Should Bill James be in the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Yes, he should be in the Hall of Fame in the same way the writers are honored. He has done this for nearly 25 years. There are a lot of writers so honored who have not had the same impact as Bill James.

And Marvin Miller should be in the Hall of Fame.

 

I'm not sure how you'd handle the catagory for James. You could make a case for him as a writer and as a builder, but it's an odd fit either way.

James has had a great deal to do with how the game has been played over the last 25 years. Back in the 70's, we didn't bother to count how often runners stole off pitchers and catchers. We just said "a catcher has a good arm." We didn't know the sacrifice bunt was often a losing strategy, particularly in the early innings. We didn't know that you'd better be sure that you can steal a base, because you needed to make it work more than two-thirds of the time. We didn't know that a 25-year-old rookie of the year probably wasn't headed for bigger things in many cases, because a player's prime is 27. There are other examples.

Then, throw in the fact that his writing has influenced a generation of baseball executives, and the fact that he's now doing work for a team itself -- playing an admittedly small role in a championship season in 2004 -- and I think he deserves to go.

Not before Marvin Miller, but at some point.

 

All that may be true, but those who are given the Spink award and the broadcasters award (forget what that is called right now) are routinely called Hall of Famers. Doesn't mean those people are right, but most people refer to them as Hall of Famers (likely because of simplicity sake).

 

And all that may be true, but it still doesn't make them Hall of Famers. Sorry.

The Hall of Fame makes the distinction. Baseball makes the distinction. Why can't we make the distinction?

And FYI: The broadcasters' award is called the <a href="http://www.baseballhalloffame.com/hofers_and_honorees/frick_bios/index.htm">Ford C. Frick Award</a>. The writers' award, of course, is the <a href="http://www.baseballhalloffame.com/hofers_and_honorees/spink_bios/index.htm">J.G. Taylor Spink Award</a>.

 

I think Bill James would make the Pythagorean Hall of Fame. The real one? Not sure.

 

spnited - Oh, OK. My bad. I still think he should be in, though.

 

Actually, much of that was known and practiced before James. Earl Weaver had a particular disdain for bunting, for example.

And detailed statistics go back to the days when Allan Roth was hired by Branch Rickey to chart everything the Brooklyn Dodgers did.

Baseball people used to speak of someone being "an old 25," which meant that he basically wasn't going to get much better, and a player's likely prime years were widely perceived to be about the same as James wound up "proving."

 

I can't think of more useless arguments than who should/shouldn't be in the HOF.
And this one would be the mother of them all.

 

The better question is: Why has the baseball HOF not already been renamed the Bill James HOF V. 2.0 ?

 

No way in hell.

 

Put me down for yes.

 

Style question: sabermetrics, or sabrmetrics?