I agree with Jeff here. Murray was a switch hitting offensive monster at the plate. Definitely HOF worthy.

Best,

Eric

There has been over 18,000 players suit up in big league history. Around 250 have been inducted in the Hall of Fame. Please tell me how the Hall of Fame has been "bogged down?" If anything, I think there is room for several dozen more!

How are those stats relevant at all???????????? What the heck does it matter how many people played versus the total number of players enshrined???? The Hall of Fame is for the elite of the elite players. Bert Blyleven and Don Sutton lost 250 or more games each and neither was ever a dominant pitcher. They were good/decent for 20 or so seasons each. That's it. The Hall is supposed to be only for the great. They, and some others, bog it down.

I don't believe you win 324 games have 58 shutouts, and 3574 strikeouts and are opening day pitcher for the Dodgers for 7 years if you are just a decent pitcher. Sutton was a 4x all star and 1977 All-Star game MVP. He was 324-256 with a lifetime 3.26 era. He was a 20 game winner only once (21-10) but won 17,15,17,19,18,19,16,14,15,17 games a year. Double digits for 19 of his 23 years in the big leagues. There is another pitcher that was 324-292 with an era of 3.19 over 20 plus years and won 20 games in his career only 2 times.I don't think Nolan Ryan is just a decent player based on those numbers. The Hall of Fame is going to have superstars among its own but we should appreciate the accomplishments of all of its members. It would be nice if they decide to put Gil Hodges in as he deserves to be a member.

+1

(Well, maybe not several DOZEN more, yet - but I agree with this sentiment. Toughest Hall of all the major sports, by far)!

Listen, you can love Don Sutton all you want (God bless ya!), but the basic fact is he was never a dominant pitcher. He won double digit games many times as you said, yet all that points to (to me) is him remaining healthy enough to continue pitching year after year (and some would say the fact he was able to continue pitching for so long is a good reason to vote him into the Hall). I have nothing whatsoever against the guy and I'm glad you're a big fan of his, but a simple look at his basic stats does not point to an all time great. You obviously disagree, but I don't know what to tell you. You mentioned his strikeouts, but the most he ever had in a season was 217 and his totals during the second half of his career were middling. He was definitely a pretty good player, but I gotta be honest. I have no interest in maintaining a continuing argument about Mr. Sutton's merits. You'll state a statistic and then I'll respond with a counter-statistic and neither of us will change our minds, so what's the point? Since he is already in the Hall, it really doesn't matter.

…....…W...L…SO
1966 12 12 209
1967 11 15 169
1968 11 15 162
1969 17 18 217
1970 15 13 201
1971 17 12 194
1972 19 9 207
1973 18 10 200
1974 19 9 179
1975 16 13 175
1976 21 10 161
1977 14 8 150
1978 15 11 154
1979 12 15 146
1980 13 5 128
1981 11 9 104
1982 17 9 175
1983 8 13 134
1984 14 12 143
1985 15 10 107
1986 15 11 116
1987 11 11 99
1988 3 6 44

No love for Billy Pierce ?
 

211 wins for not-so-great teams. 193 CG 38 shutouts and 32 saves. Career pitching WAR of 53 which puts him way ahead of Kaat despite many less years in the league. 7 All Star games. Just sayin'?

Someone in this thread wrote "The Hall of Fame is for the elite of the elite players" Which made me wonder about the real criteria dictated by the HOF to the voters.

I didn't look very long but did find this criteria on the HOF website: Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

Seems like 5 out of 6 criteria are intangible and only one (record), maybe two (playing ability) possibly a third (contributions) Can be even partially measured by numbers.


Makes me think that the players peers should be allowed a large portion of the input. Also, once a player passes the 10 or 15 year period (whatever it is now) after their retirement, maybe they shouldn't be considered at all. As memories and first hand interaction fade, the weight of those intangibles fade as well.

I suppose this will never happen, but it seems if the HOF removes the current voting pool and replaces it with any player who played in the majors for a certain period of time overlapping the careers of those on the ballot, it would result in a more accurate representation of those players who deserve enshrinement based on the criteria set forth by the hall.

