Vlad.....Best Active OF HOF'er?

If a guy has a case to be one of the top 20 all-time at his position, he's got a HOF case. He doesn't automatically get in, but it's not ridiculous to discuss it.

He won't get in, spnited, because some baseball voters get off on the idea of keeping everyone they can out of the HOF. I agree he probably won't get in. But he should be in the discussion.

 

I'll take Carter 365 days out of every year.

 

Rick, try reading more carefully. Of course you make comparisons as a way of measuring the player's merit, but you don't put a guy in just to get another catcher in. That is truly ridiculous.

 

Fair enough.

 

What was he better at than Posada?

 

For one thing, Carter was better compared to his contemporaries than Posada was compared to his.

That said, you have to watch the comparisons as a measure of a player or you end up putting in every second baseman who is better than Bill Mazeroski.

 

Better power, better defensively, better all-around player.

 

No, yes, and too vague to debate one way or the other.

Posada averaged 9 more doubles and 3 more home runs per 162.

Carter was also more durable, though, playing more games per year.

 

Posada also is notoriously bad at blocling balls, has had far more passed balls, doesn't block the plate well because he does not like contact and has had a number of pitchers complain about his game-calling.
Oh, and Carter has a higher caught stealing percentage.

Average per 162 is insignificant unless you play the whole 162 every year.

 

If every position needs to be represented equally, does this mean David Ortiz gets in on the first ballot? Because he's esentially a lifetime DH, and there certainly aren't 20 of those in the HOF.

 

No. For several obvious reasons.

1) The reason that position influences player value is that each position can only select from the population of players who can play the position at a minimally acceptable level defensively. That's why a good hitter at SS is rarer, and more valuable, than the same hitter at 1b. Since that doesn't apply to DH, there won't be a tendency for the relative value of the top players at that position to even out in value.

2) DH hasn't been around long enough to even out with the other positions. If point 1 weren't true, you could make a case that DH should have roughly the same number of inductees as other positions since it came into the league (divided by two, because only one league has it).

 

Which is why I agreed that Carter is better defensively.

I figured using a per PA rate would blow your mind, so I wanted to keep it simple. I agree that Carter is better, I just suspected you believed so for some of the wrong reasons.