Is Jeff Kent a Hall of Famer?

[Villain]

IIRC he'll be on the ballot for the first time next year.

[Warner2BruceTD]

This is one I struggle with.

I watched Kent his entire career, from his early days kicking the ball around the IF with the Mets and onward, and never did I feel like I was watching a Hall of Fame player.

He's Chase Utley with better longevity and no glove.

I say no.

[Loco]

If Kent put up these numbers in any other era I think he'd be recognized a lot better, in his own era he sorta gets lost in the shuffle. 377 homers isn't a lot these days and his career was so long it would be almost more amazing if he had fewer than 300 homers, in that span.

Whats gonna hurt him most is he has neither 400 HR, a .300 AVG or 3k hits yet he played for 17 years. And it's not like he hurt his overall numbers by playing into his 40's, he was pretty decent with the Dodgers, he only hit .300 three times in his career.




Sometimes guys hand on 3-4 years too long and lower there AVG or OBP from .300 to 2.98 and people will still recognize them as a .300 hitter, thats not the case with Kent he never was a .300 hitter. His career OBP is .356 and he only ever had an OBP of 370+ four times in 17 years. Three of which were his last seasons with the Dodgers.

[FedEx227]

This is a good one. I'll come back later with my thoughts.

[Woy]

His recent appearance on Survivor puts him over the top.

[FedEx227]

That's what I was going to say, so don't wait for my post.

[NAHSTE]

Didn't think he was one as he was playing but he's arguably the best offensive 2B ever, so he kinda has to be, no?

[Warner2BruceTD]

Didn't think he was one as he was playing but he's arguably the best offensive 2B ever, so he kinda has to be, no?

I don't know about that.

Rogers Hornsby, Nap Lajoie, & Joe Morgan were definitely better, Eddie Collins, Charlie Gehringer, Frankie Frisch, Roberto Alomar, Rod Carew, Jackie Robinson, all at least arguable, even though he was probably better than a few and some played other positions for almost half their careers (Carew, Robinson).

Plus his defense does him zero favors, as he moved from 2B but couldn't hack it at 3B, so he moved back to 2B which was an odd career path. He was traded several times early in his career based on the idea that teams thought his defense was so bad that they couldn't hide him anywhere, even though they knew he could hit.

He's a weird player to evaluate.

[FedEx227]

I've been so busy this morning haven't had time to gather all the info but I think he's a no.

[Goober]

Kent is a no for me. While the longevity is impressive, there's only a couple of years in his career where he was truly elite. Combine that with bad defense, and power numbers that aren't as impressive when brought into the context of the era he played in, I can't give him a vote.

[ssags11]

Kent was probably a clean player so I think he is borderline and might just make it in.

[Senser81]

A great hitting player being kept out of the Baseball HOF due to bad defense? Would that be a first in history?