Orlando Cepeda RIP

jvett77

jvett77

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Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda had died, the Giants announced Friday. He was 86 years old. His loss comes only 10 days after the death of Willie Mays, with whom he starred on the Giants for nine seasons. He was one of the Philly killers in the 60s along with Mays and McCovey. In 1966 San Francisco traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals, helping them win the 1967 World Series and was selected MVP beating out Stan Musial and Bob Gibson.
 
Stan Musial was almost 50 in 1967.


You’re cutting and pasting bad info.
 
williewilliejuan said:
No. Forever Giant.
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jvett77 said:
Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda had died, the Giants announced Friday. He was 86 years old. His loss comes only 10 days after the death of Willie Mays, with whom he starred on the Giants for nine seasons. He was one of the Philly killers in the 60s along with Mays and McCovey. In 1966 San Francisco traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals, helping them win the 1967 World Series and was selected MVP beating out Stan Musial and Bob Gibson.
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No disrespect, but Orlando Cepeda was a borderline Hall of Famer at best. Cepeda is not in the same class as Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Willie McCovery, and Bob Gibson. These players are truly legends, and Cepeda was a good player with a lifetime 50.1 WAR (compared to non Hall of Famer “Sweet” Lou Whitaker WAR 75.1).
 
Voltaire said:
No disrespect, but Orlando Cepeda was a borderline Hall of Famer at best. Cepeda is not in the same class as Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Willie McCovery, and Bob Gibson. These players are truly legends, and Cepeda was a good player with a lifetime 50.1 WAR (compared to non Hall of Famer “Sweet” Lou Whitaker WAR 75.1).
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Never realized he made the Hall,,until I just looked his stats up......The veterans committee voted him in......
So ya,thats kinda like saying he was borderline.....He had a great career,HOF worthy??.....not sure.

But anyways,sad to see another childhood athlete gone.....RIP BabyBull.
 
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Voltaire said:
No disrespect, but Orlando Cepeda was a borderline Hall of Famer at best. Cepeda is not in the same class as Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Willie McCovery, and Bob Gibson. These players are truly legends, and Cepeda was a good player with a lifetime 50.1 WAR (compared to non Hall of Famer “Sweet” Lou Whitaker WAR 75.1).
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Few are in the class of the greats Mays and Musial. Cepeda was a half step behind McCovey in a similar class.
Cepeda
2,124 games, .297 BA, 2,351 hits, 379 HRs, 1,365 RBI, 50 WAR
McCovey
2,588 games, .270 BA, 2,211 hits, 521 HRs, 1,555 RBI, 64 WAR
 
jvett77 said:
Few are in the class of the greats Mays and Musial. Cepeda was a half step behind McCovey in a similar class.
Cepeda
2,124 games, .297 BA, 2,351 hits, 379 HRs, 1,365 RBI, 50 WAR
McCovey
2,588 games, .270 BA, 2,211 hits, 521 HRs, 1,555 RBI, 64 WAR
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Based on that data I would not consider those two players to be in the same "tier".

But it would've been more obvious if you'd bothered to include that McCovey drew 757 more BBs than Cepeda did.

McCovey had seven seasons that were worth 5+ WAR while Cepeda had just three. He is a full "step" behind McCovey.
 
DragonFromTo said:
Based on that data I would not consider those two players to be in the same "tier".

But it would've been more obvious if you'd bothered to include that McCovey drew 757 more BBs than Cepeda did.

McCovey had seven seasons that were worth 5+ WAR while Cepeda had just three. He is a full "step" behind McCovey.
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Just to throw some further light on this comparison. Willie McCovey had a career OBP of .374.

In a career that lasted 17 seasons Orlando Cepeda topped Willie's career average just once (.399 in his NL MVP winning season).
 
DragonFromTo said:
Based on that data I would not consider those two players to be in the same "tier".

But it would've been more obvious if you'd bothered to include that McCovey drew 757 more BBs than Cepeda did.

