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Nominations for the Hall Of Commons - let's play.
Here's a fun holiday experiment
There are lots of great players who never reached Hall of Fame Worthiness. They just did their job and pleased the fans, but went unrecognized after their career. Guys like Joe Rudi or Ron Fairly So let's start taking nominations for the HALL OF COMMONS The only qualification is they could never have received more than five votes in any official Hall Of Fame balloting. You'll need to do some research for nominations but it's available on line. When we have enough nominations we'll start a poll and we can vote on the inaugural class for the Hall Of Commons. |
If those are your requirements, then start with Shoeless Joe Jackson. He received 2 votes in 1936 and 2 votes in 1946. Those were the only two times he received votes for the Hall of Fame.
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I like the name "Hall of Non-Hall of Famers"
Brian |
Hal McRae.
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Ken Holtzman.
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Babe Herman
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I always liked Brandon Webb. Won the Cy Young and then finished second two years in a row. Threw four innings the next season and then never pitched again.
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Lance Berkman (and yet Harold Baines is in)
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Chet Lemon.
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George Hendrick.
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Willie Randolph
Eric Davis Cesar Cedeno Jim Wynn Reggie Smith Gene Tenace Boog Powell Rick Reuschel Jerry Koosman Andy Messersmith Mike Cuellar Denny McLain Bill Freehan Sam McDowell |
Jerry Koosman
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Willie Randolph 1st came to mind. 66 WAR and only 5 votes his 1st year, and then off the ballot.
There's guys IN the Hall of Fame right now who were on the same ballot, that Randolph destroys in THAT metric anyways. |
Dave "King Kong" Kingman
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Brian Downing is another guy who's been treated well by modern day analytics. Same year as Randolph. 2 Votes and off.
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Davey Lopes
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Bobby Grich has 71.1 WAR and 2.6% of the votes in his only time on the ballot. Look at Derek Jeter with 71.3 WAR in 4,400 more PAs and people were upset he didn't get 100% of the votes. Larkin and Trammell are in with lower WAR. Trammell in particular had a lot of career overlap with Grich. You also have to bring up Lou Whitaker when you mention Trammell. |
Lefty O'Doul.
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Thought of Grich, but he didn't qualify under the conditions of the original post.
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Willie Wilson
Steve Finley |
Hall of Commons
Bill Madlock? Al Oliver?
Trent King |
Tip O'Neil
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Jose Rijo
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Ross Barnes
Jim Creighton Fred Dunlap There’s a lot of 19th century guys who didn’t reach 5 vote. those who hit certain milestones or were believed to have invented X or innovated Y got put in early on, and then it’s been almost completely ignored ever since without any serious honest look. The majority of deserving players who never got a real look are in the 19th century. |
Jason Kendall is ranked 21st All-Time at catcher via JAWS. 2 votes and out in 2016.
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Jimmy Sheckard
A brief blurb from his bio: In his 17-year career, Sheckard hit .274, with 56 home runs, 813 RBI, 1296 runs, 354 doubles, 136 triples, and 465 stolen bases in 2122 games played. In 1911, he set the single season record for walks with 147 before it was broken by Babe Ruth in 1920. He is one of only four players in the modern era (1900-present) to hold this record along with Ruth, Jack Crooks, and Barry Bonds. Sheckard is also the all-time leader among left fielders in assists, with 243. Plus he has one of the coolest T206 cards in my opinion! |
Brian Giles was overshadowed by a bunch of guys that were definitely on PEDs during his era...though I've never heard a whisper about him.
.291 career hitter, .400 career OBP, .502 career slugging = .902 career OPS, 137 OPS+ Was a bit of a late bloomer, costing him some counting stats. 0 votes for the HOF in 2015. |
Frank Howard would be perfect, but he got six votes his first and only year
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I like to ask people that think they know sports what native San Diegan won (6) HR crowns in the major leagues. The answer these sports aficionados usually give is Ted Williams. I mean that would seem like a good answer. The answer is the response to this thread:
Gavvy Cravath |
Cecil Cooper - A player whom the term "Professional Hitter" might have been invented for. Lifetime .300 hitter, a couple of RBI and Doubles Titles. Even threw in a couple of Gold Gloves.
I was surprised to see he didn't get a single vote. You would have thought a Milwaukee area voter might have thrown him a bone or two. :eek: |
Jason Giambi immediately came to mind, ~50 WAR, but he has 6 votes, so nope!
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Three from the Big Red Machine...
George Foster Dave Concepcion Ken Griffey |
I'll throw a knuckleball in here with Charlie Hough.
