Hall of Fame Blog Part 3, The Eighties

Alright its time to start part 3 of my amazing Hall of Fame list.  This section will deal with those that were elected in the wonderful decade of the 1980’s.  The same decade that brought me life. 

1989-Carl Yastrzemski, Red Schoendienst, Johnny Bench (A couple of guys that probably couldn’t spell their last names till High School.  I still can’t spell them without looking)

Carl Yastrzemski-Yes- Triple Crown Winner, which is impressive, even if he did it in an offensively repressed year.  Other than that he was a fine hitter who put up 3419 career hits and a career .841 OPS while playing in some pretty pitching dominate years.

Red Schoendienst-No- This guy had TB and it drug down his system in the second half of each year, so he put great first half numbers up, then struggled in the second half.  Red is, based purely on his numbers, not really a Hall of Famer.  However, he really isn’t in the Hall of Fame based purely on his numbers.  He is in because if you take all that he has been in baseball, (player, manager, executive, coach) there is no question that he belongs in the Hall of Fame.  I will not dispute that, but since I am taking players based on their careers, and not other contributions, his .724 OPS when coupled with the fact he fell short of 2500 career hits is going to keep him out.  He was a great defender, which does help his case somewhat, but still, not in my Hall of Fame.

Johnny Bench-Yes- Rocket Arm, Good defender, one of the best offensive catchers of all time, its hard to keep him out of the Hall.  Actually impossible, as much as I would like to given my dislike of the Big Red Machine.  His .817 OPS is really strong for a catcher, and he had the other skills to back it up.

1988- Willie Stargell

Willie Stargell-Yes- Pops could rake, no question.  This man was a professional hitter.  His percentage numbers ended up being a very nice .282, .360, .529, and although he ended up 25 homers short of 500 his .889 career OPS is very strong.  He was a very good player, and a team leader.

1987-Billy Williams, Catfish Hunter,

Billy Williams-Yes- This is a guy who seems to always slip through the radar, but he actually had a very nice career.  He his .290 for his career, and ended up with a .361 OBP and .492 SLG, for a nice .853 OPS.  He played in some bad hitters years, and Wrigley often played in the pitchers favor during his career.  He is not the greatest player of his time, but he was one of the best.

Catfish Hunter-No- Catfish Hunter is a tough, tough call.  He won 20 games five years in a row, with a great percentage.  He was legitimately one of the best pitchers around during that span, but the problem is outside of that five-year span he didn’t put up great numbers.  His career record of 224-166 is very good, but it is just not a very high total, and he was well short of 3000 k’s. His career WHIP was good at 1.134 but his ERA is a tad high at 3.26 given his lack of other cumulative numbers.  I just would have liked to have seen more than five great years. 

1986-Willie McCovey, Bobby Doerr, Ernie Lombardi

Willie McCovey-Yes- If your name is Willie, there is a likelihood you might be a good baseball player.  There seem to be lots of really great Willie’s who played the game.  He was as slow as frozen snot, but he might have swung the bat harder than any man who ever lived.  He had 521 career homers, with good percentage numbers of .270, .374, and .515.  Not to mention the fact that he probably lost a lot of career homers due to the park he played in.  Definitely a Hall of Famer.

Bobby Doerr-Maybe- This is a tough call, and I will admit at this point I just don’t know enough about this guy to make the call.  Perhaps when I revise this column I will have made a decision, but right now I don’t know enough about him, and the numbers are not clear cut enough to make a decision.  His career .823 OPS is pretty damn good.

Ernie Lombardi-Yes- Slow, Slow, Slow, but this guy could hit like a fiend.  Two battings Titles, and MVP, and he only struck out 262 times in his career.  His .306 career average is impressive considering he had no chance of ever beating out a ground ball, even if it was booted.  The reputation is that he makes a Molina brother look fast.  His percentage numbers of .306, .358, and .460 are very impressive and he was a very good defensive catcher.  His OPS of .818 puts him in a class with Bench, although with not quite as much power.

1985-Hoyt Wilhelm, Arky Vaughan, Enos Slaughter, Lou Brock

Hoyt Wilhelm-Yes- Possibly one of the more underrated pitchers in the Hall of Fame.  A career reliever with a career ERA of 2.52, he put up some pretty ridiculous numbers, including 227 saves, over 1600 K’s and 143 wins.  He spent one season as a starter and he didn’t do that until he was 36, when he did he led the league in ERA with a 2.19.  What is even more ridiculous about him is that he didn’t even pitch in the big leagues until he was 29.  He did all of this in his career while not having started playing until he was nearly 30!!

