Monday, January 12, 2009

Henderson and Rice Inducted to Hall

I don't think anyone is too surprised here, but Rickey Henderson and Jimmy Rice were both inducted to the hall of fame. Personally, I wonder who on our team is Hall of Fame worthy. Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and Alex Rodriguez are all locks in my opinion. My question is will someone like Jorge Posada, be considered hall worthy at the end of his career. In fairness, it will be hard to judge this until we see how he comes back from the surgery, but I wonder how the lack of gold gloves, or other prominent accolades will play out against him. Especially when he played in an era with such slugging catchers as Pudge Rodriguez and Mike Piazza. The other knock against him is that his first few seasons were as a platoon with Girardi, which limited his production. He has 1,379 hits, 221 homeruns, 883 RBI's, a .277 career average and a .380 career OBP. The last three catchers inducted into the hall of fame were Gary Carter (2003), Carlton Fisk (2000), and Johnny Bench (1989). Those three catchers had over 2000 hits, over 350 homeruns, roughly 1300 RBI's, batting averages that ranged from .262 - .269, and an OBP ranging from .335 - .342. Fisk also stole 128 bases, which is pretty incredible for a catcher. Posada would have to play at least 4 more seasons healthily and productively to even come close to those numbers. His average and OBP is better than the hall players I've mentioned, but both of those stats tend to take a huge hit in the later part of catchers careers. Only time well tell whether Posada will be deemed hall worthy, but for now, I just hope he comes back swinging like he is.

5 comments:

Fred Trigger said...

I love Jim Rice, but now that they put him in the HOF I want to hear writers excuses for not voting for Dick Allen, Albert Belle, or even Dwight Evans. All of them were better overall players, I think.

Anonymous said...

Jorge's been a great Yankee, but I don't see him getting in...

Oh, and you forgot to put Joba as a lock for the Hall. ;-)

Fernando Alejandro said...

I want to hear the argument of the people who didn't vote for Henderson. They should not be allowed to vote.

NDYANKEE, I hope so! If he can stay healthy he will do some amazing things that's for sure.

Fred Trigger said...

Eh. Sure those guys are idiots, but its not like Rickey didnt even come close to induction. It drives me nuts when some writer does something insane like vote for Jack Morris and not Bert blyleven. Or voting for rice because he was "feared" when players who had better peaks than him fall off the ballot after one year.

Roberto E. Alejandro said...

Rickey ("E-Y"? Really? WTF?) did get in easy, but still. Under what metric does he not qualify for the Hall. Did he suck at Super Mario Bros.? Did he not see enough Clint Eastwood movies? Maybe he doesn't like chilli, and that rubs you the wrong way. If you're part of the BBWAA and didn't vote for this guy, I hope Jason Varitek clubs you with a baby seal.