I'm surprised that Rollie Fingers hasn't drawn any support here as a bad BBWAA choice. 1,700 IP of Relief Work at 119 ERA+?

Well, it depends what one's standard is. If he's a pitcher, he's a bad choice -- as are all relievers except Wilhem. But if he's a closer, he's not. If HOF voters take it in their head to induct people for being great pinch hitters, then we ought to evaluate any such selections by how good they are as pinch hitters, not how good they are compared to starting outfielders. We can criticize the decision to induct pinch hitters, but given the decision, it makes no sense to sit there and point to every pinch hitter in the hall as a mistake. Since they've decided to put closers in, <u>that decision</u> may be wrong, but Fingers isn't.

He had a ridiculously short career for a starter, but for a closer, he had a very long one.

Well, for starters, Athletics 'dynasty' and a Cy Young avec MVP with 1.04 ERA. Signatures. And somehow his BB-REF Hall Monitor is 139 - go figure.

and

I don't have a calculater to figure ERA, but in those four tight post-season series in 1972-3, Fingers - in 18 games, tossed 34 IP, allowed 5 runs. I don't think that means he automatically deserves enshrinement, but it is worth mentioning.

I agree that this explains why he was inducted. I don't think it changes the fact that it was at least a questionable selection.

34 names, but he didn't include Roger Bresnahan?
Only 1450 games, 5400 PA, 279/386/377. A part-timer with one really good season who was said to invent catcher shin-guards. By all means, put the shin-guards on the wall, but putting his plaque up there seems wrong. So what if he walked a lot? It's not like he did much once he got on.

One of the greatest hitters among backstops, he was also the best all-around of his generation. Yes, he didn't play that many games behind the plate, but 1) his years in the OF can't be totally excluded from the conversation and 2) catchers didn't have long careers during his time compared to later generations.

As for him being a part-timer, I don't understand what you mean by that.

A Bresnahan backer, sweet!
I look forward to an answer, John Murphy, because I sincerely don't understand Bresnahan, and I know you are active in the HOM threads, so an answer from you (or someone else) will hopefully enlighten me.

Here's how I view Bresnahan>>

He must have had a fabulous personality, and many friends. Perhaps former teammates like John Mcgraw or Miller Huggins spoke glowingly of him? I don't see how his statistics are enough to get him into the Hall of Fame, there must be lots of stories (I already mentioned the one where he is credited with inventing catcher shinpads.) He was known to many as Duke, short of a fuller nickname "The Duke of Tralee", even though he was born in America. I've known some Kerry people, and I'd take a bullet for them, so I don't doubt that he might have cultivated a devoted fanbase if his family was recently arrived from there.

As a player, he comes up as a pitcher but doesn't stick. Goes back down for a few years, resurfaces as a hitter, no harm there.

I don't really know how to evaluate his 1.5 years in the 1901-1902 American League. First year, he splits time with 38 year old Wilbert Robinson as a catcher, and hits about as well as him. Next year, he scuffles his way through half a season at third base, and then something happened? There must have been a spat with the owner? Or among the players? Because Bresnahan and John McGraw get flat-out released mid-season, and sign the same day with the New York Giants and join the NL. Cy Seymour is also released, Dan McGann, Joe McGinnity, and I don't know who else. McGraw signs many of them later and builds a dynasty in NY, I don't know what happened, those were good players. Baltimore folds as a team after the season, moves to New York (Highlanders).

His first full year with the Giants, 1903, Bresnahan plays mostly OF, and has an ungodly season (for him) 350/443/493. Fantastic. He goes on to have some very nice years with the Giants, in total six years with them, two-thirds of that time as a catcher. 293/413/393 for those six years, not shabby. But I don't know if that is particularly HOF-worthy?

Then he gets traded to the Cardinals, and plays on some bad STL teams for a couple years. If he really was such a good player, why did Ed Phelps and Jack Bliss play more than him at catcher? He was never once the mainstay catcher. Also, he was a player-manager there, and they lost a lot, so I don't see how this could help his cause. And he never became a manager again, once he was done as a player (although he did coach some.)

Finishes career with three years on the Cubs, a decent enough team, middle of the pack, where he splits time with Jimmy Archer. One of the three years is good. Has more than 300 PA only one of his last seven seasons, I guess that's why I called him a "part-timer." He has a pitcher year, and cup-o-coffee year, some good years as a Giant, and then these latter Card-Cub years where he has less than 250 ABs/year. He goes into the books with appearances across 17 seasons, but it only adds up to 1446 games and 4481 AB. I think I only see three players (non-pitchers) inducted with fewer AB:
* Monte Irvin (2499), though he was given credit for Negro League time.
* Roy Campanella (4205), an excellent player, 3-time MVP in a ten year career that was truncated by racism at the start (he debuts 1948, age 26) and a paralyzing off-season car accident at the end.
* Frank Chance (4297) a very good player for his era who gets extra-credit for being on an all-time great team, and being their player-manager, and of course la poeme de Rice.

