The Hall of Very Good Players

[Modernistfan]

Well, four players were just elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame: Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Vladimir Guerrero, and Trevor Hoffman. If I had a ballot, only Jones would have been on it. Thome was a very good player who just, barely, fell short. About Guerrero, despite very strong numbers, there was just something about him that I did not like. He wasn't a bad guy off the field, was not suspected of PED use, and, at least as far as can be determined by a fan, did not slack off or not hustle. It is very hard to define, but it may be that, for some reason, he just did not make his teammates better players. I once told a friend that I would rather have David Eckstein, a player with probably no more than 1/100th of Guerrero's raw talent, than Guerrero. As for Hoffman, if I had a ballot, no pitcher who pitched one inning or two-thirds of an inning every other day would be on it, period.