Hall of Fame Selection Simplified
Who should be voted in this year, and why
12/20/03
Neate Sager

No less than 32 players are on the 2004 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, and we are just twisted enough to comment on nearly every last one.

Firstly, the HOF ballot is a thing of beauty, because it challenges us to coldly and objectively evaluate players we loved, and reconsider players we may not have appreciated when we didn't know what we know now.

Several players on this year's ballot played for my beloved Blue Jays during my formative years, which is a sure sign I'm quickly passing to the other side of the generation gap. No doubt part of this exercise will be an assault on my youth. But I digress.

Each BBWAA voter can list up to 10 candidates. You seldom see the BBWAA induct more than three or four players in a given year, but there is something to be said for listing 10 players, if only to keep their names in consideration as their deeds recede in our rearview mirror.

The Top 10 List

1) Dennis Eckersley (1975-98, Indians, Red Sox, Cubs, A's, Cardinals) 'Eck' is going in on the first ballot and there's not much I can say which hasn't been said.

2) Paul Molitor (1978-98, Brewers, Blue Jays, Twins) With 3,319 career hits and a World Series MVP trophy, his place appears all but assured. At the least, I can't see any real reason why he shouldn't be a first-ballot HOFer.

3) Bert Blyleven (1970-92, Twins, Rangers, Pirates, Indians, Angels) Won 287 games despite having just one 20-win season; struck out 3,701 batters, but led the league just once. He never ever played in Boston, Chicago, New York or LA. It's not hard to see why Rikalbert has yet to crack 60 per cent in the voting in his first 6 tries. Eight of the 10 "Most Similar" pitchers to Blyleven are in the HOF. The other two are Jim Kaat and Tommy John, whose own problems getting into Cooperstown are also well-documented. Over his entire career, Warren Spahn's ERA was 18 per cent above league average. Blyleven was also 18 per cent better than league average over his career, and he pitched almost as long as Spahn did. In short, it's high time Bert got the call.

4) Dave Concepcion (1970-88, all with Reds) On Bill James' HOF Monitor, Concepcion scores a 107, making him a likely HOFer. At his peak, he was the defensive lynchpin on a powerhouse Reds team and a slightly above-average hitter. To my way of thinking, Concepcion belongs to a "family" of Yes, But shortstops. James ranks him No. 26 among the top 100 to play the position, immediately behind Tony Fernandez and Bert Campaneris and ahead of Alvin Dark, who also contributed to championship teams and had long careers, but were never superstars. Concepcion has four more years on the ballot. He's a long shot, but he wouldn't disgrace the Hall.

5) Dale Murphy (1976-93, Braves, Phillies, Rockies) Which strong-armed 1980s National League outfielder do you stump for, Murphy or Andre Dawson? Both men could hit for power, each won a ton of Gold Gloves and neither called his agent immediately if he saw a third-base coach flashing the steal sign. By all accounts, they were fine gentlemen. Dawson outhit Murphy .279 to .265, and out-homered him 438 to 398 without the benefit of 81 games per year at the Launching Pad. However, The Murph trumps Dawson in secondary average (.348 to .294) and on-base average (.346 to .323). He owns five seasons where his adjusted OPS+ is better than the best figure Dawson ever managed (strike seasons accepted). You can't credit Dale Murphy for things he didn't do but if you extend the "wind-down portion" of his career Dawson's advantages melt away like snow in April. Let's elect Murphy to the Hall before we talk about inducting the man they still call "The Hawk."

6) Tommy John (1963-89, Indians, White Sox, Dodgers, Yankees, Angels, A's) On pg. 884 of his Historical Baseball Abstract, James writes, "there are a lot of pitchers who have been selected with 250-275 wins, winning percentages well short of .600, and not really and awful lot else to sell." Well, John, who is up for election for the tenth time, won 288 games with a decent .555 WP. He just wasn't a dominant, blow-'em-away pitcher, which no doubt created the impression he won because he played for strong teams. But on the other side of the coin, can he be faulted for working for late '60s White Sox teams who would have trouble hitting .250 in the Northern League? John scores an even 100 on the HOF Monitor. In short, he belongs there.

