You're allowed to remove ONE player from the Baseball HOF...who is it and why?

[FirstTimer]

Let's hear it

[Warner2BruceTD]

Only one?

Off the top of my head...

Rick Ferrell
Johnny Evers
Joe Tinker

[EmpireWF]

Forget player, get Charles Comiskey out of there.

[Senser81]

Lets say it has to be a somewhat recently inducted player....I don't want to hear about Johnny Evers VORP rating. Too many pre-1950 players were terrible selections and have no business being in the HOF.

I wasn't really big on the Jim Rice induction...he was a great player, but so many other non-HOF players have similar resumes.

[FedEx227]

I'll have to look deeper at it but from first thought it would be Jim Rice. He more than any player in recent memory opened up the floodgates to allow a lot of fringe, and pseudo Hall of Very Gooders to have real arguments they should be in the Hall.

As Senser said, I can't be too upset some old timers are in there. People were stupid and they voted on little to no, or at the very least very biased parameters. You could eliminate about half the Hall of Fame if you went statistical on everyone that got in before the 90s.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Right, but Evers & Tinker got in thanks to a fucking poem.

I agree with Rice. At lease Andre Dawson was a great 5-tool player for a 5 or 6 year stretch before his knees failed him. Then, he was basically Jim Rice. Rice never had the elite run, he was just always a pretty good power hitter who was good for nothing else. Even when he couldn't run of field, Dawson still had that great arm, too.

[FedEx227]

I think my favorite aspect of the whole mythology of those guys is that they could not stand one another. I think Evers and Tinker didn't talk for 20 years or something (including while they were playing together).

[Slateman]

Pee Wee Reese

I know he has the mystique of sticking up for Jackie Robinson. I know he was a slick fielder. I know he was a good announcer. And I know he did three years in the military so that affects his stats.

But the numbers just don't match HoF credentials. Career .269 hitter with no power. Even if you give him three extra seasons of his best years hitting, he's still well short of 3000 hits.

And while we're on the subject of shortstops, how in the fuck did Phil Rizzuto make it in?

[Warner2BruceTD]

Pee Wee Reese

I know he has the mystique of sticking up for Jackie Robinson. I know he was a slick fielder. I know he was a good announcer. And I know he did three years in the military so that affects his stats.

But the numbers just don't match HoF credentials. Career .269 hitter with no power. Even if you give him three extra seasons of his best years hitting, he's still well short of 3000 hits.

And while we're on the subject of shortstops, how in the fuck did Phil Rizzuto make it in?

Not saying I disagree, but 66 WAR is not too shabby for a SS (Reese). Rizzuto won an MVP, and played for the Yankees during the golden era of Yankees baseball, but still never cracked 30% of the vote. The veteran's committee put him in a few years before he died, one of those "parting gifts" so to speak.

It's a shame, because both were really good players, but will be beaten up for eternity because they don't really belong in the Hall of Fame.

[Philly Diehard]

Surprised Bill Mazeroski's name wasn't mentioned yet. There is literally no chance he's in the HOF if it isn't for this:

.260/.299/.367 split, 138 homers, 2016 hits, 31 career WAR (Only three seasons of posting a WAR over 2.9). Sure he was a terrific defender but so what. He had a good, not even great career. And great shouldn't get you in the HOF either. He was never dominant for any stretch of time, ever.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Mazeroski is an interesting one, because both the eyeball test from the people who saw him and all of the metrics say that he was the greatest defensive 2B of all time. Throw in the iconic HR, and does that warrant a spot?

We also have to remember, that while we all pick on these middle infielders, historically pre 1970 or so they were asked to play the game differently than we ask them to play it now. They were defense first positions where any offense you got was viewed as a bonus. MOst were asked to bunt, slap the ball the other way, and not strike out. So while guys like Reese & Rizzuto look mediocre offensively with 2013 eyes, guys like that who brought something to the table offensively were very valuable. That's why Reese accumulated 60 WAR with those numbers, and Rizzuto was winning MVP's.

So by the standards of their competition, you can sorta see why their contemporaries view them as HOF'ers.

[NAHSTE]

Fine with Mazeroski being in. Defense matters.

[FedEx227]

Mazeroski is an interesting one, because both the eyeball test from the people who saw him and all of the metrics say that he was the greatest defensive 2B of all time. Throw in the iconic HR, and does that warrant a spot?

We also have to remember, that while we all pick on these middle infielders, historically pre 1970 or so they were asked to play the game differently than we ask them to play it now. They were defense first positions where any offense you got was viewed as a bonus. MOst were asked to bunt, slap the ball the other way, and not strike out. So while guys like Reese & Rizzuto look mediocre offensively with 2013 eyes, guys like that who brought something to the table offensively were very valuable. That's why Reese accumulated 60 WAR with those numbers, and Rizzuto was winning MVP's.

So by the standards of their competition, you can sorta see why their contemporaries view them as HOF'ers.

I'm okay with Maz going in. He's very similar to Nellie Fox in that vein. Couldn't hit a lick when we look at it with 2013 eyes, but those guys weren't told to hit. They were there to play great defense, slap some singles, steal a few bases and play ++ defense... which they did. Throw in some MVP awards, a bunch of top 10 MVP finishes and yeah, you have a HOFer even with a career 93 OPS+ (Fox's case).

To me, that's one of the biggest things you have to look at with players of past eras, how were they viewed? It's easier with our eyes to say "THIS GUY ONLY HIT SINGLES~!" but if he was getting substantial MVP votes year in and year out, he was probably doing what he was told and was probably a pretty damn good player.

It's what makes the Jack Morris case so baffling. HE WAS A GREAT PLAYER IN THE ERA!! Okay, well then why could the writers/voters of the time not be bothered to give him a decent amount of Cy Young votes if he was such a huge part of the era. Guys like Maz and Fox got those votes all the time, constantly. Even if their raw numbers don't stack up with what we'd assume a HOFer is, I have no doubt they both deserve it.

[Senser81]

To me, that's one of the biggest things you have to look at with players of past eras, how were they viewed? It's easier with our eyes to say "THIS GUY ONLY HIT SINGLES~!" but if he was getting substantial MVP votes year in and year out, he was probably doing what he was told and was probably a pretty damn good player.

I see the same thing in football...they look at some stats and say "he never had a 1000 yard season" or "his QB rating was 70.5", not understanding the context of those stats or, more importantly, how they were perceived by their peers at the time. Had a long debate with some schmuck on FootballOutsiders (Mike Tanier) about Paul Warfield and Lynn Swann...yeah, they might not have great stats, but their contemporaries always thought they were the best at their position, so that has to count for something, right?

Baseball is, in a way, even worse because the SABR guys have no problem "refuting" how a player was perceived when he played, and at the same time telling us that guys like Bobby Abreu and Rick Reuschel were actually HOFers even though no one knew it at the time.

[FedEx227]

Well with regards to Abreu, we have way more information now than they did in 1950. I can excuse Nellie Fox getting MVP votes and eventually entrance into the HOF because grizzly old writers in a smoky press box liked his hustle.

Today? That shit shouldn't fly. Someone like Abreu (who isn't necessarily a no doubter) should get much more thought even if he wasn't in MVP races throughout his career. We have way more tools at our disposal and way more ways to watch players and look back at their career than they did before.