George Kelley... I think Kelley should be in. I initially didn't, I barely knew of him. He's mentioned in Thomas' excellent book about Walter Johnson. The newspaper writers of the day recognized his ability to hit. If I'd not read that stuff, I'd be less supportive of him, or indifferent. You guys should read that book.

Frisch. I'm a Cardinals fan. Lifelong. I'm a fan of Bill James, the book writer / baseball numbers cruncher. I liked his initial book about the Hall of fame, I think it was called The Politics of Glory. James was not a fan of what Frisch did. Partly, I think Frisch played then and he knew who should be in. I'm good with Haines in. And partly, the larger part, I think Frish and some others got the Hall nudged in an unfortunate direction. I used to think Gary Carter should not have gone in. He hustled, could hit, was a fierce competitor, but I did not hold his skills in awe. Now that T Simmons is in, I feel like Carter was about that good, so they both can stay in. (Like otherwise they'd pay attention to me and kick someone out???)

Perez. Again, I'm a life long Cardinals fan. I saw a bunch of Reds games in Cincy, and in St. Louis. When the Reds had runners on late in the game, it sure seemed like Tony Perez could drive them in. That man could put the bat on the ball when the game was on the line. If the HOF were up to me, I'd have him in. This little story may not be true... but one night, late in the game, Tony Perez hits a home run that puts the Reds ahead, and then one of those hard throwing relievers finishes things and the Reds win. The old lefthander, Joe Nuxhall, is doing the color part of the radio broadcast, and he goes down to the field to interview the star of the game. That night, it was Tony Perez. Tony was still on cloud 9, having homered to get the win. A very few questions in, Nuxhall asks, Tony, what was that pitch you hit? Joe, you know it was a peter high fast ball. Soon after, Nuxhall was ending his interview, as he most always did, repeating the winning team and the score, then saying that's all for tonight, the old lefthander is rounding third and heading for home.

Exhibits,

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Jack Morris belongs on that 10 inning World Series game alone. As stated in the article, everyone wanted Morris on their team and especially in clutch situations. That means something.

If Kelly and Haines are good selections despite the statistical evidence, how did Frisch edge the Hall in an unfortunate direction?

Buck O'Neil despite being a great human being and ambassador for the game has no business being in the hall. No real qualifications as a player (1.5 career WAR), manager (two Negro League titles after most of the talented players had been in the hall of fame...there were around six teams at the time) or executive (he was a coach and scout, not an executive). There is not ambassador category for the hall of fame. People always stand on their soapbox and tell me what a nice man he was...and I met him and he was, a real treasure. My Uncle Frank was nice, too, but he's not in the baseball hall of fame.

Just doesn't meet any criteria except that he got elected.

his career post season numbers are just as mediocre as his regular season numbers. Selective memory, we only remember the really awesome successes.

My preferred statistical guideline is the JAWS metric which blends career value with peak value... It show George Kelly as the 95th best 1st Basemen. Even if we give him some extra-credit for being an beloved part of some winning teams (4 pennants and 3 WS Champions 1921-24)*

.... even his nickname ("High Pockets) does not get him within shouting distance of being a HOF caliber player... There are 23 1Bs in the HOF (including some who probably get credit for managing etc like Chance and Torre and Negro League legends who we don't have many stats for)... Frank Chance, considered a low-end HOF when he's viewed purely as a player, rates as #37 Jim Bottomley scores as #56. .. Kelly is 95th !

--
* - Frankie Frisch was the 2B on all of these teams.

I’m alone on this one, and I know it.
 

I don’t think Edgar Martinez belongs in. All the WAR fans will say otherwise, for me, it comes down to a very simple fact. He didn’t play the field. Baines, Warner, and all the rest that are deemed OVERRATED still played the field.

I think the hall has gotten soft, and I think there are years that there shouldn’t be inductions, for the sake of inductions. If you are going to be inducted as a DH, in my mind, you have to achieve one of the gold standards for hitters, 3000 hits or 500 homers. Since they don’t field, to be the best of the best, which is what the hall is supposed to be about, you’d have to achieve at least one of those milestones.

