Very consistent hitter throughout his career.

He also had cool mutton chop sideburns.

He's only the third-best player to come out of Donora, Pennsylvania.

And the second best to be born on November 21st.

One of the controversies of the 1998 postseason (with Joe Morgan in the middle, stirring) was how the '98 Yankees, with their fabulous regular-season record, would compare, position by position, with the '74-'75 Big Red Machine. As I pointed out at the time, phrasing it as "position-by-position" gives the Reds an unfair advantage over the Yankees in the argument. There are two reasons for this. One is that the Reds had unusually weak pitching for a great team, and going position by position is a way of diverting attention from the pitching. The other is that the Reds had 8 regulars set in stone - no platoons, no shared positions. The Yankees were more fluid, including essentially not having a regular LF but getting good production from LF anyway.

But one place the argument gets you is comparing a young Ken Griffey with an old Paul O'Neill. My take on it was that O'Neill was clearly better, and by a pretty good margin - but is that correct?

Griffey had a terrific '76.

He almost won the NL batting title. Griffey had a five point lead over Bill Madlock entering the last day of the season. Sparky Anderson sat Griffey, thinking that he had a safe lead. Madlock went four for four, so Anderson inserted Griffey in the seventh inning - Griffey went zero for two, and Madlock won the batting crown.

Yes, I meant '75-'76. Of course, the most lopsided of all the position-by-position comparisons is the one at 2B.

What's the HoM status? We've elected -easily, once we got past the boycott - Bench, Morgan, and Rose. Perez is in the high backlog, and Concepcion has some supporters. Foster has already come and gone as a candidate, Geronimo wouldn't have been on Dan's lists, and Griffey won't make much of a splash. The pitchers? Did we talk about any of them? If so, I don't remember it.

As for the Yankees: Raines will make the HoM but he was hardly central to that team. We haven't established our standards for relievers, but Rivera certainly has as good a buzz among the electorate as he could. Jeter has pretty clearly established himself at an HoM level. But the rest of them - Bernie? Tino? O'Neill? Posada? Pettitte/Cone/Wells/El Duque? Some of them might turn out to be candidates, but it all looks like an exercise in just how good a team you could build from HOVG parts, provided they really were HOVG.

Bernie? Tino? O'Neill? Posada? Pettitte/Cone/Wells/El Duque

This is kinda like Bando, Tenace, Rudi, North, Campy, Holtzman, Blue, Lindblad

Also similar to (sorry, self-serving Joe Morgan): Griffey, PEREZ (yes, PEREZ), Rose (but, he's really a HOFer), Concepcion, Foster (and no pitchers . . . which is the real reason why the Reds were not as good as the 70s A's or the '98 Yanks).

Bernie tailed off just a year or two too early for HOM/HOF, same's true for Cone, and who knows about El Dookie? But the one guy I won't count out yet, believe it or not, is Posada. He's closer as a catcher than Bernie is as a CF. He doesn't need many seasons of above-average C production to vault into electable territory.

But the rest of them - Bernie? Tino? O'Neill? Posada? Pettitte/Cone/Wells/El Duque? Some of them might turn out to be candidates, but it all looks like an exercise in just how good a team you could build from HOVG parts, provided they really were HOVG.

I would think Bernie would be an easy HoM choice. If you elected Jimmy Wynn, Bernie seems like he should be a lock.

And the second best to be born on November 21st.

That would be Junior. Senior dukes it out with Bob Watson and Ross Youngs as the best ever product of April 10.

Yes, Posada, I agree, although 5000 pa at age 34.8 yy.m is not encouraging. About 4000 in this millenium but only about 1000 through age 28.2 in the last one.

Bernie Williams? Paul O'Neill is his number one comp!
But O'Neill is down in the next tier.

David Cone? Better than I remember.
And put him on the list of 1994 guys (career year) who may benefit from the 1981 discussion.

--
Ken Griffey Senior is famous thanks to the Big Red Machine and to Junior. His combination of speed with medium power inclines me to think of him as a centerfielder. I need to catch myself again and again.

Was Senior elegant? There he benefat from George Foster.

The pitchers? Did we talk about any of them? If so, I don't remember it.

