John Smoltz is probably going to record his 3,000th strikeout today and Atlanta Magazine used the occasion to ask the question, “which Braves players will someday make the Hall of Fame?”

Atlanta Magazine thought just about all of the Braves from the last two decades (except for Andruw) should make the Hall, so there may have been a little home town bias at play.

We’ve gone and complicated the discussion a bit, including both manager Bobby Cox and general manager Jon Schuerholz in our list of possible inductees.

What do you think? Who belongs? Who falls short?

more at twiigs.com…

I was just over at MVN, where they note that Manny has been working hard this offseason to avoid a repeat of 2007, where he started slow and wound up hurt (it’s well worth reading for their take on his numbers). They quote Peter Gammons, who says Ramirez has become “a maniacal workout warrior in Tempe Arizona” at the Athletes’ Performance Institute.

Yet oddly enough, last year Manny supposedly showed up to Spring Training “in the best shape of his career” as well. Don’t be fooled—under that baggy, pajama-like uni, the man is rock-hard. So either he overtrained and ended up hurting himself (not likely) or he did his best and ended up hurt anyway (likelier, and more frightening). After all, the man is 35—remember when all sluggers used to start declining at 35, instead of growing second jawbones?—and the team needs to stop thinking of him as the 150-game guy he used to be and start thinking of him as the 130-game guy he’s been for the past two seasons. Why not rest him against the Rays and the Royals throughout the season? Then maybe he won’t need a month off near the end. Or let him DH every now and then and give Ortiz the night off (for the ol’ knee). With a little more caretaking from the Sox, Manny should be able to produce at a useful level for another 3-4 years, surely. And when you consider that he’s only going to make $2 million more than Andruw Jones next year, he starts to sound almost like a bargain.

I don’t think you’ll see Manny having a 2007-like year again this year. After all, it was only in 2006 that he hit 35 dingers (in 130 games) and compiled a .439 OBP. And the man positively caught fire during the 2007 postseason, coming back after month-long break and showing absolutely no signs of rust. His work ethic is famous and his eye is unerring. (If you ever see him take a called strike three, I guarantee you the ump botched the call. Guarantee it.) So I see no reason why, with a little care and feeding, he can’t continue to protect David Ortiz in the lineup for years to come.

I think Manny Ramirez wants to retire with the Red Sox. I know, it’s been a tumultuous, on-again-off-again love affair between Boston and Manny—the trade demands, the Manny Moments, that incident with the waivers—but Manuel has two World Series rings with this team now. He and Boston have finally made peace with one another. Plus, he’s just 10 homers shy of his 500th round-tripper. He’s got a lifetime average of .313, a lifetime OBP of .409, and a lifetime OPS of 1.002. To me, he’s an easy first-ballot Hall of Famer. If he retires with Boston, they’re sure to retire his number. Is he really going to walk away from that? And is Theo really going to let him? I don’t think so.

I feel like I’ve written about Jim Rice’s Hall-of-Fame qualifications many times before on UmpBump. But technically, this is the first time I’m compiling a post on the topic. And most likely, it will be the last one until next year.

So why am I doing it now? After all, the votes for Cooperstown enshrinement have been tallied and announced. I suppose I’m doing this as an exercise in catharsis. Basically, I’ve slowly come to realize that I’ve been a bit of a hypocrite regarding this issue. I often feel like many of my fellow baseball fans work off of too many assumptions. We let the writers of the local papers and major media outlets dictate our thoughts and opinions far too often and to far too large an extent. I found myself doing just that when it came to Jim Rice. I relied far too much on the data that the naysayers wanted me to look at instead of what I thought was important:

1. His career home/road split. Would Rice have been a Hall-of-Fame caliber player if he didn’t play 1/2 his games at Fenway Park?
2. Career intentional walks. Were managers and opposing pitchers/catchers really “fearful” of Rice?

Oddly enough, it was another baseball writer who indirectly convinced me to look at something else.

In his blog over at ESPN.com, Buster Olney wrote today:

During Jim Rice’s incredible 1978 season, a total of two American League players had on-base percentages over .400: Rod Carew, with .411, and Ken Singleton, at .409. In 2007, eight AL players achieved an OBP of .400 or higher.

In fact, in the seven seasons played since the start of 2001, there already have been 42 AL players who have posted OBPs of .400 or better; in the entire decade, of 1970-79, there were only 36 AL players who achieved OBPs of .400 or better. It was a time of less offense and fewer runs, a time when teams didn’t value walks the way they do now, a time when the strike zone was larger, a time when hitting 20 homers and driving in 80 runs was an excellent year.

