Bill James' New Hall of Fame Endorsement

OK, you have probably guessed who Bill James added to his “Players I’m willing to endorse for the Hall of Fame” list – a club that is slightly more exclusive than Augusta National (funny, there are no women on his list either. Where’s Martha?). But just in case you haven’t guessed … I’m going to stretch this out. And no fair scrolling down.

(If you just scrolled down, you must go to Amazon and buy a book. Go on. See, I’m getting better at this self-promotional stuff).

You should know a couple of things about being friends with Bill. First, he loves to disagree. You probably knew that already. I could send him an email that says something seemingly obvious like: “You know, I don’t think Frank Duffy is a Hall of Fame candidate,” and he would send me 248 reasons why Frank Duffy is a logical Hall of Fame choice (“In addition to finishing fourth in the AL in sacrifice hits in 1974 …”). And I would start to think: “Hey, he makes good points about Frank Duffy.” Bill seems to do this just to mess with me. And because Bill is 4,383,583 times smarter than I am, I fall for this every time.

(Of course, in the previous scenario, I would be the one pushing Frank Duffy’s Hall of Fame candidacy. I loved Frank Duffy).

Second: Bill is not easy to figure out. He has never had a Hall of Fame vote (which is utterly ridiculous), but he often says that if he did have a vote he would be for a big Hall of Fame. He has told me he would try to fill out his 10-player ballot every year. He has told me that on this year’s ballot he definitely would have voted for Cal and Gwynn, he probably would have voted for Lee Smith, Bert Blyleven, Alan Trammell, Goose Gossage and he possibly would have voted for Dale Murphy, Andre Dawson, Tommy John and Jack Morris. Yes, Jack Morris. We have been going round and round over that guy for a while. It is possible Bill is, again, messing with me.

But see, that’s only if Bill was a voter. He isn’t. And Bill James, non-voter, is much stingier. He probably receives more, “This guy should be in the Hall of Fame” letters than anyone. But until the last couple of days he only threw his support behind two overlooked candidates:

1. Ron Santo.

Man, I couldn’t agree more. Santo is the most obvious everyday player not in the Hall of Fame (with the exception of banned-list brothers Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe). It’s really inexplicable that Santo is not in already. He has very good career numbers for a third baseman – his 342 homers and 1331 RBIs stand out. In his best 11-year span – 1963 to 1973 – he made nine All-Star Games, won five Gold Gloves, averaged .286, 26, 98 (in a low-scoring era), walked 82 times a year (and led the league in walks four times) and played every day (he famously played 164 games in 1965, and he secretly was battling diabetes). That's a nice peak.

Bill’s biggest reason for supporting Santo is that he’s probably better than half the third basemen already in the Hall of Fame. And there are only 13 third basemen in the Hall. Three of the 13 were Negro Leaguers – Judy Johnson, Ray Dandridge and Boojum Wilson. Since this is a site dedicated to Buck, I'll pass his along mini scouting report on those three. Buck compared Johnson to Scott Rolen -- tough, smart, hard-nosed player who did a lot of things well. He said that Dandridge was a defensive wizard who could play third with any of the defensive greats -- Brooks Robinson, Craig Nettles, Billy Cox, the Boyer brothers, etc. And Buck said that Boojum was a legendary hothead who could really “hit that ball.” It would be tough to compare Santo to any of them.

So, leaving them out, Bill ranks Santo behind Mike Schmidt, George Brett, Eddie Matthews, Wade Boggs and Home Run Baker, and ahead of Jimmy Collins, George Kell, Fred Lindstrom, Brooks Robinson and Pie Traynor. That rating would put him right in the middle of the all-time greats. You would hope that on Feb. 27, when the veterans committee makes its announcement, Santo will finally get his due.

2. Minnie Minoso.

His Hall of Fame case takes just a little bit of an introduction. Minoso played in the Negro Leagues from 1945-48 (he made two East-West All-Star Teams as a third baseman). So he was already an accomplished player when he signed with the Cleveland Indians after the 1948 season. Most sources say he was born in 1922, which means he was 26 when he signed with Cleveland (Minoso in his autobiography says he was born in 1925 – and the good people at Baseball Prospectus go with that year. Most still hold on to 1922).

Anyway, by most accounts Minoso was already 28 when he was a rookie for the Chicago White Sox. And for the next 12 years, he was terrific – Bill wrote that Minoso had the best career for any corner outfielder after the age of 28 (he wrote that a few years ago; I would imagine Barry Bonds may have surpassed him). In Bill’s Historical Abstract, he lists the twenty players with the most Win Shares between ages 30 and 39. Minoso ranked 16th, two behind Frank Robinson and three ahead of Willie Stargell. All but two of the 20 are in the Hall of Fame: Minnie Minoso and Pete Rose. Putting the whole career together, Minoso should be in the Hall of Fame. But Hall voters seem to have some trouble looking at entire baseball careers spanning different roles and leagues. (see: O'Neil, Buck; Hodges, Gil; Martin, Billy, etc.).

OK, so those were the only two players Bill was willing to throw his weight behind. But I’d been working on Bill a bit, nagging him, frustrating him, etc. The bottom line is, Bill has added a third to the endorsement list, and I’m proud to say that third player is (drum roll please, I’m so excited):

3. Bert Blyleven.

Yes, Bill’s now officially on the Blyleven Bandwagon. This will cheer up my good friend Rich Lederer (for the latest excellent entry in his Robert Caro-length series on Blyleven and the Hall of Fame, you can look here).

Bill’s decision to get behind Blyleven, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with me. Bill is always doing pitching studies. And lately he has noticed that every time he comes up with some new way to ranks pitchers, Blyleven is near the top of the list. For instance, Bill devised what he calls a “useful little stat” called “Pitcher’s Quality Score.” It incorporates won/loss record (with saves), ERA and strikeout/walk ratio. He admits that it isn’t a breakthrough statistic (and it isn't park or era adjusted) but it does helps him quickly place pitchers in some context. And those three categories do say something about pitchers.

Bert Blyleven has the 18th highest Pitcher Quality Score in baseball history. Blyleven’s quality score is higher than, among others, Juan Marichal, Pedro Martinez and Bob Gibson. Among the Top 43, only two eligibles are not in the Hall of Fame – Blyleven and Jim Kaat. And Blyleven is way ahead of Kaat on the list.

“I’ve decided to get off the fence about Blyleven,” Bill wrote.

This only confirms what has been obvious to me since my friend Robert Sadoff told me many years ago to buy Bert Blyleven rookie cards (“He’s going to the Hall of Fame! You’ll see!”). Robert was sort of a baseball card Charles Schwab (though he missed the boat when he strongly encouraged me to buy John Gibbons cards). I don’t have any of those cards now, and I'm not smart enough to develop useful statistics, but it still seems obvious to me that a guy with 287 victories, a guy who ranks 5th all-time in strikeouts and 9th in shutouts, a guy who pitched awfully well in the postseason (give me SOMETHING here, people) deserves his place in the Hall of Fame.

Next entry: Duane Kuiper. Superhero. Or it might be a baseball conversation with the New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro. Or I will reminisce about my old baseball card collection. I’m debating.

Addendum: Well, I wish I could tell you I did it on purpose, but I really didn't. In the paragraph where I talked about how Bill would have voted on this year's Hall of Fame ballot, I completely forgot about Mark McGwire. It's hard to believe considering how much time I have spent the last few months thinking about McGwire's Hall of Fame case, but he simply slipped my mind. Maybe I simply pushed him out of my mind. For the record, I have exchanged numerous emails with Bill regarding McGwire's case. I feel almost 100 percent certain that Bill would have voted for McGwire.