Incidentally, '87 was an obscene year for alot of guys. Vince Coleman was dominant as a lead off hitter that year, stealling a record 109 bases and only finished 12th in the MVP voting. Tony Gwynn hit frigging .370 and only finished 8th.
It’s not that Dawson won because no one distinguished themselves, if anything too many guys had career years.
It was arguably Gwynn, Coleman, Davis, Strawberry, Dawson, Murphy, Jack Clark and Will Clark’s best years of their careers.
Clark, Smith and Coleman probably split some votes, and certainly bolstered each’s numbers that season which you could perceive as a reason not to vote for them. Ozzie certainly wouldn’t have hit .303 without Coleman freaking out pitchers and Jack Clark benefitted from them both.
Still, '87 aside, if Ozzie is a no-brainer for the hall because he’s such a great defender, why not the same argument for Dawson who’s a first rate defender himself. His fielding stats are in the same class as Willie Mays for god’s sake.
What record would that have been? The MLB record was 130 (Rickey Henderson, 1982) and the NL record was 118 (Lou Brock, 1974).
In fact, when looking up the record, I noticed that Vince himself had stolen 110 two years earlier!
In any case, if I were in the BBWAA, my ballot would contain the following:
Goose Gossage.
Bruce Sutter. I’ll come out and defend the guy - while Gossage might have been more feared, Bruce was the dominant closer of his time, he practically put the Save on the statitical map. I remember growing up in the early 80’s, looking at the baseball cards every year. Year in, year out, the top relievers were Sutter in the NL and Quisenberry in the AL. And Sutter’s period of dominance had begun some 3 years earlier. He deserves to be recognized.
Lee Smith. Being the all-time saves leader has to mean something.
Bert Blyleven.
And Omniscient has convinced me that Andre Dawson belongs as well.
Not an impressive choice this time. Sutter, Smith, and Gossage I think all were consistently at the top of their game at their position for long enough to qualify. These aren’t no-brainers like Rivera is going to be when he goes, but they cross my threshold, albeit not by much.
Alan Trammell makes my cut too. He had the longevity, the defense and the bat. He played before we expected a lot of offense from our shortstops and provided it anyway.
Other than that, I don’t see a HOF here. Morris may be close on performance, but on borderline cases I look at the personality and the effect he had on baseball’s image and that tips the scales against him in my book.
Let me risk being accused of flogging a dead horse here, but how can you tout Trammell and not Dawson? Dawson was a better fielder and a better hitter than Trammell. Or do only shortstops get consideration for defense in HOF discussions?
I’m so perplexed that he doesn’t even get hemming and hawing from you guys, even if he’s not a lock he’s got to be at the top of the list of position players up for consideration.
Just a note: Actually, generally, traditionally only SS & 2b do get extra votes for defense.
I can’t cite any other position where Defense put the player over the top. The middle Infielders get extra credit.
The dearth of 3b in the hall shows that older voters did not ascribe as much value to defense at 3b. I know OF & 1b do not appear to get much credit. Catchers do seem to get some credit.
Going far enough back into the history of the game one finds that for quite a while third was considered the ‘defensive’ position while second was the ‘offensive’ one. That’s why you got players like Rogers Hornsby and Nap LaJoie at 2B when, by any rational standard modern managers would want them elsewhere on the diamond.
I do think there’s a case to be made that the lack of third basemen in the HoF is reflective of this historical change. Now, it’s an ‘O’ position…then it was a ‘D’ spot.
While I don’t argue that it isn’t true historically, I’d argue that it’s an indictment of the system and the voters. When I asked in that previous reply it was a snide rhetorical question ;).
Ask Buckner and Durham how important defense is to the 1B position, and if you’ve ever had a noodle-armed OF on your favorite team you’d understand how much of an impact this can have.
I know Buckner is famous for his bad defensive play but he was not actually a terrible defender. He was an average first baseman.
Does CF defense matter; of course it does, but statistically, the Infielders have a much greater impact on the game with there defense. 2b & SS get the most opportunities to help or hurt their team, so this is not completely unjustified.
I agree that SS and 2B should get a boost for defense, but the trend pretty much states that every other position wholly disregards defense. Thats the issue. Say Ozzie has 25% of his criteria accounted by defense, Dawson should get 15% and 1Bs should probably get somewhere between 5% and 10% attributed.
Dawson was a very good hitter and a great fielder. I’m not saying he needs to get in almost wholly on his defense like Ozzie did, but it should be enough to escalate him over similar batters.
If you presented me 2 players with nearly identical statistics and awards but one was a top notch CF and the other was a defensive liability buried in left field, of course I would give more credence to the CF. My team is desperate for an excellent defensive CF as our RF has lost must of his range and our LF is only ok.
