Regular HHS contributor “no statistician but” (or nsb) continues his series examining where the Hall of Fame cutoff line really lies with his look at marginal Hall of Famers. In Part 3, nsb takes a look at the middle and left side of the infield, and 13 selected Hall of Fame inductees at those positions who are outside of the Hall of Stats. More after the jump
Where do you draw the line? I mean, YOU.
The next players for consideration among those forty-eight cited in earlier posts—who belong to no outlying group and appear in the Hall of Fame but not the Hall of Stats— are in a certain respect central to the issue of evaluation, and to my mind they present a much greater challenge for the evaluator than do catchers and first basemen.
These players man the other three other infield positions, in other words, and many of them have light bats and heavy gloves. As in the last post, I’m providing for comparison each player’s Hall of Stats rating followed by his career plate appearances, OPS+, WAR, and dWAR. In addition, I’ve appended as a “Small Hall” reference the name of and figures for the player at each position ranked sixth by JAWS.
Second Basemen
- Johnny Evers 88—7220 PA; 106 OPS+; 47.7 WAR; 15.4 dWAR
- Tony Lazzeri 88—7315 PA; 121 OPS+; 50.0 WAR; 5.2 dWAR
- Billy Herman 99—8636 PA; 112 OPS+; 54.8 WAR; 12.4 dWAR (WW II: 2 years)
- Bobby Doerr 98—8028 PA; 115 OPS+; 51.2 WAR; 13.4 dWAR (WWII: 1 Year)
- Red Schoendienst 66—8479 PA; 94 OPS+; 42.3 WAR 15.2 dWAR
- Nellie Fox 90—10351 PA; 93 OPS+; 49.0 WAR; 21.0 dWAR
- Bill Mazeroski 53—8379 PA; 84 OPS+; 36.5 WAR; 24.0 dWA
JAWS 6th: Rod Carew 158—10550 PA; 131 OPS+; 81.3 WAR; -1.7 dWAR
Third Baseman
- Pie Traynor 60—8297 PA; 107 OPS+; 36.3 WAR; 2.1 dWAR
- George Kell 66—7359 PA; 112OPS+; 37.4 WAR 1.6 dWAR
JAWS 6th: Chipper Jones170—10614 PA;141 OPS+; 85.2 WAR; -0.9 dWAR
Shortstops
- Rabbit Maranville 73—11255 PA; 82 OPS+; 42.9 WAR; 30.8 dWAR
- Joe Sewell 92—8333 PA; 108 OPS+; 53.7 WAR; 9.1 dWAR
- Phil Rizzuto 77—6719 PA; 93 OPS+; 40.8 WAR; 22.9 dWAR (WWII: 3 years)
- Luis Aparicio 94—11230 PA; 82 OPS+; 55.8 WAR; 31.8 dWAR
JAWS 6th: Arky Vaughan 151—7722 PA; 136 OPS+; 72.9 WAR; 12.0 dWAR
The challenge, as before, is to argue for (or against) the presence in the Hall of Fame of any or all of the thirteen players listed here with a HOS rating of below 100. One argument is disqualified: Saying that Richard Roe doesn’t belong because John Doe, who was better, has been passed over for inclusion fails on every count to meet the terms of the challenge. The merits or demerits of the listed players, comparisons to other HOFers, the use of more detailed statistics, historical and biographical information—these and similar bases for argumentation are all welcome. Later on I’ll weigh in with some observations about what I think might be at issue regarding some of the players.
