The Hall of Merit and Fame
Posted: December 28th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 70 Comments »
I’ve tried to make this point about the Hall of Fame a few times … and I’ve never been exactly sure how well I’ve made it. So I’m going to try again in a mere 5,000 words. You can stop now, I wouldn’t blame you.
The point is this: It seems to me that every baseball fan’s Hall of Fame would be a little bit different. Every single one. My Hall of Fame is different from anyone else’s* — and so is yours. There are, for our purposes, an infinite number of combinations — or, anyway, a number close enough to infinity to make the number beyond any of our imaginations — and there are surely more than enough combinations to give every single person his or her own personal Hall of Fame.
*“Yes, tour group, please follow me as we wander down Kuiper Hall … excuse me Sonny, please don’t kick the Cory Snyder statue, that is very valuable. Now, here in Buddy Bell wing, there behind the giant Frank White glove, you will see …”
Maybe your Hall of Fame has only the 25 best players in baseball history. It seems to me that your Hall of Fame — assuming you bear no grudge against steroids or other human frailties — might look something like this:
First baseman
- Lou Gehrig
Second basemen
- Rogers Hornsby
- Joe Morgan
Shortstops
- Honus Wagner
Third baseman
- Mike Schmidt
Right fielders
- Babe Ruth
- Hank Aaron
Center fielders
- Ty Cobb
- Willie Mays
- Mickey Mantle
- Oscar Charleston
- Joe DiMaggio
- Tris Speaker
Left fielders
- Ted Williams
- Barry Bonds
- Stan Musial
Catchers
- Johnny Bench
- Yogi Berra
- Josh Gibson
Pitchers
- Walter Johnson
- Pete Alexander
- Lefty Grove
- Cy Young
- Satchel Paige
- Tom Seaver
Now, of course, this list does not include George Brett, Eddie Collins, Frank Robinson, Rickey Henderson, Mel Ott, Nap Lajoie, Jimmie Foxx, Pete Rose, Roberto Clemente, Al Kaline, Carl Yastrzemski, Sandy Koufax, Christy Mathewson, Bob Gibson, Cal Ripken, Bob Feller, Buck Leonard and a bunch of other all-time greats. You could move some of them in I suppose — you could replace Seaver with Mathewson, or put in Clemente in for Speaker, or put in Rickey for DiMaggio, Collins for Morgan, Brett for Bonds. Maybe you take more pitchers and cut down on all those center fielders. Maybe you want another shortstop and yank Johnny Bench out. Maybe.
But if you keep it to 25, you are pretty limited with what you can do. If you move it out to 50, then you will have a little more freedom, but the arguments will only grow. Now you may find yourself leaving out slam dunk Hall of Famers like Reggie Jackson or Tony Gwynn or Hank Greenberg or Ozzie Smith or Kid Nichols. You might not have room in your Hall for a Steve Carlton or Three Finger Brown or Cool Papa Bell or Carl Hubbell. Every one person you add creates two or three similar players you leave out.*
*This was the Jim Rice issue — by putting in Jim Rice, it seems strange to only lightly consider similar or superior players such as (partial list): Minnie Minoso, Dale Murphy, Jimmy Wynn, Keith Hernandez, Alan Trammell, TIm Raines, Ron Santo, Reggie Smith, Dave Parker, Andre Dawson, Bobby Grich, Will Clark, Dick Allen, Albert Belle, Dwight Evans, Lou Whitaker, Rusty Staub, on and on and on and on.
So you could go to 100 players in your Hall of Fame. Or 200. Or 500. You would not be right or wrong at any of these levels — it is, after all, your Hall of Fame. You, and you alone, decide how big or small the Hall of Fame should be, how you measure peak value vs. career achievement, how you feel about steroid use or gambling, how much a player’s character (as best we can judge it) should play a role. You think Roger Maris should be in the Hall for one remarkable achievement? He’s in. You think Don Larsen should be in the Hall for one perfect game? He’s in. You, and you alone, determine exactly what are the qualifications, and where the lines are drawn.
What I’m getting at is that when you determine in your own mind if a player is or is not a Hall of Famer, that really says more about you and how you view baseball as it does the player. Maybe you believe in a big old Hall of Fame that would have all of the players listed in the Jim Rice aside and plenty of others. Maybe you believe in a tiny Hall of Fame where no player below Seaver or DiMaggio belongs. The players stay the same. You make the difference.
The last week or so, I’ve been exploring this concept by comparing the players in the Baseball Hall of Fame with the best available counterweight, which is the Baseball Think Factory Hall of Merit. I’m a very big fan of the Hall of Merit, which was created — and I quote from the site directly — “to identify the best players in baseball history and thereby identify the omissions and errors that can be found in the other venerable institution.”
I think the Hall of Merit does a magnificent job of this. The Hall of Fame was voted on by a mishmash of writers, Hall of Famers and a Veteran’s Committee of various shapes and sizes. The Hall of Merit, meanwhile, was voted on by people who love baseball and take great care to study the history of the game. They both have great value, and I thought it would be interesting to compare their results.
OK, so, here we go. Best I can tell:
– There are 181 players in BOTH the Fame and the Merit.
– There are roughly 50 players in the Fame who are not in the Merit.*
– There are 56 players in the Merit who are not in the Fame.
*The Hall of Fame actually has 100 people who are not in the Hall of Merit, but about half of these are umpires, managers, executives or people of various other talents. I count about 50 players who are in the Hall but not in the Merit, but I may have missed some Negro Leaguers and hybrid player/manager talents.
First off, the vast majority of players involved are in the both the Fame and the Merit. And that tells you that there is much more agreement than disagreement. Babe Ruth is in both, Willie Mays is in both, Lefty Grove is in both. There are a million ways to judge players, but just about every way to judge players will come to the same conclusion that Ted Williams was pretty good at hitting a baseball, and Walter Johnson wasn’t too bad at getting people out. The Hall of Fame in so many ways is less about the obviously great players and more about the players on the fringes.
So, let’s to talk about those players who are in one but not the other. Every player in the “Tinker to Evers to Chance” poem are in the Hall of Fame, but none are in the Hall of Fame Merit. I think if there was no poem, there’s a pretty good chance that none of the three would be in the Hall of Fame — and this makes Franklin Pierce Adams one of the more influential baseball writers ever. He got THREE good-to-great players into the Hall of Fame. Man. And he wasn’t even a baseball writer. I AM a baseball writer and I’ve been trying vainly for years to get people just to look at Dan Quisenberry. Maybe the problem is that I never tried a poem.
