Frank Gore - HOfer?

[TanksAndSpartans]

I think for the most part the correlation between a winning pitcher and a good pitcher will be high over a long enough time period, but I get what the advanced stats are getting at. If a pitcher gives up 9 runs, but his team scores 11, its a win, but did he have a good game? I’m glad they don’t award wins to QBs, it would make about as much sense to me, which isn’t that much.

[JWL]

Double post

[JWL]

Regardless of what your opinion of the recently much maligned pitcher wins and losses stat is (and, really, what is more important than wins and losses?), Mussina's 270-153 is a shoo-in HoF record.

Now, let's get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

It is hard to look at Jacob deGrom's career and especially his 2018 and 2019 seasons and then believe that pitcher wins and losses are meaningful statistics.

[Bryan]

[4. The likely reason Mussina ranks higher than Glavine is that he was more consistent. Mussina’s best couple seasons don’t quite match Glavine’s, but he doesn’t have any horrible ones like Glavine’s 1988, either; the former was a remarkably consistent pitcher. That matters, and for one thing is reflected in his better ERA+ of 123 vs. 118. I also suspect you’re giving too much weight to number of 20 win seasons and reaching 300 wins when W-L is a far overrated (and I’d argue pretty meaningless) stat.

I was doing some unrelated MLB research, and thought this was interesting...

Jim Palmer pitched 19 years and had a W-L record of 268-152, 'averaging' out to 17-10 on a yearly basis. Mike Mussina pitched 18 years and had a W-L record of 270-153, 'averaging' out to 17-10 on a yearly basis. Its almost a 1:1 comparison, but....Mussina won 20 games once in his career (his last year), while Palmer won 20 games EIGHT TIMES IN A NINE YEAR SPAN from 1970-1978. Kind of incredible.

[JohnH19]

I think for the most part the correlation between a winning pitcher and a good pitcher will be high over a long enough time period, but I get what the advanced stats are getting at. If a pitcher gives up 9 runs, but his team scores 11, its a win, but did he have a good game? I’m glad they don’t award wins to QBs, it would make about as much sense to me, which isn’t that much.

The unofficial QB W-L stat is totally nonsensical because the starter gets the decision even if he only plays the first play of the game. There is some logic to the pitcher W-L stat but it has recently become clouded with the invention of the "Opener".

[JohnH19]

Regardless of what your opinion of the recently much maligned pitcher wins and losses stat is (and, really, what is more important than wins and losses?), Mussina's 270-153 is a shoo-in HoF record.

Now, let's get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

It is hard to look at Jacob deGrom's career and especially his 2018 and 2019 seasons and then believe that pitcher wins and losses are meaningful statistics.

There will always be outliers like Nolan Ryan leading the NL in ERA in 1987 with an 8-16 record. Nonetheless, one really has to ignore the obvious to downplay a 270-153 record.

[sluggermatt15]

If Eli Manning gets in, doesn't it make you think Gore would also? Or the opposite, if Gore is in, Manning ought to be too?

[rebelx24]

A few words about Gore:

Yes, longevity is a big part of his hall argument, but it’s rather extraordinary longevity, is it not? Very few running backs make it to 15 years, period (Emmitt Smith is the only other one who comes to mind right off the bat), and it’s not even very common to see them go beyond 12 years. Even if, somehow, running backs making it past the 12-year mark was more of a regular occurrence, can you imagine many of them being as productive as Gore has been in his last several seasons? The guy averaged 4.6 yards a carry last year at age 35, for crying out loud. That’s quite a contrast to other long-career guys like Smith, Jerome Bettis, or Ottis Anderson, who were all hanging on for dear life by the end and none of whom managed 4 yards a carry beyond age 31. Note also that Gore has not yet failed to rush for at least 3.5 yards/carry in any season in which he’s played, something that none of those other guys can say; Smith had one season below that mark, Bettis had three, and Anderson had a whopping six (on a side note, I didn’t realize until doing this analysis just how generally ineffective Anderson was over the second half of his career, which makes his playing as long as he did rather mystifying; was he really that special as a goal-line/short-yardage back?). All these seasons later, Gore still has a career Y/A mark of 4.4, which is even higher than Smith’s, not to mention the other two.

To my mind, there are different types of HOFers. Sometimes, you get the guys who don’t have extraordinary peaks, but have good, rock solid baselines year in and year out and play for a long time. They are still deserving of immortality. Gore is one of those types.

Edit: I remembered later that Marcus Allen is another back with a 15-or-more-year career (Did any running back play more seasons than his 16? If so, I'm unaware of it). His efficiency was still excellent at the time of his retirement, but he was obviously an atypical running back who didn't face the wear and tear that most others do. And while we're on the subjects of long careers and atypicality, there's Darren Sproles, who has played in the same time frame as Gore (although he's only at 14 seasons due to his loss of the entirety of 2006 to injury). Again, excellent rushing efficiency in his later years, but more receiving yards than rushing yards (is there any other RB with decent career length that this is true for?) and quite a number of returns (correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's super-common these days for guys whose primary position is RB to be returners in the first place, let alone ones used as frequently from scrimmage as Sproles has been). Needless to say, he's had one of the strangest careers for a running back imaginable, but has been quite the useful player and probably one of the best return men of all time.

[JohnTurney]

The guy averaged 4.6 yards a carry last year at age 35, for crying out loud. That’s quite a contrast to other long-career guys like Smith, Jerome Bettis, or Ottis Anderson, who were all hanging on for dear life by the end and none of whom managed 4 yards a carry beyond age 31. Note also that Gore has not yet failed to rush for at least 3.5 yards/carry in any season in which he’s played, something that none of those other guys can say; Smith had one season below that mark, Bettis had three, and Anderson had a whopping six (on a side note, I didn’t realize until doing this analysis just how generally ineffective Anderson was over the second half of his career, which makes his playing as long as he did rather mystifying; was he really that special as a goal-line/short-yardage back?). All these seasons later, Gore still has a career Y/A mark of 4.4, which is even higher than Smith’s, not to mention the other two.
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Average yards per carry is up during Gore's career. League-wide average from 2002-2018 is 4.2 (4.3 if you add back in kneeldowns
From 1986-1999 the league whide average is 3.9 (4.0 when kneeldowns are added in)

in 2018 league average was 4.4....Gore ran against a lot of nickel defenses (since about 2012 or so nickel is the majority of the packages played) The running game is in some ways very different than in the 1990s or 1980s or 1970s.

It's not a disqualifier but it does make a difference, facing 7 or 8 in the box. And with teams running a lot from 3-wide it lightens the box

I only bring it up because when yards per carry is being mentioned, it has a context like the passer rating does, but we don't talk about it much I guess because the difference between 3.9 and 4.2 does not seem like much but it's significant.

OJ Anderson likely ran against few light boxes (Bettis, too) because neither were on the field for those nickel defenses. Emmitt and Walter, were, though (3 down players)

So, if we are going to talk yards per carry and compare runners, it's important to take into account circumstances and situations

[TanksAndSpartans]

I didn’t realize until doing this analysis just how generally ineffective Anderson was over the second half of his career, which makes his playing as long as he did rather mystifying; was he really that special as a goal-line/short-yardage back?).

I don't think Anderson was ineffective with the Giants. He fit really well in that offense. One of the announcers had a funny comment in the SB against the Bills - something to the effect of the Bills playing hurry-up all game and the Giants trying to run out the clock from the first play.

Gore went for 100 yards yesterday - wonder if he was the oldest to do so. Going over 15K yards puts him pretty close to passing Barry Sanders.