Interesting Article on the HOF-Bill James
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I copied this from a blog. I enjoyed it-I hope you will also.
The Hall of Could Have Been
Somewhere in the middle of the monstrous last blog, Dave Kingman came up. I wrote that if Dave Kingman had played his career for the Red Sox (instead of playing for seven different teams and the New York Mets twice) he would be in the Hall of Fame today. I realize that this takes some imagination when you consider that Kingman was:
1. A .236 lifetime hitter who didn't walk.
2. A historically bad outfielder.
3. A strikeout machine.
4. One of the worst percentage players in baseball history.
5. The guy who once sent a reporter a live rat.
That doesn't seem like much of a Hall of Fame resume, no. But here's the kick: I would bet that Kingman hit more long fly balls to left than any player in the 1970s and 1980s. I'm sure there's a way to look this up, but I don't know how to do it. I'm going off memory. But I do know his splits at Fenway Park -- he played 18 games there, hit 13 home runs and had an .816 slugging percentage. I don't think there has ever been a park more tailored for a player than Fenway for Kingman.
As it was, Kong hit 442 home runs. I think had he played his entire career at Fenway he would have hit 500 home runs for sure and maybe 550. Maybe even 600. He would have led the league in homers five or six times. Or more. He'd be in the Hall of Fame.
Kingman's situation made me wonder who else might have been a Hall of Famer had his career been just a little bit different. So, I emailed Bill James, who promptly sent me back a five-page email with names and thoughts -- Bill's a machine. So here, we look at players who just might have been Hall of Famers had their careers taken a different turn.
I should say right up front though what we we are NOT looking for today:
1. Players who had their careers interrupted by war or delayed by the Negro Leagues. There's no doubt in my mind that had baseball integrated earlier, Minnie Minoso (among many others) would be in the Hall of Fame. As it is, I believe Minoso belongs in the Hall of Fame. Joe Gordon is a guy who would likely be in the Hall of Fame had it not been for World War II. There are quite a few players like this -- but they have been talked about a lot already. We'll save that discussion for another day.
2. Players who had their careers halted or wrecked by injuries. Sure, it's fascinating to think what Tony Conigliaro might have been or Herb Score or even Bo Jackson. But that's a whole other blog item.
So what are we talking about here? We're talking about players who were signed by the wrong teams. Players whose talents were muffled or choked by the stadiums they played in. Players who were blocked by other great players or just had bad timing. Stuff like that.
Fred Lynn
Might have been a Hall of Famer if: He had not been traded from Boston.
Looking back, it's pretty easy to see what Bill James saw so clearly. Lynn's game was beautifully suited for Fenway Park. In 1975, his brilliant rookie season, he hit .368 at Fenway. He hit .282 on the road. In 1976, it was more of the same (.360 at home, .272 on the road). He had an off year in 1977 -- only hit .260 with 18 homers. Why? He was more or less the same player at home (.313, 10 homers). But he was abysmal on the road (.215 BA, .352 SLG).
And so it goes. Lynn might have been at his best in 1978 when he hit .333 and he banged a career high 39 homers. He was widely viewed as the best player in baseball. His splits tell a fuller story.
Home: .386, 28 homers, 83 RBIs in 77 games.
Road: .275, 11 homers, 39 RBIs in 70 games.
Lynn was a very good player. But he was a legend at Fenway Park. In his career, he hit .347 at Fenway with a .420 OBP and a .601 SLG. You know who are the players who hit better than .330, .400 OBP and .600 SLG for their careers?
1. Babe Ruth.
2. Ted Williams
3. Lou Gehrig.
That's it. Lynn had a lot of injuries in his career. But he was a Gold Glove outfielder with a 300+ homers, almost 2,000 hits -- had he spent the last nine years of his career at Fenway, I think he would be in Cooperstown.
Elston Howard
Might have been a Hall of Famer if: He'd signed with a team other than the Yankees.
The story goes that in the mid-1950s -- when it was clear to everyone except Tom Yawkey that this integration in baseball thing was here to stay -- the Yankees asked Kansas City Monarchs manager Buck O'Neil to recommend a special player who could be the first black New York Yankee. Buck mentioned a classy outfielder named Elston Howard.
"He can really catch too," Buck added.
The rest is history. Howard is a big part of baseball history because he was the first African American Yankee. He was also one heck of a player -- he won the MVP in 1963. He made every All-Star team from 1957-65. He won two Gold Gloves as a catcher.
But what if ... he had signed with, say, the Chicago Cubs? Consider a couple of things:
(1) The Yankees had Yogi Berra when Howard was signed. So even though the Yankees called up Howard in 1955, he did not catch. In fact, Howard did not catch 100 games in a season until 1961, when he was already 32 years old. The Cubs (and we only mention them because that's the team Buck O'Neil scouted for and, later, coached with) from 1955 to 1960 had FIFTEEN different players catch -- led by the immortal Sammy Taylor and Cal Neeman.
