i dont not recgonize the HOF untill santo gets in, his noninclusuons is a shame

Santo oviously should be in--and I hope that he gets in on the new ballot--but I don't think it is obvious that he is the Hall's most glaring omission.

I'm just afraid lowering the standards is going to result in some clearly unworthy players getting elected. Gil Hodges comes immediately to mind...

Santo isn't lowering the standards though, Adding Santo, Byleven, Trammel and Whitaker (or even Simmons) wouldn't lower any standard that the hall has already established.

Santo oviously should be in--and I hope that he gets in on the new ballot--but I don't think it is obvious that he is the Hall's most glaring omission.

The Hall of Merit is fully on board with the notion that Santo obviously should be in and would not in any way represent a lowering of standards. But we also agree with Blackadder that he's not the most glaring omission, or even the most glaring omission of his own generation. The latter title belongs to Bobby Grich.

I don't see how Gil Hodges is clearly unworthy of the Hall of Fame. He had nine seasons with slugging percentages above .500, was a terrific defensive first baseman, a major contributor to many pennant-winning teams, and an excellent manager. We can certainly debate his worthiness for the Hall of Fame, but I don't see how his resume is clearly short of HOF standards.

I don't see how Gil Hodges is clearly unworthy of the Hall of Fame. He had nine seasons with slugging percentages above .500, was a terrific defensive first baseman, a major contributor to many pennant-winning teams, and an excellent manager. We can certainly debate his worthiness for the Hall of Fame, but I don't see how his resume is clearly short of HOF standards.

The problem is that if he was a HOFer, then there are scores of HOFers sitting around to be inducted. A good quick-and-dirty way to see it is to look at his comps on bb-ref: not a single HOFer among them. And, hell, nobody is making an argument for any of those guys.

You have to give him tons of credit for his managing to set him apart from a lot of people. And, frankly, there's no real reason to do so. Has any manager in history gotten so much mileage from a single season as Gil Hodges? An "excellent manager"? Recognizing that there are limits to what a manager can do -- but also recognizing that this is an argument against giving him tons of credit for being a manager -- he managed one good team in his career.

Earlier this year a few dozen Hall of Merit voters ranked our 60 or so "Hall of Merit, not Hall of Fame" players.

It's not exactly accurate to say that Santo finished "8th," because we didn't vote across the four groups. But these are the guys who got at least 50 pct of the possible points (our opinion on exact overall rankings not necessarily in this exact order)

Pct of possible pts, all group elections (which group, rank among group):

Rose...............97.4 (IV, 1st)
Dahlen............95.0 (III, 1st)
DeaWhite........94.0 (III, 2nd)
Blyleven......... 93.9 (I, 1st)
Raines............92.9 (I, 2nd)
Grich..............90.2 (II, 1st)
PHines...........89.2 (III, 3rd)
Santo.............88.1 (II, 2nd)

HRJohnson....80.3(IV, 2nd)
McGwire.........79.0 (I, 3rd)
RBarnes.........78.1 (IV, 3rd)
DiAllen............77.8 (II, 3rd)
TSimmons......75.6 (II, 4th)
Glasscock......75.2 (III, 4th)
Trammell........74.7 (I, 4th)

JJackson.......70.2 (IV, 4th)
Gore...............68.5 (III, 5th)
Start...............61.9 (III, 6th)
McVey...........61.4 (IV, 5th)
ESutton..........60.9 (III, 7th)
Whitaker.........60.9 (I, 5th)
Beckwith.......59.6 (IV, 6th)

WClark...........55.3 (I, 6th)
Groh...............54.9 (III, 8th)
DarEvans........54.2 (II, 5th)
Torre...............50.8 (II, 6th)
HRichardson....50.5 (III, 9th)

I stand by the statement of Hodges as an "excellent" manager. The man had little everyday talent to work with during most of his years as Mets and Senators manager. The '69 Mets and the '88 Dodgers are the two most remarkable world champions of the last 40 years, so yes, I'll give the managers extra credit for winning those years. And since I'm a big believer in looking at a man's entire contribution to baseball (combining playing, managing, and front office work, because that's the way the HOF ballot is supposed to work), I believe a good argument can be made in Hodges' favor.

so if a guy puts up 60% of an HOF playing career, and 60% of a managing career, he should get in? Sounds plausible on the surface, but, isn't this actually apples and oranges? Do we have enough HOF managers to know what a HOF career looks like?

