The Hall Of The Very Good

The Baseball Hall of Fame announced the ballot for the "Eras" election (used to be called the Veterans' Committee) and it will be interesting to see what happens, given the election of Harold Baines last year. Baines was a good but not a great player, and the nine players on this year's ballot are all comparable to him, with some of them certainly with more qualifications. Will this continue to the point that the Hall with be not of the greatest players, but just the very good?

The nine players on the ballot are Dwight Evans, Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Marvin Miller, Thurman Munson, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Ted Simmons and Lou Whitaker (a tenth name, Marvin Miller, is on the ballot--I have said before that his exclusion from the Hall is a travesty, as his role as head of the players' union was as important as any executive position in the history of the sport). Most of them have been down this road before--I think this is at least the third try for Garvey.

Of the nine, one is an obvious choice, and that's Lou Whitaker. Shockingly, he was a one-and-done on the Baseball Writers' vote. The election of his double-play partner, Alan Trammell, two years ago should grease the way for Whitaker, who is 49th all-time on the WAR list, with every player above him in the Hall, of those eligible, except for the PED guys (Barry Bonds has the highest WAR of all time) and Bill Dahlen, a nineteenth-century player (maybe he should be in). The next highest batter on this list is Evans, at 87th, which is lower than Kenny Lofton, whom I don't think anyone thinks should be in the Hall. Baines is at 354th, lower than Carl Crawford. Whitaker's WAR is higher than Trammell's.

I think the other player who deserves strong consideration is Simmons, who ranks at 192nd on the WAR list, but was a catcher, and was outshone by Johnny Bench during his career. Ironically, Simmons was also one-and-done on the writers' ballot. Garvey, Murphy, Parker, John, and Mattingly all spent the full fifteen years on the writers' list.

Thurman Munson is a special case. He was clearly on his way to a Hall of Fame career when his life was cut short in an airplane crash. As heartless as this sounds, his career was too short to merit election.

The only pitcher on the list is Tommy John, who does have the distinction of winning more games, 288, than any other pitcher who is not in the Hall. But John took 26 seasons to win that total, and was never the most dominant pitcher of his time, gaining Cy Young Award votes in only four of those seasons (and those were consecutive seasons). That a type of surgery is named after him is not a mark of greatness.

I will be fascinated to see how this shakes out. I would vote for Whitaker, Simmons, and Miller, but given what happened with Baines this can't be predicted. The voters for this election will be different that last year, when cronyism may have been involved.