Posted By:
davidcyclebackI rate Puckett higher than some do as he was a great center fielder and a good clubhouse leader. Comparing his batting statistics alone isn't enough. That he was a team leader on two Minnesota Twins (of all teams) World Series Championships helps his case. Of note, at the time he was playing, he was regularly ranked amongst the best players in the game by sportswriters-- and they were looking at the same batting statistics we are. The sportswriters liked the batting statistics on their own, but ranked Puckett high because they considered him the do-it-all all around package. Look at it this way, if Puckett had the same batting statistics but was a marginal fielder, sloppy base runner and had the clubhouse personality of Albert Belle, he would have been a much worse baseball player, and contemporary sportswriters certainly wouldn't have ranked him so high.
Now, pure personality-wise, Puckett was perhaps the most liked players by fans and sportswriters-- in a poll, he was ranked as adorable than fluffy kittens and more desirable for a baby sitter than Mary Poppins-- and that likely give him an extra, unfair bounce at voting time.