Here come the 1960's. Hall of Fame Blog Part 5.

Well here come the sixties. Groovy Man.

1969-Stan Musial, Waite Hoyt, Stan Coveleski, Roy Campanella
Stan Musial-Yes- Its impossible to find one blemish on Stan the Man’s record that goes against him being one of the greatest players of all time. .331 career batting average, .417 career OBP, with a .559 career slg percentage. That gives him a very salty .976 career OPS. He was a seven time batting champion and nearly won the Triple Crown in 1948. He gathered 3630 career hits, 475 career home runs, 1949 career runs, and 1951 career RBI’s. He was a three time MVP and easily could have won three more, and probably should have. Plus he was just a hell of a nice guy. He is one of the top ten greatest players of all time.

Waite Hoyt-No- The veteran’s committee strikes again. Apparently they thought their job back then were to pick out marginal guys and make their families happy by putting them in the Hall of Fame. Waite had 237 career wins with a 3.59 ERA. Not exactly hall of fame stuff. He pitched 21 seasons, most of them bad with a few good seasons sprinkled in. I don’t really know why he is in the Hall of Fame.

Stan Coveleski- Yes- Now here is a guy that might be worthy of the Vet’s committee’s pick. He only won 215 games, but at a much better percentage than Hoyt. (.602) and he had a much better career ERA. (2.89) Even though his career was somewhat limited he won 20 games five times, with a good percentage each year. I never really count a 20 win season if you lost 20 games as well, that just means you had a ton of decisions, Coveleski could pitch.

Roy Campanella- Yes- A tragic case, Campanella was a great, great player. Roy was a great defensive catcher, and like Yogi Berra he was a three time MVP. The difference between he and Yogi, is that Roy probably actually deserved them, or at least was as good a choice as the competitors. As it is, although his career was shortened due to the car accident that left him in a wheel chair, he had a career OPB of .860 and was an All-Star in every season other than his rookie year and his last. His career was brief, but I don’t really have the heart to exclude a great player who ended his career in a wheelchair.

1968-Joe Medwick, Goose Goslin, Kiki Cuyler

Joe Medwick- Yes- A triple crown winner and MVP winner, and put up a great career average of .324 which he coupled with a career .505 slugging percentage for good measure. He only had 2471 hits, but he was a great player, and had some monster seasons, so that really doesn’t matter. Medwick was a bit of a prickly person and wasn’t particularly well liked in baseball. He wasn’t hated, but he wasn’t exactly liked either.

Goose Goslin-Yes- Goose Goslin was one of the strongest men of his time, and although he was a terrible defensive outfielder, he sure could hit. He has a career .316 BA with a .387 OBP and a .500 Slugging. For good measure he threw in 2734 career hits, 1609 RBI, and 1483 Runs.

Kiki Cuyler- Yes- A little bit marginal, but he was truly respected by his piers as one of the best in the game. He was an excellent defensive centerfielder, with a rocket for an arm, and he could hit as well. He tossed good percentage numbers of .321, .386, and .474. He also led the league in stolen bases 4 times, and in runs twice. He had some decent power, and for a non-RBI slot hitter, had some very respectable RBI totals.

1967-Red Ruffing, Lloyd Waner

Red Ruffing-No- What in the hell was the voters thinking? Less than 2000 career strikeouts, and a 273-225 record. That is a lot of wins, but he pitched 22 seasons, he is supposed to have a bunch of wins. The real issue with him is his career 3.80 ERA, that is entirely too high to be a hall of famer. For at least half of his career he put up an ERA over 4.00. That’s no greatness.

Lloyd Waner-No- Perhaps I am a bit biased, but this is the exact kind of player that I think is overrated. Lloyd did one thing. He hit singles and he hit them well. But that’s all he did. He didn’t walk, and even though he hit .316, he only got on base at a .353 clip. There are lots of players that hit far lower, but were far more productive due to his lack of on base percentage. Not only that he has a tiny percentage of his careers hits that weren’t singles. His career slugging is only .393. An argument could be made that he belongs, because he was a good player. However, I really just dislike this type of player. If he hit .325 plus I would be a bit more likely to take him.

1966-Ted Williams

Ted Williams- Yes – (Explicit Warning Here) Ted used to refer to himself as Teddy Fucking Ballgame, the greatest hitter than game has ever seen. Now everybody that hears it generally hates that type of arrogance, however, he maybe just have been right. He was a fighter pilot as well, and by all accounts he was exceptional at that too. Ted Williams was a ridiculous player. He refused to hit the ball the other way, and he was a terrible outfielder that could often be seen practicing his swing out in the field, but that doesn’t matter. He was that good a hitter. His career percentage numbers are .344, .484, and .634. Those are video game type numbers. He led the American League in OPS 11 times, and posted an OPS over 1.000 18 times. Keep in mind he only played 19 seasons. Yep, that means he has a ridiculous career OPS of 1.116. He put up 521 homers, 525 doubles, and although he only had 2654 hits, a bit part of that is because he took a ridiculous 2021 walks. And keep in mind he did this even though he missed 3 years of his career right in the prime of it due to WWII and he missed sometime for Korea as well. Truly a legend, even if he was a very unlikeable guy.

