Thursday, February 10, 2011
Hall of Fame Candidate: Peter Belinda
Peter Belinda's whole career is accounted for. Like Lawton we do not have to use our imagination. Belinda is comparable to Lawton is a few ways, but almost a poor man's Sherman Lawton. No Allstar appearances, instead of catcher as a secondary position his secondary position is 2b, where he was prett good. His last season in the majors was still very productive. Why did he retire? He could have stuck around and added a few more homers to his 633 total but probably not enough to get to the 700 that Sherman has. 2158 hits is just a few less than Lawton and his .914 ops is a shade lower than Lawton. I look over the stats and he almost reminds me of Carlos Delgado (who incidently came up as a catcher but played mostly as a 1b) if I go with that comparison I may consider the closest comparison to Lawton to be Rafael Palmeiro...without the black cloud and a better secondary position.
Hall of Fame Candidate: Sherman Lawton
Sherman Lawton has 701 home runs. That puts him at #6 all time. His whole major league is accounted for so there is no need for an imagination. Of those 701 home runs he only hit 82 during seasons 1 and 2. The 35 during season 2 were his lowest single season total until season 14 when he was no longer a full time player. His hit total is fairly low at 2244.
Unlike the argument against Benito Romero and Luis Johnson, Lawton played the majority of his career in pitcher friendly LA. His overall career OPS is .959. This includes roughly a seasons worth of stats (accumulated over 3 seasons) during which he had an ops under .800.
So why has he gotten so little support so far? Last season, his first season on the ballot, he got no votes. Is it the anti-1b bias? About 2/3 of his career games were played at 1b. About another 1/3 of his games were spent playing catcher, where he had an catchers era of 4.09, but that is Los Angeles with Donnie Brown and Luis Johnson among others. He did throw out just under 19% of potential base stealers. How did he make only one all-star game? Ask Marc Christman.
So who is he comparable to? I could not think of anyone. There is no one who played so much catcher in his career and hit so many home runs. To me he is one of a kind and there were few players I feared playing against as much as him.
Unlike the argument against Benito Romero and Luis Johnson, Lawton played the majority of his career in pitcher friendly LA. His overall career OPS is .959. This includes roughly a seasons worth of stats (accumulated over 3 seasons) during which he had an ops under .800.
So why has he gotten so little support so far? Last season, his first season on the ballot, he got no votes. Is it the anti-1b bias? About 2/3 of his career games were played at 1b. About another 1/3 of his games were spent playing catcher, where he had an catchers era of 4.09, but that is Los Angeles with Donnie Brown and Luis Johnson among others. He did throw out just under 19% of potential base stealers. How did he make only one all-star game? Ask Marc Christman.
So who is he comparable to? I could not think of anyone. There is no one who played so much catcher in his career and hit so many home runs. To me he is one of a kind and there were few players I feared playing against as much as him.
Hall of Fame Candidate: Luis Johnson
Luis Johnson's candidacy is less clear cut than Hawk Walker.
He has more career wins than Walker, at 196 but he also has 105 losses. For his career he had a 1.19 era but 10 of his seasons came pitching in pitcher friendly parks in LA and SD. He has over 2000 career strikeouts but doesn't rank in the top 5 for career K's. While Hawk could argue half a career of uncollected stats Johnson only has 4 missing seasons. 7 trips to the DL hurt his overall numbers. 6 all star appearances, 5 coming consecutively show an extended period of dominance (in LA and SD). There is also one cy young and one World Series title.
To try and make sense of his candidacy I tried to find a career comparison. I settled on Kevin Brown. I then asked myself, does Kevin Brown belong in the hall of fame?
He has more career wins than Walker, at 196 but he also has 105 losses. For his career he had a 1.19 era but 10 of his seasons came pitching in pitcher friendly parks in LA and SD. He has over 2000 career strikeouts but doesn't rank in the top 5 for career K's. While Hawk could argue half a career of uncollected stats Johnson only has 4 missing seasons. 7 trips to the DL hurt his overall numbers. 6 all star appearances, 5 coming consecutively show an extended period of dominance (in LA and SD). There is also one cy young and one World Series title.
To try and make sense of his candidacy I tried to find a career comparison. I settled on Kevin Brown. I then asked myself, does Kevin Brown belong in the hall of fame?
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Hall of Fame Candidate: Hawk Walker
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Hawk Walker the name is legendary. He was a ground breaker, scoring the first $20million max contract. He won the first world series in HBD history. He won Cy Young in the AL during the first 2 seasons of Ruth World, during the "Steroids" Era. 131 wins in 11 recorded seasons, retiring at 42.A .236 career oav, .298 obp, .367 slg. A career WHIP of 1.20 and 3.40 ERA. These numbers over 11 HBD seasons also include 3 final seasons where he pitched a total of 176.1 ip and had 5 wins, mostly pitching out of the pen. In his career from age 31-39 he won 126 games, an average of 14 wins a season, while only losing under 5 games per season. You can only imagine what the numbers would look like if he had stats for the 7 seasons he pitched in the majors before HBD was created.
So why hasn't he made it? Only 1600 career IP, Only 131 career wins. He is a victim of mid-career creation. Last season he had 14 votes, is this the season?
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