He lost 2, not 4. He joined the military in 1943, missed all of the 1944 and 1945 seasons and then was in the minors for all of 1946.

Notwithstanding those 50s numbers, the stats don't seem to treat him well, which surprised me.

Hall Of Fame StatisticsPlayer rank in (·)


Black Ink Batting - 2 (619), Average HOFer ≈ 27

Gray Ink Batting - 128 (140), Average HOFer ≈ 144

Hall of Fame Monitor Batting - 83 (227), Likely HOFer ≈ 100

Hall of Fame Standards Batting - 32 (272), Average HOFer ≈ 50

JAWS First Base (34th), 44.9 career WAR/34.2 7yr-peak WAR/39.6 JAWS
Average HOF 1B (out of 19) = 65.9 career WAR/42.4 7yr-peak WAR/54.2 JAWS

I also think Hodges should be strongly considered for the Hall of Fame. Anyone who dominates his position (perennial all-star) for a 10 to 12 year span should be given serious consideration. This is why I agreed with putting Jim Rice in the Hall of Fame. It is also why I think that Steve Garvey is a borderline HOFer also. His stats (besides home runs) from 1974-83 are very similar to Hodges' 10 year stats that were posted above.

Games 1,499 - 1,477
Home Runs 200 - 310
At Bats 5,967 - 5,313
Runs 820 - 890
Hits 1820 - 1,491
RBI 939 - 1,001
Total Bases 2,785 - 2,733
Extra-Base Hits 536 - 585
All-Star Teams 8 - 8
Gold Gloves 4 - 3 (Hodges was a superior fielder)

Plus, Garvey won an MVP while he finished in the top 6 in MVP voting 5 times in a 7 year span. That is pretty impressive.

Garvey doesn't look so good according to the new wave stats. His "JAWS" rating places him only a remarkable 47th among first basemen. Part of the issue I think is that his on base percentage was not much higher than his BA because he rarely walked. For someone with 6 200 hit seasons (or was it more?) to rate this low is baffling.

This is my thinking exactly, including the comments about Garvey and Hodges. If a player dominates his era he deserves induction to the HOF because comparing stats over decades is simply unfair. Rice deserved to be in as probably does Garvey and certainly Hodges. Was Don Sutton a more dominant player of his era or did he just play longer than many others? If Tommy John won a few more games he would have had 300 -- and easily been inducted. It's silly to have bright line cutoffs on stats and not simply determine if the player dominated when he played.

Yeah, his stats do not stack up very well to modern metrics. I just think that it is pretty special when a player was considered the best at his position for a 10 to 12 year span. His MVP voting was pretty good too.

These guys shouldn't even be considered. They don't compare to the greats. Ruth, Wagner, Cobb, Young, Mantle, etc. These guys don't deserve to tie there shoes for them.


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I am still surprised Hodges is not in. I can't make a solid argument for him deserving it, but he was to the Dodgers what Rizzuto was to the Yankees.

Kevin yeah but by that token Bill Freehan was the best AL catcher, by far, from say the mid 60s through the mid 70s. All star every year I would guess. HOFer?

How did Steve Garvey "dominate" his era? He won no batting titles, no HR or RBI titles, never led the league in doubles. Not to say he was not a great player, but dominant seems overstating it.

Oliva was dominant. Only played 11 full seasons and led the league in hits 5 of those, with three batting crowns and 4 LL in doubles. One slg. pct title , a ROY and two runner-up MVPs, one to his teammate. Not bad.

Yeah, great example. Tim Raines, Tony Oliva and Dale Murphy are others.

I just remember Garvey always being one of the most clutch and feared hitters of his time. He was a fixture of all those All-Star games that I watched as a kid. All of the perennial All-Stars (Schmidt, Morgan, Rose, Brock, Bench, Carew, Brett, Jackson, Fisk, Rice, Winfield, Dawson, Carter etc.) seem to be worthy of the Hall of Fame - Rose would be there if it was based on stats alone. I just always assumed that Garvey would get there too.

But, by looking at his lifetime stats, it is easy to see why he is not there. They really are not that impressive.

Garvey had 10 AS game appearances and 6 top 11 MVP finishes including 5 years in a row. How does that not indicate dominance in his era?

Plus his consecutive games played streak and multiple Gold Gloves.

Bill Freehan was an eleven time all star with a 2 and a 3 MVP finish. I bet I could find many other examples you wouldn't consider to be dominant players with lots of "top 11" MVP finishes.

Different definitions of dominance I guess.

Bill Freehan played a position in which he could routinely bat .230 and make an AS game. Garvey was a much superior hitter and finished with 1000 more hits. Not only did Garvey win an MVP but as I said, he was judged to be one of the top 11 players in the league 6 times and an AS 10 times. He was also the best player on a team that appeared in 4 World Series. His overall numbers may not bear it out but he was certainly one of the top players in his era as anyone who grew up in the 70s would recall.

Well now you have changed your tune. Yes he was one of the top players of his era. I absolutely agree. That, to me, does not equate to being a dominant player. Semantics perhaps.

Too many players got into the HOF simply because they kept on playing, amassing stats. Garvey had a long period of years in which he was one of the top players in baseball -- that made him a dominant player of his era.

