jake daubert hof

[mr2686]

I must agree that HOF arguments are a lot of fun...and frustrating all at the same time.
Let's face it, there are multiple camps on the subject:
1. Sheer numbers that the player puts up...this can work for or against (if the player sticks around too long to gain a magic number, it's points against him).
2. Dominant player at his position for an era
3. Numbers he put up in a shortened career (what he would have done).
4. He's better than player X already in the Hall.

I haven't seen too many people that veered from their opinion on what the HOF criteria should be...and maybe that's why the hof veterans committee has tinkered so much with how the voting process is and who votes. It's the only way that any of these more modern players would ever vote for older players (and for that matter, not many management hof'ers would vote for labor leaders like Marvin Miller, which is what the problem is right now).
At 50, I'm not going to be able to convince someone 35 and younger that there are certain players I watched in the late 60's or early-mid 70's that were dominate at their position and deserve to get in to the Hall. They would just look at the overall numbers or go to a Bill James reference to prove I'm wrong. The overall problem is that everyone buys in to the baseball myth that you can compare players from the past and present, but lets face it, the only thing the same is the distance between the mound and the plate, and the distance between the bases. Rules have been tweaked to raise/lower the mound, outlaw spit-balls, outlaw performance enhancing drugs, etc. You can't compare Hernandez to Daubert...heck, you can't compare any firstbaseman today with anyone in the 90's or early 2000's due to steroids. Players in the 60's and 70's were given "greenies" by the handsfull, and who knows what the olden-day players took.
Anyway, I don't believe it waters down the hall to put players in that were dominate at their position during any one era.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by mr2686

i must agree that hof arguments are a lot of fun...and frustrating all at the same time.
Let's face it, there are multiple camps on the subject:
1. Sheer numbers that the player puts up...this can work for or against (if the player sticks around too long to gain a magic number, it's points against him).
2. Dominant player at his position for an era
3. Numbers he put up in a shortened career (what he would have done).
4. He's better than player x already in the hall.

I haven't seen too many people that veered from their opinion on what the hof criteria should be...and maybe that's why the hof veterans committee has tinkered so much with how the voting process is and who votes. It's the only way that any of these more modern players would ever vote for older players (and for that matter, not many management hof'ers would vote for labor leaders like marvin miller, which is what the problem is right now).
At 50, i'm not going to be able to convince someone 35 and younger that there are certain players i watched in the late 60's or early-mid 70's that were dominate at their position and deserve to get in to the hall. They would just look at the overall numbers or go to a bill james reference to prove i'm wrong. The overall problem is that everyone buys in to the baseball myth that you can compare players from the past and present, but lets face it, the only thing the same is the distance between the mound and the plate, and the distance between the bases. Rules have been tweaked to raise/lower the mound, outlaw spit-balls, outlaw performance enhancing drugs, etc. You can't compare hernandez to daubert...heck, you can't compare any firstbaseman today with anyone in the 90's or early 2000's due to steroids. Players in the 60's and 70's were given "greenies" by the handsfull, and who knows what the olden-day players took.
Anyway, i don't believe it waters down the hall to put players in that were dominate at their position during any one era.

Very good points Mike!
+1

[sayhey24]

Mike you absolutely can compare players from different eras, you just can't do it in the simplistic way that many people would like to. You can't compare their numbers against each other, but you can compare them to how they ranked with the rest of the league in their own time.

What I mean by that is that still using Jake Daubert as our example, he was very similar to other very good first basemen of his era, but he wasn't head and shoulders above them. He was a very good hitter for average, but his RBI totals were abysmal for a first baseman of any era. In his time, he was pretty much the same that Mark Grace, Will Clark and Norm Cash were in their time -- a top notch first baseman. But my question is this -- are those three men that I mentioned Hall of Fame material? Because their careers are still fresh in our minds, we can go beyond the statistics to make a judgment on them. If they are HOFers, then absolutely so is Jake Daubert.

It's become pretty clear now that HOF standards are stricter than they once were. Gil Hodges, Dave Parker, Tony Oliva and Dale Murphy (to name just a few) were much more dominant hitters in their time than Daubert was, and they can't get into the Hall (with the exception of Hodges, they can't even get close).

