Most deserving player not in HOF

Ahh, the annual Hall of Fame thread. Good times.


Bert Blyleven is my pick.

22 seasons in the majors
5th all-time in strikeouts
Career ERA of 3.31
Career ERA+* of 118 (100 is average)
Career WHIP of 1.19
9 seasons of 200+ K


For a point of reference, consider Nolan Ryan.

27 seasons in the majors
1st all-time in strikeouts
Career ERA of 3.19
Career ERA+ of 111
Career WHIP of 1.24
15 seasons of 200+ K

And to show how great Ryan was, he had 6 seasons of 300+ Ks.

*Park adjusted ERA

Why isn't Blyleven in the Hall? I have no idea.

 

Blyleven is a good choice. I would go with him or Santo. Next in line would be Trammell, Whitaker, Morris, Freehan, Lolich and Darrell Evans.

 

Eric Davis - Nuff Said

 

Eric Davis doesn't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.

 

Mark McGwire (583 HR, 1414 RBI, .588 SLG, .993 Fldg.) and Bert Blyleven (287-250 - 692 games, 4970 IP, 3701 K) probably lead the pack, without thinking about this in great detail this PM. Although a good case could be made for some others, as well. How can anyone possibly justify the inclusion of a starting pitcher with a record of 160-97, and leave out Blyleven, at the same time? (Incidentally, that record belongs to Addie Joss, who does definitley belong, and IMO, had illness not cut short his life at the age of 31, would have been known as the greatest starting pitcher of all time, hands down - His ERA was 1.89, for example, as it was. Compare that to a couple of pretty fair hurlers named Seaver and Gibson who were almost exactly one RPG higher.)

Blyleven (at almost 700 G, 5000 IP, 3700 K) almost makes "Iron Man" McGinnity (465 G, 3441 IP, 1068 K) look like a 'middle reliever' by comparison.

Two others who definitely deserve to be there, are the late individuals, John 'Buck' O'Neil and Dan Quisenberry.

And I'm gonna' say two others -as a hitter, Sadaharu Oh and as a pitcher, Hideo Fujimoto. Let this be the Baseball Hall of Fame, - and not just the 'American' Baseball Hall of Fame.

BTW, it is a crying shame that baseball and softball were voted out of the Olympics after this year! Yet there are four different types of cycling in the Olympics??

Ed

 

Memories of past Tiger greats is all I have right now, since we are in the midst of another Dark Ages in Tigers history. It will be years before this franchise sniffs the playoffs again.
:tonofbricks:

 

Mea culpa.

I apologize for listing more than one. I did not read the OP very carefully, at first, just saw the bit about deserving and ran from there with it. My No# 1, however, would be extremely hard to determine between Blyleven and McGwire.

Ed

 

You didn't have to be so blunt about it, you could have said, "We'll look into it and see what we can do, but we won't be making any promises."

I was a big Eric Davis fan, had each and every baseball card that had his name on it, then the market fell out and my $15.00 rookie card quickly turned to a $1.00 rookie card and my $2.00 cards of his quickly became "commons".

If he would have played an entire season and remained healthy during his career he would have been one of the greats.

 

For a 3 or 4 year period, Eric Davis was the most exciting player in baseball. I have a distinct memory of the first 2 months of his 1987 season. I was in 11th grade, and my two buddies and I had a study hall in the library. Every day it was a ritual to grab the USA Today with its bright colors and pictures - we never knew reading a newspaper could be so fun! Anyways, this was pre-Internet and pre-instant information age, and so we ate up all the stats and expanded box scores of the USA Today. I mean, this paper was revolutionary...at least to us it was. Anyways, E. Davis started that season hotter than a firecracker and I remember following his progress, and we kept saying it was going to be the greatest season ever. Well, his annual injury kept that from happening. For fun, I went to baseball-reference.com and looked up his stats for April-May '87, which would have been the time period my friends and I were in that study hall. Here they are:

.346 BA / .420 OBP / .786 SLG / 1.206 OPS
19 HR, 52 RBI, 20 SB

Pretty impressive. Fun memories.

 

Oh give me a break. Because "nuff said" isn't blunt at all.

I could have come up with the arguments against Eric Davis, but you provided no evidence to support him. If you can't do your homework, then I don't see why I need to.

Completely agree, but we can't say who is and who isn't a Hall of Famer based on what we think they could have done.

Here's the thread in question. I actually didn't respond in that one and I have no idea why I didn't. I think you're confusing that one with the Concepcion thread.

Let him have his fun, Tom. When the only fun things about your team is 2 players who can still rake and Crazy Gary Sheffield, you've hit on some hard times.

 

On the latest ballot, Andre Dawson was the highest vote getter to not get in and I think my brother had an early Andre Dawson baseball card at one point, so I'll throw him into the hat.

One of three players in the history of the game to get 400 HR and 300 SBs. Not bad.

 

Andre Dawson might be in my top 5 of those not in. I think he is more deserving than Jim Rice, which some people think is nuts, but AD was a more well-rounded player and played in a poor hitters park in Montreal.

 

Sorry to derail this thread a tad, but I think that Mike Mussina may have pitched his way into the Hall of Fame this year. I remember discussing Mussina here last year, and most of us agreed that he was borderline and needed a couple more good seasons. He was in serious decline last year. Well, he came back and had a great season this year, and actually won 20 games for the first time. He now has 270 wins. Assuming he pitches another couple years and gets 20-30 more wins, I think he will be a lock. Even if he retired today, I think he would eventually make it. When you consider the hitters' era he played in, his stats measure up quite well.

 

In no particular order:

1. Pete Rose
2. Andre Dawson
3. Jim Rice
4. Mike Morgan

 

Who's Mike Morgan?

 

=) Look him up and tell me if he belongs in the hall.