O/T 2026 HOF Contemporary Ballot

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

At least Bobby Grich wasn't mentioned that I could see. Tell me something: before all this talk of his possible induction, when was the last time you even thought of Bobby Grich or heard his name? It was mentioned earlier in this thread that, had things like WAR been important in his era, Steve Garvey would have obviously adjusted his type of play to reflect that. Is Grich perhaps not the opposite of this? His numbers look great by modern metrics, but I have no recollection of anybody extolling his virtues when he was active. Maybe he received more regional praise than national and I simply missed out due to location, or that his best seasons were already behind him before I came along. My question is this: if a player's numbers suddenly look phenomenal using modern metrics, should that really even matter? If he was so incredible, why was he so forgettable for the past 40 years? Perhaps one could postulate that Grich's numbers, reflective of stats that weren't even taken into consideration when he played, make him appear ahead of his time, but is that not almost meaningless? I'm assuredly showing some of my ignorance by asking these questions, so perhaps some people may be able to help educate me on this.

I just read a quote from Don Baylor, who was a very smart baseball man, who won the MVP in 1979 based almost entirely on traditional stats. He thought his teammate Grich should have been considered for the award over him. Now in full hindsight, Brett or Fred Lynn probably should have won the award, but Baylor obviously saw something in Grich with his own eye test, that traditional statistics did not.

I also maintain baseball people back then weren't as ignorant about player value as we thought they were...even if they didn't have a handy statistic to pin it on.

I think the general public has become more informed of player value through statistics like WAR and defensive metrics, but inside baseball people always knew players like Mark Belanger, Brian Downing, Bobby Grich and other players like them, were very valuable to have on your team, even if the back of their baseball card didn't make them seem like a superstar.