Rickey Henderson to the Hall of Fame
DMZ · January 12, 2009 at 1:51 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Awesome. He’s unlikely to wear an M’s cap. Still, I enjoyed seeing him play here, and beyond that as a fan of the game, this makes me happy.
And I don’t want to be a jerk about this, but the people who didn’t vote for Rickey Henderson should have their votes taken from them and given to people with demonstrable brain activity. There is no way not voting for Rickey can be justified.
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If Ricky isn’t a HOFer, then no one is a HOFer.
I agree! I felt the same way about Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken too…how can any of those guys NOT be unanimous?!?! It boggles the mind to think someone saw “CAL RIPKEN, JR.” on the ballot and didn’t make a little check or ‘x’ or whatever. Rickey was such a great player, but also such a great ambassador for the game. I feel priveledge to have gotten to see him play in person, having missed so many other classics from my childhood (I’m 27). Congrats Rickey! And while he won;t wear the M’s hat, I’ll bet they cash in with some kind of remember rickey as a mariner night/novelty hat/etc.
Aaron M.
Oh!
Anyone making a “Rickey applauds Rickey’s induction” joke or any other hilarious Rickey-talking-about-himself-in-the-third-person comment will be banned.
I’m totally serious.
I have no idea how Dawson isn’t in…one of the best all-around players in most of our lifetimes…
Power, speed, arm, wheels…
Ridiculous how he isn’t in and Mo Vaughn got votes…
But awesome for Ricky…one of the best players and coolest characters of all time…
Are you serious about Dawson? He really doesn’t belong in the HOF. (Of course, Rice probably doesn’t either.)
I agree that Rickey deserved unanimous entry into the hall, but, I am curious from a sabermetrics view what people thought of Rice as his entry is infinitely more debatable then Rickey’s. I would also think that the inclusion of someone like Rice would bode well for Dawson, who is similar with the 1 MVP, and know as one of the most feared hitters of his era. Thoughts?
One thing I forget about with Rickey is that he did have a little pop in his bat. He has 20+ hr’s 4 times in his career.
Awesome talent, awesomer personality. He’s probably the closest thing to Jimmy Piersall we’ll ever see.
Dawson had 438 HR, 314 SB, nearly 2,800 hits, Rookie of the Year, MVP, and 8 Gold Gloves…
Yes…I’m serious…he had the entire package…and all the stats except OBP…
He should be in the hall…
He was my favorite player when I was growing up, so this makes me happy.
I never thought this day would happen… Not that he wouldn’t make it in Hall of Fame but that he would actually stop playing so they could finally vote him in.
Cheers Rickey
His speech is bound to be a classic.
You’re not alone in that regard .
this made me very happy, as did adding him for that one season, and watching him perch off of OUR first base, hands twitching.
dang.
So all the stats apart from the single most important one?
I love Rickey so much. This makes me so happy.
A Hall of Fame without Rickey in it would pretty much have to be “The Babe Ruth Museum” or something. 2,295 runs!
It’s gratifying to see how much of a landslide this was, considering all the grief that sportswriters gave Henderson during his career. The “greatest” slur, the endless whining about laziness (for arguably the most intense player since Pete Rose), the just pointless babbling hate that he used to engender in the stupid: all that’s gone now, thankfully.
Watching Rickey play remains my greatest baseball pleasure. Not even Griffey.
His (Dawson’s) job was to drive in runs…his managers told him to swing away…not take walks…
I’m not entirely sure he HAS stopped. Last I heard he was trying to catch on with some indie league. He’s probably on the phone with some beer league somewhere, saying “Rickey just wants to play ball”.
An IM from a friend of mine:
Shows how silly and subjective HoF voting is. But, yay Rickey!
And that’s why Rickey’s one of the greatest players ever. He always had the talent to be a perennial All-Star, but he had the drive and love for the game to make himself one of the all-time greats.
Congratulations, Rickey. You’re awesome, and it was a joy to watch you play.