(2) Yankee Stadium was a BRUTAL park for Howard. He hit 152 career home runs. He hit FORTY SIX of them at Yankee Stadium. So, it's pretty fair to guess that Yankee Stadium stole 50 homers from Howard's career. Had he hit at Wrigley, you probably could add another 20 to 25 homers to that.
So, with a different team, Howard might have had a couple more Gold Gloves and 225 homers. That would put him right up there with Dickey, Campy, Gabby and other catching Hall of Famers.
Bob Cerv
Might have been a Hall of Famer: If something had actually gone right in his career.
He is Bill James' favorite "What if." "It's just so improbable," Bill writes. "EVERYTHING went wrong for him. He didn't lose 40 percent of his Hall of Fame luster. He lost 95 percent of it, so people will never believe how good he could have been."
Talk about bad luck. Cerv went to Nebraska -- where he was a big football star. So he did not sign to play baseball until he was 24 years old. And then he chose to sign with New York Yankees, who were just about to become quite possibly the most dominant team in baseball history. That meant 1951-56, Cerv never played more than 50 games in a season. When he was 30, he was traded to the Kansas City A's. And when he was 32 -- his first season with more than 500 at-bats -- he hit .305 with 38 homers and 105 RBIs.
He was almost as good the next year, and then the A's traded him back to the Yankees because in those days the A's traded EVERY good player they had to the Yankees (Cerv hit .357 for the Yankees in the 1960 World Series). Cerv then bounced around for his last couple of years.
"If he signs with the Cubs before going to college," Bill writes, "I would argue he could be a Hall of Famer."
Hank Sauer
Might be in the Hall of Fame if: The Cincinnati Reds didn't HATE home run hitters.
The Honker did not get a chance to play full-time in the big leagues until he was 31 years old -- after that he hit 281 home runs. As Bill points out, that's more homers after 31 than, among others: Stargell, Musial, Schmidt and McCovey. It's one fewer than Reggie Jackson.
Why didn't Sauer get his chance earlier? The Reds were anti-home run. There's really no other way to look at it. From 1941 to 1947, the most homers hit by a Reds player was 20 (by Frank McCormick hit in the war-torn year of 1944). The Reds were all about pitching and defense ... and they never did appreciate Sauer. They finally gave him his shot in 1948, and he hit 35 homers -- he shattered the Reds' record by five homers.
His reward was to be traded to the Cubs the very next year for Harry the Hat Walker and Peanuts Lowery. Sauer hit 30-plus homers five times after that, including a monster 41-homer season in 1954 when he was 37. That matched Cy Williams NL record for most homers in a season by a player 35 or older.
Frank Howard
Might be in the Hall of Fame if: The game hadn't changed on him.
In 1963, the powers of baseball decided to change the strike zone. They felt like too many homers were being hit (Roger Maris' 61 being the star witness for the prosecution). And so -- this is incredible looking back -- they made the strike zone from the shoulders to the bottom of the knee. Wow. If they had kept that going, Richie Sexson's strike zone would be the second tallest structure in Seattle behind the Space Needle.
In addition, as Bill points out, you could build the mound just about as high as you want. You needed a Sherpa guide to get to the top of the mound at Dodgers Stadium in the 1960s. And it stayed this way until the absurd 1968 season, when:
-- Pittsburgh's Bob Veale went 13-14 with a 2.06 ERA.
-- Cleveland's Sam McDowell went 15-14 with a 1.81 ERA.
-- Cleveland Luis Tiant went 21-9 with a 1.60 ERA -- and did not win the Cy Young Award.
-- Danny Cater, a nondescript player if there ever was one, finished second in the American League with a .290 batting average.
And so on. It had gotten out of control. And so they lowered the mound and put the strike zone right again. And over time, the game sort of balanced out again. Then the strike zone shrunk to microscopic size, Brady Anderson hit 50 homers -- anyway, that's another story.
Frank Howard was coming into his prime in 1963 -- he had hit 31 homers a year earlier with 119 RBIs. And he had done that at Dodger Stadium, which was a killer ballpark for home run hitters. Everyone pretty much assumed at the time that Howard would become one of the great home run hitters in baseball -- maybe in baseball history.
But with the crazy strike zone (and Howard at 6-foot-7 had a Space Needle strike zone himself) and the high mound (especially at Dodger Stadium), he really scuffled for four years. His home runs went down every year -- from 31 in 1962 to 28 to 24 to 21 to 18.
In 1967, Howard figured it out -- the next four years he hit 172 home runs. But those quiet years hurt. He ended his career with 382 homers; had he hit even 20 more he would have been in the Hall of Fame conversation (until Darrell Evans and Dave Kingman, every hitter with 400 or more homers was in the Hall o Fame).
Willie Davis is another Dodgers player who felt the pain of the 1960s strike zone. His first full year was 1962, and he looked like a terrific young player: He hit .285 with 21 homers, 32 steals, he led the league with 10 triples.
