I'll try to limit my list as admittedly I'm that guy that thinks we should let more in.
Gil Hodges
Steve Garvey
Deacon Phillippe
Dave Parker
Kenny Lofton
Luis Tiant
Ken Boyer
Jack Glasscock
Minnie Minoso
Tony Oliva
Dave Concepcion(I don't know why great defense is not more of a consideration but heck the guy has over 2300 hits too).

Bay Area Candidates

1) Lefty O'Doul
2) Will Clark
3) Vida Blue
4) Jose Canseco
5) Billy Martin

O'Doul undoubtedly should be in. Clark is kid of Dale Murphy level. Blue and Canseco put up numbers equal to or better than other borderline HOF candidates but have drugs (Blue) and steroid (Canseco) scandals hanging over their heads.

Billy Martin should be in at the very least as a manager.

If you like Keith Hernandez, then John Olerud goes in. Dead serious.

Garvey having low home run and OPS totals are the reason he's not in. Also, he committed few errors but had poor range.

Garvey
 

I agree that his fielding stats are misleading. I remember from back in the day he would hardly stretch or go off the bag. If the throw was errant, too bad.

BUT I am hugely sympathetic to him possibly going in. For starters, he was a 10-time all star and fell just 401 hits short of 3,000. His career avg. was .294 and in post-season action he excelled, batting .338 in 55 post-season games with 11 home runs (which equates to a home run in 4.7% of plate appearances compared to his career average of 2.9%) and 31 RBIs.

And look at this stat!

Number of seasons with 200+ hits.

Steve Garvey - 6
Tony Gwynn - 5
Rod Carew - 4

Garvey was a great post season player. One of the best. He was a dominant player in his era. Sometimes the stats don't tell the true story. He should be in the Hall of Fame if Tony Perez and Harold Baines are in. Keith Hernandez should also be in based upon some of the past selections.

Saw each of them play for a significant time, your stats don't impress me. How about seeing them in action.

If he was truly dominant, the stats would reflect that. Dominant corner infielders don't hit 21 or fewer homers in 16 of their 19 seasons. They don't end up with a career .775 OPS. Dominant players have seasons over 140 OPS+ (Garvey: 0).

Garvey was a fine player but he was a (mostly) singles hitter at a position where power is the norm.

He had a horrible throwing arm as well.

Brian

Was Garvey worse than Tommy McCarthy, Rizzuto, Mazeroski, George Kelly or Baines? If thats the standard to get in, there's a lot of players who have been overlooked.

Albert Belle averaged a homer every 3.5 games during his carrer, ended with a average right under 300, better then Baines. Had less then half the amount of ABs as Baines but more HRs and a way higher ops, war and slugging %. But no he is not a HOF in my book.
Shoot Harold McCrae averaged better per season #s then Baines.
I don't even want to start on George Kelly....



Sent from my SM-A716U1 using Tapatalk

Thankfully, the “the mistakes of the past are the new criteria” approach isn’t the one widely used.

Consider the Era he played in. There were not many power hitting First Basemen like Rose, Hernandez, Chris Chambliss, Al Oliver, Rod Carew and others. Garvey has a higher OPS than Mantle in the post season. It should count for something. Garvey also had a 130 OPS+ five times including a 138+ in 1978.

Concepcion
 

I’ll second the vote for Dave Concepción of the 70s Big Red machine. For my money, one of the best defensive shortstops that ever played the game. His connection with Joe Morgan at 2nd was special. He could also handle the bat but kind of played second fiddle to the superstars on that team. The fact he hung around a little bit longer on the Reds when they went through some lean times didn’t help.

I've looked at Pinson pretty closely. He was a nice player. i think he needed two things to make the hall of fame...had his best seasons been more evenly distributed and had he played on a couple of teams that were a little more competitive. He was on the "catch lightning in a bottle" 1961 Reds team that ran into a meat grinder vs. the Yankees.

Schilling, while a complete tool post-career, is a no-brainer.

3 WS rings
11-2 PS record
3,000 ks (only eligible member of this club not in HOF)
26th career WAR (all 25 ahead of him in HOF)
300 k's 3 times

Over-shadowed by Johnson and Pedro at times but won big game after big game.

How Mussina got in before Schilling still rankles me.

Playing in an era of mediocre first basemen doesn't make Garvey any better. He had basically the same OPS as Dan Driessen. Funny that you left out Willie Stargell and Jason Thompson when naming his contemporaries.

