Yes, even harder to win 31 games when they only start 32-35. MLB will have to lower the bar to 200-250 wins for entry to HOF.
Maybe Koufax would have won 300 games if he played in to-day's 32-35 starts and 100 pitch count standards.
Best MLB players not in the Hall of Fame
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Maybe Koufax would have won 300 games if he played in to-day's 32-35 starts and 100 pitch count standards.
Debatable. Morris was a really good big game pitcher. Steib was nothing special. He was meh in 85 and terrible in 89. Morris went 3-0 in the 84 playoffs and 4-0 in the 91 playoffs.
Dizzy Dean and Sandy Koufax are in the HOF due to a short time span when they were unhitable. Koufax won 20+ games in four successive seasons. Dizzy Dean was the last pitcher to win 30 games before Mickey Lolich. They both won two WS, including three wins in one Series: Dean in 1934, Koufax in 1965.
In priority order, my list of omissions that I feel need to be corrected. I only considered eligible players (Rose and Shoeless Joe are not eligible) and I won't touch the steroid era issue, although I do believe Clemens and Bonds would have made it anyway and on the flip side, I am confident there are PED users in the HOF already that were not outed.
I wonder about guys like Sosa, McGwire and Palmeiro and whether they should be in, but the PED issue is complicated.
However, I feel confident these guys belong.
Lou Whitaker (if Trammell is in, so should Lou)
Gil Hodges (great player and the '69 Mets field manager)
Tommy John (without him, lots of players might have lost their career. Combine his surgery with his stats and he is a yes for me)
Fred McGriff (Very underrated and I believe he did it clean)
Bobby Grich (very underrated and one of the highest career WAR values not in the HOF)
Dusty Baker (Very good player and a good manager, despite never winning it all as a manager. Baseball needs more people like this)
I wonder about guys like Sosa, McGwire and Palmeiro and whether they should be in, but the PED issue is complicated.
However, I feel confident these guys belong.
Lou Whitaker (if Trammell is in, so should Lou)
Gil Hodges (great player and the '69 Mets field manager)
Tommy John (without him, lots of players might have lost their career. Combine his surgery with his stats and he is a yes for me)
Fred McGriff (Very underrated and I believe he did it clean)
Bobby Grich (very underrated and one of the highest career WAR values not in the HOF)
Dusty Baker (Very good player and a good manager, despite never winning it all as a manager. Baseball needs more people like this)
What about Jim Kaat? No surgery named after him but his stats are about the same. Has a ton of gold gloves as well.
You are correct to mention him. I thought about Kaat, but for me, what Tommy John had to go through to pitch again was the differentiator. Without his courage to be a guinea pig and determination to see his rehabilitation to end, who knows how much longer we would have waited for this career saving surgery that bears his name.
Without the surgery, I probably leave Tommy John off my list too. However, I certainly would not be offended if Kaat was elected some day.
Luis Tiant is on the far right in the pic.
| MLB statistics | |
|---|---|
| Win–loss record | 229–172 |
| Earned run average | 3.30 |
| Strikeouts | 2,416 |
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Highly unlikely. Ted might have set some other all-time records, but not that one. Cobb had 1,500+ more hits than Williams, and Williams never had a 200 hit season. He walked slightly more often than Barry Bonds, per game played. Give him back those war years, and he might have had the highest career totals in runs scored and RBIs, but he also might not have been able to play until 1960.
Where is that picture from? Are they wearing Toronto Maple Leaf baseball caps?
I see Fergie Jenkins standing beside Tiant.