I don't disagree with you on some of the longevity stat guys. And there are many guys I just don't understand the reason for at all. To me, Garvey is still a step below. Dave Parker has 7 top 11 MVP finishes -- is he in? Not to mention more HR RBI and hits than Garvey.

I agree on Parker -- another guy who was a dominant player of his era. His greatness was spread out a bit more than Garvey and he had drug issues which surely hurt his chances. Like Garvey, probably just a notch below immortal greatness. I think my issue is that with so many guys who got in due to playing forever, there should be more value placed on players who were better during shorter careers. Again, I come back to Don Sutton who cannot truly be argued had a better career than Garvey by any measurement -- and they were a part of the same team during the same era. Can anyone claim that Sutton was the more important player to that team?

Well, at least we had the obligatory "the Hall of Fame is way too watered down and a ton of people should be kicked out" talking point. By the way, what is a "stat compiler" other than someone who was consistently productive over a long stretch of time? If it's so easy for a "stat compiler" to get 300 wins or 3,000 hits then why aren't there hundreds more of them? Wait, could it be because they were actually really great?

Peter,

It's not the, "Hall of Statistical Superiority". Maury Wills was a great player. Why shouldn't he make the cut?

Best regards,

Eric

Because he was eligible 15 times from 1978 to 1992 and nobody thought him worthy. He never garnered more than 40 percent of the vote. Most things in baseball come down to stats, you know. If you're a great player, you usually put up great numbers, and the opposite (the contrapositive? I forget my logic) is also true.

+1

If "amassing stats" is just something an ordinary ballplayer does then why are not hundreds of more ball players joining those great milestone clubs? Isn't consistency something to be celebrated?

Great Post...Agreed 100%

Jeff

As a whole, the 1960s are underrepresented. I would be fine with Wills as he was a revolutionary talent who, I think, was generally assumed to be a Hall of Fame talent during his career. His reputation was tainted by off-field exploits that hurt him during his time on the ballot. Bill Freehan seems to be under appreciated to me, but it all depends on what you think the Hall of Fame should be....

No one is saying that the players who amass superior stats are ordinary players, it's just that there are a bunch in the HOF who are only there due to longevity. Do you think that a pitcher who played in an era when pitchers routinely started 40 games a year, pitched for a top team, won 20 games only once and never finished in the top 3 for a Cy Young deserves to be in the HOF due solely to playing forever? The question is what defines greatness. Is it amassing stats via 20 good seasons but rarely great? Or 10 dominant seasons with significantly less lifetime accumulated stats? I think it's the latter obviously.

Look at yaz. Mostly longevity stats his avg season was not that great really.

Garvey should be in the Hall. He was the best player in that position for nearly a decade. I grew up watching him play and on the Dodgers team he was one of their best if not the best hitter all around. Plus he played every game until he broke a finger if i recall. Performed well in the World Series, All Star games...There are many players in the Hall that if you look at their stats you would say why? & they were not dominant for nearly a decade. Oh, i forgot all those gold gloves :)

Yeah, Yaz had longevity, but he also played at a very high level during those years - he had 18 All-Star appearances. Also, he was the best in the game at one point, winning an MVP and a Triple Crown.

The guys that I think that earned it mostly through longevity are guys like Don Sutton - (4 time All-Star, 0 Cy Youngs and only 1 20-game win season), Bert Blyleven (0, 0 and 1), Tony Perez and Billy Williams.

Except he really didn't. Yaz put up a ton of .270/18/75 seasons. In all honesty, he really wasn't an elite player for pretty much the entire last 13 seasons. He had a couple very good years but nothing great. Basically, he was great for 3, maybe 4, years and that's it.

I think Tiant should be elected, not only because his career but his character as well. Coming back form the major injury that he had showed a lot of dedication to the game.

Speaking of the 70s, can anyone claim that Bert Blyleven was a more dominant player of his era than Steve Garvey? Blyleven made 2 AS teams, had 4 top 10 CY finishes and won 20 games once.

Longevity thy name is Eddie Murray. Never dominant for any stretch of time.

It's interesting to see how we all view the HOF. To me a player should be judged exclusively against the era in which he played. That result would probably work against old time pitchers and modern hitters.

I have to agree. I like some of the other players. We profiled a couple of them on the watercooler sports board. But Allen is clearly deserving. His lifetime stats don't wow you because he didn't play as long as some of his contemporaries. However, between 1964 and 1975, the years Allen was a full time player in the Major Leagues, of the 88 players who amassed 4,000 at bats in those 12 seasons, Dick Allen had the second highest OPS of all of them. We touched on this, too.

OPS is an imperfect stat. It doesn't include defense, which was admittedly not his strong suit. It doesn't include base stealing. But it does gauge how adept a player is at getting on base, and hitting for power. And, as I stated before, if you can do both, you are a special player. And only Willie McCovey's .927 OPS was higher than Dick Allen's .924 OPS during that period of 12 years. That's higher than Hank Aaron, Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, Harmon Killebrew, Carl Yastrzemski, Tony Oliva, Reggie Jackson, Al Kaline, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, etc etc.

