Fred Lindstrom HOFer, Why?

[CMIZ5290]

Curious to see takes on this. He was a Major Leaguer for 12 seasons, he had two killer years in 1928 and 1930, but that was pretty much it. Also, only 1700 lifetime hits.... What made him a HOFer? I hope some experts chime in...

[sayhey24]

Bill James says that Lindstrom's former teammate Frankie Frisch was the driving force on the Veterans Committee for years, and pushed through many of his buddies from the Giants and Cardinals.


Greg

[conor912]

Originally Posted by sayhey24

Bill James says that Lindstrom's former teammate Frankie Frisch was the driving force on the Veterans Committee for years, and pushed through many of his buddies from the Giants and Cardinals.


Greg

Exactly...much more of a "who you know" than "what you did" situation. I remember reading an article a few years ago that made a solid argument for Lindstrom being the weakest inductee ever.

[Fred]

I'm sure you'll get a debate when it comes to the HOFer that least deserves to be enshrined....

[conor912]

Originally Posted by Fred

I'm sure you'll get a debate when it comes to the HOFer that least deserves to be enshrined....

I would be shocked if I didn't.

[z28jd]

If you go by WAR, Freddie Lindstrom was Babe Ruth when compared to Tommy McCarthy. In his career, McCarthy put up a 16.1 WAR, which would rank only eighth on the single season leaderboard.

His numbers are also skewed by playing in the American Association in 1890 when all the good players were in the Player's League or NL, and also putting up big years in 1893-94 when everyone else in baseball did too. So McCarthy has three seasons that look good on their own, but they were really nothing special when put into context.

If they did a ballot of 19th century players now and put 100 names on it, I highly doubt he would make the list. He isn't even in the top 1000 all-time for offensive WAR. That's a list that includes 845 non-HOF players