produce the following estimate.

Estimated Defensive Win Shares, lifetime.
1. Clemente 60
2. Kaline 58
3. Jackson 40

That’s a difference of about 1 win share per season – not a large amount compared to Jackson’s offensive advantages.

WIN SHARES DATA

Bill James used four different win share factors in creating his overall rankings, partly to balance career and peak factors. The one Bill Burgess has used most often in posts is the career total.

Career Win Share Totals
1. Jackson 444
2. Kaline 443
3. Clemente 377

I can hear it now – Reggie hung around for a few seasons past his prime, and Clemente died during his career, so career totals aren’t entirely fair. That’s why James has two different ways to evaluate a player’s peak performance.

Win Shares, Top Three seasons
1. Jackson 41, 32, 32 (105 total)
2. Clemente 35, 30, 29 (94 total)
3. Kaline 31, 31, 30 (92 total)

Win Shares, Five Best Consecutive seasons
1. Jackson 148
2. Clemente 146
3. Kaline 130

Jackson comes ahead of Clemente and Kaline in both peak measures.

James’ fourth list involves how well a player played over his career.

Career win shares per 162 games
1. Jackson 25.50
2. Kaline 25.32
3. Clemente 25.10

Note that Clemente’s average wasn’t brought down by a long decline.

We see that, in all four ratings, Jackson comes ahead of both Kaline and Clemente. That’s significant.

ALL-STAR AND MVP AWARDS

An all-star game appearance is a great honor. Since there were a few seasons when there were two all-star games, I’ll just list the number of years when the following players were all-stars.

Seasons on an All-Star Team
1. Kaline 15
2. Jackson 14
3. Clemente 12

We know, however, that all teams must have at least one all-star, and that there are voting mistakes. James has defined an “All-Star-Type Season” as one where a player has at least 20 win shares, so we’ll count them for the three players involved.

Seasons with at least 20 win shares
1. Jackson 13
2. Clemente 12
3. Kaline 11

An MVP award is harder to get. Jackson won one in 1973, and Clemente in 1966, but Kaline never won any. The baseball-reference website lists MVP share totals, however, so we can use them to get a better feel of how their feats were regarded.

MVP Share Totals
1. Jackson 3.28
2. Kaline 2.92
3. Clemente 2.80

Of course, there can be some dispute over what the MVP award means. In 1969, Jackson finished fifth in the MVP voting, even though he had 41 win shares; Harmon Killebrew, the MVP winner, had only 34 win shares. Oakland finished 9 games out of first in its division, which hurt.

James defines a season with over 30 win shares as an “MVP-Type Season,” so I’ll count those for each of the three players.

Seasons with at least 30 win shares
1. Jackson 5
2. Kaline 3
3. Clemente 2

Jackson has as many “MVP-Type” seasons as Kaline and Clemente combined.

Of the 20 lists provided, Jackson is the leader on 12 of them. Jackson also leads the others in lifetime home runs and relative slugging percentage; he’s second to Kaline in relative OBP. It’s pretty obvious to me that Jackson is better than either Kaline or Clemente. And, as I pointed out earlier, Bill Burgess rated Kaline the eighth best right fielder ever, and Clemente the third best right fielder ever. So I would conclude that Jackson was, indeed, great.

JACKSON AND THE WORLD SERIES

This is the icing on the cake for Reggie Jackson. Jackson won two World Series MVPs, and recorded a whopping 1.212 OPS in all his World Series games. That’s better than Ruth (1.211) or Gehrig (1.208) did.

Jackson also played on five teams that won the World Series. That’s impressive; during the ten years that both Ruth and Gehrig played on the same team, the Yankees only managed to win three World Series.

Jackson wasn’t just going along for the ride. Look at the rosters of the A’s and Yankees during their championship years. How many people were greater than Jackson, or more deserving of the Hall of Fame than Jackson? I can’t see any. Jackson was the top player on five different world championship teams, and there aren’t many people since the World Series started who can match that. There’s Ruth, DiMaggio, Mantle, and Jackson. That puts Reggie Jackson in quite select company.

CONCLUSION

I don’t see how Jackson wasn’t a great player. I rated him as the fifth-best right fielder of all time, and he’s among the top 50 position players of all time.

I’d also like to hear Bill Burgess explain how Clemente or Kaline was better than Jackson. Unless one gives a heavy amount of weight to defense, I can’t figure out why. And I can’t see how defense can carry so much value at right field.

mac195 · 03-28-2005, 07:09 PM

Nicely done, AG. If that doesn't shut the Jackson bashers up, I don't know what will.

Yes, Reggie Jackson was a great player, compared to all other position players.	65.83%	79 votes
No, Reggie Jackson was not a great player, compared to all other position players.	34.17%	41 votes

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