I know the MLB numbers are pretty good for all hitters who put the first pitch in play, but that a) only takes into account when they actually hit the ball and b) could be slanted because hitters are supposed to know to only swing at fat first-pitches, which would mean their results would naturally be good when they hit the ball.

But, I assumed, the vast majority of first pitches are not cookies, so anyone who swings at a lot of them is probably swinging at a lot of them that he shouldn’t.

So, I figured if I took a list of the guys who swung at the highest percentage of first pitches, and a list of the guys who swung at the lowest percentage, the guys in the latter list would be waaaaay better.

These are their overall stats, not the first-pitch stats, because I wanted to judge the overall success of the guys who swung at first pitches, not just their success on those first pitches. This is just 2011, only for players who had enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title (502)…

(Before you ask, Pablo Sandoval, at 40 percent, would have made the first list, except he came up 35 plate appearances short of qualifying because he was hurt.)

Anyway, what you see here is that the guys who swung at most first pitches had cumulative numbers better than the guys who swung at the least. That surprised me.

I suppose I could redo this and look at overall swing percentage, and that might be a better indicator, but I just spent 45 minutes doing this, so I’m going to leave the rest up to someone else.

I voted for…

Jeff Bagwell (read this)
Barry Larkin
Mark McGwire (read this, this, this and this for a good synopsis of my thoughts on the steroid guys.)
Tim Raines

I gave strong consideration, but did not vote for…

Edgar Martinez (read this)
Alan Trammell (read this)
Fred McGriff (read this)
Larry Walker (read this)
Bernie Williams (read this)

And I long ago discounted Jack Morris.

So I wanted to make a few points that went beyond the 140-character limitation of Twitter…

First, all I know is the A’s have had preliminary talks with Ross’ people. I don’t know how hard (financially) they plan to go after him, and I don’t know how much interest he has in filling the role they want him to fill. Not long ago, he had his sights set on a three-year deal, or at least a shorter deal in a hitter-friendly park, and he’ll get neither in Oakland.

Whatever the A’s end up giving Ross (or whoever they sign in his place), I’m sure it won’t be enough to fundamentally change their financial outlook in the long-term. The A’s current payroll is somewhere in the $30M $35-40M range (I miscalculated how much the guys making the minimum will add up), if they give a veteran another $2-3M, it’s not going to prohibit them from making any other moves that more fit with the long-term interest of the club (like signing Jorge Soler). I feel confident that Billy Beane understands this, or has his long-term plan not become clear to you? It’s obvious he’s not concerned with winning a few extra games in 2012.

What he is concerned with is developing, and there are more elements to development than simply throwing every unproven player you can find on the field and letting them play.

For one, sometimes guys go in slumps and shouldn’t play anymore. Sometimes they need to sit down for the sake of their own confidence. Sometimes they need to sit down as a wake-up call, so they realize that nothing is being handed to them.

Also, it’s not a great environment for development if you are sending a message to the players that you don’t care about winning. If I’m, say, Michael Taylor, and I’m busting my tail and hitting .300 and I look over in center field and Collin Cowgill is hitting .160 and catching nothing, and the team just keeps patting him on the butt and saying “Go get ‘em Collin! We’re just here for you to learn!” how does that look to Michael Taylor?

Another part of development is being around other players who have developed already. They’ve made the mistakes that you are making, and they can help. You don’t want to have six or seven guys just hanging around the clubhouse dispensing wisdom like Yoda, but it doesn’t hurt to have a few.

No one is going to get short-changed by the presence of Cody Ross or another veteran outfielder like him. There are 2,000-plate appearances to go around for A’s outfielders this year, so that’s plenty for the young guys to get all they can handle, and still have Ross soak up the excess for whatever they can’t. And I promise you, by June, you will be absolutely sick of one of these young guys who right now you can’t fathom the possibility of not seeing seven days a week.