Arky Vaughan-Yes- The great player no one has ever heard of.  He is probably one of the five or six best short stops of all time.  He was short on cumulative numbers, but while he was playing he was truly great and posted percentage numbers of .318, .406, .453.  That leaves a career OPS of .859 which is really, really good.

Enos Slaughter- Yes- You know, when I first got to Enos, I thought for sure that he was going to be a player that would be excluded from my Hall Of Fame.  However, after looking at his stats I was surprised to discover that I am inclined to include him.  It is true that he does have a relatively low number of career hits (2383) but he does have over 1200 runs and Rbi’s.  The real turning point for me though was his career OPS of .834.  He also throws in a nice career .300 average, which of course is secondary, but it does look nice next to the very nice career OPS.  He is by all accounts a capable if not spectacular defender.  He does have a reputation as being a racist, which I don’t approve of, but it’s truly not the Hall of Nice Guys.

Lou Brock-Yes- Whoo boy, I really think Brock is a very marginable Hall of Famer.   His percentage numbers are .293 .343 and .410.  The OBP is lower than you would like to see in a Hall of Fame leadoff hitter, but the slugging is actually a bit higher than you might expect to find.  He did score a large number of runs (1610) and he got 3000 hits, barely. (3023) But I do think that the only thing keeping him in my Hall of Fame is the fact he stole 938 bags.  That’s a high number, with only Henderson beating him.  Since he did however, I will include him.  He was also a terrible fielder, with a below average arm.  When I review this blog in the future he may be one of the inclusions that might eventually get booted. 

1984-Pee Wee Reese, Harmon Killebrew, Rick Ferrell, Don Drysdale, Luis Aparicio

Pee Wee Reese-Yes-When looking at Reese its hard to see why he was included into the Hall of Fame.  At first glance his 2170 hits seems very low with his average percentage numbers.  I have decided though, that he is probably a quality member.  He was of course, a very good defender, and is remembered fondly as a man who befriended Jackie Robinson.  His percentage numbers are .269 .366. .377.  Of course the slugging is a bit anemic, but the OBP is nearly 100 points better than his batting average, which is very good considering he was never a batter that was feared.  That is because he took 1210 walks in his career.  He was dedicated to his craft of getting on base and drawing walks.  His hit total, of course, would have been much higher if he was not so patient.  Also he stole 232 bases during a time when almost nobody was stealing bags.  All in all when included with his defense he is included, although only marginally so.

Harmon Killebrew-Yes- Big Harm was a career DH that played in an era without a DH.  He played 1^st, 3^rd, and the outfield.  He was pretty paltry at each position.  Basically the idea was to always try and hide him.  He was remembered as a bigger man than he actually was in real life.  He was listed at 5’11” and 213 lbs for most of his career.  He was though, whatever his size was, one of the strongest men to play the game.  He could flat out crush a baseball, and had tremendous power to the opposite field.  That at a time when that was more unusual than it is now.  Harm had a very nice career .884 OPS.  He would take a walk, which he did 1559 times, and always posted a great ops.  He led the league in homers 6 times, including three times in a row from 1962-64.

Rick Ferrell-No- I will admit I don’t truly know enough about Ferrell to pass judgment on him subjectively, so I am basing this purely on the numbers.  His numbers aren’t bad.  His hit .281 with a .378 OBP, the only problem is that his slugging is actually lower than his OBP, a very anemic .363.  He only had 28 career homers and 324 career doubles.  Of course he only had 1692 career hits.  He did have some very good years, but the numbers just don’t seem to be good enough, unless he is one of the best defensively, and I don’t know enough about him to rate that.

Don Drysdale-No- This man is sort of the opposite of Enos Slaughter.  With him I expected to see much better than I got.  He won 209 game with 166 lost for a .557 winning percentage.  That pretty good, but honestly his career ERA of 2.95.  Giving the fact that he 1. Played in an era known for being a pitching era, and B.  Played in Dodger stadium, which was an extreme pitching friendly ballpark.  He also only won 20 games twice in his career.  He was a very good pitcher, whose career ended at 32.  If he had played a few more years then perhaps I would include him, but baseball is filled with great players who just missed the Hall of Fame because of shortened careers.

Luis Aparicio-No- Next to Ozzie he might be the next greatest defensive shortstop of all time based on reputation.  However, that seems to be mostly reputation, as the numbers don’t seem to back that up.  His OPS is actually lower than Bill Mazeroski’s.  His percentage numbers are .262, .311, and .343.  The one thing that separates them is the fact that Luis lead his league in Stolen bases 9 years in a row, and he generally stole a very, very good percentage.  However, as I did not take Maz, it would be hard to take in Aparicio.  And I am not really inclined to anyway. 

