That doesn’t mean anything. You can group stats any which way you want to make a case for one particular guy. The inclusion of steals in that set doesn’t offer anything. Stealing a base when your team is up by 5 runs is not a big deal. In close situations Canseco was not a threat to steal.
Cite? Got the Retrosheet data to support that statement?
here’s why jose shouldn’t make it. the hall is supposed to be all about a high level of excellence sustained for a significant period of time.
this is why jim ed rice hasn’t made it: he only dominated for 10 years, tops.
jose has been irrelevant ever since the bash brothers. he managed to accumulate hall of fame-like numbers by sucking around and picking up with this team or that.
anybody remember watching jose (and mo vaughn) strike out bleen times against cleveland in 95?
jose is the derrick coleman of baseball: the greatest waste of talent, ever.
For the record, Canesco’s steals #39 and 40 came in a game on 9/23/1988 at Milwaukee.
His first steal was in the first inning. He stole first with one out and the game still 0-0.
His second steal (#40) came in the fifth inning. Oakland was ahead 2-0. Canseco led off with a single and stole second.
That said, I don’t think he should be in the HOF. He just wasn’t quite good enough nor healthy enough nor productive enough to make it in.
I don’t need a cite because I’ve followed his career. After 1993 or so, he was nothing but a lumbering DH.
What a bizarre thing to say… kind of absurd, really. Canseco played for 15 years, hit 450+ homers, won an MVP Award, won the Rookie of the Year Award, and had a long and largely productive career. He’s the biggest waste of talent ever? Wouldn’t the biggest waste of talent, logically, be some kid who blew it when he was young, or never bothered to learn to play well at all? I mean, it seems to me Brien Taylor was a worse waste of talent. Or maybe Brad Komminsk or someone.
I don’t think Canseco is a Hall of Famer, but let’s be fair; he was a REALLY good player. He was a better player than Mark Grace. He was a better player than Wally Joyner. He was a better player than Omar Vizquel. He was a better player than Joe Carter. He was a heck of a player, and had a very impressive career. Justbecause you aren’t a Hall of Famer doesn’t mean you suck.
Given that Sosa is probably going to end up hitting 650-750 home runs, I’d say that yeah, Jose Canseco will not be much of a comparison. Sosa’s getting better every year. Last year was his best year yet, and this year he’s just destroying the opposition. I’d bet money that one of either Sosa or Bonds will break the career HR record.
Griffey, if he doesn’t retire in frustration, will probably be way, way past Canseco, too.
Fred McGriff… hmm, interesting Hall of Fame argument there. Should he go in or not? Based on his accomplishments to date I don’t really see him as being all that much better than Canseco, but if he can put a few more productive years in…
Despite the amazing numbers he put up his first few years, I’d probably say “Nay.” And the sad thing is if Canseco never makes the HOF, it will be because of one foolish decision: going out and pitching in the late innings of some meaningless game. If he hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t have blown out his arm, he still would be a productive player today, he would’ve ended his career with far more than 500 home runs, and he’d lock for the Hall. As it stands now, he’s in the “almost-there-but-not-quite” category with players like Dwight Evans, Darrell Evans, and Graig Nettles (except he wasn’t as good a fielder as those three examples).
I really must disagree here.
Jose was a power hitter. End of story. That was all he had going for him. He was a heck of a power hitter, and fun to watch, don’t get me wrong. But he was not nearly the ballplayer that Mark Grace is. Or Omar Vizquel.
Both of those guys can actually play defense. Grace has 4 gold gloves, Visquel has 9 consecutive gold gloves. Jose managed to hit over .300 in only 2 full seasons. Grace did it 9 times.
Jose stole 40 bases in single season, but finished his career with only 200 steals. Vizquel has 278 and counting. I think, and this is just my opinion, that Jose could have stolen a lot more if he wanted to. He had a valuable tool that he didn’t care much about using. He just want to hit the long ball.
i live in oakland, and the radio announcers have been discussing jose for a week or so. so he’s been on my mind.
jose was a really good player, for a little while. but, rickjay, he could have been one of the greatest ever. he was one of a very few legitimate five-tool players. he lost interest in the game, specifically winning and playing defense, long before he retired.
a couple things bill king and ken korach reminded me of:
jose was once an outstanding defensive right fielder, with a huge and accurate arm. tony larussa said more than once that jose had the skills to play center field. but, jose gave up on D a long time ago, started playing like darryl strawberry out there.
during the 89 series, jose is on record as saying, ‘this thing has gone on too long. i should be on my boat by now.’ the a’s lost to an inferior reds team that year.
jose didnt have the fire in his belly. he didnt work to make himself better. he didnt care about winning, or his team. he was IRRELEVANT for way more years than he was outstanding. he was not a great player, largely because he didnt make a difference for his team for most of the 90s.
jose’s numbers are a perfect example of how misleading numbers can be. and he gathered a great deal of his numbers in 93 and after, which is when many folks think the super-inflated stats started to happen. (brady anderson, everyone.)
this is why, rickjay, i said what i said. brien taylor was only presumed to be great; he never proved it on a major league level, unlike jose, who truly dominated for a few (too few) years and then became a parody of himself.
This discussion is a good example of why the HOF’s rule that a player must be retired for 5 years before become eligible is a good one. I reiterate that I don’t think Canseco is a HOFer, but it is a close question, and in 5 years I may have changed my mind.
I respect Grace and Vizquel, but I believe you are making a very common mistake; you are saying in essence that a one dimensional ballplayer is always inferior to a multidimensional ballplayer. That’s a fallacy. Mark McGwire was a one dimensional ballplayer, and Devon White was multidimensional; is McGwire worse than White?
