LaRussa and Cox, and Garvey.

From the mid 70's to the mid 80's, who would you take at 1st base over Garvey?? Stargell - past his prime and already a HOFer; Perez - see Stargell; Chambliss - no; E Murray - didn't start until the late 70's; Hernandez - good glove, but not quite. For a 10 year span, Garvey was the best first baseman in MLB.

I disagree that he was the best for a 10 span. A case can be made he was the best in 1975 and 1976, but for all other years someone was better. 1977 on, Murray was better



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I would vote for Cox and possibly Torre. I don't think any of the players deserve it, they were great players but not HOFers IMO. In the mid 80s I would have rather had Mattingly over Garvey.

I still don't understand why Garvey and Mattingly are NOT in while other guys are (I won't mention them here). What were the reasons again? I remember in the '80s broadcasters would talk about how they thought Garvey was a shoe-in...same with Mattingly. What happened after they retired? Were the memories not that great? :confused: (and don't tell me it had to do with Garvey's illegitimate kids).

Announcement coming today, but I can't find when or how it will be made.

On radio they just said Cox, LaRussa, Torre voted in, didn't mention anyone else.

MLB.tv has press conf for the 3 managers

It all comes down to numbers. If you look at Mattingy's and compare them to guys in the HOF that played his position, or even not his position, his numbers just aren't quite good enough.

Mattingly was a good ball player, but not a HOF'er in my book. He just didn't play long enough.

Mattingly loses not because of the career he had but because of the career he did not have. His overall stats are strikingly similar to Kirby Puckett's but Mattingly had two careers. He was a god of batting--the next DiMaggio--until he hurt his back, then he became a very good player. I think that hurts his voting totals. It is better to burn out than fade away when it comes to HOF voting.

I don't know why Mattingly isn't in either. The HOF has inducted players with brief dominance and promise who suffered major injuries before.

Dizzy Dean would be a good example. He had 4 dominating seasons before an injury took his career.

From 1984 to 1987 Donnie Baseball was the premier player in the American League. He averaged 30 homers, 121 rbis and a .336 average over his peak. Had he not gotten hurt, I don't think there's any doubt he was a HOFer.

He should get in for the quality of player that he was. Not because of his career numbers.

Would you be able to compare Mattingly to someone undeserving besides Dean, like someone from the 60's on? The reason I ask is the same can be said for Dizzy as what you said, "the quality of player someone is, not because of his career numbers". I wasn't around for Dean, but maybe he was a quality player that really did deserve it?

But anyways, that unfortunately is not how the voting works. Of course they will look at the quality of player it is, but at the end of the day, if you have 2,000 and 222 HR's, you aren't getting in. Good ball player, but again, just not long enough.

It's hard to pick another player similar to Mattingly because I feel like he was a special case. Kirby Puckett is the best I can do with a contemporary player.

Joe Wood or Nomar would be great comps too. Unfortunately for Mattingly I don't think any of them will ever get in. But that's not bad company.

It's the old "if-then" with Puckett: if Puckett then Mattingly.

Sorry, if you want to put in a 1B because of "the quality player he was," then Mattingly should be discussed after Mickey Vernon.

Ken

I don't have a problem with Kirby getting in, but it says a lot that he got in on his first ballot. Mattingly slips every year. For a guy who had such a similar career (50.8 career WAR for Puckett compared to 42.2 for Mattingly) it seems like he should be getting more votes.

Especially since Puckett had more healthy years, but amounted only slightly higher stats than Mattingly, who was on the decline by age 29.

That says a lot about who Mattingly was when he was at his peak.

Edited to add: Vernon was not a career .300 hitter. He also finished with a career WAR of 34.6 and is considered the 62nd best first baseman compared to Mattingly at 35th.

then Vlad Guerrero

then Albert Belle

In my mind Albert and Vlad are both HOFers.

Mattingly
 

How many folks would be upset if Mattingly WAS elected...if you think about the 80's, how many guys would you say were better than he was? Would he look out of place in the Hall of Fame? I don't think he would...

I consider him a lock!

Vlad will likely be elected once he becomes eligible, maybe not a first ballot but he'll get there. Belle made too many enemies amongst the writers, and I'm not justifying that, but those are the people who vote. So, he kind of made his own bed.

Puckett and Mattingly are comparable on the surface. I'll preface this by saying Donnie Baseball was and is my absolute all-time favorite player. He's a class act on and off the field and was amazing to watch even well into his decline. That said, Puckett was more deserving.

One thing about Puckett that puts him ahead is his postseason. While I don't necessarily agree with a team accomplishment being used to measure an individual, that is the reality. It also didn't hurt that Puckett was an above .300 hitter in October and won an ALCS MVP on his way to 2 World Series rings. Puckett was also a fan favorite, people loved seeing a guy who looked like he should be doing log-rolls racing around CF and scaling the wall to rob opposing hitters of home runs. He just won people over with a constant smile...think the ANTI-Albert Belle.

