Dec 092002
Aaron Gleeman analyzes this year’s Hall of Fame candidates. He gives too much weight to career value and too little to peak value, which is to say he votes for Tommy John and Jim Kaat and against Goose Gossage, where I would do the opposite. But those are all close calls, and beyond that we agree perfectly.
I think there is too much emphasis on stats in the HoF votes.
Afterall, it’s not called the Hall of Great Stats.
HoF inductees should be players who had the kind of impact in their generation on the game that future generations will remember them.
Don Sutton, for example, was not that kind of player. Yet, just because he won 300 games, he’s in the Hall.
The only player among the current crop (as much as I personally love Goose) is TJ. Without TJ, many a pitcher’s careers would have ended much sooner. He had an incredible career, half of came after a revolutionary surgery.
Tommy John had an excellent career, just short of HoF standards in my opinion and certainly no better than Don Sutton’s. I don’t understand putting him in the Hall because he was the first to have "Tommy John surgery." Wouldn’t it make more sense to enshrine Dr. Jobe?
A player who revolutionized the game for 20 years but who got little or no consideration was maury wills
So he had great stats but the wrong kind of great stats
Luis Aparicio is a better candidate than Wills for inaugurating the stolen base revolution of the 1960s. Wills had a fine career, but he was really not enough of a hitter to merit Hall of Fame consideration. Notwithstanding, Wills received over 40% of the vote twice. Jim Fregosi was a better all-around player and dropped off the ballot after his first year. Wills was also a creep, which ought to be irrelevant but probably hurt him some with the voters.