Here are the saddest of possible calls
Out of the bullpen comes Quiz
A sinker that drops like Niagara Falls
Out of the bullpen comes Quiz
Throws from underneath like he’s in a knife fight
Once off the field he is always polite
His quips make him a sportswriter’s delight
A poet and scholar of medium height
Impeccable control night after night
Coaxes a hard smash right at Frank White
Out of the bullpen comes Quiz
Some of the weirder Hall of Fame choices are not in the Hall of Merit. These include: Earle Combs, Freddie Lindstrom, George Kelly, Chick Hafey, Lloyd Waner, Ross Youngs, Kiki Cuyler, Jesse Haines, Waite Hoyt, Vic Willis, oh man, we can go on and on like this for a while. This is one thing people fail to realize — there are probably at least 100 people in the Hall of Fame that you have never heard of, unless you are a real baseball historian. I forget this too. People may complain about Jim Rice and Bruce Sutter, but Candy Cummings in the Hall for inventing the curveball and he probably did not invent the curveball.
There are a few people in the Hall who are not in the Merit who could inspire some controversy. These include: Orlando Cepeda, Tony Perez, Red Schoendienst, Luis Aparicio, Lou Brock, Kirby Puckett, Hack Wilson, Dizzy Dean and Catfish Hunter.
But let’s take a closer look at players who are in the Merit but not in the Hall. There are 56 of them, but we’ll break them down. Eighteen of the 56 are from the 19th Century. And while I’m sure there’s a good discussion to have about the various merits of Joe Start, Jimmy Sheckard and Lip Pike, I’m thinking that this is probably not the place for that discussion.
So that leaves us with 38. Of those, five are Negro Leaguers. We’ll put those aside too. We’ll save our Alejandro Oms talk for later. That leaves us with 33, but three of those — Pete Rose, Joe Jackson and Mark McGwire — are not in the Hall for reasons that have little to do with their baseball performance. We’ve had those discussions a million times already.
OK, so here are the remaining 30 players in the Hall of Merit who are not in Hall of Fame.
Catchers: Bill Freehan, Ted Simmons, Joe Torre.
– The Merit believes that 1960s and 1970s catchers have been underrated by the Hall of Fame. Torre — who will get in as a manager anyway — never got more than 22% of the vote.
Simmons got 3.7% of the vote his one time on the ballot. The knock on Simmons seemed to be that he was viewed as a lousy defensive catcher. But looking back on it, he probably was not a lousy defensive catcher. And he could really hit — his 117 OPS+ was as good as Carlton Fisk’s and better than Gary Carter’s. I think the big problem for Simmons was that he had his best year in St. Louis when the Cardinals weren’t very good, and he just didn’t have a big support group working for him.
Bill Freehan got a measly two votes, one less than Lindy McDaniel. You know, there’s a myth out there — or anyway, I think it’s mostly a myth — about some sort of East Coast bias when it comes to the Hall of Fame. But I do wonder: Is there some sort of DETROIT bias in the Hall of Fame.
Here’s what I mean: From 1967-72, the Detroit Tigers won a World Series and a division championship. They won 90-plus games four times. They were obviously very good. But the only Hall of Fame semi-regular on those teams was the aging Al Kaline, who was obviously still great but never played more than 133 games in any season. And it’s not like those teams did not have Hall of Fame candidates. Norm Cash punched up a 139 OPS+ in a 2000-plus game career — in fact, Cash has the highest OPS+ of any eligible non-Hall of Famer with 2,000 game (Edgar Martinez, though, will probably pass him this year).
Cash got almost no Hall of Fame support — six votes his one time on the ballot.
There was Freehan too — brilliant defensive catcher who could hit. Bill James ranked him the 12th best catcher all-time in the New Historical Abstract. No Hall of Fame support.
Mickey Lolich does not seem like a slam dunk Hall of Fame candidate, no, but he did win 217 games, he was legendary in the 1968 World Series, and in 1971 he threw an absurd 376 innings, which is more than any pitcher had thrown since Deadball (the next year Wilbur Wood would throw 376 2/3 innings to top him). He at least stayed on the ballot for a while, but after an early 25% peak he faded badly and got just 5.2% in his final year.
OK. Now, from 1983 to 1988, the Tigers won a World Series, a division title, and won 87 or more games five times. They were obviously very good. There is not one Tigers player on those teams who is in the Hall of Fame or is likely to get there any time soon (unless the Jack Morris wave starts to crest).
And we all know that they had some excellent players, Hall of Fame caliber players. We’ll talk about a couple of them in a minute — Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker are both in the Hall of Merit. I don’t support Morris’ Hall of Fame case, but he did win 250 games and pitch a phenomenal World Series Game 7.
My point is: Do the voters have something against Detroit?
First basemen: Will Clark, Keith Hernandez.
– Will Clark punched up a 137 OPS+ in a 1,976-game career and he was known for being pretty slick with the glove. But he only managed to stay on the ballot for one year.
Keith Hernandez did stay on the ballot for a few years, but never quite garnered 11 percent of the vote. I always thought Hernandez and Mattingly had similar Hall of Fame cases, but so far no Mattingly in the Hall of Merit.
Second basemen: Bobby Grich, Willie Randolph, Lou Whitaker.
Bobby Grich has been a cause celebre for the statistically inclined — great glove at second base, an on-base machines and career 125 OPS+ in 2000 games. He was on the ballot for just one year. The Hall of Fame voters have, traditionally, voted down those players with low batting averages, even if their on-base percentages (like Grich’s) were quite high. Grich hit lousy in the postseason … maybe that hurt him.
Willie Randolph got one year on the ballot — he hit with no power at all, but he was a good defender and he walked a lot. Randolph is probably a good example to bring up whenever someone brings up New York bias in the Hall of Fame voting. He has been quite under-appreciated in his career despite being a key player one of the most overhyped teams in baseball history, those Bronx Zoo Yankees.
Lou Whitaker is probably the biggest blunder the BBWAA has made in the last decade — good fielder who got on base, hit with some power, scored runs. He got just 15 votes and fell off the ballot before the conversation could get started. This is part of that Detroit thing. As is his famed double play partner …
Shorstop: Alan Trammell
– Still on the ballot but gains no momentum despite a terrific career as both a hitter and a fielder. I’ve written this before — Trammell at his best was about as good as Cal Ripken at his best. Ripken, of course, was sturdier — good for 10 to 20 more games a year — and that pushes things to Ripken. But as far as quality on the field, I’d put Trammell’s 1987 season — .343/.402/.551 with 109 runs, 105 RBIs, 28 homers, 21 stolen bases in 23 attempts — up against Ripken’s brilliant 1991 season. And Trammell had four or five other seasons that were almost as good.
Third basemen: Dick Allen, Darrell Evans, Heinie Groh, Stan Hack, Graig Nettles, Ken Boyer, Ron Santo.
– Clearly, the Hall of Merit voters believe that third base is the most undervalued position by the Hall of Famer voters. I’d probably agree with that. Dick Allen is one of the great hitters of the second half of the 20th Century, and he’s one of the more controversial characters, and he has been the topic of a million arguments — he was on the ballot for the full 15 years but never gained any momentum and never got even 20 percent.