Yes, he was a very good postseason performer, beating out Mantle in OPS by .002, but that's not nearly enough to offset his simply "pretty good" regular season numbers.

Yes, he topped 130 in OPS+ but that's not "dominant". It's good but it's not dominant. He had one season in top 10 for OPS (10th place in 1978). One season over 5 in WAR. Two seasons top 10 in slugging, none over .500.

Garvey had a really nice career and I like the man. He was EXTREMELY nice to my friend & I when we met him a few years ago. But he wasn't dominant and he simply wasn't good enough for the Hall.

The metrics aren't so good for Gil Hodges either.

Jack Glasscock - he would be the only 1880's SS in the HOF ... George Wright is a pioneer who was done by the 1870's. Great long career and he did most of it without a glove.

Bobby Caruthers - a great pitcher who could play everyday and hit really well .. I guess Ohtani is the modern version and it hasn't happened since Ruth in about 1920.

JIm McCormick - He lost 40 in one season but his WAR is still higher than just about anyone eligible for the HOF (not named Clemens or Bonds).... and even higher than Mike Trout for the time being ...

Bill Dahlen - Great player who was recognized as a big deal in his own era. Strange how he got missed in the 50's when it seemed like they were putting everyone from the early 20th Century in the HOF who was a little famous. Even stranger that they missed George Davis until Bill James seems to have recovered him. Davis is statistically near the very top of Shortstops all-time.

Minnie Minoso -

Buck O'Neil - A lifetime achievement award.... He was a very good player and a good manager/coach too. But it's the whole package. This is generally not something the HOF is good at crediting. They like to compartmentalize the candidates.

Lou Whitaker

Comparing Ozzie Smith and Omar Vizquel`s careers never really understood why one player is a hall of famer while the later barely gets 50% of the necessary votes. Omar`s numbers, minus the back flip, more than match up with Smith`s yet he rarely gets noticed.

You said it yourself, "a complete tool". People are denied entry for any number of reasons. I guess being an idiot, no matter your ballplaying accomplishments, will keep you out on occasion. Somebody on the MLB Network, while they were discussing the no selected 2020, said along with Jackson and Rose, Schilling will never go in.

This may be a different thread, but I have noticed there are a few players that people sometimes assume are in the Hall of Fame who are not (to the point of auction listings mistakenly mentioning the player being a HOFer).

Offhand, I can think of the following:
Jimmy Dykes
Charlie Grimm
Babe Herman
Pepper Martin

ALOT of auction listings state "HOF" or "Future HOF" in the title to grab your attention. Some are laughable....some are questionable.....some are likely.....some are a certainty.

Stargell was essentially and usually exclusively a Left Fielder in his prime. He did not start playing first base exclusively until 1975 and then he never came close to playing a full season. The most games he played was 126 in his co-mvp year (which was a make-up for his 1973 season) and he often played far less then that. So I would not consider him a contemporary of Garvey at first base. The fact is that you have to look pretty hard to find the power hitting first baseman that you see in other eras. That's why I think you have to judge a player in the era they played and not compare to other times. When you do that, you have to search and find a Jason Thompson as opposed to a Jim Thome. So considering everything, Garvey compares favorably in my humble opinion..

Eh, he was mostly a 1B as early as 1972.

And Garvey compares favorably to who? In 1977, one of his best years, he was middle of the pack in OPS+ among 1B. His contemporaries also included Tony Perez, Willie McCovey, and others. Heck, Bill Robinson outhit him.

The fact that Jason Thompson - a guy "you have to search and find" had a higher OPS+ than Garvey speaks volumes about Garvey being "dominant".

Garvey was a 10 time all star so I guess there is that. It seems like perhaps more than anyone in history, his metrics were crushed by not walking.

Garvey
 

I'll add a wrinkle to the Garvey discussion. I think he suffers from dare I say a "branding" or perception issue. I think a strong case can be made that he deserves to be in the HOF. Garvey was SEEN as a slugger but his numbers do not show someone with abundant power. And yet Garvey had 6 seasons with 200 hits, 1 with 190 and 3 with 175+. He sported a career .294 avg. and batted over .300 7 times. So Garvey, when identified or compared to the prototypical "slugger" pales and yet his numbers paint him more as an excellent pure hitter who had impressive, but not incredible, power.