Then from 1963 to 1968, facing that strike zone and Mount St. Dodger Mound he hit .262, and averaged 9 homers per year and about 63 RBIs. Nothing special at all.
From 1969-1975, though Davis felt free. He hit .296 over that time, cracked 1,200 hits, hit 87 homers, stole bases, made a couple of All-Star teams, even won his first three Gold Gloves. I'm not sure if Willie Davis is an almost Hall of Famer, but he certainly had his prime muted by some goofy rules.
Jose Cruz Sr.*
Might have been a Hall of Famer if: The Astrodome had not been Wonder of the World size.
Cruz had a very nice career -- he hit .284 with 2,200 hits and 165 homers. But look at these home/road splits.
1981 home: .247, 3, 17.
1981 road: .283, 10, 38.
1982 home: .277, 3, 33.
1982 road: .274, 6, 35.
1983 home: .313, 3, 45.
1983 road: .324, 11, 47.
1984 home: .276, 0, 30.
1984 road: .344, 12, 65.
1985 home: .310, 1, 35.
1985 road: .291, 8, 44.
OK, it's still pretty questionable to say Cruz might have been a Hall of Famer in a different ballpark ... I admit that's a stretch. But Cruz certainly would have had a very different career. In 1984, if you just double his road stats you have Cruz hitting .344 with 24 homers and 130 RBIs -- he would have won the MVP award for sure.
Gene Woodling
Might have been a Hall of Famer if: Someone had given him a chance.
He was signed by the Cleveland Indians, who gave him 133 at bats and decided he couldn't hit (to be fair, I guess, he did hit a lousy .188 in those 133 at-bats). They traded him to Pittsburgh for a 500-year-old catcher named Al Lopez. The Pirates gave him 79 at-bats, didn't like what they saw, and they sent him to San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League.
Then the Yankees got him and he was a key player on the teams that won the next five World Series.
Key player -- but not a starter. Stengel's Yankees platooned like crazy, of course, and so Woodling would get 400 or so at-bats every single year from 1950 to 1960 (in fact he averaged 401 at-bats). He was a good player. But if he had gotten 550 at bats instead of 400, he would have averaged over those years: .286, 15 homers, 83 RBIs, 96 walks, etc. Again, it might not be Hall of Fame, but he would be remembered as one of the really good players of the 1950s. Instead, I suspect, he's hardly remembered at all.
Matt Stairs
Might be in the Hall of Fame if: I'll let Bill explain.
"Look at it. Somebody decided he was a second baseman, he tears through the minor leagues, gets to Montreal, the Expos take one look at him and say, 'He's no second baseman, get real.' He bounces around, goes to Japan, doesn't really get to play until he's almost 30, then hits 38 homers, slips into a part-time role and hits 15-20 homers every year for 10 years in about 250 at-bats a season. ... You put him in the right park, right position early in his career ... he's going to hit a LOT of bombs."
What can you say? It's all there. Stairs did not get 500 at-bats until he was 30 -- he had a .370 OBP that year, hit 26 homers, drove in 106. The next year, he had the 38-homer season. His average dropped the next season, and he never got 500 at-bats in a season after that.
Bert Blyleven
Might be a Hall of Famer if: He'd played on a few better teams (and the Hall of Fame voters appreciated his greatness).
Blyleven's Hall of Fame has been discussed plenty, but we'll just point out that 46 times in his career, Blyleven threw eight innings or more, gave up two runs or less and either lost or got a no-decision. If he wins just 13 of those, he has 300 victories. And he would have been in the Hall of Fame years ago.
Luis Tiant
Might be a Hall of Famer if: He had retired two years earlier.
This is a weird one -- but fascinating. First, take a look at three pitching careers:
Career 1: 229-172, 3.30 ERA, 2,416 Ks, four 20-win seasons, 2-time ERA champ.
Career 2: 224-126, 3.26 ERA, 2012 Ks, five 20-win seasons, Cy Young Award.
Career 3: 224-184, 3.27 ERA, 2,855 Ks, 1 20-win season (four 19 win years), 3-time K champ.
OK? Not a lot to choose between them, is there? You probably already guessed the first one is Luis Tiant. Well, the second and third ones are Catfish Hunter and Jim Bunning.
Catfish was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1987, after waiting only three years. Bunning received some pretty strong voting support and was voted in by the Veteran's Committee in 1996.
Tiant? Well, in 1988 -- the year after Catfish -- he received 132 Hall of Fame votes, so it looked awfully good for him. And the next year, for no obvious reason, his support was slashed by two-thirds -- suddenly he got only 47 votes. The next two years his votes dropped even further. And so Tiant never even came close to getting into the Hall of Fame.
As Fred Willard asks in "A Mighty Wind:" Wha happan?