Darrell Evans — like Grich — is a stat-head favorite. We like those unappreciated guys. Evans only hit .248 for his career, which might explain why he only stayed on the ballot one year. But he walked 100 times in a season five times — twice he led the league in walks — and he is still one of only four third basemen to hit 400 homers.
Heinie Groh had his best year during Deadball and he was supposed to be a dazzling defensive player — yet he got very little Hall of Fame support, which is surprising because his time period is quite well represented in the Hall.
Stan Hack might be even more surprising. He was something of a rarity — a fast third baseman who led off. He scored 100 runs seven times, led the league in stolen bases twice and walked 80 or more times just about every year. There are two Hall of Fame third basemen who overlapped his career — George Kell and Pie Traynor, but four if you count Joe Sewell and Travis Jackson who played third late in their careers — and you could argue convincingly that Hack was better than any of them.
Graig Nettles is another guy the New York hype did not help. He played defense like Brooks Robinson and hit with ferocious power — he banged 390 home runs. Only Reggie Jackson hit more American League homers in the 1970s than Graig Nettles. He was on the ballot for four years.
The Ron Santo exclusion from the Hall remains one of the most puzzling. Maybe people don’t like him. I don’t know. I have no idea how a third baseman who won five Gold Gloves and who ALWAYS hit 25-30 home runs, ALWAYS drove in 100, ALWAYS walked 90 times could be left out of the Hall of Fame. Bill James called him the sixth best third baseman ever, and I think that’s about right. Santo did have Wrigley Field to help him, and he probably wasn’t that great a defensive third basemen despite the Gold Gloves. It still seems ridiculous that he’s not in the Hall.
Boyer’s case is sort of a poor-man’s Santo — I think he was a better glove, one of the great third base defenders ever (even if not quite as good defensively as his brother Clete). He wasn’t quite good for 25-30 homers, but he’d hit you 22 to 28. He’d drive in 90 and score 95 year after year. And he won the ‘64 MVP, and was widely admired. His Hall of Fame case never quite took off — those third basemen have tough times.
Left field: Charlie “King Kong” Keller, Sherry Magee, Minnie Minoso, Tim Raines.
King Kong Keller had a very short career — only 1,170 games — because of injury and because he had almost two-full years taken away by World War II. But his 152 OPS+ is overpowering as is his career .410 on-base percentage. Only Dick Allen, Mark McGwire and Joe Jackson among non-Hall of Famers have better career OPS+ (1000 games). He was on the ballot for 11 years but never got more than 6% of the vote.
Sherry Magee, well, I have to be honest: I kind of thought he was in the Hall of Fame. I don’t know why I thought that, but I did. Magee played during Deadball and led the league in RBIs four times. Bill James writes that he was indirectly responsible for the sacrifice fly rule — he hit so many of run-scoring fly balls that his manager said there should be a rule for it. For most of Magee’s career, sac flies and sac hits were collected under the same umbrella, which is why Magee had more than 260 sacrifices in his career though he rarely bunted.
Minnie Minoso’s age has been argued about for years now. For a long time, it was thought he was born in 1922. Later, the official age was changed so that he was born in 1925 — one of the few age changes in baseball history where a player got younger. This has made a difference — originally it was thought that Minoso, because of the color line, did not make it to the big leagues until he was 28 years old.
Then, tor the next 11 years, he hit .305/.395/.471 with a 134 OPS+. He won three Gold Gloves — including the first year of Gold Gloves — and led the league in hits doubles, triples (three times), stolen bases (three times), total bases, hit by pitch (10 times) and sacrifice flies (twice). For a player denied his chance until he was 28, that seems a Hall of Fame slam dunk. There are only a handful of players who have been that good at an advanced age.
But then, when he got three years younger, suddenly he was 25 when he got to the big leagues and his career tailed off badly when he turned 36 (instead of 39). And it all seemed just slightly less impressive. Of course, it shouldn’t make any difference. Minoso was a Negro Leagues star who was buried in the minor leagues for a couple of years before becoming the first black player to play in Chicago. He was a huge star for 10 years. And he was an iconic player. I often think that when you take everything into account, Minnie Minoso is the biggest void in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Tim Raines — well, we will have plenty more to say about TIm Raines later.
Centerfield: Andre Dawson, Jimmy Wynn.
Dawson played more right field than center — he played center for about six full seasons. Dawson’s case has been hammered around for a while. He is one of only three players to hit 400 homers and steal 300 bases — Dawson, Bonds, Mays. He won a bunch of Gold Gloves. He was the Hawk. The question has always been whether that overrode his excessively low .323 on-base percentage — if those remarkable counting stats and honors made up for the fact that Andre Dawson wasn’t very good at getting on base. The Merit people said yes. I think before too long the Hall of Fame voters will say yes too.
Jimmy Wynn is like Evans and Grich — a low average player who walked a ton and hit for power. He was on the Hall of Fame ballot for one year and, unless I’m mistaken, he got exactly zero votes. Zero. Come on. That’s just wrong. I’m not saying Jimmy Wynn belongs in the Hall of Fame, but zero votes? Stinking Tommy Helms got a vote that year. Dave Giusti got a vote. Felix Milan got a vote. But no votes for Jimmy Wynn, the Toy Cannon who punched up a lifetime 128 OPS+ (not that they knew what OPS+ was in 1983).* Ridiculous.
*My favorite Wynn year is probably 1965. That year, Wynn hit .275/.371.470 in the hitting absurdity of the Astrodome. To give you an idea, he hit .305/.394/.540 away from that Dome, with 15 homers. But what I love most about that year was that Wynn stole 43 bases in 47 attempts. It was to that point, perhaps, the most successful stolen base season ever. And do you know how many other people in baseball history, up to that point, had hit 20 homers and stolen 40 bases? One. Willie Mays in ‘56. It was a remarkable season. And it was at that point that Wynn more or less stopped trying to steal bases. Oh, he would steal 15 or 20 every year, just on pure speed, but he decided that he had proven his point with the stolen bases thing and that even though he was 5-foot-9 and 170 or so, he would hit home runs. He would hit 37 two years later — even while playing in the cavernous Astrodome. And they called him Toy Cannon.
Right field: Dwight Evans, Reggie Smith.
– I’ve often written about the mystery of Jim Rice’s ever-growing support — leading to his Hall of Fame induction — while his teammate Dwight Evans, who I think was the better player, managed to cling to the ballot for only three measly years. Rice hit with slightly more power (though for a career, Evans hit 100 more doubles and three more home runs), but Dewey got on base more and was a superior defensive player. In the end, I guess I’m just surprised that all those Rice fans who feuled his Hall of Fame campaign did not get behind Evans.
Reggie Smith is an interesting choice. A career 137 OPS+ in about 2,000 games, he was a savage line drive hitter who got on base, banged a lot of doubles and was never appreciated enough in his time. He got only three votes his one year on the Hall ballot — and that same year Manny Mota got 16 votes. That tells you something right there. It is also intriguing that of the four great Red Sox outfielders of the 1970s — Rice, Dewey, Fred Lynn and Reggie Smith — that Rice is the only Hall of Famer.
