Veterans Committee's HOF slate: is Andruw Jones the new Dick Allen?

Jones would never have gotten to that ball in '92. No way. Yet it wasn't overly surprising to us that White did. What does that say?

As for Willie Mays, his bat and his flash went a long way toward building his reputation. But Duke Snider was just as good a centre fielder, if not better, and Mickey Mantle, bad legs and all, was perhaps better than both of them. I can tell you that not only did Snider and Mantle retire with better career fielding percentages, they also outperformed Mays when all three were at their peaks in the mid and late 1950s.

1954-59 fielding percentages (putouts/chances)
Mantle .985
Snider .984
Mays .981

Career (as a CF)
Mantle .986
Snider .985
Mays .981

 

Dick Allen was a baseball vagabond and thus left behind a string of managers, GMs and teammates who would rag about him to the media left behind with them. A "churl" like Eddie Murray played in just a few spots, for a long time, and despite any dislike between him and reporters, didn't have his managers or GMs lining up to rip him later.

Allen moved so often that he never became a real fan favorite for any length of time, and that can affect how a guy is covered and seen by the Hall-voting baseball writers. My hunch is, the more teams you play for, the harder it is to make the Hall of Fame. Kaat, Blyleven and Morris would no doubt agree (though I'm guessing there are tons of examples to the contrary).

 

Richie/Dick Allen was my boyhood hero, being the first Phillie in my then-short lifetime who could hit. He has an excellent Veterans' Committee case, but his career is also a what-coulda-been of massive proportions.
Allen, who in person is about as nice a guy as you could meet, or at least has been since he stopped playing, didn't give a shit about baseball's conventions, which were rather rigid in the '60s. He was also the victim of vicious racial abuse in Philly, some of it from media and his own organization. But a persecution complex, even in a person who's been persecuted, leads people to make some bad decisions.
In 1974, Allen left the White Sox for some reason or other in mid-August and never came back. He wound up leading the league in homers anyway. But that's the sort of thing a Veterans Committee will look askance at.
I will say this. The night in June, 1976 when Allen returned to the Phillies and hit two home runs and got three standing ovations from a sold-out Vet was about as emotional a scene as Philly sports has ever had. Fans weren't proud of what they'd done in the '60s.

 

"At least a handful of times"? Proof, please.

It happened once: Eighth inning, July 21, 1998 (Kerry Wood pitched 7.2 shutout IP.) And it's been widely cited as the turnaround point in Jones' career up until then.

His 1998 and '99 seasons are on a short list for the best CF seasons in history -- he made 493 putouts in '99; I posted about this a few months ago (when Zeke tried to use Torii Hunter in this same discussion ) but IIRC nobody else has come close to catching that many balls in a season -- it's 45 more than Mays ever made in his prime and 70 more than Speaker. (It's 50 more than Devon White ever made.) ... In addition, Jones made 400+ putouts for five straight seasons, a feat only Mays has ever accomplished.

If you're basing your opinion of his HOF-caliber defensive ability over 10 seasons because of one single by Lance Johnson that fell in front of him and pissed off his manager ... that's the most irrational reasoning I've ever heard of. Especially if you think it happened twice.

JJ: I'm not putting down White to lift up Jones, believe me. Always feared him in CF when the Jays beat the Braves in the Series, and that "triple play" was phenomenal. But you're kidding yourself if you think Jones wouldn't have gotten that ball. You can cite fielding percentage, but I'll counter with range factor and putouts: Jones got to more balls than any center fielder since Mays. That's indisputable. ... Plus, whatever edge White had in speed, Jones had in throwing. White's arm was no match for Jones'. White had 3-4 seasons among the best in the game, 1988-89, 1991-92 -- and Hunter did, too, last time we had this discussion. Jones was that good for 10 straight.

Sorry, there's no comparision. White was great -- but Jones was (sadly: past tense) an all-timer.

 

I don't have access to Play Index, and even if I did, I wouldn't go looking for it, but I remember it happening a few times. Perhaps I pulled a Clemens and misremembered. It's still how I feel. I watched Devon White and I watched plenty of Andruw Jones. I thought White was a better defender. You can cite all sorts of Range Factor and VORP stats you like; it won't change what I saw with my own eyes.

Fuck, now you have me sounding like Bill Plaschke. You suck, buckdubs.

 

Awesome.

Seriously: It just happened once. Anybody who watched the Braves closely for the last 10 years can tell you. Very famous incident (although not much is written about it, for some reason.)

Hell, you probably remember him sleepwalking to first base on ground balls that he pulled to short when he should have taken an outside curveball the other way. I can probably cite 2,415 times when that happened!

But whatever you're remembering, I can assure you that your mind is playing tricks on your memory. (Just like Plaschke's.) THAT incident happened just once.

As for Devo ... well, to each his own. When he equals a feat only done by Mays, you let me know. Nobody could play center like Jones. Nobody. Not in my lifetime, anyway.

 

Of all the pure genius gold buck posts on this board, I don't know if I've ever read anything of his any truer.

To compare the defensive abilities of Jim Edmonds, Devon White, Torii Hunter, Ken Griffey Jr., and Mike Cameron to Andruw Jones is ludicrous.

 

And not Griffey, either. I knew I was forgetting somebody. Thanks, dargan.

Man, I loved to watch Griffey. He is my generation's Mantle -- supremely talented, beloved by all, absolute no-brainer Hall of Famer ... but oh-what-might-have-been. Damn, he made it fun to love baseball.

 

There were people "back in the day" who thought Happy Felsch was on par with Tris Speaker.

Oh, and using fielding percentages to compare outfielders - and pretty much anyone - to describe one player being better than another defensively is ridiculous on so many levels.

 

Just when buckdub thought it was safe to log off...

Torii was better.

 

(Now, you're speakin' my language ... )

Absolutely. Just like there are people* now who legitimately think White or Hunter or Edmonds is on par with Jones. And, for a few seasons, they probably were.

But not in terms of sustained excellence. That's what sets the Big Three apart.

EDIT: * People like Zeke, who will not back down despite all evidence to the contrary.

 

Well, Felsch couldn't exactly sustain that excellence as his career came to an abrupt end ...