Its a great day, but it makes me sick he didn’t get every vote. Rickey is my all time favorite athlete and he is certainly an inner-inner HOF guy. There is zero argument one could make to not put him in. Anyone not voting for him should be banned and have there vote taken away.
I also don’t get why Raines gets so little interest. While a step below Rickey, he was still one of the all time lead-off hitters, and his prime was fairly spectacular.
Considering how high (Raines) his career SB% mark was he really deserves a better look. I am not sure on his defensive reputation, was it lacking?
The not-voting-for-Rickey thing is one of those things it’s okay to be a jerk about. I think conversations with such people should begin, “Okay, you’re obviously not brain-dead, but…”
I’ll admit it, I was an A’s fan till 92 or 93, and Rickey is the reason why. I was so excited when we got him that I purchased a authentic Henderson Jersey. I feel a little silly wearing it since he was only here briefly but whatever, Rickey rules.
That is, forgive me, a pretty silly argument, regardless of whether you are for or against it.
At a quick glance, I always bop over to baseball-reference.com, and check the HOF systems.
For Dawson, Black Ink has him a lot lower than the average HOFer, Gray Ink has him above the average HOFer, HOF Standards shows him less than the average HOFer, HOF Monitor shows him slightly above a likely HOFer.
So based on that really quick glance, it looks like he wasn’t as good as a typical HOF’er, but that he would rank as borderline but probably in.
The other thing I do is look at the Similar Batters toy. The question I ask is, for the players who were most like him, how many made the Hall?
For Dawson, the top 10 similar batters, five are in the Hall and two (Luis Gonzalez, Gary Sheffield) are active. Three are not in the Hall (Dave Parker, Harold Baines, Dwight Evans). Again, this quick glance check shows him being borderline but probably in.
So I guess a better argument, if you want to create such, would be to explain why Dawson was better than Parker, Baines, and Evans.
Raines is undervalued by Hall voters more than just about anyone I can think of. There are dozens of guys in there who are worse than him. He just didn’t have the right kinds of skills to get recognition — the Hall is always going to respond more to someone who does one thing really, really well than to someone who’s great, but not league-leading, at everything. I’d vote for him in a heartbeat, personally.
Remember that Willie Mays and Mike Schmidt and Stan Musial and Tom Seaver weren’t unanimous. There are people who deliberately vote all blanks just to make some kind of inane “statement. Rickey’s vote total was pretty good, considering the caliber of idiots who get to vote.
I like that Rice got in because prescriptively, if not descriptively, it makes Edgar’s case better. Rice played about 15% of his games as a DH, and more games at DH in 1977 and 1978, two of his three best years, than at any other position. So on the DH thing, 75% of the voters are now a little bit pregnant.
Then you look at the offensive contributions, and it’s just not close. Over their 16 full years (not counting Edgar’s two September call-ups), Edgar was 540 runs above average and Rice was 392.1. Edgar had a higher career and peak OBP and SLG and more great years in those categories. He had a career OPS+ of 147 (vs. Rice’s 128) and nine years over 140 (vs. Rice’s four).
So it comes down to defense. If Rice were a full-time average LF, the positional adjustment difference would have been 10 between DH (-17.5 runs) and LF (-7.5 runs), and they would look like pretty similar players from a win value standpoint. But first, as I said, Rice was more or less a part time DH, so you have to give him some of the DH adjustment, and Edgar starts to move away. Then you look at Rice’s defense. I know of no good defensive stats from Rice’s era, but the consensus seems to be he was bad, so if you want to call him a -5 or -10 run LF, you start to see that Edgar is really a superior candidate.
Plus, best DH of all time and all. So I applaud Rice for making Edgar’s case. As I said, prescriptively, not descriptively — I know the dinosaur-denying baseball writers are going to get it wrong.
On behalf of Tim Raines, I think the USSM crew should seriously consider teaming up with these folks to make sure The Rock is enshrined in 2010.
Steve Steve Steve…man.
