Rob Neyer rejects my argument for including Edgar Martinez in the Hall of Fame.

It’s my contention that every truly great player should be in the Hall of Fame, and by “truly great” I mean those players who reached a certain level of performance, as measured by how many games he helped his teams win. I understand David’s position here, but what if Major League Baseball were to invent a new position? Or rather, to allow each team to use two designated hitters, with one of them standing in for, say, the shortstop? Would we then be compelled, after 35 or 40 years, to elect the best non-hitting shortstop (but only the best non-hitting shortstop)?

I’m somewhat surprised Rob has such a narrow view of the Hall of Fame. Wins matter, but rates matter, too. That’s why Sandy Koufax is in the Hall of Fame and Jerry Koosman isn’t. As for the shortstop DH, Rob’s asking the wrong question. We would have no way of knowing which was the shortstop DH and which was the pitcher DH. We would just have a group of DH’s, and one or two would be outstanding hitters over their careers. The question should be, would there be a place for slick glove fielding shortstops in the Hall, and my answer would be yes.

My answer would be yes, because that’s the way the game is played. I can imagine an alternate universe where baseball developed like football. It started out with the same players on both sides of the ball, but quickly developed specializations on offense and defense. Once in a while you’d get a player who went both ways, but mostly you’d see the slickest fielders who couldn’t hit with the gloves and heavy hitters who can’t catch with the bats. In that case, there would be no arguments about who should go into the Hall; there would be different standards for fielders and hitters, just like there are different standards in the NFL for quarterbacks and linebackers.

Baseball didn’t go as far as football, but the game did develop specialization in two places, the closer role and the designated hitter. It took a very long time for a closer to get elected to the Hall of Fame, as voters needed to see how the position developed. One problem that DH faces that closer didn’t is that teams did not take the position as a serious position for a long time. They’d put a veteran who was slowing down in the slot, or an injured player who wasn’t ready for the field yet, or platoon a lefty and right power hitter. In other words, designated hitters tended to be short term players.

So now the voters have a candidate who spent most of his time not playing the field. Without the DH, Edgar’s career would have ended at age 31, and we would not be having this argument. The position, however, did not signal the end of his career, and in fact he went on to show that a long-term designated hitter could benefit a club. I don’t think the position should be held against him.