RAFAEL PALMEIRO

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Posted By: Hankron

While I am not confident that Rafael deserves to be in the Hall of Fame (agree with what Jay Miller said), what differentiates Rafael from Jose Canseco and similar is that Rafael was quality fielder. At his height he was amonst the best fielding first basemen.

In my mind, the biggest mistake that armchair HOFer votes make is focus on and only on batting statistics. Many act as if things like leadership, fielding and durability are qualities no more important than hair color or shirt number. In my opinion, the prototypical Hall of Famer is the person that will best help your team win both during the regular season and playoffs. Pure batting stats definitely are certainly important, but far from everything Irrelevant to Albert Belle's hitting numbers (which were great), he was a bad influence on the team and he coulndn't field if his butt was on fire.

On a similar strain, I think people who are mesmerized by pure statistics miss what a player is about, and what baseball is about. Only people who have no clue sit there and measure Ozzie Smith's quality as a baseball player, by comparing his batting statistics to Ty Cobbs or his home run totals to Willie Mays. They have no concept about why the manager put Ozzie on the field. They probably think if they could have put Jose Canseco or Albert Belle in at shortstop, the Cardinals would have been a better team.

The problem is that perhaps 50 percent of baseball is measurable (batting average, home run totals, win/loss), while the rest is not. Since they can't find the unquanifiable printed in a book or on a web page, many simply dismiss its importance or dismiss it altogether.