The Illowa APBA League All-Star weekend is coming up this Friday. One of our annual duties that happens on these weekends (besides playing the actual All-Star game) is voting on new IAL Hall of Fame inductees.
Here are the current players up for inductions from the IAL online ballot:
- Pedro Martinez (200-130, 3.72 ERA, 2767 K)
- Mike Mussina (204-180, 4.18 ERA, 2870 K)
- Jarrod Washburn (81-94, 4.81 ERA, 1080 K)
- Carlos Delgado (466 HR, 1174 rbi)
- Jim Edmonds (320 HR, 1002 rbi)
- Mike Cameron (243 HR, 285 SB, 914 runs)
- Nomar Garciappara (.316, 209 HR, 974 RBI)
- Brian Giles (261 HR, 1126 runs, 1104 rbis)
- Ken Griffey Jr (2368 hits, 582 HR, 1754 rbis, 1547 runs)
- Edgar Renteria (892 runs, 227 SB)
- Gary Sheffield (460 HR, 204 SB, 1374 rbis, 1507 runs)
IAL managers will get to vote up to seven times for any of these players.
It’s definitely a strong year for the IAL with Pedro Martinez and Mike Mussina leading the pitchers. They both won 200 games each.
There are strong contenders among the hitters, too with Griffey and Sheffield. As a general rule, I feel a player is heading towards HOF candidacy if they have 1000 rbis or runs… especially both. Sheffield may not be everyone’s kind of player but with his power and on-base he reached both easily.
But what to do with the next quandary? Nomar Garciaparra holds the esteemed single season record for hitting with a .412 mark in 2001. He also has a .316 career batting average in a pitching-rich APBA league like ours.
But compare Garciaparra to someone like Brian Giles though. Giles doesn’t have near the superstar quality that Nomar does but outranks him in rbis (1104 to 974), runs (1126 to 828), and even homers (261 to 209) despite his .260 batting average. Some will point to Giles’ extended playing time. He has 6107 at bats to Garciaparra’s 4832 but I wonder if when we’re talking about long term contribution to a league, whose argument that benefits.
I’m not advocating voting for Giles nor am I discouraging my fellow managers from voting for Garciaparra (the fact that he played a demanding position and played it well can’t be ignored). But the ‘Blyleven Argument’ can’t be easily dismissed either.
I haven’t made my decision on the HOF ballot yet. We make our choices this weekend. Stay tuned.
Sometimes I wonder if you just posted stats and left out names would voting be any different.
Analyzing a career for HOF is never perfect, and you do have to compare season averages vs number compilation
LOL, Dom you may be right.
yeah, I’m probably over-analyzing too much. And yes, there is something to be said for those great seasons (ie Nomar’s .412).
I guess sometimes we overlook those players that play day in and day out play well. I guess they belong in the ‘Hall of Pretty Good’. :)
Any HOF results in yet?
not yet, Dom.
My votes in no particular order:
Martinez, Mussina, Delgado, Griffey, Garciaparra and Sheffield.
Martinez, Mussina and Griffey were no-brainers for me. Delgado had too good of stats to ignore.
Garciaparra had his .412 season (highest ever in IAL history) and his name is all over our record books. While Sheffield is a one or two faceted player, his offensive contribution was too good to pass up.