I'll tell you wha happaned: Starting in 1989, there was a historic run of pitchers who became eligible for the Hall of Fame. In 1989, it was 300-game winner Gaylord Perry and seven-time 20-game winner Fergie Jenkins (neither one of them made it). In 1990, it was Jim Palmer. In 1991, Perry and Jenkins were voted in. In 1992, Tom Seaver got the highest percentage of the vote in Hall of Fame history.
And they just kept coming -- Phil Niekro, Steve Carlton, Don Sutton -- and by the time the voters took care of all the 300-game winners, Tiant was long forgotten. And by the time Tiant became eligible for the veteran's committee there WAS NO veteran's committee.
Tiant's final two seasons were 1980 and 1981 for Pittsburgh and California. He won a combined four games with a 4.55 ERA. If he had retired before those two meaningless seasons, he would have come up on the ballot two years earlier -- before the pitching glut. He would have been directly against Catfish Hunter, which would have made his numbers look a lot better. He might be in the Hall of Fame now.
We'll finish off with a few players who probably would not have been Hall of Famers, but who certainly might have had better careers under different circumstances:
-- Al Rosen lost three years because Cleveland already had a third baseman -- Ken Keltner. He also retired at 32 because of back issues. In between, he was about as good as any third baseman in baseball history.
-- Jackie Jensen didn't get to Boston until he was 27 -- and for the next six years he averaged .285 with 29 homers and 111 RBIs. He retired at 34 because he didn't like to fly.
-- Dixie Walker was buried on the Yankees bench until his late 20s, and after that he hit .309 with almost 2,000 hits. But as Bill says: "He was a racist, so screw him."
-- Dutch Leonard won 191 games and lost 181 in a fine career, but it could have been finer. He played for some miserable teams:
Year: Dutch's record, ERA (team record)
1934: 14-11, 3.28 (Brooklyn 71-81).
1935: 2-9, 3.92 (Brooklyn 70-83).
1938: 12-15, 3.43 (Washington 75-76).
1939: 20-8, 3.54 (Washington 65-87).
1940: 14-19, 3.49 (Washington 64-90).
1941: 18-13, 3.45 (Washington 70-84).
1943: 11-13, 3.28 (Washinton 84-69)
1944: 14-14, 3.06 (Washington 64-90)
1945: 17-7, 2.13 (Washington 87-67)
1946: 10-10, 3.56 (Washington 76-68)
1947: 17-12, 2.68 (Philadelphia 62-92)
1948: 12-17, 2.51 (Philadelphia 66-88)
And so on. Had Dutch Leonard pitched on some good teams, there's no telling how much better his record might have been.
-- Matty Alou had the misfortune of coming up to the San Francisco Giants when they had Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey and a couple of other Alou brothers. Matty did not escape to Pittsburgh until he was 27. Then he was befriended by Roberto Clemente and in his first year (1966) he hit .342 and won a batting title. The next year he hit .338, then .332, then .331.
-- Bill wants special mention given to Kevin Appier, who pitched for mostly rotten Royals teams in the 1990s but was often a a dominating force. Bill says: "By RSAA (Runs scored against average) he ranks the sixth best pitcher of the 1990s, behind Pedro, Clemens, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux and David Cone but ahead of Glavine, Kevin Brown, Mike Mussina and John Smoltz.
"Beginning in 1990, he's +24, +15, +36, +54, +24, +23, +31, +37. These are huge numbers. He finished with a winning record and a better-than-league ERA every year from '1990-96, usually with a .600 winning percentage with teams that really weren't good ... On a better team, he could easily had had several years as a serious Cy Young contender."
POSTED BY JOE POSNANSKI AT 7:15 PM
The Hall of Could Have Been
Somewhere in the middle of the monstrous last blog, Dave Kingman came up. I wrote that if Dave Kingman had played his career for the Red Sox (instead of playing for seven different teams and the New York Mets twice) he would be in the Hall of Fame today. I realize that this takes some imagination when you consider that Kingman was:
1. A .236 lifetime hitter who didn't walk.
2. A historically bad outfielder.
3. A strikeout machine.
4. One of the worst percentage players in baseball history.
5. The guy who once sent a reporter a live rat.
That doesn't seem like much of a Hall of Fame resume, no. But here's the kick: I would bet that Kingman hit more long fly balls to left than any player in the 1970s and 1980s. I'm sure there's a way to look this up, but I don't know how to do it. I'm going off memory. But I do know his splits at Fenway Park -- he played 18 games there, hit 13 home runs and had an .816 slugging percentage. I don't think there has ever been a park more tailored for a player than Fenway for Kingman.
As it was, Kong hit 442 home runs. I think had he played his entire career at Fenway he would have hit 500 home runs for sure and maybe 550. Maybe even 600. He would have led the league in homers five or six times. Or more. He'd be in the Hall of Fame.
