2023 Baseball Hall of Fame Class

Surprised Rolen got in - I wonder if we are now in the era of dispassionate numbers. But i see his comps in Abstrract, and it still doesn't really compute.

 

I'm OK with Rolen getting in, but as others have written, there are more deserving players who are still left out.

You can't tell the story of their era without Dale Murphy, Steve Garvey, Don Mattingly, Keith Hernandez and Dave Parker.

You can tell the story of his without Rolen.

 

People don’t have to shit on other players just because their favorite player from the 1980s didn’t make the Hall.

Troy Glaus? Really? Less than 40 bWAR. It’s not even a comparison.

 

It's not as if he's championing Curt Blefary. Glaus was in the general ballpark. Less defense, more power, just like X-Hack said.

 

Except he wasn't in the general ballpark. Rolen had almost twice the WAR and only played four more seasons. Defense is a thing that matters when you're not a 1B or DH.

 

Who's a random average CF with a good bat similar to Andruw Jones but no defense? Would that player be in the general ballpark?

 

Which is part of why I don't get the rending of garments over Jeff Kent. Solid bat and glove when I saw him in San Francisco and nice numerically, but his mist remarkable achievement may have been his lack of motorcycle driving skills.

 

Well put!

 

Am I the only very old man here who thinks "defensive statistics" in baseball are a complete fiction?

 

Not as fictional as the reliability of the "eye test."

 

But if we are going to use the "eye test," Rolen passes that defensively, too. Unless you never watched him play.