Pope was largely right about the 1974-80 core guys in terms of when they were getting older and likely to decline and probably moved them at the right time (Bull, Bowa, McBride, Trillo). Boone, however, was one where he misjudged. He was still good with the Angels after the guys who replaced him with the Phillies--Diaz and later Virgil--had come and gone. And, ironically, he was replaced on the Angels with Lance Parrish when the Phillies moved on from him.
Boone had a pretty good arm, but it wasnt like a Molina arm, but he might have been one of the smartest players to ever play the game. My guess is that many of his CSs were just a matter of him outsmarting the baserunner, they didnt keep track of pitch outs then but I bet he got alot of guys on those. The pitch out is now a dead concept, but back when he played it was still pretty common.
Boone has to be on the short list of guys that were sons of ML players and had multiple sons that were multiple ML players. He knew (knows) the game like very few.
He also had a freakish lack of decline as he aged. He put up a 1.9dWAR at 41 and never had a bad dWAR season. He was a pretty steady 1.0 - 2.5dWAR every year.
I mean, you're gonna be right 9 times out of 10 if you give up on a 33 year-old player 10 times, whether he's a catcher or starting pitcher or position player (except maybe DH). And Boone was pretty much done as an offensive tool at 31. But impressively durable overall.
He actually set his Phillies career highs for starts and ABs in 1980, Moreland made just 39 starts. In '81 it was more of a platoon (in a shortened season) and then both were gone.
That accurately describes Boone's career as an Angel. His dWAR averaged over 2 as an Angel.
But as a Phillie, Boone averaged about 1 dWAR per year. His last two years as a Phillie were 0.9 and -0.5. Combined with oWAR of 0.3 and -0.2 those years, it's not surprising why the Phillies let him go.
The only other sons of ML players who had multiple sons who were ML players that I can think of are Buddy Bell and Jerry Hairston Sr.
Seeing as how we can't even seem to nail down defensive statistics and analytics for current players I would think the retroactive assessments are variable to say the least, and that catcher is the hardest position to assess. Some of the core catching funtions, especially how we view it now, aren't in the formula. But, you can only really compare catchers to other catchers and Boone remains an all-timer.
This is hilarious.
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/judge-len-dykstra-reputation-bad-131243871.html9
> this Court finds that, as a matter of law, the reference cannot âinduce an evil opinion of [Dykstra] in the minds of right-thinking personsâ or âdeprive him of their friendly intercourse in society,â as that âevil opinionâ has long existed.
So, basically, a court of law has ruled that Dykstra is, legally, a piece of human trash.
This is hilarious is absolutely correct. If the legal profession doesnt work out for this judge, he has a real future as a satirical comedy writer. Basically he said "nothing can be said to lower anyone's opinion of Dykstra" and "I have better things to do than worry about this peice of... ".
Did the judge drop the microphone when he left the room and give Lenny "the Bird" on the way out also?