Rod Carew
Jimmie Foxx
Willie McCovey
Eddie Murray
Frank Thomas
Mark McGwire
Harmon Killebrew
Hank Greenberg
Johnny Mize
Jim Thome
Mize was the one that I didn’t know a lot about, and where seeing the stats (and, as RickJay points out, him losing several years in his prime to the war) was really educational. The guy had 10 very strong seasons, and probably should have had three more.
I’ve decided to not blackball steroid-era players, but I, too, just really dislike Palmiero.
I gave a nod to Jim Thome, as well, even though I’m not entirely convinced that he was great, so much as being pretty good for a lot of years.
Jimmie Foxx
Johnny Mize
Albert Pujols
Frank Thomas
Jim Thome
Willie McCovey
Cap Anson
Jeff Bagwell
Eddie Murray
Harmon Killebrew
Ole’ Harmon made it onto my list by edging out the many, many great contenders mostly by virtue of having a fun name. He and Eddie Murray probably could be a lot of guys, but they both played forever and were MVP contenders for big chunks of their careers.
I’m loathe to put on pure sluggers from the steroids era, but 1B is a slugger position, so it’s not like I can reasonably factor in guys from earlier or later years based on their defensive skills. Sure, you can be a bad defensive first baseman, but I don’t think you can really be a great based on it: if you were, you would be playing somewhere else. That being said, Jim Thome was a guy that never stank of steroids like McGwire and Palmeiro; he was just a big ole’ country boy whose career followed a normal arc that lasted a long time and had a very high peak. Also: Cleveland Indian.
I was a bit shocked at how high Bagwell sat on the WAR leaders list: he was one of those guys that snuck into my mind when I started thinking about this, but I figured he’d be in that big group of guys with 50-60 career WAR.
John Olerud and Keith Hernandez are two guys that I often think of as just under the low bar of the HOF. Hernandez had one or two great seasons, and other than that, both of them together just put together very, very good performances for years without either standing out as the best player of their time.
Decided to wait to vote for Miggy for the multi-positional ballot-forgot he also played a fair amount in the outfield. Added Big Mac.
Albert Pujols
Jimmie Foxx
Jeff Bagwell
Johnny Mize
Frank Thomas
Jim Thome
Todd Helton
Willie McCovey
Hank Greenberg
Mark McGwire
I am really surprised that there’s no love for Todd Helton. Biggest (traditional) knock against him is his relative lack of counting stats, and that he played in Denver. A lot of people will probably be voting for Edgar Martinez when DH’s (multipositional ballot) get voted on, but Helton looks pretty good in comparision (Edgar is 2nd on his comp list). Edgar is the better hitter (once the Colorado air is taken out of the equation), but Helton gets a lot of credit for his D, and as a result BB Reference likes Helton’s peak (very few of these guys outside of the top two have a multi-year peak over 7.0 WAR/season). His playing time is right around the average for the JAWS top 15.
I’ll figure out who I’m voting for here pretty soon. In the meantime, don;t know if any of you have been following Joe Posnanski’s ongiong blog posts about *all *the HOF candidates this year. He started at the back end, with people like Matt Stairs, and is working his way forward–he’s gotten up to folks who were actually quite good, at least for a short while, but not exactly HOF material. Anyway, they’re a lot of fun. Here’s a link to Derrek Lee: http://joeposnanski.com/ballot-24-derrek-lee/.
Has some stathead come up with a way to normalize for playing in Denver? I’ve got to say, I discounted Helton (as I discount hitters coming from Colorado when I consider fantasy players who have made moves) because of the whole thin-air deal. I imagine that my subjective response is a lot more kneejerk than it should be.
That’s what OPS+ and WAR are for, they do figure out park effects.
Helton’s career OPS+ is 133, which to give you some idea of context is about the same as Fred McGriff, who played more games than Helton did. and will not get a single vote in this thread unless someone wants to just prove me wrong. McGriff was at least as valuable a hitter as Helton was, and the argument that Helton was a better player basically hinges on the assumption that WAR is right and McGriff was an absolutely terrible fielder, which I guess is possible.
As always, without reading any of the thread beyond the OP, I deleted names until finally arriving at my Top 10:
Albert Pujols
Rod Carew
Miguel Cabrera
Jimmie Foxx
Bill Terry
Eddie Murray
Jim Thome
Hank Greenberg
Frank Thomas (the one who played for the White Sox in the 90s-00s)
George Sisler
Although I didn’t vote for him, I think George Burns belongs on the ballot ahead of some of the names listed.
No, he didn’t. He played 12 seasons in Oakland (1329 games) and 5 in St. Louis (545 games.) Considering he was a below average fielder, I’m still surprised. I figured it would be only a couple hundred, though.
I will vote for Thome in the DH category. He definitely belongs, and I’d have loved to put him on my list over Mize or Anson, but there will be another chance for him. Same for Carew, he’ll be on my 2nd base ballot.
Good thing we’re not voting for every position simultaneously or else those guys might split votes are their various positions.
He’s only about sixth or seventh at best among players his career overlaps with, behind Cabrera, Pujols, Bagwell, Thomas, Thome, probably Palmeiro and McGwire. If you really think 60 percent of the best first basemen played in the past 20 years then I guess there’s your choice.
When you’re standing on the same field as Jose Canseco, your fielding looks a lot better. The late 80’s A’s had a bunch of lousy outfielders at DH, plus one year of Don Baylor, who wasn’t impressive with a glove at 1B even when he wasn’t a thousand years old.
Bagwell has a few things going for him that tend to leave him underrated. For me he is a top 5 all time 1b and it is sad that it has taken him so long to get elected to the real hall. While Bagwell ended his career in a hitter’s park, his peak was played in the Astro Dome, which significantly curtailed his numbers. We also gets lumped into the steroid era, but his peak was before then when offense hadn’t gone completely crazy. Finally, unlike most slugging 1b, Bagwell had significant value as a base-runner and defensive player.