Tony Gwynn won 8 batting titles, 5 Gold Gloves and was a 15 time all star. I know those things do not mean much in the saber world, but they stand out to the sports writers that are doing the voting.
Raines has shiny stand out awards too. He won a batting title, has four stolen base crowns, and was a seven time All-Star. Not quite what Gwynn has, but he wasn't flying under the radar like Dwight Evans was.
I am going to have to disagree with that statement. Gwynn was was voted a starter to his 10th all-star game the year he almost hit .400. He batted over .300 for 19 straight seasons and over .350 for 7 seasons. He is in a different star category than Raines.
Its absolutely the right move to rep the Mariners, but history didn't stop this though:
In fact Gwynn and Raines were very similar players, similar in type as well as in talent and accomplishments. They were both undersized corner outfielders with very good defense, outstanding on-base ability (almost a perfect wash, .385 to .388), little power, great contact skills, and good to elite baserunning. They were nearly exact contemporaries (born within eight months of each other) and had careers almost exactly as long (10,232 PA for Gwynn; 10,359 for Raines). They even both had namesake sons who were similarly bad players (OK, Tim Jr. was worse).
I don't think either will come close. Halliday had a good peak but little longevity, he only started 30+ games in a season 8 times and didn't get to 3000 IP. To get in with such a short career you need a Koufax/Pedro level peak, and Halladay was good but not thaaat good.
That's a little too dismissive of Pettitte, yeah. Morris was an ordinary pitcher who just happened to take the mound for a remarkable number of winning games. Pettitte was certainly better than that. But it's a valid comp in the sense that both guys' HoF cases hinge on longevity, durability and pitching for good teams more than on having been elite talents. Pettitte was rarely one of the top pitchers in his league. He was not usually even the best pitcher on his own team. But he was very good for a long time.
Yeah - maybe not the best phrasing, but I meant the Morris reference more as a way of saying that I think a certain type of voter will be more likely to find Pettitte's case compelling and use a lot of the same "He's a winner! Rings!" arguments in his favor, not to necessarily compare them - although their superficial numbers are pretty similar (obviously context changes things).
I would gladly make a small wager to a charity of your choice that neither of those events occur. Neither of them will see a second ballot.
I'm with you on this. Pettitte is Don Mattingly. He will get his full 10 years on the ballot by staying over 5%, but I doubt he ever gets anywhere near 75%.
Longevity and durability carry much less weight in the PED era. Additionally, Pettitte admitted to using HGH (albeit "just for two days to heal from an injury). However his long association with Clemens and his backpedaling during the Clemens perjury trial don't look particularly good in this context.
I dunno, I'd give it a one-in-three shot that Tek holds on for a year because ringzzz and game-calling and intangible "leadership" and shit.
I have no clue why you are limiting a bWAR ranking to only the 2000s there. What are you trying to show by doing that? If you're classifying those guys as contemporaries to show relative HoF cases - and I'm not sure why you would include Wictor - then show their HoF cases.
Just curious as to how you know that Kendall didn't have a good reputation for game-calling or team leadership?
And the point we are trying to make is that all that reputation and hype and intangible shit is a product of you living in the market in which he played and being exposed to the local media. 99% of the HoF voters that do not reside in Boston don't give a shit about it and aren't influenced by it. Yaz's question was to demonstrate that you wouldn't know that "rep" about a player that moves around a lot or isn't on your team, because it comes from puff pieces that you likely wouldn't read. Ten never got the hype from national media - he got it from local media. And the view of him is slanted because of it. Posada was a far better player than Tek was and it's not really even close.
