[lex24]

Question two - who would you rather see strolling to the plate with the bases loaded two outs in the ninth and your team up a run - Walker or Gary Sheffield?  (And sorry, no way I’m going to consider a Walker in the same realm as Griffey Jr.) 

With two outs and runners in scoring position, here are the splits for all three batters, plus Griffey Sr., Buster and Willie Mays, just for fun:

Gary Sheffield  .263/.424/.497/.921
Larry Walker      .272/.426/.439/.865
Ken Griffey Jr.    .261/.417.498/.917 
Ken Griffey Sr.    .243/.343/.352/.706
Buster Posey      .268/.399/.384/.783
Willie Mays          .298/.428/.552/.979

Mays' numbers really pop off the page.  With two outs and runners in scoring position, Mays had over his career: 997 at bats, 294 hits and 229 walks with just 154 strikeouts.  62 home runs, 50 doubles, 10 triples.  449 RBI, and not incidentally, scored 518 runs.  Also stole 53 bases and was caught 8 times.  BTW, 100 of those 229 walks -- with runners in scoring position -- were intentional.

There's your hall of famer, right there.

---

Posey should be a lock. Lex, you missed his pitch calling skills as well.
. . . 
I’ll give you another.  Buster Posey. And that is if he retired now.  Why?  ROY.  MVP.  Best catcher of his generation.  Face of a franchise for a team that won 3 WS.  First NL catcher to win Batting Title since Ernie Lombardi.  Best hitter and middle of order guy as a catcher on a three WS winner. Multi time Silver Slugger winner. Gold Glover.  Career ave over .300.  Yeah, his offensive numbers suffered after he was hurt and worn down. But he did plenty to earn his place.  I suspect the mathematicians will disagree.

Lifelong Giants fan, and I don't think Posey is a Hall of Famer.  None of the Giants from that 3-WS-rings run is, with possible exception of Bumgarner (but I fear his numbers will take a beating in AZ, diminishing his chances).  [Timmy would have been the obvious choice, but his longevity coefficient is disqualifying].  Posey has been diminishing for years and was never a great or feared hitter.  Good with pitchers?  Sure.  Good defensively?  Yes.  But lots of catchers are great defensively.

P.S.  Agree totally on scenario of "who would you rather have batting in clutch situation, Sheff or Walker."  Walker not Hall-worthy, either.

---

He was a Coors creation, no doubt.  His OPS would be fourth all-time just based on Coors productivity.  Away from Coors, he's about #120 at .865.  So think Josh Hamilton, Jose Canseco, Danny Tartabull, John Olerud, Norm Cash, David Wright.  Not Hall of Famers.

Some other players whose overall OPS was slightly lower than Walker's road OPS (between .840 and .865): Cap Anson, Carl Yastrzemski, Reggie Jackson, Tony Gwynn, Eddie Collins, Al Kaline, George Brett, Honus Wagner and Wade Boggs.

So cherry picking works both ways.

Yes, cherry picking works both ways.  Except the players I selected weren't cherry picked. I picked them because they were recent power hitters, like Walker.  Of the nine you cherry-picked, none had profiles similar to Walker.  

Three (Wagner, Collins, and Anson) played during the dead ball era.  Another (Jackson) was the strikeout king.  Lots of power and homers, Mr. October, but literally the career leader in strikeouts, which held down his OPS.  Yastrzemski's power fell off dramatically after age 31...his OPS surpassed .800 only four times in the last 14 years of his career.  He led the league in 35 categories by age 30, after age 30 just two.  His HoF years were his first decade.  Boggs, similar story with less power.  Hall of Fame credentials were in the first 40% of his career when he led the league 24 separate times, including five batting crowns, and six OBP seasons.  After age 31, he led the league in intentional base on balls three times.  George Brett, similar story.  Gwynn was a low-power hitter who led the league eight times in batting average, why he's in the HoF.  Of the players you suggest, Al Kaline was closest in profile to the players I suggested.  He did his hitting in an era when there was very little hitting, so he deserved the HoF.  He lead the league in batting, hits, doubles, OBP and OPS one time each. 

