The preemptive "I can't believe Tim Raines only got 32% of the vote" Thread

[JimDH]

Very good post, man. Hats off to you. I agree completely, I always got the sense that Trammell was really nothing more than Tony Fernandez with a bit more home run power.

I always thought Tony Fernandez was one of the top shortstops when he played. And Trammel was clearly better.

I don't know enough about HOF credentials or where the cutoff should be. I have been there and it's pretty cool and all, but its no skin off my nose if the wrong guys get inducted. If anything, the nonsensical decisions the writers make only adds to the charm of the place. You could just come up with a perfect computer formula and decide it that way, but that would seem very unsatisfying to me.

[DrungoHazewood]

Out of curiousity, is Dale Murphy someone you see as deserving, or not?

No. As you can see from Posanski's piece he's basically the same player as Jim Rice, maybe a tad better. And I don't think Rice is really deserving.

It's probably no big deal either way, but I don't like the way the Hall is moving. Put Rice in and by logic you have to put Murphy in. But you also have to put Charlie Keller in. And probably Tim Salmon. For that matter Gil Hodges, and Don Baylor, and Andruw Jones. Certainly Jimmy Wynn and Dwight Evans. Jose Cruz, too. And probably about two dozen other outfielders.

As I said earlier, I think a reasonable place to start today is by electing players who make the Hall a better overall place. Players who are at least as good as average HOFers. Rice and Murphy aren't as good as the average outfielder. Plenty of other eligibles are better than average HOFers at their positions - like Santo, Trammell, Raines, and Blyleven.

It just makes no sense to me to put in #35 when #12 isn't there.

[DrungoHazewood]

I always thought Tony Fernandez was one of the top shortstops when he played. And Trammel was clearly better.

I don't know enough about HOF credentials or where the cutoff should be. I have been there and it's pretty cool and all, but its no skin off my nose if the wrong guys get inducted. If anything, the nonsensical decisions the writers make only adds to the charm of the place. You could just come up with a perfect computer formula and decide it that way, but that would seem very unsatisfying to me.

I think back to '83 when I first went to the Hall. I got a program that had little bios of all of the HOFers. I was 12, and I thought it was really cool to have a book with stuff on the 175 or so best players who ever lived.

It took me another five or six years to realize that my book really had the top 20 or 30, and then an almost random selection of 140 of the next 600. Most baseball fans don't get to that realization. They actually think the HOF voters know what they're talking about, and that Jim Rice was really a better player than Tim Raines.

It's not the end of the world, but at some level the Baseball Hall of Fame is perpetuating a lie.

[srock]

I'm sorry, and I don't mean to sound like OldFan, but Trammell doesn't pass the sniff test when discussing the Hall.

Raines does.

I know people are holding Dawson's OBP against him but I remember when he played and everyone acted like it was a foregone conclusion that he was a Hall of Famer when he hung 'em up.

Oh well, at least we get to look forward to Rickey's induction speech...that should be rich.

Rich like Peter Angelos mixed with C. Montgomery Burns!

Ricky is my all time favorite non-Oriole. Baseball through and through.

[Eight]

Trammell was quite a bit better than Tony Fernandez. In 9375 PA, BB-ref has him as +124 runs above average on offense. Fernandez, in a not dissimilar 8793 PA, was +20 by the same metric.

And Tony Fernandez was a damn good player, as Drungo pointed out. How many players in ML history had close to 9000 PA, the vast majority of them as a SS, won 4 GG (yes, a flawed measure), and had a career OPS+ of better than 100? Not too many. If Trammell is significantly better than a guy like that, that's a point in his favor, not against him.

Rice is a pretty bad selection. He ranks in a tie for 122nd in career batting runs according to BB-ref (tied with Moises Alou), tied for 177th in career OPS+ (again with Alou, as well as Hrbek, Olerud, Klesko and Salmon) and 106th in career runs created (right behind Lofton, Abreu, and Lou Whitaker). I just don't see a guy that looks to be outside of the top 100 hitters of all-time with zero (or less) defensive value being a Hall of Famer.

I've got to admit that I don't see Raines as the slam dunk some do. He's better than Rice, and probably deserving by the Hall's standards, but I don't know.

[Lester Freamon]

No. As you can see from Posanski's piece he's basically the same player as Jim Rice, maybe a tad better. And I don't think Rice is really deserving.

It's probably no big deal either way, but I don't like the way the Hall is moving. Put Rice in and by logic you have to put Murphy in. But you also have to put Charlie Keller in. And probably Tim Salmon. For that matter Gil Hodges, and Don Baylor, and Andruw Jones. Certainly Jimmy Wynn and Dwight Evans. Jose Cruz, too. And probably about two dozen other outfielders.

As I said earlier, I think a reasonable place to start today is by electing players who make the Hall a better overall place. Players who are at least as good as average HOFers. Rice and Murphy aren't as good as the average outfielder. Plenty of other eligibles are better than average HOFers at their positions - like Santo, Trammell, Raines, and Blyleven.

It just makes no sense to me to put in #35 when #12 isn't there.

Thanks for the response. Yes, the piece does make it pretty clear. Rice - better offensive player but Murphy was a way better defensive player. I can't see how Murphy could possibly make it in because Rice barely got in by the skin of his knucles with what seemed like tons of media support and practcially nobody speaks up for Murphy.

Tim Salmon? yikes. Fortunately, I don't see too much logic in the way these guys vote so I don't think Rice getting in opens up too much of a can of worms (meaning if Rice gets in than so must Murphy).

thanks again for the response, greatly appreciated.

