Worst HOfer Ever!
 

I vote for Ozzie Smith.

Bill Mazeroski, his OBP was .299, not even batting avg. If not for his historic HR he wouldn't be in.

I say Andre Dawson, its a joke that he was elected.

No
 

Ozzie Smith isn't the worst Cardinal in the HOF let alone the worst HOF'er. Chick Hafey and Jesse Haines are worse HOF'ers (and Cardinals).

Tommy McCarthy

Agreed.

Phil Rizzuto his offensive numbers are offensive :eek:

My two candidates are: Candy Cummings, who pitched a total of 6 years and was elected on the strength of the belief that he invented the curve ball which he probably did not. And... Ray Schalk, who has the lowest batting average of any position player in the HOF at .253, only had 6 seasons when he got as many as 100 hits, and IMHO was elected primarily because he was an honest player on the Black Sox of 1919. Certainly worthy of commendation but not a plaque in Cooperstown.

Bobby Cox

There are too many to just list 1.


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Jim Rice....a fantastic power hitter for a while....but not long enough.

Chance?

Pedestrian numbers as a player.

Successful, but rather brief tenure as a manager.

On the Baseball Reference HOF monitor he doesn't even come close to the HOF standards.

It had to be the poem, I suppose.

These are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double –
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”


Who would ever have elected Chance to Cooperstown if it wasn't for that gonfalon bubble?

It should be noted that Schalk was also considered a premier defender who caught multiple no-hitters.

Burleigh Grimes and Eppa Rixey.

I vote psa
 

Candy Cummings, don't know how for got changed to psa lol.

Rube Marquard
 

He had 3 good years in a row (like many other pitchers - for example J.R. Richard and Dave Stewart had 4 good years in a row) but if you exclude those 3 years, his W-L record is 128 wins and 149 losses.

I say Chance was the best of these three! Tinker was probably the worst.

George Kelly and Freddie Lindstrom were pretty awful!

Frank Chance won 4 pennants and 2 championships as a manager to go along with his playing career.

Wilbert Robinson was elected as a manager. He had exactly a .500 record as a manager and won only 2 pennants and no championships.

I'd put Chance in over Robinson any day and Robinson was elected first.

No question it would be Morgan Bulkeley... was only involved in the baseball world for a short time and was only elected because he happened to be the first president of the National League. A total joke that he was elected over some of the other early pioneers (Reach and all the others should have been elected before him). Also, he was on the Mills commission as well which gave rise tot he Doubleday myth. Nobody was LESS deserving than him.

Joe Gordon has to be up there. Lindstrom, Travis Jackson, George Kelly, Scheondienst Marquard.

Never understood how Schoendienst got in years ahead of Nellie Fox. They were basically the same player but Fox had a couple hundred more hits and an MVP award. I would give Nellie the edge as a fielder as well.

Agreed pretty terrible.

If you only look at his offensive numbers, he's not a sexy pick at first glance. But again, context. You have to consider the era Maz played in. Of all second basemen that had at least 500 hits, playing between 1940-1980, Mazerowski had the highest dWAR at 24.0. Nellie Fox was second at 20.8. No other second baseman in this entire four decade period had a 20 + dWAR. And only Roberto Alomar and Ryne Sandberg have had more Gold Gloves at second base than Mazerowski's 8.

Offense? Only Fox, Schoendienst and Joe Morgan had more hits by a second baseman than Mazerowski's 2016 in the aforementioned four decades. Only Bobby Doerr and Morgan had more RBI than Mazerowski's 853 as a second baseman. Now, he wasn't much of a power hitter, and didn't get on base at a great clip. But he was at least an average offensive second baseman, and a tremendous defensive second baseman. And he was a good enough second baseman to be named to seven All Star teams.

I disagree.

Between 1975 to 1986, only Mike Schmidt (440) and Dave Kingman (365) have more home runs than Rice's 350. During that span, nobody in baseball drove in more runs than Jim Rice's 1,276. Only Schmidt's .545 SLG was better than Jim Rice's .520 SLG in all of baseball. And Jim Rice had more hits, 2145, than any other player in baseball between 1975 and 1986.

