Jim Rice, Bruce Sutter, Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter....Just concentrating on the writer votes.

And Perez and Puckett and Aparicio and Dizzy Dean and Dawson might round out the questionable writer inductions.

I wrote a two part thing at THT in 2008 rating the BBWAA's HoF picks. They've done a good job. They've had trouble with relievers especially.

I can defend Puckett as a high-peak guy. Dawson I can defend given that centerfielders are historically underrated.

On the 70s/80s ... it's a double whammy. They followed a period of truly great hitters and pitchers and so had a high hurdle. But also, for whatever reason, the 70s and 80s just didn't produce a lot of truly great hitters and pitchers.

Well, let's look at this.

Legit HOFers (as in those who no doubt deserve it by most reasonable standards) who had the bulk of their value in the 70's and/or 80's:

C - Bench, Fisk, Carter
1B - Murray, Carew
2B - Morgan, Sandberg
SS - Ripken, Yount, Smith
3B - Schmidt, Brett, Boggs
OF - Dawson*, Jackson, Winfield, Henderson, Gwynn
UT - Molitor, Rose**
P - Seaver, Ryan, Palmer, Carlton, Niekro, Sutton, Blyleven

That's 27. A few guys may deserve entry but are not in: Grich, Trammell, Whitaker

Now, let's look at the 50's and 60's

C - Campy, Berra
1b - McCovey
2B - Robinson, Mathews
SS - Banks
3B - Robinson, Santo
OF - Yaz, Stargell, Clemente, Kaline, Aaron, Robinson, Mantle, Mays, Ashburn, Williams, Snider
UT - Killebrew
P - Ford, Marichal, Gibson, Wilhelm, Spahn, Roberts, Drysdale, Koufax

That's 28. Probably Dick Allen deserves to be in.

Seems pretty even to me. Obviously there's a lot of subjectivity: Who's a no doubt deserving HOFer, who belongs in a certain decade... I didn't mention Jenkins and Perry, as both bridge both eras almost equally. Maybe Jenkins belongs in the 70's/80's as much as yaz belongs in the 50's/60, but that's just nitpicking. Williams and Musial had a ton of value in the 50's, as Clemens did in the 80's. And of course, there were more teams in the 70's and 80's than the other era.



* the ultimate borderliner
** Yeah, I know. He certainly deserves it by his playing record, which is what we are looking at.

Likewise, I can defend Diz as a high peak guy. Project him to have gone 100-100 until he was 40, he'd have finished 250-183.

"Are still way better than you or me ever were at baseball."

Big deal. You could say the same thing about the 5 worst players who only lasted one season on a last place club.

Next year the 5 best players not in the hall will just be a list of Roiders and suspected Roiders.

Why only next year? They had steroids when Santo was playing, and he certainly always seemed to be injecting himself with something...

DH: Edgar.

DH: Vacant Because We're Playing Real Baseball

is better.

DH: Vacant Because We're Playing Real Baseball

The DH rule is 39 years old. Were they playing real baseball in 1959? In 1959, the spitball had been banned for 39 years. Were they playing real baseball in 1933? in 1933, the pitching rubber had been placed at 60'6" for 39 years.

The DH rule is 39 years old. Were they playing real baseball in 1959? In 1959, the spitball had been banned for 39 years. Were they playing real baseball in 1933? in 1933, the pitching rubber had been placed at 60'6" for 39 years.

They may as well call it blernsball.

"Real baseball" is the kind of baseball they were playing when you were 12 years old. Everything since then has sucked. (Not just baseball, but the world in general. And you, too.)

"Real baseball" is the kind of baseball they were playing when you were 12 years old.

When I was 12 years old, the American League of the Senators, Orioles and KC A's was indeed "real" AAAA. You couldn't find 15 players on their combined rosters who could make the Major Leagues of today. My baseball nostalgia for my seventh grade year is strictly limited to memories of the Yankees and the Dodgers, and 75 cent lower deck seats in Griffith Stadium about 30 rows behind home plate.

The DH rule is 39 years old. Were they playing real baseball in 1959? In 1959, the spitball had been banned for 39 years. Were they playing real baseball in 1933? in 1933, the pitching rubber had been placed at 60'6" for 39 years.

The DH rule has been around for most of my life.
"My" team is an AL team.
I still think pitchers should bat. Starting tomorrow, if possible.

"Why only next year? They had steroids when Santo was playing, and he certainly always seemed to be injecting himself with something..."

He kept its secret during his playing days. But it was clearly a performance enhancer, as if he didn't take it he would have been dead.

Were they playing real baseball in 1959? In 1959, the spitball had been banned for 39 years.

Yes, that was real baseball.

Were they playing real baseball in 1933? in 1933, the pitching rubber had been placed at 60'6" for 39 years.

Yes, that was also real baseball.

Neither banning the spitball nor moving the pitching rubber were structural changes to the nature of the game, the way the DH is.

"Real baseball" is the kind of baseball they were playing when you were 12 years old.

They had the DH in the AL when I was 12. That doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

Was Reese not listed in Post 52 because he doesn't quite fit the era, or because you didn't consider him a legit Hall of Famer?

Was Reese not listed in Post 52 because he doesn't quite fit the era, or because you didn't consider him a legit Hall of Famer?

The former. By career value, he's split almost evenly, but he had better years in the 40's, and with war credit it's not close.

