Hall of Fame Comps

Omar Vizquel has been a superb defender but that, and the fact that fellow defensive whiz Ozzie Smith is already enshrined in Cooperstown, does not make him a Hall of Famer. (Chuck Solomon/SI)

One fairly useless (but enjoyable) thing to play is the “If THIS guy in the Hall of Fame then THIS guy should be in the Hall of Fame” game. You know how it goes:

• If Bruce Sutter is in the Hall of Fame then Dan Quisenberry should be, too.

• If Jim Rice is in the Hall of Fame then Dick Allen and Dwight Evans should be, too.

• If Andre Dawson is in the Hall of Fame then Dale Murphy should be, too.

• If Tom Yawkey is the Hall of Fame then every rich person who ever bought a premium baseball suite should be, too.

• If George Kell is in the Hall of Fame then Ron Santo should be, too (and if Ron Santo goes, then maybe Ken Boyer should be, too).

• If Ryne Sandberg is in the Hall of Fame then Lou Whitaker should be, too.

• If Catfish Hunter is in the Hall of Fame then Luis Tiant should be, too.

• If Ozzie Smith is in the Hall of Fame then Omar Vizquel should be, too… more on this in a few minutes.

And so on and so on and so on.

The reason this is fairly useless (but enjoyable) is that nobody really believes the Hall of Fame line is drawn at the most controversial choices. Nobody wants a Hall of Fame that includes every single player who was ever as good as or better than George Kelly or Herb Pennock. Then, suddenly, you find yourself arguing why Danny Darwin is not in the Hall of Fame, and nobody really wants to have THAT argument (except maybe Danny Darwin, I don’t know).

The opposite is true, too… if the Hall of Fame standard was Willie Mays and Walter Johnson as some want it to be, then there would be something like nine people in the Hall of Fame, and we would be arguing about whether or not, say, Bob Gibson belongs, or Rogers Hornsby.

So, yes, player-to-player Hall of Fame comparisons, while fun, tend to be somewhat hopeless. There are 289 different people in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and each one of them creates his (or her, in the case of Effa Manley) own level. That Candy Cummings is in the Hall of Fame for inventing the curveball (which he probably did not invent) leaves open countless possibilities for future inductees.* That Henry Chadwick is in the Hall for tirelessly promoting the game in the early years and inventing numerous statistics and the box score leaves open countless more possibilities for future inductees**. That Bowie Kuhn is in the Hall of Fame for wearing short sleeves to pretend it wasn’t cold, snubbing Henry Aaron and losing every major battle to the players’ union leaves you wondering if everyone has just lost their minds.

*For instance, Eddie Cicotte probably invented the knuckleball sometime around 1905. It may not have been Cicotte, but there’s much more persuasive evidence for him than there is for Candy Cummings. Now, the knuckler, of course, has not had the same impact on baseball as the curveball… but it has had a big impact and it was clearly a MUCH harder pitch to invent. I mean, let’s be honest: SOMEBODY was going to figure out the curveball sooner or later. Hold the ball this way, put pressure points here, break your wrist, I mean, that was inevitable. That’s why so many people started throwing it around the same time. But the knuckleball, inventing THAT pitch — dig your fingernails into the ball? Throw it without spin? — well, that just seems a lot more impressive to me. Of course, Cicotte was one of the banned Black Sox and was probably the key figure in throwing that World Series, so he’s not really eligible for the Hall. But I still think that Cicotte’s invention is impressive enough to be honored.

**Bill James, anyone? You know, Bill has never been a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and as such is ineligible to win the J.G. Spink Award, which goes to BBWAA writers who have contributed to the game. I understand the point — the BBWAA wants to honor its members. But it seems absurd to me that Bill James, whose writing has changed the way people watch and follow baseball, has not been honored. For that matter, writers like Roger Angell, Roger Kahn and Tom Boswell — who have helped DEFINE baseball — have not been honored. I wish they would expand the definitions. I think I’m going to start writing Bill in every year for the Spink Award.

