I passed over a lot of guys on this year's ballot, and I really didn't strain myself too much over any of them.
Each year the Hall of Fame makes this process somewhat less painful by including the likes of Mike Henneman, Jeff Russell, Tim Wallach and Mike Greenwell. It's almost as if the Hall is saying, "We know this is hard, so here are a few guys you don't have to waste time on." In most cases this works, but you'll still have the occasional moron who casts a vote for one of these guys anyway. This year Greenwell got two votes and Wallach got one. Hey, who knew they each had relatives among the voters?
The rest of the ballot usually requires a great deal of strain and study, especially with the first timers. I don't re-calibrate my previous analysis for returning players each year. If Tommy John wasn't good enough for me in 2001, I don't think he did much in the intervening year to make me change my mind. So I punch in the names of the guys I would have voted for the year before and then I really hit the newcomers hard.
This year, there were three viable newcomers and I thought all of them were worthy. I would have cast votes for Trammell, Smith and Dawson, in that order. The rest of the newbies were of the Henneman/Greenwell variety.
Still, it only seems fair to point out why I passed on the other returning candidates, especially since there aren't that many (five) that I haven't already discussed. Here they are, one by one.
Dave Concepcion - Luckily, I had two new shortstops to evaluate this year, so that gave me the opportunity to re-validate my earlier opinion of Concepcion. In short, I was right. He's not a Hall of Famer.
The average Hall of Fame shortstop tops Concepcion's career numbers by 20 points of batting average, over 75 points of OPS, more than 200 runs scored, almost 60 extra base hits, 90 RBI, and 60 walks, while striking out less than half as much. And since there are a lot of punch-hitting stiffs included in these averages (Dave Bancroft, Joe Tinker, Phil Rizzuto, Bobby Wallace, Rabbit Maranville, and so on), Concepcion's numbers actually look even worse once we cull down the Hall of Famers to just those who truly belong.
Granted, Concepcion was a wonderful defensive player, but his fielding percentage relative to his league is actually below the Hall average. Now that Smith is going to be included in that group, Concepcion's numbers are going to compare even worse. Sorry, he doesn't make the cut.
Dale Murphy - Of the four outfielders on the ballot with any hope of being elected - Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, Dave Parker, and Murphy - Murphy has the poorest credentials. Despite being the cleanest living ballplayer ever and being renowned for his durability, Murphy played just 2180 games, far less than Parker and Dawson and only a hundred more than Rice, who is generally criticized for his short career. Despite playing in the Launching Pad of Atlanta for most of his career, Murphy has the fewest extra base hits and RBI - both by far - of this group. (FYI - The next time you see Murphy rated ahead of Rice but see Rice get dinged for have Fenway-inflated numbers, recall that during the entire decade of the 1980s, Murphy's peak years, Fulton County Stadium had a HIGHER average park factor than Fenway.) He scored the fewest runs, he had the fewest hits and he struck out the most. From an offensive perspective, he's the weak sister.
While Murphy was a good defensive center fielder, his numbers pale against center fielders in the Hall. On average, Hall of Fame center fielders reached 40 more balls each year than Murphy and threw out 16 runners to his 10. He had a higher fielding percentage than the Hall of Famers, but compared to the leagues in which they played he was actually worse. The same can be said of his range. Yes, five Gold Gloves still count for something. There's no question he was a fine defender. But that award is often given based upon reputation. For example, did you know that among the four good outfield candidates this year, it was Jim Rice who posted the best outfield assist rate? He threw out better than 14 runners per 162 outfield games played, by far the best rate of this group. Yet Rice is not only the only one of the four without a Gold Glove, he is also somehow misidentified as a "bad" defender each year when the ballots come out. He got a reputation as a young player that carried through his career, no matter how much he improved. It works the same way for players who develop good reputations, as Murphy did.
In other words, don't let the shiny hardware fool you. Murphy might have won back-to-back MVP awards, but he's tied with Dawson for the fewest top-10 MVP finishes of this group. He went to 7 All-Star games, but that's tied for the fewest also, this time with Parker.
He might have a full trophy case, but Dale Murphy doesn't deserve a Hall of Fame plaque too.
The First Basemen - The last three viable candidates were all first basemen. This year, Steve Garvey grabbed 28% of the vote, Don Mattingly got 20%, and Keith Hernandez brought up the rear with 6%. In short, these percentages are just about right. Unfortunately, they're in reverse order of value.
