McGee for Cooperstown!
« Larkin? | Main | Tony LaRussa »The Willie McGee for the Hall of Fame juggernaut has nowhere to go but up. According to the Hall's press release announcing the Class of 2005:
Other than Boggs, the only player among 12 first-year candidates to qualify to remain on the ballot was outfielder Willie McGee, who was precisely at the 5-percent cutoff point with 26 votes.So, let's start making plans to get out the vote!
No, I've not lost my mind. Like the rest of Cardinal Nation, I think the world of Willie, but I know that his career stats don't justify enshrinement in Cooperstown. But I find it interesting that 26 baseball writers do think that highly of Willie. Is there any way we can find out who a few of those writers were, and get them to put their McGee Hall of Fame case in writing? I think it might make some interesting reading....
Posted by Len at January 5, 2005 08:01 AMI'm curious about a lot of these BBWAA voting members...
It would be nice to have some of these guys explain their cockamamie ballots...
I love Willie, but Hall of Fame? He's not a lifetime .300 hitter, he's got miserable lifetime on-base and slugging percentages, and besides the two batting-title seasons, he had maybe one other season in his career in which he was a significantly better-than-average player. Throw in some decent post-seasons, a few gold gloves, and the stolen bases, and you can say Willie had a nice career. But Hall of Fame? What are these 26 baseball writers thinking/smoking?
Just one more example of how these people should, like 90-year-old drivers, be tested regularly to make sure they're still in control of their faculties.
Posted by: salvo at January 5, 2005 04:08 PMsalvo--
Notice that Jim Abbott got over twice as many votes as Darryl Strawberry. By numbers alone, of course Strawberry was closer to a HOF player (not that he is really close) than Abbott. The Straw was an 8-time All Star and a ROY. He had a career SLG of over .500 and his OPS exceeded .900 a few different years. Abbott never had a season with an ERA below 3.80 and lost 18 games one year. But can you imagine two players who were more different, whose lives have taken more radically divergent paths? The same could be said in a comparison of the Straw and Willie, except that Willie's numbers were better than Abbott's. I would guess that the writers who voted for McGee don't actually believe that he belongs in the HOF, but their vote is a statement about what kind of a player was and what kind of a man still is.
Posted by: Jon at January 5, 2005 05:21 PMFWIW, Jon, I think you looked at the wrong column in referencing Abbott's ERA. It was 2.89 in 1991, 2.77 in 1992 and 3.70 in 1995. I'm guessing you were looking at the league average ERA.
By the way, I was at Edison Field the night of his debut in 1989 and still get chills up and down my spine thinking about the ovation he received walking from the bullpen to the mound
Posted by: Steve T. at January 5, 2005 09:34 PMI don't know anything about Abbot, but I'll second Jon's idea that the writers who voted for McGee did it not because they wanted him to make it, but because they didn't want him lumped in with the dozen or so other players that fell off the ballot in their first year of eligibility.
Posted by: John at January 7, 2005 10:59 AMMaybe we can get the Sklar brothers to campaign for Willie the same way they campaigned for Jose Oquendo on that ESPN special.
Posted by: Fitz at January 12, 2005 08:54 AM