Kingman's situation made me wonder who else might have been a Hall of Famer had his career been just a little bit different. So, I emailed Bill James, who promptly sent me back a five-page email with names and thoughts -- Bill's a machine. So here, we look at players who just might have been Hall of Famers had their careers taken a different turn.
I should say right up front though what we we are NOT looking for today:
1. Players who had their careers interrupted by war or delayed by the Negro Leagues. There's no doubt in my mind that had baseball integrated earlier, Minnie Minoso (among many others) would be in the Hall of Fame. As it is, I believe Minoso belongs in the Hall of Fame. Joe Gordon is a guy who would likely be in the Hall of Fame had it not been for World War II. There are quite a few players like this -- but they have been talked about a lot already. We'll save that discussion for another day.
2. Players who had their careers halted or wrecked by injuries. Sure, it's fascinating to think what Tony Conigliaro might have been or Herb Score or even Bo Jackson. But that's a whole other blog item.
So what are we talking about here? We're talking about players who were signed by the wrong teams. Players whose talents were muffled or choked by the stadiums they played in. Players who were blocked by other great players or just had bad timing. Stuff like that.
Fred Lynn
Might have been a Hall of Famer if: He had not been traded from Boston.
Looking back, it's pretty easy to see what Bill James saw so clearly. Lynn's game was beautifully suited for Fenway Park. In 1975, his brilliant rookie season, he hit .368 at Fenway. He hit .282 on the road. In 1976, it was more of the same (.360 at home, .272 on the road). He had an off year in 1977 -- only hit .260 with 18 homers. Why? He was more or less the same player at home (.313, 10 homers). But he was abysmal on the road (.215 BA, .352 SLG).
And so it goes. Lynn might have been at his best in 1978 when he hit .333 and he banged a career high 39 homers. He was widely viewed as the best player in baseball. His splits tell a fuller story.
Home: .386, 28 homers, 83 RBIs in 77 games.
Road: .275, 11 homers, 39 RBIs in 70 games.
Lynn was a very good player. But he was a legend at Fenway Park. In his career, he hit .347 at Fenway with a .420 OBP and a .601 SLG. You know who are the players who hit better than .330, .400 OBP and .600 SLG for their careers?
1. Babe Ruth.
2. Ted Williams
3. Lou Gehrig.
That's it. Lynn had a lot of injuries in his career. But he was a Gold Glove outfielder with a 300+ homers, almost 2,000 hits -- had he spent the last nine years of his career at Fenway, I think he would be in Cooperstown.
Elston Howard
Might have been a Hall of Famer if: He'd signed with a team other than the Yankees.
The story goes that in the mid-1950s -- when it was clear to everyone except Tom Yawkey that this integration in baseball thing was here to stay -- the Yankees asked Kansas City Monarchs manager Buck O'Neil to recommend a special player who could be the first black New York Yankee. Buck mentioned a classy outfielder named Elston Howard.
"He can really catch too," Buck added.
The rest is history. Howard is a big part of baseball history because he was the first African American Yankee. He was also one heck of a player -- he won the MVP in 1963. He made every All-Star team from 1957-65. He won two Gold Gloves as a catcher.
But what if ... he had signed with, say, the Chicago Cubs? Consider a couple of things:
(1) The Yankees had Yogi Berra when Howard was signed. So even though the Yankees called up Howard in 1955, he did not catch. In fact, Howard did not catch 100 games in a season until 1961, when he was already 32 years old. The Cubs (and we only mention them because that's the team Buck O'Neil scouted for and, later, coached with) from 1955 to 1960 had FIFTEEN different players catch -- led by the immortal Sammy Taylor and Cal Neeman.
(2) Yankee Stadium was a BRUTAL park for Howard. He hit 152 career home runs. He hit FORTY SIX of them at Yankee Stadium. So, it's pretty fair to guess that Yankee Stadium stole 50 homers from Howard's career. Had he hit at Wrigley, you probably could add another 20 to 25 homers to that.
So, with a different team, Howard might have had a couple more Gold Gloves and 225 homers. That would put him right up there with Dickey, Campy, Gabby and other catching Hall of Famers.
Bob Cerv
Might have been a Hall of Famer: If something had actually gone right in his career.
He is Bill James' favorite "What if." "It's just so improbable," Bill writes. "EVERYTHING went wrong for him. He didn't lose 40 percent of his Hall of Fame luster. He lost 95 percent of it, so people will never believe how good he could have been."
Talk about bad luck. Cerv went to Nebraska -- where he was a big football star. So he did not sign to play baseball until he was 24 years old. And then he chose to sign with New York Yankees, who were just about to become quite possibly the most dominant team in baseball history. That meant 1951-56, Cerv never played more than 50 games in a season. When he was 30, he was traded to the Kansas City A's. And when he was 32 -- his first season with more than 500 at-bats -- he hit .305 with 38 homers and 105 RBIs.
