Welcome back to the SDMB Baseball Hall of Fame Project. In this round we will be voting on third basemen. (We did second basemen in the last vote, and are doing shortstops next. Why? Well, why not?)
The purpose of this thread is to elect ten third basemen to the SDMB Hall of Fame. Every person voting is asked to submit a ballot with the names of ten third basemen you think are most deserving of enshrinement. As is always the case in the SDMB Hall of Fame Project, you may vote for ANYONE who has ever played third base in the major leagues or in major level Negro League baseball (though note there will be an election specifically for the Negro Leagues.) The player’s eligibility or lack thereof for the real life Hall of Fame is irrelevant; you may even vote for active players.
I have provided below a helpful list of all third basemen I can think of who are in the Hall of Fame, had a career of substantial length, or are of particular note. This is NOT an authoritative ballot; I may have missed someone and if so please let me know. This list is solely for your benefit and is absolutely not a prescriptive, limiting list.
Vote away!
Bob Horner
Lave Cross
Oliver Marcelle
Mike Schmidt
Deacon White
Graig Nettles
Ron Cey
Eddie Mathews
Frank “Home Run” Baker
David Wright
Carney Lansford
Eric Chavez
Wade Boggs
Jimmy Collins
Troy Glaus
Ken Boyer
Art Devlin
Tim Wallach
Stan Hack
Ray Dandridge
George Brett
Bill Madlock
Don Money
Buddy Bell
Evan Longoria
Judy Johnson
Adrian Beltre
Sal Bando
Jud “Boojum” Wilson
Pie Traynor
Toby Harrah
Gary Gaetti
Chipper Jones
George Kell
Doug DeCinces
Harlond Clift
Dick Allen
Bob Elliott
Ron Santo
John McGraw
Ken Keltner
Brooks Robinson
Darrell Evans
Al Rosen
Heinie Groh
Travis Fryman
Matt Williams
Scott Rolen
Robin Ventura
Freddie Lindstrom
Larry Gardner
HEY, RICK, WHY ISN’T THIS GUY ON THE LIST?
Pete Rose will be on the DH/multipositional ballot.
Edgar Martinez will be on the DH/multipositional ballot.
Alex Rodriguez will be on the Shortstops ballot. (I realize it’s a close call.)
Paul Molitor will be on the DH/Multipositional ballot.
Bobby Bonilla will be on the DH/multipositional ballot.
You may still vote for these men here if you wish, of course.
Wade Boggs
George Brett
Mike Schmidt
Eddie Mathews
Brooks Robinson
Adrian Beltre
Chipper Jones
Scott Rolen
Ron Santo
Home Run Baker
This one is pretty easy. The 10th spot came down to Baker or Nettles and how do you not vote for the guy named “Home Run?” Plus I had a feeling my list was too modern, so wanted to get a guy from the early days of baseball in there.
3rd base is a position with a lot of really good current players like Josh Donaldson, Manny Machado and Kris Bryant, none of whom appear on the list. Yet.
Mike Schmidt
Eddie Matthews
Wade Boggs
George Brett
BIll Madlock
Pie Traynor
Chipper Jones
Brooks Robinson
Home Run Baker
Graig Nettles
…of note, I offer no defense of the Graig Nettles choice when compared to others on this list other than he was my idol as a ten year old kid. I wore No. 9 throughout high school. It’s, if nothing else, a symbolic vote.
Again, in order, best to worst:
Mike Schmidt
Wade Boggs
George Brett
Eddie Mathews
[gap]
Chipper Jones
Ron Santo
Adrian Beltre
Brooks Robinson
[gap]
Graig Nettles
Scott Rolen
Scott Rolen is my stealth candidate for this round. Yeah, maybe he doesn’t “feel” like a HoFer, but who are you going to replace him with? Home Run Baker I timelined out. We have the 3-4 guys being saved for the multipositional ballot. After them we have the likes of Ken Boyer (my 11th guy), Buddy Bell, Sal Bando, Dick Allen, Darrell Evans, and Robin Ventura, all of whom he appears superior to with either the bat or the glove (or both).