So it’s almost laughable to hear and read about how Rice was nothing more than a very good player in his time. Look, if you stick his statistics into offensive formulas tailored for the way the game was played in the ’90s, he’s not going to look as good… But if you look at him within the context of his time, he was exceptional…

Olney goes on to add up the points that each player had received throughout their careers in the MVP voting process to make the case for Rice in comparison with his peers. I for one am not a big fan of this particular methodology since all it does is rehash all the poor choices that the MVP voters had made in the past.

But I do think Olney has a point (and I don’t agree with him all that often) worth investigating. Chances are, you’ve recently seen the severe home/road splits that Rice maintained throughout his career, but I wanted to see how every other hitter during his 16-year career collectively fared at and away from Fenway Park. So I spent some time looking at the statistics from Rice’s playing days (1974-1989) and tried to figure out if this could possibly give me a better perspective. Thanks to the magic of the day-by-day database over at Baseball Musings, I took the data of everyone who even walked to the plate during those 16 years and crunched the numbers. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s really too bad. I love Bill Simmons. He’s funny. He’s to the point. And his Sports Guy blog is so delightfully long and rambling. Plus, he gives hope to bloggers everywhere that one day, you too may be plucked from obscurity by ESPN and get paid to do what you already do for free.

But in this column from last year which ESPN has just resurfaced, he’s not really that funny. And not really to the point. I didn’t like it then, I don’t like it now.

He gets off to a decent start:

Normally, I enjoy the week the Baseball Hall of Fame inductees are announced. Not this year. With Mark McGwire’s inclusion on the 2007 ballot, we have officially entered the Let’s Blackball the Potential-Steroids-Guy Era.

Some writers won’t vote for McGwire because he probably used steroids — keep in mind there’s never been proof that he did, other than a visible bottle of andro and those 135 pounds of muscle he added from 1990 to 2002 — which would be fine if they weren’t so pious about it.

135 lbs of muscle? Pretty funny. Okay. Pious? Yeah, fair point. What else you got, Sports Guy?

Not content with simply dismissing McGwire’s candidacy and moving on, they need to climb on their high horses and rip the guy to shreds. Of course, many of them would appear on any radio or TV show for 50 bucks and a free sandwich. We’re supposed to believe they would refuse the chance to take a drug that would enable them to do their job twice as well and make 10 times as much money? Yeah, right.

Totally valid. In fact, 50 bucks is what the Metro pays me per column (sandwich not included). Unfortunately, this may be the last valid point Simmons makes in this column, so take a minute to savor it. Go on. I’ll wait.

Ready?

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Jim Rice is the 21st player to win over 70% of votes in the Hall of Fame balloting but fall short of the 75% needed for election. The other 20 players have all ended up in Cooperstown. (Bugs and Cranks has a great rant on the caprice of BBWAA members and the mysterious rise—and occasional fall—of HOF-eligible players’ vote totals.) Rice has the support of this year’s only inductee, Goose Gossage: “I think Jim Rice does belong in the Hall of Fame. No hitter scared me, but Jim Rice came the closest.” As for Nick’s contention that Rice has no place in the Hall, I clearly disagree. But Nick’s post has convinced me that Dwight Evans belongs in Cooperstown as well, something I was on the fence about previously. Come on, Veterans Comittee!

2. What with all the Roger Clemens coverage, the NFL playoffs, and this little election-thingy going on right now, you might have missed this story, but the new Yankee Stadium is going to cost New York taxpayers a pretty penny—including $70 million for free VIP valet parking. Even more irksome to New Yorkers, while the poobahs will get 40 years of parking courtesy of the taxpayers, Joe Yankeefan will still have to pay out of his own pocket. That’s preposterous. However, I must throw cold water on the notion that fans are being gouged by a rate increase from $14 to $17 this year, and again to $19 at the new stadium in 2009, and up to $35 bucks by 2014. Most of the parking at Fenway is already at least $30. Yankee fans, suck it up.

3. After a successful workout for several teams in LA and offers from “three or four” clubs, Gabe Kapler has chosen to play for the Brewers next year. He’ll get 800k. Kapler managed Boston’s Single A affiliate last year to an uninspiring record of 58-81.

“Gabe brings versatility and athleticism to the outfield position,” said Brewers GM Doug Melvin. “He has always been a great teammate and possesses the determination to bounce back and become a valuable player to our club.”

