2015 HoF Ballot Tony Clark: 1997 Donruss Signature Series

Tony Clark was a switch hitting first baseman who spent the first half of his career with the Detroit Tigers and the remainder as a journeyman with 5 other clubs.

1997 Donruss Signature Series Tony Clark Autograph (#d 488/900)

During His 15 year career Clark's teams made Postseason Appearances: 2004 Yankees - he was the 1B tasked with holding on Dave Roberts in Game 4 of the ALCS  and 2007 Diamondbacks. Other career Highlights include tallying 251 Career Homers, representing the Tigers at the 2001 All-Star Game and finishing 3rd in the 1996 AL RoY voting which was won by Derek Jeter.
 

1997 Donruss Signature Series

1997 Donruss Signature Series Tony Clark Autograph (#d 448/900 b-side)

Ran into something interesting here, An autograph card featuring a photo of the player yes signing an autograph. It isn't that complicated to put this card together, but I am not sure I have ever seen it done elsewhere. Is there a -graph collector out there that has any insight on this?

In 1997 the Donruss Signature Series came in 3 parallels: Red which were the commons, Green shown here - typically numbered to 1000 although Clark is serialed to 900, and finally Blue which are numbered to 100.

Phungo HOF Verdict
YES - a surprise Yes vote team Phungo. Last December Tony Clark became the head of the MLB players association (MLBPA), He is the first former player to lead the union. Clark is the fourth person to lead the MLBPA, a position that was originated by Marvin Miller.

My Tony Clark YES HoF vote is a protest vote against the various folks that have rejected Marvin Miller over the years. Miller may have never played on the field but his leadership changed how players in all sports are compensated, All one has to do is look at the salaries players are earning to realize what Miller has meant to the sprot.    

Sources & Links
2015 HoF Ballot
MLBPA
Baseball-Ref 
Bob Lemke's Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards    

2015 HoF Ballot Marlon Anderson: 1998 Bowman #436

Today's look at 2015 HoF candidates focuses on one time Phillies Second Baseman Marlon Anderson.

1998 Bowman #436 Marlon Anderson

Anderson spent five seasons with the Phillies before the club gave up on him following the 2002 season. The balance of his 12 year was spent with five other ball clubs and was highlighted by 2 postseason bids: 2004 with the Cardinals who won the NL Pennant but then got swept by the Pirates and 2006 with the Dodgers who were eliminated in the NLDS by the Mets.

The '06 campaign was probably Anderson's best. He started the season with the Nats before being traded to the Dodgers. Between the two clubs Anderson hit a career high 12 homers and batted .297. His OPS+ for the season was also a career best 123. Outside of 2006 and Anderson's 2001 campaign with the Phillies (+2.9 WAR, 11 Homers) it was a pretty pedestrian career 1100+ games .265 career BA, 63 Homers.


The Verdict
nope

1998 Bowman
Series 1 of 98 Bowman features the Jimmy Rollins RC and an early Roy Halladay card. Marlon Anderson at #436 doesn't appear until Series 2 which contains Rooke Cards of Carlos Lee, Kevin Millar, Milton Bradley, Jake Westbrook, Reading Native Wade Miller, and Phillies southpaw Randy Wolf.


Marlon Anderson 2014
The Phillies brought in Marlon to try out in a couple of broadcasting duties this past season. He was ok for pre-/post-game but I felt he struggled with color analysis. I have not heard if the Phils will be bring back Anderson for a broader role in 2015.

Sources & Links
2015 HoF Ballot
Baseball Cardpedia
Baseball-ref

Tom Seaver Celebrates 70th Birthday

Tomorrow one of the greatest pitchers of my youth, Tom Seaver, turns 70.

1974 Topps #80 Tom Seaver

I am  not sure when and where I became a Tom Seaver fan. When I was younger, I grew up outside the Philadelphia area, so I wasn't real clued into the Mets being a Phillies rival. This allowed me to root for Tom Terrific without thinking about he uniform he wore.

I think I started to follow Seaver after reading one of those Scholastic Books that was offered through our school. Each book covered four players and had a quad photo on the cover. I can remember reading about Seaver playing a high school tournament in a Alaska where they played all night because the sun never set at the height of the summer. I also remember the chapter mentioning Seaver coming an out short of a no-hitter.

Hall of Fame and Pitcher MVPs
Last week we saw Clayton Kershaw win both the MVP and Cy Young awards. Any time a pitcher has an exceptional season it is debated whether or not they can win the MVP award.

There is a perceived school of thought that believes that the MVP award should be dedicated to position players.

This appears more myth than reality - at least in the 2014 vote it was. Kershaw was listed on all 30 ballots and 27 of the 30 listed him as either first or 2nd. To mean that does not indicate a bias against pitchers. Kershaw did have to dip to 4th place to garner his 30 ballots, while Giancarlo Stanton was top 3 on all 30 ballots. That is a tiny margin of two fourth place votes.