If a player doesn't make it in within the decade and a half after their careers end, there must be some decent reason (assuming voters are honest in their assessment).

I'm good with removing all of them except Fingers.

I say remove him too! I have long argued that putting in relief pitchers is equivalent to honoring goal line backs in the NFL! Maybe important, but not HOF worthy...

It's relevant to dispel the erroneous assertion that the Baseball Hall of Fame is easy to get into and all you need to be is a "stat compiler" (whatever that means). 250 people in 143 years of professional baseball and it's some how, some way bogged down? Archaic win-loss stats(what about Nolan Ryan losing 292?) are hardly an indicator of how great a pitcher was, particularly if they played for crappy teams. Blyleven and Sutton each have low 3 ERAs and had very good WHIPs. Honestly, who is the Hall of Fame for? You, your subjective standards of "dominance" or the stated criteria that another poster mentioned? I say, open the Hall of Fame even more. Start with the 19th century and Negro Leagues.

I really like your line of thinking, but there is a big problem that would need to be ferreted out. And that's personality and ego. Say a player had stats that clearly put him into the conversation for enshrinement, but to put it plainly, he was a douchebag and the players on other teams despised him or thought of him as an obnoxious, self-centered prick. (I'm pretty sure most of us who just play softball every week run into these types of players on other teams.) The fact they were good or great on the field could get lost in the human frailty of hard feelings and cause them to be kept out of the Hall. Just a thought.

When the hell did I mention that the Baseball Hall of Fame is easy to get into??? You love putting quotation marks on things I say, but then you blindly add other things into the conversation. WTF???? And when did I mention Nolan Ryan?? All you do is throw straw man arguments out there. Go away!!!

250 out of 18,000 seems pretty elite to me; I agree the HOF pretty much gets it right. For those who want only the "elite of the elite", that would make for a pretty short trip to Cooperstown. Maybe they can just rename the HOF the Babe Ruth Museum as everyone else is pretty much a step down from him.

I think Hodges belongs in the Hall of Fame, too, but bringing up he has more home runs than these guys? That doesn't help your argument.

Hodges should have more home runs than Kiner. He played 600 more games. He played 335 more games than DiMaggio, and had only 9 more home runs. How many home run titles did he win? Zero. Kiner led the league in home runs each of his first seven seasons, and I believe in six of those, he also led the Majors. DiMaggio led the league twice playing in monstrous Yankee Stadium. Mize won four home run titles, and would have won more, had he not missed three years in his prime. Hodges missed a couple years, too, but he was 20 and 21. Big difference. Berra he hit more home runs, and he should, as Berra was a catcher. Berra just won three MVP Awards. Hodges, for all those home runs, never managed a top five MVP vote. He ended up 7th once, and 8th another.

The mark against Hodges is that he never led the league...in anything important, and never finished in the top five of the MVP. Meanwhile, Campanella won three MVPs. Robinson won one. Duke Snider, in three years, was an MVP runner up, finished third and fourth in the MVP the two other years. These three guys were all considered bigger stars than Hodges. That's not to say that Hodges wasn't one of the most important players on that Dodgers team that dominated their league for a good long while. He was. That's why he will eventually get in.

Peter, you're not considering the era that he played much of his career in. A lot of those years were absolutely dominated by pitching.

If I told you that Yastrzemski hit .301 with 23 HR and 74 RBI in 1968, you'd immediately say that was an ok season. And it's that same judgement that you're applying to his career.

Yaz was the only hitter in the American League to hit .300 that season. The second place finished in the batting race hit .290. That was a great season when you consider what all the other hitters in the American League did that year. With a .301/23/74 line, he had a 10.4 WAR, which is MVP level.

Yaz had three seasons which, by WAR, rate as MVP seasons: 1967, 1968 and 1970. He had 5 other seasons with a WAR 5.0 and above, which are strong All Star seasons. And he had another where his WAR was 4.9. Now, I'm not the biggest WAR proponent there is. I'm just going by this because it's easy for the sake of a quick discussion. That's 8 seasons where he played at a strong All Star level or higher, really 9 if you consider 1965. Should 1965 be considered? He only had a 4.9 WAR, but in 1965, Yaz led the league in doubles, on base percentage, slugging, OPS, and OPS +.

