HOF

can't believe no one has brought this up. Sadly, Gossage was the only one to get in the Hall this year.

Glaring ommissions, as in other years are Rice, Blyleven and Morris.

Until Bonds came along, there no more feared hitter in the game than Rice. Just ask Gossage. To quote him "NO batter scared, but Rice came damn close." When I was a kid, I wanted to see Rice hit. Not Schmidt, not Brett, not even local hero Rod Carew.

If Blyleven doesn't get in, you to go down 18th position (Mickey Lolich) on all-time K list to find a pitcher that isn't in HOF or will eventually get in. Schilling is iffy, but he's a media darling and will get in on that. No way you leave off the #5 all-time K pitcher, who also happenend to have the nasty curve ball ever. They called him Captain Hook for a reason. In almost every SABRmetric measure, he ranks in the top 25 pitchers of all-time. So how do you leave this guy off the ballot? His '73 season is ranked as on of the top 10 of all-time.

Morris was simply the most dominant pitcher of his time and pitched the most memorable WS game whose name wasn't Larsen. During his career, he won 41 more games than any pitcher and even if you go 3 years to either side of the start or end of his career, no has as many wins.

Tim Raines also belongs. Simply put, the greatest lead off hitter whose name isn't Henderson. He gets punished for having spent his best years in Montreal and having played at the same time as Henderson. How you can keep 808 SBs and the highest lifetime SB average out of the HOF is beyond me.

Jay

sorry jay i'm of the opinion rice shouldn't be in the hall...was he even better than his teammate darrel evans during his career? rice also dh'ed quite a bit while evans played a very good outfield.

morris...definitely not. one game doesn't get you into the hall, i know u/lee are minnesota guys but morris was good in some post season games but also horrible in others. he was not dominant stat-wise...someone said he's a dave steib+publicity+1 ws game...that about sums it up.

Evans never had 400 total bases in a seasons, 40 HRs and was rarely considered in MVP voting. Let's be honest, if the game was on the line, who would you rather have at bat, Rice or Evans? Evans didn't strike fear into the heart of any pitcher during his playing days.

Morris was not Steib+. Steib didn't not have the extended success that Morris did. Being homer has nothing to do with thinking he belongs in the Hall. I hated bastard when he was in Detroit because you knew when he was pitching, your chances of winning were slim. Compare him to his contemporaries and you will not find anyone with numbers that are better. He was the best pitcher of his era, and for me, that's what makes a player a HOFer.

Jay

Rice is barely a .500 slugger.
They were doing that during the deadball era, heck, Delahanty, Brouthers, and maybe others were doing that in the 1800s.

And Raines a leadoff hitter?
With less than .400 on base percentage?
What is a leadoff hitters job if other than to get on base?

Gil, you are absolutely right. Killebrew and Canseco were miserable sluggers by your standards. Rice is still in top 100 all-time for slugging %. MLB has been around 133 years now and that means that there hasn't been one player per year that could slug better than Rice and many that are ahead of him are players from the past 20 years i.e. the steroid era. Among contemporaries, only Schmidt and Stargell have a better slugging %.

Look at Raines contemporaries, only Gwynn, Henderson and Boggs had better OBAs. Most of the players that are ahead of Raines AND Henderson (a meager .401 OBA) are sluggers who get walked because pitchers wouldn't pitch to them.

Comparing the OBA of a leadoff hitter to a slugger is apples and oranges. But I guess you like comapring the offensive production of old-time SS to OF and 1B. Yeah, great comparisons.

Jay