1965- Pud galvin-Pre-1900 Player, Pass.

1964- Heinie Manush, Tim Keefe, Burleigh Grimes, Red Faber, Luke Appling
Heinie Manush-Yes- This guy could hit the baseball. He is one of the more unknown of the Hall of Famers but he deserves his place. He hit a very robust .330, .377, and .479. To go with the good percentage numbers he also tossed up 2524, which although not a stellar overall total, is very respectable nonetheless. To be honest, I don’t know a ton about this guy, so I don’t really have any anecdotal research to add to his case, and particularly know very little about his defense, since that is pretty much purely extracted from anecdotal research. Like Bill James I think I will revise this list from time to time and hopefully in its next version I will have more to say about Mr. Manush.

Tim Keefe-Pre-1900 player, Pass.

Burleigh Grimes-No- Another guy I don’t know a ton about. He was a spitballer, the legal kind, and he was one of the last legal spitballers to toe the rubber. Just looking at his stats I would have to say he is probably a no. 270 wins, with a good .560 winning percentage, but his ERA are a bit high at 3.53. His strikeout total is a bit low at 1512, but guys didn’t strike out all that much during the ERA he pitched. For now he is a no, but eventually I will do my due diligence on his anecdotal research.

Red Faber-No-If I don’t take Grimes then I can’t take Faber. They are very similar pitchers. Their careers overlapped, and Grimes one a few more games at a better percentage and Faber had a better ERA. Faber had 1471 K’s to Grimes 1524. Neither pitcher was stellar.

Luke Appling-Yes- Appling could hit the ball pretty well, and he new how to take a walk. He won two batting titles and walked over 100 times in three seasons. His career percentage numbers are .310 .399 and .398. The slugging is a bit low, but the OBP is stellar. He was a sure handed quality shortstop if not spectacular at his position. And oddly he seems to be better at short defensively when he was 40 than he was at 30, which is a pretty unusual trend. Anecdotally he is supposed to be one of the best at defensive position, which would account for that anomaly.

1963-Eppa Rixey, Sam Rice, Elmer Flick

Eppa Rixey-No- Although I know this is always indicative of the quality of a pitcher but Mr. Rixey led the league in losses twice as often as he led the league in wins. Ok that is not quite fair to leave it at that, he led the league in wins once, and losses twice. Still, an interesting fact to note. Other than that it seems Mr. Rixey was about a .500 pitcher, to be more exact a .515 pitcher. He posted a career record of 266-251. Definitely nothing to write home about. He also walked about as many as he struck out and gave up quite a few more hits than innings pitched, which isn’t always a bad thing either, but it does mean he has a relatively high WHIP. All in all, there is no way he was close to one of the best pitchers of his era.

Sam Rice-Yes- This man could play the game. He was an excellent fielder, with a good arm and he could hit the baseball. He put up a .322 career batting average with a .374 OBP and a .427 Slg. He also came up just 13 hits short of 3000 for his career. He scored 1514 and for good measure stole 351 bases.

Elmer Flick-pass- I am going to take a pass on Flick at this time, I would like to have the input from the peanut gallery on him if I could.

1962-Edd Roush, Jackie Robinson, Bob Feller,

Edd Roush-Yes- Mr. Roush was a capable hitter, he put up some really good percentage numbers of .323 .369 and .446. The career slugging of .446 is really good for his era. He was known as a good defender as well, and how can you not vote for a guy named Edd with 2 D’s.

Jackie Robinson-Yes- He only played for ten years, but this is a situation where you have to give a guy some credit for projected years. There is no reason to think that he wouldn’t have had five or six more years at the start of career that would have been comparable to his prime. As for the years he did have they were quite good. He put up a .311 average a great .409 OBP and a respectable .474 slugging. He was a great player who also put up 197 stolen bags in a era where people didn’t really still bags. As a defender he was adequate but not great, his reputation with the glove has become a bit overinflated. However, he was a professional hitter no doubt about it.

Bob Feller-Yes- This is a guy through the years that probably should have kept his mouth shut on a few different occasions. Despite that he was a mighty quality pitcher. He had some of the same problems as Nolan Ryan, but he corrected his wildness where Ryan never did. He did have over 200 walks in a season once though. He led the league in strikeouts 7 times and has a reputation as a big time strikeout pitcher, which he was at times, but contrary to what most people believe he never got to 3000 k’s. Bob was generally a better pitcher than the teams he was on and lead the league in wins 6 times with a very good .621 career winning percentage. He also lost 4 prime years to wartime service, and of all factors that play upon what could have been, I am more prone to giving people the benefit of the doubt when it
comes to wartime service.

1961-Max Carey-Yes- Max Carey was a great leadoff man. He posted a .361 career OBP with 738 careers steals. Caught stealing stats aren’t available for a good portion of his career, but when it is he stole a very good percentage. Also anecdotally he is known as a very high percentage base stealer. He was also an excellent fielder and amassed 2665 career hits and 1545 career runs. He led the league in steals 10 times.

1960-There were no players elected in 1960.