#4- No, I wasn't implying that Santo would lower the standards. In fact, I think all the guys you mentioned would be fine choices. What I meant was that if the Vets started electing people again, we'd get just as many bad choices as good ones. Probably more, even. I'm okay with two or three worthy players being left out if it means we're not going to elect a dozen unworthy's as well. And unfortunately, that's almost certainly what would happen.


#6- Re: Hodges - A first basemen with a 120 OPS+ in a career that wasn't abnormally long isn't rare or exceptionally special. He was a very good player. Rarely - if ever - great. His top ten comps are Norm Cash, George Foster, Tino Martinez, Jack Clark, Boog Powell, Rocky Colavito, Lee May, Joe Adcock, Willie Horton, and Roy Sievers. Kent Hrbek comes to mind as well, as does Mark Grace (Grace got his OPS+ with average rather than power, but the overall production was about the same). Amongst active players, Justin Morneau (who was one of the WORST MVP choices in modern history!) looks pretty similar.

#6- Re: Hodges - A first basemen with a 120 OPS+ in a career that wasn't abnormally long isn't rare or exceptionally special. He was a very good player. Rarely - if ever - great. His top ten comps are Norm Cash, George Foster, Tino Martinez, Jack Clark, Boog Powell, Rocky Colavito, Lee May, Joe Adcock, Willie Horton, and Roy Sievers. Kent Hrbek comes to mind as well, as does Mark Grace (Grace got his OPS+ with average rather than power, but the overall production was about the same). Amongst active players, Justin Morneau (who was one of the WORST MVP choices in modern history!) looks pretty similar.

There are a million players who fit the Hodges profile. Steve Garvey -- not anybody's idea of a Hall of Famer (although there was sentiment in that regard when he was playing) -- isn't really very far off. And then start looking at Garvey's comps to expand the circle. Al Oliver -- if Hodges is a HOFer, why not Al Oliver? Hell, what about Harold Baines? Yes, he DHed a lot -- but he used to play the OF before he DHed, and his career was a lot longer than Hodges'.

You want to give Hodges lots of fielding credit? Fine. But more than Keith Hernandez? Keith Hernandez had a (tiny bit) longer career, hit better, and is often thought of as the best fielding 1Bman ever. How do you get Hodges over Hernandez?

So what are we left with? Hodges' managing. And here we get this argument:

I stand by the statement of Hodges as an "excellent" manager. The man had little everyday talent to work with during most of his years as Mets and Senators manager. The '69 Mets and the '88 Dodgers are the two most remarkable world champions of the last 40 years, so yes, I'll give the managers extra credit for winning those years.

He didn't have much talent to work with for most of his years with the Mets and Senators? Fine. But he didn't do much with those teams, either. That's not an argument in his favor. One can excuse his teams' mediocre-poor performances by saying they didn't have much talent, but that's not a reason to put someone in the Hall.

So what are we really left with? 1969. That's it. I'm sorry, but the fact that the Mets weren't expected to do well, and did, once, doesn't make Gil Hodges a Hall of Famer. It's an argument for manager of the year.

He didn't have much talent to work with for most of his years with the Mets and Senators? Fine. But he didn't do much with those teams, either.

Bull. What were you expecting him to do with those teams? Should he have won four consecutve pennants with the Senators? Every year he was there they improved. As soon as they fired him they fell from 6th to 10th. He had a pitching staff centered around guys like Buster Narum, Pete Richert, and Phil Ortega. The offense had Frank Howard, Ken McMullen, and 7 random guys from Tacoma. (Come see Washington -- now with Don Lock!) He was the only Mets manager in their first 20 years to have a winning record with the team.