But here’s today’s question: It might not be fair to just choose a player in the Hall and build an argument entirely around him. But is it fair to look at a Hall of Fame trend? Here’s what I mean: The last five years, there only have been three players inducted into the Hall of Fame by the baseball writers on first ballot:

• Rickey Henderson
• Tony Gwynn
• Cal Ripken Jr.

That’s all. Three. Now, those three are pretty much unassailable for this reason: You would have a hard time arguing that there are any eligible non-Hall of Famers out there who match up to those three. Well, yes, you could argue that Tim Raines compares pretty favorably with Gwynn (Raines got on base more times than Gwynn, with a bit more home run power and was the most efficient base stealer in baseball history), but Gwynn’s eight batting titles and five Gold Gloves tend to pull him away in the minds of most. You could argue that Mark McGwire’s power numbers, taken at face value, are more impressive than Ripken’s sturdiness, but McGwire has his well-reported demons. You could argue for Pete Rose or Joe Jackson if you wanted to raise those ghosts again.

But for the most part, I would say just about everyone agrees that Henderson, Ripken and Gwynn are comfortable Hall of Famers, that including them does not in any way alter the Hall of Fame, that the line for entry is drawn well below their career achievements.

How far below? Well, this is where the trend comes in. Quick trivia question: How many people have been added to the Hall of Fame the last five years?

Answer: 32.

No, seriously, the real answer: 32.

Yep. Thirty-two. We’ll even put an exclamation point after it for emphasis: Thirty-two! Even if you don’t include Henderson, Ripken and Gwynn, there have been 29 others inducted into the Hall.

Who are these people? Well, 17 of the 29 were voted in by a Negro Leagues Special Committee, though people generally tend to remember the one person they did not induct: Buck O’Neil. Um, it’s probably just best for me to avoid talking about that committee.

But even after that, there are still 12 other people who have been inducted in the Hall of Fame. Who are those 12?

Well, here is who the veterans committees have elected:

• commissioner Bowie Kuhn
• owner Barney Dreyfuss
• owner Walter O’Malley
• manager Billy Southworth
• manager Dick Williams
• manager Whitey Herzog
• umpire Doug Harvey
• second baseman Joe Gordon

Go ahead and try to pick a trend in THAT group. You have Kuhn, two owners, three managers, an umpire, and a player who retired 60 years ago. I can really only pick two things out of this group:

1. How preposterous it is that Marvin Miller is not in the Hall.

2. Something that Rob Neyer and others have already pointed out — how is former Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert NOT in the Hall of Fame? I mean, if you are going to include owners anyway… all Ruppert did was create the New York Yankees as we know them. He bought a team that had never won anything (and only three years earlier had the uninspiring name of “New York Highlanders”), bought Babe Ruth, signed Lou Gehrig, created Murderer’s Row and built Yankee Stadium (despite the nickname, Babe Ruth really didn’t build that house). Shouldn’t he have been the first owner inducted?

But none of that is especially interesting. What interests us, mostly, are the players. And the Baseball Writers Association, in addition to the three first-ballot guys, has elected four other players:

• outfielder Andre Dawson
• outfielder Jim Rice
• reliever Goose Gossage
• reliever Bruce Sutter

So… there you go. There is the BBWAA Hall of Fame standard as we now know it. A couple of things are worth noting here. One is that a major league starting pitcher has not been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame since 1999 (not counting Dennis Eckersley, who was a starter for half of his career but is in the Hall mostly for his work as a closer). The 11-year drought is by far the longest period of time that has gone by without a starting pitcher being elected. I suspect the drought will end this year with the long-awaited election of Bert Blyleven… and I also suspect that Jack Morris will get in before the starting-pitcher-wave reaches shore and Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, Tom Glavine, Mike Mussina, Randy Johnson, John Smoltz and Pedro Martinez all become eligible.* But it is fascinating (at least to me) that while the 1980s was clearly a pitcher’s era, most of the best pitchers of the decade — Stieb, Viola, Gooden, Welch, Valenzuela, Saberhagen, Guidry and others — did not last long enough and have received virtually no Hall of Fame consideration. Guidry, despite his many virtues, never got even 9% of the vote.