For a twelve year span, he was arguably the best offensive force in the game, or at the very least, on par with Mike Schmidt.

Bill, I have 2 players that are more deserving than Maz and Rice. Whitaker and Richie Allen.


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mystery player
 

Hall Of Fame StatisticsPlayer rank in (·)


Black Ink Batting - 16 (143), Average HOFer ≈ 27

Gray Ink Batting - 93 (253), Average HOFer ≈ 144

Hall of Fame Monitor Batting - 90 (194), Likely HOFer ≈ 100

Hall of Fame Standards Batting - 29 (364), Average HOFer ≈ 50

JAWS Third Base (48th), 37.5 career WAR/27.8 7yr-peak WAR/32.7 JAWS

Those still rank better than:
Black Ink Batting - 3 (532), Average HOFer ≈ 27
Gray Ink Batting - 57 (443), Average HOFer ≈ 144
Hall of Fame Monitor Batting - 56 (356), Likely HOFer ≈ 100
Hall of Fame Standards Batting - 26 (428), Average HOFer ≈ 50
JAWS Third Base (70th), 28.4 career WAR/26.3 7yr-peak WAR/27.3 JAWS

That must be Lindstrom LOL, mine is Kell.

Yes I didn't want ruin your mystery.

Brent, I always have a hard time saying that a player is more or less deserving to be in Cooperstown than another player, especially if the latter is already in. I know part of the process is political, but the guys in the Hall are there for a reason, though some are more deserving at first glance.

It's easy to look at Mazerowski's numbers in 2014, and not be impressed. But there just weren't that many great offensive second basemen between 1940 and 1980. The Jackie Robinsons, Nellie Foxes, Rod Carews and Joe Morgans were the exception, not the rule. Eddie Collins, Frankie Frisch, Charlie Gehringer, Rogers Hornsby and Napolean Lajoie played before that era. Ryne Sandberg, Craig Biggio, Roberto Alomar and Jeff Kent were after.

I agree with you on Lou Whitaker (Alan Trammell, too) and Dick Allen both. They deserve a serious second look.

I don't understand how anyone could possibly say Ozzie Smith is the worst HOF.

I guess having the #1 Defensive WAR doesn't count for anything?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/le...f_career.shtml

...or being voted to 15 All Star Games in a 19 year career?

...or having won the most Gold Gloves (13) among short stops?

...2nd overall in Assits with 8375 (19 year career = yearly avg 441), second to Rabbit Maranville 8967 (23 year career = yearly avg 390). First in assists for SS

...1st Total Zone Runs as SS (239)



Also with Jeter retiring this year I am constantly hearing that he is a first year HOF.

Jeter WAR: 71.6 (88 overall) | JAWS: 56.9 (12 overall)
O. Smith WAR: 76.5 (69 overall) | JAWS: 59.4 (8 overall)


Offensively only O. Smith doesn't stack up to the competition (though he does rank 5th in SB among SS) but he is the BEST defensive SS in the history of the game. If you can't be the best in your defensive position in the game and still be in the HOF then that would be a shame.

Bill,
Good info! No doubt Rice was a force, for a period of time...I think ultimately he ended up hanging on too long and doing damage to his overall numbers...I'm also tainted as '86 was the year I really started watching baseball and from '86-'89 I swear all Rice did was ground into inning-ending double plays!

He was doing that before 86 too. To me, Rice is one step below a HOFer, in the Don Mattingly class of a stretch of outstanding seasons but not quite there career-wise.