During that span, Allen was 6th in home runs. He was 4th in RBI.

http://imageshack.com/a/img743/1681/8pcaRf.png

When you are the second best player in baseball at something over a 12 year span, and some of the greatest players in the history of the game are behind you, you should merit serious consideration. Allen was an offensive superstar.

I guess that we just have a different opinion of what a "very high level" is. I think the fact that he received MVP votes in 14 different season and played in more All-Star games than anyone except Aaron, Mays, Musial and Ripken is pretty impressive. Plus, he has 7 Gold Glove awards and the few times that played in the postseason, he excelled.

I value a high level of consistency over a long period of time. Maybe that's why Eddie Murray is my favorite player of all-time.

At a point the All Star game just became an entitlement for Yaz. He made it for example in a season where he was 12-68-.264. And the year before that he was 15-70-.254. And lest you think these were token appreciation-type votes at the end of the career, uh uh. These were at age 31 and 32.

As I've said before, the problem with Allen is that he was widely viewed as a clubhouse cancer during his playing days. I'm not saying that viewpoint is right or wrong because I simply don't know, but I do believe that it has negatively impacted his HOF candidacy ever since he became eligible.

In many respects, Allen is the 1960-70's version of Albert Belle. Amazing offensive stats but no chance of ever being elected by the sportswriters.

Yeah, he had a couple of mediocre years when his end of the season stats did not back up his All-Star selection, but what about the 12 years when he was in the top 20 in MVP voting? Also, all of his 7 Gold Gloves came in these 12 seasons, so you cannot overlook has defensive value either. To me, being in the top 20 of players in your League is pretty significant.

Obviously, Yaz's lifetime stats benefited from his longevity, but if you were to exclude the last 5 or 6 years of his career, he would still be in the HOF. Basically, I do not feel that he solely made it into the HOF based on his lifetime numbers, but also because he was thought of at the time as one of the top 20 players in his League for a run of 12 out of 17 seasons during his prime.

You mean like 1978 when he was 17th in MVP voting and was 17-81-.277? Don't get me wrong, I am not saying Yaz is not a first ballot HOFer, in fact I brought him up initially with quite the opposite point in mind, to counter Lichtman's claim that guys whose stats are mostly longevity stats shouldn't be in. But it is a fact that Yaz had only a few great years.

Dick Allen has baggage that very well may keep him out forever, but what he accomplished on the field was outstanding. It almost feels pointless to debate because the only thing that matters is how the voters view his off the field issues. "He's a jerk!" versus "Who cares?" turns pedantic quickly, with no one changing his or her mind.

Yaz may be taking the brunt of it in this specific case, but you can apply this completely logical argument to so many others. All-Star appearances, Gold Gloves and the like are subjective awards given by people who quite frankly didn't know any better in a lot of cases. They are not evidence of play, but rather of reputation and should therefore hold little weight when compared to what the athletes actually did on the field. The Gold Gloves are particularly egregious with the repeated Jeter awards, Michael Young winning at Shortstop in 2008, the all-timer Palmeiro award in '99, etc.

Yeah, but he was still voted the 17th most valuable player in his League. To me, it is all relative to the others players who he played against and how he was perceived at the time. Stats can be deceiving. At the end of the day, his All-Star appearances and MVP voting convince me that he was considered to be a top player of his day.

This is a perfect example of stats with no context being useless, so thank you.

What the voting record actually shows was that post 1970, Yaz was a good player, but no longer elite. This is not an insignificant accomplishment, as you can't forget his peak existed, but if we want to use MVP voting records as evidence of value, we need to dig deeper.

Yastrzemski's MVP voting totals after 1970 are as follows
1973: 9 votes for a 3% share
1974: 14 votes for a 4% share
1975: 1 vote for a less than 1% share
1976: 28 votes for an 8% share
1977: 25 votes for a 6% share
1978: 17 votes for a 4% share

So to review, once he reached the other side of his peak, he never received more than 8% of the possible vote totals in MVP voting. These totals in ABSOLUTELY NO WAY show that he was a top 20 player in any of those years. It shows that a vast minority of the voting population thought he was a top player. Those are different issues entirely. How many of those people do you think were from New England?

Personally, I think the Hall is way too bogged down--Sutton and Blyleven immediately come to mind as neither was anywhere near dominant in their time--but from your list, and as a son of diehard Brooklyn Dodgers fans (my parents never went to another game--outright refused to go--after the Bums left town, except when my dad relented and agreed to take my brothers and me to Shea in 1976), then it's Gil Hodges for me. Just an RBI machine for a good decade and ridiculously loved and admired as a teammate. I truly hope number 14 is called this year, but after being in consideration for 40 something years, it doesn't seem very likely. That .273 career batting average is such a large speed bump to get over.

Just wondering on Hodges how to factor in his role in the 1969 mets to his credentials? It seems that it should count in some overall manner.

Yeah, as a Mets fan, I should've included that aspect, too. Soft spoken, respected leadership.

a

Eddie Murray was no Blyleven or Sutton -- he was a terror for many years. I don't think he qualifies as a guy who got in just due to longevity.