*One thing I’ll be interested in seeing this year is how many votes Kevin Brown gets. He won 200-plus games, for what that’s worth. His 127 career ERA+ is better than Jim Palmer, Juan Marichal, John Smoltz, Don Drysdale, Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro, Nolan Ryan and a bunch of other all-time greats and just a touch behind Tom Seaver. His WAR is 34th all-time among pitchers, just ahead of Hubbell, Marichal, Smoltz and Palmer. He twice led the league in ERA (and was second twice), twice led in WHIP (and was second and third), and he was nasty at his best (both on and off the field). And there are also lots of negatives. It will be interesting to see if he gets any kind of meaningful Hall of Fame support of if he gets only a few votes and never becomes a viable Hall candidate.

The second thing worth noting is that there really isn’t a stable relief pitcher standard at the moment. Bruce Sutter and Dan Quisenberry had eerily similar careers, at least as performance goes, but Sutter was inducted into the Hall while Quiz fell off the ballot in his first year. The hard-throwing Gossage was inducted two years later (deserved, I thought), though it looks like the hard-throwing Lee Smith, who set the saves record, probably will not get in. I happen to think that Gossage was a more valuable pitcher than Smith (something Wins Above Replacement confirms), but it just feels that when it comes to relievers, the writers are throwing darts in the dark at the moment…

The most noticeable thing that the baseball writers have done in the last two years, though, has been to elect outfielders Andre Dawson and Jim Rice into the Hall of Fame. Both had strong cases that you know all about. Both also had big negatives that I’ve written too much about. Quick review: Dawson’s .323 on-base percentage is now by far the lowest for any outfielder in the Hall of Fame… 20 points lower than Lou Brock’s. There are those of us who believe that no skill is more important for an offensive player than getting on base.

Rice’s .352 on-base percentage is also one of the lowest among Hall of Fame outfielders. But more, Rice did not have the speed of Dawson, he did not play defense as well, and much of his offensive production is a reflection of the fast-track that was Fenway Park in the 1970s and ’80s.

Here are just a few of the non-Hall of Famers who have a higher WAR than either Rice or Dawson: Will Clark, Tim Raines, Jimmy Wynn, Willie Randolph, Sal Bando, Buddy Bell, Keith Hernandez, Dick Allen, Graig Nettles, Dwight Evans, Reggie Smith, Ron Santo, Alan Trammell, Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker.

You might think that WAR is a flawed statistic that underrates those two players. Well… Bill James in his new Abstract used a completely different method and rated Frank Howard, Albert Belle and, most famously, Roy White ahead of Rice as left fielders. And he ranked Ken Singleton, Bobby Murcer, Bobby Bonds and Dave Parker ahead of Dawson as right fielders.

Of course, if you are down on WAR you almost certainly think Bill James’ rankings don’t do justice to Dawson or Rice. There’s OPS+, which is simpler… it just measures a player’s on-base-percentage-plus-slugging-percentage against the players of his era. Fred Lynn, Bobby Bonds, Jose Canseco, Jack Clark, Albert Belle, Dick Allen and many others have better OPS+ than Rice or Dawson.

Maybe OPS+ is not for you, either. Maybe you like those simple traditional Hall of Famer markers, like 500 home runs or 3,000 hits (neither player reached those markers). Or maybe you don’t like any kind of statistical guideline or analyst’s voice. The one thing that so many Hall of Fame voters believe about the Hall of Fame is that it is about feel, about aura, about character. Dawson’s Hall of Fame case was bolstered by this sense of dignity he brought to baseball — everyone respected him and his all-around game. Rice’s Hall of Fame case was bolstered by this sense of intimidation he brought to baseball — you would hear that no player was more feared.

But using nebulous standards like aura makes comparisons EVEN MORE tempting… Dale Murphy also played with great dignity and brought honor to baseball. So did Dwight Evans. Few players were more respected in their day than Reggie Smith. Fred McGriff was classy enough to be the voice behind a training video for kids. Joe Carter was the very essence of class, and he hit one of the most famous home runs in baseball history. Who was ever classier or more beloved than Gil Hodges?