I always enjoy friendly debates about baseball with people whom I have a great deal of respect for. And I don't expect to change your mind, Peter. But I have to take you to task here, nonetheless. :D

I am not a Yankee fan by any stretch of the imagination, though I have liked several of their players quite a lot, Mattingly being high on that list. Had he not developed back problems so early on in his career, I think there's no question he was headed for Cooperstown. To look at his four year peak, and consider those numbers in the context of the era he played in--he was just an offensive juggernaut.

http://imageshack.com/a/img208/2718/8x0n.png

His 162 game averages are just mind numbing: 108 runs, 222 hits, 49 doubles, 32 HR, 128 RBI, 369 TB. 155 OPS + .381/.560/.941. Most impressive of all, however, has to be his 39 strikeouts per 658 ABs. In the modern era of baseball, that's almost unheard of for a man that hits 30 + home runs a season.

We agree that he was a great player, but he did not maintain that level long enough to warrant inclusion in Cooperstown.

Compare his four year run to the stretch Jim Rice put together.

Jim Rice was a full-time player in his second season, 1975. He remained pretty much a full-time player until 1986, a run of 12 years, playing in a total of 1,766 of the 1,883 games Boston played in (94%).

During that 12 year run, there were 104 other hitters in the Major Leagues that played in at least 1,203 games. So I am going to use 1,200 games played by all position players as my base.

How did Rice do when compared to the other 103 hitters in this group? Jim Rice had more hits than anybody in baseball this 12 year stretch. More than Steve Garvey, Cecil Cooper, George Brett, Pete Rose, or Robin Yount.

http://imageshack.com/a/img560/4308/lufu.png

Home runs? Only Mike Schmidt and Dave Kingman had more in all the Majors.

http://imageshack.com/a/img23/2789/krn9.png

RBI? Nobody in the Majors had more RBI than Rice.

http://imageshack.com/a/img46/5668/f4we.png

Batting average? Even with all that power, Rice had the 5th highest average overall.

http://imageshack.com/a/img829/7044/exo3.png

He also led all Major League hitters in total bases and was second in slugging percentage (thanks, Andy, for pointing out my error. Schmidt's SLG was .025 higher).

http://imageshack.com/a/img62/2803/be7l.png

I don't think it's a stretch to say that for a twelve year period, Jim Rice was the dominant offensive force in baseball. He had more hits, drove in more runs, had more total bases and a higher slugging percentage than any player but Schmidt. He was third in home runs, and fifth in average.

Peter, if I told you a player hit .304 with 33 HR and 118 RBI in any one of those seasons, you'd tell me he was an MVP candidate, if not the MVP of the league.

That was Jim Rice's 162 game average for those twelve years. For his sixteen year career, his 162 game averages: .298 AVG, 30 HR, 113 RBI.

He might have only won one MVP award, but he had five other top five finishes: he was second in the AL Rookie of the Year and third in the MVP his rookie year. He was 4th in the MVP vote in 1977. He won it in 1978. He was 5th in the MVP in 1979. He was 4th in the MVP vote in 1983, and 3rd in 1986.

And going back to that 4 year peak of Mattingly's? Compare those peak averages against Jim Rice's 162 game averages from 1975-1986:

Mattingly 1984-1987: 108 runs, 222 hits, 32 HR, 128 RBI, .337 AVG
Rice 1975-1986: 102 runs, 198 hits, 33 HR, 118 RBI, .304 AVG

Mattingly had a better average, but the other numbers are pretty close.

One more thing to consider. Between 1970 and 1990, he was fifth in the Major Leagues in home runs, though he was only 27th in games played during that span.

I think Jim Rice's career credentials are more impressive than those put up by Don Mattingly, and he is clearly deserving of being in the Hall of Fame, in my opinion.

Thanks, Andrew! I don't know if he hung on any longer than any of the other players in the Hall of Fame. Maybe they all held on a bit too long, lol. Some players have off years (or a few off years), and rebound. More often than not, at the end, however, it's hard for these guys to let go. The adulation, the adrenaline that comes with playing in front of 30,000, and the camaraderie in the clubhouse..I imagine that would be hard to say goodbye to.

