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Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Harold Baines for the Hall of Fame?

First of all, being 28th all-time at something does not constitute “amazing” in my book. A-Rod is right on his heels, and will pass him before the end of May next year. Jim Thome and Carlos Delgado are about 140 RBIs back, and could both pass him in the next two years, without necessarily even being much good. Chipper Jones is about 250 back, and could pass him inside of three years easily. Any two of those four will push Baines out of the top 30, and thus his best case for Cooperstown will weaken quite a bit.

Also, it’s hard for me to agree with “consistent excellence” as an appropriate term to describe someone who hit, on average, .289 with 22 homers per 162 games. (His actual average per season was about 17.5 homers, because he rarely played more than around 145 games.) More like “typical goodness” which sounds a lot less compelling.

Sure, I’ll give him three snaps in Z formation for not using steroids, but then do we even know that for sure? He played almost half his career in the so-called steroids era, and suffered little apparent drop off in skills as he went into his late 30’s, when most players slow down.

Baines hit the second most homers of his career at age 40, in 1999, the height of the PED era, and also had the third highest slugging percentage and RBI totals of his career that year, then fell off the table, hitting just .254 with 11 homers in Y2K. If players as mundane as Jason Grimsley and Ricky Bones and Hal Morris and David Justice and dozens of others were all using, is it so hard to believe that Baines could have, too?

Hotel Coral Esix Snead (tmutchell) Posted: December 03, 2008 at 09:20 PM | 8 comment(s) | Login to Bookmark
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   1. Hugh Jorgan Posted: December 03, 2008 at 11:14 PM (#3020256)
Excuse me Mr. Baines, but the hall of pretty good is this way over here. Sorry THAT door here is for Mr. RAINES.
   2. OCF Posted: December 03, 2008 at 11:21 PM (#3020258)
I have absolutely no objection to having threads where we talk about good players in a hypothetical Hall of Fame context - but doesn't having just one thread per customer make sense?
   3. Santanaland Diaries Posted: December 03, 2008 at 11:34 PM (#3020261)
Depends; I didn't RTFA in this case, but if there's an interesting (good or bad) case made by the writer, or a particularly good anecdote, I see no problem in sharing it.
   4. GEB4000 Posted: December 03, 2008 at 11:50 PM (#3020265)
There has already been twenty to thirty Mussina articles. I can live with another Baines.
   5. Hugh Jorgan Posted: December 04, 2008 at 12:00 AM (#3020273)
I have absolutely no objection to having threads where we talk about good players in a hypothetical Hall of Fame context - but doesn't having just one thread per customer make sense?

I think its great having everyone put forward their case for and against for every player, it allows me to pretty much comment about what I think is important....VOTE TIM RAINES, VOTE TIM RAINES, VOTE TIM RAINES, VOTE TIM RAINES, VOTE TIM RAINES, VOTE TIM RAINES, VOTE TIM RAINES, VOTE TIM RAINES, VOTE TIM RAINES, VOTE TIM RAINES, VOTE TIM RAINES....well you get the point.
   6. Hotel Coral Esix Snead (tmutchell) Posted: December 04, 2008 at 12:54 AM (#3020312)
Raines was a much better player than most people realize, nut was overshadowed by Rickey. Doesn't seem like there's much support for Baines, except from overly ethusiastic White Sox fans.
   7. SoSHially Unacceptable Posted: December 04, 2008 at 01:00 AM (#3020315)
Doesn't seem like there's much support for Baines, except from overly ethusiastic White Sox fans.


There's not even that much support there travis. MLB.com puts out stories on all eligible candidates that appear, as far as I can tell, on the team page of the club he's most associated with and is written with a friendly spin for his fans. It's really not something any of us need to get worked up about.
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