Matt Williams | The Baseball Zealot

HOF ’09: We’re Done!

Well, with Teddy Ballgame’s write-up on Greg Vaughn earlier today, we’ve concluded HOF ’09, our series of profiles of this year’s candidates for the Hall of Fame. It’s been fun and I think we’ve even learned a bit along the way.

As for me, it was an interesting group of players to profile for a couple reasons. A big one was that most of these players were big stars while I was a teenager and young adult when I was forming my serious interest in baseball. Dave Parker, Jim Rice, Tim Raines, Andre Dawson… I have fond memories. Not to mention that some of these players played in the era when the Chicago Cubs finally became a post season threat (I can still remember the ’84 series against the Padres… ugh).

Also, these players came from a time when baseball had more of a balance of power, speed, and pitching. Appropriately enough, that is reflected in the 2009 Hall of Fame ballot. With the speed of Henderson and Raines, the power of McGwire and Rice and the pitching of David Cone, Bert Blyleven and Tommy John, this class is well represented.

Who will get elected? Well, we put our opinions down who we think SHOULD get the call but as to who WILL get elected is another matter. The BBWAA has been rather stingy lately and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s very possible that just one (Rickey Henderson??) will get elected and others will have to wait.

Time is running out for some, though. The midnight hour is chiming for Jim Rice as it’s his last ballot. There are some (myself included) who feel that his career and contribution is worthy of the Hall.

We’ll find out tomorrow and the chips will fall where they may. No doubt, many bloggers and pundits will be unhappy no matter how it goes. I’ll predict at least one writer will have his credentials questioned and will be asked to step down from the BBWAA. Unfortunately, THAT is the safest prediction I make right now.

All that said, here are the opinions we’ve made in the last month. Links go to our profiles on the players.

Thanks for reading!

	Hall of Fame	Hall of Very Good	Why is he even on the Ballot?
Harold Baines
Jay Bell
Bert Blyleven
David Cone
*Andre Dawson*
Ron Gant
Mark Grace
Rickey Henderson
Tommy John
Don Mattingly
Mark McGwire
Jack Morris
Dale Murphy
Jesse Orosco
Dave Parker
Dan Plesac
Tim Raines
Jim Rice
Lee Smith
Alan Trammell
Greg Vaughn
Mo Vaughn
Matt Williams

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Teddy Ballgame and DonS for their help with his project.

Also, a lot of research went in to this. I’d like to give props to the websites that were helpful.

Baseball Reference: I can’t say enough about this web site. If there are baseball fans out there who haven’t seen this site and what it can do, you need to check it out.

Baseball Page: Very helpful for bios and such.

Baseball Musings’ Day by Day Database: Good for finding stats between established periods of time (and lots of other stuff).

Baseball Almanac: another good bio site. Good for the quotes too :)

HOF ’09: Matt Williams

matt_williams_autograph

When Matt Williams was coming up through the San Francisco Giants system there were comparisons to Mike Schmidt & Cal Ripken. Matty started out as a shortstop, a big man like Cal, but Williams would move over to the hot corner almost immediately upon his arrival in the majors. Like Schmidt, it took Matt a little while to find his way above the Mendoza-line (.200 batting average), hitting .188, .205, & .202 in limited play in his first three seasons.

In 1990 at the age of 24, Williams claimed the Giants thirdbase job. Making the All Star team, Matt did it with the bat, hitting .277, with 33 homers, and 122 RBIs (a career high of 138 strikeouts), and with the glove, shifting over from SS, 3B presented him with no problems in the field. He also earned his first Silver Slugger Award. He would be named an All Star four more years (1994-96, 99), be a four time Gold Glove winner (1991-94, 97) and earn the Silver Slugger three more times (1993-94, 97).

1994 was his best year with the Giants, but it was also the year of the strike, in only 115 games, Williams hit 43 (career best) home runs (on a pace to break Roger Maris’ single season mark, calculated over a full year), driving in 96. Then the next year he broke a bone in his right foot, causing him to play in only 76 games, he batted .336 with 23 long balls & 65 RBIs.

Matt Williams had arguably his best overall season with the Diamondbacks in 1999, a .303 batting average, 35 HRs, and 142 RBIs, leading Arizona to a first place finish. Over his 17 year career, Matt hit 378 home runs, drove in 1,218, while hitting .268.

I loved this guy like a brother. A foul ball off his bat at Wrigley Field went straight up the elevator shaft and came down to the left of homeplate, two feet away from my left foot. He played most of his APBA days for my Chicago Champions of the Illowa APBA League, where he hit 62 homers, with 168 RBIs, using his strike card, incredibly his IAL stats are very similar to his real life totals (387 HRs, 1,137 RBIs, .258). BTW, he’s not in the IAL HOF.

Interestingly Vinny Castilla’s career is most similar to Matt Williams according to the Baseball Reference, others mentioned include Ron Cey & Robin Ventura. Would I be way off base if I were to mention comparing Ron Santo’s numbers to Matt Williams? That said, What is this guy doing on the ballot?

	Hall of Fame
	Hall of Very Good
	Why is he even on the Ballot?

While we wait for January 12 ballot results, The Baseball Zealot will be profiling those players who are on the 2009 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. Read the rest the of the profiles.

HOF ’09: Profiling the Candidates

This winter, The Baseball Zealot will be doing profiles of the Hall of Fame candidates for 2009. In addition, we’ll give our opinion on their inclusion in the Hall. This post will serve as the entry point for the HOF ’09 series.

Here is the link to all the profiles written to date.

The results will be announced on January 12th, 2009. With any luck, we’ll get them all in before then.

Why is he even on the Ballot?