While I’m waiting for Puppy Bowl IV to arrive, I thought I’d flip through the STATS 1997 Baseball Scoreboard for inspiration. I’ve already used this source to re-examine Barry Bonds and now I see that there are a few more projections in here.

This time we’re looking at projected career hits. Specifically we’re looking at the players who were judged at that time most likely to reach 3000 hits. Let’s compare projected with actual, shall we?

Points worth noting:

• Those projections for Ripken, Gwynn, and Boggs are almost perfect; the Alomar and Grissom projections aren’t bad either.
• Estimates for Palmeiro turned out to be very low, while those for Knoblauch are very high. Through age 30, Knoblauch posted numbers comparable to those of Lou Whitaker. After that, Knoblauch turned into Kevin Stocker. Ouch.
• A-Rod provides yet another reminder of why it’s dangerous to work with such small samples. He’d had precisely one full big-league season under his belt when these projections were published. Granted, it was a great season, but the fact remains that he’s blown past his career projection and he’s still in his prime. A-Rod is looking like a real good bet to finish at the top of the above list.

Just a little something to contemplate…

Okay, here’s the full vote. My thoughts below the table…

As promised, my take:

• The voters finally stopped screwing Goose Gossage. This business about Bruce Sutter paving the way for him is absolute garbage. Gossage came first and was a better pitcher.
• They completely dropped the ball on Tim Raines. There is no way in Hades that Jim Rice was a better player than Raines. Why folks in charge of this sort of thing fail to recognize this is beyond me.
• Speaking of outfielders, if Andre Dawson is a legitimate borderline candidate, then Dave Parker deserves much more serious consideration than he’s getting.
• Jack Morris was not a better player than Alan Trammell. Sorry, he just wasn’t.
• How many years will it take Lee Smith to overcome the idiocy that kept Gossage out for so long?

Sigh. I’ve probably missed some others, but I hate to work myself up over this stuff. I just would like to see the folks in charge of these things do a better job of it. Is that so much to ask? Apparently it is.

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Congratulations to Rich “Goose” Gossage on his election into the baseball Hall of Fame. Gossage received 86% of the votes. He will be the only member of the Class of 2008.

No, I don’t think so, but Steve Lombardi makes an interesting comparison between him and Jim Rice over at Stat of the Day that forces me at least to consider the possibility. I’m not sure if it’s possible for a guy who spent his entire career with the Yankees to be underrated, but if it is, Bernie Williams might be the one. Or maybe Roy White.

Williams was unbelievably good from 1995 to 2002, while playing a premium defensive position. His offensive line for that stretch was .321/.406/.531. You know how many guys put up better numbers during that period (minimum 4000 PA)? It’s a pretty short list, and all but a few of them (Mike Piazza, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr., Chipper Jones) played at the wrong end of the defensive spectrum. That’s assuming you’re willing to concede that Griffey and/or Jones had superior numbers.

Point? Williams was a better player than I’d remembered. Maybe we’ll talk about White one of these days…

Vegas Watch has compiled a list of reasons voters have offered in support of their selections for the Class of 2008. Some of them are pretty funny if you’re willing to separate yourself from the fact that these folks are entrusted with something that a lot of people hold sacred.

Jeff at Brew Crew Ball goes so far as to claim that he hates the Hall of Fame. That’s a bit strong for my taste, but I totally understand it.

Here’s how I look at the situation. For me, baseball is almost like religion. The ballpark is my church, and Cooperstown is my Mecca. Okay, technically we’re talking about two different religions now, but just bear with me.

I’ve been to the Hall of Fame twice in my life: once in August 1988, and again this past summer to see Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. inducted. It’s one of the coolest places I’ve ever visited, and I’ll go again the next time it’s feasible for me to do so.

The building, the environment, the history — I’m down with all that. What doesn’t really work for me is the poor attention to details that ought to matter. Doubleday Field? It’s named after a Union general in the Civil War whose connections to baseball are dubious at best rather than, say, the guy who invented the sport.

When I see voters give absurd reasons for letting guys into the Hall or keeping them out, it doesn’t bother me all that much. I figure they’re just keeping in the tradition of poorly documenting our national pastime’s legacy.

Well, okay, that does bother me. But not enough to keep me from enjoying the place when I visit. Does that make sense? Eh, probably not…

Michael Knisley and John Shea debate Andre Dawson’s Hall of Fame credentials over at ESPN. Dawson, to my way of thinking, is the very definition of a borderline candidate. Check out his list of Top 10 most similar players according to Baseball-Reference:

1. Billy Williams (133 OPS+)
2. Tony Perez (122)
3. Dave Parker (121)
4. Al Kaline (134)
5. Harold Baines (120)
6. Dwight Evans (127)
7. Ernie Banks (122)
8. Dave Winfield (130)
9. Luis Gonzalez (119)
10. Vada Pinson (110)

As a point of reference, Dawson’s OPS+ was 119. Anyway, five of these guys have been enshrined in Cooperstown: Williams, Perez, Kaline, Banks, and Winfield. Of those five, three were clearly superior players: Williams, Kaline, and Winfield.

The other two guys? Banks spent half his career playing shortstop and hit 500+ homers. Yeah, Dawson spent half his career playing center field and fell a little short of the mystical, magical home run total. He also didn’t get quite the same media coverage in Montreal that Banks did in Chicago, although of course that changed later, when Dawson played for the Cubs. Unfortunately that version of Dawson — MVP in ‘87 notwithstanding — isn’t the one that was headed toward a potential Hall of Fame career before his knees stopped doing what knees are supposed to do.