Was he good, yes, very good, yes, hall of fame, not in my mind.

This is a good pick. He is in the Hall for being likable and being a decades-after-the-fact symbol, not for for any actual performance.

The NY Giants only won 2 WS during the years 1921-24. The NY Yankees and the Senators won the other 2 WS.

Yeah, Buck has to be #1 worst pick for any on-field personnel. We've kinda beaten that subject to death in the past, and I'm always surprised by the number of people who feel the opposite way about it. Just because I don't think he deserves enshrinement does it mean that he wasn't a wonderful human being. As I believe I mentioned when this was brought up in another thread, I just wish they would consider adding an Ambassadors wing. Then, fine, Buck has a place that makes sense, and we can finally get O'Doul in as well.

On a related note, what about undeserving non-playing members of the Hall? Help me out: who was the one that many feel was accidentally inducted, Hulbert or Bulkeley? It supposedly should have been Nick Young.

I will give him that he is the anti-Curt Schilling.

And it is the awesome successes that should play a part in the selection. Why do you think they have a committee that votes after the initial selections. Morris belongs there more than any compiler.(Sutton)

I was 15, about to turn 16, living in St. Paul in October '91. I therefore completely agree with this statement. That entire Series was incredible, but games 6 and 7 I shall never forget.

As for my 2 cents on who does NOT belong in the Hall, but is... Baines and Raines, period. Maybe Mazeroski too.

If Baines is in, then Hrbek should be! (half-joking...)

Other than the fact that it rhymes with Baines, what's your thinking on Raines?

He was a great base stealer in the '80s... but so were Eric Davis and Vince Coleman. He's the '80s equivalent of Jose Reys. He won 1 batting title, and his lifetime avg. is below .300. No WAY he deserves to be in! If he hadn't signed with NY, then he'd have no WS titles (maybe no playoff appearances) at all.

So you are comparing Tim Raines to Eric Davis, Vince Coleman and Jose Reyes.

Tim Raines has almost twice as many career hits as Eric Davis and Vince Coleman, and a lifetime batting average at least 25 points higher. Raines has more career hits and a higher average than Reyes by 12 points. In addition to having a much higher average, Raines also had a much higher OBP: Raines .385, Davis .359, Reyes .334, Coleman .324.

When Raines got on base he made it count. Not only does Tim Raines have more career stolen bases than any of the other players, he has a lower caught stealing rate.
Raines' career stolen bases only trails Rickey Henderson, Lou Brock, Billy Hamilton, and Ty Cobb. While it is unknown how many times Billy Hamilton was caught stealing, Raines has a lower caught stealing % than Henderson, Brock or Cobb. In fact Raines has the highest stolen base percentage of anyone with over 400 attempts. Raines stole 808 bases in 954 attempts for an 84.7% rate.

Because of his high OBP and steal rate, he cranked out a lot of runs. Raines ranks 55th ever in Runs at 1,571 (right behind Rogers Hornsby) compared to Reyes 1,180, Davis 938, Coleman 849.

Raines was a 7x All-Star--Coleman and Davis were 2x All Stars, and Reyes was a 4x All-Star

Career WAR: Raines 69.4, Reyes 37.4, Davis 36.1, Coleman only 12.5

7 Year Peak WAR: Raines 42.4, Davis 30, Reyes 29.3, Coleman only 13.2

JAWS: Raines 55.9 (8th best LF) , Reyes 33.4 (57th best SS), Davis 33.1 (64th best CF), Coleman 12.8 (186th best LF).

Raines had a better peak, and a much better career than the other players. He is about the 8th best left fielder ever, compared to Coleman who is the 186th best. Its just not a great comparison.

Fred McGriff is a similar type player as Albert Pujols. That doesn’t mean they have similar value or hall cases.

I think Raines should have got in earlier. He does pretty well in the modern analytics and he has a great traditional stat line.

[/QUOTE}I think Raines should have got in earlier. He does pretty well in the modern analytics and he has a great traditional stat line.[/QUOTE]

But at least to my eyes (the old "eyeball test" - nothing scientific) he just wasn't that amazing in the '80s/'90s. On those old Expos teams, Andres Galarraga was the difference maker, not this guy. Again, just my two cents.

