2020 Baseball Hall of Fame Class

I don't think the election of Baines opens the floodgates. People make mistakes. But it's not the same people on the panel this year, so hopefully they won't compound the problem by, say, electing Steve Garvey or Tommy John. Anyone else elected would sit fine with me.

 

Can you explain Garvey over Mattingly? That doesn't seem close.

 

What happens if you use WAR per season.

 

Fair point, but he already had a decade as a catcher. Also, whitey may have dipped into keith’s coke supply: he traded Simmons, Rollie fingers and Pete vuckovich got sixto lezcano, Dave lapoint and Dave green. What a horrible trade, and yes whitey would beat the brewers two years later with many of those same players...but still

 

If Simmons makes the Hall, that might go down as the only trade in history in which one team traded away two Hall of Famers in the same trade.

BTW, in honor of Vuckovich and his turn as Heywood in "Major League": "Taylor, I didn't know you were up here. How's your wife and my kids?"

 

I'm willing to give Garvey the slight edge because of the extra 1,700 plate appearances but moreso because of the playoff success. Yes, I know it isn't Mattingly's fault he only got there once, but Garvey won a ring, played on three other pennant winners, won two NLCS MVPs and hit .338 over 232 postseason at-bats

 

fair points. But Mattingly was arguably the best player in baseball from 1984-1989, six full seasons. His peak was far superior to Garvey's.

It's interesting how timing can be everything with certain candidacies. Like Puckett, if that stuff about him had come out before he was up for election, he's probably not getting in. Not first ballot anyway. And Garvey, he seemed like the definition of a HOFer while playing -- best bat on a consistent playoff team, etc. And Munson, as I believe Ragu said, had some tough ballots when he became eligible. Then guys like Mattingly and McGriff, their counting stats look minuscule after the steroid era.

 

The thing about Mattingly is outside of that six years, he basically has nothing because of the injuries. And Garvey's peak isn't terrible -- his 74-80 is a step below Mattingly. IDK about far superior

 

He was getting MVP votes up till 1993 and 1994, finishing just behind Mo Vaughn both times. Then again, he only got 2 percent of the vote share each time, so it could be that somebody was tossing him mercy votes.

Look, I'm not a Yankee fan, I'm a Sox fan; I got no horse in this. But I loved watching Don Mattingly play, both at the plate and in the field. The guy was a gamer and had a sweet stroke. I know you can't quantify all that, but I would absolutely be happy if he makes Cooperstown. His induction doesn't lower the bar.

 

Mattingly was a better player than Garvey when you add in defense, but when you compare their MVP votes for their six-year peak windows, it goes like this:

Garvey: 1, 11, 6,6,2, 14
Mattingly: 5,1, 2, 7, none, 15

But Mattingly’s WAR for that time is 33.0 (high of 7.2)?while Garvey is 25.5. (High of 5.1)