What do you think? Is Jose Canseco a Hall of Famer, or a joke? And will his theat of a tell-all book hurt him?
I say “No way, Jose”. He was a great player for a couple of years. A barely mediocre player for a couple more. Then a caricature of himself. If he had got to 500 HR’s, there would be a debate. Without 500, he’s just not getting in. IMO.
I just looked up his statistics, and they are actually better than I thought, but I still wouldn’t give him my vote. If he had stayed healthy, I doubt there would be a debate, but he falls short of being an all time great IMO.
Nay. Good player, but no HOFer.
No way.
[Devil’s Advocate] He was the first ever member of the 40/40 Club, FWIW. [/Devil’s Advocate]
But that’s about the only thing he had going for him. Good player, had sex with Madonna, got his twin brother Ozzy a job, but not a Hall of Famer, IMO.
-Dirty
He’s close, but not a HOFer in my book (like that really matters). Take a gander at his stats at Baseball-Reference and a couple of things jumped out at me.
He has some very impressive stats when you just consider the sheer numbers of them (slugging %, HRs, RBIs, an MVP award). But taken in the context of the era he played in, the numbers, while not pedestrian, certainly aren’t of a mythical level that makes you say he has to be in. Then, when you start to consider the various dimensions a good player can have, he appears a little lacking. Good defense? Not so much. He spent a lot of the latter half of his career at DH and the Hall clearly doesn’t reward DH’s up to this point. Hit for average? Not particularly. Speed? Eh. He has 200 career steals which is nice, but a lot of single digit steal seasons.
His comparative numbers to Hall of Famers aren’t that spectacular. He’s good, but just below the level of good that the Hall tends to require (not that this has stopped the Hall from admitting some pretty crummy and questionable candidates in the past.)
If Jose does make it into the Hall, there is no way it should be before Gl Hodges. And, if you elect Jose, voters better be ready to put a yes vote by Fred McGriff’s name a few years down the road.
Gil Hodges! I meant Gil Hodges! Crap, even preview didn’t help me on that one.
Y’know what? My fellow sabermetric enthusiasts are gonna smite me for this, but I say he deserves to be in–and before Hodges and McGriff. Let me quote a post from Baseball Primer that kinda sums up how I feel:
It’s a shame that we’ve let things like the pitching fiasco and the flyball off the head overshadow hitting that was, at times, truly dominant.
The batter most similar to Jose is Ken Griffey, Jr.; second is Sammy Sosa–both look to be HOFers assuming they continue (or, in Griffey’s case, resume) their career track.
That being said, I wouldn’t shed any tears if he didn’t make the Hall. I just think it’d be a justifiable choice.
(And let me take this opportunity, as I do in every baseball HOF thread, to say that it’s a crime that Bert Blyleven hasn’t yet been inducted.)
RE: Don Sutton
That’s one of the names I was thinking of when I said
I wouldn’t exactly tear my hair out if he made the Hall. I like watching him play, but I think he is going to be viewed as too one-dimensional (power hitter) and that his best numbers are a result of the era he played in, along with his actual ability.
If we’re judging HOF by character off the field, there’s NO WAY he should be in the HOF.
Also, if he follows through with his plan to write a tell all book of all the sex, steroids and scandal in the MLB he can pretty much kiss the HOF goodbye.
Which is ironic, considering that 1) he was the first person (and one of only three) to have a 40-40 season in homers and stolen bases, and 2) most of his numbers were put up before the real offensive explosion of the late '90s. I agree that perception if everything, though.
All I’ve got to say is he better. I’ve got a ton of baseball cards, posters, signatures etc of his that I was banking on him making the hall of fame so I can retire. No really I do.
As for if he should make it or not, well he is kinda iffy. He was a power hitter and not too bad in the field back in the day. however, after he left Oakland he kinda went down hill. I’ve moved over the last year so I’ve been looking at my old stuff and at the time he was considered pretty good by most of the sports writers at the time.
Actaully it would be nice to see him get in so I can donate my stuff to the HOF and get MY name in there as well! 
Thanks for the Baseball-Reference link, Mullinator!
