Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

First run through of prospective HOFers for the "Back to the 80's--Decade League"...
Four years into the concept is enough time to prevent a player from entering the "hallowed halls" based upon a fluke season or two.

I propose a ONE YEAR waiting period before a player is eligible with players not enshrined by the end considered as future selections.

Make additional nominations as you see fit.

1B-- Willie Aikens
Andre Thornton
Dan Driessen
Jason Thompson

2B-- Julio Cruz
Davey Lopes
Jerry Remy

SS-- Larry Bowa

3B-- Bill Madlock
Pete Rose

C-- John Wathan

OF-- Reggie Jackson
Terry Puhl
Al Cowens
Oscar Gamble
Billy Sample
Warren Cromartie
Ellis Valentine
Joel Youngblood
George Foster
Jerry Morales
Al Bumbry


P-- Rick Honeycutt
Ron Guidry
Ken Forsch
Vern Ruhle
Jim Kern
Al Holland
Dick Ruthven
Tommy John
Rick Langford

RR, thanks for initiating this. I've wanted to make a HOF, too.

I should point out that several of these players were active in 84 -- for example, I had both Aikens and Thompson on my team last year for short stints. I'm presuming these guys wouldn't be eligible until after 85.

Would I correct to interpret your list as a proposed 'ballot', and not necessarily all players you would elect to the HOF? I'm guessing we'll get the list sorted out and then have owners vote? Should we use the 75% cutoff? I expect the difficult thing will be that not everyone will vote.

Should be fun. :D

Willie Aikens (depending on eligibilty)
Davey Lopes
Reggie Jackson
George Foster
Al Holland (depending on eligibilty)

My Ballot:

Terry Puhl
Dave Lopes
Al Holland

My logic is simple but biased some. Terry Puhl put up crazy numbers in 3 of his 4 seasons out hitting his best stat category on any available card 3 times for BA (.252, [b:0b85b85e17].310, .343, .305[/b:0b85b85e17]), 3 times for SLG (.352, [b:0b85b85e17].535, .520, .461[/b:0b85b85e17]), once for OBP (.314, .349, [b:0b85b85e17].402[/b:0b85b85e17], .370) and 3 times for SB ([b:0b85b85e17]34, 27, 34[/b:0b85b85e17], 21). His OBP for the 4 completed seasons, is higher than Yount and Lynn.

Lopes put up a 40/40 season in 1981 (41 HR 40 Steals), and put up 40 HR and 24 steals in 1982. In 1983 after being thrown out to the trash for a reveal of his worst card, he was signed and went on to hit .270 for Hoboken with 7 HR and 11 SB in a limited role as a DH vs. LHP.

Holland has put up save numbers which rival Steve Howe and saves are valuable for the league parity we have seen in 4 seasons of this theme.

Here are the Decade Hitters stats in PDF format.. Right click on link below and select Save Target As...
It is not perfect, but still prety cool. Enjoy. Pitchers coming....


[url=http://home.comcast.net/~miklos2000/decade_hitters.pdf]PDF file of Decade Hitters 1981-1984[/url]


I have a correction for the Parrish boys to make, but otherwise it is interesting. Take a look. I'll do the pitcher next week

YF,

great job putting this list together. Very interesting to see some of the players that REALLY performed consistently. Guys like Puhl, and Jerry Mumphrey.

Also interesting to see George Brett's combined stats compared to Keith Hernandez. I traded Brett to Albert for Hernandez and someone else. While I've had 4 amazing years from Hernandez, (.319, .466, .408, 13HR, 75RBI avg), look at what Brett has done in his 3 healthy years for Albert (.355, .644, .413, 39HR, 138RBI avg)

Blockbuster trade? Absolutely. If I could do it all over again, would I trade the # 1 pick in the entire Decade League for Keith Hernandez? Probably not.

But, the proof is in the results, and as we stand, I believe Albert and I are tied at 1-1 for number of championship rings :lol:

Great effort, YountFan. thank you for this data.

Sean

I'd like to point out that Sean also received Goose Gossage in that original deal. Goose has also gone on to have a couple of productive seasons, albeit maybe not all for the Mangomen, as I know he was traded again at some point.

All in all, a pretty dynamic deal....a win-win for both teams and something I'm sure we'll be keeping track of as the decade progresses :)

I'd like to see a four year (maybe three) year min service to be considers for the HOF. It is a bit early to talk about such things

I contradicted myself by adding a few players who just retired this year.
(My way of loading the deck for HOLLAND)

Time to clean the list


1B--
Andre Thornton
Dan Driessen
Jason Thompson

2B-- Julio Cruz
Davey Lopes
Jerry Remy

SS-- Larry Bowa

3B-- Bill Madlock
Pete Rose

C-- John Wathan

OF--
Terry Puhl
Al Cowens
Oscar Gamble
Billy Sample
Warren Cromartie
Ellis Valentine
Joel Youngblood
George Foster
Jerry Morales
Al Bumbry


P-- Rick Honeycutt
Ron Guidry
Ken Forsch
Vern Ruhle
Jim Kern

Dick Ruthven
Tommy John
Rick Langford

I think you still have to remove Reggie, RR. 84 was his last season and he played briefly on my team this past season. Unfortunately YF's data doesn't capture this.