OT - New Hall of Famers: Bagwell, Raines and Ivan Rodriguez

[nat]

Whether its easier or harder to walk vs. hit for average isn't really germane to the discussion. Raines and Gwynn reached base almost exactly the same number of times, and contributed very similar amounts of value to their teams. It's true that a walk isn't as good as a hit, but it's almost as good as a single (what Gwynn was hitting), and the fact that Raines would then go on to steal second helped him a lot.

On Dunn versus Jeter: Jeter was a slightly better hitter than Dunn. Jeter got on base at a better rate than Dunn, Dunn hit for more power. The reason that Jeter will be a deserving hall of famer, and Dunn will not, is that Jeter was a good base runner and could play shortstop, whereas Dunn was a horrific base runner, and possibly the worst fielder of all time.*

*Note for Bravesfan: I know that Jeter had a lower Rfield/G than Dunn, but the positional adjustment more than makes up for it. (Dunn at shortstop would have been hilarious in a tragic sort of way.)