I remember seeing Rickey hit a lead-off HR –first pitch of the game–against us in the ‘dome…must have been late ’80s or early ’90s, as I was 8 or 9 years old. Anyway, it was the first pitch of the season, not just first pitch of his AB…I’ll never forget it. Also, being down a run exactly ten seconds into the game would later prove to have readied me for being a fan of the M’s in this decade, probably better than could have any other single game event.
Ironically enough on that note, this decade actually began with Rickey as a Mariner, and he even went yard in his first AB with the team. Personality aside, I still say we’ll probably never see another player quite like Rickey.
He also hit HRs to lead off both games of a doubleheader once, as far as I know the only player to do that. Kurkjian’s article was fun, especially the quotes from Candiotti. Seriously, who was tougher to pitch to and keep from scoring, like, ever? Rose or Cobb notwithstanding, since you could make the argument there, he is possibly the most prolific offensive baseball player ever.
Dawson played Gold Glove (legit GG, not Jeter-esque GG) defense in CF for over 1000 games before moving to RF when he got older.
The guys you cite played bad corner def or DH’d.
That’s not to say Dawson’s a HOF, but he clearly has a stronger case than those 3. (And Rice.)
Okay, corrections, it was Friday, April 13, 1990, and Bankhead started (woooooooo!). Nevertheless, Rickey went 4/5 with that leadoff HR and a double, 2 R, 2 RBIs, and 4 POs from LF. Effing stud!
Is there some kind of stat for how often you score vs. how often you reach base? I would have to think Rickey would be right at the top on that list. It’s like he did what Ichiro does, except twice as well…
Dawson is 20th all-time in making outs. The man didn’t understand how to take a pitch and his value, as a result, suffered greatly. Did he have a nice career? Yes. Did he deserve the one MVP award he won? No. Is he a Hall-of-Famer? No.
If I had a vote, I absolutely would have voted for Rickey. That said, I don’t like the man, and it comes, more than anything else, from having been a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals early on in life. Lou Brock was my hero. This moment:
forever made me dislike Rickey Henderson, on behalf of the 7-year-old kid in me who adored Lou Brock.
“It took a long time, huh? [Pause for cheers] First of all, I would like to thank God for giving me the opportunity. I want to thank the Haas family, the Oakland organization, the city of Oakland, and all you beautiful fans for supporting me. [Pause for cheers] Most of all, I’d like to thank my mom, my friends, and loved ones for their support. I want to give my appreciation to Tom Trebelhorn and the late Billy Martin. Billy Martin was a great manager. He was a great friend to me. I love you, Billy. I wish you were here. [Pause for cheers] Lou Brock was the symbol of great base stealing. But today, I’m the greatest of all time. Thank you.”
I was living in Oakland when Rickey broke in, and sat in the bleachers many times over the next few years (when the Oakland Coliseum had bleachers that were worth sitting in). When Rickey came to bat, the buzz started–you could just feel the crowd waiting for the excitement to happen. And when he got to first base, all eyes were on the base, not on the batter. And there were times you could just see the pitcher deflate. You knew that if the game was close and Rickey was coming to bat, something fun was going to happen. Well deserved, Rickey.
entertaining flap over one Corky Simpson leaving Rickey off the ballot and then recanting
There is no way not voting for Rickey can be justified.
Maybe some people passed it up on the theory that he shouldn’t be eligible yet as he hasn’t actually been retired for five years?
Congrats to the Greatest Leadoff hitter of All-Time! Next year it is Edgar’s turn the Greatest DH of All-Time! I know it will be an uphill battle for him, because they say he didn’t play Defense, but if you look at his career stats their is no way he isn’t a Hall of Famer. He was in the top 3 best hitters of his career and thats exactly why Jim Rice got in today.
Rick’s in good company. Babe Ruth didn’t get a unanimous vote.
Babe.
Ruth.
I can still see Rickey crossing the plate with the winning run in Game 3 of the 2000 ALDS. One of the nicer moments in Mariner history.
The man didn’t understand how to take a pitch and his value, as a result, suffered greatly.
