Hall of Lame

Dave Paisley

Well, maybe I'm being a little too harsh. Sure, Kirby Puckett and Dave Winfield aren't exactly Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle, but it may be stretching a point to say that both are truly deserving members of baseball's ultimate club. Of the two successful candidates, Winfield is the more obvious Hall of Famer, but even his career hasn't been that great.

A lifetime .828 OPS (.353 OBP/475 SLG.) isn't exactly going to make many people swoon, even if he did miss out on the offensive explosion of the late nineties. Four hundred and sixty five home runs is nothing to sneeze at, but on the other hand he peaked at 37 (in 1982) and only cracked 30 three times. So he hung around for a long time to accumulate all those numbers.

Puckett's lifetime OPS is .837 (.360/477), a bit better than Winfield. On the other hand, he wasn't much of a home run hitter (although his lifetime slugging percentage beats Winfield by a couple of points.)

While I'm not a big subscriber to the theory that being voted in the first time a player is eligible is a huge honor, I find it curious that these guys just breeze right up to the door, knock, and it opens right up. On the other hand, a genuine Hall of Famer like Gary Carter struggles for years to work his way up the driveway.

Carter's numbers don't quite match up to Puckett and Winfield, but he was a darn good catcher for a long time, and that's a lot harder than just swanning around the outfield. It looks like Carter may finally make it into the Hall next year or the year after, given his slowly increasing level of support. Maybe the voters should look at how many outfielders there are in the Hall compared to the number of catchers.

And then there's Jim Rice, another outfielder who has been toiling his way up the BBWAA popularity charts for six years now. In 16 seasons he amassed 382 homers and features a tidy .854 OPS (.352/.502) which compares very favorably with both Winfield and Puckett.

One of the factors I find useful in assessing the worthiness of a candidate is how he compares with other players throughout history. The legendary Bill James devised a system called similarity scores for just such an occasion. He starts with 1,000 points and subtracts a point for a variety of differences. The fine folks at baseball-reference.com have done all the hard work for you in running these numbers. Bear in mind the comparisons aren't normalized for variations in offensive levels throughout baseball history, but remember that this is only a useful guideline, not rocket science.

Dave Winfield's ten most comparable players are headed by Eddie Murray, Al Kaline and Carl Yastrzemski. His top ten also includes Hall of Famers Frank Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Mel Ott, Tony Perez and Billy Williams. In fact, all seven of the veterans that are in his comp list are Hall of Famers.

Puckett isn't so lucky. His top three comparable players are Don Mattingly, Cecil Cooper and Carl Furillo, none of whom are in the Hall. Of his top ten, only Kiki Cuyler and Joe Medwick are Hall of Famers, and let's face it, they aren't exactly household names.

Gary Carter fares a lot better. His top three are Johnny Bench, Lance Parrish and Carlton Fisk, with Hall of Famers Yogi Berra, Gabby Hartnett and Bill Dickey also in his top ten. That's pretty good company and implies that Lance Parrish totally got shafted in this year's vote with a mere 9 (well below the 26 required to stay on the ballot next year) and will never be eligible, given that he has never met the 60% criterion to be considered in the future by the Veteran's Committee (should it still be around anyway.)

Jim Rice has a much better claim than Puckett, with Orlando Cepeda, Rafael Palmeiro and Duke Snider his top three and his top ten also features Hall of Famers Billy Williams and Willie Stargell.

So the more I research this, the more incensed I got that the BBWAA screwed it up once again. I doubt that Kirby would have made it if not for the career-ending eye condition, while Winfield would never normally be considered as a first time inductee.

One final note: six eligible players got but one vote, most notably John Kruk. I don't know what John is doing right now - probably hoisting a beer to celebrate his one solitary vote, I guess.

Oh, and don't even let me get started on the pitching...

Dave Paisley was hoping to get at least on Hall of Fame vote this time around, but it appears that the BBWAA shuns all quipsters, Dave and Andy Van Slyke included. Commiserate with him at drdjp@strikethree.com.

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