Pitchers: Bert Blyleven, Wes Ferrell, Billy Pierce, Bret Saberhagen, Dave Stieb.
– Well, this is probably the biggest difference in philosophy between the Hall of Fame and the Hall of Merit. We’ll leave Blyleven alone for now; I’m sure people are sick of hearing my thoughts on Blyleven. The other choices were all very good for short periods of time.
Wes Ferrell was very good for eight years — he went 161-94 with a 128 ERA+ from 1929 to 1936 (though he had exactly the same number of walks as strikeouts — and he was probably the best hitting pitcher post-Ruth. In 1935, he pitched 322 innings with a 134 ERA+, won 25 games, and hit .347/.427/.533 in 179 plate appearances. Those eight years, though, make up pretty much his whole career, and he got very little Hall of Fame support.
Billy Pierce was very good for nine years — he went 141-106 with a 131 ERA+ from 1950-58. He was especially dazzling in 1955 when he punched up a 1.97 ERA; nobody was even close. He only went 15-10, but that’s what happens when you lose four games giving up just one run. Pierce was a slightly better than average pitcher for the next five or six years, and ended up with 211 victories — he never got 2% of the vote.
Bret Saberhagen was very good for six years or so — with some sporadic brilliance after that. From 1984-89 he went 92-61 with a 128 ERA+. He won two Cy Young Awards, and he led the league in just about everything in 1989 (wins, win pecentage, ERA, complete games, innings, WHIP, strikeout-to-walk ratio …). It was an injury plagued career, though, and in the end he only made 371 starts, the same number as Danny Darwin but fewer than Bill Lee. He got 1.3% of the vote his one year on the ballot.
Dave Stieb was very good — mostly — for an 11-year period from 1980-1990. He went 158-115 with a 128 ERA+. He led the league in ERA once, in complete games once, in innings twice, in ERA+ twice and in hits per nine twice. He never came particularly close to winning a Cy Young — his best year he finished tied for seventh because, despite leading the league in ERA, he finished only 14-13 for a good Blue Jays team that scored three runs of less for him 16 times. He got 1.4% of the vote in 2004, his only year on the Hall of Fame ballot.
The point is — all of these pitches were dazzling for relatively short periods of time. This was good enough to get them into the Hall of Merit. And yet, Dizzy Dean — who was 140-76 with a 133 ERA+ in his six or seven year peak — is not in the Merit. Addie Joss, who was 160-97 with a 142 ERA+ in his nine-year career, is not in the Hall of Merit. Lefty Gomez, who was 151-76 with a 134 ERA+ in his eight-year peak, is not in the Hall of Merit.
And this, brings me back around to my point. I think the Hall of Merit is absolutely terrific, the best collection of great players available, but I don’t agree with everything in it. I CANNOT agree with everything in it because I have my own idea about what constitutes the Hall of Fame. We all do. Take the very name of the place — the Hall of Fame. About fifty or 100 times a year, someone will send me an email reminding me (as if I may have forgotten) that the place is called the Hall of FAME, not the Hall of Statistical Excellence or whatever, and that Bert Blyleven or Tim Raines or Ron Santo or Dan Quisenberry or whoever else I was pitching was not FAMOUS or not FAMOUS ENOUGH.
Of course, I don’t see it that way at all. I feel quite certain that the place is called the Hall of Fame because it BESTOWS fame on its inductees, and not because it’s around to simply collect players who were once famous. Why would I care at all about a place for people who were once famous? I wouldn’t go to a museum that featured Foster Brooks, Twiggy, Tiny Tim, Coco Chanel, Molly Brown, Fabio, Fabian, Maharishi Mahesh, Leon Czolgoz and Lottie Collins because they were once famous. Who cares?
But again — that doesn’t matter. If someone else thinks that a qualification for the Hall of Fame is fame, then that is what they think. If someone else thinks that a Hall of Famer comes with a gut feeling, or that longevity matters, or that peak value matters, or that it should be a really big Hall of Fame, or that it should be a really small Hall of Fame — well, none of that is wrong. The Baseball Hall of Fame matters to so many of us because it isn’t about right or wrong. It is about how we view the game.
My father’s favorite baseball player was probably Frank Howard. He doesn’t know if Frank Howard is in the Hall of Fame (he is not) and he would not be especially interested in the arguments for him (career 142 OPS+, hit more homers than anyone from 1967-71 despite playing in awful hitting RFK stadium) or against him (relatively short career, famously subpar defensively). All he knows is that Frank Howard was a bigger-than-life character who crushed comically long home runs. Frank Howard would be in HIS Hall of Fame.
That’s the beauty of it. We all can have our own Baseball Hall of Fame. And when one of our players gets into the real Hall, we cam cheer. When one of the players not in our own Hall gets into the real Hall, we can boo. That is the fun of it.
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circle me frank white and the quiz
I like the Hall of Merit as well, but they make about as many odd choices as the writers. Most of the real “mistakes” in the Hall of Fame were Veteran’s Committee choices. Also, while it is fun to mock the poor choices we need to remember that statistics analysis was not available back then. Most were picked based on reputation & anecdotes.
What bugs me more about the HOF is the complete lack of consistency.
Take Jim Rice. He and George Foster are essentially the same player. People laugh if you bring up Foster and the HOF yet Rice gets in.
Bill Mazerowski is about the 30th best 2b in BB history yet Grich and Whitaker who are no worse than top 15 all time aren’t even on the ballot.
They’ve elected basically 11 3b and 2 of them were horrible picks, Lindstrom and Kell, and 2 Collins, Traynor are around 15th-20th all time. So that leaves about 7 or 8 of the top 15 3B of all time not in the HOF. There’s no other position like that.
That would be something like not voting in McCovey, Stargell and Killebrew at firstbase along with 4 other top 15 1b.
As a Red Sox fan I think that the reason Evans never got the support of Rice is that he’s viewed here as a nuts and bolts player. He did the little things like played great defense and took a walk. He also struggled at the bat early on and peaked late.
Rice was the opposite, he was bigger than life until about 1980, then he tailed off, got slower, but still hit for power.
I guess my point is that it’s better to develop early than late as first impressions become lasting impressions.
I consider myself an avid and pretty knowledgeable baseball fan.
I had never heard of one of those top 25 dudes, Oscar Charleston.
You completely left Nolan Ryan off your list of 25. No way you can not include Ryan even on the short list…not in any hall of fame. If it were me, I’d have Brett instead of Schmidt….but it’s a tough call. Both were great players in the same decade, but different strengths. But if I needed a big hit late in the game, I’d take Brett any day of the week.
I agree with you on each hall of fame being the different based on the person. Here is how I would describe it if I were a voter.
I think that the best thing the Hall of Fame can do is tell the story of the history of the game through the greats that played it. If the story of the game is incomplete without the player, then their story deserves to be told.