Well, his SLG,outs included, is .087 higher than the rest of his league, and at his peak, he was a .300/.350/.500 CF, at a time where a .500 SLG meant something.
I’d argue he’s a better HOF’er than Rice was (who was a GIDP and out-making machine by the time he was 31, whereas Dawson was still a decent hitter). As to whether EITHER of them belong, I’d have to go ask what your definitions are- if HOF reseved for the elite (in which case, Rickey meets it, but membership should be maybe 50 or so)? Is it “good ballplayer”? (In which case maybe 500 do)? Somewhere in between?
The only argument I’ve heard in favour of not voting for guys like Rickey that makes any sense at all is this:
Since each voter only has 10 votes, if he wants to vote for some fringey guys to make a point or try to keep them on the ballot another year so they can drum up more support, they might not have enough votes to vote for all the obvious guys. And since Rickey is going to get in anyway (and there is at least one voter with the stated intent of voting for no one who played in the ’steroid era’, so he’s not going to be unanimous), then that voter can safely not vote for Rickey knowing it won’t make any material difference.
One of the lesser noticed events in Rickey’s career is that in 1993, when Joe Carter ended the world series with a homerun, Rickey got that inning started by drawing a walk.
So, Joe got the glory, but the guys on base at the time were Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson and Hall of Famer Paul Molitor.
absolutsyd — While I can’t be 100% certain, it doesn’t look that way. I looked for a quick-and-dirty answer, putting the statistics of the top 200 players ranked by runs scored into Excel. Then, I divided (R-HR) by a “times on base” formula ((H-HR)+BB+HBP). Now, there’s obviously some problems with this (like I said, it was quick and dirty). The formula obviously doesn’t account for fielders choices or reaching base on error and does credit runs that were the result of entering the game as a pinch runner. Here’s the Top 10…
Earle Coombs – 45%
Tommy Leach – 44%
Kenny Lofton – 43%
Donie Bush -43%
Willie Wilson – 42%
Charlie Gehringer – 41%
Johnny Damon – 41%
Lloyd Waner – 41%
Frankie Frisch – 40%
Doc Cramer – 40%
Rickey ranks 16th (right behind Lou Brock) at 39.6%. FWIW, Ichiro is at 37.7%.
His career OBP was .323, which was 9 points below the park-adjusted league average for his time. His career high in unintentional walks was 39!!! Being below average — not among HOFers, but the entire league — in OBP is almost certainly not a path to the HOF.
I don’t see much of a case for him over Parker, Murphy, and Baines.
Sorry this is random, but I just [deleted, off-topic]
Only reason not to vote RIckey in is thinking he just might be coming back….
You can make a pretty strong argument that Rickey is the best LF ever not currently under federal indictment. I can’t figure out, though, why Rickey gets so much love, but Rock Raines gets so little. Rickey was clearly better, but both put up HOF numbers.
Can anybody find video of that old TV commercial where a coach was showing a sweaty, nervous catcher film of Rickey leading off first base.
I loved that spot.
Yeah, what exactly does the announcer at the Podunk Gravel Cats of the Mid-Central Independent League say when Rickey comes to the plate? Ordinarily if you introduce a guy whos playing as a “Hall of Fame inductee”, the crowd figures it’s for the local JayCee HOF…
That probably explains the non-unanimous Rickey vote. I’m sure there are guys who figure if Babe Ruth didn’t get it, then nobody else deserves it either, and use their vote to make sure of it.
Hard to delve into the “thinking” of a collectivity like the Baseball Writers, but it’s often been the case that when one player overshadowed another at the same position with essentially the same skills, the secondary player gets far less consideration until the first one is safely in the Hall. I agree that Raines had a Hall of Fame career and should be enshrined, but there are some voters who wouldn’t dare let him either get in before Rickey, who was clearly the superior player, or at the same time.
Which of course is a dumb argument. If you screw up once you don’t keep screwing up just because you’ve done it before (or just because someone else screwed up before), and if you do then there is something wrong.
Actually, 22nd. Rickey Henderson ranks 6th. C’est la vie.
