Via BBTF, John McGrath wants a Hall of Fame discussion on John Olerud:
His Wins Above Replacement rating – among the statistical metrics designed to measure comprehensive performance, and itself a source of dispute within the advanced stat community – is 56.8, which ranks above such Hall of Famers as Lou Boudreau, Bill Dickey, Mickey Cochrane, and, yes, Jim Rice.
His career on-base percentage of .398 is better than that of Tony Gwynn’s – remember him? – and the equal of Joe DiMaggio’s. Speaking of DiMaggio: In 1941, the season of his 56-game hitting streak, he hit .357, with an on-base percentage of .440. In 1993, Olerud led the AL with a .363 batting average, with an on-base percentage of .473.
DiMaggio beat out Ted Williams (who hit .406) for the MVP in 1941. Olerud? He didn’t even collect more 1993 MVP votes than his Blue Jays teammate Paul Molitor, who placed second that season to Frank Thomas of the White Sox.
McGrath is voting for John this year to try to keep the discussion going. I hope a few more writers join him. John was too good to fall off after one year on the ballot.
Olerud was an excellent player. I nominate him for the Hall of Very Good.
Just keeping the discussion going!
I’m a big Olerud fan, and although I do not consider him a hall of famer, he’s not given nearly as much credit/publicity as he deserves.
If he had buched all of his good years together in New York, he might make it. Imagine if he put the two .350+ AVG seasons back-to-back in New York and played in the World Series in one or both of those years.
Here is what I posted at BTF
His career WAR is 130th among position players. That sounds pretty good. I was surprised it was that high. Maybe his big problem is that he has no real peak. His two best years were 1993 and 1998 and the rest of his years are good, but not great. He was 2nd in WAR twice and 10th twice. Those are all of his top 10 finishes. From 1997-2002, a period when he had 3 top 10 finishes, he was the 12th best player by WAR.
He was the 5th best player from 1997-9 in the NL. Maybe that would be enough of a peak. I’m not sure.
This gives me an excellent chance to hop back on my soapbox about Ken Singleton. Jim Rice is in the Hall of Fame, while Singleton didn’t receive a single vote in 1990.
Has anyone looked at tape of that swing lately? It’s as smooth as buttered silk. Add in the often-ignored defense, not to mention the Max Roach-like consistency, low rate of injury and I can’t believe that anyone’s even wondering. Heap on a dollop of corn-fed white boy from the pacific north west, and the hall’s just a stop on the way to the congressional medal of honor. Anyone who’s still trying to quantify HOF selections with numbers should just give up. The writers don’t care about numbers, and they’re likely to keep Burt B out just to prove it.
Olerud’s got the right stuff.
Singleton had over 300 Win Shares. He might have the record for most WS and no votes.
I watched Olerud play at WSU, where I went to grad school. Awesome.