Bill James discusses Dwight Evans HoF-ability, gives me a sad

I liked Dwight Evans.
I think it's okay to include him in the discussion for HoF. That said, thisThat is a terribly developed and terribly written article.

Some nits: If a premise of your argument is "Cesar Cedeno is included in the discussion for Hall of Fame candidacy", then you are set on establishing quite a low bar to begin with. Worse, if you need to fricking include Al Cowens as a standard for comparison because he had one nice year where four people thought he was worthy of MVP…

Discussing "fine" players (Burroughs, Cedeno, [I don’t think Cowens, in the argument for HoF, qualifies as even a "fine" player]) as benchmarks for "better than them, so maybe hall of fame good" (Dwight Evans) is a fallacy. I don’t have the list handy, but I’d tell you which. It’s not a valid argument to say "he is better than this good guy, ergo hall of fame!"

Why only seem to find the players born in 1951 as a seemingly important metric? Odd.

Here’s the pissy part: Spend half the article talking about how good walks and OBP are (which I do agree), but only occasionally giving the stat out. Why not include those numbers in your frequent stat-graphs?

Dwight Evans was a very good baseball player. But being very good isn’t good enough. Were he on Kansas City, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.

Also, if Winfield had been kept out of the Hall of Fame, I wouldn’t find it an injustice. Good player. I’d take him, but his numbers don’t scream HoF. Too many .260 type seasons, in my view, to make him a lock. He is in, and that's cool. I kinda think Parker feels more "HoF"-y, but he has the cocaine history. Even then, were he in, I'd say cool. But he's not, and I also say cool. I don't think it's an injustice.
I think Dwight Evans being in wouldn't feel right. I do get why it's discussed. Anyway... thoughts?

3 months ago supergrover 5 comments 0 recs |

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Evans is a pretty decent HOF candidate

Career OPS+ of 127 and an excellent defensive player. Parker was a better player at his peak (75-79), but Evans was clearly the better player over the course of his career.

Then again, there were a lot of guys who were roughly equal hitters to Evans who will never make the hall: Keith Hernandez, Ken Singleton, Fred Lynn, George Foster, Greg Luzinski, Bobby Bonds, Jack Clark, etc. The main thing Evans has on them is longevity (and in some cases, defense).

I agree that James is guilty of some cherry picking and choosing odd frameworks from which to argue; then again, I started reading him back in 1981 and he has always argued things that way.

The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles…

by RoastBeefKazenzakis on Feb 13, 2012 10:20 AM EST reply actions

For me, the ideal underrated player has the following traits:

High K and walk rates; lower AVG
Hurt by his park and era
Good defense at a non-premium position
Power concentrated more in doubles/triples than HR
Good but not outstanding SB totals at an excellent rate
No compelling narrative; outshone by flashier teammates

Evans fits some but not all of these. He didn’t steal a lot of bases and was successful just 57% of the time. He was a pretty good HR hitter but didn’t accumulate an inordinate number of doubles and triples. And most importantly, he had a big advantage in playing at Fenway as a righty (at least in terms of average; maybe it did cut down on his XBHs). While he didn’t play in the post-strike offensive environment, he also didn’t play during the offensive droughts of the mid and late ’60s. Agree with RBK that there are plenty of similar players who are also on the outside looking in on the HOF.

by ken on Feb 13, 2012 1:17 PM EST reply actions