If Andre Dawson played for the Red Sox, he’d be a Hall of Famer-elect this year. No doubt about it.
Exactly. “Changing now would tacitly admit we were screwing up before, and we can’t have that!”
Better Negro League players weren’t allowed into the Majors before Jackie Robinson, so he doesn’t deserve to be there either. Carry on the injustice in the name of consistency (that hobgoblin of little minds).
Well, he has been retired from MLB. He hasn’t played for any of the MLB teams or their affiliated minor league teams since 2003, which means he’s not been affiliated with MLB(at least not in a playing capacity) for 5 years.
And that’s the only thing that matters(i.e. it matters not to the voters/writers that he played for the Newark Bears. Not one bit.)
Dawson has significantly fewer PA to rack up those outs than the others on the list. The man was an out machine.
My favorite Rickey story: late in his career, somebody asked him when he was going to finally retire. His response was something along the lines of “my grandmother didn’t retire until she was 80. Who am I to retire at 40?” It’s something like that because I’m about 99% positive he said in the 3rd person but I do not want to incur the wrath of the people who write this blog so I am staying away from that. Anyway, that’s like reason #1 why I can’t help but like the guy. If he was white, we’d be talking about him the way people do about Jim Edmonds: someone who wears a hard hat to the park.
As for the 100% thing, it just doesn’t matter. You can’t get a couple hundred Americans to agree on anything, not even the HOF qualifications of the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. Actually, the primary reason I don’t like the 100% kvetching is because there is this sense that there is an “inner” Hall of Fame composed of the people who really, really deserve it, and the level to which they really deserve it is based on how close to 100% of the vote they got.
I’m sorry, but no. There is only one Hall of Fame, and there is no inner or outer circle. If you think there should be one, you should make one or get the Baseball HOF to create one. Me, I’ll celebrate Rickey and Frank Chance and Pete Rose and Pud Galvin equally because as far as the HOF is concerned, they *are* equals, if not in actual talent than in HOF status.
Also, I’m not a huge fan of stat-based analysis of the Hall of Fame. Yes, I get that Tinker to Evers to Chance are not 3 of the most talented players to play the game the way that Willie, Mickey, and the Duke are. But they are *famous*. Tinker to Evers to Chance and the gonfalon bubble is and ought to be part of the fabric of the game. The Hall of Fame ought to be as much about relaying the history of the game to successive generations as celebrating those with the mightiest accomplishments. Many times those things are not mutually exclusive, and I think that stats can be useful for inclusive arguments (for example, now that Jim Rice is in, I’d be hard-pressed to make a good argument for keeping Dewey Evans out). In and of themselves, they’re poor IMO for exclusive arguments.
For a couple of examples… Jackie Robinson, kind of like Andre Dawson, is slightly below the level of a likely HOFer by the HOF Monitor, and has below average stats for a HOFer. His rate stats are incredible and even without the fact that he integrated baseball there’d be a very good argument for him to be in the Hall, but he’d be there even if he was only 90% as good as he really was because, well, he integrated baseball. Ralph Kiner is in there not because he hit 369 homeruns (a number that seems laughably small in today’s era) but because he was the game’s dominant HR hitter in the period just after World War II.
For me, the primary thing I think of when evaluating whether a guy is a HOFer or not isn’t his stats but Bill James’ HOF criteria he made in The Politics of Glory. Look, I love stats as much as the next person (if the next person lives in their mom’s basement and created Enron; otherwise, I love stats a lot more than the next guy). The Hall of Fame, however, is about fame, not stats. Stats are helpful to the extent that they help to paint a picture of that fame; they’re no more useful (and, in some ways less useful) than the editorial opinions of a sportswriter who’s spent his career figuring out what’s big and what isn’t in the game when they do not.
Of course there is a cut-off; I wouldn’t put Mark Fydrich in there for basically one good year, and I doubt many would think that Alvin Davis deserves a nod for what he meant to Seattle baseball fans in the 1980s. Andre Dawson is so far above that cut-off that I just don’t see the point of using his biggest weakness (an inability to take walks) against him like that.
