JFK was almost a completely fallacious movie that relied on one falsehood after another with a hero (Garrison) who was a virtual incompetent whose only claim to fame was the stubbornness with which he pursued innocent people. It was somehow accepted as truth despite being so filled with lies. (Like the so-called fact that oswalt was a poor shot when his army record shows he was in fact an expert.)

Using that as a quote to back up your view that Kent isn’t HoF worthy is monstrously ironic, since you would have to avoid the truth to reach that conclusion – just as garrison and the movie JFK did. Like him or hate him (and I generally hated him except when he went after Bonds) Kent’s numbers deserve HoF votes and IMO inclusion went viewed honestly, which was Joe’s basic point, and a good one.

But if you want to argue that he doesn’t, at least don’t quote a truly bad prosecutor and equally bad man’s words appearing in a film that has untruths throughout it.

Instead of comparing him to other infielders, what about just looking at him as a hitter? Who cares that he was a second baseman? It’s kind of irrelevant. Compare him with other top hitters of the era to decide whether he deserves to be in. My guess is that it would be a “yes”.

The Cubs envisioned Sandberg as their shortstop of the future when they got him and Larry Bowa from the Phillies for Ivan DeJesus. But in Sandberg’s rookie year in 1982 they got to Spring Training without a reasonable facsimile of a ML third baseman (Ken Reitz had put aup a horrid OPS+ of 52 in 1981), so they stuck the rookie there a stop gap measure. The idea was that he had to play somewhere and as long as Bowa could still play short, Sandberg might as well fill the hole at third – but there was no thought that he’d stay there for his career. Sandberg was the shortstop of the future just waiting for Bowa to retire.

And then … the Cubs drafted Shawon Dunston #1 during that year’s Amateur Draft and Dunston was annointed the new shortstop of the future.

The Cubs didn’t like the idea of leaving Sandberg at third. He still hadn’t developed any power and was viewed as too light a hitter to leave at third base. So they auditioned him at second, where he started 24 games during his rookie year (and bumping aside Bump Wills who although he had a decent year at age 29 never played again). The next year they brought in Ron Cey and made the switch permanent.

I also think there’s a huge difference between a player with 280 career win shares and one with 400, assuming a full career for each. I’d put the Hall presumption line at 300 for catchers (and pitchers), 325 for ss, 340 2b, 350 3b and cf, 360 rf, 370 1b and lf, 400 dh. (That seems pedantic, but check out the actual results.) Bert Campaneris and Tony Fernandez are at 280, Ozzie Smith is at 325, and then George Davis 398 and Robin Yount 423 and Cal Ripken 427 (closest I could get to 400). Look at their playing numbers without their names and the differences are clear. And Campaneris and Fernandez were good ballplayers.

As Kris probably knows, Parker (327) and Dawson (340) are close to one another by this metric.

In a very wry sort of fashion, if you just looked at the numbers without the ‘perception’(name)of the player(s)- you might not be able to tell who the players were when they have between 280-400 WS.

So my question is this – with position players only, if a consensus was reached on the ranking, should the top 25 or 30 players at each position be voted into the HOF?