Golden Era Hall of Fame Ballot announced

[Orioles1954]

Originally Posted by calvindog

No one is saying that the players who amass superior stats are ordinary players, it's just that there are a bunch in the HOF who are only there due to longevity. Do you think that a pitcher who played in an era when pitchers routinely started 40 games a year, pitched for a top team, won 20 games only once and never finished in the top 3 for a Cy Young deserves to be in the HOF due solely to playing forever? The question is what defines greatness. Is it amassing stats via 20 good seasons but rarely great? Or 10 dominant seasons with significantly less lifetime accumulated stats? I think it's the latter obviously.

I value a high level of consistency over a long period of time. Maybe that's why Eddie Murray is my favorite player of all-time.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

I value a high level of consistency over a long period of time. Maybe that's why Eddie Murray is my favorite player of all-time.

Eddie Murray was no Blyleven or Sutton -- he was a terror for many years. I don't think he qualifies as a guy who got in just due to longevity.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Eddie Murray was no Blyleven or Sutton -- he was a terror for many years. I don't think he qualifies as a guy who got in just due to longevity.

I agree with Jeff here. Murray was a switch hitting offensive monster at the plate. Definitely HOF worthy.

Best,

Eric

[Orioles1954]

There has been over 18,000 players suit up in big league history. Around 250 have been inducted in the Hall of Fame. Please tell me how the Hall of Fame has been "bogged down?" If anything, I think there is room for several dozen more!

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

There has been over 18,000 players suit up in big league history. Around 250 have been inducted in the Hall of Fame. Please tell me how the Hall of Fame has been "bogged down?" If anything, I think there is room for several dozen more!

How are those stats relevant at all???????????? What the heck does it matter how many people played versus the total number of players enshrined???? The Hall of Fame is for the elite of the elite players. Bert Blyleven and Don Sutton lost 250 or more games each and neither was ever a dominant pitcher. They were good/decent for 20 or so seasons each. That's it. The Hall is supposed to be only for the great. They, and some others, bog it down.

[Batter67up]

I don't believe you win 324 games have 58 shutouts, and 3574 strikeouts and are opening day pitcher for the Dodgers for 7 years if you are just a decent pitcher. Sutton was a 4x all star and 1977 All-Star game MVP. He was 324-256 with a lifetime 3.26 era. He was a 20 game winner only once (21-10) but won 17,15,17,19,18,19,16,14,15,17 games a year. Double digits for 19 of his 23 years in the big leagues. There is another pitcher that was 324-292 with an era of 3.19 over 20 plus years and won 20 games in his career only 2 times.I don't think Nolan Ryan is just a decent player based on those numbers. The Hall of Fame is going to have superstars among its own but we should appreciate the accomplishments of all of its members. It would be nice if they decide to put Gil Hodges in as he deserves to be a member.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by Batter67up

I don't believe you win 324 games have 58 shutouts, and 3574 strikeouts and are opening day pitcher for the Dodgers for 7 years if you are just a decent pitcher. Sutton was a 4x all star and 1977 All-Star game MVP. He was 324-256 with a lifetime 3.26 era. He was a 20 game winner only once (21-10) but won 17,15,17,19,18,19,16,14,15,17 games a year. Double digits for 19 of his 23 years in the big leagues. There is another pitcher that was 324-292 with an era of 3.19 over 20 plus years and won 20 games in his career only 2 times.I don't think Nolan Ryan is just a decent player based on those numbers. The Hall of Fame is going to have superstars among its own but we should appreciate the accomplishments of all of its members. It would be nice if they decide to put Gil Hodges in as he deserves to be a member.

Listen, you can love Don Sutton all you want (God bless ya!), but the basic fact is he was never a dominant pitcher. He won double digit games many times as you said, yet all that points to (to me) is him remaining healthy enough to continue pitching year after year (and some would say the fact he was able to continue pitching for so long is a good reason to vote him into the Hall). I have nothing whatsoever against the guy and I'm glad you're a big fan of his, but a simple look at his basic stats does not point to an all time great. You obviously disagree, but I don't know what to tell you. You mentioned his strikeouts, but the most he ever had in a season was 217 and his totals during the second half of his career were middling. He was definitely a pretty good player, but I gotta be honest. I have no interest in maintaining a continuing argument about Mr. Sutton's merits. You'll state a statistic and then I'll respond with a counter-statistic and neither of us will change our minds, so what's the point? Since he is already in the Hall, it really doesn't matter.

