Bob Feller - Is he a top tier Hall of Famer?

K-Nole · #1 04-27-2014, 08:51 PM

Of coarse being 42 years old, I never seen him, but if my GrandPa says he was the best he ever saw, that is good enough for me!

Fred · #2 04-27-2014, 10:59 PM

I'm not quite sure how Feller couldn't be considered top tier. He lost almost 4seasons to military service. If you average out what he did right before and after WW2 his numbers would be around 350 wins, about 3700 Ks, his overall ERA would have been closer to 3.00 (or less) had he not missed any time to serve our country. If that aint top tier then I don't know what is.

oldjudge · #3 04-28-2014, 12:05 AM

Top tier player, even better human being. They broke the mold when they made him.

David W · #4 04-29-2014, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fred

I'm not quite sure how Feller couldn't be considered top tier. He lost almost 4seasons to military service. If you average out what he did right before and after WW2 his numbers would be around 350 wins, about 3700 Ks, his overall ERA would have been closer to 3.00 (or less) had he not missed any time to serve our country. If that aint top tier then I don't know what is.

Devil's advocate question for those who give Feller 300+ wins due to loss of time while in the military.

Could you not argue he may have blown his arm out, pitching all those innings and they were long innings, lots of walks and strikeouts in there, and that the 4 years off saved his career from gross overuse?

But as for impact on the game, he was a huge legend at the time, throwing 100 mph, 17 years old and in the majors, strikeout titles and all, etc... and had a great career. He was always disappointed he never won a game in the 48 World Series.

Vintageclout · #5 04-29-2014, 10:25 PM

FYI, my strong opinion is that Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, and Pedro Martinez are ALL superior pitchers to Bob Feller and their statistics support that notion. You might also want to make an argument for Roger Clemens if it was truly determined when he started using performance enhancing drugs. Bill James always stated Tom Seaver may be the greatest post-war pitcher of them all and his incredible 2.62 ERA over his first 15 CONSECUTIVE 15 seasons (1967 - '81) stakes a claim to that notion (2.86 overall with 4,700+ innings pitched). NO pitcher can boast such a low ERA over that consecutive span of time averaging 230 innings pitched per season after 1920....an absolutely amazing statistic for a starting pitcher.

Joe T.

bn2cardz · #6 04-29-2014, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sniffy5

...Mantle was great, but K'd constantly. Held that record til Reggie came along. Can a top tier player really be the guy who struck out more than anyone? Or just about anyone?

If you consider Ruth a top tier player, than yes you would have to consider a guy who struck out more than anyone a top tier player:

Strikeouts
1918 AL 58 (1st)
1919 AL 58 (2nd)
1920 AL 80 (2nd)
1921 AL 81 (2nd)
1922 AL 80 (2nd)
1923 AL 93 (1st)
1924 AL 81 (1st)
1925 AL 68 (2nd)
1926 AL 76 (2nd)
1927 AL 89 (1st)
1928 AL 87 (1st)
1929 AL 60 (4th)
1930 AL 61 (5th)
1932 AL 62 (9th)
1933 AL 90 (2nd)
1934 AL 63 (9th)
Career 1,330 (106th)

As far as Feller, I find myself going back and forth. The main point for yes for me is that he out ranks Christy Mathewson and a single poing behind Cy Young on the Black Ink test. He was simply the best in his era of playing and he very well would have lead more stats if he wasn't in the War as other's proposed, but there is no way to know so we only go off what we know. Even with that though it is enough to show he was just the best of his time.

Hankphenom · #7 04-30-2014, 11:10 AM

Again, it comes back to the definition of top tier. Feller: top 5, no, top 15, yes.

slipk1068 · #8 04-30-2014, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

Again, it comes back to the definition of top tier. Feller: top 5, no, top 15, yes.

+1

Same could be said for Spahn, Carlton, Seaver. Totally depends on how you define top tier. If he comes back from his injury and has a few more Cy Young type years, you could add Kershaw to the list as well.

Exhibitman · #9 04-30-2014, 11:46 AM

A number of thoughts:

--I cannot judge a player on "what could have been had he not..."; simply opens too many cans of worms. Satchel Paige wasn't allowed to pitch in the Majors until he was about 41 years old. Martin DiHigo, Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson...and so on. Feller lost several years to the war but as is pointed out above he could have wrecked his arm, been killed in a car crash, etc.

--I do not divide HOFers into tiers as finely as others. I only ask myself whether or not I would have voted for him. I'd guesstimate that there are probably 25% of the HOF that I would not have voted to admit, mostly the Veterans' Committee selections from the worst cronyism period. A lot of the admits then were just very good players who were friends with the committee members.

--I'm not a big fan of the logic that runs "Player X is in, Player Z has similar career stats, so Player Z = Player X." There's more to it than that. Joe Morgan and Lou Whitaker may have had similar overall career stats but that run Morgan had from 1972-1977 is one of the great performances of the postwar era no matter how you slice the statistics. I ask whether a player was among the very best and for how long.

--When I think about pitchers I tend to focus even more on dominance than consistency/longevity than I do for a position player. Different duties and way different risks. Don Drysdale's WAR for pitchers is 52nd, Koufax is 82nd. If you have the World Series on the line, who would you start? I'd probably vote yes for Dizzy Dean for the Hall because he had that run of 6 dominant years where he was one of the three best pitchers in the game.

--All of which leads me to select the tippy top pitchers as a combination of dominance and consistency/longevity. I voted "yes" for Feller because he was pretty much the best pitcher in the game for seven years [38-41, 46-48]. The balance of his career was learning the ropes followed by being varying degrees of dangerous but not dominant. A run like that means a heck of a lot more to me than padding stats with mediocre seasons at the end.

View Poll Results: Bob Feller - Is he a top tier Hall of Famer?
Yes	180	79.65%
No	46	20.35%
Voters: 226. You may not vote on this poll

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