If you can’t guess I am a Yankee Fan.
Why no love for Andre is no magic numbers, no post season story, played in relative obscurity throughout his career.
He is under 500 homers, under 3000 hits and only a .279 hitter. His OBP is only .323. His base stealing with solid but no great. He doesn’t inspirer most voters or fans as a Hall of Famer. Is he better than some player who have been allowed in, Yes. Should he be in, No.
In his very limited post season work he stunk BTW.
Ugh, the litmus test argument. If thats what it’s come down to the HOF system is more broken than the BCS, incidentally he’s 32nd and 44th all time for HRs and Hits.
Ozzie Smith is a no-brainer HOFer. Dawson has almost 400 more hits, is a better hitter in almost every respect and plays his position as well as anyone ever has.
Those “litmus test” measures might have a little value when you’re talking about one-dimentional players, but thats it. If playing in obscurity is a good excuse to ignore him, then you should be ashamed to call yourself a baseball fan.
One last thing, a .279 BA is excellent for a power hitter of that generation. Way higher than Strawberry, Schmidt, Davis, Murphy, Kingman, Jack Clark and just about every other guy on the top of the HR charts in the 80s.
You’ve been totally brainwashed by the steriod era.
Yeah, so? None of those other guys are in except Schmidt and he did break 500 homers.
[hijack]I’ve always thought it would have been amusing if someone had picked up Kingman to get those last few home runs. He’d be the only guy with 500 homers to not be in.[/hijack]
I don’t think he was or is a HOFer. He just wasn’t great enough. Of course I don’t even think Kirby Pucket was a HOFer either.
You stand in a small minority who see Dawson as a HOFer. He was not enough better than his peers. The playing in obscurity was an explanation of why he lacks some votes. I listed the many reason why he is not in. The Litmus test is part of it, the single biggest part is when a writer thinks about the player, and if they don’t immediately think he is HOF material than they usually don’t vote.
Ozzie was recognized thanks to the ESPN highlights and a flair for showboating as one of the absolute best SS of all time. No one I know or have heard would say Dawson was a top 5 defensive CF of all time.
Gossage is picking up votes because writers are now giving more credit to the job a closer does. He might make it this year because it is a weak field. It helps that he played for high profile teams and was a character.
The steroid crack is just stupid, I’ve been watching since 1970 and I have a higher appreciation for the Pre-steroid players than any of todays players.
I value the Derek Jeters far more than the Giambis or Big Macs. Because I don’t like your chosen player, you start insulting. Real Mature.
His OPS+ (OPS relative to the league) for his CAREER is 119. That means that compared to his league he was 19% better. And that include the years at the tail end where he really might have wanted to take some time off.
ROY - 77
MVP - 87
GG - 8
SS - 4
Top 10 MVP - 4
Top 10 AVG - 5
Top 10 SLG - 8
Top 10 OPS - 6
Top 10 Hits - 6
Top 10 Total Bases - 10
Top 10 HR - 9
Top 10 RBI - 8
Top 10 XBH - 8
That’s a player more than a little above average for his era. I just think many people have forgotten how COMPLETELY the pitchers ruled the game from the 1960s through about 1990. How it was considered noteworthy to get 100 RBI. People celebrated Joe Carter doing it, for God’s sake. And we all know what sort of hitter he actually was.
Here’s another interesting number. On Dawson’s HoF Standards he’s rated at 43.7 (HoF AVG is 50) but on his HoF Monitor he’s at 118 (Likely HoF is 100).
If he’d gotten some more black ink, instead of a lot of grey ink, and played for some winners he’d be in already. Put him on the Yankees and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
First of all, Omniscient, I have to correct you; Mike Schmidt and Andre Dawson didn’t have the same career OPS. Schmidt’s was .908, Dawson’s .806. They’re not even remotely close as hitters; Schmidt had far more power and got on base far more. Sorry, but Schmidt is way out of the class we’re discussing here; he is an inner circle player, one of the 20 or 30 best ever. As to being surrounded by great players or not, you’ll have to remind me which of Schmidt’s teammates were the equal of Tim Raines, Ryne Sandberg, and Gary Carter. Pete Rose at the tail end of his career?
Dawson certainly was a better hitter in all respects except the rather critical skill of getting on base, which Smith was of course better at. That’s a really big deal. Dawson was still a better hitter, but that’s a significant issue.
As to the issue of the 1987 MVP Award, I am not suggesting Ozzie Smith should have won it over Dawson because the award should go to the best player on the best team. I would argue Smith should have won it because he had a better season than Dawson did. Dawson was more valuable with the bat but not by as much as you’re implying; Smith gets a big, big boost from his much higher OBP, and Dawson played in a homer-happy park.