This also elevates the already impressive hotness quotient of the Milwaukee Brewers, who field such eye candy as dreamy-eyed third baseman Ryan Braun and cutie-patootie Prince Fielder.

4. Also in the former-Red-Sox-making-a-comeback category, MLBTradeRumors reports that at least the Diamondbacks will be watching as Keith Foulke throws later this month. As for the idea that Foulke “may have special interest in” the Red Sox, I can guarantee right now that the Red Sox will not have any interest, special or otherwise, in Keith Foulke, who is (perhaps unfairly) less remembered for being part of the 2004 championship team than for being the perennially injured and ineffective closer of ‘05 and ‘06, speaking dismissively of Red Sox fans as “Johnny from Burger King” types that meant nothing to him, licking his World Series ring with groupies, and for (allegedly) sleeping with one of the Red Sox ball girls, (allegedly) in the clubhouse no less, and (allegedly) getting caught in flagrante delicto by Dawn Timlin, who (allegedly) promptly told Mrs. Foulke, who (most definitely) demanded a divorce.

5. Just to go back to the Hall of Fame for a minute, I would like to personally apologize to Goose Gossage. No, I don’t have a Hall of Fame vote. But I do have an Unfortunate Facial Hair vote. And there is absolutely no excuse for me to have overlooked Goose’s contributions in the field of facial hair when I wrote this retrospective of the fu manchu. Clearly, Gossage had a historic impact on the place of the distinctive moustache in baseball lore, and I was remiss not to formally recognize this sooner. I’m sure Goose will be as thrilled to be included in our UFH category as he is to be elected into Cooperstown. “It was very emotional I’ll tell you, off the charts. I can’t describe the feeling.” Yes, Goose, I’m sure. Only the lucky and the few get such recognition. But are you sure you really can’t describe how it felt? “A shock wave went through my body like an anvil just fell on my head.” On second thought, I think maybe calling it indescribable was fine.

1. It’s good to see Goose Gossage finally get in, as he was clearly the most deserving person eligible for the Hall of Fame but not yet in. In hindsight, it’s just amazing that it took him nine ballots to get in, and that Bruce Sutter got in first. Goose Gossage’s best 12-year run was better than Bruce Sutter’s entire 12-year career by almost any statistical measure except saves, plus Gossage also had another 10 seasons of pretty decent work on either side of his peak.

A lot of people are talking about how the election of Gossage speaks to a continuing evolution in how the Hall voters view closers, and that the door is being opened to allowing more relievers into the Hall. I hope that is not the case. Only five relief pitchers have been elected to the hall of fame, and already one of them (Sutter) and arguably a second (Fingers) can be ranked among the least deserving players enshrined

Here’s hoping that Gossage is the last reliever elected until Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman get the call.

2. Jim Rice only has one year of eligibility left, but if precedent is any guide, he is a virtual lock to get in next season, having secured a staggering 72.2 percent of the vote and falling just 16 votes shy out of 543 ballots cast. No player has ever gotten more than 70 percent of the vote without being elected the following year, and with the Rice supporters only needing to change the minds of a handful of voters and having a whole year to do it, it’s almost impossible to imagine that he won’t be in next year.

Which is a shame. Because if Jim Rice is a Hall of Famer, than there are probably at least a hundred other guys with better careers than Rice who should go in too. For a guy who was a left fielder, who hit in the middle of incredible lineups, and who demonstrably got a huge boost from playing half his games in Fenway Park, Rice has no place in the Hall of Fame.

People keep trying to argue that Rice was the best outfielder in the American League during his prime. But I’m not sure that Rice was even the best outfielder on his own team during those years, because Dwight Evans, who was one of the better defensive outfielders of all time, did just about everything equal to or better than Rice. Well, except pile up RBI, which was just a function of where Rice was penciled into the batting order anyway.

If Jim Rice is a Hall of Famer, than Dewey should have been a mortal lock. Jim Rice had a career OPS+ of 128, despite not playing through his late 30s decline phase, whereas Evans had a career OPS+ of 127. Evans had 345.5 career win shares (including 51.9 on defense), whereas Jim Rice had only 282 career win shares, ranking him 228th all-time (right between Sal Bando and Boog Powell). And though Rice averaged 6.0 runs created per game over his career, Dewey averaged 6.2, and again that’s including all the declining late-30s seasons Evans played which Rice didn’t.

And yet Evans got less than 5% of the vote and fell off the ballot after one year, whereas Rice keeps building momentum towards his eventual enshrinement? Crazy.

