January 6, 2010

Blyleven snubbed...again

It shouldn't surprise me anymore, but it does. The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) failed to elect Bert Blyleven into the Hall of Fame by five votes. He received 74.2% of the votes when 75% is needed. There's really nothing more to add that hasn't been said before. And I'm not going to beat a dead horse over this issue. I'm sure I feel the same disgust for the Hall of Fame that most knowledgeable baseball fans people do right now.

What possibly shocks me more than Blyleven not getting in is the fact that Roberto Alomar didn't get in. Alomar, one of the best second basemen in baseball history, received 73.7% of the vote. Alomar didn't make the best decisions when he was playing, we all remember the infamous spitting incident, and I'm sure that had a lot to do with it because I don't see any other logical reason for him being left off of 142 ballots. In 17 seasons, he collected 2,724 hits, was elected to 12 straight All-Star games and won 10 Gold Gloves. If those don't scream "Hall of Fame," then I think I'm going to have to check myself into some sort of clinic.

How Andre Dawson was elected to the Hall of Fame before guys like Blyleven and Alomar (among several others) is beyond me. Dawson now has one of the lowest batting averages and the lowest on-base percentage amongst any Hall of Fame outfielder.

It's become hard for me to even care about the Hall of Fame. I mean, how does someone justify voting for David Segui or Pat Hentgen?

3 comments:

GM said...

There is no way Dawson has the lowest BA of any Hall-of-Famer. Killebrew, Maranville, Morgan, McCovey, Fisk, Schmidt, Mathews, Aparicio, Mazeroski, Jackson, Ripken, and I'll bet a few of them had lower OBPs too. I don't know if Dawson belongs, but it'd be good to get the facts right

Josh Johnson said...

No clue what you're reading but you must have decided to skip over "one of," Also, I never mentioned OPS.

Anonymous said...

Blyleven is a very tough call.I think the most amazing stat about him is the amount of innings he pitched by the time he turned 25..1700 innings give or take,he sure was a workhorse.The lack of Cy Young votes cant be discounted.Only 4 times in his career was he in the top ten.He pitched in my era,1970 and up.I cant recall that he was considered as a big time number one,look at his all star appearances,hardly any
only TWO for heavens sakes..does that yell out immortal?
In the light of sabermetrics he looks better than Dawson but when I saw The Hawk in his prime the was no doubt to me he was the best player on the field 75 per cent of the time.
So,was he good?
Yeah he was good,real good..hall of fame? If its for the real good..then yes//put him in