An Accumulation HOF Material on Boys of Summer

Here is an accumulation of my Hall material in recent years, some of the dates, and the fact that I'm laying arguments for guys who have now been added, may also not make sense... but the debated stats for other players such as Tim Raines, Alan Trammell, Edgar Martinez, Lou Whitaker and others are here....

Enjoy....

* * * * * * * * * * January 8th, 2014 * * * * * * * * * *

Personally, the guys all listed above on my ballot are HOF'ers, also I should add Edgar Martinez with the 12th spot, he is a representative of the DH era, and he did not get his first actual break until age 27! He was the solid force behind the emergence of the Seattle Mariners franchise, he had 5 seasons over a 1.000 OPS (Bagwell had 5, Piazza had 4 -- to put it in perspective). Mitch Williams, former reliever for the Philadelphia Phillies & current MLB analyst said it best, "If there is a position created in the game of baseball, such as the DH, then there needs to be a position for that in the Hall of Fame as well."

* * * * *

Edgar Martinez is among the 4th best all-time in OBP for players who made the Major League debuts after World War II (.418). To put it in perspective for Edgar's career, think about the season that Victor Martinez just had with the 2014 Detroit Tigers -- V-Mart led the A.L. with a .974 OPS; Edgar surpasses Victor Martinez's career year, with 10 total seasons that were better than that. That's nuts! 

His 147+ OPS just trails that of Joe DiMaggio (155+) and is right with Mike Schmidt (147+). He is a career .312 hitter with a .933 OPS.

Now when people keep discussing Designated Hitters, everyone and their mother would mention David Ortiz & how Ortiz will represent the DH in the Hall of Fame. If they did their research, They would see that Edgar has him beat in many categories.

• Edgar Martinez

• David Ortiz

"Big Papi" only has Edgar beat in HR's (466 to 309), RBI (1,533 to 1,261), Slugging (.547 to .515), and runs (1,267 to 1,219).

* * * * *

Some Tigers fans, such as myself, have been very outspoken about the fact that Jack Morris, Alan Trammell & Lou Whitaker not being in the Hall of Fame. Out of the three, yeah.. Morris is the least deserving, yet he has come the closest of the three to making it.

One of the guys in the Facebook Group went on to say: Morris was not quite HOF material. He had a career 3.90 ERA, and went on to mention the silly Curt Schilling assessment,"If you have to think about whether a player is a Hall of Famer or not, he's not." The person also went on to mention that not only is Morris not a candidate, but Jeff Bagwell, Jeff Kent, and Mike Mussina were not HOF'ers as well, despite their good career numbers.

He goes on to say you can't make the remark "that so-and-so is in the HOF, so so-and-so should be as well." Yes & No, I say to that. Yeah, we can't do anything about Rabbit Maranville or Dave Bancroft, or a good handful of others, at the same time you have to look at some (not all) of these guys as representatives of it's era. Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers & Frank Chance are also three that, stat-wise would not be in the Hall of Fame. My father's idea of the Hall of Fame should be a 26-30 man roster, and when one came around, another got bumped out -- Maybe make the Hall a perfect 300, and bump people out afterwards, that sounds crazy. Overall, the damage has been done, it's funny to me that Tinker-Evers-Chance basically got in for the famous poem about them. They were great fielders for it's time, and fielding conditions were far worse then, before the day & age of ground's crews. I believe Tinker, Evers & Chance are more deserving than the likes of Maranville or Bancroft, but we can't change history. We can't change the fact that they are in, but I feel they DO represent the era, an era in which mostly are pitching dominant figures, the only offensive guys that really stood out in the first 1900-1910 decade was Ty Cobb & Honus Wagner.

Plus for anyone who has played APBA replays of that early era such as a guest blogger on The APBA Blog in Scott Fennessey (also the 2nd Chicagoland World Series Tournament Winner), he can argue that the Tinkers, Evers, were the superstars in their days. Should they really be punished out of the Hall, because they didn't average 37 HR's a season?

So my reply to Jack Morris is this...