This brings me back to Tom Seaver. He is the current record holder for HoF vote percentage - he received 425 of 430 votes - that is 98.8%. Pretty close to perfect, yet he was a pitcher, and 2nd is Nolan Ryan 491/497 (Also 98.8%) The first batter shows up at #3 Cal Ripken 537/545 or 98.5%.

My question is, if pitchers command the #1 and #2 spots on the Hall of Fame vote percentage list, why is there a stigma toward giving them MVP votes.

1974 Topps
Action shots were sill pretty new to Topps in 1974. Yes 1972T did have the "In Action" subset, but while some were ok, many were questionable to refer to as "In Action". 1974T has a couple of simlar looking Mets pitcher cards - the Jon Matlack base card is a landscape action shot as is a NLCS card featuring pitcher Jerrr Koosman. Most of 1974T is portrait style which helps these pitcher cards seem unique. 

Tom Seaver HoF Index
1970 Topps Scratch Off 

1974 Topps #80 (memorial)
1977 Andy Warhol Portrait
1984 Topps #706  Active Career Victory Leaders - With HOFs Steve Carlton and Fergie Jenkins

Sources & Links 
Phungo Hall of Fame Index
baseball-ref
BBWAA
Newsday - Anthony Rieber
Baseball Almanac

WAR Stories: Phillies 2015+ Jimmy Rollins 2007 NL MVP

Congrats to this years MVP Winners Mike Trout & Clayton Kershaw. Today as part of our Phillies 2015+ Project we turn back the clock 7 years to the 2007 NL MVP Winner, Jimmy Rollins.

2008 Topps #233 Jimmy Rollins MVP

Well we are not really turning back the clock - Phils fans would definitely love to have the 07 version of J-Roll. Unfortunately time marches on and a 36 year old Jimmy Rollins is expected to start for the Phillies in 2015.

2014 was a decent year for Rollins. His batting average down, but OBP was right around his career average. His slugging number down, largely because of a dip in doubles - His 17 Home Runs were right at his 162 game average. Speaking of games Rollins played 138 games in 2014 - His 609 Plate Appearances was the 2nd lowest of his 14 full seasons.

Comps  
All 10 of Jimmy Rollins age 35 Comps played beyond age 35,It is an impressive group of players topped by Joe Morgan and Derek Jeter with Craig Biggio, Ryne Sandberg, Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammel and Robby Alomar all in the list. Five of those players still had 4.0+ WAR left in them - Joe Morgan was tops with +15.5 WAR.  According to Baseball-ref projections Jimmy Rollins should expect to accumulate 3.5 WAR for the rest of his career.

The projections have Jimmy finishing with 2574 career hits.  426 shy of  the arbitrary 3000  that has made any non-PED player an automatic for HoF voters. Jimmy is currently at 2306 hits, which means B-R thinks he had 268 hits remaining - slightly more than double his 2014 production - or another way of looking at it about 2 years worth of hits.

Verdict
The projections sounds about right to me. I see Jimmy playing through the 2016 season and getting slightly less than his 2014 production.  I give him +2.0 WAR for 2015. In our Phillies 2015 running WAR total we are through 3 players and have arrived at 55 Wins. 


2008 Topps

The photography on 08 Topps is worthless. Fortunately They got a decent pix of Jimmy on the MVP Card, The base card photo is HORRIBLE.  

2008 Topps #233 Jimmy Rollins MVP (b-side)


The B-side of the card shows a grab bag of Rollins MVP Qualifications. Curious picks - the BA with RISP (.272) is 24 points lower the BA Overal (.296). The 43 Game Winning RBI cannot be right - that isn't even an official stat anymore - but when it was the league leaders were in the teems if I recall correctly. The Most important stats are at the bottom - Rollins 15 RBI and .346 BA versus the Mets who the Phillies overtook on the last day of the season to win the NL East. This of course was their last win of the year as they were swept by the Colorado Rockies in the NLDS.



Sources & Links
WAR Stories Phillies 2015+ Index
Jimmy Rollins Player Collection Index
Baseball-ref

Cy Young and MVP in the Same Season - Can it happen again: Tigers Justin Verlander 2013 Topps Triple Threads

Clayton Kershaw took home the NL Cy Young Award tonight, now we await what is probably the biggest question mark in the 2014 Awards Season. 

2013 Topps Triple Threads Relic TTR-JV1 Verlander (2/18)

Can Clayton Kershaw take the dual Cy Young/MVP Award Hardware. Personally I am from the Pitchers get there own award, Position players should get the other award school of thought.  However, this season the NL really hasn't had a standout candidate. Cases can be made for Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton, and Jonathan LuCroy. For me the strongest case among the hitters is McCutchen. In addition to putting up good offensive numbers at the plate, he really carried the Pirates.  When he was out of the lineup the Bucos struggled, upon his return, they made a run that got them into the playoffs. Curiously according to B-R Andrew McCutchen is an average fielder. Had he had a +1 or +2 dWAR season, his overall number would have been more comparable to Kershaws.

