Modern Era HOF Ballot: Who do you think should get in?

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by rats60

I don't need to make up my mind. Andrew Jones absolutely is a Hofer to me. When you are a better defensive C.F. than Willie Mays and bring the offense he did, you should be in. It is kind of my point, his WAR is on the low side for HOF.

Same for Munson and Freehan. As elite defensive catchers, I have them above a below average catcher who brought slightly better offense but only 18% above average and 2-6% better than those great defensive catchers.

But as a catcher he was 26% above average. Thus even better than those "great defensive catchers". Also, note that Munson was a below league average hitter over the year and a half that ended his career. He was likely already on the downslope and that career OPS+ would have been well below 110 when all was said and done.

That said, I do believe Freehan is a HOFer and am willing to listen on Munson.

Tom C

[rats60]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

But as a catcher he was 26% above average. Thus even better than those "great defensive catchers". Also, note that Munson was a below league average hitter over the year and a half that ended his career. He was likely already on the downslope and that career OPS+ would have been well below 110 when all was said and done.

That said, I do believe Freehan is a HOFer and am willing to listen on Munson.

Tom C

From 1970-1980 when Simmons was 26% above average offensively, he accumulated 44.9 WAR. Over the same period Thurman Munson accumulated 45.6, despite playing 160 less games. Munson died in a plane crash on Aug 2, 1979 and missed the last 2 months of 1979 and all of 1980. Still with that advantage, he was worse than Munson. From 1980-1987, Simmons played 8 more seasons. He was below average offensively and below average defensively, but accumulated another 5 WAR. So, by sticking around as a bad player, he is now supposed to be a HoFer while Munson's career was too short to be inducted. That is what I mean by Simmons was a compiler.

[the 'stache]

Simmons had a peak on par with other second-tier Hall of Fame catchers, and had some of the best career stats of any of them. I'm not saying the guy is a slam dunk inductee, but I think he definitely deserved better than the 3.7% of the vote he received in 1994.