Ok, I think Hodges is a crap argument, but I've learned when it comes to managers opinions I trust Doc Nabbit opinion on the subject more than pretty much anyone on here. (of course he is one of the few people on this site that thinks tlr is as good of manager as his rep, even though he doesn't really like him)

Fun fact about Gil Hodges as manager:

He used his bench more than any other manager in baseball history.

He didn't have much talent to work with for most of his years with the Mets and Senators? Fine. But he didn't do much with those teams, either.

Bull. What were you expecting him to do with those teams?

Well, since I wasn't even alive at the time, I wasn't expecting him to do anything. But I don't know what my expectations have to do with anything.

Should he have won four consecutve pennants with the Senators? Every year he was there they improved. As soon as they fired him they fell from 6th to 10th. He had a pitching staff centered around guys like Buster Narum, Pete Richert, and Phil Ortega. The offense had Frank Howard, Ken McMullen, and 7 random guys from Tacoma. (Come see Washington -- now with Don Lock!)

When you take over a 56-win team, it's sort of easy to improve. When you don't improve them very much, it's sort of easy to improve them again. (And what kind of freak show statistic is "improved every year"? Is it actually "improving" to go from 70 wins to 71 wins? Is there some sort of value in going 70-71-76 vs. 71-70-76?) In any case, the bottom line is that over an almost five-year tenure with the team, he had a .420 winning percentage. Nobody in history has ever been considered a Hall of Fame manager because he took a bad team not expected to do much to a 68-win season.

We're not discussing whether he deserved to be fired by the Senators here; we're discussing whether he was an "excellent" manager, and whether it's a big plus for his Hall of Fame candidacy. So let me reiterate: he had a .420 winning percentage with them.

He was the only Mets manager in their first 20 years to have a winning record with the team.

Yes, he got lucky enough to die before the effects of that 1969 season could be washed away by the rest of their mediocrity. That's yet another freak show stat that doesn't really have much of anything to do with anything. He had a winning record based solely on the 1969 season. If Yogi had been fired a week earlier, he'd have had a winning record as Mets manager too. Ditto for Joe Frazier (or a week later.) This still boils down to 1969. Gil Hodges is an "excellent" manager because of 1969, is what the argument is. And that's just silly.

so if a guy puts up 60% of an HOF playing career, and 60% of a managing career, he should get in?

The Hall of Famers that this remark most closely resembles are Frank Chance and Red Schoendienst.

At the Hall of Merit, we vowed to consider only playing value and not managerial value. We have not elected Chance, but after 90 or so years of eligibility he still has not disappeared from the ballot - his case is that close and that interesting. Schoendienst did disappear from the HoM ballot immediately, so he's not that close strictly as a player. Each of Chance and Schoendienst managed one great team (the late-oughts Cubs, the late-60's Cardinals) but neither managed to build a second great team after the first one dispersed. (And Chance's great team was designed and built by Frank Selee, although Chance got to hold the reins through its peak.)

Of course, it is entirely possible that the Hall of Fame thought they were electing Chance strictly as a player - after all, they also elected Tinker and Evers. And they may have thought that they were electing Schoendienst strictly as a player, which is pretty much sabermetrically illiterate, evaluating him by batting average and having no knowledge of defensive statistics.

As for Joe Torre: the Hall of Merit did decide that he was hall-worthy strictly as a player, ranking 14th of our 20 catchers.

And then there's John McGraw who had something like 90% of a HoM-worthy playing career and what, about 200% of a Hall-worthy managerial career?

Well, since I wasn't even alive at the time, I wasn't expecting him to do anything. But I don't know what my expectations have to do with anything.

Well, you keep saying he did nothing with teams because they had bad records. That seems to be the only criteria you have for judging managers. When you take a team with horrible talent and raise them up to the heights of lousiness, that's an achievement.

When you take over a 56-win team, it's sort of easy to improve.

When you have a team with almost no talent, it's very difficult to keep them at 70 or more wins three straight seasons. The 1967 Senators had maybe 3 good players on the team. They finished in a tie with the Baltimore Orioles, who had 3 Hall of Famers in their staring lineup.