You need to have options. Right now, the A’s don’t have enough.

Presumably it would be a one-year deal, as they look for someone to add just a little experience to their outfield.

Right now their starting outfield looks like, uh, Michael Taylor in LF, Collin Cowgill in CF and Josh Reddick in RF.

Ross reportedly was looking for a good hitter’s park to restore his value, so the A’s don’t offer him that. He also wanted a multi-year deal, and the A’s probably don’t offer that either. However, he may not have a lot of extra choices at this point, so we’ll see.

If the A’s don’t get Ross, I expect them to go after someone else for the outfield. They do have money, and they need a little more than Taylor, Cowgill and Reddick, especially since they’d like Taylor to dominate AAA before he comes up.

What I’m trying to do with this post is put it all together in one place, so this can serve as my definitive piece on why I did not vote for Edgar Martinez. Hopefully, those of you who just got a sliver of the argument from some other source can see what you’ve missed. Also, this is for me, so I can just look back at this when the ballot comes next year.

Here is the nut graf, as we say in journalism:

I believe that Edgar Martinez fundamentally benefited from being a DH, both in the volume and quality of his offensive production. Therefore, his offensive numbers must put him well above the theoretical dividing line for him to be a Hall of Famer. Considering the era in which he played, his numbers place him only among a handful of borderline candidates.

There, that’s the crux of my argument. Now, let’s separate that into two parts. The first, is that Edgar fundamentally benefited from being a DH. I don’t think it’s possible to debate the volume part. Clearly, the DH extended the careers of people like Edgar. As for the quality, people like to cite studies that show that DHs generally perform worse at DH than they do as everyday players. I believe those studies are faulty because most players become DHs when they are already in decline. If you look at other players who fill-in as DH from time to time, their numbers suffer from small sample size, as well as the fact that they are unfamiliar with how to DH, and view it as a day off.

But don’t take my word for it.

Look at his splits. Edgar had a career OPS of .850 in 2,269 PAs as a third baseman, and an OPS of .959 in 6,218 PAs as a DH. (I’m ignoring his 1.263 OPS as a 1B because it was just 117 PAs.)

The reason Edgar’s OPS is so much higher as a DH is because once he became a full-time DH in 1995, he started hitting a lot more homers and walking a lot more. This tells you where the homers came from…

I should also note that the Mariners moved to Safeco in the middle of 2000, so you see that Edgar’s HR rate at 38 at Safeco was almost double what it was at age 28 at the Kingdome. (EDIT: Because of a reader suggestion, I added the MLB average for HR/FB by year.)

As for the walks, I submit that Edgar’s discipline didn’t get any better at age 32, but that pitchers just started pitching around him more because of all the HRs. Prior to 1995, Edgar drew one intentional walk every 139 PAs. From 1995-01, he drew one every 56 PAs. He also drew a four-pitch “unintentional” walk once every 45 PAs prior to 1995, and once every 26 PAs from 1995 to ’01.

It looks to me like the added SLG and OBP both came from the same thing: more balls flying over the fence instead of hitting off it for doubles.

Now, that’s a pretty strange thing to happen to someone at age 32. How strange?

In the entire history of baseball, there are only five players who have had at least three 25-homer seasons after age 31 while having zero prior to that.

Ken Williams and Cy Williams both did it, starting in 1922, shortly after the new ball was introduced (thanks Black Sox). Luke Easter also did it, but he was an African American who didn’t reach the majors till 1949, at age 33, and he hit 25-plus in each of his first three full seasons.

The other two players are Edgar Martinez and Ken Caminiti.

Hmmm. I could make one assumption about what happened, and I wouldn’t be the first. But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to assume, because this improvement so neatly fits the time frame of him becoming a full-time DH, that he simply got stronger because he wasn’t wearing himself out playing in the field anymore. He also probably got to spend more time in the clubhouse watching video while his teammates were out in the field. Which brings me back to…

I believe that Edgar Martinez fundamentally benefited from being a DH, both in the volume and quality of his offensive production.