• Pitched half of his starts in one of the most offensive-hitting stadiums ever (Tigers Stadium), during one of the best offensive eras in baseball history.
• He pitched for a manager that was nicknamed "Captain Hook" in Sparky Anderson, Anderson was well-known for yanking his starters by the 6th and getting his bullpen ready to go. Morris was maybe the only starting pitcher that could give Sparky the look -- turn back to the dugout! So Morris could have hurt himself in this regard.
• Morris was obviously pitching hurt for his 89'-90' campaigns, which could have easily hurt his career ERA. Plus if you take strictly from his Tigers' years, which best represents him, he had a career Tiger ERA of 3.73!
• Most Wins in the 1980's: 177, while playing in possibly the toughest division stretch per talent in the division era, since 1969. Yankees for example: Dave Winfield, Don Mattingly, Rickey Henderson; Brewers - Two HOF'ers in Robin Yount & Paul Molitor (who Lou Whitaker & Alan Trammell were just as instrumental in their roles for their franchise as those two), Boston was loaded, the Jays were strong throughout the 80's (especially from 84'-90')! Orioles had Ripken & Eddie Murray. Morris had to play these guys the majority of his career. These divisions were so loaded that many races came down to the very end. Cleveland was the only constant cellar-dweller. 
• Pitchers like Jim Palmer loaded up on wins, by the early division formats, Baltimore dominated during it's time, with no real contenders until mid 1970's when the Yankees came back into focus. The A.L. East in the 1980's had far more competition.
• Won three World Titles for three different teams.

Also check out the Article I did about a year ago..

During my reply that I respected Curt Schilling as the player, even saying that he may be Hall worthy, but didn't agree with his assessment. The counter-argument to that, was that Morris & Schilling are not on the same levels that of a Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, and Jim Palmer. Yeah? So is the same for about half of the starting pitchers already in the Hall of Fame. Those 4 among a few others, are one of a kinds, they come once in a generation! 

Here's an interesting argument in favor for Curt Schilling...

• Didn't get started really until 1992, 1994 & 1995 combines for one season (due to injuries) and he was a consistent force from 92-2007, leading the 93' Phillies to the World Series, while leading the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, 2004 & 2007 Boston Red Sox to World Championships (3 rings).
• 300 or more strikeouts, 3 times! Back-to-back seasons of the accomplishment for a 619 K's combination in two years!
• 3,116 K's (15th All-Time), 216 career wins with a winning percentage of .597. Sure it's not the magical 300 wins number, but he was a dependable winner. Almost a 1,000 more K's than Jim Palmer, Palmer only had two rings (66' & 83').
• Schilling's ERA of 3.46 was not that of Palmer's 2.86. But here's some food for thought, Palmer didn't get 300 wins either (268) and Schilling has him beat in the WHIP area 1.137 to 1.180!

The reason that I started arguing WARs (which I don't care for, but can be used as an interesting tool to compare) and Jim Palmer. Is because this person brought up both in regularity in his argument towards my points, so I used his tools of argument & of course, I still was clearly wrong LOL!

I brought up the career WAR's over Jim Palmer of players NOT in the Hall of Fame. Of course, players like A-Rod & Pujols are not retired yet.

• Alex Rodriguez (115.7)
• Albert Pujols (93.0)
• Chipper Jones (85.2)
• Jeff Bagwell (79.5)
• Pete Rose (79.4)
• Bill Dahlen (75.3)
• Lou Whitaker (74.8)
• Larry Walker (72.6)
• Rafael Palmeiro (71.8)
• Derek Jeter (71.6)
• Bobby Grich (71.0)
• Adrian Beltre (70.5)
• Alan Trammell (70.4)
• Scott Rolen (70.0)
• Tim Raines (69.1)
• Manny Ramirez (69.1)
• Edgar Martinez (68.3)
• Ivan Rodriguez (68.3)

The Hall of Famers below these the Career (70.0) WAR mark?

• Gary Carter
• Ed Delahanty
• Tony Gwynn
• Al Simmons
• Carlton Fisk
• Eddie Murray
• Fred Clarke
• Ryne Sandberg
• Roberto Alomar
• Duke Snider
• Joe Cronin
• Pee Wee Reese
• Goose Goslin
• Andre Dawson
• Willie McCovey
• Dave Winfield
• Billy Williams
• Richie Ashburn
• Billy Hamilton
• Lou Boudreau

and much more...

Let's go to Richie Ashburn, now

He had 2,574 career hits, a .306 career batting average, and an outstanding On-Base Percentage of .396! He was an outfielder in a HOF field that had many outfielders, with a career OPS of .778, with only 29 career HR's from a "power position".

Now enter Alan Trammell into the equation...

He had 2,365 career hits, I think sometimes people look at hits too much, in the same way people read career wins for a pitcher, you need to look at the other numbers people.