…....…W...L…SO
1966 12 12 209
1967 11 15 169
1968 11 15 162
1969 17 18 217
1970 15 13 201
1971 17 12 194
1972 19 9 207
1973 18 10 200
1974 19 9 179
1975 16 13 175
1976 21 10 161
1977 14 8 150
1978 15 11 154
1979 12 15 146
1980 13 5 128
1981 11 9 104
1982 17 9 175
1983 8 13 134
1984 14 12 143
1985 15 10 107
1986 15 11 116
1987 11 11 99
1988 3 6 44

[Orioles1954]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

How are those stats relevant at all???????????? What the heck does it matter how many people played versus the total number of players enshrined???? The Hall of Fame is for the elite of the elite players. Bert Blyleven and Don Sutton lost 250 or more games each and neither was ever a dominant pitcher. They were good/decent for 20 or so seasons each. That's it. The Hall is supposed to be only for the great. They, and some others, bog it down.

It's relevant to dispel the erroneous assertion that the Baseball Hall of Fame is easy to get into and all you need to be is a "stat compiler" (whatever that means). 250 people in 143 years of professional baseball and it's some how, some way bogged down? Archaic win-loss stats(what about Nolan Ryan losing 292?) are hardly an indicator of how great a pitcher was, particularly if they played for crappy teams. Blyleven and Sutton each have low 3 ERAs and had very good WHIPs. Honestly, who is the Hall of Fame for? You, your subjective standards of "dominance" or the stated criteria that another poster mentioned? I say, open the Hall of Fame even more. Start with the 19th century and Negro Leagues.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

It's relevant to dispel the erroneous assertion that the Baseball Hall of Fame is easy to get into and all you need to be is a "stat compiler" (whatever that means). 250 people in 143 years of professional baseball and it's some how, some way bogged down? Archaic win-loss stats(what about Nolan Ryan losing 292?) are hardly an indicator of how great a pitcher was, particularly if they played for crappy teams. Blyleven and Sutton each have low 3 ERAs and had very good WHIPs. Honestly, who is the Hall of Fame for? You, your subjective standards of "dominance" or the stated criteria that another poster mentioned? I say, open the Hall of Fame even more. Start with the 19th century and Negro Leagues.

When the hell did I mention that the Baseball Hall of Fame is easy to get into??? You love putting quotation marks on things I say, but then you blindly add other things into the conversation. WTF???? And when did I mention Nolan Ryan?? All you do is throw straw man arguments out there. Go away!!!

[ejharrington]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

How are those stats relevant at all???????????? What the heck does it matter how many people played versus the total number of players enshrined???? The Hall of Fame is for the elite of the elite players. Bert Blyleven and Don Sutton lost 250 or more games each and neither was ever a dominant pitcher. They were good/decent for 20 or so seasons each. That's it. The Hall is supposed to be only for the great. They, and some others, bog it down.

250 out of 18,000 seems pretty elite to me; I agree the HOF pretty much gets it right. For those who want only the "elite of the elite", that would make for a pretty short trip to Cooperstown. Maybe they can just rename the HOF the Babe Ruth Museum as everyone else is pretty much a step down from him.

[triwak]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

There has been over 18,000 players suit up in big league history. Around 250 have been inducted in the Hall of Fame. Please tell me how the Hall of Fame has been "bogged down?" If anything, I think there is room for several dozen more!

+1

(Well, maybe not several DOZEN more, yet - but I agree with this sentiment. Toughest Hall of all the major sports, by far)!

[SteveMitchell]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

There have been over 18,000 players suit up in big league history. Around 250 have been inducted in the Hall of Fame. Please tell me how the Hall of Fame has been "bogged down?" If anything, I think there is room for several dozen more!

+1

Sometimes I think the HOF purists (if they had their way) would hardly have enough members to play a mythical game (barely two players per position) without "watering down" the Hall. There just aren't enough Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb or Christy Mathewson types without getting down to the merely OK: You know, the pedestrian 250-300 game winners or guys who only paced the league a few times and ranked in the top 10 annually but never apparently set the world on fire.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by SteveMitchell

+1

Sometimes I think the HOF purists (if they had their way) would hardly have enough members to play a mythical game (barely two players per position) without "watering down" the Hall. There just aren't enough Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb or Christy Mathewson types without getting down to the merely OK: You know, the pedestrian 250-300 game winners or guys who only paced the league a few times and ranked in the top 10 annually but never apparently set the world on fire.

I think that you are attacking a straw man. I haven't seen anyone suggest that only the truly elite first team all time types belong. It's a long way from there to the Bill Mazeroskis and Travis Jacksons, with plenty of outstanding players who almost nobody would quibble with in between.