Dave Parker - HOF?

[JimC]

I don't believe they should let ANYONE ELSE into the Hall until the Harold Baines mistake is corrected.

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by JimC

I don't believe they should let ANYONE ELSE into the Hall until the Harold Baines mistake is corrected.

Well, that ain't gonna happen.

[Jim65]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Well, that ain't gonna happen.

I agree, Baseball will never open that can of worms. Even if they did, theres far worse elections than Harold Baines.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Jim65

I agree, Baseball will never open that can of worms. Even if they did, theres far worse elections than Harold Baines.

Who would you say is a worse pick than Baines? I'd call some of the elections by the almost openly corrupt Frisch VC as probably worse. I can't think of a worse selection the last 30 years or so. Maybe Sutter, that was a pretty bad one too.

[Jim65]

Originally Posted by G1911

Who would you say is a worse pick than Baines? I'd call some of the elections by the almost openly corrupt Frisch VC as probably worse. I can't think of a worse selection the last 30 years or so. Maybe Sutter, that was a pretty bad one too.

The Frisch selections were horrible. The 2 worst selections off the top of my head are Phil Rizzuto and Bill Mazeroski. The first player I would remove would be Cap Anson.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Jim65

The Frisch selections were horrible. The 2 worst selections off the top of my head are Phil Rizzuto and Bill Mazeroski. The first player I would remove would be Cap Anson.

I'm more okay with Mazeroski than Rizzuto. Rizzuto is about the same as Al Dark. Nobody wants to elect Al Dark.

The last choice is politics. If people who do not meet the prevailing social standards of the present are not allowed to be honored, the HOF itself probably cannot reasonably exist at all.

[Jason19th]

I think the evolution of Cap Anson is a interesting story that needs to be thought about. While he was clearly racist there is some evidence that he had some growth on the issue. From 1907 until 1910ish Anson sponsored, managed and occasionally played for a team called Anson’s Colts which played in the racially integrated Chicago semi pro league. The league had all white teams, all black teams and often played exhibitions with mixed race Cuban teams. There is also some evidence that Anson formed a friendship or at least a relationship of mutual respect with Rube Walker. I am not saying that he had a full conversion and should be treated as a civil rights champion, but as is often the case the reality is a bit more complicated then the sound bite

[John1941]

Originally Posted by G1911

I'm more okay with Mazeroski than Rizzuto. Rizzuto is about the same as Al Dark. Nobody wants to elect Al Dark.

Rizzuto was way better than Dark because of his great fielding. Dark wasn't that much better as a batter (98 OPS+ vs. 93 OPS+), but Rizzuto was way better as a fielder. He moved to third base by the end of his career, and BR rates Rizzuto as 95 runs better than Dark as a fielder, if you include the positional adjustments.

Al Dark is probably underrated though.

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by G1911

Who would you say is a worse pick than Baines? I'd call some of the elections by the almost openly corrupt Frisch VC as probably worse. I can't think of a worse selection the last 30 years or so. Maybe Sutter, that was a pretty bad one too.

In the last 30 years? Just looking over the various metrics on bb-ref, I'd definitely go with Sutter. Same career WHIP as Bret Saberhagen but with only 40% as many innings pitched. And among relievers, a worse ERA+ than John Franco (who also had substantially more IP).

Baines is not a good choice, but 4 of his 5 top matches on similarity score are also Hall of Famers. (The one exception, interestingly, is Dave Parker.) None of Suter's top 10 matches are in the Hall. It's hard to even know where to start if you had to make a case for one of them. Jeff Reardon?

Going by the JAWS rankings, I would certainly agree that inducting the 74th best rightfielder was, at best, a questionable choice, but probably not as much as inducting the 23rd best relief pitcher when the consensus is that the Hall should include somewhere from 0-10 relievers. I mean, I'm a big Hall guy, but 23rd best reliever (which I think is a fair ranking for Sutter) doesn't comport with my vision of Cooperstown.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

In the last 30 years? Just looking over the various metrics on bb-ref, I'd definitely go with Sutter. Same career WHIP as Bret Saberhagen but with only 40% as many innings pitched. And among relievers, a worse ERA+ than John Franco (who also had substantially more IP).

Baines is not a good choice, but 4 of his 5 top matches on similarity score are also Hall of Famers. (The one exception, interestingly, is Dave Parker.) None of Suter's top 10 matches are in the Hall. It's hard to even know where to start if you had to make a case for one of them. Jeff Reardon?

Going by the JAWS rankings, I would certainly agree that inducting the 74th best rightfielder was, at best, a questionable choice, but probably not as much as inducting the 23rd best relief pitcher when the consensus is that the Hall should include somewhere from 0-10 relievers. I mean, I'm a big Hall guy, but 23rd best reliever (which I think is a fair ranking for Sutter) doesn't comport with my vision of Cooperstown.