Under this criteria, I think it is hard to tell the story of baseball without Roger Maris – -but easy without Jim Rice. Impossible without Gossage, Quisenberry and Sutter, but easy without Blyleven. Impossible without Ripkin, easy without Trammel. Etc.
This may leave a lot of really good players out at the expense of some other less-than-great players that were pioneers in some way. But 50 years from now, I want kids who go to the hall of fame to see the greatness of the game that I remember…and have the story told through the greats I watched. That includes guys like Sutter, Quisenberry, McGwire, Bonds and possibly even Sosa, and guys like Mariano Rivera, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling…whether statistically they “belong” in or not.
My Hall of Fame includes “Slim” Jim Hartford and “Hot Pepper” Vaughn because even though they are fake people, in my mind they are two handlebar-moustachio’d rapscallions barnstorming the countryside, beating teams of coal mining semi-pro 12 year-olds. Aah, the good old days!!
Huzzah!!
Shelby,
You never heard of Oscar Charleston because he never played in the majors. Some folks like to throw Charleston and Josh Gibson on top 100 lists and things like this. Personally, I’m opposed to the idea. These men were denied the opportunity to play Major League Baseball due to a racist color barrier. To me, putting them on these lists almost seems like we are pretending that wrong was not done to them. It is one thing to say anecdotal evidence says they were great players. It is another thing altogether to attempt to rank them against others when they never played in the same league. I’ve heard some did great against barnstorming major leaguers and that may be so. However, a few exhibition games are not enough to include players on these kind of lists. They were robbed and it doesn’t do them any good to say if they weren’t robbed and if they had invested their money in GE, KO or municipal bonds they’d be rich. Nope, they were robbed and there’s no changing that now.
Joe,
As a Detroit sports fan I can say that for basketball and baseball there is certainly an anti-Detroit bias.
I know this is about Baseball’s HOF, but I’ve always thought that HOFs should include special sections for players who maybe weren’t all-time great players, but were all-time great people. Players that made uncommon sacrifices that show the capacity for goodness in a person. Though I’ll admit that this is largely out of my desire for people to remember Joe Delaney.
Good call on Tim Raines. Highly underrated player from the 80s. Always seemed to suffer from being the poor man’s Rickey Henderson. But you’ve made a compelling case that he belongs in the actual Hall of Fame.
I like to think of myself as a rational baseball fan but when people say Kirby Puckett isn’t a HOFer I want to scream.
I know that if I look at the numbers he’s a borderline case at best, but more likely a strong member of the Hall of Very Good. But I don’t care. He’s a HOFer, should have been unanimous, should have his own wing, etc.
So anyone who has an opinion on the HOF, I agree. Until you say Puck shouldn’t be in the Hall. Then, well then we have a problem.
#6, Ryan does not belong in the top 25 discussion. Top 100 maybe; top 200 almost definitely. But top 25, no way, not even close.
I’m curious as to why there is so much hate against Ross Youngs.
His career was cut short by his premature death at 30. He DIED before his career could be complete. Not some bad injury but an untreatable (at least at the time) kidney disease. With another 5 to 10 years he only gets better numbers which makes a much better hall of fame case.
For example in his short career (9 full seasons) he had 812 runs. While he probably doesn’t maintain that pace up until his retirement, he probably does get about a hundred a year (BR says he averaged 109 per season for his career). To say that he would have somewhere between 1500 and 1600 runs for his career would not be a stretch. That puts him in company with Rogers Hornsby, Tim Raines, George Brett, etc. This type of analysis can be done for all of his counting stats. While some of them it does nothing for (I think he was more of a leadoff hitter) some of them it really helps his case. Another good example, he had 1491 hits while averaging just under 200 a season. With some more time he very well could have gotten to 3000.
The other thing is how ridiculous his rate stats are. He averaged a .399 career OBP. That’s higher than Joe Dimaggio for some comparison. However, a better comparison is this, most people say that .400 is a great OBP year, he averaged that for his career! This included 4 years (in a career of 9) of over .400 OBP, including 1924 where he had a .441 OBP.
Also, his best season was 1924, and right after that, he got sick, and was sick throughout the ‘25 season. Then, of course, he was diagnosed with a kidney problem in ‘26 and had to retire. So his potential peak years were taken away from him. He already has a case but the best of the case doesn’t even get a chance to develop. Furthermore despite the kidney problem he still posted an OPS+ of 108 in 1926. I wonder how many pro baseball players can be above league average with a swollen kidney.
In conclusion, Ross Youngs should be a Hall of Famer.
I have to pipe up with regards to your turn of phrase describing Dave Stieb. He was more than merely “very good” in his prime; he was arguably the best pitcher in the American League for a three-year stretch, circa ‘83-’85 and it was not particularly close. The fact that Jack Morris has had such a sustained level of support from the voters (thankfully, he probably won’t make it in) whilst Stieb was one-and-done has always irked me.
#13 — I guess that’s the point of Joe’s post, we each have our own vrsion of the HOF. That said, given that the only pitcher on the Joe’s top 25 that pitched in a similar era as Ryan was Seaver — if you compare the two it would be easy to make a case for either over the other. Seaver was better in Winning %, ERA and WHIP — but in part because he had less longevity, and pitched 7 fewer years. Ryan was way ahead in Ks, Ks per 9, and had more overall innings and wins.
“…I guess I’m just surprised that all those Rice fans who feuled his Hall of Fame campaign did not get behind Evans…”
I can’t speak for other Rice fans, but I would have been happy to get on the Evans bandwagon, even more so that Rice bandwagon I happily helped to build. Sadly, me and other Evans backers were denied that opportunity by a bunch of dumb sportswriters, who dropped him from consideration after only three appearances on the ballot. Hard to mount much of a campaign in the time frame.
“You completely left Nolan Ryan off your list of 25. No way you can not include Ryan even on the short list…not in any hall of fame.”
I can go either way on this one. If you are putting together a 25 man roster of best players, there are just too many guys ahead of Ryan in the queue (Clemens, Maddux, Martinez, Koufax…)
On the other hand, I think it’s reasonable to say that the first 25 guys should include 24 great players and one slot for somebody utterly unique, which might be Ryan, or any of a small handful of other guys.
” If it were me, I’d have Brett instead of Schmidt….but it’s a tough call. ”
Now you’re writing like a crazy person.
If the Hall of Fame had just one member it would be Babe Ruth. Expanding it to two and Joe DiMaggio has to be the next inductee . . . the Yankee Clipper, the hitting streak, married to Marilyn Monroe, and these lines:
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you
(woo woo woo)
What’s that you say, Mrs Robinson?
‘Joltin Joe’ has left and gone away.
(hey hey hey, hey hey hey)
And you’re considering bumping him from the top 25?
Tigers AND Cardinals bias…Hernandez, Simmons, Boyer, DAllen (even RSmith for a brief time).
