Baseball Hall of Fame

[dlgood]

Today, MLB announced this year's Hall of Fame class:

1. Andre Dawson

Much like last year (Jim Rice) Dawson was a very good player with a great career, but a player who wouldn't have made my list. Both were sluggers who put up nice first order stats, didn't get on base nearly enough, were overrated because of Home Run totals and favorable park effects - and who were actually less valuable then their less splashy but more well rounded outfield teammates. (Dwight Evans and Tim Raines)

Well, what's done is done. It does show that the revolution in baseball analysis still hasn't quite made it through to the old men who vote on the hall. That said, here's my ballot:

1. Roberto Alomar
2. Bert Blyleven
3. Barry Larkin
4. Edgar Martinez
5. Tim Raines
6. Alan Trammel

Blyleven and Alomar are probably locks to get in next year. Jack Morris and Mark McGwire might have a shot next year. Raines and Trammel continue to be criminally underrated. Of course, if any of these gents really want in, they'd better get cracking for 2011 and 2012 balloting. Because starting with 2013, the really big stars come up (Biggio, Clemens, Piazza) and they all go to the back of the line...

Comments

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

I have to give you the difference in stadiums. But it's tough to ignore leading the league in RBIs with a bad team.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Not really, because RBI are a really bad stat to use when evaluating individual player performance. (See below) In any case, the Cubs in 1987, were awful because their pitching (after Rick Sutcliffe) was terrible. (11th out of 12 in almost any stat you'd want to pick) I wouldn't penalize Andre Dawson because the Cubs gave 500 innings to Greg Maddux, Jamie Moyer and Les Lancaster - all of whom stunk that year.

But RBI is a notoriously team-dependent stat, and the 1987 Cubs were actually quite good on offense, particularly at the top of the order. No small amount of the credit for Dawson's RBI totals go to Jerry Mumphrey's .400 On-Base Percentage. (Look back at comparisons between Bonds and Sosa, where Sosa always had more RBI because he had better teammates who were on more often, even though Bonds hit vastly better with Runners on than Sosa did) Players can really rack up RBI when they always come up with runners on base.

In 1987 (http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1987-batting-leaders.shtml), Andre Dawson was maybe the 7-10th best player in the National League. He made 463! outs. Dale Murphy was better. Jack Clark was better. Tim Raines, Darryl Strawberry, Eric Davis, Pedro Guerrerro and Tony Gwynn. They all had much better years. Dawson won the MVP that year, because he came back from a bad knee and collusion to hit 47 home runs in a Rabbit Ball year.

All things considered, if you're one of the ten best players in the league in multiple seasons, that puts you in the discussion.