Other Crap

33 Men (and one Woman) Out: The All-Time Worst Hall of Famers

Notes:

He's absolutely wrong about Frank Chance, who is a top-notch hall of famer. Essentially, only two men can lay claim to having been the best hitter on the greatest team of all time, Frank Chance and Babe Ruth (or Lou Gehrig - Ruth and Gehrig were about even in 1927, with possibly a slight edge to Gehrig). But Frank Chance was also the manager of that great team! His lifetime winning percentage as a manager was .593, third best of all time among guys in the 20th century, and that included four pennants and two World Series titles in only 11 years.

Deadball hitting stats are difficult for laymen to interpret, but in terms of run production versus the competition, Chance's lifetime adjusted OPS as a hitter was 135, and he was over 150 four years in a row. That makes him about as good a hitter as Bill Terry, Ken Griffey, Ducky Medwick or Al Kaline while he was also one of the best managers in history. Oh, yeah, and that year he managed a team that won 116 games with only 36 losses? He also led the league in stolen bases and runs scored that year. The year before he led the league in OBP. That sounds like a Hall of Famer to me. In fact, given that he was arguably as good a hitter as Bill Terry and as good a manager as John McGraw, and also stole 400 bases in his spare time, I'd say he's at least two hall of famers.

Regarding the other two guys in Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, well, the author is certainly right about Joe Tinker, who was nothing more than an solid, average player in his time. The case for Johnny Evers is more complicated. His offensive numbers were unimpressive, but he was considered a great player by his contemporaries, who voted him the MVP award in 1914 when he batted .279 with one homer and was past his prime. Among the second basemen he was probably as good a player as Mazeroski, who is in the Hall, although that does not necessarily mean Evers should be in. I would not have voted for either.

There are other names missing from the litany of the undeserving. I've mentioned Sunny Jim Bottomley many times. He had five good (but not spectacular) offensive years for a team in its glory years, but has no other credentials. His credentials are very similar to those of his teammate, Chick Hafey, who is mentioned in the article. Hafey was better than Bottomley per at-bat, but Bottomley was around longer and won an MVP.

And then there's Richie Ashburn, who was one of my favorite players when I was a kid. There's no doubt he was a solid citizen, but nobody ever thought of him as a Hall of Famer, or even an all-star. Ashburn only made the all-star team five times in his long career, and the fifth one was only because somebody had to make it from the deplorable 1962 Mets in order to fullfill the requirements. Ashburn was then an elderly part-timer, but was the best they had! (He retired after that year.) He never finished in the top five in the MVP balloting, and I don't think he was ever considered among the top three center fielders in baseball! A guy who wasn't considered an all-star in his own time is probably not a hall of famer. To put that in perspective, Fred Lynn was a nine-time all-star and twice finished in the top five in the MVP balloting, including a first. And Lynn got no serious Hall consideration.

The "most similar" player to Ashburn is Brett Butler, and I don't see him listed high on the Hall's priority list. Of the ten players most similar to Ashburn, only two are in the Hall, and neither of those two should be. (That would be Lloyd Waner and Harry Hooper, who are mentioned in the linked article).