Comparing Hodges to Frank Chance: I have Chance clearly superior as a player (correct for the dead ball era context, and you see that Chance, when he was in the lineup, was a devastingly effective offensive player) and I have Chance superior as a manager. Even if Selee did build that team, it still took a very good manager to keep it functioning for several years. There are a dozen different ways that team could have unraveled, and Chance didn't let any of that happen, at least until the key players got old.

Comparing Hodges to Red Schoendienst: it's a 93 OPS+ second baseman (mostly) against a 120 OPS+ first baseman, with Schoendienst having about a year more playing time. I'd probably take Hodges as a player in that context. As managers? Schoendienst had about 2000 games and a .522 winning percentage; Hodges about 1400 games and a .467 winning percentage. Schoendienst had a much stabler situation and much more talent (including Bob Gibson at his best) to work with. I don't really know how to intelligently compare them.

How do we compare the overall, solely defensive values of Santo and Jeter? I make Santo slightly more valuable, even after accounting for the relatively lesser value of a 3bman as compared to a SS.

I make Santo slightly more valuable, even after accounting for the relatively lesser value of a 3bman as compared to a SS.

By all accounts, that "relatively lesser value of a 3bman" is all Jeter has going for him, so "slightly" is putting it quite kindly toward Jeter.

I stand by the statement of Hodges as an "excellent" manager. The man had little everyday talent to work with during most of his years as Mets and Senators manager. The '69 Mets and the '88 Dodgers are the two most remarkable world champions of the last 40 years, so yes, I'll give the managers extra credit for winning those years. And since I'm a big believer in looking at a man's entire contribution to baseball (combining playing, managing, and front office work, because that's the way the HOF ballot is supposed to work), I believe a good argument can be made in Hodges' favor.

While acknowledging that Hodges wasn't the only manager to run his pitchers' arms into the ground, this is a pretty damning quote from an article about Tom Cheney that was in last Sunday's Washington Post Magazine:

At D.C. Stadium on July 11, [1963] Cheney was working on another shutout, again leading the Orioles 3-0 with two outs in the bottom of the sixth. On Cheney's second pitch to outfielder Russ Snyder, Lock could hear him scream all the way from his spot in center field. It was, Cheney later told Peary, "like someone had a knife and ripped me down the forearm." He immediately left the game.

Team physician George Resta pronounced the injury nothing more than a "strain," requiring a cortisone shot and rest. But pitching medicine was still in its medieval barbering era, and it is almost certain that Cheney tore a ligament in his elbow. While his 16 innings contributed to the catastrophic failure, it was more likely the result of the cumulative toll of an ungainly delivery and a decade of pitching year-round -- in the regular season and winter leagues in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Today Cheney would be a prime candidate for "Tommy John" surgery, named after the first pitcher to have the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow replaced with a tendon from somewhere else in his body, usually either the forearm or the leg. Cheney tried several times to pitch that season but left the games in pain. His predicament was not helped by the arrival of former Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman Gil Hodges, who replaced Mickey Vernon as manager early in the 1963 season. Hodges, a Marine veteran of Okinawa, was a ferocious competitor with little patience for excuses and, Ken Retzer recalled, a conviction that "the Dodgers were the only ones who taught the game properly."

"He was a perfectionist," said Hannan. "He didn't want to win 5-3; he wanted to win 5-0."

Pain is a constant companion for many pitchers. These days, the Nationals' Shawn Hill takes his starting turn with a throbbing forearm. But anyone suspected of the kind of damage Cheney had suffered would likely be allowed nowhere near a pitching mound now and would get an immediate move to the disabled list to safeguard the team's multimillion-dollar investment. At Hodges's insistence, Cheney told Peary, he continued to try to pitch. If he wanted to keep his $15,000-a-year-job, he had little choice.

"It was just a different era," Lock said. "You either made an appearance, or someone took your place. You either pitched or went home."

