Golden Era Hall of Fame Ballot announced

[Baseball Rarities]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

At a point the All Star game just became an entitlement for Yaz. He made it for example in a season where he was 12-68-.264. And the year before that he was 15-70-.254. And lest you think these were token appreciation-type votes at the end of the career, uh uh. These were at age 31 and 32.

Yeah, he had a couple of mediocre years when his end of the season stats did not back up his All-Star selection, but what about the 12 years when he was in the top 20 in MVP voting? Also, all of his 7 Gold Gloves came in these 12 seasons, so you cannot overlook has defensive value either. To me, being in the top 20 of players in your League is pretty significant.

Obviously, Yaz's lifetime stats benefited from his longevity, but if you were to exclude the last 5 or 6 years of his career, he would still be in the HOF. Basically, I do not feel that he solely made it into the HOF based on his lifetime numbers, but also because he was thought of at the time as one of the top 20 players in his League for a run of 12 out of 17 seasons during his prime.