I repeat...

Well its nice that you agree with yourself. That must have taken a lot of guts.

Now you are comparing Galarraga to Raines.

Galarraga was on the Montreal Expos from 1985 through 1991. During those years, his batting average was .267. Raines batted just over .300 during that time period.
Galarraga led the league in strikeouts 3x during the time period. Raines led the league in stolen bases 4x during the time period.

Galaragga's highest season WAR from 1985 through 1991 was 5.7 and his total WAR was 10.9
Tim Raines' highest season WAR from 1985 through 1991 was 7.6 and his total WAR was 33.2

I think Raines is a very good quality pick. He was also the player most hurt by collusion.

I like math more than someone’s eyeball test that relies on comparisons to players of a similar type but wildly different stat lines and careers.

Mickey Mantle finished under .300 and only has WS rings because he was a Yankee too.

I always wonder how people would look at Raines career if he didn't have a significant career overlap with Rickey Henderson.

But Math relies on the eye test.

Mhm.

Martinez was a DH the last 9 years of his career, Baines was a DH the last 15 years. Tough to argue Baines played the field

The Mantle statement is absurd.

Games in the field (non-DH):
Edgar: 592
Baines: 1,061

Innings in the field:
Edgar: 4,829.1
Baines: 8,955.2

Tough to argue Baines didn't play almost twice as long in the field.

That's like saying Jordan only won rings because he was on the Bulls. Mantle was the best player on all 7 of his World Series wins.

It's a team accomplishment; no player has solo'd a team to the World Series. Hence why Ted Williams has none. Mantle needed one of the greatest teams of all time around him, because a single player cannot carry an entire team.

The argument that Raines is not a legitimate hall of famer because he only has a ring because he played for a good team that year is obviously illogical.

In the last 15 years of Baines' career he played 81 games in the field out of 1838 games. If playing 4% of your games in the field means you're playing the field then that's hilarious. That's an average of 6 games per 162 season. Would you consider Big Papi playing the field when he played 5 games a season at 1st? Come on. Obviously Baines will have more games in the field than Edgar as he played for 82 years.

No, I would not consider 5 games to be a season in the field! Which is exactly why I used the reasonable metric of GAMES and innings!

I have no idea why you would only consider part of Baines career to look at their games at DH? Except, of course, that that's the only way to pretend that he didn't play almost twice as long in the field as Edgar. Which he did. As a matter of actual fact.

Harold Baines was a terrible choice for the Hall. We don't need to cut off 7 of his best seasons to make a gymnastics argument that he didn't play a lot more in the field than Edgar.

Raines is one of those guys that WAR loves far more than the numbers would seem to justify. In 1992, for example, his 7 homers and 22 doubles and .784 OPS were somehow worth a 6.3 WAR - basically the same as Mark McGwire and his 42 homers and league-leading 176 OPS+.

(Yes, I'm aware of the defensive component and positional adjustments, etc).

You really cherry-picked the data. Yes Raines had low doubles and HRs in 1992. After all, Raines was no longer an All-Star and was past his prime, having been traded to the White Sox. But he still hit .294 with an OBP of .380 (both 13th in the AL), had 9 triples (4th in the AL), and stole 45 bases (7th in the AL). With the high OBP, stolen bases and triples, he was still a run scoring machine with 102 (6th in AL).

And Raines had arguably his best fielding year with 312 putouts, 12 assists and only 2 errors in 129 games in the outfield.

I am not an expert in WAR, but it seems like if you get on base a lot, run the bases well, and field well, you can accumulate a lot of it.

He got on base less than McGwire, had an OPS nearly 200 points lower, and scored just 15 more runs in 73 more PAs.

All I'm saying is a WAR of 6.3 implies a REALLY good year and 13th in OBP with no power doesn't match that.

Again, defense and base running do matter. Winning baseball games involves more than hitting.

And to try to steer this back to the original topic--Tim Raines belongs in the HOF and is nowhere near one of the 25 worst in the HOF as someone wrote earlier.

I'm not sure he belongs but he definitely isn't in the 25 worst.

Agree 1000%