Quisenberry, for a contemporary example, was so far superior to Sutter it's not even funny.

[John1941]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Quisenberry, for a contemporary example, was so far superior to Sutter it's not even funny.

As you can probably tell from my avatar, I'd love it if Quisenberry was elected.

[D. Bergin]

People really need to get over the Harold Baines thing. Especially if you're a traditional stats, WAR is over-rated type of fan. He's in. He's not getting kicked out.

He was THE figurehead of a certain position in baseball for almost 10 years (regardless of whether or not you like the DH), until Edgar Martinez came along.

Call him a compiler if you want (hasn't ever been a penalty for getting into the HOF), but he's also 34th All-Time in RBI's (1628). Everybody in front of him and for a ways behind him, is either in the HOF, waiting to get in the HOF, or a scandal/steroid guy.

Also: 47th in Hits (2866), same situation as above, though he is much closer to the likes of Johnny Damon and Vada Pinson right behind him.

43rd Total Bases (4604), closest non-scandal/non-future guy to him is Fred McGriff 11 spaces back (who I would put in, in a second, if it were up to me).

I might not have put Baines in, but I'm not sure why so many people are so upset about it. It's not like he bet on baseball or kicked your grandmother down the stairs.

[HistoricNewspapers]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

People really need to get over the Harold Baines thing. Especially if you're a traditional stats, WAR is over-rated type of fan. He's in. He's not getting kicked out.

He was THE figurehead of a certain position in baseball for almost 10 years (regardless of whether or not you like the DH), until Edgar Martinez came along.

Call him a compiler if you want (hasn't ever been a penalty for getting into the HOF), but he's also 34th All-Time in RBI's (1628). Everybody in front of him and for a ways behind him, is either in the HOF, waiting to get in the HOF, or a scandal/steroid guy.

Also: 47th in Hits (2866), same situation as above, though he is much closer to the likes of Johnny Damon and Vada Pinson right behind him.

43rd Total Bases (4604), closest non-scandal/non-future guy to him is Fred McGriff 11 spaces back (who I would put in, in a second, if it were up to me).

I might not have put Baines in, but I'm not sure why so many people are so upset about it. It's not like he bet on baseball or kicked your grandmother down the stairs.

Harold had heart and kidney transplant this past year. I want to take this time to wish the man well.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

People really need to get over the Harold Baines thing. Especially if you're a traditional stats, WAR is over-rated type of fan. He's in. He's not getting kicked out.

He was THE figurehead of a certain position in baseball for almost 10 years (regardless of whether or not you like the DH), until Edgar Martinez came along.

Call him a compiler if you want (hasn't ever been a penalty for getting into the HOF), but he's also 34th All-Time in RBI's (1628). Everybody in front of him and for a ways behind him, is either in the HOF, waiting to get in the HOF, or a scandal/steroid guy.

Also: 47th in Hits (2866), same situation as above, though he is much closer to the likes of Johnny Damon and Vada Pinson right behind him.

43rd Total Bases (4604), closest non-scandal/non-future guy to him is Fred McGriff 11 spaces back (who I would put in, in a second, if it were up to me).

I might not have put Baines in, but I'm not sure why so many people are so upset about it. It's not like he bet on baseball or kicked your grandmother down the stairs.

He is much worse than this suggests because of his poor rate stats. The sheer number of RF's better than him (that also didn't have to play 1,600 more games at DH to get their raw values up) who are not in and have no realistic chance of getting in make it look like a terrible selection. The Hall typically does not reward compilers who still failed to hit the biggest milestones. 22 years to collect 2,800 hits is not exactly HOF impressive.

He's 34th in RBI's - and had 100 in a season only 3 times, maxing out at 113. Two of those 3 years his OPS+ was below 120.

He's 47th in Hits - with a batting average of .289 which is not terrible or anything but has never been considered Hall worthy itself. Again, especially for a player who actually took the field less than half the time.

He's 43rd in total bases - with a .465 slugging as a primary DH and an OPS+ of 121, which is again good but not a HOF positive.

He didn't hit the 'auto-induct' compiler milestones (300 wins, 3,000 hits, 500 dingers), he didn't produce at anything approaching a HOF rate, especially for his position as a pure offense player at the easiest position in the game.

It is further made worse by the stink of open corruption oozing from his election. It is not a credit that his former manager and owner were 2 of the votes for him and advocating on the committee. If you need your friends to have votes and lobby for you to gain admittance after maxing out at 6% of the vote before this, you probably aren't a real HOFer. It looks like the Frisch committee all over again. People tend to not like corrupt choices.

If it wasn't for the corruption, he'd be seen more as a Sutter/Rizzuto type of weak choice who doesn't really belong, but that's the system. The corruption puts it into the bigger deal category for a lot of people.