"Mi Gr" isn't a solution because in this case the problem wasn't that I didn't know how to spell Greenwell; the problem was that I mistyped it, and now I have to type it again.

Personally, I'd rather have to occasionally re-type something that was obviously mistyped than have every last search return a ####-ton of irrelevant results that have a slightly different spelling.

That's just me, though.

Of course, this isn't so simple, because players will play multiple positions, and that being the greatest LFer ever just means you weren't good enough to be the greatest CF ever. But you still gotta put somebody in LF, you still gotta put someone in the DH spot.

I don't think you have to put in a DH for the sake of having a DH-spot, just like I don't think you need a designated "HOF middle reliever" or "HOF utility infielder." For HOF purposes, I think DH/LF/1B are all pretty much one position.

But you still gotta put somebody in LF, you still gotta put someone in the DH spot.

And that someone is Frank Thomas.

I definitely have a problem with a system that says someone is a HOF but would not be if he had actually played a position in the field and put up the same offensive performance.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting this, but why? Presumably as a general rule this person was a DH because he was more valuable there than he would have been if he had actually played a position in the field.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting this, but why? Presumably as a general rule this person was a DH because he was more valuable there than he would have been if he had actually played a position in the field.

I'm saying that anyone who played 1B rather than DH would have (as opposed to merely "might have") provided that at least that same additional value. It is very likely that the player could have done even better, without the wear of defensive play (although I'm not in favor of crediting players for what merely might have been).

I don't place any stock in the idea that there's some skill component to "hitting while not playing the field."

Walt's excellent comments in this thread underscore a basic dynamic. If you are good enough at hitting to put together a Hall of Fame baseball career, you are probably also good enough at other elements of baseball to play more than half your career in the field. This could be called the Thome/Hafner dichotomy :)

Edgar Martinez was a superior hitter. He's also 200th in career Games Played, 161st in Hits and Runs, and 124th in RBIs. He is 44th in Walks and thus 80th in Times on Base, which is what's really keeping his candidacy alive: he was extremely superior at getting on base. But did he do enough of it? I'm usually enough of a peak "voter" to support guys who were really great at something, as Martinez clearly was. The injury in 1993 didn't destroy his baseball career, but it put a big dent in his HOF case: guys who break in to stay at 27 and then are ordinary-to-less-than at ages 30 and 31 (the Chris Sabo pattern, honestly) put themselves in quite a hole. The wonder is that he pretty much climbed out of it.