Quote:
Originally Posted by tod41
Garvey excelled at what was considered important at the time. Had it been known that metrics like War would have been important it certainly possible that Garvey would have improved on those metrics when he played. The guy was a super clutch player with impressive counting stats for the time he played. He has a slightly higher OPS than Mantle in the post season. He was a dominant player in his era.
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Garvey didn't know what WAR was in 1980 because nobody did; it didn't exist.
Though I would vote likely for both of them, I would posit that 1B's like Hernandez and Garvey aren't in because they don't have the power numbers expected of the position. Garvey has 272 homers, Hernandez only 162. Voters traditionally seem to want 1B HOF'ers to have a resume like Willie McCovey. Even Hodges, who besides being one of the most popular players and managers of his era - took forever to get recognized despite 370 homers, 8 AS appearances, and 3 Gold Gloves.
Edited to add: I totally would agree that Garvey was considered a dominant player in his time, if not the single best 1B in baseball for the better part of a decade. He's unfortunately a prime example of a player who was a superstar, but possibly just for not quite long enough - and then that plus his personal off-field stuff just sunk him in the early BBWAA voting. After that, the various iterations of the VC's have been leery.