7) Ryne Sandberg (1981-97, Phillies and Cubs) Mr. James ranks him as the seventh-best 2B ever, ahead of guys such as Charlie Gehringer, Rod Carew, Frankie Frisch, and Nellie Fox, Hall of Famers all. In the 1980s and early '90s, when major-league baseball was played much differently than today, Sandberg stole 54 bases one season and had 40 jacks in another. He provided Jeff Kent-like offence and had the power of a first baseman or corner outfielder, but he played second base brilliantly.

8) Alan Trammell (1977-96, Tigers) I have to stump for Trammell since his 1987 American League MVP award is sitting on the living room mantle of a Mr. George Bell. The career numbers (.285 average, 185 homers and 1,003 RBI ) pale alongside those of Cal Ripken Jr., let alone whatever A-Rod is going to compile by the time he's finished. But as many observers fail to understand, Cal Ripken is not the Hall of Fame standard. It is closer to Richie Ashburn or Willie Stargell, and Trammell's accomplishments place him squarely in that company. The Tigers of the 1980s had some fine players, such as Trammell, his double play partner 'Sweet' Lou Whitaker, catcher Lance Parrish, all-time "gamer" Kirk Gibson, sorely underappreciated Darrell Evans and 254-game winner Jack Morris. They won 104 games and a World Series in 1984, won 98 and an AL East title three years later. Trammell has the best Hall of Fame credentials of the lot, and it would be a shame to let that team's accomplishments disappear into the dust-bin simply because the current Tigers are a laughingstock.

9) Rich (Goose) Gossage (1972-94, White Sox, Pirates, Yankees, Padres, Cubs, Giants, Rangers, A's, Mariners) In 1976, Pale Hose manager Paul Richards put the 24-year-old Gossage in the starting rotation after he had established himself as a reliever. Richards was an old fuddy-duddy; there is no nice way of saying that. In the other 10 seasons from 1975 to '85 the Goose had a 2.06 ERA while averaging about 100 innings per year. Finished sixth or higher in Cy Young balloting five times, as many times as Rollie Fingers and Lee Smith put together.

10) Don Mattingly (1982-95, Yankees) You can form an argument on the same lines as the Murphy vs. Dawson debate. Which slick-fielding Big Apple first sacker do you like, Donnie Baseball or Keith Hernandez? Perhaps it depends on whether you're more obsessive about The Simpsons ("Mattingly, I told you to trim those sideburns!") or Seinfeld ("Elaine, you don't know the first thing about first base.") Both players won a multitude of Gold Gloves; Mex has 2 Series rings to Mattingly's zero; both scored 100 runs twice. Mattingly had five 100-RBI seasons to Hernandez' one. Hernandez' on-base and secondary averages (.384 and .299) are superior to those of Mattingly (.358 and .250), who never walked if he could help it. In the end, Mattingly's top three adjusted OPS+ seasons outstrip any Hernandez campaign, which sways me towards No. 23's camp. This isn't as blood simple as "Don Mattingly is a Hall of Famer cuz Keith Hernandez isn't." They were unique players, first basemen who hit and fielded like middle infielders, and we could use their kind in today's game. I can see why people perceive Hernandez as Hall of Fame calibre; he was perhaps the best defensive first baseman who ever played. It seems logical to believe if someone is among the best at a particular part of his job then he must be one of the best all-around, but it doesn't work that way.

Fairly Close, out there near Not Quite

So what do I have against Bruce Sutter? Can a pitcher who threw only 1042 1/3 innings (barely five seasons for a starter) really be a Hall of Famer? The requirements say 10 years' service, and it stands to reason a modern reliever's workload is really only half as season.

As you likely know, the aforementioned Andre Dawson hit 438 homers, second-best among eligible non-HOFers. The Hawk was the National League's top rookie the year I was born (1977), won 8 Gold Gloves, was twice runner-up for National League MVP and won the award in '87 (although he probably shouldn't have).

