Good for him, even though this news makes me feel old. He had a HOVG career.

Kinda surprised nobody gave him a shot. He did hit .300 just two years ago. I would take a gamble on him if I were some #### team needing a DH. You can always let him retire midseason if it's not working out.

Inner circle HoVG or just middle road?

You know, we should do a HoVG. We talk about it enough and it would give those of not smart enough to make good HoM voters something to do.

Just looked at his minor league stats. They're...pretty lousy. These days I'd be surprised if a guy with those stats even got a real chance.

It depends, are you a small-HOVG guy or a big-HOVG guy? :)

If such a thing existed, I'd consider the inner circle HOVG to be guys who were legitimately borderline HOFers -- Willie Randolph, David Cone, etc. I know those guys are in the HOM but (not to start a flame war--I chose them because they were two of my favorite players) they really shouldn't be in the HOF -- they just reflect the fact that the HOF is too big. Ordonez is comfortably in the HOVG but I don't think he is inner circle.

O-E-O


O-E-O forever

Just looked at his minor league stats. They're...pretty lousy. These days I'd be surprised if a guy with those stats even got a real chance.

He hit .329 at age 23 in AAA...but yeah, before that he did not have an impressive track record. I do remember his rookie season that he was a fantasy steal in one of my leagues despite not putting up all that great numbers, just because of how unexpected it was.

HOVG for me as well, but it's sad to see him go. I remember I saw him at a Royals game when he was a late season call-up playing in only his 13th career game, probably since he signed an autograph for me after the game. I was happy at his success after that, but I never would have imagined seeing his last plate appearance 14 years later in Game 1 of the ALCS. Godspeed, Mr. Magglio.

I was present for Magglio's 2nd career homerun, a mammoth, 9th inning pinch-hit shot at old Busch stadium. That was the game Albert Belle got ejected for carefully dropping his bat at home plate and not coming back to retrieve it (I sat on the field and the guy never said a word). Sox won 5-4.

Wish he could have stayed healthy, would have had some fun numbers if he had, I think.

His defensive stats on B-ref are weird. As a full time guy, he's got two extremely good seasons at opposite ends of his career (+27 at 25, +15 at 33), and all the rest are negatives.

Every time I heard his first name I pronounced it in my head like Emilioooooo from Night at the Roxbury.

I think Wizard of Oz.

If nothing else, Best. Magglio. Ever.

If such a thing existed, I'd consider the inner circle HOVG to be guys who were legitimately borderline HOFers -- Willie Randolph, David Cone, etc.

Unlike the HOF, the "inner circle" of the HOVG is not composed of the hall's best players but rather of its most representative players. Being on the HOF borderline - like Trammel, for example - necessarily means that you are not a quintessential HOVG player, and thus not inner circle HOVG. So while Mark Grace is inner circle HOVG, Fred McGriff, his superior, is doomed to the borderlands between Halls.

Also, my impulse is to say that players without HOF-quality peaks are more comfortably placed in the HOVG. Moises Alou (38 WAR) fits more naturally than Albert Belle (37 WAR).

Mostly agree with #14. I think we'd have to start with "not in the HoF nor the HoM (nor currently eligible or not-yet-eligible for the HoF" and maybe even some qualifier about not a current top vote-getter in the HoM (I mean we'd have elected Reuschel to the HoVG years ago only to have to yank him out!)

And I'd agree that Alou is more quintessential HoVG than Belle. An HoF peak might disqualify you from the HoVG. I think there's a tough call on Cesar Cedeno and Eric Davis in particular but I will for the moment exclude them. Is Willie Davis in the HoM? (Reggie Smith is right?)

So ... off the top of my head

C Munson
1B Grace? Cooper? Watson?
2B Durham (I know, not yet eligible) Frank White?
SS Fregosi (HoF peak?), Campy, Concepcion
3B Buddy Bell, Toby Harrah
LF Moises
CF Monday, White, North
RF Clark

Let's see what PI suggests (min 70% games played, 1961 or later...)

Porter, Sundberg and maybe Parrish are other good C choices

Cash is obvious additional choice at 1B, Cooper, Watson not so great but solid

Durham is a pretty solid choice but Knoblauch and Lopes are better

Wow, Lansford and DeCinces hava a lot more WAR than I realized. Bell is the candidate but should probably be borderline HoM. Harrah is a good choice but split time between SS and 3B.

Concepcion is a bit further down the list than I'd have guessed and perhaps Fernandez should take his place.

Duh, Roy White (Moises plenty of time elsewhere)

Sure, Chet Lemon, Fred Lynn, blah, blah, blah

I'm gonna rule out Straw and Parker (HoF peaks?) so we could go Salmon and Barfield and Maggs right there too. Clark probably has too many WAR.