Pretty sure that is the assumption that the Edgar supporters would like me to make, isn’t it? Not the other possibility.

Anyway, now that we’ve established that, we move on to the second part, which is that, in order for Edgar to overcome the DH advantage he got, he’s got to be well above the line for a HOFer, compared with his peers.

That last little bit is important. A Hall of Famer to me is someone who stands well above the crowd in his time, not merely someone who gets lifted by an overall offensive era to put up numbers that dwarf someone who played in another era. Edgar’s straight OPS is higher than Hank Aaron’s, but no one would be foolish enough to compare them that way, because of the era in which Edgar played.

So, let’s first look at Edgar compared to all other hitters during the years that he was an everyday player, 1990-2004.

So, that makes Edgar just the 9th best hitter in MLB during the years that he was an everyday player, and he’s the only guy on that list who played almost no defense at all. (Frank Thomas played 379 more games in the field, and Thome played 1,003 more.)

Again, the point is not that Edgar didn’t contribute to his team with his defense (although he didn’t), because some guys on that list who did play defense didn’t contribute much positive (looking at you, Manny). The point is that he didn’t have to endure the physical toll of playing defense, so he could be fresher and play longer. And, as we saw above, that made a difference to Edgar. At least, we hope that’s what made a difference.

Now, this list is somewhat flawed, because I just took the actual calendar years that Edgar was an everyday player, so there are players in here who were at different stages of their career during this time. So, now I’m going to look only at Edgar’s peak. I’m going to strip away his early years and his late years, and look only at that seven-year stretch, from 1995 to 2001, when Edgar was an absolute beast. But I’m also going to cherry-pick out the best six- or seven-year period for some other guys. (You can click on their names to see the full stat line from the period in question.)

That list, ladies and gentlemen, is the pure definition of borderline. And these borderline guys, by the way, mostly played defense.

What’s a Hall of Famer look like? These guys — and I’m only comparing him to other 1B/LF/RF/DH types, no catchers or shortstops — all had peaks that were either comparable to Edgar’s, but longer, or better than Edgar’s, or both.

By the way, do you notice the ages of the peak years for every single player I’ve listed besides Edgar? Every one of them started before he was 30, but Edgar’s peak started when he was 32? Gosh, that’s weird.

Anyway, the point is just what I wrote before…

Considering the era in which he played, his numbers place him only among a handful of borderline candidates.

All of this isn’t to say that no one can reasonably vote for Edgar. In the end, it just comes down to a matter of where you want to draw the line. Personally, I’m a tough grader when it comes to the HOF. I only voted for Larkin, Bagwell, Raines and McGwire. That’s where I draw my line. It’s fine if someone else wants to draw their line a little lower, and include guys like Edgar. If they do that, though, then they’d better be prepared to also include Giambi and Sheffield, not to mention Larry Walker, Fred McGriff, Todd Helton and … you get the idea. Borderline.

Before I get into this, I appreciate that Edgar is borderline, and a reasonable case can be made both for him and against him. I would never suggest that anyone who voted for him was “wrong.” One of the things that bugs me the most about debates surrounding HOFers is people who insist there is a “right” or “wrong” when that is very rarely the case.

That being said, I want to show that I can cherrypick as well as the next guy. My point with Edgar is that his brilliant peak made him just one of a handful of players to have such a peak during that era. I’ve picked out the best seven-year stretches for each of these guys. (Click on their names to see the full statistical line from the span in question.)

I haven’t even included players of this era who I think are HOFers, like Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, Jeff Bagwell, Jim Thome, Mark McGwire, Vladimir Guerrero, who all had peaks that were longer and/or better than Edgar’s. I’m just illustrating that Edgar was one of several players who had similar peaks during this era. (EDIT: If you want more advanced stats, here are the links to some more advanced numbers for Edgar, Giambi, Sheffield, Giles and Ortiz. They are all similar.) Not only am I not sure any of these players are HOFers, but three of them played a lot more games in the field during his peak than Edgar did.

