David Ortiz -HOF?

[ellsburyforMVP]

Simple enough... Yes or no?

[ellsburyforMVP]

For arguments sake, let's say he retires after next yr with 450 hr 1500 RBI 1200 runs .290/.380/.550 avg's

[lospunchados]

yep he is. But I doubt he will retire after next year though

[ORS]

No, won't get in with those numbers and the PED cloud over his head. At least not until they start putting the likes of Mac, Sosa, and Palmeiro in.

[Dojji]

The DH hurts him, the steroid era hurts him worse, and his countin' stats aren't great because he didn't get the chances he needed in Minnesota.

[Emmz]

Nope, 500 home run hitters ain't exactly hard to come by now, and he hasn't even made it there yet. PEDs will doom him at least until other dopers get in, and the ones ORS mentioned put up better numbers and weren't DHing their entire careers.

 

I'd say yes if he averaged the numbers he has with the Red Sox for the majority of a 15 year career, and never got busted doping.

[mvp 78]

Yes, but not until Edgar gets in.

[a700hitter]

No' date=' won't get in with those numbers and the PED cloud over his head. At least not until they start putting the likes of Mac, Sosa, and Palmeiro in.[/quote']

But he is still putting up big numbers since 2003 when the drug policy went into effect and he hasn't failed any dug tests in that period. He's 10 years clean and that accounts for most of his numbers.

[SCM33]

Yes' date=' but not until Edgar gets in.[/quote']

 

....and Frank Thomas.

 

I would say Ortiz has no shot.

[TutGadol]

Not first ballot, but I'm certain he'll make it.

[FredLynn]

Nope. Being a DH really dooms his chances.

[redsoxbeatz]

Nope. Being a DH really dooms his chances.

 

Why is that? Just b/c he has no chance at winning gold gloves and make defensive assists to help his resume? So lame. Seem's like its mostly about offensive statistics or pitching that gets you into the HoF.

 

Ortiz should be in!

 

But I also think Pete Rose should be in the HoF, too.

 

It's about baseball stats.

[Laser Show]

As much as I love Ortiz, I know in my heart of hearts he won't end up in the Hall. His career WAR is pretty subpar (B-R.com has him at 35.8, 517th all time). Red Sox HOF tho? Absolutely.

[SoxSport]

With all those steroid guys getting off in court with expensive lawyers, it's possible the media may soften a bit on the steroid issue. But we're talking mainly about network media based largely in NYC, so I doubt the sportswriters in Peoria or Wichita are going to change much. I doubt anybody suspected of steroids is going to get enough votes.

 

You have to wonder who wasn't taking steroids during the 90s when it wasn't tested for, and everybody knew it helped their power stats. I guess pitchers were taking it, too, but it's never been documented what the advantage was for them. I heard Clemens took it to come back quicker from soreness. It clearly helped him a lot in Toronto.

 

Regarding Papi, being a DH only hurts him--one-dimensional. Plus he had two bad years a couple of years ago. I suspect he and Manny were loading up during their peak years, like ARod and most of the other sluggers.

[jung]

I am not sure that the court case results really helps the players much. It seems to me that most of what is resulting from the court cases is distain for the system for the government prosecutors and the low life characters that the government was using as witnesses.

[lospunchados]

The Dh arguement is the dumbest thing i have ever heard. It is a position iin the american league. There should be dh's in the hall of fame.

[jung]

The genesis of the DH was the era of the Sixties, when the MLB All Star game was a much more important element to the baseball season that it is today. The All star game was serious business and it was taken very seriously by the players, managers, owners, fans and media. That had been so since its inception. It enjoys nothing like the prestige it once had.

 

What had sort of gone awry is that the National League went on a run of 20 wins out of 23 All star games from 1963 to 1985. It was a devastating run as far as the pride and prestige of the American League was concerned.

 

During this period the American League had been the league of the large, the slow, the old. All of the speed and youth existed in the National League and that was on display for the world to see every All star game. You got to see, NL players tracking down balls in the outfield, exhibiting greater range in the infield, running the bases like gazelles turning doubles into triples etc etc. In the mean time you could hardly find an AL player that could beat out an infield hit.

 

It was the combination of play on the field and the All Star game won/lost record that was really telling and difficult for the AL owners to swallow.

 

Both leagues knew that they had issues with pitching and defense dominating the game as HR numbers were really in decline and runs were hard to come by. Both leagues adopted lower mound heights and a more restricted strike zone at the same time.

 

However while both leagues thought the new mound and strike zone would have a major impact on offense generally those changes being adopted by both leagues did not help the AL and its problem with the relative merits of the two leagues.

 

While I think MLB should have forced itself to resolve the issue of the DH for both leagues, the AL wanted it for the same reasons that the NL did not want it. It was becoming difficult for the AL to define itself in terms of baseball value to fans when its rosters were generally stocked with these older slower players regardless of the fact that they were stronger for the most part. Again were it not for the differences in styles of play combined with the All star game results and prominence, none of this would likely have happened. The AL used the rational of more offense to support its view on the DH and the NL basically used the opportunity to suggest that the AL had thrown in the towel, that AL teams were virtually admitting that AL players could not stand the heat in the kitchen. It actually got kinda' ugly for awhile.

 

So at the heart of the dispute if you will is a marketing issue between the two leagues that has raged on since the beginning of time in MLB, fueled by that 23 year run when the All star game was both very important and dominated by the NL.

 

So now you have a rift that MLB still refuses to come to grips with for all the same old reasons. It reaches into the HOF in part for the same reasons steroids do. Clearly, it is easier for a player to extend his career and thus his career stats if he does not have to play in the field. Hence the DH represents an advantage to players in the accumulation of their career stats, clearly the most important element in HOF voting.

