Dale Murphy and the HoF

A quarter-century?? Murph was there, what, 12 years.

Anyhoo, put Ted Turner, Skip Caray and Bob Horner in the Hall then, if you're going with that criterion.

 

You drunk, Dools?

I said "nearly a decade" and "quarter of the country."

 

No, and my post indicates I need to be.

The second part still stands, however.

 

I guess here's part 2 of the question.

Every Barry Bonds defender always says that he was a Hall of Fame player even before he started taking steroids (as if we'll ever know when he started). What if Dale Murphy started taking steroids after his second MVP season - wouldn't we be saying the same about Murphy?

That's what makes steroids so insidious to me.

 

First off, I think I need to see some advanced statistics about Murphy's nice and bad qualities relative to the rest of Major League Baseball, and the players at his position. Maybe his niceness was above-average in relation to other Major League outfielders.

Regarding his actual Hall of Fame case and the original argument I think this thread is trying to bait, I don't think Murphy is a good test case for steroids vs. non-steroids. Voters don't seem to like the "fall off a cliff" statistic guys, whether they be Murphy, Mattingly (peaked at 28% in his first year, as low as 9.9%) or Albert Belle (7.7% and 3.5%). Murphy played full-time for 13 years, the last four of which were below-average. Looking at his numbers, he just collapsed after his age-31, 1987.

 

Well, Game of Shadows didn't find evidence of him roiding before the McGwire-Sosa season, right? And 2000 is when he put up his first season of silly numbers, hitting 49 homers and drawing 117 walks. Eyeballing it and using Excel real quick, Bonds had about 445 home runs after the 1999 season. Murphy had 398 in his career.

 

Did someone say Bob Horner? My favorite baseball card ever.



"Bob. Bob. Wake up. Fleer is here. They want to take a photo of you with four baseballs to commemorate the four homers you hit. *pause* Last night Bob. It happened last night."

 

I guess you have a reading comprehension issue.

Murphy was just 27 after his 2nd MVP season. Is it unreasonable to assume that steroids would have put him well over 500 HR in his career? Bonds also won his second MVP at age 27 and it was his age 28 season that saw the first abnormal jump in HR power (he went from a career high of 34 HR to 46 HR). Murphy won the HR title in his age 28 season (36 HR) and if he jumped to 46 HR like Bonds did at age 28 - Murphy would have had his 3rd straight MVP without a doubt.

With 3 straight MVP's is there a doubt that Murphy would have been a Hall of Fame player?

 

The poster boy of the Hall of Pretty Good. Excellent career. Not an HOF career.

 

I happened to be at the game in 2002 --- a September affair against the Giants --- when they honored the 1982 NL West champs. They had all the guys riding around the warning track on the backs of convertibles before the game. Murphy was there, as were Brett Butler, Phil Niekro, Bruce Benedict, Glenn Hubbard and Horner, who was wearing dark sunglasses and appeared to be shit-faced drunk.

 

I don't think it's so much Santo as an army of Cubs fans -- most of whom never saw him play -- doing all the breast-beating over that.

 

And statheads.

If you believe that the positions should be roughly equally represented in the Hall, then Santo belongs in. Otherwise, I can understand leaving him out.