[TommyD4207]

My point was that there are no objective standards for inclusion in the Hall besides the de facto standards of who is already there. Who is already there includes many, many people who were worse players than Alan Trammell and Tony Fernandez.

Therefore, I think it's kind of hard to argue that we need to have strict standards for the future - pandora's box is already open. If you tell folks that Rabbit Maranville is in, but Trammell isn't, on some level you're telling them that Maranville was better than Trammell. When he pretty clearly wasn't.

We're stuck with a big Hall, no matter how much people want it to be a small Hall.

Wild guess, but there are better players than Alan Trammell not in the Hall of Fame?

If so, why should he be able to get in because there are worse players. If there are better players that AREN'T in, than why should we go by lesser players and not greater players that aren't in?

[Eight]

Should that preclude Trammell's election? Bert Blyleven or Tim Raines might have been better, but the writers could (in theory) elect as many as ten members in a single years.

Trammell is very likely the best eligible SS not currently enshrined in the Hall (though that mantle may pass to Barry Larkin next season) and is better than half or more of the current SS in the Hall. That is a pretty sound foundation for candidacy, in my opinion.

[mweb]

Wild guess, but there are better players than Alan Trammell not in the Hall of Fame?

If so, why should he be able to get in because there are worse players. If there are better players that AREN'T in, than why should we go by lesser players and not greater players that aren't in?

There are better players that aren't in, but not many imo, and those are clear mistakes imo. There are worse or equal players that are in the HOF that aren't mistakes imo. There are also some worse players that are in that were mistakes.

So I would remove the mistakes from the equation, which leaves plenty of roughly equal or worse players compared to Trammell that are in the HOF legitably.

[DrungoHazewood]

Wild guess, but there are better players than Alan Trammell not in the Hall of Fame?

Absolutely.

If so, why should he be able to get in because there are worse players. If there are better players that AREN'T in, than why should we go by lesser players and not greater players that aren't in?

The better players should absolutely get in.

You have to draw the line somewhere, and Trammell is about as good as an average HOF shortstop. I don't see how you can construct a logical argument that excludes players that are at least as good as an average player in the Hall. My line is somewhere around the average of those already inducted. You can make a case for it being lower than that.

It's hard to make one that's higher than that because you very quickly run into a situation where you're excluding a lot of players who are very clearly better than most existing Hall of Famers. The more Bill Mazeroskis you let in while excluding Ron Santos the less the Hall means.

[Moose Milligan]

The more Bill Mazeroskis you let in while excluding Ron Santos the less the Hall means.

I really don't care that Maz got in the Hall of Fame or not. You and I both know that if it weren't for his game 7 blast, he probably never would have been in.

But don't you think players who made their living by being stellar defenders should have a place? I mean, its how Ozzie got in.

I'm not saying guys with a Gold Glove or two should be considered, but guys who definitely brought value to their team with the glove should have some weight too, right? Baseball just isn't hitting and pitching.

[Eight]

Defense should absolutely be considered insofar as it affects how valuable a player was. That doesn't mean that the Hall should include the best defenders, even if they couldn't hit a lick (or the opposite case). Maz was maybe the greatest fielding 2B to ever live, but he also couldn't quite muster a .300 OBP. He was never even an average hitter, not even for a year. I think there's a difference between Bill Mazeroski and, say, Ozzie Smith.

[DrungoHazewood]

I really don't care that Maz got in the Hall of Fame or not. You and I both know that if it weren't for his game 7 blast, he probably never would have been in.

But don't you think players who made their living by being stellar defenders should have a place? I mean, its how Ozzie got in.

I'm not saying guys with a Gold Glove or two should be considered, but guys who definitely brought value to their team with the glove should have some weight too, right? Baseball just isn't hitting and pitching.

Baseball is about wins, and the Hall should be about that, too. However a player contributes them, the guys with the most should be in the Hall. Mazeroski was a great defender, almost certainly the best defensive 2B of all time. But in all but three years of his career he was a below-average hitter. A poor hitter, actually. Take away 1/4 of his (poor) career walk totals because they were intentional, presumably because he batted 8th, and his career OBP is in the .280s.

I'm interested in seeing BP's WARP totals revised for their new, higher replacement level. Because right now Maz' WARP3 is 91, and there are non-HOFers with much higher totals. Like Trammell (127), Santo (113), Raines (131). Want to compare him to Ozzie? Ozzie has a WARP3 of 133 and was actually an above average offensive player over his career because of walks, a few doubles, and lots of steals at a high success rate.

Bill Mazeroski is Ozzie, just with a more famous homer, a bat worth about 200 runs less, and a less demanding defensive position. It's pretty reasonable to say Maz is Cesar Iztruis or Adam Everett with a 17-year career.

[DrungoHazewood]

Defense should absolutely be considered insofar as it affects how valuable a player was. That doesn't mean that the Hall should include the best defenders, even if they couldn't hit a lick (or the opposite case). Maz was maybe the greatest fielding 2B to ever live, but he also couldn't quite muster a .300 OBP. He was never even an average hitter, not even for a year. I think there's a difference between Bill Mazeroski and, say, Ozzie Smith.

Yea, what he said!

[Lt Melmo]

Defense should absolutely be considered insofar as it affects how valuable a player was. That doesn't mean that the Hall should include the best defenders, even if they couldn't hit a lick (or the opposite case). Maz was maybe the greatest fielding 2B to ever live, but he also couldn't quite muster a .300 OBP. He was never even an average hitter, not even for a year. I think there's a difference between Bill Mazeroski and, say, Ozzie Smith.

Really? So there's no situation in which a DH can make the Hall for you?