Mattingly should have won the MVP in 1986, following his win in 1985. Pitchers (Clemens won that year) shouldn’t be eligible, in my opinion.
Too bad about the back injury. Considering his 9 gold glove awards, he really just falls short by maybe two peak years.
I’ve gone on-and-on around here about why Dawson belongs in. I won’t rehash it, but I’m optimistic that he gets in this year based on a horribly weak class. Especially with the first-timers lacking any real popular guy. I think it’ll be time for all those voters who only vote 1 or 2 guys in each year to add Dawson to their ballot along with Gossage.
If Mattingly falls short, who the hell DOESN’T fall short? This guy was a freakin’ hero for almost his entire career, and he played what, 12 years?
McGuire was an outstanding ball player for his entire career, too. I hope he doesn’t get overlooked.
Dawson is at best a borderline HoF’r. An very good outfielder, solid power numbers, a good baserunner, but nothing spectacular and then his .323 OBA would never allow me to vote for him. He had one great year and many good to very good ones.
Mattingly’s numbers just fall short, he was a great defensive first baseman and a great hitter. Before the back injury he was on his way to the hall, but the back injury caused him to have only 5 great seasons and 3 good seasons. He was a great player, but for too short a time. He was not enough better than everyone else to go in on the Sandy Koufax style entry.
Big Mac would only go in for his Homers, he was an average fielder and .263 lifetime hitter. He is not getting overlooked as much as he is being unofficially and deliberately snubbed for being a steroid cheat. Without the steroids, he would not have the homers and with out the homers, we would not even be discussing him as a hall of fame candidate.
I think he will eventually get in, when we get further removed from the current and ongoing steroids controversy, but he is not going in this year IMHO.
Jim
Poor Dale Murphy. Back-to-back MVPs, and he gets no love, beause he’s a couple of home runs short. It’s enough to make a fellow turn to steroids.
I think Lee Smith should have already been in. He’s second in career saves(478), has only a 3.03 career ERA, and is 12th in the career Strikeouts/9IP category with 8.732. He had 18 years in the pros. In 13 of those he had 25 or more saves. He also had 30 or more saves 11 times and over 40 saves 3 years in a row. I think he was one of the most dominating relievers ever and should have already been in Cooperstown.
If I have time, I’d like to write a long response to this thread, but for now, I’ll just offer up the following facts:
Bert Blyleven: 4970.0 IP, 430 HR. That’s one HR per 11.6 IP
Jack Morris: 3824.0 IP, 389 HR. That’s one HR per 9.83 IP
Sorry, Jack!
-P
For Dennis Eckersley it’s one HR per 9.47 IP
Sure. I’m just pointing out that if the “taters” are your reason for keeping Blyleven out of the Hall, then presumably you don’t let Jack Morris anywhere near the place, especially given that Bert was also better in pretty much every other conceivable category.
-P
I agree that Morris doesn’t deserve entry into the Hall. His numbers aren’t any better than Mike Mussina’s.
By the way, from a casual baseball fan, is there a name for the players who weren’t quite superlatively good enough players to be “Hall Of Famers” but are crucial enough to baseball’s history that they should be (at least occasionally) featured in any serious baseball museum?
'Cause we all know that the single name in the above list (except possibly MacGuire re steriods) that will be most mentioned during the 2008 and future seasons is not the consensus HOFer, but the slightly-above average pitcher who had some elbow problems.
Well TJ seems like the type of player that might make it in with the veterans committee for his complete contribution to the game. In this case, the single most famous surgery in sports history.
Jim
At this point in the thread, I think that we can all safely assume the worst.
Long time poster, RickJay has died in a tragic accident.
It’s the Hall of FAME, not the Hall of Numbers.
To clarify, the BBWAA’s *own * criteria for selection, the ones you must admit are the relevant ones, are as follows: “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.” IOW, only 1 out of 6 standards refer to the precious numbers you stat geeks think are both the be-all and the end-all. But they ain’t, and you’re wrong. Five of the six criteria are about intangibles (and will likely keep McGwire out, and should but won’t keep Bonds out).
The intangible that counts most, to me at least, is “contribution to the team”, and that means performance in Big Games. The greatest players perform their best when it matters most, and bring their teams along with them on their backs. Morris did that, and was therefore great. Blyleven didn’t, and therefore wasn’t.
'Nuf sed? :dubious:
You only wish. Dunno how I missed this thread.
Tim Raines - Absolutely deserves to be elected. A legitimately great player whose value is largely missed because he played in Montreal, in a pitcher’s park, during a low-offense era, during his best years. He will probably be shamefully overlooked.
David Justice - A very good player, but there’s lots of guys like him who aren’t in the Hall of Fame. He’s not any better than Greg Luzinski.
Chuck Knoblauch - A magnificent player for a few years who, like many players, didn’t age well.
Brady Anderson, Rod Beck, Shawon Dunston, Robb Nen, Jose Rijo, Todd Stottlemyre - Only on the ballot because they met the eligibility guidelines.
Chuck Finley - Obviously no, but when I looked up his numbers I was surprised to see Finley had won 200 games. How about that.
