Schad wrote:The_Hater wrote:Schad wrote:Delgado posted 44.3 bWAR in 8657 PAs. Ortiz has posted 53.9 bWAR in 9796 PAs, and counting. It's a not-insubstantial gap between them, and growing.
Do you think the voters are getting savvy enough to consider something like bWAR? I figure that 90% of them are still looking at the counting stats and the profile/rep of each player.
There has been a pretty substantial shift in the BBWAA's preferences. They culled a tonne of inactive writers who still had votes, so the percentage of online writers (ie., people who actually know about baseball, rather than the baseball and bathroom tiling columnist for the Grand Butte Tribune-Foghorn) is way up. Still a long way from perfect, but increasingly the votes -- steroid guys aside -- are getting closer to paralleling the actual value of the players.
I'll believe the move to more modern day measurements is significant, once (if) Tim Raines gets in the hall of fame.
I am still amazed at the 1987 NL MVP vote where Tim Raines finished 7th in the voting and Tim Wallach (a fellow Expo) finished 4th,
Those watching the Expos in 1987 (Expos fan or alike), knew all of the following:
- Tim Raines was the better player in his career and that season.
- Tim Raines impacted the game more.
- Tim Raines turned the Expos season around when he returned on May 1 and took a team of largely scrubs down to the last week of the season.
Even without modern day statistics back in 1987 (which all pointed to Raines), the old eye test made it clear Raines was better.
But still, In the end the voters creamed themselves to Tim Wallach's 123 RBI's.