 

I cannot see HOF voters allowing players that had accumulated most of their career stats as DH's entry into the HOF because there is only one Hall, not an NL Hall and an AL Hall. Entry into the Hall will in my view always be reserved for everyday players that accumulated their stats playing in the field and at the plate. Interestingly, while I am sure, that AL pitchers are not begrudged the fact that they do not hit in HOF voting I am just as sure that DH's will not be afforded the same perspective for the reason suggested above. When it comes to pitching having to hit or not hit is not considered an advantage from the perspective of accumulating career pitching stats while not having to play in the field is clearly considered to be an advantage in accumulating career stats for an everyday player.....plus you take defense completely off the table which I don't believe voters will do.

 

Two things bear on the problem for DH's:

1) the National League did not adopt it

2) the everyday DH is fast falling into disfavor as more and more the job is going to guys that play the bulk of their games in the field rotating into the DH role. As such they do generate fielding stats and they do not enjoy he career lengthening advantage of not playing in the field. While the DH is an official AL position as I said in the earlier post it is the perspective of NL proponents that it is not a position but a job that in part gets in the way.

 

At the end of the day, a player has to accumulate enough votes to get in and I just do not see it happening because the rift is to deep with proponents on both sides of the issue. It is tough enough to gain enough HOF votes just based on the career stats without adding in the rift between non-DH and DH proponents with all the baggage entailed in that discussion.

[SoxSport]

Any DHs in the HOF? Only ones, I think, like Yaz who played in the field mainly (and very well), and then stretched his hitting stats as a DH. I don't think any pure DHs have made it. What's it take? 75%? It's tough to get 75% of any voters to vote for anything.

[SCM33]

Any DHs in the HOF? Only ones' date=' I think, like Yaz who played in the field mainly (and very well), and then stretched his hitting stats as a DH. I don't think any pure DHs have made it. What's it take? 75%? It's tough to get 75% of any voters to vote for anything.[/quote']

 

No pure DH has made it.

 

If Edgar Martinez and Frank Thomas don't get in, Ortiz has zero shot.

[ORS]

But he is still putting up big numbers since 2003 when the drug policy went into effect and he hasn't failed any dug tests in that period. He's 10 years clean and that accounts for most of his numbers.

Didn't it come out that he was on the positive list for the round of tests that tested the waters, so to speak, in order to decide the need to implement official testing? That's more than Mac has against him, and he's still not in with better numbers while playing a position on the field. That will seriously hurt any chance Ortiz has.

[jung]

That is I think correct ORS...that was one of the lists that was never supposed to be made public and there was a big stink about it having been made public. None the less, his name was on it.

[a700hitter]

Didn't it come out that he was on the positive list for the round of tests that tested the waters' date=' so to speak, in order to decide the need to implement official testing? That's more than Mac has against him, and he's still not in with better numbers while playing a position on the field. That will seriously hurt any chance Ortiz has.[/quote']MGwire didn't play in the era after they implemented testing. He was gone from the game before 2003. Big Papi has played under the current testing rules for 10 years, put up numbers, and come up clean for those 10 years.

[jung]

The other element to this that I think will make it almost impossible if not impossible for Ortiz to make it to the hall is that at least from what I can tell, there is another aspect of voter and voting perspective that will make it tough. There now appears an element of thinking that seems to have turned from reasons to vote a guy in to reasons not to vote a guy in. I don't think that existed in the early days of HOF voting. I really don't think there was a alternate side of the ledger that some voters considered. Maybe that all started with Pete Rose...I just don't know but you can tell that it is there for some.

 

I still think the most relevant issue for Ortiz is the DH thing and the simple fact that it takes so many votes to get to the hall in the first place. There will be a pretty large number of folks I think that will put the DH thing on the negative side of the ledger and then there will also be some number of people probably much smaller that will stick that PED thing into the equation. When you combine them with the folks that will just not think his numbers are deserving to begin with (and there will be some of those) I just don't see how Ortiz can get in.

 

I don't think the other guys that compiled most of their numbers as DH's will get in either.

[jacksonianmarch]

No' date=' won't get in with those numbers and the PED cloud over his head. At least not until they start putting the likes of Mac, Sosa, and Palmeiro in.[/quote']

 

and the fact that he doesnt play a position. They would have to break the mold on Edgar Martinez and the PED guys.

[SoxSport]

I suppose you have to give guys like Ortiz credit for having big years after drug testing took affect.

 

The problem is the testing is not transparent. There's even talk the players union tips off the players when the testing is imminent. The Mitchell report said everybody in baseball knew about steroids and did nothing about it. I wonder just how much things have changed. The only guys they catch these days are on screwups the guys have made in their routines.

 

I wouldn't want to be one of those HOF voters. It's a tough call on a lot of these players.

[SCM33]

MGwire didn't play in the era after they implemented testing. He was gone from the game before 2003. Big Papi has played under the current testing rules for 10 years' date=' put up numbers, and come up clean for those 10 years.[/quote']

 

Mark McGwire is not a hall of famer.

 

His entire career was fraud.

[FenwayWest]

He'll be in.

[redsoxfan3]

This is a really tough call. He has a chance, that is for sure. There are a lot of good arguments from both sides in this thread. I hope he makes it, but your guess is as good as mine on this.

[jacksonianmarch]

He has to break two levels that havent been broken to this point. The DH and the PED users. The day Big Mac and Edgar Martinez are in the hall is the day Ortiz has a shot. Until then, he is one of the best one dimensional players of all time

[mvp 78]

Eventually, PED users will get in. Otherwise the Hall will be inducting tumbleweeds for the next few decades.