That’s fine and I respect your view of the HOF. But it isn’t my view and, I think, it isn’t the view of a lot of people. I think the HOF should be reserved for the very best. The fact that, historically, that has not always been the case doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t start adhering to that standard.
And I’ve never been a fan of the notion that “fame,” rather than performance, should be a primary factor. I don’t get the argument that Tommy John should be considered because he had a revolutionary surgery. Big deal.
At the end of the day, the HOF should be reserved for the best of the best. While I like Dawson, I just don’t think he was far enough above his peers (in fact, he was below average in OBP) to justify his inclusion.
Dawson’s 4 peak seasons seem to essentially be 1980-1983. Over that period, he was pretty consistently at about 30 wRAA, even despite his fairly mediocre OBP’s in those years, as long as you don’t dock him for the missed strike time in ‘81.
He won a Gold Glove each of those years. Obviously, we know that Gold Glove voting can be severely flawed. He was a good hitter those years, so it could be that his offensive rep seeped over into the GG voting. I would kind of suspect that that would be mitigated somewhat by playing for Montreal. I also don’t know what his competition for GG was like back then. It doesn’t seem like too many people dispute that he was a good fielder. The position shift in ‘84 makes me wonder a bit, but Tim Raines was supposed to be a good fielder, too.
Say that through his peak, Dawson was a +15 runs/150G fielder in CF. That’s really good, but not unbeatable, so presumably it could have made sense to put Raines in CF over Dawson. (You could even distribute it as +15, +20, +15, +10 to make a better case for slipping Raines in there.)
I don’t know what the positional adjustment would have been back then, but figure about +2.5 runs for CF. He played full-time in those seasons, so the replacement level bonus is probably about +20 runs.
Add it all together and if you assume that he was an elite fielder, Dawson figured to be about a 6.5-7.0-win player for four straight years during his peak. Or roughly what Grady Sizemore was worth last year.
Is that a Hall-worthy peak? I would lean towards yes. It’s not something that would make you an inner-circle, no-doubt Hall of Famer, but I think it gets you into the argument.
Obviously, there’s more to the argument than just his peak value, but I think that if you value his defense highly enough, he could be a legitimate Hall of Famer. It’s true that OBP is very, very important, but I think it’s within the realm of possibility that his defense made up for it. Clearly, Dawson wasn’t Ozzie Smith with the glove, but he wasn’t Jim Rice with the glove, either. Historical UZR would certainly be useful to settle this.
Hard to delve into the “thinking†of a collectivity like the Baseball Writers, but it’s often been the case that when one player overshadowed another at the same position with essentially the same skills, the secondary player gets far less consideration until the first one is safely in the Hall.
Didn’t it take Duke Snider a really long time to get in? I don’t know if his initial vote totals were anything like Raines’ ~20%, but he was certainly overshadowed by some of his overqualified contemporaries.
I definitely did not say that. Of course, the fact that John had TJ surgery and came back from it to be a pretty good pitcher afterwards is probably a plus in his favor. A plus that overrides the fact that he was really not a lot more than an above average pitcher for a long period of time? I’d say no, but then again I’d have to really look at his career to give a better answer.
Dawson, though, was the best CF in the National League in the early 1980s and one of the best players overall. He didn’t deserve the MVP in ‘87 but he was up there, and he was up there 2 other years as well. The Hawk started 7 All Star Games and played in an eighth. He was no flash in the pan. Without even looking at his counting and rate stats, that’s a very solid choice for the HOF. I’m curious, actually, to know if there has been anybody in the history of the sport who was considered the best at their position for so long and a MVP candidate for so many years who isn’t in the Hall. Al Belle springs to mind, although there’s still a chance he might get in (slim, but still). Dick Allen? Pete Rose doesn’t count.
