Harold Baines.....Lee Smith in Hall of Fame

[BohKnowsBmore]

12 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

That's a shame.  I don't agree with a lot of his musings on how baseball should be run, but I'll always remember him flapping his back elbow waiting for the pitch.  He was a truly great player.

One of the great ironies of life (baseball life, at least) is that the computer that wrote Moneyball actually loves him as a player.

[wildbillhiccup]

40 minutes ago, SteveA said:

I gotta say, this one is definitely mystifying.

I have never been a strict "look at the WAR and put them in" guy.   It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Accumulated Value.   Saying just take the highest WAR and set a cutoff never appealed to me.   Like the women's golf HOF where you get in as soon as you win a certain # of tournaments.

Huge postseason performances (Jack Morris), fantastic record setting stretches (Orel Hershiser) are worthy of consideration in my mind.   Greatness can be about more than accumulated value.   Is it "fair" that other guys didn't get a chance to have those because of the team's they were on?   Probably not.   But if Archie Manning had been drafted by a different NFL team he could have had a career like Elway's.   If Bert Jones hadn't gotten badly hurt he WOULD have had a career like Elway's.   But they didn't.

Lee Smith was the saves leader for an era when saves were a Big Deal, and he was pretty dominant at it.   Throughout most of his career, pre-Rivera, I'll bet if you asked the top hitters in baseball who they would least like to face in the 9th inning, his name would be at the top of the list.   I have no problem with putting someone who was the best at something for over a decade in the HOF even if modern analytics show that "something" isn't worth what people thought it was.   In the game at the time he was a dominant closer and closers were considered critical to a team's success.

So sometimes I fall on the other side when someone tries to use one metric such as WAR to try to determine HOF consideration.   I think there's a lot much more to it, and I won't dismiss postseason success, or how much a player was respected and feared by opponents during his career, or extraordinary achievements that didn't significantly increase his WAR.

But Baines, I just don't get.   He didn't have the postseason heroics, or even the reputation as someone opposing teams feared.   He had a long career and accumulated some stats.   I get that he is Mr. White Sox, and the White Sox as a franchise are probably the least represented in the HOF of all the pre-expansion franchises.   But if you went around in the 80s and early 90s asking pitchers who they feared more, or who they couldn't get out, they would probably list a lot of guys ahead of Baines.    So he lacks any of the "intangibles" that I am usually willing to accept that the pure-WAR folks are horrified at.

And it's darn shame that such a good guy is now going to be the center of a controversy that he didn't ask for and that his name will have a negative connotation to so many baseball fans because of it.

I'm not so sure. I'm old enough to remember Lee Smith and Mariano Rivera. River was feared, but I don't remember Smith being viewed in the same way. Like it or not, up until now the HOF has set a VERY high bar for closers and relief pitchers in general. There's no doubt that Smith lowers that bar and I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. 

Baines is another one who should be in the Hall of Very Good, but not the HOF. I think he also opens the door up for Edgar Martinez and I don't think he belongs in the HOF either. 

[jabba72]

 This shows why players and executives voting for their own "era" is a really bad idea. 

[weams]

 

[atomic]

Baines had 2866 career hits.  Everyone with that many hits who wasnt associated with steroids or betting on baseball is in the Hall of Fame.

[atomic]

2 hours ago, jabba72 said:

 This shows why players and executives voting for their own "era" is a really bad idea. 

Like the press is doing a good job. Really if you look at NHL Hall of Fame everyone that should be in there is in there. MLB Hall of Fame is a joke.

[Redskins Rick]

16 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

So you're not a fan of Ozzie Smith's induction?  He only had four seasons where he was even an average hitter.  Bill Mazeroski was much worse.  What of Paul Molitor?  3000 hits, but DH'd more than any other position.

I don't understand why being well-rounded is more important than being good.  Especially since you give a pass to pitchers.

Good point.

I concede, you won me over.

[DrungoHazewood]

8 hours ago, atomic said:

Baines had 2866 career hits.  Everyone with that many hits who wasnt associated with steroids or betting on baseball is in the Hall of Fame.

Omar Vizquel had 2877.  I think it's unlikely he goes in anytime soon.  There are nine players who are HOF eligible with no scandals I know of and 2700+ hits who aren't in.

Baines has about the same case as Al Oliver or Rusty Staub.  As far as I know they're all good guys, good players, long careers, but offensively oriented careers where they didn't really lead the league in much of anything.

