Quote:
Originally Posted by MCoxon
I'm a HUGE Oliva guy. My friends won't open emails from me any more with Oliva in the subject line because they know I'm on the same broken record. Up until 71 when he hurt his knee, he was at the top of the AL in hitting and really all of MLB.
He won batting titles in his first two full seasons, won a 3rd, barely missed a 4th, all in his first 8 seasons. And he was a gold glove winner.
I always think he was hurt by having Carew in the early 70s, and in 65 Versalles winning the MVP, taking some of the attention away from him
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IDK man, 41 WAR over 15 seasons, an .829 career OPS and a negative defensive rating aren't really HOF material. It sucks that his career really crashed and burned after he turned 31, but we have to judge players by what they did and not what they might have done if healthy. I think he's a hall of very good, but short of the HOF. ymmv