And that was his ninth best season.

Yaz was a tremendous player for much of his career. In 1977, at age 37, he was still hitting .296 with 28 home runs and 100 + RBI. Now, he had a few seasons that weren't at that level before then, but he was still a very productive player. In 1962, he had only a 4.4 WAR. Would you take him to play on your team that year? 99 runs, 191 hits, 43 doubles, 19 home runs, 94 RBI, .296 AVG. Of course you would.

I think it's a misnomer to say he had only a few great seasons.

Bill, well said in defense of Yaz. It seems often forgotten how 1968 was so dominated by pitching, that they had to lower the mound afterwards!

Yaz on the road
 

Away from Fenway Park in his career Yaz was .264/.357/.422. Against left-handed pitching his splits were .244/.321/.371. He benefited huge playing in Fenway not only because of the park but because opposing managers were reluctant to start lefties in Fenway due to "the Wall". I still think he is a Hall of Famer, but other than Fred Lynn and Wade Boggs I am not certain there is a hitter who benefited more from their home park (pre-Coors) then Yaz.

Anybody who thinks Dick Allen is a Hall of Famer should read Bill James view on him. Basically what somebody mentioned earlier on the thread about his clubhouse issues.

Regarding Dick Allen, "the clubhouse cancer":

- Asked if Allen's behavior ever had a negative influence on the team, Mauch said: "Never."

- Chuck Tanner: "Dick was the leader of our team, the captain, the manager on the field. He took care of the young kids, took them under his wing. And he played every game as if it was his last day on earth."

- Goose Gossage credited him for making him a better pitcher

- Stan Bahnsen:"I actually thought that Dick was better than his stats. Every time we needed a clutch hit, he got it. He got along great with his teammates and he was very knowledgeable about the game. He was the ultimate team guy."

- Mike Schmidt: "The baseball writers used to claim that Dick would divide the clubhouse along racial lines. That was a lie. The truth is that Dick never divided any clubhouse."


Dick Allen got a lot of flak for being a clubhouse cancer, no question. And he earned some of it - walking away from the White Sox because of a feud with Ron Santo, for example. But he also got flak for costing a white player (Frank Thomas) his job when that player actually attacked Allen (with a bat). His rep as a cancer is way overblown, without a doubt.

And, bottom line: Career OPS+ of 156. That's super-elite territory, folks.

It was a fine season under tough conditions. Good for 9th place in MVP voting behind Denny McLain, Willie Horton, Bill Freehan and Ken Harrelson.

By any standard, the .264/12/68 Yaz put up in 1972 was not great. Or the .254/15/70 the year before.

Obviously, since I said it, I disagree.

Fact is, we're talking about a corner outfielder who played 23 seasons yet topped 30 HRs just 3 times. He topped .300 just 6 times. And for all his defensive prowess in left field - a position so defensively important in Boston that Manny Ramirez manned it for nearly a decade - he played barely 60% of his career in LF. And, as mentioned, .264/.357/.422 on the road for his career. That's not even remotely in the elite category.

Really, he's a guy that looked like an elite player up through 1970 and then coasted on that rep for another 13 years.

+1
 

+1

Sometimes I think the HOF purists (if they had their way) would hardly have enough members to play a mythical game (barely two players per position) without "watering down" the Hall. There just aren't enough Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb or Christy Mathewson types without getting down to the merely OK: You know, the pedestrian 250-300 game winners or guys who only paced the league a few times and ranked in the top 10 annually but never apparently set the world on fire.

I'm obviously a Red Sox fan being from Boston, and it's sacrilege to say it, but I agree. He did have a couple of seasons I would categorize as excellent in the late 70s, but his typical post-70 season (he played through 83)-- even in the context of the times -- was just above average for his positions.

I think that you are attacking a straw man. I haven't seen anyone suggest that only the truly elite first team all time types belong. It's a long way from there to the Bill Mazeroskis and Travis Jacksons, with plenty of outstanding players who almost nobody would quibble with in between.