Let's point out that his WAR (70.4) is higher than Ashburn's & Barry Larkin (70.2), the HOF SS... now overall, once again I'm not a WAR guy, so let's look at other numbers. Trammell had 185 career HRs for a position until the 1980's was not known for having pop. Trammell didn't hit double-digits in HR's until 1983, and got the bulk of his HR's between 1983 & 1990. Trammell's 236 career steals, beats Ashburn by 2. Trammell also had a respectable .286 career average, not Ashburn's .306, but certainly better than HOF'er Gary Carter's .262!

Lou & Tram: Bless You Boys!

Alan Trammell had a career OPS of .767, Carter had .773 & Ashburn .778. People often harp on the fact that Trammell was injured a lot at the end of his career, and that he was beyond his peak years for some time, yet that never stopped Carter from being elected, who was clearly past his prime after 1987. Carter stuck around until 1992.

Someone else brought up points in what faith do we have in WAR when Lou Whitaker's WAR is higher than that of Ryne Sandberg and Roberto Alomar. Simple, Sandberg really was compacted to a period from 1982-1992, he was basically a ten-year deal.... where Lou was consistent as well, and was more a factor longer from 1978-1993. Roberto Alomar was a factor from 1988-2001, he stuck around until 2004, and probably had negative WARs to drain his career WAR. I don't think anyone thinks Whitaker was better than Alomar, as a Tiger fan I could argue that Whitaker was just as relevant for the Tigers as Sandberg was to the Cubs, and for American League 2B standards, Whitaker was really the Joe Morgan of that league, until the 1990's came around offensive 2B were unheard of, unless you dig towards the Eddie Collins days! Ryne Sandberg's period of 1990-1992, is what makes the difference in the argument between Sandberg & Whitaker, besides that.

• Whitaker: .276 AVG, 244 HR's, 2,369 hits & career .789 OPS.
• Sandberg: .285 AVG, 282 HR's, 2,386 hits & career .795 OPS. Note: Sandberg, got 92 of his career HR's from 1990-1992.

Sandberg also narrowly beats Whitaker in fielding pct (.989 to .984). Sandberg does beat him in Gold Gloves 11 to 3, just off the top of my head I do want to think Whitaker had stiffer competition at the position, but I could be wrong. The Gold Glove is rewarded for the silliest things anyways, offensive stats at a position come into factor, and it's a bit of a popularity contest.

Just some interesting perspectives, yet some people would make you think many of these players are not similar, just because the ones that have been in, grown bigger than their actual legends. I have been meaning to do the entire Hall of Fame for a post, who's in, who should be, and who's out.

Who knows? There was actually a time when people didn't think of Ryne Sandberg as a Hall of Famer, how crazy is that?

* * * * * * * * * * January 10th, 2013 * * * * * * * * * *

The thing is this, Morris won the most games in the 1980's, 5-time All-Star, 4-time World Champion, 1991 World Series MVP, a career no-hitter & 2-time Babe Ruth Award Winner (for best Post-season, in 1984 & 1991). So what more does he need to do, to get in? Is this the writers or media's way to get back at Morris, who wasn't too fond of interviews after a game? There is really no explanation why Morris is not in the Hall.

He had 254 wins & a career 3.90 ERA, the ERA is what some of the voters have stated that they feel he doesn't belong, but if you take out the fact that he had basically four seasons that destroyed his career ERA (89'-90' & 93'-94' were rough areas -- not to mention this time was the actual birth of the steroid era for sluggers like McGwire & Canseco). Now I know some people will argue, well that's his fault and he should have pitched better -- my argument is that he is even more dominant than his career numbers suggest!

It's about the era, who stands out?!

But look there are hitters in the Hall of Fame that really only flashed for 8 seasons, two come straight to mind -- both have deserved their place in the Hall, one died prematurely (but who's to say how the rest of his career would have went?) and the other was a Yankee (of course, this helped a bit). The two players are Joe Gordon (Yankees) & Ross Youngs (N.Y. Giants), who died of Bright's Disease at age 30! My point I guess is that Morris had a stretch from 79' to 88' that was consistently good, and shows that he was indeed a dominant ace in the game of baseball and in his era. That's what it should be about, how you did in your era. I'm glad Jim Rice finally made it a few years back, it was ludicrous that he was out as long as he was, he was one of the most feared sluggers in his era!

Just from some brief research here is a bit of my argument, I'm going to post Jack Morris's career up against two Hall of Fame pitchers that come straight to mind, one is Bob Lemon's who, I have a baseball card that compares the two players similar numbers, and also Red Ruffing's 3.80 ERA came straight to mind as well.