My point is that if you remove Coors Field stats, Walker's statistics are very similar to Canseco, Olerud, Cash, Hamilton and Tartabull, at a minimum.  They were power hitters from close to the same time period.  Walker gets the HoF, the others don't.  Maybe if they'd played in Coors Field, they would have made the HoF.

Posey was both a great and a feared hitter. As evidenced by his leading the league (as a catcher, first in NL since Ernie Lombardi) in hitting and winning an MVP award in ‘12. He was never a great HR hitter. Power alley guy with the ability to go the other way.   He was also generally the one guy in that lineup that opposing managers didn’t want to let beat them. Catching every inning of every playoff game, coupled with a medical staff that let him play with a hip injury far too long robbed him of his lower body.  He still hit for a relatively high average in 18 with nothing but his friggin hands.  He couldn’t turn on the ball. If you were watching then, you saw it. They should have shut him down around June 1 and let him get the very serious hip surgery he had around November. Might have given him a shot to actually be ready for ‘19. The guy is one tough dude.  Stayed behind the plate when he could have moved to first base (and put up much better numbers.  The injury in 2011 was damn near career ending. At one time he was hitting around.360 when he played first.  Part of that was he usually did that against lefties. And he killed lefties at one time. I realize it’s now fashionable to denigrate him. Cause it’s always what have you done for me lately.  But next to Willie Mays and Barry Bonds he’s the most important Giant in SF baseball history. He has 3 rings to prove it.

I’m betting on him (literally) to rebound next year. 

Numbers from ‘10-17.

‘10. 305/357/505/862
‘11. Hurt
‘12. .336/.408/549/957
‘13.  294/371/450/821
14.  311/364/490/854
15. 318/379/470/849
16.  288/362/434/796
17. 320/400/462/861

Pretty flipping  good numbers for a catcher. One might even say great. Right?

[lex24]

Question two - who would you rather see strolling to the plate with the bases loaded two outs in the ninth and your team up a run - Walker or Gary Sheffield?  (And sorry, no way I’m going to consider a Walker in the same realm as Griffey Jr.) 

With two outs and runners in scoring position, here are the splits for all three batters, plus Griffey Sr., Buster and Willie Mays, just for fun:

Gary Sheffield  .263/.424/.497/.921
Larry Walker      .272/.426/.439/.865
Ken Griffey Jr.    .261/.417.498/.917 
Ken Griffey Sr.    .243/.343/.352/.706
Buster Posey      .268/.399/.384/.783
Willie Mays          .298/.428/.552/.979

Mays' numbers really pop off the page.  With two outs and runners in scoring position, Mays had over his career: 997 at bats, 294 hits and 229 walks with just 154 strikeouts.  62 home runs, 50 doubles, 10 triples.  449 RBI, and not incidentally, scored 518 runs.  Also stole 53 bases and was caught 8 times.  BTW, 100 of those 229 walks -- with runners in scoring position -- were intentional.

There's your hall of famer, right there.

---

Posey should be a lock. Lex, you missed his pitch calling skills as well.
. . . 
I’ll give you another.  Buster Posey. And that is if he retired now.  Why?  ROY.  MVP.  Best catcher of his generation.  Face of a franchise for a team that won 3 WS.  First NL catcher to win Batting Title since Ernie Lombardi.  Best hitter and middle of order guy as a catcher on a three WS winner. Multi time Silver Slugger winner. Gold Glover.  Career ave over .300.  Yeah, his offensive numbers suffered after he was hurt and worn down. But he did plenty to earn his place.  I suspect the mathematicians will disagree.

Lifelong Giants fan, and I don't think Posey is a Hall of Famer.  None of the Giants from that 3-WS-rings run is, with possible exception of Bumgarner (but I fear his numbers will take a beating in AZ, diminishing his chances).  [Timmy would have been the obvious choice, but his longevity coefficient is disqualifying].  Posey has been diminishing for years and was never a great or feared hitter.  Good with pitchers?  Sure.  Good defensively?  Yes.  But lots of catchers are great defensively.