Honestly, I would take issue with several of your comments. Let’s look at one: Dawson was “up there” in the MVP discussion in 1987. He shouldn’t have been. He ranked 17th in the league in EqA and, due in part to relatively lousy defense in right field, 45th in the NL in WARP. He had no business being a serious contender for, let alone winning, the MVP.
So, since he DID in fact play for the Red Sox in 1993 and 1994, that means…?
(I mean, I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think you can play that card for a guy who the MVP while playing for the frickin’ Cubs.)
I won’t argue that Dawson wasn’t one of the best players in the NL in 1987, except that:
a. Like it or not, 49 homers is very attractive to the general public, and
b. WARP has some real issues on defense, particularly for pre-BP seasons. He probably didn’t deserve it by then, but he did win a Gold Glove in ‘87 and won another in ‘88, and neither of those victories were derided by very many people as a Jeter or Raffy type award. Top 3 defensive OFer in the NL? Probably not, but “lousy”? Not so much.
Dawson may not have been quite as good as the hype generated in the 1987 season (although I have to wonder why you’re focusing so much on his 1987 and not, say, on his 1981, when he had the 2nd best OPS in the NL while playing centerfield full time, or 1980, ‘83, or ‘90, when he finished in the top 10 in offensive win percentage – that’s a rate stat – or the 7 years he finished in the top 10 in runs created) but he was a very good player for a pretty good amount of time who might not make it in because his numbers don’t look so hot compared to the numbers generated in the 1990s. Which is one of the big issues with stats. They’re often terrible at contextualizing a player’s accomplishments across different eras.
I don’t see much of a case for him over Parker, Murphy, and Baines.
I’d agree with Murphy, disagree with Parker and Baines, again based on the fact that a CF with similar batting stats to a corner OF is CONSIDERABLY more valuable, as Mat’s sort of illustrated.
That being said, there’s a legitimate argument for saying “No”- it’s just that argument also probably excludes some players who’ve already MADE the HOF (like Rice) for similar reasons (I’m of the opinion that Rice wasn’t even the best corner OF on his team- Dwight Evans was quite arguably the better player, but had less sexy HR and RBI league leader stats).
For Henderson, unanimous or not doesn’t matter. But for those who think the voting means something, there are 25 people voting on the Hall of Fame who don’t think Rickey Henderson belongs in. I give the two voters who returned blank ballots a pass.
No passes.
Were there any voters who didn’t vote for Rickey but voted for Bert Blyleven? Should these voters get a pass?
Can’t add anything to that.
No.
But I do want a go at their stash….
My favorite Rickey game (I didn’t actually see him play very many games, in person that is): Ms were playing the White Sox at Safeco; the White Sox pitcher was having a good first half of the season so it looked like a tough matchup for the Ms. But around the 4th or 5th innning Rickey had a looong at bat — I counted it at 10 or 11 pitches — he was simply a tough guy to get out. Eventually he did strike out — but the White Sox pitcher (it might’ve been Buehrle or Garland or someone like that) was never quite the same after that at bat. I think the extra pitches in that long at bat tired him out just enough to make him hittable, and the Ms started pounding him and he had to be relieved after about one more inning.
It was a strikeout by Rickey, but a really good strikeout which I think did help lead the the Mariners’ win that day (now there’s a “productive out”).
And I agree that worrying over how many votes Rickey got is over-wrought. The important thing is to get voted IN, the players don’t get extra brownie points based on whether their vote was unanimous or not. One can make a small case for the added honor of getting voted in in one’s first year of eligibility, and Rickey achieved that.
I have to agree how can anyone not vote for Rickey? Good to see Rice in as he and Dave Parker were the most feared hitters in baseball around that time period. I wonder why Parker did not ever get much love? I am guessing the roid era inflated stats so much people do not understand that hitting 35 HRs is huge! Harold Baines in the HOF? We was a good player and not near HOF IMHO Murphy hmmmm maybe…
I never would have thought being Nolan Ryan’s 5,000th K would be HoF worthy. Shows what I know!
I like how the NHL just takes the best of the best and inducts them, without leaving it to a vote, when they retire. I mean, “voting” on Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux (a guy whose name means what it says in French) is just silly.