• Jack Morris (254 Wins, 186 Losses / .577 winning pct): Morris pitched half of his career games basically at Tiger Stadium, notorious for offensive numbers, he had a career 3.90 ERA, 175 Complete Games, while collecting 2,478 K's in 3,824 innings.

Pitched for a great run by the Indians.

• Bob Lemon (207 Wins, 128 Losses / .618 winning pct): Bob Lemon missed the beginning of his career from 1943-1945 due to Military service, but didn't do much in MLB until his breakthrough 1948 Season, so it's safe to say that he really didn't lose any years there, so his career numbers are what they are. He has a better winning percentage than Morris, but even though Morris played on a few winning teams of the Tigers, most notably seasons like 1984 & 1987 -- he wasn't with a consistent winning team like the Indians were for Lemon, nor did Morris have pitchers like Bob Feller and Early Wynn constantly to take the pressure off him. Jack Morris had Dan Petry! Petry was good, but Feller & Wynn are Hall of Fame pitchers!  Lemon wins convincingly in ERA (3.23 ERA), but also note the era that Lemon played and having the constant pleasure to play for a winner. Morris was definitely a better strike-out artist, nearly doubling Lemon's 1,277 K's; and all though Lemon still has 13 more complete games (188), it's once again about the era, where there was only 3 relievers tops, and they aren't used the same way as today.

Ruffing's similar 3.80 ERA to that of Morris.

• Red Ruffing (273 Wins, 225 Losses / .548 winning pct): At first glance, I was going to slam on Ruffing for only having a career winning pct of .548 when most of his career he pitched for the Yankees, and having those lineups supporting him; In all fairness he played for some lousy Red Sox teams in the late 20's (ones that played the Yankees many times through the years) in which he led the league back-to-back in losses with 22 & 25! Then again there are two ways of looking at this, he may not even came close to 273 wins if it wasn't for playing for the Yankees; he had a career record of 231-111 with New York (.675 winning pct! -- the equivalent of a baseball team going 109-53 for the season). He had 1,987 K's in 4,344 innings, the strikeout rate per 9 innings, quite lower than Morris. The only area I can't debate against Ruffing, is his ridiculous 335 complete games -- sure pitchers completed their games much more then, but still impressive!

Now to make things clear, I am not saying that either Bob Lemon and Red Ruffing don't deserve to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, because they totally do -- I'm just bringing up two similar careers to that of Jack Morris. A player that deserves to be in the Hall, and I feel the fact he has played for Detroit does play a part in that (for being an unattractive market), if he wore pinstripes (a Yankees jersey), he would already be in there --- the same goes for his two teammates shortstop Alan Trammell and second baseman Lou Whitaker (Major League Baseball's longest running double-play combination in history!), not to mention they were far superior to that of Joe Tinker and Johnny Evers (who basically got in for a famous poem and the 1906 Chicago Cubs historic season)! Those two players On Base Percentage + Slugging (OPS) barely eclipses that of utility/journeyman Aaron Miles! But this is the thing, Tinker and Evers were from the "deadball era" and so they are a reflection of their era, meaning so is Morris in his era -- so with that Tinker and Evers are Hall of Famers.

Trammell and Whitaker tipping their hats off to each other.

These arguments can go on and on.

We shouldn't be measuring up players to other players overall totals, if this is the case, no one before 1987 has a chance to make the Hall. It all should be a reflection of it's era. Plus once you open the door to a player, it does open up about other similar players that played in that era. Andre Dawson was held out for awhile, due to a relatively low career On-Base Percentage (.323) for a slugger in his day, where OBP was a thing in it's day -- he eventually got inducted in 2010. Since the door opened for Dawson though... now comes new debates. For example, Harold Baines...

• Andre Dawson - 2,744 hits, .279 Avg, 438 HR & 1,591 RBI (.806 OPS / .323 OBP): Dawson was also a 8-time All-Star selection, 8 Gold Gloves, as well as the 1977 N.L. Rookie-of-the-Year for the Montreal Expos & 1987 Most Valuable Player for the Chicago Cubs. He had 4 seasons of at-least 100 RBI's! Dawson also had 314 stolen bases.

Baines & a very underrated baseball career.

• Harold Baines - 2,866 hits, .289 Avg, 384 HR & 1,628 RBI (.820 OPS / .356 OBP): Baines was also a 6-time All-Star selection, who would get a World Championship ring as a coach for the Chicago White Sox in 2005. He didn't have as many awards or trophies as Dawson, and he didn't have the speed (only 34 career steals), but he only had 54 fewer HR's, while beating Dawson across the board in everything else. Plus even though, Baines played plenty of DH later in his career, let's not forget that Baines was actually a pretty good fielder with an excellent arm during peak form. It's also seems to me, that the American League during both of these guys' careers (that happened during the same period) had far more superior outfielders, so this also means that Baines may have gotten more All-Star nods if he played in the National League. Baines had 3 seasons of 100 or more RBI's.