What jumps out at me there is Canseco’s comparison to Reggie Jackson, which it calls a close comparison. I disagree with that even though their career stats may be similar, because Reggie starred in numerous World Series while Jose didn’t. Reggie started for 4 World Series champs (discounting the 1972 A’s, which Jackson missed the Series due to injury). While in World Series play in 98 ABs Jackson hit .357 with 10 HR and 24 RBIs. Canseco by comparison, had 46 WS at bats and hit a meager .152 with 3 HRs, while playing for only 1 WS winner. None of Canseco’s WS homers are memorable, as opposed to Reggie, who had 3 memorable WS homers in one game.
Baseball-Reference seems on the fence about Canseco’s HOF credentials too. It lists him at 38.1 on the HOF Standards list, with the average HOFer having a score of 50.0, while he stands at 103 on the HOF monitor list, with a likely HOFer having a score of greater than 100.
On the whole, I’d vote against Canseco.
Umm… why? He’s a bit of a clown, but he never gambled on baseball and so far as I’m aware he never snorted so much nose candy that it ruined his career, a la Dave Parker. He is, by all accounts, a decent teammate.
PatrickM:
No, it says they were comparable through the age of 36. Jackson’s final career numbers are not very comparable to Canseco’s.
There are reasons aside from the World Series to rank Jackson higher than Canseco even if you only count to his age 36 years; he played in a lower-offense era and was a better defensive player when he was younger.
I don’t think Canseco would be a bad choice for the HOF; he was a terrific hitter. However, he’s going to get buried under sort-of-contemporary power hitters.
Ah, small sample sizes. Not to say that Canseco was as good as Jackson (he wasn’t), but consider:
Player 1: .328/.360/.466 in 204 postseason at-bats (and .390/.434/.468 in 77 World Series at-bats)
Player 2: .404/.456/.654 in 52 postseason at-bats
Player 3: .321/.351/.422 in 109 postseason at-bats (and .372/.426/.512 in 43 World Series at-bats)
Player 4: .321/.424/.661 in 112 postseason at-bats (and .320/.424/.700 in 50 World Series at-bats)
Player 5: .200/.333/.200 in 25 World Series at-bats
Player 6: .197/.316/.299 in 97 postseason at-bats
Player 7: .262/.294/.354 in 65 World Series at-bats
Player 8: .217/.313/.349 in 129 postseason at-bats (and .187/.278/.271 in 48 World Series at-bats)
Let’s play a postseason series: You can have Players 1-4 on your team; I’ll take 5-8. Who do you think’ll win, all else being equal, when you pit Marquis Grissom, Billy Hatcher, Pat Borders, and Lenny Dykstra against Ted Williams, Barry Bonds, Ty Cobb, and Mark McGwire? 
Nope, not even close, I would even put Steve Garvey ahead of Jose for the Hall of Fame, and Steve is a vastly overated player who does not deserve enshrinement either. Ask yourself if Jose was the best player on his team, or in his position during his time in the league and you would have to say “no”. He did hit a fair number of homers, but so did Dale Murphy, and nobody is saying he belongs in the hall either (even though he is more worthy then Jose).
Keith
Calm down, RickJ. You’ll note that the similarity score for Reggie through age 36 is higher than the similarity score for either Griffey or Sosa through the present, so I was, and remain, justified in calling it a closer comparison.
More importantly, it’ll be interesting to see how similar Sosa and Griffey, not to mention Crime Dog, are to Canseco after they’ve all finished their careers, and after adjusting for the hi-offense context of the current era. At this point I’m guessing that Griffey and Sosa will both ultimately put up much better career numbers than Canseco did, so that after they retire there won’t be a very high comparison between them anymore.
No.
His 40/40 season is irrelevant. Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays both said if they knew it would be a big deal they’d have done 50/50. Also, one season doesn’t make a HOFer. He was stealing bases just to get to 40-40. He’s not a guy who was known for his speed through the majority of his career.
He played in an offensive era so his HR numbers should be tempered against that.
He had a great start to his career but his injuries turned him into a one dimensional guy.
Jim Rice goes in before he does.
If you’re going to weigh his highs, you gotta consider his lows as well. Somebody mentioned the ball on the head incident. That’s still the most boneheaded thing I’ve ever seen a professional athlete do. If you’ll recall, it bounced off his noggin over the dedgum fence for an unearned home run!
He had an enormous amount of power for a couple of years but all in all he’s been a pretty mediocre player, especially in the field. I think it would be a real disservice to the legitimate Famers to include Canseco in their midst.
There are two players with 450+ HR, 1400+ RBI, and 200+ SB that aren’t in the HOF: Jose Canseco and Barry Bonds.