Sammy Sosa Hits #600... Now What?
Listed in:Let's think about Sammy Sosa's Hall of Fame chances. From an on-field production standpoint, my gut tells me he's no mortal lock, but off-field questions will dog him and convince some writers to play Moral Arbiter, tsk tsk-ing Slammin' Sammy for not proving that he never used illegal PEDs.
I'm not a fan of WARP by any means, but JAWS, a HOF candidacy formula developed by Jay Jaffe, can give us a decent rough approximation of Sosa's credentials, all wrapped into a Peak/Career binary. As it turns out, my gut feeling seems to be confirmed. Before coming back with the Rangers, Sosa was below Jaffe's somewhat stringent Hall standards. To be fair, Jaffe points out that his system tends to overly penalize players who don't play out the string (Will Clark, Albert Belle, Kirby Puckett), so even though he was below JAWS's threshold, Jaffe says he'd vote for Sammy.
I'm about to move on to something a bit more substantial, but before we do, how can it be that a player who's FIFTH(!) all time in career home runs could fall below Hall of Fame standards? It's simple: His era was a veritable power hitting orgy. Check out the leap in home runs from the early 90s through the present day. Then note that, going by OPS, again a super-rough approximation of Sammy's offensive contributions, he only had one monster season (2001) and three great ones (1998, 2000, and 2002), with a bunch of Craig Biggio seasons besdes those, which is very good, but not exactly world-beating coming from a right fielder.
With that in mind, let's do Sammy's Keltner list.
Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball? Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in baseball?
It was often suggested, but as I'll show, such a designation was probably unwarranted.
Was he the best player on his team?
Absolutely. It's not like Mickey Morandini or Kevin Orie would actually compete with Sammy for the title.
Was he the best player in baseball at his position? Was he the best player in the league at his position?
In 1998, even after adjusting for Coors Field, one could make the argument that Larry Walker was a better RF than Sosa, especially after accounting for defense. Even during Sosa's best years, Gary Sheffield has to be in the conversation, as does Vlad Guerrero, Bobby Abreu and, by 2001, Lance Berkman. In 1997, Sosa's OPS+ was actually below league average, and through that season, one could argue that Ray Lankford's career compared favorably to Sosa's.
Did he have an impact on a number of pennant races?
In 1998, he was the star hitter on a Cubs team that won the Wild Card, far outshining great seasons from Henry Rodriguez, Mark Grace, and Jose Hernandez. In 2003, he was no longer regarded as THE star, but he was still the team's best hitter, helping Chicago win the NL Central.
Was he a good enough player that he could continue to play regularly after passing his prime?
That's tricky. It was expected that he could, since he was such a lithe young man, which boded well for his aging curve. However, in 2004, he struggled to get on base, and then completely bottomed out with Baltimore in 2005 before his hitting woes coupled with PED rumors kept him out of MLB for all of 2006.
Is he the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame?
Ron Santo is pretty much the default answer here. As for the hitters from Sammy's era who should be considered surefire locks and better HOF candidates than him, in no particular order: Bagwell, Big Hurt, Bonds, Rickey Henderson, Biggio, ARod, Jeter, Piazza, Vlad, Sheffield, Manny, Berkman, Pujols, Brian Giles, Kent, Griffey, Edmonds, and then after those guys plus whomever I'm forgetting, I'd put Sosa in the same category as Chipper and Giambi, guys with shockingly good credentials, but are still probably peering in from just beyond the velvet rope.
Are most players who have comparable career statistics in the Hall of Fame?
Yes. But as described earlier, Sosa played in a fabulously decadent hitting environment. That's right. I used the word decadent.
Do the player's numbers meet Hall of Fame standards?
While Sammy's HOF Monitor figure is well above "Likely HOFer", he is barely at the average mark on HOF Standards.
Is there any evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his statistics?
The counting stats, RsBI and HR primarily, are pretty shiny. They drown out Sosa's legtimately frustrating early career, in which he struck out a lot and had trouble getting on base. Trust me, I know of this firsthand, seeing as I used him in my Big Hurt Baseball computer game.
Is he the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but not in?
Absolutely not. I've listed a bunch up above.
How many MVP-type seasons did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? If not, how many times was he close?
This is surprising. Sammy won the MVP in 1998, though McGwire definitely should have won it and Barry Bonds had just as good a season. He finished second in 2001, the year Bonds hit 73 jacks. And besides those two seasons? The best he finished in voting in other seasons was eighth, two different times, in 1995 and in 2003.
How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star games did he play in? Did most of the other players who played in this many go to the Hall of Fame?
He's played in seven All Star Games. Darryl Strawberry played in more.
If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant?
Yes, unequivocally. Sosa's peak is matched by few other ballplayers in history.
What impact did the player have on baseball history? Was he responsible for any rule changes? Did he introduce any new equipment? Did he change the game in any way?
During the summer of '98, Sosa had a huge impact by showing McGwire that the public and media could embrace him, and that they wouldn't hector him the way Roger Maris had been.
Did the player uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?
He used a corked bat. He jumped ship early at the end of a disappointing season. Other issues with Sosa's character would probably be based entirely in speculation.
Comments
A couple of minor quibbles...first of all, I wouldn't put Brian Giles, Gary Sheffield (who has as many PED questions surrounding him in my mind), or Jim Edmonds into the HoF ahead of Sosa, and second of all, you sort of missed the point on question 10...are there any corner outfielders out there who are awaiting enshrinement who were better?
I think you could actually make a fair comparison between Sosa and Jim Rice. They both currently have the same career OPS+ (128, which is barely in the top 200 in baseball history, though of course for both of them this number includes their decline phase, so some of the active players ahead of them might come down a bit). Sosa's 5-year stretch from 98-02 surpasses anything Rice did, but as you mentioned his early career is unimpressive to say the least.
If we're willing to table the PED part of the argument, I think Sosa's a deserving candidate. His numbers put him on the edge, but we have a way of elevating guys who made a lasting impact on the game, and very few players have meant more (at least for one season) than Sammy Sosa.
Posted by: Zach Geballe | June 21, 2007 1:34 PM
Admittedly, I'm just eyeballing OPS+. That said, Sheffield's nine year run from 1995-2003 is absolutely awesome, and I don't recall that he was worse or better than Sosa in the field, so for me, Sheffield's incredible longevity put him ahead of Sammy. I mean, his career is basically ALL peak! As for Giles, he's been a plus defender his whole career, even with significant stretches in CF, and while not quite as awesome as Sheffield, the hitting consistency looks damn similar. He's the biggest stretch of the three you bring up. Edmonds's first five years in StL surpasses Sosa's peak five years, as far as I'm concerned. As one of the three best-fielding CF of his generation, Edmonds's OPS+ in those years: 148, 150, 163, 161, 173, compared to Sosa's peak five years of 160, 141, 169, 201, 160. That monster 201 jumps out, but the overall record supports my theory that Edmonds should be a first-ballot HOFer if you go by comparing him to his peers, since pre-injuries Griffey and maybe Andruw are the only CFs of that period that could hold a candle to him. That he basically hit a quarter notch below Sosa four of five years, a full notch below in only one of those years, and played far superior defense at a more important position seals Edmonds's overall superiority for me. Your point about Sosa's lasting impact, though, is something I failed to assimilate into the final evaluation, and you're right that that should probably push him past the velvet rope, just as the BP blog post I linked suggests that should Chipper be considered one of the key guys in the Braves' unparalleled run, that'll push him in.
Posted by: David Arnott | June 22, 2007 2:53 AM