Bill James deems Dawson the No. 19 right-fielder of all time, sandwiching him in with the likes of Bobby Murcer, Ken Singleton (who was the Expos TV analyst when Dawson starred in Montreal) and Reggie Smith. No one touts any of these guys for Cooperstown.

There is a lot to like about Dawson, and he has an outside chance after getting about 50 per cent support in 2003 balloting. I'm still not convinced.

Dave Parker didn't age well but was the most feared hitter in the NL at his peak. Parker's numbers (.290 lifetime BA, 339 dingers) are accentuated by 526 doubles, and he was more versatile than the slow-moving DH he became late in his career. His case just isn't that persuasive.

When James writes about pitchers with 250 or so career wins to their name and not an "awful lot else to sell," I swear he was Dennis Martinez and Jack Morris. For their careers, both pitchers performed no better than 6 per cent above league average. (I would vote for either man before I supported Fernando Valenzuela.)

Morris' 1991 World Series performance will endear him to a few voters and lead to a few "What's wrong with an institution that won't admit Jack Morris?" columns when he falls short of induction. I'm more inclined to support El Presidente, who got his career and life back in the late '80s after some harrowing personal problems. Replace his "lost years" of 1983 to '86 with replacement-level seasons and he presents a great case.

Two arguments exist for Lee Smith: The Eddie Murray "his best season was every season" argument, and the opposite Don Sutton tack . . . 478 saves really isn't that impressive if you hung on as long as Smith. He went from team to team (no crime there) but the big guy never pitched 100 innings a season after turning 27.

To Cecil Fielder and Kevin Mitchell, fat guys who hit a lot of homers for a short time: Your candles burned out long ago, your legends never did.

Steve Garvey has been on the ballot since 1992. If he's a Hall of Famer, don't you think he would be in by now?

Lastly, in a 1996 Playboy article Tom Boswell wrote, "For six years Jim Rice was the most feared hitter in the American League. His eyes went bad; he'll never get a sniff of Cooperstown."

Quoth James, "Probably the most overrated player of the last thirty years." (p. 669)

Rice put up some good numbers, but he never finished better than ninth in the league in on-base average, and he used to take lots of runners off base with his propensity for hitting into double plays. If you were a kid rooting for the Blue Jays in the '80s, there were two Red Sox players you feared. Neither one was Jim Rice.

Speaking of the Jays

In another time and another place Jimmy Key and Dave Stieb could have been an all-time dynamite 1-2 punch, but aside from 1985, they never had a good seasons at the same time.

Stieb is the best right-hander in franchise history and Key is the top lefty, and let's leave it there. They will both do better than their old teammate, George Bell, who got 6 votes in 1999 and dropped off the ballot forever.

Now, I want to see a player go into the Hall of Fame as a Blue Jay. The Expos and Padres have one, and the Brewers, of all teams, are about to have two.

It just has to be for the right reasons, and sorry, Joe Carter doesn't make the cut. In some ways, he was a poor man's Jim Rice, driving in a lot of runs after better hitters got on base.

Granted, the best table setters and lineup protection in the world will not turn Manny Lee into Manny Ramirez. Carter had a nice career, hitting 396 homers and compiling ten 100-RBI seasons (compared to Rice's 389 and eight in a less hitter-friendly era).

How many times did he score 100 runs in a season? Once.

How many times did he draw 50 walks in a season? Never.

It's hard to see why Joe Carter deserves special acclaim. The World Series-winning homer off Mitch Williams may keep his name in circulation for a few years. But the only Hall of Fame he belongs in is the Canadian one in St. Mary's, Ontario.

Just as I expected, I had to betray my youth.

Thanks for comin' out

Could Danny Darwin, Doug Drabek, Jim Eisenreich, Randy Myers, Terry Pendleton, Juan Samuel and Bob Tewskbury come to the stage please? We have some Boston Pizza gift certificates for you.

(Much thanks to Baseball-Reference.com. If you haven't bookmarked it by now, you really, really should.)