Frank Howard was the first great baseball player I ever saw play. He would be in my HOF, what a presence. His 6′7 frame kneeing in the on deck circle with a towel wiping the sweat from his face as the gnats hovered around his head. Then lumbering up to the plate and hitting monstrous home runs at RFK. Howard was a huge part of my early baseball life, and I’ve always been grateful it was him. Thank God no DH existed then, watching him play LF was worth the price of admission.
Great post Joe.
I echo the praise for the Hall of Merit, truly a fabulous project. Delving into their threads is a wonderful way to both learn and get excited about baseballists past. The work they’ve done on Negro Leaguers, 1870s baseball and other serious quandaries is invaluable and consuming, but the real joy is following the Hall’s narrative from election to election. It made Parisian Bob Caruthers one of my favorite players.
Anyways, I question Joe’s analysis of the HoM-not-HoF pitchers. I don’t see it as a peak/career difference but rather as some case-specific issues. As Joe notes, the peak-tastic HoFer Dizzy Dean has not been welcomed into the HoM. Let’s go through the cases one-by-one.
Wes Ferrell got in because the HoM considered the impact of pitcher-hitting in a systematic manner, while the HoF has been much more haphazard. Note also the oddity of the clearly inferior Rick Ferrel’s HoF membership- there’s a non-zero chance that the HoF thought they were inducting the superior Ferrell.
On Saberhagen and Stieb (and I suppose Blyleven), the HoM cares more about era balance. There is a gap between Blyleven and Clemens, and a good argument has been made in the HoM that something structural in baseball hurt starting pitchers stats during the 80s. Wanting some representation, the HoM proceeded to noticed that Stieb and Sabes were BETTER PITCHERS THAN JACK MORRIS. As, of course, was Blyleven.
Billy Pierce is just a boringly borderline case. When the HoM ranked the inducted pitchers of his era, he placed a solid 19 out of 19. Think of him as a replacement for Jack Chesbro- somebody has to be the weakest member in any Hall. The careerist alternative would be Mickey Welch or Burleigh Grimes. Not exactly Nolan Ryan.
Just adding…Stieb, Sabes, and Ferrell also did poorly when HoM participant ranked inducted pitchers. The only genuine mistake of MLB pitcher exclusion identified by the HoM is…Blyleven (Blyleven, a thousand times Blyleven).
Thanks for including Dave Stieb, Joe! I realize he isn’t quite good enough for the Hall, but he was my baseball hero growing up and I always appreciate it when someone points out his period of brilliance.
If only someone would talk about Lloyd Moseby…
I understand and agree that the point of the Hall of Fame is to bestow fame rather than merely acknowledge it but it isn’t the Hall of Stats either and I see no problem with a player’s story playing a role in their selection.
Rice was more memorable than Evans. His issues with the press, while they may have hurt his case early on, were part of a narrative. He broke his bat on a checked swing. He climbed into the stands at Fenway to save a child. He climbed into the stands at Yankee Stadium to save his stolen ballcap. He was feared, at least according to the narrative. Rice was the first black baseball superstar on a team known for being a racist organization.
Evans had one of the best catches of all-time, is remembered as a great fielder and consistent hitter by those that remember him.
Evans was undoubtedly a better fielder than Rice and, by many measures, a better hitter, but Rice had some of the stuff of legends about him while Evans had a great career and one indelible moment.
That Rice gets in and Evans gets forgotten may be statistically unfair but the voters who get to decide think that Rice’s story deserves to be remembered while Evans’ story, unfortunately, does not.
Was Ozzie Smith a better shortstop, hitting and fielding, than Dave Concepcion or Mark Belanger? I don’t know and am not going to break down any stats, but the big difference seems to be that he was a human highlight reel on the field who could also do a standing backflip.
Kirby Puckett seems to be a weak HOF-er statistically with a short career but he was a World Series hero and was a small, roundish guy who played like a giant and was extremely likeable, so he got in.
While I think using the Hall of Fame as a way to immortalize the underappreciated, like Raines, Blyleven, and Evans would be a great and worthy purpose, I don’t think it was a mistake to vote in any of these players who may be a little short in the stats but have a little of the stuff of legends about them.
Jim Edmonds is in MY Hall of Fame. Fun, fun, fun to watch, at the plate and in the field.
@ #12 Drew: Why does Puckett end the conversation for you? What about him made him a surefire HoF-er despite borderline stats?
No offense intended–I was too young to see him play, so I’m curious.
Travis Jackson is in the HofF. Travis. f%#@ing Jackson. That makes it the hall of very good. When that happened I threw up my hands.
Daern – I won’t say he’s a HOF but I don’t recall anyone playing the game with more enthusiasm then Kirby Puckett, plus his performance in the World Series was one to remember.
Rolly Polly guys with skills are just fun to watch.
I still never got to the end of that strat-o-matic post from last week. Can someone tell me how this one ends?
@26: Edmonds was a guy who would make plays that I’d give a standing O when I was rooting for the other team.
Of course, Darrell Evans is also an example of anti-Tigers bias.
Thanks for the attention, Joe. We appreciate it.
@Josh in Boston
“I guess my point is that it’s better to develop early than late as first impressions become lasting impressions.”
That’s often true, except Tim Raines had the same career path, was even better early in his career than Rice was in his, lasted longer, and still can’t get any love.
Trying to explain Jim Rice’s induction with rational methods is pretty much a fruitless exercise.
Re: Nolan Ryan
Nolan Ryan was a fantastic pitcher, and a no-brainer Hall of Famer. But a quick trip to Baseball-Reference.com will show that his record did not match his mystique.
I think his legend is enhanced by the fact that he was still pitching when “Baseball Tonight” went on the air. His highlights (including his 6th and 7th no hitters) were beamed into every home in America every time he pitched in the early nineties. His superior contemporaries Seaver and Carlton did not enjoy that advantage because they retired a few years before.
Vada Pinson anyone?
Rutbag @25: “[Jim Rice] climbed into the stands at Fenway to save a child.”
I’m unfamiliar with this story. Could you share, please?
I just don’t understand how Will Clark receives (or received, I suppose) so little support for the HOF.
That’s Leon CZOLGOSZ to you, buddy!
“rutbag said at 5:48 pm on December 28th, 2009:
I understand and agree that the point of the Hall of Fame is to bestow fame rather than merely acknowledge it but it isn’t the Hall of Stats either and I see no problem with a player’s story playing a role in their selection.”
Im sorry rutbag, but your approach for comparing Jim Rice and Dwight Evans is wrong: while the HOF is not entirely the “Hall of Stats”, it’s not about who had the most colorful and memorable anecdotes told about them during their career; it’s about who was the BETTER player over their career. I don’t really care that Rice snapped a bat on a check swing. Rice put up big Triple Crown stats (esp. the 100+ RBI seasons) over most of career that looked a lot flashier than Evans, but if you consider OBP and defense, I think Evans had more value over his career.