As for intimidation, Rice certainly was no more feared than Dick Allen or Frank Howard or Albert Belle or George Foster or Dave Parker. Or Jose Canseco, for that matter.

And it occurs to me: Maybe in the end, the various player comparisons that Dawson and Rice spur are exactly the reason WHY they are controversial picks in the first place. Take Cal Ripken. You could argue, I suppose, that there are non-Hall of Famers who were better players than Ripken. It would be a tough argument to make — there is not a single eligible non-Hall of Famer with a higher career WAR than Ripken. But let’s say you think, oh, Dick Allen or Ron Santo were better players (I don’t think this… we’re just talking here). Even if you believe that someone else was as good or better, Ripken is STILL incomparable because he set the consecutive-games record. He was the first great big defensive shortstop. He got 3,000 hits. No non-Hall of Famer matches up to those things.

And so maybe that is a good Hall of Fame gauge — is the player COMPARABLE? Bert Blyleven, in my opinion, has no non-Hall of Fame comparables. There is no non-Hall of Famer with anything close to his 3,701 strikeouts or his 60 shutouts or his 90.1 WAR. If you add Blyleven to the Hall of Fame, there really isn’t a player out there who has a stronger case.

Jack Morris? Well, he’s our favorite test case because it’s very clear that there are numerous non-Hall of Famers who compare very well to him, even in his era. Morris ranks 79th among non-Hall of Famers in career WAR — that would be a seventy-ninth among NON HALL OF FAMERS — behind, among others, Tom Candiotti, Nap Rucker (who has his own claim to inventing the knuckleball) Vida Blue, Jimmy Key, Steve Rogers, Jamie Moyer, Kenny Rogers, Mark Langston and WAY behind his contemporary Dave Stieb, who I think was pretty clearly a better pitcher in both their primes. But it is true that one thing Morris has that none of them have is that brilliant Game 7 performance in the 1991 World Series. How you feel about Morris’ Hall of Fame case probably is built around how you feel about that single game.

If the BBWAA is saying that the Hall of Fame standard is now Rice and Dawson — and it does seem that’s EXACTLY what the BBWAA is saying — then frankly we need to open the Hall’s doors to quite a few more players who were every bit as good or better. That’s a fairly extensive list of players, I think. Rice seems to me more susceptible to comparison than Dawson — the Hawk’s issue is his low on-base percentage, but few match Dawson’s defensive excellence and combination of power and speed. Rice, though, opens up the door to many, many players, including his teammate Dwight Evans, who was, I think, pretty clearly a better player (Evans ranks 88th in career WAR, Rice ranks 224th).

One last thing… my friend Keith Law seems to be taking a beating because he has said that Omar Vizquel is not a Hall of Famer in his book. I certainly don’t want any of Keith’s angry email, but it’s just worth pointing out that one argument I often hear for Vizquel is that he compares well with Ozzie Smith. I really don’t think that’s true. I think Ozzie Smith was a much better player than Vizquel. There’s no question that Omar was a defensive wiz, but he was certainly no Wizard. He did not have Ozzie’s range, his remarkable ability to make the great play, his double play talents, etc. This is no knock — Ozzie is the best defensive shortstop in the history of baseball, I believe. And while Vizquel was a terrific defensive player, I don’t think he’s anything close to second-best — I think he’s in a massive pile with a lot of terrific defensive players ranging from Belanger to Burleson to Bowa to Barry… and those are just the Bs. And though Smith was widely viewed as a weak hitter… he was actually a better offensive player in context than Vizquel. I’m using WAR a lot here, which might simply not be persuasive to you. But Ozzie Smith ranks 74th all-time among every-day players in WAR. Vizquel ranks 209th. I simply don’t think that if Ozzie Smith is a Hall of Fame standard, that Vizquel has a great Hall of Fame case.*

If Jim Rice is the standard, however…

*I am NOT saying that I will not vote for Vizquel. I am not ready to make that judgment yet… Vizquel has been a fabulous player and I’ll take the five years after retirement to let his career settle. I am only saying that the Ozzie Smith comparison, to me, does not hold up. Ozzie Smith is not my line of demarcation when it comes to Hall of Fame shortstops.