He was almost as good the next year, and then the A's traded him back to the Yankees because in those days the A's traded EVERY good player they had to the Yankees (Cerv hit .357 for the Yankees in the 1960 World Series). Cerv then bounced around for his last couple of years.
"If he signs with the Cubs before going to college," Bill writes, "I would argue he could be a Hall of Famer."
Hank Sauer
Might be in the Hall of Fame if: The Cincinnati Reds didn't HATE home run hitters.
The Honker did not get a chance to play full-time in the big leagues until he was 31 years old -- after that he hit 281 home runs. As Bill points out, that's more homers after 31 than, among others: Stargell, Musial, Schmidt and McCovey. It's one fewer than Reggie Jackson.
Why didn't Sauer get his chance earlier? The Reds were anti-home run. There's really no other way to look at it. From 1941 to 1947, the most homers hit by a Reds player was 20 (by Frank McCormick hit in the war-torn year of 1944). The Reds were all about pitching and defense ... and they never did appreciate Sauer. They finally gave him his shot in 1948, and he hit 35 homers -- he shattered the Reds' record by five homers.
His reward was to be traded to the Cubs the very next year for Harry the Hat Walker and Peanuts Lowery. Sauer hit 30-plus homers five times after that, including a monster 41-homer season in 1954 when he was 37. That matched Cy Williams NL record for most homers in a season by a player 35 or older.
Frank Howard
Might be in the Hall of Fame if: The game hadn't changed on him.
In 1963, the powers of baseball decided to change the strike zone. They felt like too many homers were being hit (Roger Maris' 61 being the star witness for the prosecution). And so -- this is incredible looking back -- they made the strike zone from the shoulders to the bottom of the knee. Wow. If they had kept that going, Richie Sexson's strike zone would be the second tallest structure in Seattle behind the Space Needle.
In addition, as Bill points out, you could build the mound just about as high as you want. You needed a Sherpa guide to get to the top of the mound at Dodgers Stadium in the 1960s. And it stayed this way until the absurd 1968 season, when:
-- Pittsburgh's Bob Veale went 13-14 with a 2.06 ERA.
-- Cleveland's Sam McDowell went 15-14 with a 1.81 ERA.
-- Cleveland Luis Tiant went 21-9 with a 1.60 ERA -- and did not win the Cy Young Award.
-- Danny Cater, a nondescript player if there ever was one, finished second in the American League with a .290 batting average.
And so on. It had gotten out of control. And so they lowered the mound and put the strike zone right again. And over time, the game sort of balanced out again. Then the strike zone shrunk to microscopic size, Brady Anderson hit 50 homers -- anyway, that's another story.
Frank Howard was coming into his prime in 1963 -- he had hit 31 homers a year earlier with 119 RBIs. And he had done that at Dodger Stadium, which was a killer ballpark for home run hitters. Everyone pretty much assumed at the time that Howard would become one of the great home run hitters in baseball -- maybe in baseball history.
But with the crazy strike zone (and Howard at 6-foot-7 had a Space Needle strike zone himself) and the high mound (especially at Dodger Stadium), he really scuffled for four years. His home runs went down every year -- from 31 in 1962 to 28 to 24 to 21 to 18.
In 1967, Howard figured it out -- the next four years he hit 172 home runs. But those quiet years hurt. He ended his career with 382 homers; had he hit even 20 more he would have been in the Hall of Fame conversation (until Darrell Evans and Dave Kingman, every hitter with 400 or more homers was in the Hall o Fame).
Willie Davis is another Dodgers player who felt the pain of the 1960s strike zone. His first full year was 1962, and he looked like a terrific young player: He hit .285 with 21 homers, 32 steals, he led the league with 10 triples.
Then from 1963 to 1968, facing that strike zone and Mount St. Dodger Mound he hit .262, and averaged 9 homers per year and about 63 RBIs. Nothing special at all.
From 1969-1975, though Davis felt free. He hit .296 over that time, cracked 1,200 hits, hit 87 homers, stole bases, made a couple of All-Star teams, even won his first three Gold Gloves. I'm not sure if Willie Davis is an almost Hall of Famer, but he certainly had his prime muted by some goofy rules.
Jose Cruz Sr.*
Might have been a Hall of Famer if: The Astrodome had not been Wonder of the World size.
Cruz had a very nice career -- he hit .284 with 2,200 hits and 165 homers. But look at these home/road splits.
1981 home: .247, 3, 17.
1981 road: .283, 10, 38.
1982 home: .277, 3, 33.
1982 road: .274, 6, 35.
1983 home: .313, 3, 45.
1983 road: .324, 11, 47.
1984 home: .276, 0, 30.
1984 road: .344, 12, 65.
1985 home: .310, 1, 35.
1985 road: .291, 8, 44.
OK, it's still pretty questionable to say Cruz might have been a Hall of Famer in a different ballpark ... I admit that's a stretch. But Cruz certainly would have had a very different career. In 1984, if you just double his road stats you have Cruz hitting .344 with 24 homers and 130 RBIs -- he would have won the MVP award for sure.