Of course, if baseball had done that with Rose and McGwire when they retired, and they would have been among the few on that pinnacle, they would be looking out from the Hall when the news hit.
No, this has nothing to do with some concept of an “inner hall” or some other arbitrary distinction we’re making. It has to do with these guys — the hall voters — being able to do their jobs, and not making political statements or making up some other random set of criteria to go by — like “nobody gets 100%” or “X didn’t get 100%, so Y doesn’t either” or “I will never vote for anybody who played in the ’steroid era’ as arbitrarily defined by me.” If anyone is creating an arbitrary “inner hall” it’s them, not us. Can anyone really offer a good reason to have not voted for Henderson? Evan came the closest, and even that seems a bit weak (it’s not like there aren’t other first-time guys you could leave off). So instead we have to assume some of these voters are just chasing their own agenda that departs from the criteria established by the HOF, or they just aren’t taking it seriously, or they’re too old and befuddled to actually do their jobs. Malfeasance, apathy, or incompetence — take your pick — any one of which should be grounds to yank their voting credentials.
I can’t think of a good reason to not vote for Rickey, but I can think of all kinds of bad ones. And my issue with kicking people out because they do things that I disagree with is that, well, down the line what if the people in charge find the guys that I like disagreeable? Then I’m (the editorial me; I do not have a BBWAA vote nor have I ever come close to having one) out of the voting as well.
I suspect that Derek doesn’t really think that either and that he’s engaging in a wee bit of hyperbole to look controversial and so on. This was, like, required from stat guys 20 years ago because there was no other way they could get themselves heard. However, now that statheadosity is beginning to be accepted around the MLB and even agents of the sports press, this tactic doesn’t work nearly as well IMO. Before, you had to yell to get people to listen to you. Now, you have to watch your yelling lest people start to ignore you.
Your speculations on my motivations are wrong. If someone didn’t vote for Rickey this ballot, they should have their ballots given to someone who can read the instructions.
Also, w/r/t “look controversial” etc: don’t.
But, as I already pointed out, Dawson was below average in OBP among his era, not when compared to future eras.
Being below average in OBP should not be fatal to one’s chances, but it is a heck of a hurdle to overcome. In my view, Dawson doesn’t quite overcome it.
I didn’t mean to sound like I was insulting y’all. I was kind of giving you the benefit of the doubt, actually. But if you want to continue to be all radical and stuff, there will likely be a lot of people who are primarily bloggers on the BBWAA, I think. I just don’t see it as a particularly good tactic to tell people who didn’t vote for people you (and I) feel are obvious HOFers to turn in their cards. Just my opinion though, take it for what it’s worth.
Yes, I saw that. And while drawing walks is a hugely underrated aspect of the game, historically speaking, it’s still not the only part. Dawson had a great deal of power for his era, was regarded as a top-quality defender, and was at least a neutral “character guy” in the clubhouse (not bringing this up as a HOF prerequisite per se, just as a potential reason to break a tie). I see him as the best CF in the NL in the early to mid 80s, which puts him in the HOF for me. No, not in the mythical inner circle, but definitely on the level of a Richie Ashburn (actually maybe a couple notches above him).
The other issue with rate stats: Dawson was really, really bad from 1993 on but his teams kept using him. Is that his fault, or more to the point does that make his prime less good? Everybody except JR Richard goes through a decline phase, but not a lot of players hang around for 3+ years as a straight-up below average player because of their rep. That’s certainly not an argument for the Hawk but it’s not one against either.
So now I’m being radical and stuff. And it’s not a good tactic to some end I’m unaware of. But you were giving me the benefit of the doubt in assuming that my opinion is falsely held to generate controversy.
Okay. I’m just going to go about my business, and hopefully you’ll hang around and tell me how I’m doing and why I’m doing it.
I appear to have offended or miffed you with my remarks. Wasn’t my intention. Sorry.
Henderson on Letterman tonight, doing the Top Ten.
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