P.S.  Agree totally on scenario of "who would you rather have batting in clutch situation, Sheff or Walker."  Walker not Hall-worthy, either.

---

He was a Coors creation, no doubt.  His OPS would be fourth all-time just based on Coors productivity.  Away from Coors, he's about #120 at .865.  So think Josh Hamilton, Jose Canseco, Danny Tartabull, John Olerud, Norm Cash, David Wright.  Not Hall of Famers.

Some other players whose overall OPS was slightly lower than Walker's road OPS (between .840 and .865): Cap Anson, Carl Yastrzemski, Reggie Jackson, Tony Gwynn, Eddie Collins, Al Kaline, George Brett, Honus Wagner and Wade Boggs.

So cherry picking works both ways.

Yes, cherry picking works both ways.  Except the players I selected weren't cherry picked. I picked them because they were recent power hitters, like Walker.  Of the nine you cherry-picked, none had profiles similar to Walker.  

Three (Wagner, Collins, and Anson) played during the dead ball era.  Another (Jackson) was the strikeout king.  Lots of power and homers, Mr. October, but literally the career leader in strikeouts, which held down his OPS.  Yastrzemski's power fell off dramatically after age 31...his OPS surpassed .800 only four times in the last 14 years of his career.  He led the league in 35 categories by age 30, after age 30 just two.  His HoF years were his first decade.  Boggs, similar story with less power.  Hall of Fame credentials were in the first 40% of his career when he led the league 24 separate times, including five batting crowns, and six OBP seasons.  After age 31, he led the league in intentional base on balls three times.  George Brett, similar story.  Gwynn was a low-power hitter who led the league eight times in batting average, why he's in the HoF.  Of the players you suggest, Al Kaline was closest in profile to the players I suggested.  He did his hitting in an era when there was very little hitting, so he deserved the HoF.  He lead the league in batting, hits, doubles, OBP and OPS one time each. 

My point is that if you remove Coors Field stats, Walker's statistics are very similar to Canseco, Olerud, Cash, Hamilton and Tartabull, at a minimum.  They were power hitters from close to the same time period.  Walker gets the HoF, the others don't.  Maybe if they'd played in Coors Field, they would have made the HoF.

Posey was both a great and a feared hitter. As evidenced by his leading the league (as a catcher, first in NL since Ernie Lombardi) in hitting and winning an MVP award in ‘12. He was never a great HR hitter. Power alley guy with the ability to go the other way.   He was also generally the one guy in that lineup that opposing managers didn’t want to let beat them. Catching every inning of every playoff game, coupled with a medical staff that let him play with a hip injury far too long robbed him of his lower body.  He still hit for a relatively high average in 18 with nothing but his friggin hands.  He couldn’t turn on the ball. If you were watching then, you saw it. They should have shut him down around June 1 and let him get the very serious hip surgery he had around November. Might have given him a shot to actually be ready for ‘19. The guy is one tough dude.  Stayed behind the plate when he could have moved to first base (and put up much better numbers.  The injury in 2011 was damn near career ending. At one time he was hitting around.360 when he played first.  Part of that was he usually did that against lefties. And he killed lefties at one time. I realize it’s now fashionable to denigrate him. Cause it’s always what have you done for me lately.  But next to Willie Mays and Barry Bonds he’s the most important Giant in SF baseball history. He has 3 rings to prove it.

I’m betting on him (literally) to rebound next year. 

Numbers from ‘10-17.

‘10. 305/357/505/862
‘11. Hurt
‘12. .336/.408/549/957
‘13.  294/371/450/821
14.  311/364/490/854
15. 318/379/470/849
16.  288/362/434/796
17. 320/400/462/861

Pretty flipping  good numbers for a catcher. One might even say great. Right?