1983-Brooks Robinson, Juan Marichal, George Kell

Brooks Robinson-Yes- Brooks might be the greatest third basemen of All-Time defensively.  He was not great offensively, but he was just good enough to make my all given his defensive prowess.  His ops were not great at .723, but he did have 1357 RBI’s, 268 homers, and 2848 hits.  Although I am not generally a fan of cumulative totals with weak percentage numbers, most of his value is actually in his defense. 

Juan Marichal-Yes- Marichal didn’t hit the 3000 k mark, but I am not concerned about that.  What Marichal did was win, and win at a very high percentage.  His career record was 243-142 for a nice winning percentage of .631.  Very nice.  He also had a nice ERA of 2.89 and he won 20 games 6 times, including a very nice 26-9 record in 1968 and 25-8 in 1963.  His ERA could be lower, but his winning percentage makes up for that. 

George Kell-Yes- All of us from North East Arkansas has a special affinity for Mr. Kell since he was a born and raised native of Swifton, Arkansas.  Not only that he always lived here even after his baseball career, and he gave back much to his community.  Despite that, he is marginable by just about everybody’s standard.  He had three really good years, but other than that he was a slightly above average singles hitter with no speed and below average defense.  However, I am going to include him.  Just because I want to, and he is the closest thing to a local Hall of Famer my area has.  This is my one, just because I want to pick. 

1982-Frank Robinson, Travis Jackson, Hank Aaron

Frank Robinson-Yes- Can’t really argue with this man.  Plus if he found out I said he didn’t belong he might track me down and beat my ass. But in truth I have no desire to do that.  Mr. Robinson was a GREAT player.  Career .926 OPS with 586 homers and 2943 hits.  And most people forget he did win a triple crown, even though it only took a .316 average to win it that is still impressive.  That was in 1967 and it gets overshadowed because in 1968 Carl Yastrzemski won it.  If I could give him two votes for the Hall I would.

Travis Jackson-No- Another Arkansas boy and perhaps the last of the picks chosen by a veteran’s committee that was notorious for picking marginable Hall of Famers just because they were buddies with them.  He was a good defender, and a decent hitter, but he just didn’t sustain greatness long enough to be a member of the Hall of Fame.  He played 15 seasons yet he still missed even getting 2000 hits. 

Hank Aaron-Yes- Not much needed here.  Great hitter, great defender, Great Hall of Famer and the rightful Home Run champ.  And a great man as well.

1981-Johnny Mize, Bob Gibson,

Johnny Mize-Yes- Johnny Mize might have missed some milestone numbers, but he was an absolute monster with the bat in his hands.  He just missed the triple crown in 1939, and he topped a 1.000 OPS four times in his career.  He did it 3 times in a row from 1938-40.  During this period he was locked in putting up some absolute monster numbers, and was likely the best player in baseball.  He deserved 2 if not all 3 of those MVP’s but somehow in 1938 he was clearly one of the top 3 players in the league, and should have won, yet finished 12^th in the MVP voting.  He lost the MVP in 1939 to Bucky Walters when they were both about equally valuable, but in 1940 he lost to Frank McCormick when the OPS difference was 1.039 to .850.  He should have at least been a two time MVP and very easily could have won the award 3 years running.

Bob Gibson-Yes- Everybody remembers 1.12 but that might not have even been his best year.  He won 20 games five times, had 3117 career K’s and put up a nice .591 winning percentage.  He was also probably the greatest World Series pitcher of all time. 

1980-Duke Snider, Chuck Klein, Al Kaline

Duke Snider-Another no doubt Hall of Famer.  He was a great defender with a rocket arm and posted a career .919 OPS.  His percentage number was a very nice .295, .380, .540.  A most excellent player.

Chuck Klein-Yes- He was an absolute professional hitter with maybe the best arm ever next to Clemente.  He was one of the few guys who played wearing glasses.  His career OPS was .922 which is very strong with a career BA of .320.  He could just flat out hit, and he was one of the few good picks that the Veteran’s committee made during this time.

Al Kaline-Yes- A truly great defender that put up some very good offensive numbers in a very bad offensive park.  His OPS was a very solid .855 which is more than quality considering his great defense and great arm.  He just missed a career .300 BA by 3 points, and he managed to hang around to gain 3007 hits.  Not the greatest player, but he was one of the best of his time.