Dawson was NOT the amazing fielder you’re crediting him with being; he was pretty good but it wasn’t anything extraordinary, a right fielder with decent range and a very good arm who didn’t make many errors, but Smith was, well, Ozzie Smith. Overall I believe Smith was the better player in 1987. He created 90 runs to Dawson’s 114, a signifiant edge for Dawson, but taking park factors into account I think Smith’s defense clearly more than makes up the gap.
The point is not that you can’t be a Hall of Famer hitting .279; it’s that .279 is not a great batting average. It’s something to consider about a guy who didn’t walk, either; Dawson has to make up for that batting average somehow. Dale Murphy only batted .265 but he got on base more than Andre Dawson. Mike Schmidt only batted .267 but he got on base a LOT more than Andre Dawson; hell, he got on base more than George Brett. (Really, look it up.)
Jonathan Chance makes a lot about Dawson having an OPS+ of 119. Geez, if 119 is the Hall of Fame standard, they’ll have to build a new wing. That would be the lowest OPS of any Hall of Famer I can think of who wasn’t selected as a glove wizard, a la Ozzie or the Rabbit. Shit, that’d be lower than Bob Watson. Who thinks Bob Watson should be in the Hall of Fame? How about Reggie Smith? Will Clark? Norm Cash?
Look, there’s two prime ingedients to being a hitter; getting on base and hitting for power. That is, to be quite honest, pretty much it. Dawson ran the bases pretty good but he wasn’t Lou Brock or anything. On the most important part of hitting, getting on base, he was below average. On the other part, hitting for power, he was very good, but not amazing a la Schmidt, and wasn’t even quite Jim Rice. Isn’t that a pretty big question mark for a guy - that he wasn’t good at the one most important skill a major league ballplayer must have?
Baloney. Dawson wasn’t as good a hitter as many of his CONTEMPORARIES who aren’t in and aren’t going to be. I mean, he wasn’t in Mike Schmidt’s zip code. Granted that an unfair comparison and I should drop it, but Dawson created fewer runs per game than any of these guys:
Don Mattingly 6.29
Jack Clark 6.28
Dave Parker 5.75
Dale Murphy 5.71
DAWSON 5.44
He’s also been compared to Billy Williams, who was way better (6.47) and Tony Perez, who was a bit better (5.64.) He also ranks well below Dwight Evans, is a hair behind Lou Whitaker, well back of Keith Hernandez…
I mean, there’s a good one. Why Andre Dawson but not Keith Hernandez?
Don’t know how I botched the math on that OPS. Shit.
Anyways, I’m convinced Dawson is getting hurt for being a well-rounded 5-tool player. His batting average is well above average, but not .300 and a little short of 3000 hits. His power numbers are well above average, but he’s just short of 500 HRs. He was one of the best LFs to play the game (yes, top 5) but no one cares about defense. If he were more one-dimentional and boosted his numbers in any one category, he’d be in without a fight. If he’d have hit .250 and added an extra 60 HRs you guys would be carving his plaque yourselves. But, I’d rather have a well-rounded guy than a one-dimentional one in a real game.
I’m not saying .279 is a great BA for a base hit guy, but how many guys with 438 HRs hit for that kind of average? He spent the bulk of his career batting 5th and was required to drive in runs, not getting on base. With the Cubs he never had a real bat behind him and that goes a long way to accounting for the lower OBP. He’s 9th all-time in Sac flies for god’s sake. Dawson is 24th all time in total bases (the most of anyone not in the hall). I think OBP is nit picking. Look at how many of these first ballot guys have a single statistic in which they fall short, but that doesn’t keep them out. In the NBA they’d say this guy fills up a box score.
You’re asking what differentiates Dawson from Keith Hernandez? How about 276 HRs. Please.
One last thing, Ozzie slugged for a embarassing .383 (10 points lower than his OBP) in 87, Dawson slugged for .568. You can have you OBP thanks, I’ll take 49 HRs an 137 RBIs. Yeah he’s the Wizard, but Dawson is a great defenders. I’ll take .185 slugging points in exchange for .060 points in OBP. You’re really under estimating how much better Andre was than Ozzie at the plate.
First off, I hate ‘Runs Created’. It always felt like one of those BBWAA stats (like the Save) that was created by guys who couldn’t do math and wanted something quick and easy.
Back at you, Rick.
SB%
Dawson: 74%
Brock: 75%
Sure, Brock had a lot more of them, but he also hit 300 fewer HR. And his OBP was only .020 above Dawsons.
And in terms of OBP vs SLG the last I heard the breakdown was ending up around 55% OBP and 45% SLG. So OBP is more important than SLG but it’s not a runaway win.