Gene Woodling
Might have been a Hall of Famer if: Someone had given him a chance.
He was signed by the Cleveland Indians, who gave him 133 at bats and decided he couldn't hit (to be fair, I guess, he did hit a lousy .188 in those 133 at-bats). They traded him to Pittsburgh for a 500-year-old catcher named Al Lopez. The Pirates gave him 79 at-bats, didn't like what they saw, and they sent him to San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League.
Then the Yankees got him and he was a key player on the teams that won the next five World Series.
Key player -- but not a starter. Stengel's Yankees platooned like crazy, of course, and so Woodling would get 400 or so at-bats every single year from 1950 to 1960 (in fact he averaged 401 at-bats). He was a good player. But if he had gotten 550 at bats instead of 400, he would have averaged over those years: .286, 15 homers, 83 RBIs, 96 walks, etc. Again, it might not be Hall of Fame, but he would be remembered as one of the really good players of the 1950s. Instead, I suspect, he's hardly remembered at all.
Matt Stairs
Might be in the Hall of Fame if: I'll let Bill explain.
"Look at it. Somebody decided he was a second baseman, he tears through the minor leagues, gets to Montreal, the Expos take one look at him and say, 'He's no second baseman, get real.' He bounces around, goes to Japan, doesn't really get to play until he's almost 30, then hits 38 homers, slips into a part-time role and hits 15-20 homers every year for 10 years in about 250 at-bats a season. ... You put him in the right park, right position early in his career ... he's going to hit a LOT of bombs."
What can you say? It's all there. Stairs did not get 500 at-bats until he was 30 -- he had a .370 OBP that year, hit 26 homers, drove in 106. The next year, he had the 38-homer season. His average dropped the next season, and he never got 500 at-bats in a season after that.
Bert Blyleven
Might be a Hall of Famer if: He'd played on a few better teams (and the Hall of Fame voters appreciated his greatness).
Blyleven's Hall of Fame has been discussed plenty, but we'll just point out that 46 times in his career, Blyleven threw eight innings or more, gave up two runs or less and either lost or got a no-decision. If he wins just 13 of those, he has 300 victories. And he would have been in the Hall of Fame years ago.
Luis Tiant
Might be a Hall of Famer if: He had retired two years earlier.
This is a weird one -- but fascinating. First, take a look at three pitching careers:
Career 1: 229-172, 3.30 ERA, 2,416 Ks, four 20-win seasons, 2-time ERA champ.
Career 2: 224-126, 3.26 ERA, 2012 Ks, five 20-win seasons, Cy Young Award.
Career 3: 224-184, 3.27 ERA, 2,855 Ks, 1 20-win season (four 19 win years), 3-time K champ.
OK? Not a lot to choose between them, is there? You probably already guessed the first one is Luis Tiant. Well, the second and third ones are Catfish Hunter and Jim Bunning.
Catfish was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1987, after waiting only three years. Bunning received some pretty strong voting support and was voted in by the Veteran's Committee in 1996.
Tiant? Well, in 1988 -- the year after Catfish -- he received 132 Hall of Fame votes, so it looked awfully good for him. And the next year, for no obvious reason, his support was slashed by two-thirds -- suddenly he got only 47 votes. The next two years his votes dropped even further. And so Tiant never even came close to getting into the Hall of Fame.
As Fred Willard asks in "A Mighty Wind:" Wha happan?
I'll tell you wha happaned: Starting in 1989, there was a historic run of pitchers who became eligible for the Hall of Fame. In 1989, it was 300-game winner Gaylord Perry and seven-time 20-game winner Fergie Jenkins (neither one of them made it). In 1990, it was Jim Palmer. In 1991, Perry and Jenkins were voted in. In 1992, Tom Seaver got the highest percentage of the vote in Hall of Fame history.
And they just kept coming -- Phil Niekro, Steve Carlton, Don Sutton -- and by the time the voters took care of all the 300-game winners, Tiant was long forgotten. And by the time Tiant became eligible for the veteran's committee there WAS NO veteran's committee.
Tiant's final two seasons were 1980 and 1981 for Pittsburgh and California. He won a combined four games with a 4.55 ERA. If he had retired before those two meaningless seasons, he would have come up on the ballot two years earlier -- before the pitching glut. He would have been directly against Catfish Hunter, which would have made his numbers look a lot better. He might be in the Hall of Fame now.
We'll finish off with a few players who probably would not have been Hall of Famers, but who certainly might have had better careers under different circumstances:
-- Al Rosen lost three years because Cleveland already had a third baseman -- Ken Keltner. He also retired at 32 because of back issues. In between, he was about as good as any third baseman in baseball history.
-- Jackie Jensen didn't get to Boston until he was 27 -- and for the next six years he averaged .285 with 29 homers and 111 RBIs. He retired at 34 because he didn't like to fly.
