Edgar Martinez And The Hall Of Fame: Eliminating The Worst Argument

DH = Cooperstown :: Kicker = Canton.

Do you know how many pure kickers there are in the Pro Football HOF? One. And kicking didn’t become a specialist position in the NFL until the mid-late ’60s, not that long before the DH.

(Yes, this is somewhat facetious. But the point is that no matter what sport, you have positions that are under-appreciated.)

is that I can take his five best seasons and mix them in with Ted Williams’ career and defy you to pick out whose is whose.

My argument against Edgar (and it’s a wobbly one, I admit) is that at times he was only the fourth or fifth best player on his team, and that team didn’t win much of anything with him on it. (Granted, three of the others are sure-fire HoFers — ARod, Johnson and Griffey, and the fourth depends how you feel about Buhner.)

I love Edgar, but I was skeptical for awhile, but now I’m coming around to the closer argument for him.

I don’t think he’s a slam dunk. He’s very good. Even great maybe. But Hall of Fame. Ehhh I dunno. I’m a small hall guy, really preferring to favor the elite of the elite.

In terms of pure numbers (in other words, putting steroids aside for now), I think Bonds is there at (168.2 career WAR) A-Rod is there at 112.5 career WAR, Pujols and Chipper at 87, but once you get down to about 75 or so WAR, I don’t think it’s slam dunk anymore.

I think at 75 or so it becomes a lot more subjective. Which guys in that group did you find to be most special. I certainly wouldn’t just blindly let anyone in at 50 or 60 or 70 WAR.

Edgar doesn’t really pass my subjective test – doesn’t feel like a hall of famer to me. He was very good. Great even. But not the elite of the elite.

First, as others have pointed out, DHs are eligible and that’s fine, but its a limited position which applies to only half the teams. Therefore, Its twice as easy to be the “best DH” and a player in that role has less effect than a normal position. The arguments about “best ph” and “best Loogy” are accurate. The fact that Edgar is arguably the “best dh” and should therefore get in are meritless. Moreover, he’s only the “best dh” because he was never good enough to play another position, unlike so many great players who became dhs at the end of their careers. If those players were so very much better than Edgar in the first place, they’d have blown him away at that position/ role.
Second, The allusion to relievers only highlights the largest flaw in WAR: it is too dependent on playing time. A middle reliever with Mariano Rivera’s WAR would be in the same boat as Edgar, but of course WAR does not take into account the value of special situations and that is the special value of a lights-out closer. Mariano affected the game in so many other ways and his outs were of far greater difficulty and value.
Lastly, even if Edgar had played his whole career as a poor 1b instead of a dh-only, he still wouldn’t be a good candidate. Even if you discount the likely negative WAR from his poor fielding, 69.9 WAR isn’t all that great a number when you consider that he played in a notorious hitter’s park. If you write off Helton and Walker completely because of their home park, why can’t you at least apply some discount to Edgar’s hitting numbers? I should also add that there are as many steroid rumors about Edgar as there are about Bagwell. Both guys got huge at the same time as all the other roid cases and both only became great when they got huge. I know its not exactly “beyond a reasonable doubt” but it is there to consider

Agreed that the DH is currently in the rules (one league’s rules, anyway). Still, decades after the DH’s addition, a non-trivial number of serious fans and baseball analysts still believe it a profound mistake, and consider a DH something less than a baseball player by definition … Edgar Martinez included.

Now, there are certainly arguments to be made against this sentiment (though maybe its simple, abiding persistence should be telling DH proponents something). However, the vote of a bunch of jackleg 1970s AL owners is emphatically NOT an argument, and it’s not something that a non-MLB employee is bound to respect or observe. Neither HoF voters nor fans have to pretend that baseball is something they believe it isn’t.

The flip-side of the WAR argument is this: Edgar achieved a high lifetime total WAR with only partial opportunity to augment it with his fielding (the games he did play in the field convince me that, had he fielded his entire career, his defensive contribution would have been positive or at least neutral).
Besides, it’s the Hall of Fame. If someone wants to build a Hall of WAR, fine. For the Baseball Hall of Fame, Grant’s two points (DH is a position and Edgar was likely the best of all) are spot on.

Is that there are fans and writers alike, who give closers, especially in this day and age a push toward Cooperstown, when they throw to three batters every few days and there’s no question as to their value…but a guy hits every day and his value is scrutinized?

How does that work exactly? Mariano Rivera has faced 4800 or so batters in his regular season career. Should he be in for being the best closer? I’m not sure closers should be in the Hall of Fame period.

Why is a DH only part of a player? I hate the DH rule, hate the concept and hate it’s use (especially in the playoffs.) But why are those players punished for playing that position well? I believe Edgar could have played first base but his team made the choice to DH him. Is there some contention that Edgar couldn’t play first base? Or wasn’t a good fielder? He had an injury and took advantage of the DH rule. Should we ignore the latter years of the career of Paul Molitor, et al?

And that line of thinking…should we delete the DH numbers for all the players whether or not they did it full time?

The numbers happened: and I have to believe that if Edgar Martinez doesn’t make it in, it will be even sadder to see what will happen to any other full time DH…because there isn’t likely to be a better one and it’s acting like the DH doesn’t belong. I hate the rule but it does exist and the position exists and Edgar excelled at it.

Edgar should be in.

no relievers should be in either