By the way, Dale Murphy to me has always been a huge HOF mystery. Talk about your dominant players -- he was a superstar, with back to back MVPs ( I think), and lots of amazing statistics. On top of that, he might be the best role model of any player in recent memory, yet he gets virtually no consideration. I'm not saying he definitely deserves to be in, but why is he given the cold shoulder?

Greg

[Hot Springs Bathers]

An easy comparison can be made with one of his peers, Frank Chance.

Daubert 2014 games played
Chance 1288 games played

Daubert .303 BA
Chance .288 BA

Daubert .988 Fielding Average
Chance .983 Fielding Average

Daubert 722 RBIs
Chance 596 RBIs

For most of his career Daubert played for a weaker team though the Dodgers and Reds had their deadball moments. Ah, what a poem can do for you!

In Chance's defense, he was considered by his peers, the press and the public as a real leader thus his nickname "The Peerless Leader." In Daubert's defense he played in Brooklyn a poor sister to the NL Giants and then Cincy on the western frontier so his press coverage may have lacked a bit compared to Chicago? Both were far superior players to either Tinker or Evers. Evers gets lots of credit for being a "hard competitor & brainy" but his numbers are weak.

[sayhey24]

You sure are right about the poem.

For Frank Chance, it was obviously in large part about intangibles (probably the biggest one being that darn poem). Leadership must have a played a big role, and certainly leadership should be one quality to be considered when deciding on a Hall of Famer.

The one comparison you didn't make between Chance and Daubert is how they were viewed by the baseball writers who voted on them just 13-15 years after Daubert's career ended.
These are the three years they appeared on the BBWAA ballot together:

1937
Chance 24.4 %
Daubert 1.0 %

1938
Chance 50.8 %
Daubert 0.4 %

1939
Chance 57.7 %
Daubert 0.4 %

Greg

[mr2686]

Sometimes I feel like Baseball writers should be the last people that should have a vote. I mean, how could 23 writers not put Willie Mays on their ballot...you gonna tell me that they all thought he wasn't a first ballot hall of famer)? How about Aaron...9 writers left him off the ballot. I'm honestly surprised that Steve Carlton didn't have to wait to get voted in by the veterans committee. This mystical first ballot hof'er vs a regular hof'er is a bunch of bunk in my book.

[esd10]

Well you cant compare steve carlton to walter johnson or greg maddux to christy mathewson you can speculate as much as you want but we dont know how they would have done in different era's. The reason daubert isnt in the hof when he was fresh in the minds of the voters is he headed the labor movement in baseball and they hated him for it.

[wpeters]

I think that for the most part the writers have done an excellent job in electing players. It is the Veterans Committee that has muddied up the works. Almost every player you think does not belong in the Hall is a Veterans Committee pick.

I must agree that the notion of a first ballot Hall of Famer is silly. A player either is or is not a HOFer no matter when he is elected and no greater honor should be conferred to a first ballot HOFer.

That being said, I would like to see a system where a player is voted on once and that is all. Either he makes it or he doesn't. Of course, that would kill the candidate pool pretty quickly and you would end up having one big class and years of no inductions. So I know that plan will never see the light of day, but a 15 year voting period seems like too long. Sometimes it comes down to who is on the ballot that is the main determining factor on who is elected. A player should not be enshrined just because he is the best player on the ballot.

[rhettyeakley]

I don't think the Chance/Daubert comparison is a great one b/c I think Frank Chance gets quite a bit of HOF credit for his Managerial skills as well--so comparing their statistics isn't going to get you very far. Chance is a valid HOFer but not just based on his stats so there are other players that would probably be a more appropriate comparison.

I think it is interesting that if you do some research on Daubert he was VERY unpopular with the baseball "powers that be" because he was one of the first to try to unionize the players and was the head of the Baseball Players' Fraternity. Ultimately, the players & Daubert were unsuccessful in their efforts at that time but he was a trailblazer and as a result looked at as a troublemaker by the owners and by the writers to a large degree so the voting doesn't really surprise me. In a time when Marvin Miller is getting increased notoriety for his efforts, those that came before him should as well--and Daubert has HOF stats IMO to boot.
-Rhett