Carter: Always a class act, always smiling.

Once again, Dawson in my book is a legit Hall of Famer, letting him in, has opened this debate -- Same goes with Gary Carter, he opens the door for other hitters' careers. Carter, for a catcher he should be in the Hall, but as a straight-up hitter? That's another answer. His career numbers read nothing special when you think Hall of Famer -- .262 Batting Avg, 324 HR's (great for a catcher) & 1,225 RBI's; go deeper with a decent .335 OBP & an average to pretty-good star's .775 OPS. Some may say, hey that's an OPS just .031 lower than slugger Andre Dawson! Sure, but Dawson compared to other outfielders in the Hall of Fame is really low in comparison. Plus Carter has only 2,092 hits.

Now back to Trammell, he batted .285, 185 HR &1,003 RBI's, he had more hits (2,365 hits) and a higher On-Base Percentage of .352 than Carter; plus a similar OPS of .767 to him as well. It seems to many that Carter would have had more Gold Gloves than three, he really stood out as his position -- Trammell? He had four Gold Gloves sharing a league with Cal Ripken and Tony Fernandez! Some can argue that comparing catchers to shortstops, is like comparing Oranges to Apples. Yes, both positions were not known for their power then -- but if you want to see one more comparison, than let's compare Trammell to the "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" -- Ozzie Smith!

Ozzie batted .262, 28 HRs & 793 RBI, with 2,460 hits in 9,396 at-bats -- which is only 95 hits more than Trammell, with 1,108 more at-bats and opportunities! His .262 career average and .666 OPS pales in comparison to that of Trammell's .285 Avg & .767 OPS. Oh, what's that? Ozzie was a better fielder than Trammell? He certainly had more Gold Gloves with 13, and also was selected to the All-Star Game (which is a bit of a popularity contest) 15 times! Trammell with more competition made only 6 selections. But when it came to fielding they were almost exactly the same in fielding percentages (Smith .978 to Tram's .977), double-plays (Smith 1,590 to Tram's 1,307) , and assists (Smith 8,375 to Tram's 6,172); it's also safe to note that Ozzie played in 3,500 more innings, and could do many more acrobatic back-flips!

McGriff gets a lot of grief for playing with so many teams.

It's all interesting and very fascinating when it comes to debating, who should be in and who should not? The way I look at it, why not put more people in, instead of having the grasp too tight! We need to see a bigger perspective of the Hall of Fame, so that players like Morris, Trammell, Whitaker, Tim Raines, Fred McGriff, and Albert Belle (oh yes, I said it!) are not forgotten about. The game of Baseball's Hall of Fame should be more of a time capsule, so that 200 years from now, people can get an idea about the time and it's era, how can you reflect the 80's without Jack Morris?

Not to beat a dead horse, but it's all about the reflection of the era that these players come from.

* * * * * 

Tim Raines

The fact that Tim Raines is still waiting, is downright ridiculous -- compare him with Lou Brock, and it's a no-brainer. I made a quick post a year ago on the Brock comparison.

• Raines vs Brock

Now compare Tim Raines to Tony Gwynn, Raines was not as great as Gwynn of course at the plate. But Raines certainly was more close to Gwynn in patience at the plate.

• Tony Gwynn

• Tim Raines

To put it in perspective, Gwynn just eclipses Raines .385 OBP by .003 -- Gwynn did this by collecting 536 more hits, while Raines could have put it in play at times, knew how to draw many more walks (1330 to Gwynn's 790). Gwynn who stole 319 bases, Raines would steal almost 500 more bags: 808 to 319. Gwynn has only 158 more career RBI than Raines, despite having 500+ more hits. Raines is 5th among all LF's in WAR since 1900.

Interesting thing I saw on MLB Network the other morning.... Personally, I don't think Tim Raines should be punished for what he was taught to do in the game of baseball, and that's to get on base.

	Tim Raines
Games	2,502
BA	0.294
OBP	0.385
Steals	808
OPS	0.810
	Lou Brock
Games	2,616
BA	0.293
OBP	0.343
Steals	938
OPS	0.753

This concludes the accumulation of Hall material I have on site, for more in-depth, check out my The Ongoing Hall of Fame Debate feed to the right on this site or CLICK HERE.