That leaves us with a lot of really good players. Parker basically is the same as Perez, only he got hurt, had a drug problem, and didn’t play for the Big Red Machine. Baines was a brilliant hitter, but thanks to the American League’s designated hitter experiment, he wore a mitt in just 81 games over his final 15 big-league seasons. Make him play the field, like in baseball, and he’s not even part of the discussion.

Luis Gonzalez is still playing, but he doesn’t fit my idea of a Hall of Famer. That is a poor justification for keeping someone out, but I’m sure I could find better reasons if I looked. Oh, here: Dwight Evans. He was a much better player than Gonzalez, and he’s not in Cooperstown. In fact, you could make a very strong case for Evans over Dawson (or Perez, for that matter).

Evans’ main problems were that he played alongside flashier guys (i.e., Jim Rice) and that his career year coincided with a players strike. Evans still has the Fenway thing working against him (though not to the degree that Rice does), but I’d be more inclined to buy into his candidacy than Dawson’s.

The big issue for me with Dawson is that I find myself making excuses for the guy as a way to get him into the Hall. Well, if he hadn’t rotted in Montreal for the first decade of his career. Or if he hadn’t gotten hurt. The thing is, he did rot in Montreal and did get hurt. If we’re willing to cut him slack for those “transgressions,” then we need to start lowering our standards and admit guys like Dale Murphy and the aforementioned Parker.

If you do that, then what do you tell Bobby Grich, Tommy John, Jim Kaat, Alan Trammell, and probably dozens of others? Oh, sorry, you’re too late; better luck in some other universe…

I seem to be on a Hall of Fame kick lately. Maybe it’s because I actually visited the place this summer. Or maybe there’s not much else going on right now (seriously, don’t make me bust out some transaction haiku on the Darin Erstad and Miguel Olivo signings). Whatever the case, that’s where my head is at, so let’s take a look at another worthy candidate, Rich “Goose” Gossage.

On second thought, let’s take a look at someone else taking a look at Gossage. In this case, we’ll check in on a couple of guys with a vote, ESPN’s Phil Rogers and Sean McAdam.

As fascinating to me as the discussions of why a player is or isn’t deserving of enshrinement in Cooperstown are the discussions of why voters think a player is or isn’t. The former question is, for the most part, pretty straightforward. You look at some numbers, compare them against those of other great players, and go about your merry way. As for what the voters are thinking, well, that’s where things get… interesting.

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Dan McLaughlin has a nice article up at Hardball Times (full disclosure: I contribute to THT) on the Hall of Fame worthiness of Tim Raines. In it, Dan compares Raines to other great “tablesetters” — guys whose skills were best suited to the top of the order — throughout baseball history.

The most important finding is that Raines hangs pretty well with his contemporaries — Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, and Paul Molitor. I didn’t get to see Henderson and Molitor play much until later in their careers, but I watched a lot of Gwynn and Raines. As a huge Gwynn fan, I find myself agreeing with Dan that if he’s in, Raines has to be there as well.

Seems to me the best argument anyone can make against Raines is that he didn’t reach the magical 3000-hit plateau, which is silly. Lou Brock hit that milestone, but I like to believe that the voters would have elected him in even if he hadn’t. And you know what? Raines was a better player than Brock.

I’ve been meaning to say something about the Hall of Fame for a while. To help us out, Sean Forman has created nice little reports for batters and pitchers eligible in the current balloting.

Of the new guys, Tim Raines absolutely belongs. Not sure? Several respected analysts have developed a web site that presents a compelling case for Raines. His biggest misfortune, of course, was playing opposite Rickey Henderson for most of his career. That and being buried in Montreal.

Of the holdovers, Bert Blyleven and Goose Gossage deserve enshrinement (and both are long overdue, IMHO). My guess is that one will finally be handed the keys, while the other will be left to wonder what the voters are thinking.

Lee Smith probably belongs as well, but given the reluctance to induct Gossage, that ain’t gonna happen. Alan Trammell? Seems to me if Ryne Sandberg and Ozzie Smith are in, then Trammell should be. Then again, on that basis, you could make a strong case for guys like Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker.

Ah well, the system is inherently flawed; what are you gonna do? More importantly, who do you think will get in this time? Who do you think should?

I forgot to mention that Jim Thome knocked his 500th career home run over the weekend. In light of Thome’s homer, the inevitable question of whether he is a Hall of Famer has surfaced. My first reaction was that he’s an absolute no-brainer, but then I looked at his numbers, which tell a different story.

The homers are nice, as is the career OPS+ of 149. But the fact that he has fewer than 2000 hits will work against Thome, as will the fact that he’s turned into a full-time DH toward the backside of his career.

That said, the guy just turned 37 and doesn’t appear to be in decline. I mean, he’s not dominating pitchers the way he did from, say, 1995 to 2004, but Thome is still a productive hitter with some mileage left in the tank.

In my humble estimation, Thome is just on the edge of serious HOF consideration. If his career ended right now, I could see it going either way. Assuming he can maintain anywhere near his current levels for another 2-3 years, he’ll be a mortal lock by the time he hangs up his spikes.

Oh yeah, and congrats. Hall of Fame speculation notwithstanding, 500 homers is a terrific accomplishment.