McCovey had seven seasons that were worth 5+ WAR while Cepeda had just three. He is a full "step" behind McCovey.
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Half or full step, yeah, with McCovey winning over Cepeda with far more BBs and HRs. They are close based on their slash numbers.

Cepeda .297/.350/.499/.849
McCovey .270/.374/.515/.889
 
jvett77 said:
Half or full step, yeah, with McCovey winning over Cepeda with far more BBs and HRs. They are close based on their slash numbers.

Cepeda .297/.350/.499/.849
McCovey .270/.374/.515/.889
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The slash numbers that matter the most of course are OBP and SLG

McCovey's OBP was 14.7% better than the average and his SLG was 32.7% better.
Cepeda's OBP was 6.7% better than the average and his SLG was 26.3% better.

These hitters do not seem too close to me. If forced to make a comparison I'd say that the offensive gap between McCovey and Cepeda is about the same size as the offensive gap between Cepeda and Steve Garvey.
 
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DragonFromTo said:
The slash numbers that matter the most of course are OBP and SLG

McCovey's OBP was 14.7% better than the average and his SLG was 32.7% better.
Cepeda's OBP was 6.7% better than the average and his SLG was 26.3% better.

These hitters do not seem too close to me. If forced to make a comparison I'd say that the offensive gap between McCovey and Cepeda is about the same size as the gap between Cepeda and Steve Garvey.
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I was curious about this comparison so I looked up the numbers and I'm not too far off. The three are within 1,000 PAs of each other so let's say that they all had careers of similar length and just look at the offensive WAR rates.

McCovey put up 7.43 oWAR per 1,000 PAs
Cepeda put up 5.79 oWAR per 1,000 PAs (1.64 less than McCovey)
Garvey put up 3.89 oWAR per 1,000 PAs (1.90 less than Cepeda)

I could probably find someone who is a little better fit than Garvey, I obviously wanted a 1B with similar career length and needed someone with OBP right around the league average and Garvey sprung to my mind first. Wasn't a bad guess but isn't perfect. Frank McCormick maybe? His OBP is a bit too good while his SLG lacks but his oWAR/1,000 is 4.11 (1.68 below Cepeda, very close)

Anyway, my point is that when it comes to the Hall of Fame I think it's fair to say there is a full step between McCovey and Cepeda. And then another full step down to Garvey, Galarraga and their like that need to buy a ticket to get in.
 
DragonFromTo said:
I was curious about this comparison so I looked up the numbers and I'm not too far off. The three are within 1,000 PAs of each other so let's say that they all had careers of similar length and just look at the offensive WAR rates.

McCovey put up 7.43 oWAR per 1,000 PAs
Cepeda put up 5.79 oWAR per 1,000 PAs (1.64 less than McCovey)
Garvey put up 3.89 oWAR per 1,000 PAs (1.90 less than Cepeda)

I could probably find someone who is a little better fit than Garvey, I obviously wanted a 1B with similar career length and needed someone with OBP right around the league average and Garvey sprung to my mind first. Wasn't a bad guess but isn't perfect. Frank McCormick maybe? His OBP is a bit too good while his SLG lacks but his oWAR/1,000 is 4.11 (1.68 below Cepeda, very close)

Anyway, my point is that when it comes to the Hall of Fame I think it's fair to say there is a full step between McCovey and Cepeda. And then another full step down to Garvey, Galarraga and their like that need to buy a ticket to get in.
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Not interested in Garvey. No point here.

Cepeda was a .300 (.297) hitter vs McCovey's .270. Cepeda played in 464 fewer games than McCovey (about 3 full seasons) but had 140 more hits.

You can't say OBP and .SLG are the most impoortant, and ignore BA. The slash numbers for both are close except for BA.

Cepeda would have been closer to McCovey in both HR, RBI, and BB with the additional ABs proving Cepeda was very close and that they're similar, excellent players. Cepeda had almost exactly 1,000 fewer PAs and struck out slighly less . Cepeda had .13K/PA; McCovey .17K/PA so they were close there.
 
jvett77 said:
Not interested in Garvey. No point here.