Bresnahan has virtually no black ink, and his gray ink is almost negligible. I don't know the answer, but how many HOF hitters (any era) have a SLG lower than their OBP? His OPS is notable for his years with the Giants, but it is very OBP-heavy, and since when did that have value in 1945? Bresnahan died in December 1944, and was inducted 1945. I don't know the details/dates of the vote that year, but considering his poor stats I keep wondering about how his personality might have carried the day?

Seasons- 17
Games - 1446
AB - 4481
PA - 5374
R - 682
H - 1252
2B - 218
3B - 71
HR - 26
RBI - 530
SB - 212
BA - .279
OBP - .386
SLG - .377
OPS+ - 126


Other than 17 seasons, these are surely among the lowest totals/averages of anyone in the HOF, and I look forward to the explanation.
Thanks...Snowboy

I agree that this kinda blows. I jsut skimmed his list, but other than Effa Manley are there any Negro Leaguers on it? I mean if you really want to write about the HoF, then you should know something about the entire HoF. If you want to eliminate about 15 percent of the players...if you want to make it 15 percent smaller...are you so sure that they all should come from the same cohort that you don't even bother to learn something about the rest of them? This is just lazy. And stupid. And even within the MLB cohort, he missed a bunch. Chesbro! Bender! I mean, you guys have said it all. Bash Rizzuto for an OPS+ that is better than Øzzie's? Lazy bastard.

They were still boneheaded enough to leave Johnny Mize out for reasons only they knew.

Partly covered but I think it was mostly the "short career" -- fewer than 1900 games played. I've been saying for some time that career length is clearly an important factor to the writers that is often overlooked here.

They've been fairly consistent. Allen didn't get in with similar numbers to Mize (obvious additional issues with Allen). Same with McGwire (and same obvious additional issues). Hack Wilson (more character issues) didn't make it. Chuck Klein. I don't expect Albert Belle or Edgar Martinez to make it. Reggie Smith. Jim Thome would be interesting if he retired today.

Of fairly similar guys who did make it, Bill Terry had to wait several years. Hank Greenberg a few. Joe Medwick made it in his last year as did Kiner.

So at least they've been fairly consistent on that. High peak but short career corner players have always had a tough time. I think that's reasonably fair -- there are a lot of high peak corner guys so put in the ones who had long careers too. I don't agree with that necessarily and especially I don't see the point in keeping out outstanding hitters with 1600-2000 games but putting in good hitters with 2200+ games (Perez, Murray) but it shouldn't be a mystery at this point when it happens.

Of course these are the jackasses who held Santo's "short career" (2243 games) against him and made Eddie Mathews wait a few years, so fair to say their standards are a bit screwy at times.

Good points, Walt. "Short career" was a factor in overlooking Arky Vaughan, as well. 1,485 games at shortstop is not a "short" career in absolute terms, but it was a good bit shorter than Cronin's or Appling's, a lot shorter than Maranville's. I doubt that being an enemy of Leo Durocher's hurt Vaughan in HOF voting – many players in the Hall hated Durocher – but Vaughan's walking away from the Dodgers in his early 30s led to him being pretty quickly forgotten. He did garner increasing support from the BBWAA in the late 1960s, based on his obviously outstanding hitting numbers, before he dropped into Veterans territory; but the writers who saw him play a lot barely supported him at all.

He must have had a fabulous personality, and many friends. Perhaps former teammates like John Mcgraw or Miller Huggins spoke glowingly of him? I don't see how his statistics are enough to get him into the Hall of Fame, there must be lots of stories (I already mentioned the one where he is credited with inventing catcher shinpads.) He was known to many as Duke, short of a fuller nickname "The Duke of Tralee", even though he was born in America. I've known some Kerry people, and I'd take a bullet for them, so I don't doubt that he might have cultivated a devoted fanbase if his family was recently arrived from there.

While all of the anecdotes are certainly interesting, it carries no weight for me in regard to his greatness (including his inventions/popularizations).

I don't really know how to evaluate his 1.5 years in the 1901-1902 American League. First year, he splits time with 38 year old Wilbert Robinson as a catcher, and hits about as well as him.

If you look at games played for catchers during his time, they just didn't play that many per season. A catcher playing behind the plate for more than 100 games was quite an achievement.

Now, there were a few seasons in the Aughts where games played for catchers in a season did go up significantly, for whatever reason (maybe the items that Bresnahan introduced?) Unfortunately, they couldn't handle it beyond those few seasons and their games played came back down to earlier levels.

Bresnahan has virtually no black ink, and his gray ink is almost negligible.

Which was not uncommon for catchers of his time or earlier, since they physically couldn't play as many games as, for example, an outfielder could. Even today, catchers still lag behind in those two both black and gray ink.

OBP - .386
SLG - .377
OPS+ - 126

How many catchers have had a higher OBP or OPS+ in ML history? Obviously, the SLG is not too high out of context, but not bad for the Deadball Era.

As for his career numbers, if you compared them to normalized numbers among other catchers throughout history and take into account the fact that catchers just didn't accrue as many games as later generations were able to do, I hope you can see that the Duke is at the very least a borderline HOFer. Hopefully higher than that, of course.

FWIW, I have him as the best major league catcher for 1905, 1906, and 1908, as well as the finest major league centerfielder for 1903.

Hope that helps some.