BLB - Talk About It... (HR/Hit Club)

[Carlos]

So 35 isn't nuts, its a little behind off the charts HOFs.

But the question is: Is Dani Alvarez our prototypical power hitter in terms of longevity and health or will the league see better hitters in the next couple years?

Because Dani Alvarez is damn good by BLB standards. Woodbury is obviously an anomaly and he's ONLY going to get to 500+. He won't even touch 600. MLB anomalies have 700+ home runs.

I guess I have a hard time believing that the league is set to see MUCH better hitters than those two. This might very well be a league where 400 is MLB's 500.

And that's okay, but that's also why when it comes to HOF voting, we can't look at MLB as a comparison. It simply isn't.

To answer Linty's question: in my opinion, 3,000 isn't enough. This league is so young so choosing 3,000 as this number that means automatic induction is kind of ludicrous to me. But that's just me.

[Carlos]

Actually, I'm going through some stats now and perhaps we are already seeing our better hitters. I guess it's easy to overlook because they are so young.

As of 1995, Dani Alvrarez has a career OPS of .908. That's through 13 years of baseball.

Looking at two younger players in the top five currently playing, Chamissa has a career .980 OPS through 7 seasons.

Hector Chavez is .977 through six seasons.

So, let's assume Alvrarez is hurting his OPS by getting older. Realistically, we can assume that Chamissa and Chavez will have their OPS numbers drop over time.

I can't tell you what their OPS will be in 6 or 7 more seasons, but I can look back and see where Alvarez was 6 and 7 seasons into the league.

And he had an OPS of .873 (!) in his first six seasons. By 1989 or 7 seasons, he upped it to .892. So he actually needed experience to reach his current numbers.

It wasn't until 1994 that Alvarez, then a 12-year vet, reached his highest career OPS of .913. Now he is slowly declining.

But this is important because Alvarez is currently #7 all-time in Career OPS. He probably won't drop much with Keppel declining, Scott not being the same player and Guzman at the tail end of his career.

He can drop if more players like Chamissa and Chavez enter the league.

To add more to this, though Chamissa and Chavez have these amazing OPS numbers, they still don't come close to what Alvarez was doing by age 30 in home runs.

Alvarez (HR through 30) - 296
Chamissa - 189
Chavez - 166

[BradZ]

Chamissa is already 32 however and Chavez hasn't shown to be a prototypical HR hitter (33 career high). IF Chavez ends up with the lengthy productive career of a Woodbury, he'll climb up the HR leaderboard, but if he follows a more traditional career arc he won't be in the conversation.

Edit: I know you weren't specifically talking about HR numbers, but the thread is.

[Carlos]

Chamissa is already 32 however and Chavez hasn't shown to be a prototypical HR hitter (33 career high). IF Chavez ends up with the lengthy productive career of a Woodbury, he'll climb up the HR leaderboard, but if he follows a more traditional career arc he won't be in the conversation.

Edit: I know you weren't specifically talking about HR numbers, but the thread is.

Yeah, sorry, I kept editing while I was posting. I added in a HR stat to show how different they really are.

What I was trying to show is, Alvarez is definitely in a league of his own (exception being Woodbury whose run after turning 30 is unrivaled in the league).

And if our two best young hitters via OPS can't even touch Alvarez in HR, then is it realistic to assume any other players will cruise by 500 home runs? Thus that makes 500 home runs a higher measure of excellence than the 500 home runs of MLB (Making 500 home runs too high as a theoretical HOF-automatic statistic).

Even before the steroid era, there were players in the 600 club. Sure, much less than we have now, but they were there. The BLB might never have a star capable of hitting 600.

[Clay]

I think you're right. Without a drastic swing in either HR production (E.G. "a juiced ball era"), I think 400 HR will be more of significant mark.

In the drafts there days, it's pretty rare we see guys that are damn close to BLB ready at the time of the draft. And in 100% of the cases we've seen thus far, they've been pitchers (usually relievers).

[Carlos]

I think you're right. Without a drastic swing in either HR production (E.G. "a juiced ball era"), I think 400 HR will be more of significant mark.

In the drafts there days, it's pretty rare we see guys that are damn close to BLB ready at the time of the draft. And in 100% of the cases we've seen thus far, they've been pitchers (usually relievers).

That's a good point too. Hitters seem to take longer to develop.

And it's a constant struggle because you either wait till they are 25 to fully develop (probably too old) and then lose years they could use to have these phenomenal career stats, or promote them at 21 where they still need those four years to reach their potential.

I also think our league potential years are not 28-32. I think it's much younger, but I'm not sure yet if that's because we might be promoting guys too early (and thus killing their careers or putting more mileage on their bodies) or something else.


edit: By the way, I'm not complaining. I'm just pointing out the differences. The league is very different in some ways from leagues I've been in. I don't know why.

[Clay]

I also think our league potential years are not 28-32. I think it's much younger, but I'm not sure yet if that's because we might be promoting guys too early (and thus killing their careers or putting more mileage on their bodies) or something else.


edit: By the way, I'm not complaining. I'm just pointing out the differences. The league is very different in some ways from leagues I've been in. I don't know why.

I think the PRIME YEARS will vary by where they came from.

Hector Chavez is 28 right now... but he's in the last PRE-FEEDER generation. It'll be interesting to see what his next 4 years look like. I think he's going to put up numbers like we've never seen before this year. Could they get better?

Guys like Sau and an up and comer like Hamilton are great test cases for the feeder generation. When will they hit their primes?

I think there's so much to learn still.

That's the beauty of the whole thing. We feel like we have a ton of history because of how long most of us have been around, but we're not even 20 years in yet.

[funclown]

Chamissa is already 32 however and Chavez hasn't shown to be a prototypical HR hitter (33 career high).

Also remember that Chamissa didnt really get to the majors for his first FULL season until he was 26.

His run from 1990-1995 was pretty dam impressive (was hurt in 94).

Still has some left in the tank obviously, but I wouldn't expect a drop off until he was possibly 36.

He's a good test to see if bringing a guy up late adds some years to his baseball career versus the younger guys who come out hot, but flame out fast.(So the theory goes)

[Jistic]

All I've learned from this is Sammy Sosa belongs in the HOF.

[Jimmy]

All I've learned from this is Sammy Sosa belongs in the HOF.

You must get the good stuff!

[Carlos]

I think the PRIME YEARS will vary by where they came from.

Hector Chavez is 28 right now... but he's in the last PRE-FEEDER generation. It'll be interesting to see what his next 4 years look like. I think he's going to put up numbers like we've never seen before this year. Could they get better?

Guys like Sau and an up and comer like Hamilton are great test cases for the feeder generation. When will they hit their primes?

I think there's so much to learn still.

That's the beauty of the whole thing. We feel like we have a ton of history because of how long most of us have been around, but we're not even 20 years in yet.

And even then we still won't know for another 10-15 in-game seasons. Just wow.