Cheney hoped that a winter's rest would help. His last major league win came June 9, 1964, against Kansas City. He went to Hodges in the sixth inning and told him the pain was unbearable and that he couldn't continue.

"Hodges said, 'Ah go on out there; you can do it,' " according to Jim Hartley, who interviewed Cheney for Nats News, the newsletter of the Washington Baseball Historical Society.

Cheney finished the game but told Peary he had tears streaming down his face by the end. When Hodges came by his locker to congratulate him, Cheney said, "That's the last win you're going to get out of me, you son of a #####." His next start against Minnesota lasted three innings.

Per Dan Rosenheck's work, replacement level for 3b varied between -1.6 and -1.2 wins over Santo's career (i.e. a league average hitting 3b who was an average fielder was between 1.6 and 1.2 wins above replacement), so let's say -1.4. For SS over Jeter's career, it varies between -3.0 and -2.5, let's say 2.7 wins. So relative to position, Santo would have to be, on average, 1.3 wins per year on defense better than Jeter; I think the difference is probably bigger than that, although not by that much. Santo was also a slightly better hitter, and Jeter makes up a lot of ground with his vastly better baserunning. I think they are fairly comparable players in terms of overall value.

Team physician George Resta pronounced the injury nothing more than a "strain," requiring a cortisone shot and rest.

If this is the information Hodges was going on, he could hardly be blamed for thinking Cheney could gut it.

Team physician George Resta pronounced the injury nothing more than a "strain," requiring a cortisone shot and rest.

If this is the information Hodges was going on, he could hardly be blamed for thinking Cheney could gut it.

Sure, if you think that a scream that you could hear all the way out in centerfield was nothing but Cheney's Broadway audition.

so if a guy puts up 60% of an HOF playing career, and 60% of a managing career, he should get in?

The Hall of Famers that this remark most closely resembles are Frank Chance and Red Schoendienst.

But with Chance, the roles weren't so easily separable; Schoendienst presents the clear case, and I've always thought that his election set a terrible precedent. It was a gold watch for hanging around baseball for a long time.

My answer to the underlying question is that if someone has a HOF peak, and just needs longevity, the managing can supplement career value. But if someone doesn't have a HOF peak, then managing can't make one a HOFer. The latter case basically makes one the Harold Baines of playing+managing, and since I don't think Harold Baines is a HOFer, I don't think such a combined person should be, either.

"What were you expecting him to do with those teams?"

They finished last with him, they could've finished last without him.

I fail to see how replacement-level managing deserves any sort of recognition at the HOF level.

Well, you keep saying he did nothing with teams because they had bad records. That seems to be the only criteria you have for judging managers. When you take a team with horrible talent and raise them up to the heights of lousiness, that's an achievement.

Assuming I accept your characterization of the Senators, nobody has ever considered it a Hall of Fame level achievement to turn a 60 win team into a 70 win team. If you can point to one other person who was considered an "excellent manager" who deserved to get into the Hall because he did that, then we can talk about whether Hodges should join that person. Managing a bad team into contention, sure. But to 70 wins?

When you have a team with almost no talent, it's very difficult to keep them at 70 or more wins three straight seasons. The 1967 Senators had maybe 3 good players on the team. They finished in a tie with the Baltimore Orioles, who had 3 Hall of Famers in their staring lineup.

Well, that's pretty damn misleading; the Orioles manager got fired for that performance (*), as the Orioles badly underperformed expectations (and their Pythag). (And yes, the Senators significantly overperformed their Pythag that year. If you want to give Hodges credit for that, well, I don't know that the manager deserves such, but I won't argue strenuously. It's not as if it were a pattern with him; he managed 8+ years and his teams were a combined 8 games over.)

And how hard is it, exactly, to manage a team to a .420 winning percentage, even if the team doesn't have much talent?



(*) Since he had just won the WS the previous year, he was given a little leeway and wasn't actually fired until mid-1968, but it was the 1967 disaster that put Bauer on the hot seat.