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Willie Horton
Joe Adcock |
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Who am I kidding.....I love to be the gatekeeper of the thread! |
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A horrible 1st Baseman, but an absolute hitting machine in his prime. Would have guessed he got more votes. |
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My favorite ballplayer growing up was Moose Skowron. I am not conversant in Sabrmetrics and the like but I maintain he was a pretty good ballplayer. I concede he ought not to be in the HOF conversation but it still pisses off my inner eight-year-old that he never received a single vote.
His game-used 1957 cap. |
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I was slow to fully embrace WAR, but then I noticed so few cases where I disagreed with it. Many of them were 19th century outfielders getting poor defensive ratings. It seems now that a lot of people who don't like it, just point to some outliers they disagree with, but a lot of them have explanations. Someone on Twitter yesterday mentioned Brendan Ryan being rated higher than Paul Konerko one season as their reason it made no sense, but all they showed was offensive stats. Of course a lot of people agreed. Ryan was a well above average defensive shortstop. Konerko was a well below average defensive first baseman, who had a very mediocre season by his own standards at the plate. WAR helps show the massive defensive value difference between an elite shortstop and a below average first baseman. There's also some value taken from base running, which again was a huge advantage to Ryan. I see very few surprises with the stat now, though I'll mention I use Baseball-Reference (bWAR) and not Fangraphs (fWAR), because I've seen a lot with Fangraphs WAR numbers that I don't like. |
Cecil Travis. It says on Google he never appeared on BBWAA ballots. I don't know about any eras ballots.
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Tim Wakefield
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Eddie Yost. Unless the gatekeeper says he got votes. I couldn't find him on a ballot. The Walking Man.
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Vince “the other, other” Dimaggio
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Earl Battey
From Wikipedia: Richard Kendall of the Society for American Baseball Research devised an unscientific study that ranked Battey as the seventh most dominating fielding catcher in major league history. |
Jon Matlack
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Jim Sunburg
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Sal Bando
Joe Rudi Greg Luzinski Amos Otis Ken Singleton Jay Buhner |
Luis Gonzalez, Aramis Ramirez, John Olerud, Jason Kendall, Jesse Orosco, Frank Tanana, Chili Davis, Cecil Cooper, Reggie Smith, Eric Davis, Jose Rijo, Rocky Colavito, Juan Pierre, Roy Oswalt, Steve Finley, Jimmy Key, Brett Butler, Brandon Phillips, Matt Holiday
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John Olerud
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Keep the names coming. We will do background checks on then and the release the first ballot on Christmas Day. You will have one month to vote on the most deserving for the inaugural Hall of Commons
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Rick Reuschel, as previously mentioned. Granted, neither he nor his brother really looked like plausible professional athletes (If this were any other website I could easily copy and paste a photo of their 1977 Topps card, but you know what I mean.).
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Okay, this thread has forced me into creating a list of players with Prewar cards that had at least 2 votes in a single BBWAA election, but also not more than 5. At the end of this list I have included a few notable players that had no more than 1 vote during a single BBWAA election, and some notable players with 5 or less votes on the original 1936 Veteran's Committee vote for 19th century players . I have excluded from consideration any voting from all other committees.
Grouped by the top amount of votes received in any one year, and in no particular order within each grouping: 5 votes Bill Wambganss Joe Bush Fielder Jones Firpo Marberry Moe Berg Max Bishop Heinie Groh Bill Bradley Bill Carrigan 4 votes Art Fletcher Dolph Camilli Cookie Lavagetto Urban Shocker George Uhle Bill Donovan Bob O'Farrell 3 votes Jack Barry Charlie Berry Mort Cooper Tony Cuccinello Bill Doak Lew Fonseca Mike Gonzalez Frankie Gustine Willie Kamm Roger Peckinpaugh Luke Sewell Bill Werber 2 votes Joe Jackson Eddie Foster Eddie Grant Deacon Phillippe Terry Turner George Earnshaw Al Schacht Tommy Thevenow George Selkirk Donie Bush Guy Bush Hughie Critz Jim Tobin Kid Elberfeld Jake Daubert George J. Burns Ossee Schrecongost Larry Doyle Gavvy Cravath Jack Combs Marty Bergen Hans Lobert Sherry Magee Ping Bodie Wally Berger Ossie Bluege Ray Kremer Fred Leach Marty McManus Lee Meadows Van Lingle Mungo Cy Perkins Bill Sherdel Riggs Stephenson Red Kress Bill Hallahan George Case Augie Galan Notable players with maximum of 1 vote Bobby Veach Harry Steinfeldt Sam Leever Frank Schulte Tommy Leach 1936 19th century Veteran's votes Charlie Bennett - 3 Ross Barnes - 3 Fred Dunlap - 3 Jack Glasscock - 2 Ed Williamson - 2 Bobby Lowe - 2 Brian |
Jimmy Ryan
George Van Haltren |
Larry Doyle
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Reggie Smith - As has been mentioned by a couple people already. 64.5 WAR, 137 career OPS+
Ranked 19th All-Time in RF (though he played almost as many games in CF). Injury history, particularly in the 2nd half of his career, caused him to miss lots of games, costing him plenty of counting stats. Finished off his career with a couple of pretty strong seasons in Japan, when he left the Giants after the '82 season. Ranked almost identical to Dwight Evans in many categories, who gets a lot of HOF love from modern day analysts. 3 HOF votes in 1988 and out. |
I believe the enshrinement of Bid McFee brought some collector interest to 19th century cards and memorabilia. When he was elected, his N172 card seemed to quadruple overnight. Fortunately, I had one in my Full Count inventory, so I was naturally pleased. Sold it about a year later for a nice profit.