Jim Rice last played in 1989, 56 games only at age 36. As recently as 1986, he was a .324 hitter with 200 hits, 20 HR and 110 RBI, and as I mentioned, 3rd in the AL MVP. Compare that to somebody like Pete Rose, who was a .261 hitter his last five seasons. He only continued playing to break Ty Cobb's hits record when conventional wisdom dictated he probably should have stopped playing much sooner. His career average dropped from .310 to .305 because of vanity. Still, a great player that deserves to be in Cooperstown, imo. I think whatever rules he broke in betting on baseball, he's paid his dues. Let the people of Cincinnati have their moment cheering Pete on as he enters the hall.

Mickey Mantle was another guy that held on too long. As of 1964, he was a career .309 hitter with 464 home runs. The last four seasons, he was a .252 hitter. He got his 500th home run, but his career average dropped to .298, which forever gnawed at the great Mick. If he had not played that last season, he'd have been a .302 hitter with 518 HR.

There are certainly other players that held on too long, and they are not at all confined to Major League Baseball. I don't know, however, if Rice really damaged his reputation, or his career numbers, by playing those last few years. :D They certainly didn't raise his chances of making it into Cooperstown, as he didn't cross some magic threshold like 3,000 hits. But I guess it depends on who you ask. Red Sox fans may be a little less forgiving than the average baseball fan. Maybe you saw him killing a few too many rallies, and were ready to move on. Either way, it sure makes for good conversation!

I agree, Andy. Dave's a friend, but on this, we don't agree.

The Wizard of Oz wasn't an offensive force by any means. He had no power, though he did have a few good offensive seasons, even winning a Silver Slugger in 1987 when he hit .303 with 102 runs, 182 hits, 40 doubles and 43 stolen bases. He had a handful of other seasons where he was decent with the stick, hitting in the .280s and 290s. But it was his defense which made him a star, and one of my favorite players to watch when he played. Though the prevailing line of thinking might be that offense wins games more than defense, you can pitch around a hitter when they come up. A great defensive shortstop like Ozzie Smith is out there every day, sucking up everything that comes within 10 feet of them. Ozzie Smith was a black hole where doubles went to die. And he did just fine negating my Brewer bats that hit 216 home runs in the 1982 World Series.

I liken the Wizard of Oz to another Cardinal who was a late bloomer with the stick, Yadier Molina. Look at what Yadi did in his first seven seasons in the Majors, and then look what he's done the last three:

http://imageshack.com/a/img62/3908/lyv9.png

Yadi is the best catcher in baseball. Period. Sorry, Giants fans. I like Buster Posey a lot. But Yadi now offers comparable offense, and superior defense. If I were a manager, I'd run against Buster. There's not a chance in hell I'd run with Yadi Molina behind the plate.

Will Molina make the Hall of Fame one day? He's going to be 32 this July, so he's still in his prime right now, and could have at least three or four more seasons behind the plate. He's had back to back top 4 MVP finishes, and has been awarded six straight Gold Gloves. Look for him to finish with 10 Gold Gloves, 2,000 + hits, and a couple World Series championships under his belt. If he gets another one or two of those, which I think he will, he's going to get an awful lot of credit for handling that pitching staff. Things like that factor into the minds of voters. So does throwing out 45% of would be base runners for your career. So, if Yadi does not continue hitting the way he has these last three seasons, and keeps playing great defense, he's basically Ozzie Smith behind the plate.

I don't think Smith got the credit he deserved when he played. And I certainly don't think he's the worst Hall of Famer. Not by a long shot.

Bill, I find it interesting that Dwight Evans has an OPS .029 lower than Rice in the years selected as Rice's peak. Evans the far superior fielder and the guy no one mentions as a HoF candidate.

I think it's fair to consider numbers to an era, but it's not right to pick a range of years and say this guy had the most xxx. It's the same weak argument they make for Jack Morris. Most wins in the decade. Big deal! Of course they forget to mention he pitched on the winningest team of the decade.

I don't have the time right now, but a stronger case can be made for Whitaker, Trammell, and Richie Allen than Jim Rice.