Per Dan Rosenheck's work, replacement level for 3b varied between -1.6 and -1.2 wins over Santo's career (i.e. a league average hitting 3b who was an average fielder was between 1.6 and 1.2 wins above replacement), so let's say -1.4. For SS over Jeter's career, it varies between -3.0 and -2.5, let's say 2.7 wins. So relative to position, Santo would have to be, on average, 1.3 wins per year on defense better than Jeter; I think the difference is probably bigger than that, although not by that much. Santo was also a slightly better hitter, and Jeter makes up a lot of ground with his vastly better baserunning. I think they are fairly comparable players in terms of overall value.

Solid summing up, BA. Interesting, isn't it, that most writers probably consider Jeter a mortal lock to go into the Hall, and Santo still has to buy a ticket.

I think some of this is just arguing past each other. In part that's because I wandered into some pre-existing argument to make a point related to the main topic without making myself fully clear.

I don't think Hodges should be in the Hall. I do think he was a very good manager making the most of a bad hand.

Making .420 teams out of the talent he had on hand was actually pretty impressive.

If this is the information Hodges was going on, he could hardly be blamed for thinking Cheney could gut it.

Sure, if you think that a scream that you could hear all the way out in centerfield was nothing but Cheney's Broadway audition.

Not fair. Looking it up, he took Cheney out right after the pitch. He then gave Cheney a prolonged rest. Cheney was the staff ace and the doctor said he would be fine with some rest. Find me a manager who wouldn't have just rested him in 1963.

Also Hodges hadn't worked him that hard. We don't have pitch counts, but he only completed 3 of his 10 starts under Hodges (that was Hodge's debut season). Cheney's arm difficulty came from previous managers who had him throw the famous 21-K game.

Hodges was actually pretty quick to realize teh doctors were wrong. When Cheney came back, Hodges yanked him after 1 inning and 4 batters faced, despite the fact he hadn't allowed a run.

From Claude Osteen's page:
December 4, 1964: Traded by the Washington Senators with John Kennedy and $100,000 to the Los Angeles Dodgers for a player to be named later, Frank Howard, Phil Ortega, Pete Richert, and Ken McMullen. The Los Angeles Dodgers sent Dick Nen (December 15, 1964) to the Washington Senators to complete the trade.

That's a nice little influx of talent for Hodges entering his first full year. Richert did a 2-year impersonation of Osteen before fading (as Osteen faded too). McMullen was a nice 3B for a while and we all know what Howard was. I'm not sold on Hodges being more than a good manager who caught lightning in a bottle one year. I have no idea how much he contributed to the catching of that lightning.

Come see Washington -- now with Don Lock!
That's a little unfair to Lock. He was CF (mostly) with a .238/.331/.417 111 OPS+ (it was the 60s remember) over 3116 PAs.

Gil Hodges is an "excellent" manager because of 1969, is what the argument is. And that's just silly

You have to remember that DN is an Oriole fan. And although the young sprat may not have been alive at the time, I think he is retroactively pissed off that the Mets beat the juggernaut that was the 1969 Orioles.

Yes, he got lucky enough to die

What a marvelously infelicitous turn of phrase.

The next time David wishes you good luck, think twice.

Oh, and I agree with him -- Gil Hodges is not a Hall of Famer. Not even close. Not even if you add the bat, the glove and the managing together.

Hall of Very Good, definitely, especially as a combined entity. Hall of Fame -- Nope.

Yes, he got lucky enough to die

What a marvelously infelicitous turn of phrase.

The next time David wishes you good luck, think twice.

Just to be clear, Srul, that was an ironic reference to the recent Bob Feller thread in which he evinced a complete misunderstanding of Lou Gehrig's "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech.

Well then, David, you should have footnoted it, so the irony would more apparent to those of us who decided to forego yet another Feller-fest.

"Not even if you add the bat, the glove and the managing together."

Honestly, I think that if you add bat, glove, and managing together, Hodges is still behind Lefty O'Doul among wasn't-good-enough-in-any-one-category guys (mostly on the strength of O'Doul's contributions to Japanese baseball).

Santo and Hodges belong where they are now, on the outside looking in.