He hit .296, he walked well, he had little power. If .296/.384/.436 in the context that he did it is a HOF 1B, then we'd have to elect a ton of people. If it is his defense, well, I really don't see an argument for a defensive 1B to be elected while people revile every defense-first HOFer except for Ozzie Smith (Mazeroski, Maranville, Schalk, everyone but Ozzie dots the 'worst HOFer' opinion lists).
I get that Hernandez was very good at playing 1B, but I have a hard time ascribing the huge value to this that WAR does. Killebrew -18.7, Hernandez +1.3 (a positive at 1B is very, very tough); it's how they punish 1B not to dominate the rankings with their bats. 1B also has a positional adjustment factor on top of the dWAR component. Thus it has Killebrew and Hernandez equal overall in WAR because of the dWAR gap. I cannot fathom a single team picking Hernandez over Killebrew, not because they are stupid and don't understand analytics, but because Killebrew is clearly more valuable. WAR has a lot of problems with defense; one of many reasons it should not be treated as gospel.
Will Clark and Fred McGriff are better candidates for 1B who played when Hernandez did.
Olerud, Hernandez, they are better than the absolute worst 1B, but those mistakes should not be extended to justify hundreds of more mistakes.
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