Someone quoted Sparky Anderson. How does it go? "Three things only in life are certain. Death, Taxes, and Don Gullett will be an honored guest in William Cooper's Town every summer." Something like that.

Gary Nolan, Wayne Simpson, and Don Gullett all hit the big time big, and very young. Nolan had a good career, if only we could all achieve so much in our chosen walks in life, but he was no longer at his best in '75-'76 and that team relies on him for too much in the All Time League.

(Next year Mario Soto was comparatively long in the tooth, debuting after his 21st birthday. He didn't become a star until his mid-twenties, just too late for that storied 1981 team. Ouch, wins didn't come cheap that April. Four starts yielding 0, 1, 2, and 3 earned runs once each; one victory and three defeats. Mario Soto 1981 )

The 1975 team enjoyed superior relief pitching from youngsters Rawly Eastwick and Will McEnaney, elders Clay Carroll and Pedro Borbon. Quite a staff with three at 90-odd and one at 125 innings. Offseason they traded Carroll for Rich Hinton, there's a good move. By ERA+, McEnaney dropped in half! and Hinton was worse. Note, the 1975 team did win six more games with a 30 runs greater margin; the 1976 team is recalled in a better light because it swept October.

>I would think Bernie would be an easy HoM choice. If you elected Jimmy Wynn, Bernie seems like he should be a lock.

Well, aside from the fact that I didn't elect Jimmy Wynn...

I'd still need to know how many other CF we would have to elect to get from Wynn to Bernie. Edmonds? Finley? Puckett? Murph? Fred Lynn? How about Edd Roush, is Bernie better than Roush?--assuming guys who played before 1980 are getting consideration from the FoBW.

I couldn't fathom placing Finley ahead of Bernie. I'd be shocked if Lynn came out ahead of Bernie also. Edmonds on peak, career, I'm not so sure. Puckett/Murphy would also be close. He's right in that group. The Edd Roush of the 1990s?

At least on my main, offense-and-position-only system, Bernie looks very good. Would probably be #1 on my ballot on years like this one. And, unless Clemens decides to finally hang 'em up, 2012 looks like a pure backlog year.

My thumbnail goes:
PaO'Neill 177 38 38 34 29 27 23 22 14 06 05 02 02
BWilliams 159 57 48 43 40 36 30 30 20 10 09 01
DwigEvans 163 56 49 47 37 36 31 25 24 20 15 11 10 10 06 03
Edd-Roush 159 53 48 47 43 41 34 24 24 23 08
BoJohnson 174 55 47 43 41 35 34 30 29 29 27 25 25


O'Neill's 177 is 1994 and Johnson's 174 is WW II, so adjust if you like.
If you do, you pretty much see the last 4 guys with amazingly similar peaks even 9 years deep, before Johnson finally dominates seasons 11-13.

Of course, Williams and Roush get CF credit, though BWilliams' D would be a subject of MUCH debate. Evans has the most Gold Gloves of the group, actually, and Johnson needs to lead in offense because I doubt anyone doesn't dock him on D relative to most or all of this group.

Ironically, Williams could lose out on the HOF because of the "didn't seem like a Hall of Famer" weird vibe that those voters do, while not getting any credit from HOM voters for those grind-it-out postseason numbers that for some reason fascinate TV announcers ("22 HR in 465 postseason ABs! That's positively Ruth-ian!").

I'll give you here a sneak preview of what could be a neat early-2008 idea - a non-binding referendum on which 15 active players you'd vote for, if all of them retired the next day.
Peak voters would race to elect Albert Pujols and Johan Santana, but career voters might more cautious. Could be an annual exercise, so if a guy like Santana wasn't 'elected' thru 2007, maybe he would be after 2008, and so on.

Format would have to be figured out - do we "elect" 3, or 15, or how many?
Again, this would not be an actual HOM vote. But it would be a good way to debate the current stars long before their real HOM vote.

Actually, by "active" I mean, not yet eligible for HOM voting. Mix 'em in with the truly active guys.

CFers in Roush's time hit significantly better than in Bernie's time, too. Add the former's well debated durability concerns, and Bernie has the most valuable offense in this group.

yeah, there are a lot of details to find beyond the raw stuff, of course...