Johnny Damon hits his 500th double

Johnny Damon hits his 500th double

Only ten other players have done that, and they are all in the Hall of Fame.

I don't see Damon as a Hall of Famer. I see him on the same level as Vada Pinson, Norm Cash or Fred Lynn, terrific players just below the Hall's norm. Damon has a career WAR (wins above replacement) of 50. Pinson is at 49, Lynn 47, Cash 53.

Among active players, Damon's 50 leaves him quite far behind Carlos Beltran and Bobby Abreu (59 each), and I don't see them as HOFers either.

I see the break point among active players at 66. Everyone above that is a HOFer: A-Rod, Pujols, Chipper, Thome, Jeter, Pudge and Manny. The guys below that don't seem like they belong, possibly excepting Vlad Guerrero.

One guy is right on the line: Scott Rolen, who will also reach 500 doubles soon (495 now). I don't think of him as a HOFer because he only placed in the top ten in the MVP balloting once in his career, and he has no black ink at all (he's never led the league in any offensive category). The "similarity scores" say that the most similar players to Rolen are Fred Lynn and Reggie Smith, two good outfielders who are not in.

But I may be wrong.

Rolen is a third baseman, and his career WAR is greater than Home Run Baker's. Baker was probably the greatest third baseman of all time before Ed Mathews came along. Rolen is also above some bona fide Hall of Famers who played other positions: Yogi Berra, Al Simmons, and Goose Goslin. One thing seems clear: Rolen has exactly the same career WAR value as Ron Santo, and they are also virtually tied in career OPS+. They also played the same position, and played it well. Rolen has 8 Gold Gloves to Santo's 5. If Santo is a HOFer, so is Rolen. Santo has been debated for years, so I guess that leaves Rolen in the exact same grey area.

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Reader comment:

Eddie Mathews was most certainly usurped by Michael Jack Schmidt:

12 time All Star

10 Gold Gloves

8 NL HR titles

3 NL MVPs

1 World Series MVP

1st Ballot HOF

Rolen oddly was supposed to be the next Schmidt ... but it never happened outside of the glove work ... maybe some day the veterans committee will pity him in to the Hall.

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Scoop's note:

I agree. Schmidt is clearly #1 of all time now. Baker probably #1 was until Mathews came along. Mathews was probably #1 until Schmidt came along. I don't know whether I would even rank Mathews #2 now. I don't even know if I can pick Mathews as #1 among the Braves' third basemen!

The game has changed since WW2 in that many third basemen now swing a mean stick, so Mathews has lots of competition from strong hitters. There's Brett, Boggs, A-Rod, and Chipper now in the mix for the #2 spot. But Schmidt would definitely be my #1. I reckon he's one of the 20 best players in history. (A-Rod might be as well, but played most of his career at shortstop, where he will rise no higher than #2.)

On the numbers alone, this would be the all-time team:

RF Ruth

LF Bonds (Yes, I know, hold your nose. Personally, I would take Musial, assuming Williams would DH for my team. But Bonds does have the numbers.)

CF Mays

1B Gehrig

2B

3B Schmidt

SS Wagner

C

DH Williams

There is no clear champion at second base. Four guys are just about even: Eddie Collins, Nap Lajoie, Joe Morgan, and Rogers Hornsby. You would not lose anything by taking any one of them over the others. They are all among the top 20 of all time. Hornsby would probably be the most common choice because the offensive numbers in the 1920s and 30s are so eye-catching.

There is a clear winner at catcher, but he never played in the majors. Josh Gibson died of a stroke in 1947, three months before Jackie Robinson became the first black player in modern major league history. Gibson's lifetime batting average in the Negro Leagues has to be estimated, but the lowest estimate is .351, and he batted .375 against major league pitchers. And, as you probably know, he hit somewhere around a zillion homers. He hit a home run at Yankee Stadium that struck two feet from the top of the wall circling the center field bleachers, about 580 feet from home plate, and slugged one over the third deck next to the left field bullpen in 1934 for the only fair ball ever hit out of Yankee Stadium.

Excepting Gibson, Johnny Bench is the most common selection, and that's a good choice, but he's just the first among equals. He's not clearly better than Pudge or Yogi or Cochrane or ...