3. It was gratifying to see Mark McGwire’s vote totals holding firm at just a shade over 23 percent, hundreds and hundreds of votes shy of election, especially after a lot of people were predicting that he would see a big jump now that he had already been “punished” in his first year of eligibility.

I wrote a post in this space last year, arguing that we should never elect anyone tainted by steroids, because the Hall is an honor and not a right. I think my policy might be changing in the wake of the Mitchell report, after realizing just how widespread the abuse was. Now I am starting to think that maybe if a player were to come clean, 100%, and take full responsibility for his mistakes (and I don’t mean the Andy Pettite “I only did it once and it wasn’t even wrong” thing), then maybe we should consider them for the Hall.

Because players coming clean in an honest and humble way would be the best hope for healing the sport and moving forward.

But until Mark McGwire comes clean, and there’s no sign that he ever will, I will keep rooting for them to keep him out of the Hall forever.

4. Lastly, I was amazed and saddened to see that Tim Raines only got 24.3 percent of the vote. Fine, I understand all you New York-based writers never noticed Raines because he played all those years in Montreal while you guys were too busy noticing Yankees and Red Sox like Jim Rice. But shouldn’t you at least take a look at his career numbers? Did any of the people who didn’t vote for Raines even consider that he was a superior player to former stolen base king and present Hall of Famer Lou Brock in just about every way imaginable?

I don’t know who these guys are comparing Raines to, that they feel he falls short, other than Rickey Henderson, but Rickey Henderson was far and away the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Tim Raines was the second greatest leadoff hitter of all time.

I mean seriously. A .385 on base percentage? 808 stolen bases, 4th all time in the modern era behind only Henderson, Brock, and Ty Cobb? The highest stolen base percentage in baseball history at 84.7%?

And as long as people are giving Andre Dawson extra credit for playing on bad knees, and Kirby Puckett free points for having his career cut short by glaucoma, and Jim Rice sympathy for mysteriously becoming sucky at age 34, shouldn’t Raines get some points for the even more insane numbers he would have put up if he wasn’t playing the last third of his career while battling Lupus?

So yeah, 24.3 percent, that’s ridiculous. I think Tim Raines is going to have to be the subject of my next Hall of Fame crusade.

Ladies and gentleman of America and to our readers in Korea, today, something wonderful happened in election history. Something majestic. No, I’m not talking about how I can continue to not worry about having to refer to Ron Paul as “Mr. President” (yeesh). There was another election in America on this day, and for this, our eyes were not on Dixville Notch and where their 17 total voters will pledge their support, but rather, on another small town called Cooperstown, New York.

Yes, friends. Goose Gossage (or as I know him, Richard Michael Gossage) was the lone entrant into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. So you all know what this means, right?

WE WERE RIGHT!!!

WE CALLED IT! WE SOOOOOOOOOOO CALLED IT! THAT WAS ALMOST A MONTH AGO! EAT IT EVERYONE ELSE!

(By the way, in my mind, there was rather colorful confetti flying around as I made that announcement. We now return to your previously scheduled unwarranted and undeserved boasting).

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO! HIGH FIVES ALL AROUND!

We have so many people to thank. First and foremost, we’d like to thank our readers, specifically Melissa, Rich, and Danny O for their participation in our balloting process. We couldn’t have done it without you (and Rod Beck thanks you too). And I’d also like to thank… Umm… No. No, that’s about it.

POP THE CORK! Wait, no, not that one. Let’s use that other one. It’s cheaper.

Miami Herald writer Dan Le Batard today profiles Andre Dawson. But it wasn’t Le Batard’s description of Dawson’s 12 knee surgeries that caught my eye. It was this tidbit:

Dawson, 53, works now as an assistant to the Marlins general manager, but he can still be seen doing at least an hour of cardio every day, even on that one good knee. He tested his body fat against the players last season just for the heck of it. Four percent. Best on the entire team.

Four percent body fat? At age 53?

Forget the Hall of Fame. Dawson belongs in Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

Here at Umpbump, we value all reader comments equally. But we value some reader comments a little more equally than others.

So it was with great pride that we learned that ESPN stat-head Rob Neyer decided to critique Nick’s post, 33 men (and one woman) out: the all-time worst Hall of Famers, on his blog.

You can read Neyer’s commentary here.
If you’re not an ESPN Insider, you can read the text of Neyer’s post after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks back, I made the bold claim that I could easily think of at least 20 Hall of Famers who should not be in the Hall, upon which Coley promptly challenged me to write a post naming names.

