December 05, 2003
My Hall Ballot
Via Peter White at Mariners Musings, I came across the Baseball Prospectus' Hall of Fame ballot. There are 32 names on this year's ballot, but plowing through it was not nearly as daunting as I first thought it would be. Out of the 32, I only found three names worth of induction:
Dennis Eckersley: There are plenty of relief pitchers out there piling up more saves than I can count. And after reading Michael Lewis' Moneyball, I've come to realize just how easy it is to develop a closer, and manage to post a few good seasons in a row with 30+ saves.
I've also come to see closers (like DHs) as baseball specialists, more akin to kickers and punters in the NFL. If you want to get into the Hall of Fame as a relief pitcher, you better be one of the best of all time -- and there's simply no other way you can describe Eckersley, who essentially re-defined the role. Toss in nearly 200 wins, and Eck is a shoe-in.
Paul Molitor: Career batting average over .300 and 3,319 hits. And at age 39, he hit an incredible .341 in what was probably the best year of his career. If he was still playing, one has to wonder if he might have been taken to task for not taking enough walks. If you had told me while I was in high school that Molitor was a lock for the Hall, I probably would have been astonished, but here he is.
Ryne Sandberg: Simply the best at his position during his era. After that, I'm not sure I have a whole lot more to say.
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Saying that Sandberg is the best at his position is not saying much. Living in Chicago, Ryne Sandberg is simply one of the most overrated players of all time whose fame is solely due to being on a superstation and hitting a home run off of Bruce Sutter during a Game of the Week. The guy's fielding percentage is over inflated as he played on an infield that was purposefully kept extemely slow and he never dove for a ball to his right. If you believe the rumors, he also got some decent players traded for off-the-field reasons. Finally, he was a notorious slow starter, on more than one occasion starting the season 0 for 40, which essentially meant the Cub were out of division race in the first weeks of the season.
Posted by:
at December 5, 2003 11:28 AM
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12:09 AM