Allen will get in when everyone who was around to see him play has passed on, or forgotten what a bad actor/clubhouse lawyer he was. A great hitter, but he was truly trouble "brewing," too much of the time (pun intended)!

Sincerely,

Larry

Allen
 

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Not exactly an overwhelming set of names there.

I am in the school that tends to think the HOF has a few duds, but I think I’d put in Hodges, Allen, and Minoso. I wouldn’t have a problem with Wills or Oliva. The others I don’t think belong…

Two I really think should be in are Tommy John and Curt Flood. Both very very good players who have arguably had more influence in shaping the game of baseball than anybody else in the last 50 years. The combination of on-field merit and off-field influence seems like it should qualify them easily.

Hodges.

They left out my favorite: Maris.

See my post above. Allen's bad reputation is waaaaaay overstated.

Was Tommy John an influence? Or was his doctor?

Definitely both.

Like most things, it's a matter of both of them being in the right place at the right time. But I doubt that Tommy John surgery would be as ubiquitous today if he had fizzled out. They didn't even attempt the same surgery for two years after John because they wanted to see how his arm held up. And it more than held up—he pitched 200+ innings in each of the first five seasons he was back, during which time he was also a perennial Cy Young candidate. He was stubborn enough to insist upon having the surgery and had the work ethic to rehab and return to success. I believe he's also the winningest pitcher not in the Hall of Fame (for whatever wins are worth), but would have to double check.

Roger Clemens might have a few more.

And... No soup for you!!!

Votes Percentage
Dick Allen 11 68.8%
Tony Oliva 11 68.8%
Jim Kaat 10 62.5%
Maury Wills 9 56.3%
Minnie Minoso 8 50%
Ken Boyer 3 or fewer
Gil Hodges 3 or fewer
Bob Howsam 3 or fewer
Billy Pierce 3 or fewer
Luis Tiant 3 or fewer

http://baseballhall.org/hof/golden-e...ounces-results

What an absolute shame that Hodges is not going to be in the Hall of Fame...I just don't get it.

Jeff

I get it. He was a really good player for 8 years.

But the MLB EloRater says he was better than Barry Bonds. If we can't trust the EloRater, whom can we trust?

why Oliva and T. John,Kaat have been kept out ...I don't get it.you vote for the dominant players of an era.Even Allen minus the fielding ...well,he deserves another look.Oliva was one of the most feared AL batters of his time.feel bad for Hodges.

The Hall of Fame's endless voting debacle continues. The naysayers win again ...

When Gil Hodges retired he had hit more homeruns than any right-handed hitter in National League history.

Same for Gavvy Cravath. Where's his plaque?

Shameful results. Minoso, Oliva, and Tiant deserve to be selected...certainly Tony Perez isn't the only Hall-of-Famer from Cuba. Is there a bias against Cuban players?

Personally, I am among those who think they got it right the first time, and am glad that none of these very good players got in.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

And he won a World Series as a player and a manager...how many others can say the same thing? Once in a while it shouldn't be all about the stats.

Jeff

Hodges never received less than 49% of the vote while he was on the active ballot. If half the people who ever saw your play thought you were a HOFer, I think there's something to that.

Compare that to recent Veterans Committee inductees:

Santo - never topped 40 %
Joe Gordon - never topped 28.5 %
Mazz - never topped 42 %

None of them deserved it either. ;)

Yeap.
I think we know a true HOFer when we see one, and these guys, fine players though they were, are not it.

I am fairly lenient
 

with the Hall of Fame I would not have cried if Wills, Allen, Kaat, Pinson, or Hodges had gotten in the Hall. Like I said though I am fairly lenient with who I would put in the hall.

Tony Perez always said Tony Oliva is a player that should be in the hall of fame next to him and I definitely agree. Minoso is another player that definitely had a great career and has a case for the hall but I don't see him as a definite. Tiant had some great years and is my favorite Cuban pitcher of all time but I just don't see a case for him. Shame they didn't get in but the hall does the same thing every year.

Nick

What a joke, why have a committee at all?!