Travis Fryman - A hell of a player for awhile but like Knoblauch, essentially ran out of gas around age 31. It’s often forgotten, since you notice guys like Bonds and Finley and Randy Johnson who last forever, but it’s still true that most MLb players, even the good and very good ones, are over the hill well before age 35.
Repeats:
Goose Gossage - Will probably be elected this year. I still do not understand why they elected Bruce Sutter first; actually, I am still kind of amazed they elected Sutter at all. Gossage should have gone in first.
Jim Rice - Very, very overrated; a tremendously gifted hitter, but not really as good as his numbers would superficially suggest, not a good defensive player, and his career’s a little short. As for his alleged clutch hitting, he was a career .225 postseason hitter. If you’re going to claim a guy was a great cliutch hitter at least pick a guy who hit well in the biggest games of his career.
Andre Dawson - Will probavly come close or be elected this year. I maintain he is extremely overrated by a lot of folks; he just did not get on base much, was not the defensive wonder people seem to remember him as beng (although he was certainly very good) and was arguably the dumbest MVP pick of all time.
Bert Blyleven - Conversely, very UNDERRATED. A better pitcher than Nolan Ryan, he just didn’t pitch for offenses as good, and wasn’t as flashy.
Lee Smith - No.
Jack Morris - Never really a great pitcher at any point in his career. He was durable, and good, and pitched for a lot of good teams, so he won a lot of games, but was never a truly superior performer. He was certainly NOT the best AL pitcher of the 1980s; Dave Stieb was. He did pitch the best World Series game I’ve ever seen.
Mark McGwire - Unquestionably a Hall of Fame calibre career. Of course, that isn’t the issue, is it?
**
Tommy John** - I guess I wouldn’t comnplain if he got elected, but I won’t complain if he doesn’t.
Dave Concepcion
Alan Trammell
Both these player, in my opinion, are borderline HoFers, and I think they’ve been shamefully overlooked. Their career hitting numbers can’t be compared straight up to outfielders; these were SUPERIOR defensive shortstops who could also hit, esp. in Trammell’s case.
Don Mattingly
Mattingly should not have won the award in 1985, actually; George Brett should have.
Mattingly was great for a little while, but his career’s just too short of greatness, and he wasn’t that dominant at his peak.
Dale Murphy - A Hall of Fame player from 1982 to 1987. He isn’t at the top of my ballot.
Harold Baines - Good for a long time and all that, but no.
My ballot would include Gossage, Raines, Trammell, and Blyleven.
RickJay, I’m not complaining about you saying no to Lee Smith. I was just wondering why not? I found your opinions on everyone else very interesting and I was hoping for some insight on Smith.
Me too, as I think Smitty has been severely underrated by a number of people. If you assume that closers/ace relievers deserve election on principle, it becomes kind of hard to keep him out when the likes of Sutter and Fingers are in.
In my view what hurts Lee Smith as a HOF candidate is his lack of post-season appearances and fact that many of the teams he played with weren’t that competitive. Sutter and Fingers had fewer saves but they played for better teams and made more frequent appearances during the play-offs and World Series. Thus, there’s the perhaps unfair perception that Sutter’s and Fingers’ saves were more important.
Also, Sutter and Fingers both won the Cy Young Award and often made the All-Star team. I know Smith never won the Cy Young Award. I don’t how many times was he chosen as an All-Star but I don’t think it was more than either Fingers or Sutter.
Fingers and Lee Smith were on 7 All-Star teams. Sutter was on 6. Lee Smith was in the top 5 of Cy Young balloting 3 times. Sutter 4 times and Fingers only twice. At least based on those two measures, Smith is their equal, though he of course never won a Cy Young.
I’m guessing his failure to win the Cy Young Award (or MVP like Fingers did in 1981) is the tipping point in the eyes of HOF voters on why he isn’t enshrined yet. I think another reason why Lee Smith has fallen short is due to his lack of post-season success. Only two of the teams he played on made it to the post-season (Chicago Cubs in 1984 and the Boston Red Sox in 1988). Both times, the team was the eliminated in the play-offs and both times Smith’s performance was below par. In the 1984 series, Smith pitched in two innings in two games, had an ERA of 9.00, and one loss. In 1988, Smith again appeared in two games, had one loss, and had a slightly better ERA of 8.10. In contrast, four of the teams Fingers played for made the World Series: the Oakland A’s 1972-74 and the Milwaukee Brewers in 1982 (although he didn’t pitch in the '82 series). Sutter played on only one World Series team (the 1982 St. Louis Cardinals) but saved two games and played a key role in the Card’s winning the championship that year.
Finally, I think Smith isn’t in yet because people don’t really have a firm idea of constitutes a HOF-caliber relief pitcher. Although relief pitching been around since the early days of baseball, the relief pitcher didn’t really become known as a distinct sub-category of pitcher that had to be evaluated differently than a starter since the 1950’s. It’s best known stat–the save–was not even on the books until 1969. Like home runs, hits, batting average, victories, or ERA, one could go by the number of saves a reliever racks up over his career as a measure of greatness but that the save gives you a considerably less than complete picture of a reliever’s effectiveness as player than the other stats due to the fact that not all saves are created equal. Thus, despite the number of saves Smith accumulated, HOF voters are still not sure if that fact makes him qualified or not.