[DrungoHazewood]

8 hours ago, atomic said:

Like the press is doing a good job. Really if you look at NHL Hall of Fame everyone that should be in there is in there. MLB Hall of Fame is a joke.

It's a very cool museum, and I believe it was the first sports Hall of Fame.  But the selection process couldn't be much more inconsistent if they tried.

[DrungoHazewood]

12 hours ago, SteveA said:

And it's darn shame that such a good guy is now going to be the center of a controversy that he didn't ask for and that his name will have a negative connotation to so many baseball fans because of it.

No one ever said a bad thing about Baines, seems like a truly nice guy.  It is too bad that this might change that reputation even though he really had nothing to do with it.

[Moose Milligan]

12 hours ago, SteveA said:

 

And it's darn shame that such a good guy is now going to be the center of a controversy that he didn't ask for and that his name will have a negative connotation to so many baseball fans because of it.

Yeah, I had this thought yesterday.  Really good guy, quiet professional.  I haven't seen anyone be malicious in their criticism and no one has crossed a line or anything.  Maybe we should just sit back and tip our hats to him.

[DrungoHazewood]

15 hours ago, weams said:

I think current writers would have no problem removing those who they never saw who did not play in New York or Boston.

That's a problem with any HOF re-do.  Deacon White's career ended before my great-grandparents were born.  Most baseball fans are not also big history buffs.  There aren't too many of us who could talk for more than a few seconds on Bid McPhee or Tim Keefe.  Or Freddie Lindstrom.  Or even Richie Ashburn.  You'd have to be in your seventies to have seen Ashburn play.  The first 2/3rds of baseball history we'd be going on bb-ref and other people's stories, many of them influenced by who got elected to the Hall.

I'd bet that 30%, maybe closer to 50% of BBWAA membership couldn't tell me a single fact about most pre-Ruth HOFers. On the other hand, 30% of the writers would vote for someone they didn't know over someone they suspected of hanging out with Ken Caminiti.

[Redskins Rick]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I'd bet that 30%, maybe closer to 50% of BBWAA membership couldn't tell me a single fact about most pre-Ruth HOFers. On the other hand, 30% of the writers would vote for someone they didn't know over someone they suspected of hanging out with Ken Caminiti.

Thats been one of my pet peeves. The BBWAA and some of their writers are clueless about the history of the game, or even respect the history of the game. They are arogant obnoxious brunch that think the world sets and revolves around them

Note: I did say some, and not all.

To be fair, I do remember reading a while back, that one of the BBWAA was explaining that the HOF gives them no guidance or criteria to help them in their voting.

[tntoriole]

8 hours ago, atomic said:

Like the press is doing a good job. Really if you look at NHL Hall of Fame everyone that should be in there is in there. MLB Hall of Fame is a joke.

Every Hall has its controversies and problems with selections. 

“The Hockey Hall of Fame has been criticized for inducting several lacklustre candidates in the early 2000s decade due to "a shortage of true greatness". Since then, some have claimed that the Hall of Fame has become too exclusive. The Hall of Fame has also been criticized for failing to induct international players and critics have claimed that the Hall has been far too focused on the National Hockey League. A common statement is that it is more of an "NHL Hall of Fame" than a general Hockey Hall of Fame.

Conn Smythe served as the Hall's chairman for several years, but resigned in June 1971 when Harvey “Busher” Jackson was posthumously elected into the Hall. Smythe said that it made him sick to think of Jackson alongside such Toronto Maple Leafs players as "Apps, Primeau, Conacher, Clancy and Kennedy. If the standards are going to be lowered I'll get out as chairman of the board." Jackson was notorious for his off-ice lifestyle of drinking and broken marriages. Smythe would not condone the induction and even tried to block it because he considered Jackson a poor role model. Frank Selke, head of the selection committee defended the selection on the belief that a man should not be shut out "because of the amount of beer he drank".”   wikipedia entry for Hockey Hall of Fame

Sports fans mainly like to argue...thus the inherent controversies in any Best of the Best discussion. 

[DrungoHazewood]

18 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

To be fair, I do remember reading a while back, that one of the BBWAA was explaining that the HOF gives them no guidance or criteria to help them in their voting.

I'd guess it's like a lot of things in baseball.  "We've been doing this a very long time and everything has always been awesome and we're never going to change any of the rules, so just keep doing whatever it is you do.  It'll be fine, and we won't alienate the people who grew up watching Mickey and Willie.  And if it's not fine, at least the controversy will generate publicity."