He is retiring to continue his profitable career of being Hugo Chavez's lapdog.

If you can't be have a one-team career, next best is to play long-term for two teams with similar uniforms.

I am on board for this project.

Hellofa Ballplayer

To extend Walt's position, it seems like HoVG players would not be the best players on pennant-winning teams.

I always liked him as a hitter. Walked a decent amount, didn't strike out much (single season high of 87) for a power hitter.

14. What did Billy Ripken have against Elroy Face? Posted: March 27, 2012 at 03:46 AM (#4089903)

If nothing else, Best. Magglio. Ever.

Mostly agree with #14.

#14 isn't all that controversial.

Unlike the HOF, the "inner circle" of the HOVG is not composed of the hall's best players but rather of its most representative players. Being on the HOF borderline - like Trammel, for example - necessarily means that you are not a quintessential HOVG player, and thus not inner circle HOVG. So while Mark Grace is inner circle HOVG, Fred McGriff, his superior, is doomed to the borderlands between Halls.

I would think the HOVG would be shaped like a donut, and thus would have an inner annulus rather than an inner circle (with McGriff on the inner edge and Jim Abbott or whoever on the outer edge).

The thing that strikes me when looking back at Maggs' career is that if he never gets hurt in 2004, he probably ends up with a pretty reasonable HOF argument. He was 30 at the time of the injury and mostly just lost power, beyond what I'd expect the difference between Detroit and Chicago to be. I think it's perfectly reasonable that a healthy Maggs remains a durable 140ish OPS+ hitter till he's 34ish, before breaking down just as he did in the OTL. An additional 180 games alongside generally better power output from 30 on looks very different than Maggs' final playing record. It'd be far from a slam dunk, but it'd make for a good HOF argument.

Oh cool now we can have jack morris and Jim rice hovg arguments. And Lou Brock. Outbreak puckett?

I'd put Morris in the HOVG - hell, he's practically the flagship pitcher.

Rice, Brock, and Puckett aren't eligible as they are in the HOF. No matter how much we whine about it, it is so, and therefore I'd say they aren't even eligible for discussion on the HOVG.

Will always remember him for this, one of the coolest baseball moments I can recall. I watched it with my uncle - a huge Tigers fan - right after the passing of my cousin, also a huge Tigers fan (the wake had him in a Tigers uniform!). That Magglio blast was one of the really great moments that brought our family together that weekend.

Maybe it's because I'm a Tiger fan, but I still feel slightly jipped on the 2007 MVP. Amazing year, especially considering he had little to no lineup protection.

Rice, Brock, and Puckett aren't eligible as they are in the HOF.

Well, I didn't say I agreed with that rule...and it's not like our tenets are carved in stone yet.

Maybe it's because I'm a Tiger fan, but I still feel slightly jipped on the 2007 MVP. Amazing year, especially considering he had little to no lineup protection.

You shouldn't, because A-Rod was clearly the best player in the league that year.


Also, lineup protection is meaningless, doesn't affect value.

Joe Carter would be my nomination for inner-circle HOVG.
Jimmy Key, too.

You shouldn't, because A-Rod was clearly the best player in the league that year.

I can't argue with that, which is why I said that it's because I'm a Tiger fan.

Also, lineup protection is meaningless, doesn't affect value.

Tell that to Delmon Young last year.

You shouldn't, because A-Rod was clearly the best player in the league that year.


Also, lineup protection is meaningless, doesn't affect value.

This is a SABR truth that has always seemed fishy to me. And frankly, it is: http://mlbresearch.blogspot.com/ and http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/pitching-around-batters say there is *something* to lineup protection.

Umm, your links agree with me.

From your second link:

In short, protecting a star hitter appears to accomplish very little. He indeed gets fewer walks; however, there is no evidence that he gets more hittable pitches, since the pitcher always avoids pitching to a good hitter when the situation would call for an intentional walk.

In terms of an alternative to intentional walks, pitching around a hitter accomplishes very little, as it merely increases the ratio of walks to non-walks without significantly affecting how well the hitter performs if he isn't actually walked. In other words, if you'd rather have a walk than whatever the hitter normally does if he doesn't walk, then you should walk him. If you'd rather have what he normally does, you should pitch to him normally.

Unlike the HOF, the "inner circle" of the HOVG is not composed of the hall's best players but rather of its most representative players. Being on the HOF borderline - like Trammel, for example - necessarily means that you are not a quintessential HOVG player, and thus not inner circle HOVG. So while Mark Grace is inner circle HOVG, Fred McGriff, his superior, is doomed to the borderlands between Halls.