I was reading an article recently from the old VCBC magazine (Dennis Purdy's great old mag) about 19th Century players deserving the Hall. Barnes was top of the list followed by a sundry of players, eg. Glasscock, Ryan etc. Sure wish VCBC was still around; it was a great reference tool and several board members contributed articles, like Kevin Struss and Barry Sloate. |
Johan Santana
He did get (10) votes, but how Johan Santana didn’t get more is crazy. Two time Cy Young award winner and 6 straight top 7 finishes!
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Saw Moe Berg, probably a +1 on that for a similar reason to my submission.
Curt Flood is perhaps one of the most influential professional sports athletes of all time (in America) and has never even been on the Hall of Fame ballot. Curt Flood's lawsuit against baseball's reserve clause leads directly to the establishment of free agency, in baseball and all other pro sports. He was also a Senator, so that's a plus 1. Agree on Denny McLean as well - looks like he got 4 total votes. ---- Update to my own post! I was relying on this quote from his daughter: “Interestingly enough, my father has never been nominated to be in the Hall of Fame. He’s never been on the ballot,” Shelly Flood said. But, according to Baseball Reference, Flood got 16 votes in 1977 and 8 votes in 1978, so - he's out! I'll submit in his place Camilo Pascual and Pedro Ramos, who played for both the original Senators (that moved to Minnesota) and for the expansion Senators. |
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Roy Sievers. he had some really good years on bad teams and played In Griffith Stadium with a long left field distance. Won first AL ROY and beat out Mantle and Williams for a HR and RBI title.
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7 total votes over two years on the ballot (1971 and 1972). If we expanded this to 10 votes or less, Sievers is a first ballot guy! 1957 Home Run Champ!
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My all-time favorite Pirate:
Manny Sanguillen. |
They're technically eliminated because they got 6 votes but I always thought Moises Alou and Alfonso Soriano were great players. WAR does not like them at all.
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Hope my research was right that he only got three votes but my favorite player as a kid was Bucky Dent. World series hero and solid player.
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Overlooked
Mickey Lolich
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Pete Rose...(is he eligible for this HOF?)
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Mark Fidrych. For one glorious season, he was the most beloved ballplayer on earth. As for Cecil Travis, it's truly sad that he lived to be nearly 100 and never received the call from Cooperstown. The argument by the Hall of Fame's stingy and utterly clueless gatekeepers is that he didn't play long enough. But he did record the third highest career batting average of any shortstop all-time, and would likely have continued playing, but WWII got in the way, and he lost a couple toes in the Battle of the Bulge. The way I see it, the Hall of Fame was built for guys like Cecil.
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I couldn't find his voting stats, but Chris Sabo was a fan favorite in Cincinnati, 3x All Star and WS Champion in 1980. Also elected to the Reds HOF.
I would be shocked if he received more than 5 MLB HOF votes. Like the Manny Sanguillen and Sal Bando nominations earlier. I'll also add Mark Belanger and two former Tiger pitchers with much different careers; one with a meteoric rise and subsequent fall and was the toast of the town - Mark Fidrych, and another that pitched for 21 season with 240 wins - Frank Tanana. |
Belanger and Lolich both had too many votes to qualify.
Sabo, Fidrych and Bo Jackson didn't play enough seasons to get on the ballot. Whether that's a disqualifier or not, I'll leave up to the OP. ;) |
George Scott
Garry Maddox Both had 8 gold gloves |
I believe Tim Salmon only received 5 votes then was off the ballot. As an Angels fan, it is painful he has not been brought up yet. But, he played his whole career for the Angels, so I guess it makes sense.
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