It could be Christie Pits, where the Toronto Maple Leafs of the Intercounty Baseball League play. Their logo:
Based solely on stats, there's a good case for Albert Belle to be elected:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/belleal01.shtml
considering that he played the minimum 10 seasons, and his career ended early at age 34 because of injury, (degenerative hip osteoarthritis). He had averaged 40 HR, 130 RBIs per 162 games played, with a .295 career batting average, but the guy had a serious attitude problem, to say the least. It's pretty hard to get in the HOF when pretty much everybody with a vote hates your guts. From Wikipedia:
"In 2001, following his retirement, the New York Daily News' columnist Bill Madden wrote:
Sorry, there'll be no words of sympathy here for Albert Belle. He was a surly jerk before he got hurt and now he's a hurt surly jerk....He was no credit to the game. Belle's boorish behavior should be remembered by every member of the Baseball Writers' Association when it comes time to consider him for the Hall of Fame. "
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/belleal01.shtml
considering that he played the minimum 10 seasons, and his career ended early at age 34 because of injury, (degenerative hip osteoarthritis). He had averaged 40 HR, 130 RBIs per 162 games played, with a .295 career batting average, but the guy had a serious attitude problem, to say the least. It's pretty hard to get in the HOF when pretty much everybody with a vote hates your guts. From Wikipedia:
"In 2001, following his retirement, the New York Daily News' columnist Bill Madden wrote:
Sorry, there'll be no words of sympathy here for Albert Belle. He was a surly jerk before he got hurt and now he's a hurt surly jerk....He was no credit to the game. Belle's boorish behavior should be remembered by every member of the Baseball Writers' Association when it comes time to consider him for the Hall of Fame. "
If the pic was from mid 1990's, he probably stopped by for some lap dances at House of Lancaster II, a few blocks away. They had some serious Latina talent there then, especially the Costa Ricans and Columbians. Or maybe there was cockfight someplace nearby...oops, he's Cuban, not Dominican. I was thinking of Juan Marichal.
I remember Albert Belle as a jerk.
Here’s a neat story
1994 Cleveland Indians corked bat incident - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
I put Don Mattingly in before Belle and I don't feel Mattingly deserves to be in. Now if Mattingly wins a bunch of games as a manager and 2 or 3 World Series, then I think his combined role gets him in, like Joe Torre and hopefully Dusty Baker one day.
In my opinion, Belle would lower the bar if he got in. JAWS ranks him 40th among LFs. Had a great, but short peak and strong rate statistics. His counting stats do not jump out at you.
I thought Harold Baines was a disgraceful choice and now the bar has been lowered to look at guys like Belle, Dale Murphy, Reggie Smith, Fred Lynn and I am sure others I cannot think of off the top of my head. I also was not a fan of the Bruce Sutter, Jim Rice or Andre Dawson inductions and I grew up watching them play. I thought they were all borderline and lowered the bar. They had very good careers, but not great, in my opinion. Stats can be manipulated for either the for or against case and since we don't get votes, we hope the BBWAA gets it right.
I'm a Small Hall guy. I have been to Cooperstown 3 times and I do not want to see it become the Hockey Hall of Fame where almost anyone good gets in. For me, the best of the best get in - Top Gun!
I agree with you totally on Baines and Sutter. I'm not sure on Rice. I saw Dawson play many times when I lived in Montreal, and I think he deserved his election. His statistics were deflated, and the prime years of his career truncated by playing in Olympic Stadium. The turf there was brutal, like playing on tooth brushes on top of concrete. It always seemed cold in that stadium, too, even in mid summer.
Dawson has to be one of the very few center fielders to have caught a fly ball in foul territory, after the right fielder, Ellis Valentine, gave up on the ball. If he had played with less intensity when he was young and healthy, he likely would have had better stats, but he wouldn't have been a better player.
I agree with what you say about Dawson. I saw many games at the Big Owe and one as a young child at Jarry Park. Dawson's career likely would have been very different had he not played his prime years on the horsebleep turf. Andre Dawson and Dale Murphy co-owned the title of best CF in baseball for a number of years. Garry Maddox was probably the best defensive CF, but his bat was nowhere near the other two guys.
I also forgot Steve Garvey as a fringe HOF guy at best. There are fans who seem to think he deserves to be in.
Random Andre Dawson fact:
Now owns and operates a funeral home in south Florida.
Business, unfortunately, is booming.
Mickey Lolich never won 30 games. Sandy Koufax did not have four twenty game seasons.