I saw Evans' name listed there while compiling, and wasn't surprised at all. He's another guy I feel deserves a second look. Man, the Red Sox had some great outfielders in the 60s and 70s, didn't they? Yaz, Reggie Smith, Rice, Dwight Evans, Freddy Lynn, Tony Conigliaro.

As far as your comment regarding numbers within an era, I understand where you're coming from, Brent, but here it's a little different. Wins are a team accomplishment. You can have a 4.00 ERA and still win 20 games if your offense comes through with a lot of run support, just like you can have a sub 3.00 ERA, and win nine games if your offense stinks (think Nolan Ryan in 1987. He went 8-16 though he led the NL in ERA, strikeouts, H/9 IP, K:BB ratio, K/9 IP). Batting average, home runs, and total bases, are really individual metrics. RBIs are, of course, not, as other guys have to be on base for you to to drive them in. But when you look at a wide range of statistics, Rice is either at the top, or very near the top, for a twenty year span. And while the supporting numbers I put out there for Rice are hardly definitive (I would really need to get into a year by year breakdown, because no matter where one draws the lines when sampling a large amount of data, players with different starts, peaks, and ends are not going to match up perfectly for comparative purposes), they are a good start. And his 162 game average for his career is pretty darned good. How many players in that era could say they averaged .300 with 30 HR and 110 + RBI every single year?

Jim Rice is by no means the greatest slugger to ever play the game. I wouldn't put him in my top ten, and likely not in my top twenty. But he'd be up there. The man had some downright massive seasons, but the other ones were really good, too. Even when you examine a season like 1984, where he had a .791 OPS, he still drove in 122 runs. He's what I call sneaky good. Led his league in hits once, triples once, home runs three times, RBI twice, slugging twice, OPS once, and total bases four times.

He certainly wasn't the fielder Evans was, that's for sure.

When you have some time, make your argument for Whitaker, Trammell and Allen. I'd love to see your thoughts.

Hmm, not sure why there was a double post. My apologies, gang.

There are a lot of "all-star" type players who were good, but not HOF-worthy, like Ron Santo.

I'd have to agree on Santo, I don't think he's the worst selection but how Santo's in an Hodges is out is beyond me. I personally don't think either belongs but I always thought Hodges had a better case than Santo. I'd say Santo was just a sentimental favorite but Hodges kind of is to.

This is why I love boards like this, nothing better than baseball talk with other educated fans, weather you agree or not! Just another reason why baseball is an always will be the national pastime to me. Love football to but does anyone really care who goes into Canton?

Agreed...some players get voted in by the Veterans committee because they were great personalities and representatives of the game, like Santo. Hodges should be in, but maybe just didn't have enough friends (which surprises me as I believe he was described as a liked player). Another one that comes to mind is Rick Ferrell....a great nice guy..but I just don't see it in his numbers as HOF-worthy.

On the flip side of all this, there are also many great players that took so long to get voted in, like Duke Snider, Hack Wilson, and Joe Sewell (or not in yet as in Hodges case).

This conversation went towards players right away, but I do believe that the hand's down worst hall of famer is Morgan Bulkeley. I know he was the first President of the National Leauge, but he got the position by luck of the draw (literally, they drew lots and he won). Whereas William Hulbert, the 2nd president (1877-1882 when he passed away), a founder of the National League, is not inducted at all.

A pretty good book on the HoF.

http://www.seamheads.com/blog/wp-con...fidential1.jpg

If only the people with actual votes put as much thought into this as you guys do! :rolleyes:

As much as I love their cards, Tinker, Evers, and Chance should not even be considered hofers. They were medicore players at best.

Frank Chance is more than worthy in my opinion. I believe Chance is in as both a player and a manager. As a manager he finished nearly 300 games over .500, won 2 World Series and managed teams to 4 World Series appearances.

That's a HOFer to me without even taking into consideration his playing career.

I agree with that.

I knew rizzuto would get in. the previous year the vets commite got 3 new members--reese, bill white and berra all rizzuto pals.