Of course, you want to throw out Sheffield and Giambi because of steroids, so I’ll add in a slightly more detailed look at Edgar’s career before we give him the Mr. Clean Award.

In 1987 and ’88, Edgar played full seasons in the PCL, at ages 24 and 25, and hit .343 with a total of 18 homers. Meanwhile, the M’s were sticking with Jim Presley, who had hit 27 homers as a 24-year-old in 1986. Yes, they stuck with Presley a little too long, as his career went down quickly after that.

In 1989, at age 26, Edgar played 32 games at AAA and 65 games in the majors, hitting .240. Pretty sure he got hurt sometime that year too, although I can’t find it exactly.

From 1990 to ’92, Edgar was the M’s everyday third baseman. He hit .318, with an average of 14 homers a season, from ages 27 to 29. In 1993, he was hurt almost the entire year. He came back in the strike season of 1994, at age 31, and hit .285 with 13 homers. That was the last season he played more than a few games in the field.

At that point, here were his career most similars…

So, then 1995 comes along, and Edgar busts off a string of seven consecutive premium seasons (age 32 to 38) that was as good as can be. He hit an average of 28 homers over those years, and his walk rate also increased from 12 percent to 16.8 percent (most likely because he was being pitched around more because of his extra power), which jumped his OBP from .391 to .446.

Oh by the way, since 1960, there are only two guys who had at least three seasons of 25 homers starting at age 32 after having zero prior to that: Ken Caminiti, Edgar Martinez.

I’m not trying to accuse Edgar of using steroids. I’m just trying to say that whatever was happening in MLB that caused an increase in offense over those years, Edgar seems to have benefitted from it just as much as anyone else. Maybe it was the strike zone or smaller ballparks or juiced baseballs. I don’t know.

What I do know is that the rising water lifted a lot of boats, and the SS Edgar was just one of them.

So what we’ve seen here is that Edgar’s career burst was relatively short, came in an era when — for whatever reason — a lot of guys had similar short bursts, and came while he played almost no defense at all.

That, to me, is enough to keep him barely on the outside of my HOF dividing line. But that’s just me.

I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t automatically DQ steroid users from my HOF ballot, for a lot of reasons. But I think the point that I need to make is that I’m not discounting steroids from the discussion. That’s not the case at all. In fact, I’m sort of putting steroids into the discussion for everyone.

See, I changed my whole stance on this steroid thing after the Mitchell Report came out, because that’s when I decided that no one was beyond suspicion for steroid use. If you played Major League Baseball after about 1990, and especially from 1990-2003, I think it’s very possible that you used steroids.

I’m not going to assume you did. But I’m also not going to assume you didn’t.

All I do is say: “This player played in an era when a lot of guys, for a variety of reasons not limited to steroids, put up big offensive numbers, so I must consider his numbers in that context.”

Edgar Martinez is a perfect example. I’ve said that, because he was a DH, he has to be judged on a higher standard for offense. I don’t think anyone could disagree with that. But he has to be judged on a still higher standard because of his era, even if he was clean.

(By the way, Edgar Martinez had been injured a lot and had managed only 62 homers in parts of eight years, through his age 31 season, and then he hit an average of 28 homers a year, from age 32 to 38, in 1995 to 2001.)

So, yes, Edgar Martinez had great numbers, and he had a higher OPS than Hank Aaron, but you know that he’s not better than Hank Aaron, right? The indisputable fact is that, as good as Edgar’s numbers were in a historical sense, they weren’t all that otherwordly in a Baseball-In-1998 sense.

Same goes for Rafael Palmeiro and Fred McGriff and Larry Walker and Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi and Albert Belle and Brian Giles and Carlos Delgado and … you get the idea.