I am down with your first sentence, but I think Trammell isn't a borderline HOF player, he's a no-doubt HOFer who the voters have made a mistake with. I also think Cone is an almost certain non-HOFer who the voters made the right call with, and I feel comfortable with him as an "inner-circle" HOVGer.

I also don't think a low peak is necessary to be a HOVGer. High-peak guys who flamed out early are just as "representative" of the HOVG as low-peak compilers. There's room for both Albert Belle and Johnny Damon, for both Doc Gooden and Andy Pettitte, etc.

Tell that to Delmon Young last year.

Yeah, having Cabby behind him allowed him to almost manage a .300 OBP with the Tigers!

High-peak guys who flamed out early are just as "representative" of the HOVG as low-peak compilers.

Nah, they're in the Hall of Coulda Beens or the Hall of If Onlys or something.

As you can tell, I'm a big Hall of Hall of Fames guy.

EDIT: Here's an even more controversial criterion for the HoVG -- no MVPs or CYAs. RoYs are allowed.

Three years ago I ran a project I called Hall of Fame Purgatory. The rules I devised for that would work here:

This project will identify and prioritize the eligible players who should be elected to the Hall of Fame.

One thing I want to do here is make a distinction between players in Purgatory and those in the Hall of Very Good (HOVG). Players in Purgatory do not belong in any HOVG; they belong in the HOF! You often see “small Hall” advocates describing top candidates like Tim Raines, Bert Blyleven and Ron Santo as HOVG players; they’re on the outside of the HOF and deserve to be there, so they say. Contrary to this sort of contrivance, my idea is that HOVG players are of lesser quality than players generally enshrined in Cooperstown. The three mentioned players are clearly in the Hall of Fame class, perhaps the three most egregious oversights. Our aim will be to identify who all these players are and put them in their own place: The Hall of Purgatory (HOP: hope). (We’ll save for another project our elections to the HOVG.)

The voting format combines a ranked order with an up/down vote. I have devised a queue of candidates for the Hall, based on many different rankings and projects, on this website and others. We’ll start with the top 30 candidates. Each voter will be asked to do three things:

1. Rank the top 15 in order.
2. For each of these 15, mark Yes (Y) or No (N) in answer to this question: Should this player be in the Hall of Fame?
3. From the second 15, rank your top 6 in order. This identifies players the group thinks most deserve to be on the next ballot.

To be elected to the HOP a player must finish in the top 10 in voting and a majority of voters must say Yes, this player belongs in the HOF. We’ll elect a maximum of ten per election. If at least half the voters say No, the candidate is identified as a potential member of the HOVG. We’ll use a “three strikes, you’re out” rule: a player will be removed from the ballot after his third election being rejected by our electorate (if we get that far).

The project will end after the second time we elect no players to the HOP. We’ll end up with a nice prioritized list for the Hall of Fame to elect. Also, we’ll have identified some of the better players in the HOVG.

We’re ranking players based on Hall of Fame criteria, so character counts. Negro league and minor league play counts, but we’re not considering players who played primarily in foreign leagues. We’ll consider players retired in 2004 or earlier, everyone eligible for the 2010 BBWAA election.

In that project we identified 58 players that belong in the HOF. That's about the same number that the Hall of Merit has identified, although Purgatory chose a few non-HoMers (McGriff, Murphy, Leach, Belle, Walters, Van Haltren, Quisenberry and Redding). Five of those 58 have since been elected: Dawson (finished #26), Alomar (#4), Blyleven (#2), Larkin (#5), Santo (#1).

Eleven players were eliminated by the “three strikes, you’re out” rule. These could be seen as the top players in the HOVG:

Carl Mays
Dave Parker
Larry Doyle
Willie Randolph
Charley Jones
Bobby Bonds
Billy Pierce
Bob Elliott
Wilbur Cooper
Luis Tiant
Bob Johnson

We never did go back and complete the HOVG. At the end of that project these were the next 15 also-rans:

Wally Berger
Urban Shocker
Tommy Bridges
Dave Concepcion
Gavvy Cravath
Don Newcombe
Dave Stieb
Bret Saberhagen
Thurman Munson
Robin Ventura
Jim Kaat
Jimmy Ryan
Cesar Cedeno
Rusty Staub
Reggie Smith

I envisioned three primary levels in the Universe of Honors:

Level 1. The Hall of Fame
Level 2. Purgatory (players that belong in the HOF)
Level 3. HOVG (equal in size to the HOF)

The number of players to include at present:
1. 236
2. 58
3. 236