Cepeda was a .300 (.297) hitter vs McCovey's .270. Cepeda played in 464 fewer games than McCovey (about 3 full seasons) but had 140 more hits.

You can't say OBP and .SLG are the most impoortant, and ignore BA. The slash numbers for both are close except for BA.

Cepeda would have been closer to McCovey in both HR, RBI, and BB with the additional ABs proving Cepeda was very close and that they're similar, excellent players. Cepeda had almost exactly 1,000 fewer PAs and struck out slighly less . Cepeda had .13K/PA; McCovey .17K/PA so they were close there.
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Now it seems like you are just looking for anything that you can use and not making arguments about actual value. Strikeout rates?

BA is included in both OBP and SLG, it seems disingenuous to say that I "ignored" it.

The value of a walk with no one on base is virtually identical to that of a single with no one on base, no? During his career McCovey walked with the bases empty 596 times. If we were to "change" 270 of those bases empty walks into bases empty singles (thereby adding no value) McCovey would now have the same number of hits as Cepeda and would still have 487 more BBs in total, which is a huge difference. 24 points of OBP is a lot of value.

You said that Cepeda would be close to McCovey in HRs, RBIs and BBs if he'd had 973 more PAs but that makes me think that you haven't actually looked at it. Not even Barry Bonds can make up a 142 HR and 757 BB difference in only 973 PAs.

If we were to apply Cepeda's career averages to the "missing" PAs (an exercise which is quite generous to Cepeda given that McCovey's "extra" PAs largely came at an age by which Cepeda had already been forced to retire) he would still be 99 HRs behind McCovey. The RBIs are now at least rather comparable (1,555 to 1521 in favour of McCovey) but Cepeda still has 690 fewer BBs! As I said above the gap is not explained by playing time, it is a performance gap.

And while you say that Cepeda is hurt by having fewer PAs this doesn't explain why the oWAR/1,000 PA numbers that I posted show McCovey to have been significantly offensively superior on a rate basis as well.
 
DragonFromTo said:
Now it seems like you are just looking for anything that you can use and not making arguments about actual value. Strikeout rates?

BA is included in both OBP and SLG, it seems disingenuous to say that I "ignored" it.

The value of a walk with no one on base is virtually identical to that of a single with no one on base, no? During his career McCovey walked with the bases empty 596 times. If we were to "change" 270 of those bases empty walks into bases empty singles (thereby adding no value) McCovey would now have the same number of hits as Cepeda and would still have 487 more BBs in total, which is a huge difference. 24 points of OBP is a lot of value.

You said that Cepeda would be close to McCovey in HRs, RBIs and BBs if he'd had 973 more PAs but that makes me think that you haven't actually looked at it. Not even Barry Bonds can make up a 142 HR and 757 BB difference in only 973 PAs.

If we were to apply Cepeda's career averages to the "missing" PAs (an exercise which is quite generous to Cepeda given that McCovey's "extra" PAs largely came at an age by which Cepeda had already been forced to retire) he would still be 99 HRs behind McCovey. The RBIs are now at least rather comparable (1,555 to 1521 in favour of McCovey) but Cepeda still has 690 fewer BBs! As I said above the gap is not explained by playing time, it is a performance gap.

And while you say that Cepeda is hurt by having fewer PAs this doesn't explain why the oWAR/1,000 PA numbers that I posted show McCovey to have been significantly offensively superior on a rate basis as well.
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First of all, I never said that Cepeda's stats show that he was equivalent to McCovey. McCovey had better stats overall, and Cepeda was not that far off. Their slash numbers show that. It's significant that Cepeda's numbers were achieved with 464 fewer games. However, also significant is that McCovey's WAR was 25% greater than Cepeda's, 64 vs 50.

Cepeda .297/.350/.499/.849
McCovey .270/.374/.515/.889

I actually have looked at it. I said Cepeda with 1,000 more PAs would have been closer to McCovey in both HR, RBI, and BB (near McCovey's 521 HR and but nowhere near his 1,345 BB). With 1,000 more PAs, Cepeda may have reached 450 HR and only 100 more BB, a little more respectful in the power category.
 
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