To make an investing comparison, he is a like a stock that is growing revenue/earnings far less than a stock like Amazon, so it won't fetch a generous valuation/multiple yet his relative power obscures how good a batsman he was so he doesn't get sufficient credit for that. In a sense he is in no man's land. Harmon Killebrew had a mediocre batting average but had power in spades (growth) and Rod Carew had hits and a high average (value). Falling into either profile I think makes it easier for people to judge someone's overall career. Granted, many all-time greats straddle both categories and have received proper recognition but that is because they were so accomplished there was nothing to debate — think Aaron, Mays, F. Robby, etc.

Im a small Hall guy so I will take someone out if Im putting someone in...

Putting in:

Buck O'Neil
Lefty O'Doul
-both based on a solid careers and stellar post career involvement and contributions.

Rafael Palmeiro
Sammy Sosa
-there are already steroid guys in so lets not be hypocritical here, these two should have been no brainers (3000 hits/500 HR guy and a 600 HR guy) had it not been for steriods

Taking out:
Rabbit Maranville
Jesse Haines
Bud Selig
Candy Cummings

(Schilling should be in and probably will get in so Im not listing him)

His home park was one of the toughest to hit home runs in. So what you are saying is if he played for the Braves and had exaggerated HR numbers, he would be a HoFer.

The game is decided by who scores the most runs, not who hits the most HRs or what team has the highest OPS. Garvey did what it took to win games, not impress want to be Statisticians.

To Veterans Committee HOF picks. He received over 40% of the BBWAA votes 3 times including his 1st time on the ballot. That typically signals that a player will get in eventually. Like Curt Schilling, his case was hurt by negative publicity in his personal life when he was on the ballot.

Willie McCovey 6 time All Star. Tony Perez 7 time All Star. Steve Garvey 10 time All Star. His contemporaries thought he belonged in that group.

I for one wish there weren't executives in the hall of fame. It just clutters up the place and no one ever paid to see Morgan Bulkeley's plaque.

Please you want to put in middling older players and ignore more modern studs. That’s one of baseballs biggest problems over romanticizing the past and over criticizing the modern era and present day. Why it’s no longer the number one sport it’s fans are annoying as hell.

The moody blues

I don't believe this to be true for O'Doul. The Japanese / MLB / Asian pipeline is new and ever evolving but I don't think MLB ever gets to see talents like Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, or Ohtani without O'Doul.

A good point in why O'Doul and more so O'Neil should be in the Hall of Fame is if you are truly exercising the "character" clause to eliminate and not vote for people...then you should also be using it in selecting people like Buck O'Neil and putting them in.

I'm not sure what Garvey did to win games that does not appear in the stats. I'd be interested to hear from the Garvey side specifics here, what the available stats are not accounting for. What am I, specifically, missing by looking at his stats?

As far as I can tell, Garvey's OPS numbers are more hurt by the fact that he was not good at getting on base. His power is not that great for a 1B, but it's not that bad either. His on bae is bad. .329 is straight up terrible for a player in HOF discussion. He did not walk, he hit into a lot of double plays, his power is mediocre. And he did this while he played the least important defensive position and the strongest offensive production positions.

He got a lot of hits because he hit .290-.300 and never walked. It's not really a good thing that he got a few more hits than some other guys in far more at bats. He should get some points for playing 160 games a year (consistently showing up like that certainly is a bonus to a team), but his annual hit totals are not because he was a super star contact hitter (.294), it's because he had a huge number of at bats because he player 160 games and never walked.

For many reasons, I do not trust the advanced defensive statistics to be very accurate for past players, so I will leave that out of it.

Drove in runs. If you have 2nd and 3rd with two outs, do you want your star to try to draw a walk or try to get a hit? Garvey hit .373 in those situations. You win by scoring the most runs not by drawing the most walks.
Garvey was clutch at getting big hits, driving in runs and winning games. OBP is for losers. How many World Series has Mike Trout led his team too?

I don't understand the obsession with drawing walks. You don't make an out, but now you are asking a worse player to get a hit to drive in runs and win the game. Pitchers intentionally walk batters to do exactly the same thing. That should tell you how little value a walk can have.

The logical issues here should be immediately apparent.

1) If driving in runs is what matters, how is a player supposed to drive in runs if getting on base is irrelevant and "for losers"?

2) The only way to score a run without first getting on base is to hit a home run, which Garvey was not very good at either. So this doesn't seem to help his case.

3) No player has single handedly taken his team to a championship title. By the standard of winning games, backups on the Yankees are some of the very best players of all time and Ted Williams sucks. Does this make sense?

