Make a case for a MLB player for the Hall of Fame (excluding obvious steroid omissions.)

The Game Room
21

The prohibition against gambling isn’t because it’s immoral.

22

Clayton Kershaw (as with Cy Young) is a product of his era and his management. That’s why he can say that without much pushback.

I mean, we could say the same about Whitey Ford. Sure, he didn’t win a lot of games, and yes, he played for the Yankees, but Stengel only used him against high-caliber opponents, he was never in a rotation. How many would he have won in a regular 4-man rotation with that career winning percentage? How many would he have won had he been on the Washington Senators? Would the circulatory issues he had have shown up earlier in his career with more work?

And we could play that game with any player. Bob Feller lost years to WWII, Ted Williams lost years to WWII AND Korea and played for the Red Sox. Imagine if he switched places with DiMaggio.

So stats are helpful and certainly confirm greatness, but they aren’t the absolute bottom line. Some players pass the eye test, their greatness is obvious even if their accumulated stats are not. Kershaw is one of them.

23

Cy Young is irrelevant to the modern game. Kershaw was better, hands down.

24

He probably didn’t have a long enough career in most voters’ opinion. But I can make a case for Ken Boyer. !964 MVP, 11 All-Star games, 5 Gold Gloves, 62.8 WAR, team Captain. He’s overlooked for three reasons

  • He played for the Cardinals, which were mostlty overlooked by the national sportswriters, and he played there at the same time as Stan Musial who (deservedly!) got the lion’s share of attention and affection.
  • Cardinals management didn’t know what to do with him. In his first four seasons with the team, Boyer played shortstop and all three outfield positions (he led the league in fielding as a center fielder one year) before management finally put him at third base and kept him there. Despite being moved around those first four seasons, Boyer still averaged to bat over .300 for that period.
  • His career wasn’t as long as some would like. Although Boyer played 14 seasons, his last three season in particular were subpar. After being traded to the Mets he shuffled from them to the White Sox to the Dodgers. In his last three seasons he played in 218 games total.

But from 1959, when the Cardinals finally parked him at third base, through 1966, he was as good as any player in the game. Is seven great years enough for the HOF?