At first I was a bit worried as to whether I would be able to deliver the goods, but as I went down the list I was amazed at how many unworthy players had somehow snuck their way into the Hall over the years. I tried to give the benefit of the doubt as often as possible, and with many players there was at least an argument that could be made, but in the end, I was still left with 34 people who simply have no place in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It’s not that some of these guys weren’t good players, or nice people, but awarding them baseball’s highest honor and putting their names and plaques along side the true immortals of the game makes a mockery of everything that the Hall stands for.

If I were commissioner of baseball, I would immediately call a one-time election to de-elect unworthy Hall of Famers, and these 34 names would top the ballot (in alphabetical order, not order of worstness) . .

1. Dave Bancroft, SS - Nobody can think of a good reason why the Veteran’s Committee elected Bancroft to the Hall in 1971, other than the fact that Bancroft had been a good friend and teammate of then-presiding Committee poobah Frankie Frisch. Although it is important to recognize that Bancroft was a shortstop, his numbers compare very poorly to almost all other middle-infielders in the Hall, with the exceptions of Phil Rizzuto, an equally questionable selection who also appears on this list, and Bill Mazeroski, who was perhaps the greatest fielding second baseman of all time, and thus gets more of a pass on his offense.
2. Jake Beckley, 1B - Anyone ever heard of Jake Beckley? Anyone at all? There is a reason why you haven’t, which is that he really wasn’t all that great, especially for a first baseman. But he was elected by the Veterans Committee nearly a century after he played because the Veterans like people who hit over .300, and Beckley sometimes hit over .300.
3. Jim Bunning, P - His big accomplishment was that he won 100 games and had 1000 strikeouts in each of the two leagues. But overall he was just 224-184. He was, however, a powerful and influential US Congressman when the Veterans Committee elected him in 1996.
4. Morgan Bulkeley, Executive - Served as president of the National League for one (1) year. Yep, that is what he did.
5. Orlando Cepeda, 1B - Nobody would deny that Cepeda was a pretty good hitter, but for a first baseman his numbers are poor compared with the rest of the guys in the Hall. His career stats have become a popular low-end benchmark for people to compare with when trying to make the case for putting other marginal players in to the Hall.
6. Red Faber, P - Had a few decent seasons along with numerous mediocre to terrible seasons. He did win over 20 games four different times, but that was only because he was pitching 40-50 games those years. In his four 20-win seasons he also lost 14, 13, 15, and 17 games. That is not quality, just quantity. And it is certainly not Hall of Fame level dominance.
7. Rick Farrell, C - A very popular pick for the worst Hall of Famer of them all, Farrell’s top comps according to Baseball Reference are some dudes named Deacon McGuire, Jim Gantner, Claude Ritchey, Tony Cuccinello, and Billy Jurges. Um. Yeah. Top catcher comp is Tony Pena. Anyone for putting Tony Pena in the Hall?
8. Chick Hafey, OF - A kind of okay player when he was actually on the field, Hafey only played one or two complete seasons, and only had three seasons of hitting even 20 home runs. But damn! This man has a career batting average of .317!! Clearly, that means he must have been awesome!!!
9. Jesse Haines, P - Unbelievably mediocre pitcher who is one of the most baffling Hall selections of all time.
10. Harry Hooper - I defy you to give me any justification at all for why Harry Hooper is in the Hall of Fame. Playing in the Dead Ball Era, he posted a career batting average of only .281 as an outfielder. He doesn’t seem to have been particularly good at anything.
11. Waite Hoyt, P - 237-182, 3.59 ERA, only won 20 games twice. Only in the Hall of Fame because he was a New York Yankee.
12. Travis Jackson, SS - With a career OPS+ of 102, I guess he must be in for his defense or something, but then again, we are talking about the same Travis Jackson who once made 58 errors in a season. A most befuddling selection.
13. George Kell, 3B - Kell’s Hall of Fame plaque calls him “solid” hitter and a “sure-handed” fielder. Huh. Well, that sounds good and all, but it doesn’t exactly bespeak Hall of Fame awesomeness. He did lead the AL in batting average one season. I guess that’s kind of cool.
14. George Kelly, 1B - A 109 career OPS+ is simply terrible for a first baseman. Terrible!