Also, Nolan Ryan does doesn’t belong in the top 25 or 35 or 45 or… well, maybe the Top 100. The primary purpose of a pitcher is to prevent runs from scoring, and there were a number of pitchers better than him.
#37 – I forget what year but I think it was the early 80’s. A child was hit by either a broken bat or a ball. Rice saw it (as did most people) and hopped into the stands, picked the kid up and ran him into the clubhouse where he could get quicker treatment than waiting for the EMTs/Security. NESN had a feature about Rice last year that talked about it.
Thanks for the tale, Josh.
It’s ludicrous that people think Morris is a HOFer when Stieb was clearly better and was never a serious candidate.
There’s a reason for people liking Morris over Stieb, Blyleven, Kaat, etc. and regardless of what they say, it begins and ends with game 7 of the 1991 World Series. If Morris doesn’t win that game the way he did, there are no Murray Chass types fighting fo him.
This is stupid, but its the lasting image people have of Morris. All the rest is creative statistical tinkering to support a position that lacks logic. But if one game defines a career, the following are all Hall of Famers: Joe Carter, Don Larsen, Aaron Boone, Bucky Dent, Mickey Lolich, Josh Beckett, Livan Hernandez, Kirk Gibson etc.
Morris has a better body of work than most of these guys, but you get the point.
here’s what you wanna do, Joe:
take the 50-odd “HOF-not-HOM” guys, and the 50-odd “HOM-not-HOF” guys, trim each down to a 24-man roster, and face them off in a seven game series….
[...] [...]
“…4 great Red Sox outfielders of the 1970’s….Rice, Lynn, Smith, Evans…”. Uh, Carl Yastrzemski? He was still playing left field late in the decade until he became a DH.
First – a link for the person asking for the Jim Rice Saves Kid story…
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/hof09/columns/story?columnist=garber_greg&id=4353486
I agree with a personal Hall of Fame. I used to keep a separate book of baseball cards for players that I liked for some reason or another. Guys I remembered as a kid or had an interesting story made the book. So, while Ryne Sandberg may be the greatest second baseman I saw play, I remembered how the Cubs got Vic Harris as a throw in when they traded Fergie Jenkins to Texas for Bill Madlock. The back of Harris’s Topps card said he was a “future star” and I didn’t know enough to disagree. So, I asked for Vic’s number when I played little league and hoped that Vic Harris would become a star – and I would, too.
Neither happened, but he got a spot in my baseball card Hall of Fame.
Happy New Year!
Thanks so much for the link, Paul.
Hooray for more HoF posts. This was fun.
My personal HoF would be an equation — we’d come up with some (very complex) equation that spit out a single number that separates the Great from the very good, and we’d tweak it periodically, and players would come in and go out. And we’d argue the equation. But no player-by-player evaluations — humans are too subjective and too riddled with inconsistency. Let’s decide what makes greatness and measure it.
Sincerely, A Nerd
Very good article Joe! I agree with most of it.
But I must remark a minor mistake, you included Bonds in your initial 25 group but not Maddux and Clemens (similar cases, retired not yet eligible for the HOF).
I think you meant Brett Butler or Brook Jacoby instead of Cory Snyder right? Right? =D
You say “I wouldn’t go to a museum that featured Foster Brooks, Twiggy, Tiny Tim, Coco Chanel, Molly Brown, Fabio, Fabian, Maharishi Mahesh, Leon Czolgoz and Lottie Collins because they were once famous.”
I think it would be fascinating to see what was once famous and now is considered camp or completely forgotten.
And I think you WOULD go to such a museum. In fact, I’m sure you’d write at least 5000 words on it.
You had me at Foster Brooks. Of course that was pretty late in the article, but still…
As per Tinkers, Evers and Chance:
An obscure fellow names Bill James once did a study on the Chicago Cubs team of that era. He was confounded by that team’s utter domination of baseball during that period. In a 5-year period, they won 4 pennants and 2 World Series. They had the best single season in baseball history (116 wins during a 154 games season). They also had the best 2-year record, the best 3-year record, the best 4-year record and the best 5-year record of any time in the history of the sport!
Yet they seemingly didn’t have any truly great players (besides Mordecai Brown, a pitcher.) During that stretch, the Cubs had a lot of pitchers who had great seasons, but when Bill James studied the subject, he discovered an obvious trend: almost every one of those pitchers were mediocre before being traded to the Cubs, then were spectacular for the Cubs, and then instantly became mediocre again when traded away later.
After countless hours studying the matter, Mr. James came to this conclusion: in the deadball days, infield defense was hugely important, and that particular Cub infield defense was the best of all-time.
Tinker. Evers. Chance.
It wasn’t the poem.
Nolan Ryan is not close to being a top-10 all-time pitcher, but he almost perfectly represents the idea of it being a Hall of FAME.
He’s probably the most famous pitcher of the past 50 years. Yet he never won a Cy Young, nor did he ever deserve one. He never started a World Series game. Someone above was surprised that Tom Seaver would be ranked above Ryan. That’s how ludicrous it has become; the two pitched in the exact same era, even pitched on the same pitching staff, so comparing them is easy.
Seaver was vastly superior. Yet, it’sRyan who’s the famous one.
And it’s not like Seaver was pitching under a rock somewhere in the hinterlands; he was the MAN for one of the most famous teams in history, the ‘69 Amazin’ Mets. He pitched his peak years in New York City, where he was celebrated and beloved. He won 3 Cy Youngs. He got the highest HOF vote of anyone in baseball history. (Ironically, Ryan has the 2nd highest vote percentage for the Hall).
Yet, it’s Ryan we remember. Why? Probably because, like his peer Reggie Jackson, he was spectacular and dazzling. Both Ryan and Reggie belong in the Hall of Merit, but neither would make the top 50.
But both are forever burned into our memories.
Joe,
Thanks for the great article about our beloved institution. I joined the HOM cause 4-5 years ago, when the project was moving through the 60’s at a rate of one election every 2-3 weeks. Now that we’ve caught up to the present time, we have annual elections just like the BBWAA. The dedication that the project has demanded of me and my fellow electorate members has made me a smarter and more knowledgeable baseball fan and a smarter person.
I urge any serious fan who loves the history of the game to familiarize him/herself with the project and consider joining the electorate in time for the 2011 ballot.
Anyone who spends so much time lambasting Jim Rice, really-REALLY shouldn’t then turn around and be pushing Jimmy Wynn as a HOF. Really? He’s Ron Gant. He’s Roger Maris. He’s Bobby Allison. He’s Kirk Freaking Gibson. Okay?? You wanna vote for a power-hitting OF from the 60’s-70’s who hit .250 and had less then 300 HR and 1000 rbi? just because he walked alot and was a fine fielder and did it in a bad hitter environment?
Spare me. As much as you seem to Loathe those dreaded ‘counting stats’ -hits, rbi and average-like it or not, those, ummm, Count. They do for Jim Rice, they do for Andre Dawson, and they do for you vaunted Toy Cannon.