4) There is a very strong correlation and causation between A) getting on base and B) runs being scored by that players team because it is a pre-requisite for the vast majority of runs scored in any time period of the game. A home run with the bases empty is the only way to score without first being on base.

5) If getting on base is "for losers" and Garvey's lack of home run power is also not a problem, then there appears to be literally no offensive standard of production to be a hall of famer.

6) If by driving in runs we mean RBI's are the key metric, then getting on base cannot be for "losers" as a players RBI's come from his teammates getting on base.

7) If we completely ignore the direct contradiction in 6, and say RBI's is what matters even though getting on base is irrelevant and for losers, Garvey ranks 109th with dozens of non-HOF players ahead of him. Reuben Sierra, Garret Anderson, Chili Davis, Carlos Lee, and other legends of the game rank ahead of him. I guess we better elect all of them.

8) If RBI rate or productivity is what matters, Garvey fares even worse. He is 109th in RBI's, but 85th in all time at-bats, and many of those ahead of him were leadoff hitters not in an RBI position. He doesn't appear to actually be very good at driving in runs either.

Mike Trout's a loser, Charlie Silvera is great. On-base is for losers, home runs are irrelevant, driving in runs is king even though that can't possibly happen without players getting on base or hitting home runs. There may be a rational argument for Steve Garvey. This is obviously not it.

If pitches are not in the strike zone, the hitter's chance of success goes WAY down even if he's Ted Williams. This is why it's better to take the walk than to swing at ball four. As for the benefits of walks in general, read Bill James' analysis of substituting a batter who walked every time for Babe Ruth's best season. The team did better with the walker.

You clearly didn't read my post. If you think your star player's job is to get on base and not drive in runs, your team is never going to win anything. If you can't count on your best player to drive in runs, who is going to do it? Ted Williams is 15th all time in RBIs, how you can come up with Ted Williams sucks out of my post?

Ted took a huge amount of criticism from the press and fans for taking walks though. His philosophy was the one I articulated above -- he wasn't likely to have much success swinging at pitches out of the strike zone. His philosophy -- taught to him by Hornsby -- was get a good pitch to hit.

Dale Murphy had 2 MVPs and hit for serious power. Don't understand what is holding him back?

It comes from when you said "OBP is for losers. How many World Series has Mike Trout led his team too?" Ted Williams, the career OBP record holder, led his team to 0 World Series titles. Maybe if Ted had gotten on base less, the Sox would have won one and broken the curse decades earlier.

He didn't quite have the career stats.

Murphy had the low batting average at only .265 and with under 400 HR.

One interesting thing with Murphy is that he played in parts of 18 seasons, collecting 46.5 WAR. If you look at his WAR7, intended to measure peak value, Murphy’s is 41.2.

What does that suggest? A guy with a awesome peak, but not much longevity in terms of production. Just the kind of guy who “felt like a hall of famer”, but who’s career stats make him a borderline candidate.

So, that’s cool. :)

To put that in context, I believe Mookie Betts has already surpassed him in WAR.

Murphy was a significant player for 7 years (120 OPS+), and the rest of his career was about a league average bat to below. Traditional and Sabrmetric stats get him about right, I think. He was done contributing at age 31. I don't think he's a HOFer without electing a lot of other guys who were really good for 7 years too. He would hardly be the worst selection, but I see his case as being built more on nostalgia than math, which always makes me suspicious. I would vote no, but wouldn't consider him a ridiculous choice or anything.

I think McGriff is much more deserving than Murphy, for example, but agree the world wouldn't end.

Agree Murphy being inducted wouldn’t keep me up at night.

I mean Baines WAR was only 38.7, and WAR7 only 21.4. Plus, he played forever.

He has to be the most underserving electee in recent memory. Obviously some personal politics there.

McGriff, I just don't understand. If we are going to keep out the steroid guys who had the video game stats (I'm fairly agnostic on this), then how can we keep out guys who were a notch below but consistently excellent, top tier players like McGriff? He's a no brainer "Yes!" vote in my book unless we want almost nobody but Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey representing power hitters of the 90's. I thought he would take some time to get in, but I am surprised by his vote totals being about ~20% most of the years he was on the ballot. He capped at only 39% his final year. I hope the Era committees eventually fix this mistake.

Baines keeps me up at night. That was just a horrible selection any way you look at it. Almost anyone else on that ballot would be a better choice.