In all fairness to the voters, Lloyd Waner is a weird case. For reasons I don't really understand, center fielders in the 20s-30s were not a stellar lot. You can make an argument that Lloyd was one of the very best CF in the NL from about 1927-1937. Offensively, Hack Wilson and Wally Berger tower above him, but that's all; the rest of the NL CF didn't hit homers. Defensively, he's at the top, about tied with Taylor Douthit, who was, essentially, Terry Moore. And people at the time were still trying to figure out how to balance those homers against defense. Wilson had the best offense, but the worst glove, and was famous for that. Berger got underrated because his teams didn't win, or he'd be considered the dominant CF of the time on balance. Earle Coombs is similar over in the AL, although the competition was stiffer, because the AL had more guys quickly catch on to what Babe Ruth was doing than the NL did. In many ways, Lloyd's case is like Jack Morris'. He's clearly not a Hall guy if you look at all baseball history, but he shows really well if you limit it to his prime playing period. It's just that his prime playing period wasn't a good period for CF. - Brock Hanke

brock

not looking for a spat but your post is the first time anyone put lloyd waner in the same sphere as terry moore defensively

at least in my reading

waner was good but moore was superb

Another player who is sharply similar to Lloyd Waner in many ways is Garry Templeton. Both came into the league very young and immediately made inordinate numbers of base hits for a few years. After about their seventh season in each case, they simply weren't stars anymore, but kept their jobs at much more mediocre level. I have no idea whether Waner had Templeton's attitude issues. (I seem to remember that Paul Waner was sometimes a PITA, but I know nothing about Lloyd's personality.) In any case, I don't remember Templeton having Templeton's attitude issues after his first few seasons. He simply went to San Diego, showed up for work everyday, and was essentially never heard from again.

Odd that Lloyd Waner should compare so well to two African-American switch-hitters from the doubleknit era, but a lot of things about baseball are odd.

Harveys - You didn't say anything that would provoke a spat, at least, not with me. Trying to compare Moore to Waner using BB-Ref's defensive numbers is insanely difficult because Moore's career is completely sidetracked by WWII, so Lloyd ended up playing several more seasons, since he came up earlier and stayed around later. At the ages where they were both playing full time and without war worries (essentially ages 23-29), Moore does have more RField, which is, I think, the basic defensive ranking at BB-Ref. The Historical Abstract gives them both A+ grades. Moore may well have been better (and as a Cardinal fan, I'm not inclined to downplay Cardinals), but neither the number of comparable seasons nor the difference is convincing. Either way, it's not a blowout. Lloyd ended up in center field on a team that had his brother Paul (who could really field) and Kiki Cuyler, who was also a gold glove, both of whom were older than Lloyd and more entrenched. I give that a lot of respect. The rest of where I'm coming from is my memories of listening to my dad teach me about baseball when I was a kid. Dad remembered Lloyd as an astonishing fielder, and he, too, was a Cardinal fan. The fact that my dad remembered Lloyd at all is a point in Lloyd's favor. Obviously, your reading is not going to include my dad's oral history stories, for what they are worth.

On a whim, I went over to BB-Ref and sorted Fielding Wins for the years 1927-37, since I cited that time period. Lloyd is essentially tied with Taylor Douthit for first place in the NL, just ahead of Wally Berger (which is the big surprize). In the AL, someone named Sam West, about whom I know nothing, ranked even higher than Lloyd and Taylor. But a NL observer of the time would have been quite right to cite Lloyd and Douthit as the A+ students.

The thing that no one remembers any more about Garry Templeton was that his trade for Ozzie Smith was a trade of malcontent gold glove shortstops. Ozzie had behaved quite badly during salary negotiations, going to the trouble of taking out an ad in the San Diego paper offering his services in lawn mowing, to make the point that he was underpaid. Changing teams seems to have cleared up the attitude of BOTH guys, not just Garry. - Brock

Sam West

Left-handed, fast, high-BA outfielder who I thought played mostly for the Browns. But upon looking him up, he proves to have played more for the Senators, though his prime was basically in St. Louis. OK, that's all I knew about West :) I think he was generally called Sammy, though B-Ref has him as Sam. West seems to have been very like Wally Moses. In a different era both would have stolen quite a few more bases than they did. Moses, who averaged nine or ten SB a year, stole 56 in 1943. Managers got a little adventurous during the war years. And that's enough trivia for one digression.

That's an interesting story about Ozzie Smith's discontent in San Diego, Brock. I had indeed forgotten about it, if I ever knew of it.

That's an interesting story about Ozzie Smith's discontent in San Diego, Brock. I had indeed forgotten about it, if I ever knew of it.

There is more to it, when Ozzie had asked for a raise, Kroc's wife said something about "if we pay him that much, he should come over and do our lawns"

cards - Thanks for the detail. I was well aware of what was going on in SD with Ozzie, but somehow never managed to hear that part of it. It does make Ozzie's ad a bit less strange, doesn't it?

And wow, Sam West was a much better player than just some random guy I'd never heard of. He's not a Hall of Famer or anything, but Hall of Very Good? Possible. One oddity is that BB-Ref thinks that his defense in STL was so bad that it counters a big chunk of his value in Washington. Maybe he was an outfielder who relied primarily on his speed. The Washington center field of the time (actually the whole outfield) was huge, while the one in Sportsman's Park was average or maybe a bit less. In any case, he ranks well on Bb-Ref, and Bill James does give him an A+ grade in Win Shares (not the Historical Abstract; I've had the books mixed up about that). And he wasn't a joke at the plate, although he had no more power than Douthit, Moore, or Lloyd Waner. - Brock

Thanks for the detail. I was well aware of what was going on in SD with Ozzie, but somehow never managed to hear that part of it. It does make Ozzie's ad a bit less strange, doesn't it?

I was under the impression that he was offered the gardening job first and put the ad out as a response to it, but looking on the web, it looks like he put the ad out first "Major league ballplayer looking for part time work to supplement income" and Joans response was to offer him a job to be her assistant gardener.