To be a Hall of Famer, you’ve got to dominate the era you are in.

In case you missed any of that….

These links pretty clearly explain my stance on steroids and the HOF. Essentially, if I think a guy cheated, I deduct from his statistical resume somewhat, but I don’t disqualify him.

If he used steroids after 2003, I deduct a lot more, because that’s when there was testing and MLB made it clear that steroid use was no longer acceptable.

Anyway, read these…

My 2009 ballot

Manny cheated? Big deal

Manny cheated again? Uh oh

A vote for Barry

Of all the new guys on the ballot, it seems the only one who didn’t warrant an immediate no is Bernie Williams. I didn’t really think that Bernie deserved much consideration either, but once I started looking at him, I decided to set him aside for a more thorough examination.

It’s easy to discount Bernie if you don’t take into consideration the fact that he was a center fielder.

So, here’s my normal first step, comparing him in his prime to the other players at his position, by OPS+. His prime was 1993-2004, essentially.

That’s pretty good. Looks like he was probably the third best center fielder of his era. That certainly puts him in the HOF discussion. (Jim Edmonds, by the way, is one of the most underrated players of all-time, in my opinion.)

He also won four Gold Gloves. At first I figured that was pretty good, but as I looked at it, it’s not really. There are 27 outfielders who have won more than four Gold Gloves, and most of them are center fielders. Until this year, there was no distinction by outfield positions for the Gold Gloves, so very often all three of the winners were center fielders.

OK, how does Bernie stack up against the other CFs in the HOF? Here are the guys in the HOF who played at least 50 percent of their games in CF:

Bernie’s OPS+ of 125 would put him 11th out of 16, just barely ahead of Kirby Puckett. The Puckett comparison is Bernie’s best shot at getting in, but I’d argue that Puckett was still better than Bernie. He won more Gold Gloves and he was a top-10 MVP finisher seven times. (Bernie only twice.) So there’s really not a modern CF who is worse than Bernie who is in the HOF.

For now, I’m going to say no on Bernie, I’m going to remain open-minded on him and revisit him again next year.

So, that’s it.

Here’s my final HOF ballot:

Jeff Bagwell
Barry Larkin
Mark McGwire
Tim Raines

I expect only Larkin will get in this year. I think Bagwell, and maybe Raines, will get in eventually, and McGwire never will.

The last two for me are Larry Walker and Bernie Williams. I had a shot at Walker last year and did not vote for him, but enough people I respect have voted for him, so I feel I ought to at least give him another look.

For starters, there is no way to consider Walker without considering Coors Field. The easiest way to do that is just to use his career road numbers. For his career on the road, Walker was .278/.370/.495, with an OPS of .865. He played just about 1,000 road games, so I decided that Sea Level Larry would have those numbers over about 2,000 games. So, here are the guys who played roughly in his era (1975-2011), with at least 1,900 games, and an OPS between .850 and .880:

There are some good players on there, some HOFers, but not many. If you pick the corner outfielders off that list, you get Bobby Abreu, Sammy Sosa, Ellis Burks, Jim Rice, Shawn Green and Dwight Evans. One of those guys, Rice, is in the Hall, and it took him 15 years to get there and a lot of people don’t think he should have made it all.

I don’t think it’s fair to discount Walker’s entire home career, because he did do very well on the road in a few of those monster Coors Field years. That would imply that maybe Walker was just a much better hitter during those years instead of simply being the same hitter, inflated by Coors. Probably both factors were at play.

Walker was also a very good outfielder, so I’ll give him some points for that.

However, I still see him as a borderline guy. Even if you just go by straight OPS+ (which does account for ballparks, but not as much as it should in the case of Coors IMO), Walker still ranks just 13th among corner outfielders during his prime, which was 1992 to 2002.

I try not to vote for borderline guys, so I won’t be voting for Walker.

Only one guy left: Bernie Williams.