Mike Schmidt
Wade Boggs
George Brett
Chipper Jones
Brooks Robinson
Ron Santo
Eddie Mathews
Adrian Beltre
Graig Nettles
Home Run Baker
The first eight were really easy (it would have been an easy nine, including Paul Molitor, but I’m saving him for my multi/DH ballot), but I then talked myself in and out of who to put in the last two slots several times. Nettles got the nod for a good peak, more HRs than I realized he had, and being a key part of the Yankees’ dynasty.
I didn’t like the fact that I didn’t have a single player from before WWII in my first nine. I looked hard at Home Run Baker and Jimmy Collins, both of whom I knew little about.
Baker had a huge four-year run ('11-'14), then lost the '15 season in a contract dispute. He was very good (if not quite as spectacular as he had been earlier) in '16-'19 after going to the Yankees, but then, again, lost a season ('20), this time due to his sick family.
As I look at Collins, I start to suspect that I have a harder time judging stats from pre-1900; I just don’t know enough about what the game was like then. Collins didn’t have the career interruptions that Baker had, though it didn’t lead to a substantially longer career. WAR isn’t a perfect tool, but it suggests that Collins was pretty darned good for a fair stretch (1897-1905). However, his annual WAR was only above 6 twice during those years. That good peak was surrounded by 3 years as a part-time player in the front end, then his later career was hampered by injury and suspension.
So, thanks to a stronger peak, I went with Baker for the last spot.
Brooks Robinson
Mike Schmidt
George Brett
Wade Boggs
Chipper Jones
Eddie Mathews
Pie Traynor
John McGraw
Adrian Beltre
Frank “Home Run” Baker
I actually saw six of these guys play, which is surprising, as I generally strive for more of a balance among the eras. The “hot corner” just doesn’t feature as many old-time legends as do other positions.
He was considered the best third baseman of all time back in the 50s. He was supposedly a great defensive player, basically Brooks before Brooks, but his BBRef defensive stats make him barely above average - given that we’re talking about the 1920s, it’s quite possible the defensive numbers are wrong. If you assume he was actually Brooks Robinson good and give him 35 defensive wins instead of 2, that kicks him up to about 70, roughly even with Scott Rolen at the bottom edge of the top-10 list. (I think that’s wildly overvaluing him but it’s a rationale).
Also, he’s almost the only guy other than Home Run Baker from before Eddie Mathews. Maybe there just weren’t any good third basemen from the first half of the 20th century. Anyway, he’s not on my list.
Mike Schmidt
Eddie Mathews
Wade Boggs
George Brett
Chipper Jones
Home Run Baker
Ron Santo
Scott Rolen
Adrian Beltre
Brooks Robinson
Nettles just fell off the bottom of my list in favor of Rolen.
Yeah but everyone had crappy gloves back then so his ability relative to average should still have shown up. Unless the stats are just wrong, which is very possible that far back.
Tom Scud has it right about Traynor. Back in 1970 or so when I was a kid being introduced to baseball, it seemed as though I ran into lots of Greatest Ever teams. The first baseman on these teams was either Gehrig or occasionally Foxx, the second baseman was pretty much always Hornsby, Wagner was consistently the shortstop, and…Pie Traynor was the consensus choice, or so I recall, at third base.
Kind of weird given that Eddie Mathews’s career had wrapped up by then, but maybe I was reading older, pre-Mathews books. Or maybe Mathews’s ability to hit for power was not seen at the time to outweigh Traynor’s ability (era-assisted) to hit for average. Or maybe people really did see Traynor as an amazing defensive talent back in his time. I don’t know. Anyhow, for a long time Traynor had the reputation as the Best Ever.
To be fair, as some have noted, our third base ballots seem very much weighted toward the last fifty years, and part of that is a shift in the way people thought about third base. As many of you probably know, it used to be a “glove” position where defensive value was critical and if you could hit a little, well, that was nice but not a requirement. That mindset took a while to change. So we compare slugging third basemen of more recent times, many of whom (Rolen, Schmidt, Beltre) have been excellent defensively, to good-field-little-hit third basemen of the more distant past. Traynor wasn’t the offensive force of Schmidt or Brett or Molitor, but compared to the folks who were populating third base into the 1960s, he might have seemed to stand out at the plate more than he does today.
Anyway, I sometimes wonder if WAR gives enough credit to the early third basemen, given what was valued at the time. Oh well. The only pre-Mathews player I considered voting for was Home Run Baker, and I didn’t.