Garvey has the shiniest superficial numbers and the best post-season performance, so I understand how the voters were deceived. But unfortunately for him, a lot of really bright people have been developing a series of much more thorough and accurate tools for analyzing a player's performance. Home runs, RBI and batting average simply aren't sufficient anymore. We now need to look at TPR, Hall of Fame Standards, Award Shares and Win Shares too. We need to consider OPS and Park Factors. We need to adjust for historical eras and league tendencies.
Once we do that, Garvey compares badly. I took four of the more modern measurements - OPS Ratio, MVP Voting, TPR and Hall of Fame Standards - and calculated the average ranking of all Hall-eligible players in these categories. This was done by position, so catchers wouldn't be unfairly compared to right fielders, and so on. To be fair, I threw in a weight for the number of games played, based upon the assumption that longevity is a plus. (FYI - all outfielders were lumped together and ranked in three-man groups.)
With all that done, Steve Garvey ranked as the 34th first baseman ever. There are 17 eligible first basemen ranked higher than him who are NOT in the Hall of Fame. Only three first basemen in the Hall rank lower - Jim Bottomley, Frank Chance and George Kelly - and none of them should be there either.
Let's put it this way - among the other positions, the 34th-ranked players are Gil McDougald, Billy Nash, Alvin Dark, Bob O'Farrell, Del Ennis, Charlie Keller, and Rico Carty. Anyone out there dying to cast a vote for any of these guys?
Mattingly fares slightly better. He's the 20th-ranked first baseman ever. That's a very respectable place to be, it's just not Hall-caliber. The same three Hall of Famers mentioned with Garvey rank lower than Mattingly too, obviously, as does George Sisler, who also doesn't belong in my opinion. Mattingly's "teammates" on the 20th-ranked team are Tony Lazzeri, Sal Bando, Joe Sewell, Smoky Burgess, Jimmy Ryan, Tony Oliva and Willie Keeler. There are three Hall of Famers in that group - Lazzeri, Sewell, and Keeler - but each of them was either a poor selection or is in the lowest ranks of the deserving. When we factor in the knowledge that Mattingly's shortened career really doesn't hurt him much in these rankings - he would have been 19th before career length was factored in - and suddenly Donnie Baseball's case looks weak. Really weak. Essentially he had four great years. That's not enough to get into Cooperstown.
Hernandez, surprisingly, has the best case of them all. He's the 12th-ranked first baseman. Of the eligible men ranked ahead of him, only Dick Allen hasn't been inducted yet. At the other positions, the 12th-ranked group looks very strong - Billy Herman (IN), Stan Hack (OUT), Pee Wee Reese (IN), Roy Campanella (IN - badly hurt by career length), Jack Clark (OUT), Al Simmons (IN), and Sam Thompson (IN). Five of his seven teammates are already in the Hall. That's a strong case.
Unfortunately, this is one of those instances when the new-fangled numbers make Hernandez look better than he actually was, much as the traditional numbers make Garvey look better than he really was. Using Bill James' Similarity Scores, we see that there isn't a single Hall of Famer (or likely Hall of Famer) among the ten players who are most comparable to Hernandez. Lots of Wally Joyner and Chris Chambliss types. We're talking about a first basemen who hit third on a series of very good baseball teams and still managed just one season of 100 or more RBI.
Hernandez gets extra credit for his exceptional fielding ability, but that's tempered by the fact that he played perhaps the least important defensive position. He gets more bonus points for the two championship teams he played for, but then loses a lot of them when we note that he had an OPS of just 695 in his two World Series appearances. Once we throw in his drug problem and involvement in the Pittsburgh trials that embarrassed the entire sport, his case becomes borderline at best. He doesn't get my vote.
There you have it, the 2002 Hall of Fame ballot, in more detail than you ever imagined.
And probably ever wanted.
» You can read more of Paul's work at www.lostinleftfield.com.
Also by Paul White
» My 2002 Hall of Fame Ballot: Two Right Fielders
» My 2002 Hall of Fame Ballot: Slot #5, Rich Gossage
» My 2002 Hall of Fame Ballot - The Starters I Left Behind
» My 2002 Hall of Fame Ballot: Slot #4, Jim Rice
» My 2002 Hall of Fame Ballot: Trammell & Smith
» My 2002 Hall of Fame Ballot: Slot #1, Gary Carter
» Happy Birthday Bob Elliott
» 3,000 Hits That Don't Belong in Cooperstown
» Frankie Frisch's Sad Legacy: The Cheapening of The Hall of Fame
» Babe's MVP Snubs
» The Schalk-Schang Redemption: Two Men Who Prove That The Hall of Fame Veterans Committee Was a Sham
» Being Tony Muser
» More submissions
Copyright © 2002 by Paul White. Posted January 11, 2002.
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