The Last time a Pitcher took both awards was relatively recently. In 2011 Justin Verlander won the award over Jacoby Ellsubry, Dustion Pedroia, Miguel Cabrera and others - Ben Zobrist won the WAR crown that year, but a significant portion of the number was defense based. 

2013 Topps 3x Threads
Topps noted Verlander's 2011 double dip on the above Triple Threads card. I am not a big relic or serial collector but those two features combined with the magnitude of the player featured pushed this card onto the buy side at a recent card show. The "M" in MVP is to large and somewhat mars the overall look of the card, otherwise it is decent looking. The Card went for $8 which is probably the most I have ever paid for any relic, including Phillies.

Philly Show
Double duty for this post, this gives me a chance to return to Philly Show coverage. I originally began posting info on pickups from the show on October 1. If you want to see some vintage from taht day and an index to other related postings click here.  


Sources and Links
Philly Show 2014 09 28
Philly Show 2014 09 28 Auto-Relic Summary
Baseball-ref

2015 Hall of Fame Ballot Brandon Webb: 2007 Topps #319 Cy Young Award

Tonight we found out the 2014 Cy Young Award winners Clayton Kershaw and Corey Kluber. Eight years ago those honors went to Johan Santana and Brandon Webb.

2007 Topps #319 Cy Young Award Brandon Webb

As part of our survey of 2015 Hall candidates I want to discuss a non-candidate. Pitching is tough on the arm and Brandon Webb is just another exhibit A of careers cut short. During a 3 year span from 2006-2008 Webb finished first or second in the NL Cy Young vote. Great stuff unfortunately Webb only pitched in 4 other season.

That adds up to seven campaigns which is three years short of the HoF ballot minimum service requirement.

Therefore Branon Webb will not be on the 2015 HoF Ballot, but I thought the magnitude of his breif career warranted a mention in our HoF survey.

The Verdict 
In addition to the 3 Cy Young top two finishes mentioned above Brandon Webb's career highlights include a 3rd place Rookie of the Year finish in 2003. That season he led all candidates in WAR, but the award went to Dontrelle Willis. In 2007 he got his only postseason in game 1 of the NLDS.

Regardless of all the accomplishments the vote is NO for Webb. His half of a Hall career isn't good enough. Had Webb pitched until today he would likely be on the 2020 ballot, but things didn't work out that way.  

2007 Topps

2007 Topps #319 Cy Young Award Brandon Webb (b-side)

The flip side of the 2007T Cy Young Award card specifies Webb's '06 credentials. To be honest the only really good number here is the 2.82 ERA vs Playoff teams. The rest of the numbers seem to hurt Webb's cause. Although checking advance metrics we find that in 2006 Webb did lead the NL in pitching WAR. It is his only career top 10 finish.

Links and Sources
Baseball-ref
2015 HoF Ballot

RoY 2005 Style and WAR Stories Phillies 2015+ Ryan Howard

Tonight with Jacob DeGrom and Jose Abreu getting the respective NL and AL Rookie of the Year awards we turn back the clock a decade.

10 Years ago Ryan Howard was still a Rookie. He had 19 games and 42 at bats under his belt. Only 2 homers in the sample but he also recorded a respectable .282 batting average. We still didn't know if Howard was the type of hitter who could replace the venerable Jim Thome at First Base.

2006 Topps #265 Ryan Howard Rookie of the Year

A year later Phillies fans would be excited to have Ryan Howard as Rookie of the Year. What a decade it's been. Today the Phillies fans are dealing with a significantly different player

Ryan Howard 2015+
There are still some things to get excited about when you see Ryan Howard play - He still hits majestic Home Runs that make you think of how things were.  Unfortunately he strikes out all the time, and performs poorly in the field and on the bases which reminds us of how things are.

In my heart of hearts I still think Ryan Howard has a big season left in him. I blame his struggles on his torn up ankle and other injuries. There is another more realistic me that thinks I am a dreamer or that this magic one more Ryan Howard MVP season will happen with another club.

The Verdict
I am giving Ryan Howard a 0 WAR for 2015. If he stinks next season I think the Phillies will feel more free to move on Darin Ruf or other options. Regardless a 0 WAR in 2015 would be an IMPROVEMENT over the -1.1 WAR Howard posted in 2014 (at the expense of $25M the same salary he carries in 2015)

Phillie 2015+
I am keeping a running track of the 2015 Phillies projected Win total as we analyze the roster. A link to those totals is here.

Sources & Links
WAR Stories Phillies 2015+ Index
Baseball-ref