Is this guy a HOF player?

[tcblcommish]

So I have been running a sim that has gone on from 1900 to now 1981and I have a good amount of people in the HOF that were inducted automatically but there is a guy I came across looking around and I am wondering what people would do with him.

He only played for 8 seasons but 8 very good ones.

He hit .351 over his 8 seasons with 29 homers and 414 rbi and is the only player that came close to the .401 average record when he hit .394 in 1937.

He was a 3 time all star and rookie of the year as well as a 2 time Silver Slugger award winner. He also led the Los Angeles Leopards to the championship once. A good base stealer too as he had 166 stolen bases and only 21 caught. He was a decent fielder but nothing to spectacular in Left field, he had 72 assists though some were in center field where he blew out his ACL and was forced to retire.

Do people put guys like this in the Hall?

[damientheomen3]

How did his standings on the hits/batting average leaderboards in those 8 seasons look? Career OBP/OPS/WAR? To me, for that guy to make the HOF with 8 seasons, he'd probably need at least 4 or 5 batting titles.

[CBeisbol]

Impossible to say based on the information that you have provided

First, we know nothing about your league to have any context for this player's accomplishments.

Second, batting average, home runs, RBi, SB, CS and assists tell us almost nothing about a player's production.

[UltimateAverageGuy]

Screenshot his career numbers

[Reed]

Without knowing more about your league but probably not in my league. Never an MVP and a all star just 3 times and a mediocre left fielder???

[Syd Thrift]

Yeah, that's a really high, gaudy average to be sure but the 3 AS appearances indicates to me that he had a *very* short peak. I'm generally a big peak guy but 3 seasons is stretching it. If those were extremely good seasons I guess that would be one thing - like, Barry Bonds if Bonds had only played from 1995-2003 is still a HOFer (in an alternate fantasy universe where he put up those numbers without taking PEDs). The fact that the guy didn't win an MVP for any of them indicates that they were not.

I was trying to think of comparable players but I'm really hard-pressed to. Certainly there have been guys who captured lightning in a bottle for a season or two and were never quite as good otherwise (although I think a bunch of those guys, Roger Maris and Norm Cash immediately come to mind, were a bit better in their non-lightning years than they're given credit for). The only players I can think of off-hand who actually retired that good were a couple pitchers and guys who were members of the early National Association, when the game was just a lot different. That last group has in it Ross Barnes, who has a very gaudy average as well (many fewer ABs of course because they didn't play very many games back then) which was based off of his ability to execute the "fair-foul hit", which, as you might guess, involved hitting the ball with a bunch of backspin so that it would first land in fair territory and then bloop foul.

There's also Addie Joss, who is in the Hall of Fame but who did technically get into games in a total of 10 seasons so he does qualify, and JR Richard, who also got into 10 seasons and really isn't considered a HOFer by anyone, as tragically as his career ended (he also only made 1 AS game in his final season).

Oh, and Lyman Bostock, who was murdered after 4 seasons. He didn't make any AS games and nobody associates him with the Hall of Fame in spite of a .311 batting average.

I would say keep him out myself, although I'd approach it maybe differently than just looking at milestones, etc. Bill James' book on the Hall of Fame has a HOF checklist you can go through, called the Keltner List (named after Ken Keltner, who he runs through the list to evaluate):

1. Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball?
2. Was he the best player on his team?
3. Was he the best player in baseball (or in the league) at his position?
4. Did he have an impact on a number of pennant races?
5. Was he a good enough player that he could continue to play regularly after passing his prime?
6. Is he the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame? (Remember, this was written before the heart of the PED era)
7. Are most players who have comparable career statistics in the Hall of Fame?
8. Do the players numbers meet Hall of Fame standards? (“Hall of Fame standards” are another James invention, the results are listed on every player page on Baseball Reference, you can see what the numbers are by which James calculates those “standards” by visiting Baseball Reference here)
9. Is there evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his statistics?
10. Is he the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but not in?
11. How many MVP-type seasons did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? If not, how many times was he close?
12. How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star games did he play in? Did most of the other players who played in this many go into the Hall of Fame?
13. If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant?
14. What impact did the player have on baseball history? Was he responsible for any rule changes? Did he introduce any new equipment? Did he change the game in any way?
15. Did the player uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?

14 and 15 are unlikely to apply to OOTP leagues but... I feel like you can probably go down this list for this player otherwise and make this decision for yourself. You can also see that other peoples' questions/concerns factor in as well, plus there are a few other factors that could tip the scales for you. Like, if this guy's team was in the World Series for 6 straight years and he was an integral part of all of that, like he won multiple WS MVPs or something, in spite of his lack of playing time you might make an exception...

[dodger300]

The reason he is not in HOF is he didn't play 10yrs in majors. You can change that 5yrs in options.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by dodger300

The reason he is not in HOF is he didn't play 10yrs in majors. You can change that 5yrs in options.

Nah, there's been a debate since then; it's not at all clear that this guy is actually HOF worthy. The edge cases who barely played 10 years (particularly Addie Joss, who would not meet the 10 year requirement in OOTP terms) were clearly top-of-the-league talents when they did play. Joss was one of the 3 or 4 best pitchers in baseball over a 9 year period. Koufax, who did play enough seasons to qualify, was far and away the best pitcher for 6 years running. Parisian Bob Caruthers, who is not in the Hall but keeps having a case made, was 209-87 over 7 seasons (he was also 7-2 as a 20 year old and, like a lot of 19th century pitchers, was 2-10 and terrible for one season at the end of his career (most likely he suffered something like a torn rotator cuff or elbow ligament and, well, it was nearly 100 years before TJ surgery).

I think this is a question OP needs to answer for himself; I don't think that changing the HOF entry rules is necessarily the way to get around it here.

[tcblcommish]

Sorry I've been at work all day and leaving shortly so I'll try to post a screen of the guy I'm talking about.

As far as changing the rules and criteria for the hall, I dont want to do that but this guy just caught my eye because he had such an amazing batting average for a guy who played and was hurt and forced to retire.

My question was more do people put guys like this in the hall of fame or just say too bad, he didnt last long. That was all I was asking but I love the responses, thank you all

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