Toy Cannon a HOF? Where’s the Roy Sievers bandwagon? You guys have drank too much of your own statborg kool aide here.
[...] recently wrote another article about the Hall of Fame and compared it to the Hall of Merit maintained by the folks at Baseball Think Factory. The [...]
I still don’t understand why so many people are mystified that Jim Rice got elected. 1. His longevity numbers are adequate for enshrinement, most notably his 2452 hits. 2. He led the league in numerous big ticket offensive categories throughout his career, to the tune of a 33 Black Ink score. 3. He has a “wow factor” in that he’s the only player in baseball history with 3 straight seasons of 35HR and 200 hits. Add in a 128 OPS+ and you have a HoFer. He’s borderline, to be sure. But look at other borderline players and see if they match the 128 OPS+, the 2452 hits, and the 33 Black Ink score. They don’t.
I’m not saying Rice was way better than, say, Dwight Evans. But it’s simply not a mystery why he’s in the Hall of Fame.
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/hom_election_history_data_and_analysis/#3425997
(HoM Election History, Data and Analysis #33)
I have posted a list of the *56* “Fame only” players in four groups defined by Cooperstown jurisdictions: the BBWAA, two veterans committees, and not eligible except by Board of Directors action.
During year 2008 the Hall of Merit ranked the *57* “Merit only” members within the same four categories and I have included links to the results of those four ranking elections. See the HOM archives, early 2008, for the discussion and ballot threads.
Prior to the 2010 cycle that is in progress, we still have *57* “Merit only” players. The 2009 cycle replaced Joe Gordon with Reggie Smith.
>>
Eighteen of the 56 are from the 19th Century.
<>
So that leaves us with 38. Of those, five are Negro Leaguers. We’ll put those aside too. We’ll save our Alejandro Oms talk for later. That leaves us with 33
<<
39 including 6 from the Negro Leagues. Perhaps JoeP missed Quincy Trouppe who did play in the major leagues in 1952 and was not on the special ballot for Cooperstown in 2006.
33 is correct.
[replace angle brackets with colons and quotation marks]
Prior to the 2010 cycle that is in progress, we still have *57* “Merit only” players. The 2009 cycle replaced Joe Gordon with Reggie Smith.
: “Eighteen of the 56 are from the 19th Century.”
18 of 57 is correct. Jimmy Sheckard’s 1897-1913 career span is a good match for Frank Chance’s 1898-1914. Sheckard was younger and he was a regular player three years later, 1913 to 1910. They were teammates on the Chicago Cubs 1906-1912.
: “So that leaves us with 38. Of those, five are Negro Leaguers. We’ll put those aside too. We’ll save our Alejandro Oms talk for later. That leaves us with 33″
39 including 6 from the Negro Leagues. Perhaps JoeP missed Quincy Trouppe who did play in the major leagues in 1952 and was not on the special ballot for Cooperstown in 2006.
33 is correct.
[...] However, I should be clear and say that Simmons’s approach does not detract from his defense of his rankings. He uses player and coach testimonies, historical relevance, visual appeal of their playing style, sports writers, and the box scores to generate a living portrait of these players as people. Outside of the box scores, there are enough grist for the mill. I would suggest that it is these arguments that make the whole argument process fun. Even in baseball, supposedly the sport with the most statistically validated models of player performance (and Berri would argue that basketball players and their contribution to team records are even more consistent), there are enough differences of opinion concerning impact, playing styles, and relvance to confound Hall of Fame/MVP arguments (see Joe Posnanski). [...]
Keith Hernandez? Will Clark? Where is Mark Grace?
Grace: .303/.383/.442
Clark: .303/.384/.497
Hernandez: .296/.384/.436
Hits:
Grace 2445, Clark 2176, Hernandez 2182.
Walks:
Grace 1075, Clark 937, Hernandez 1070
Home runs:
Grace 170, Clark 284, Hernandez 162
Strikeouts:
Grace 642, Clark 1190, Hernandez 1012
Doubles:
Grace 511, Clark 440, Hernandez 426
RBI
Grace 1146, Clark 1205, Hernandez 1071
Outs/PA
Grace 0.643, Clark 0.635, Hernandez 0.642
Runs created/g
Grace 6.3, Clark 7.2, Hernandez 6.3
Gold gloves:
Grace 4, Clark 1, Hernandez 11
All-star games
Grace 3, Clark 6, Hernandez 5
OPS+
Grace 119, Clark 137, Hernandez 128
Clark has an RBI and SLG title, Hernandez has a BA title. But Grace had the most hits of any player in the 1990s.
I suppose playing at Wrigley most of his career hurt Grace when it came to OPS+. He did hit better at Wrigley than on the road. However, he was still a pretty good hitter on the road (.288/.365/.435). I guess I’d like to see exactly why Grace was left out of the hall of merit. Less of a defender than Hernandez and with less power than Clark? Add in the park factor and he falls just short, I suppose.
I’ve never heard anyone quite say it in so many words, but I’ve often wondered if there was a feeling among the Boston sportswriters that the racist history of the Red Sox could be partially purged by the election of a black Red Sox Hall of Famer. Possible evidence for this is that Rice’s vote totals began to take off about the time that it became clear that Mo Vaughn would not have a Hall of Fame career.
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/hom_election_history_data_and_analysis/#3430123
We now have 240 members of the Hall of Merit including 181 in both halls and
59 “Merit only” players. There are
56 “Fame only” players.
[...] [...]
I like the list, although I probably would have taken George Brett over Mike Schmidt. Brett was one of the most intense and greatest hitters to ever play the game.
Regarding the pitchers, I have to question your inclusion of Satchel Paige – he never proved himself in the major leagues because he played in the Negro Leagues until he was 41. To assume that he was one of the top 25 pitchers of all time is a great stretch. I would have added Randy Johnson or possibly Steve Carlton in the place of Paige.
I agree with the other commenters who mentioned that Nolan Ryan was not even close to being one of the top 25 players of all time. Ryan had a lightning fastball, but his control was terrible throughout his career. Sure he is the strikeout leader, but he is also the all-time leader in walks, giving up 50% more than the number two person all time. Ryan doesn’t even come close to measuring up to the Randy Johnson’s dominance or excellence.
Ryan is arguably the most overrated pitcher in the history of baseball. Mike Mussina actually has a much better career WHIP than Nolan Ryan despite having played in a much more “hitter’s era” than did Ryan.
There are two basic reasons the Hall of Merit is superior to the Hall of Fame.
1) The selection process is makes more sense, in that it is not merely a yes/no vote, but an MVP style ballot.
2) Though everyone has their individual view of who was better than whom, the consensus voting of the HoM is superior because the constituent parts are made up of more dedicated and knowledgeable baseball analysts and historians (than the constituent parts of the HoF voting process)
The Hall of Merit was created to select the best players for what they did on the field. Why? Because that is where baseball games are won and lost. And that is the point of being a professional baseball player.