Bill James makes HOF case for Dwight Evans

Is there some reason you feel the need to make these posts personal?

Why not just support your position? "His batting average was too low," for example. Or "He never defined his age."

 

Michael Gee summed it up perfectly. Thanks Michael.
My post is not personal. However, you never answered my question. Did you ever see him play a game either in person or on TV?

 

Yes, I did. So?

 

Let me quantify my thought on Evans a bit. He was never a dominant batter, and when discussing outfielders, hitting trumps fielding by a much wider margin than it does for infielders or catchers.
Just to annoy the stat crowd, I will state that Evans was very productive in so-called "clutch" situations in his career.

 

Then I think you should be able to form an opinion on if he truly is worthy of the Hall without trying to make a trivial argument.

 

Cough... Tony Perez... Cough... Barry Larkin...

 

According to Baseball Reference.com, he batted .259 in "Late & Close" situations in his career. His career batting average overall was .272.

 

I'm not trying to make any argument at all. Bill James, however, has made a very elaborate argument that Dwight Evans should be in the Hall of Fame. Is that argument "trivial?"

 

Evans also made an error in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

 

In both that World Series and in 1975, however, he hit the snot out of the ball.

 

I loved Dewey growing up, I've even got him on my office wall next to Lynn and Fisk (Bosox side; Mays/Marichal/McCovey on other) but no way is he HOF. Watching him from the No. 9 hole RF with the cannon arm through the Hriniak transformation, I never saw him as a HOF'er. He was an awesome RF defensively and became a pretty good hitter but he was never the most feared hitter on the team (Greenwell was the best hitter and hit No. 3 when Dewey was at his best), ever.

 

Among all of the arguments that get waged to keep guys out of the Hall of Fame, the notion that he wasn't the best player on his own team is among my least favorite. I don't understand how this matters. This isn't basketball, with only so many shots to go around. This isn't football, where there are only so many carries or throws to go around, and each carry for one guy is a carry another guy doesn't get. This is baseball, where every player gets his turn in the lineup or the rotation. Some teams are better than others are accumulating talent. If you want to argue that Dwight Evans doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame, then argue it. Obviously 97 percent of the BBWAA voters or whatever it was agree with you. But to argue that Dwight Evans doesn't belong because he batted in a lineup with Jim Rice or Wade Boggs or Mike Greenwell doesn't make any sense to me.

And, by the way, it is splitting hairs to argue that Greenwell was better. During their four years starting together, when Greenwell was age 23 to 26 and Evans was age 35 to 38 and winding down, Greenwell had an OPS of .873 and Evans was at .868. And that was not Evans's best four-year stretch, either. He had an .896 OPS from 1981 through '84.