Puckett reached 2000 hits faster than any player in the history of the game, leading the league in hits four times (3 consecutive) in 6 years. Mattingly led the league twice, and finished with 150 or so fewer hits than Kirby, even though Mattingly played 14 seasons to Puckett's 12. Mattingly continued to play through his injury and saw his numbers decline (what some players wouldn't give to have a Mattingly "off" year!), so I don't think voters give him a lot of consideration when trying to project his stats out to say, a 20-year career, since we saw 70% or more of his career. With Puckett, his eyesight forced him out while he was still extremely productive - his last season, he hit .314 with 39 doubles, 23 homers, 99 RBI and an OPS of .894. The year prior, .317/32/20 and a league-leading 112 RBI, with a .902 OPS. While I don't usually like the HOF voters to get into the "what-if" game, for someone like Puckett it's understandable. It's also much easier to speculate what he "might have" done as compared to someone like Mattingly whose production decline was actually witnessed. We never saw that in Puckett.

I still hold out hope that Donnie will win 15 World Series with the Dodgers and get in the same way Torre did today. :D After all, even though I get why he's not a HOFer, he's one in my book and he's still my favorite player!

Albert Belle or Pujols?? If you say Belle, I'm done. :-)

Albert "Don't call me Joey" Belle
 

Albert Belle = 'Roid Rage personified

Tell me this guy wasn't a steroid user.
IMHO, he left baseball just in time to not be one of main players on the PED list.

It does, but still - he had 3 or 4 outstanding years, and then he was pretty average. Over his first 2 and final 6 years - totaling over half his career - he was a .285/15 homers/65 RBI guy with a SA just barely above .400. You can pull Puckett's 12 seasons apart in any direction, and he was consistently excellent from the first to the last.

Kirby started 6 AS games; Mattingly 1. Kirby led the Twins to 2 world championships; in 14 seasons with Mattingly, the Yanks finished 1st only once, and Mattingly only made it to the post season once (and just the 1st round). Mattingly won the MVP, but Kirby was in the top 10 in voting nearly twice as often and had more career MVP shares.

And for an 1800-game career, a 20% difference in WAR is, IMO, huge. It's the difference between 177th all-time and 276th.

Mattingly won 2 more Gold Gloves than Kirby, but I think fans and writers place more value on center-fielding than playing first base (which might be a mistake, but Kirby climbing the wall to pull back a home run is a lot more glamorous than saving runs by scooping balls out of the dirt).

I can see why Kirby's in and Mattingly's not. That said, I wouldn't have voted Kirby in either - he owes a lot of his offensive stats to the Metrodome, where he hit 50 points higher than he did on the road, and he won some of those Gold Gloves because he played a really deep center, scaled the wall a lot and made a lot of long throws. Good highlight reel stuff, but he probably let a zillion singles fall in front of him.

If we're going to vote guys in on short careers plus what they might have done, I would have voted Tony Oliva in ahead of either Puckett or Mattingly. From the time he was ROY in 1964 until 1971, his last season before injury, he was an AS all 8 years; a 3-time batting champ who finished in the top three in hitting 7 times and top 8 all 8 seasons; a 5-time hits leader; 4-time doubles leader; and helped Minnesota to the post season 3 times (in an era where only 2 to 4 teams could qualify). And his WAR was higher than Mattingly's in 12% fewer plate appearances. As I always say, if Tony had gotten run over by a bus after his 1971 season - instead of playing on a bum leg for several more years and ruining all of his career stats - he would have been in the HOF the following year. Maybe the same would have been true for Mattingly after 1989.

Well said. I also wanted to add to my last post that if you want to argue that Mattingly, a first basemen, be in the HOF, why not Gil Hodges? Sure, he was a .275 hitter, but had 370 HR's, 3 time WS champ, 8 time all star, 3 time GG, and you can throw in his manager days. A decent argument..

I agree with Oliva too, he is a highly under-rated HOF candidate.

If only we had a 'Hall of Above Average'.

my list of HOF'ers would only include about 125 players not the 300 that are currently in there

+1 My thoughts exactly.

Not to be a pedant, but there are only 208 former MLB players and 35 Negro Leaguers currently in the Hall. That is a pretty damn small number, but your point is taken.

As the number '208' relates to 'great' former MLB baseball players, I think it's quite large. In a 'Hall of Average' it would be small. In a 'Hall of Above Average' it is probably about right.

I'm surprised no one mentioned Dick Allen. Mattingly isn't near his level.

From their site

The Hall of Fame is comprised of 300 elected members. Included are 208 former major league players, 28 executives, 35 Negro leaguers, 19 managers and 10 umpires.

In my number I would not include the umps, managers, exec's or most of the Negro league players, only those who had a significant MLB career.

My feeling on this point is that the league while professional was on par with the PCL, Texas leagues etc. and not a major league

Your HOF would have a lot of glaring oversights.