Is Baseball's Hall of Fame Overpopulated? ...or

[HOF Yankees]

Originally Posted by earlywynnfan

Lee Smith is the poster child for the argument of longevity vs. dominance. (And I'm a fan of Smith's!)

To me, the biggest puzzle of how to reward longevity is Eddie Murray. Nobody ever said "Man, that Murray, what a freakin' stud!!" But year after year he was really good -- but never great. And 20 years later, he piled up numbers like almost nobody else. So does he compare to Gehrig or Foxx or even Sisler?

Ken

Ken In response to your question, I gave it some thought and here is my thoughts. I feel if a player is higher on a stat/career list, and higher over one or more already in hall of famers, he should be in cause its not fair to put players in over a player that for example as we were talking on the saves list Lee over Eckersley and Fingers, of course Lee was a good player and you can see cause of his saves, now Rivera and Hoffman are going to be hall of famers for sure but if you can put half of the 3,000 hit club, or 300 plus win pitchers in what's wrong with the 3rd best reliever in the history of baseball, so to me it seems un fair that most hall of famers get in by stats and not talent or by both. I feel in my opinion the current baseball hall of fame writers all should be fired and replaced, now I may get crtiscm on that but that's what I feel, and much was said about Hernandez and few other mentioned by members on here about players that should be in, and they are not.

[earlywynnfan]

Originally Posted by HOF Yankees

Ken In response to your question, I gave it some thought and here is my thoughts. I feel if a player is higher on a stat/career list, and higher over one or more already in hall of famers, he should be in cause its not fair to put players in over a player that for example as we were talking on the saves list Lee over Eckersley and Fingers, of course Lee was a good player and you can see cause of his saves, now Rivera and Hoffman are going to be hall of famers for sure but if you can put half of the 3,000 hit club, or 300 plus win pitchers in what's wrong with the 3rd best reliever in the history of baseball, so to me it seems un fair that most hall of famers get in by stats and not talent or by both. I feel in my opinion the current baseball hall of fame writers all should be fired and replaced, now I may get crtiscm on that but that's what I feel, and much was said about Hernandez and few other mentioned by members on here about players that should be in, and they are not.

(NOTE: I am not trying to argue here, just debating a little. I'd love to see Smith get in, but that's because my Smith items will be worth more.)
There are 2 common rebuttals to your post.
1) The slippery slope. Saying player A was better than player B, and player B is in the HOF, so player A needs to be in is going to water down the Hall really quick. Here are 2 reasons why: First off, there are some terrible mistakes already in the Hall, so matching George Kelly or Rick Ferrell will take years and they'll have to build another wing. Second: There are too many BB stats, and with so many players, you can play the comparison game forever. Catfish is in, and he's no different than Tiant, then Kaat, then John, then Pettite, then before you know it you're at Tim Hudson (don't laugh, he's won 100 more games than he's lost!) And that's just building off Catfish, not Marquard. Where does it end?

2) Your use of "3rd best reliever." What makes him 3rd best? Best is a very subjective term, and calling him "best" because he's 3rd on the list of saves is a fallacy. I'm sure most would agree that they'd rather have Eck or Rollie on the mound than Smith if it's game 7 of the WS. Ask yourself this: Is Pete Rose the best hitter of all time?? Most prolific, absolutely, but not even a marginal fan is going to say he's best.

Regards,
Ken, who's wondering why nobody even talks about Alan Trammell!?!

[dabigyankeeman]

I would like to see the HOF set up like Olympic medals. Have a Gold wing, a Silver wing, and a Bronze wing. All HOF'ers are not equal!!!

A guy like Ruth or Cobb would be in the Gold wing. You want to put Sutton in, put him in the Bronze wing, and so on.

This would reward the super-greats who transcend even the average HOF'er, and would create great controversy, publicity, and talk about baseball as people would always be disagreeing on which wing certain players should be in.