Parker is, to my mind, roughly the 400th best player in MLB history, not counting Negro League players, so he may be as low as 450th. By most analytical methods he is not that high but I give him added credit for a high peak and being the best player on a World Series champion. Still, he was not a good choice.
There are about 270 players in the Hall of Fame, so to my mind a decent selection has to be in the top 200, since many existing members are questionable picks and there’s plenty of good choices way higher than that. I’ve said this before, but the basic question that you have to ask is “is this player in the best player who’s eligible to be in who isn’t yet?” If the answer is “no,” then you need a solid reason why you’re voting for them.
Just for the official record: Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner were elected to the Hall today; as noted, Ichiro was one vote away from being a unanimous selection.
Ichiro and Sabathia were selected in their first year of eligibility; Wagner was selected in his tenth and final year of eligibility.
Did we really spend years arguing over Omar pre-creep years, just for you to admit he probably should have gotten in until it turned out he was a total shithead?
Personally I think closers are overappreciated by the hall and wouldn’t have voted for Wagner, but I can’t really begrudge it and he seemed really happy to finally get in. I’m just not convinced Wagner’s 903 innings is more valuable then say 3,283 innings from Buehrle. I probably wouldn’t vote for any modern fulltime closer besides Rivera though.
I am of the same opinion; I do NOT think Wagner, who by the way was also maybe the worst playoff player in the history of baseball, was a no brainer. Many, many pitchers have helped their teams more than Billy Wagner ever did.
Does that mean by my standard very few closers would ever make it? Yes it does. Closers are part time players now, and I also don’t think many pinch hitters and defensive replacements should be in the Hall of Fame.
Closers are definitely more involved in the game than those guys. They occupy a middle ground between those sorts of players and DHs.
I feel like backup catchers and utility infielders appear far less often than the 70 or so games per season that any HoF candidate closer shows up in. Closers also usually matter a great deal in the games they’re in, while your fourth outfielder coming in to pinch run for the catcher in the 8th often doesn’t get a tick on the scorecard.
You wouldn’t put Goose, Eckersly, or Rollie Fingers’ mustache in the Hall? I suppose Eckersley was just as much a starter as he was a closer, but I think Gossage was clearly a special player as a career closer. (Not Mo level, but not outside the realm of Hall inclusion)
Goose Gossage wasn’t a closer, he was a relief ace, a guy who made a lot of multi inning appearances. Gossage literally pitched twice as much as Billy Wagner. He was WAY more valuable. He also wasn’t a huge playoff choke artist.
Eckersley pitched three and a half times more than Wagner did. (Eck, by way of further comparison, pitched more than did Pedro Martinez, Roy Halladay, or Clayton Kershaw.) He had legit Cy Young level seasons as a starter, too. (He wasa started MORE than he was a relever.)
Rollie Fingers pitched almost as much as Gossage did. He was also a World Series MVP (and might well have deserved two of them.) I think his 1981 AL MVP Award was silly - Rickey Henderson should have won it - but it was a better season than Billy Wagner ever had, and his Cy Young Award that year was a reasonable pick.
I’d also point out all those men were critical players on World Series champions. Wagner, to say the least, was not.
And now, for the big question: which teams’ hats will they be wearing on their plaques?
Side note: somebody in Seattle forgot to read their history books; the Mariners are planning to retire Suzuki’s number on, er, the 80th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. (Speaking of retiring the number, there is some talk that, when it is retired, it should have both Suzuki’s and Randy Johnson’s names on it.)