15. Bowie Kuhn, Commissioner - Fought the advent of free agency tooth and nail, but failed anyway. Proposed putting black players in a separate and unequal wing of the Hall of Fame. Tried to ban Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle from baseball forever in 1983. Only known achievement in 15 years as commish: introducing nighttime World Series games, which everyone hates now anyway. Perhaps worst of all, his induction makes Bud Selig a lock for the Hall by comparison.
16. Tony Lazzeri, 2B - Elected in 1991 at a time when the Veterans Committee was going through a phase where it thought it had better elect any player who was ever associated with the 1927 Yankees.
17. Ted Lyons, P - Had a few good seasons, and many, many mediocre ones. His ERA was as often above 4.00 as not. Compiled a very uninspiring record of 260-230, despite pitching for 21 seasons.
18. Freddie Lindstrom, 3B/OF - Only played until age 30. Only collected 1747 hits. Seems to have been elected by the Veterans Committee solely because he once hit .379 in a season, in 1930.
19. Effa Manley, Executive - Apparently picked entirely for PC reasons, she was the wife of the owner of a Negro League team, and is currently the only woman in the Hall of Fame. She was a civil rights activist, which is honorable, but her primary baseball-related activity was her well-documented hobby of sleeping with many of the players on the team.
20. Tommy McCarthy, OF - His statistics were pretty poor by the standards of his day. He really only had three good seasons, and nobody with a 102 OPS+ should be allowed anywhere near the Hall of Fame, at least not without paying admission like everyone else.
21. Rube Marquard, P - Had three great seasons in a row from ages 24-26. Problem was, he kept pitching until he was 38, while struggling to be even league average, compiling a career ERA+ of only 103.
22. Hal Newhouser, P - Newhouser was a mediocre pitcher who suddenly had three seasons for the ages from 1944-1946, while all the good hitters were away fighting in World War II. Once they they returned, and Newhouser was no longer pitching against minor leaguers, he went back to being mediocre. A classic example of the Veteran’s committee paying no attention whatsoever to context.
23. Tony Perez, 1B - First basemen are vastly over-represented in the Hall of Fame, and Tony Perez is arguably the worst first baseman in the Hall. But Joe Morgan will not rest until the entire Big Red Machine is in the Hall, and Joe Morgan has a lot of friends.
24. Herb Pennock, P - 240 wins, 3.60 ERA, 106 career ERA+
25. Eppa Rixey, P - Career record of 266-251. Ouch.
26. Phil Rizzuto, SS - His top comp is Jose Offerman. The only other Hall of Famer in his top ten comps is the even more undeserving Johnny Evers. Even Phil Rizzuto didn’t think he should have been in the Hall of Fame. But he had the unbeatable combo of being a Yankee and also being a lovable Yankee. Eventually, the Veteran’s Committee just couldn’t resist.
27. Red Ruffing, P - His 3.80 career ERA is one of the worst in the Hall. Only in because he was a New York Yankee.
28. Red Schoendienst, 2B - It’s really, really hard to think of any career accomplishments for Red Schoendienst. Um, I guess he once had a season of 200 hits. Oh, and he led the national league twice in at-bats. And he does hold the record for most doubles in a three-game span! But he also had a career OBP of .337 and a terrible career OPS+ of only 93. His selection is another oozing black sore on the sorry history of the Veteran’s Committee.
29-31. Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Frank Chance, SS-2B-1B - These guys are ONLY in the Hall because somebody happened to write a catchy poem about them. Tinker’s top 20th century comp is Ozzie Guillen; Evers has Mark McLemore on his list; and Chance (a first baseman) has Darryl Hamilton among his top comps. And statistically, they weren’t even good at turning double plays!
32. Lloyd Waner, OF - Let’s face it: Lloyd Waner is only in the Hall of Fame because he played alongside his much more talented brother, and once they put Paul in the Hall, it seemed only fair to put Lloyd in too. Lloyd did manage to finish with a career average over .300, but he only played 5 full seasons without significant injury or benching, and had a career OPS+ of 99, meaning he was actually a below average hitter for his era
33. Vic Willis, P - Sure he won over 20 games 8 different times. But this was from 1898 to 1910, and he was routinely starting 40 games and tossing over 350 innings a season. Compared to his peers of the day, he was thoroughly mediocre. This was long understood, and he was not tapped for the Hall until 1995, when a cock-eyed Veterans Committee looked back and saw only those 20-win seasons without any consideration of context or era.
34. Tom Yawkey, Owner - Last owner to sign a black player. Passed on chances to sign Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays. His team never won a World Series. Seriously, it’s time to rename that street already.