-- Dixie Walker was buried on the Yankees bench until his late 20s, and after that he hit .309 with almost 2,000 hits. But as Bill says: "He was a racist, so screw him."
-- Dutch Leonard won 191 games and lost 181 in a fine career, but it could have been finer. He played for some miserable teams:
Year: Dutch's record, ERA (team record)
1934: 14-11, 3.28 (Brooklyn 71-81).
1935: 2-9, 3.92 (Brooklyn 70-83).
1938: 12-15, 3.43 (Washington 75-76).
1939: 20-8, 3.54 (Washington 65-87).
1940: 14-19, 3.49 (Washington 64-90).
1941: 18-13, 3.45 (Washington 70-84).
1943: 11-13, 3.28 (Washinton 84-69)
1944: 14-14, 3.06 (Washington 64-90)
1945: 17-7, 2.13 (Washington 87-67)
1946: 10-10, 3.56 (Washington 76-68)
1947: 17-12, 2.68 (Philadelphia 62-92)
1948: 12-17, 2.51 (Philadelphia 66-88)
And so on. Had Dutch Leonard pitched on some good teams, there's no telling how much better his record might have been.
-- Matty Alou had the misfortune of coming up to the San Francisco Giants when they had Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey and a couple of other Alou brothers. Matty did not escape to Pittsburgh until he was 27. Then he was befriended by Roberto Clemente and in his first year (1966) he hit .342 and won a batting title. The next year he hit .338, then .332, then .331.
-- Bill wants special mention given to Kevin Appier, who pitched for mostly rotten Royals teams in the 1990s but was often a a dominating force. Bill says: "By RSAA (Runs scored against average) he ranks the sixth best pitcher of the 1990s, behind Pedro, Clemens, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux and David Cone but ahead of Glavine, Kevin Brown, Mike Mussina and John Smoltz.
"Beginning in 1990, he's +24, +15, +36, +54, +24, +23, +31, +37. These are huge numbers. He finished with a winning record and a better-than-league ERA every year from '1990-96, usually with a .600 winning percentage with teams that really weren't good ... On a better team, he could easily had had several years as a serious Cy Young contender."
POSTED BY JOE POSNANSKI AT 7:15 PM
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Comments
Thanks for sharing.
Shawn
joe
D's: 54S,53P,50P,49S,45D+S,44S,43D,41S,40D+S,39D+S,38D+S,37D+S,36S,35D+S,all 16-34's
Q's: 52S,47S,46S,40S,39S,38S,37D+S,36D+S,35D,34D,32D+S
74T: 37,38,47,151,193,241,435,570,610,654,655 97 Finest silver: 115,135,139,145,310
73T:31,55,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,80,152,165,189,213,235,237,257,341,344,377,379,390,422,433,453,480,497,545,554,563,580,606,613,630
95 Ultra GM Sets: Golden Prospects,HR Kings,On-Base Leaders,Power Plus,RBI Kings,Rising Stars
I remember as an Oriole fan in the 80s that Fred Lynn hit an abnormal amount of clutch HRs, and many of them were center field bombs in Memorial Stadium. With Ripken-Murray-Lynn as our 3-4-5 hitters, we got most of our wins with those bats (Mike Boddicker was our ace if that tells you anything). I also think he could've built a nice Hall resume in Fenway if he learned how to hit the other way, or if Camden Yards was built in 1987.
Matt Stairs is a huge stretch. Too many ifs.
Cecil Fielder could be there if he played in a small stadium and stayed in America for his whole career. I'm curious to know how many of the fly balls he hit during his 50 HR season would've been homers in a park other than Tiger Stadium.
Lee
I don't get into debates over HOF potentialers but do enjoy reading about them.
mike
In addition, as Bill points out, you could build the mound just about as high as you want. You needed a Sherpa guide to get to the top of the mound at Dodgers Stadium in the 1960s. And it stayed this way until the absurd 1968 season, when>>
This is all true and rarely talked about - especially the mound in Dodgers Stadium. So on the other side of the coin, and I'll probably step on a lot of toes by saying this, but I believe Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale are the most overrated pitchers in the Hall of Fame. Koufax had only 4 really great seasons, all of which coincided with the years of these major pitching advantages that James points out. The fact that Koufax was named #2 on the list of Pitchers of the 20th Century is also beyond comprehension. Drysdale had two great seasons plus several very good years but had a lot of mediocre to below average years. This is what pitching on a team in a big media market will do for you.
Drysdale I never got. He was a fine pitcher in his own right, but another relatively short career (retiring at 33). He was overshadowed in the glamour stats by his teammate, but he was still way up on the lists. James points out in one of his books that Drysdale was terrible in real big-game situations, like elimination playoff games. He compared him to Bob Gibson, where Gibson was something like 9-0 in elimination games, while Drysdale was 0-9 or something. But Dodger blue colors some perceptions and he was, after all, a fine pitcher.
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