re: Baseball Hall of Fame Announcement Thread- Bagwell, Raines, Pudge Elected to HOF

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Career outside Coors Field:

.282/.372/.501 (.873)

Voters don't know what to do with Coors Field and I don't blame them. Compare Larry Walker to Jim Edmonds, who didn't even see a second ballot:

.284/.376/.527 (.903) and 8 GGs in center (plus the greatest catch in MLB history).

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Walker was a superior player to Edmonds. For one, he was a much better baserunner. Walker's base running was worth 50 runs over his career. Jim Edmonds' baserunning was worth -4 runs. Walker regularly stole 14-18 bases every year during his prime at a very efficient level. Edmonds' career high in stolen bases was 10. Walker had an extra bases taken percentage of 52% during his career which is very good. That's better than Jose Reyes, Carl Crawford, and Jimmy Rollins and a bunch of other really good baserunners. Edmonds' extra bases taken percentage was 44% over his career.

Walker was also the better defensive player. According to Total Zone/Defensive Runs Saved, Edmonds was 37 runs above average defensively for his career. Walker was 94 runs above average for his career.

Finally, Edmonds is ranked 16th in career WAR among CFs. That's not bad until you realize that two of his contemporaries, Kenny Lofton and Andruw Jones both rank ahead of him in WAR. Lofton fell off the ballot after one year and it's unlikely Jones will last long on the ballot either. Meanwhile, Walker is 11th among RFs in career WAR. All ten RFs ahead of him in WAR are in the Hall of Fame and the two men ranked directly behind him (Tony Gwynn and Harry Heilmann) are in the HOF as well. Plus Walker still comes out on top when you look at stats that adjust their numbers for the ballpark such as wRC+ and OPS+ so yeah, the two really aren't comparable at all besides having similar counting stats.