Cast your Dee Tee baseball HoF vote

[Cannon Shell]

David Cone- at first glance you think that David Cone simply doesnt have the career numbers to make the hall of fame. When you look at his career though he was an outstanding pitcher with some credentials. He won 20 games twice, won a Cy Young, 5 times was in the top 5 in Cy Young voting, pitched a perfect game, was a good playoff pitcher and was generally considered a top pitcher of his time. However like many of his peers like Orel Hershiser and Doc Gooden they just dont measure up to the other starting pitchers in the Hall of Fame. The only close measure is Dazzy Vance who amazingly enough didn't start pitching full time until he was 31 years old. Though he as a very good pitcher Cone simply didn't do enough compared to the standard set by other Hall of Fame pitchers.

Andre Dawson- I am amazed at the amount of people that support Jim Rice yet dont support Dawson. Dawson was clearly not only the better player (by a large margin) he had a better career. Dawson was one of the few players in baseball history to be able to transform his game as he aged from one that depended on speed to one that stressed power as his legs gave way. He won a rookie of the year award, won a MVP award, was 2nd in the voting two other times, won 8 gold gloves, stole over 300 bases, won 4 silver slugger awards, hit 438 HR's, 500 2b's , almost 100 3bs (98), had 2774 hits, 1373 runs, 1591 rbis's, and his numbers match up very nicely with hall of Famers, Billy Williams, Al Kaline, Tony Perez, Dave Winfield and Ernie Banks.
Another penalized by spending his best years in Montreal. In my mind he belongs.

Ron Gant- Not Hall of Fame material

Mark Grace- Nice career, no Hall of fame for him

Rickey Henderson- Not only the greatest leadoff hitter in modern baseball history, there is no one even close. Should be unanimous but some moron will leave him off.

Tommy John- Though John has similar numbers to Blyleven he has a couple of advantages that should be counted against him in that comaprison. Number one he started pitching in the mid 60's where the advantages for pitchers were many. He also played for mostly winning teams which led to a better record than his other stats indicate. He was a really good pitcher in the mid 70' to 1980 but was pretty ordinary the rest of his career. Not for me.

[horseofcourse]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Andre Dawson- I am amazed at the amount of people that support Jim Rice yet dont support Dawson. Dawson was clearly not only the better player (by a large margin) he had a better career. Dawson was one of the few players in baseball history to be able to transform his game as he aged from one that depended on speed to one that stressed power as his legs gave way. He won a rookie of the year award, won a MVP award, was 2nd in the voting two other times, won 8 gold gloves, stole over 300 bases, won 4 silver slugger awards, hit 438 HR's, 500 2b's , almost 100 3bs (98), had 2774 hits, 1373 runs, 1591 rbis's, and his numbers match up very nicely with hall of Famers, Billy Williams, Al Kaline, Tony Perez, Dave Winfield and Ernie Banks.
Another penalized by spending his best years in Montreal. In my mind he belongs.

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In his prime Dawson was the better defensive player by a large margin...but offensively he was not close. I don't know how ball park plays into that...but Rice was 20 points higher career average...30 points higher career OBP and 20 points higher career slugging. Dawson was a power hitter from day one. He hit 19 as a rookie which in the mid 70s was a decent number and was hitting 25 by his second year. His game was not speed based ever. He was a power hitter who could run in his Montreal days. I don't think he transferred his game...he simply improved his power naturally as he aged and as his knees fell apart he lost his speed. He had enough power to be a plus offensive power if he had no speed at all...the speed early in his career was just a bonus and yes, Rice never did have that.

If you want to call Dawson a better player I have no problem with that...by a large margin is laughable. I honestly don't know how much a liability Rice was in left field if at all. Rice was a far superior offensive player as the numbers verify however...and I'm not sure how much of that was ballpark influenced. All phases of the game, I'd agree Dawson was better, but I think Rice was better by a pretty large margin with the bat which is why I prefer Rice as a HOFer more than Dawson though I think both are pretty questionable.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by horseofcourse

In his prime Dawson was the better defensive player by a large margin...but offensively he was not close. I don't know how ball park plays into that...but Rice was 20 points higher career average...30 points higher career OBP and 20 points higher career slugging. Dawson was a power hitter from day one. He hit 19 as a rookie which in the mid 70s was a decent number and was hitting 25 by his second year. His game was not speed based ever. He was a power hitter who could run in his Montreal days. I don't think he transferred his game...he simply improved his power naturally as he aged and as his knees fell apart he lost his speed. He had enough power to be a plus offensive power if he had no speed at all...the speed early in his career was just a bonus and yes, Rice never did have that.

If you want to call Dawson a better player I have no problem with that...by a large margin is laughable. I honestly don't know how much a liability Rice was in left field if at all. Rice was a far superior offensive player as the numbers verify however...and I'm not sure how much of that was ballpark influenced. All phases of the game, I'd agree Dawson was better, but I think Rice was better by a pretty large margin with the bat which is why I prefer Rice as a HOFer more than Dawson though I think both are pretty questionable.

There are five tools that players are measured by. Fielding, throwing running hitting for average and hitting for power. Dawson was laughably better at fielding, throwing and running while Rice was marginally better as a hitter. Overall Dawson was a better player because he was clearly superior in three catagories while marginally worse in others though if you take into consideration the ballpark factors is probably even. Olympic stadium was never a good hitting enviroment. Not to mention his career numbers which are a major factor in hall of fame voting are better in hits, runs, rbis, 2b, 3bs, hrs, SBs and in negative far fewer GIDP. I just dont see why you think Rice was better by a clear margin as a hitter. Go to baseball-reference.com and neutralize the stats and see what the numbers look like without park bias.