Mark Grace is a pretty good ballplayer; he’s simply not as good a hitter as Canseco was, especially taking park effects into consideration, and although he’s a better defensive player he’s playing the easiest position on the field. And if you compare their peaks - which I think is a very valid thing to do when considering HoF credentials - Grace simply does not have a peak comparable to Canseco. I do not think it is unreasonable to state that when considering a player for the HoF you should consider career accomplishments AND peak. Canseco edges Grace, IMO, in career, and is miles ahead on peak.
Vizquel, while a fine ballplayer, is a legitimately poor hitter. His career numbers are well below average; he has had a below-average OPS every year of his career except one. Even counting his steals, he’s been a bad offensive player overall, maybe average for a shortstop. Even with his D, I can’t see him, on the whole, being better than Canseco. And again, there’s no comparable peak.
I think, though, that just the fact we’re having this discussion proves Canseco was a pretty decent player.
A pretty decent player, to be sure. But not HoF material. And not as good as he could have been, IMO. He didn’t seem all that interested in improving, one of the reasons the Angels released him.
But he was not a better hitter than Grace. He just had more power.
Again, IMO.
Yes, these are small sample sizes, so it’s difficult to come to a definitive conclusion. But since you asked: “all else being equal,” I believe the players who have proven themselves in tough play-off situations are the ones who will win. Play-off pressure seems to make certain players’ prodigious talent evaporate. And Dykstra, though he was certainly NOT a HOF player, was a perfect example of the opposite; he lived for the big, national-TV moments.
Barry Bonds, a sure HOF player, has been a stiff in the play-offs when his team really needed him. The great Ted Williams, despite all his accomplishments, still has that one black mark on his record–he came up small in the postseason. Is it fair? Perhaps not. Again, these are small samples.
But who would I rather have had on my play-off team, in their primes, Dykstra or Bonds? No question who I would pick. (And Dykstra should have won MVP in '93, not Bonds–so there! ;))
And for the record, I think Canseco is a borderline HOF choice, just good enough to make it in. Strong power numbers. Very good combined lifetime SLG and OBP, an MVP, Rookie of the Year. He averaged 40 Hrs and 121 RBIs per 162 games over his 17 game career (interestingly, pretty close to his career highs: 46 HRs and 124 RBIs). All those short years and years at DH work against him, I guess, but they don’t change his undeniably strong numbers at the plate. While I would not be outraged if he didn’t make it, he would get my vote.
RickJay, I don’t have a cite, but I believe he and his brother were arrested two years ago for a bar fight that sent a guy to the hospital, and I also think he has a domestic violence record.
He also has ‘threatened’ to out all the people who cheat on their wives and take steroids and drugs in the MLB because, in essence, ‘they were mean to him’.
An interviewer on ESPN radio informed him that if he did such a thing, baseball would reject him forever. He sulkily responded “they’ve already rejected me, what do I care?” He’s vengeful and bitter.
That’s not really being a stand up guy.
Murphy si, Jose no.
Not a push for Murph, he propably won’t make it either. I am old school guy and just don’t believe every decent player gets in the hall. Canseco was best during the bash brothers days and then just kind of stuck around. His having some drama and highlights to his career could be said for Darryl Strawberry.
Will be remembered but not HOF.
Yes for Canseco, Murphy, and McGriff.
I think the “automatic” home run total to get into the HOF should be 450 for players who played a significant amount of time past 1995. Canseco’s RBI total is impressive, too.
Murph gets the nod because of the bac-to-back MVP’s, the 30-30 Membership, and how dangerous he was on a really, really bad Braves team in the late 80’s. Plus, as we all know, he’s a great character example for young players.
162 Game Averages
Player A
.266 AVG .353 OBP. 40 HR 121 RBI 17 SB 102 R
Player B
.236 AVG .302 OBP 37 HR 101 RBI 7 SB 75 R
While a tad better at hitting and getting on base, which makes up for the higher run and RBI totals, there’s not much difference between A and B. Defensively they were butchers for most of their careers. Obviously A is a better player, nobody denies that. However B is not remotely considered a HOFer by anybody. I don’t see how player A is that much better that he’s a HOFer but B isn’t.
The MVP and ROY awards don’t mean much either, especially since he only won one MVP award. He only finished in the top 10 twice, 1988 and 1991 when he finsihed 4th. The HOF is about a career.
I’m not saying who player B is until later.
Player B is obviously Dave Kingman. But I do think the figures show that Jose was significantly better than Kong, especially in BA.
Kingman now is the eligible player with the highest home run total who is not in the HOF. I agree, he shouldn’t be.
If Jose doesn’t make it, he will take that distinction from Kingman.
Canseco is IMO borderline for the Hall. A decision either way wouldn’t bother me too much.
The difference in OBP is enormous. .353 is above average. .302 is well below average. Player A is helping his team a LOT more than Player B. Canseco, according to baseballreference.com, created about 30% more offense than Kingman, out for out.
And characterizing Dave Kingman and Jose Canseco as both being “butchers” is exactly the same as saying that Willie Mays and Willie Aikens were both pretty good home run hitters. Canseco was a bad defensive player; Kingman was arguably the worst defensive player of the last fifty years. He was much, much, much worse than Canseco.
In all fairness, Canseco was a fairly good defensive player early in his career before injuries took their toll. Kingman, on the other hand, was NEVER a good defensive player and was shuttled around various positions in the field before he became a DH.
Also, Canseco may have been difficult but he was a saint compared to Kingman.