Quote:
Originally Posted by cgjackson222
I agree that Dwight Evans and Keith Hernandez are worthy of a vote.
I wonder how the Committee's "contemporary" focus being from 1980 onward affected their chances of getting a vote. Evans' rookie year was '72 and while his best years were in the 1980s, they may not have considered "contemporary" enough. Hernandez' MVP year was '79, so the same goes for him.
The "Classic" baseball Committee is supposed to consider players "whose greatest contributions to the game were realized prior to 1980", so they may get passed up again for being too contemporary.
So it seems Evans and Hernandez could be stuck in no man's land.
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Great point(s). Wonder how the HOF and these Committees would respond if someone ever directly asked them exactly how they were going to treat player's careers that fall into both the Classic and Contemporary eras, and decide which Committee's ballot they would belong on as a result.
Also got me thinking about another potential question. With a 1980 start/cut-off date, that means the Contemporary Committee era covers the last 42-43 years, a fairly long time over which we've seen major changes to how the game is played. So three years from now when the Contemporary Committee comes up again to vote, do they just keep the same 1980 start/cut-off date, or do they possibly move it to say 1983, so as to actually make the term "Contemporary" at last least somewhat accurate and relevant? At 42-43 years already, that's getting close to almost encompassing two entire generations. That doesn't exactly fit the definition of what I normally think of as "contemporary". But it is just part of the title for one of these veteran committees, and may never have been intended to have any true relevance after all.