Who are your top 5 not in the HOF?

[jjpm74]

*Apologies if this has been done before.

Of eligible players (meaning no banned players and no players who haven't been retired long enough to appear on a BBWAA ballott), who are your top 5?

Here are mine in no particular order:

Joe Start
Dan Quisenberry
Ron Santo
Ted Simmons
Bill Dahlen

[RuthMayBond]

*Apologies if this has been done before.

Of eligible players (meaning no banned players and no players who haven't been retired long enough to appear on a BBWAA ballott), who are your top 5?

Here are mine in no particular order:

Joe Start

A first baseman with 544 RBI? I could think of dozens of 1B better than him

[leecemark]

A first baseman with 544 RBI? I could think of dozens of 1B better than him

--It seems you don't know much about Joe Start then. He was a star of the 1860s, where he didn't have any RBI (or anything else) officially recorded and the 1870s where seasons were very short. I wouldn't call him one of the 5 best outside Cooperstown, but he has a solid HoF case. Not everything can be judged strictly by BB-ref.

[John Shoemaker]

A first baseman with 544 RBI? I could think of dozens of 1B better than him

Especially one with 1414 RBI's and 583 Home Runs - Mark McGwire

[leecemark]

Glaring Omissons

Deacon White
Paul Hines
Bill Dahlen
Sherry Magee
Minnie Minoso
Ron Santo
Joe Torre
Dick Allen
Bert Blyleven
Ted Simmons
Tom Raines
--Not sure which 5 I'd pick from this group. Maybe White, Minoso, Santo, Blyleven and Simmons. There is a significantly larger group I'd call obvious Hall of Famers, but just slightly behind this group. Three favorites of mine from the next group; Charlie Bennett, Bill Freehan and Alan Trammell. They may even be as good as some the above group by I erred on the side of caution against letting my personal biases rule the day.

[Bothrops Atrox]

1. Blyleven
2. Allen
3. Santo
4. Raines
5. Grich

HM: Dahlen, W. Ferrell, Magee, Torre, Simmons,D. White and Bridges

[RuthMayBond]

--It seems you don't know much about Joe Start then. He was a star of the 1860s, where he didn't have any RBI (or anything else) officially recorded and the 1870s where seasons were very short. I wouldn't call him one of the 5 best outside Cooperstown, but he has a solid HoF case. Not everything can be judged strictly by BB-ref.

OK, but his Black Ink, HOF Monitor & HOF Standards are h

[jjpm74]

OK, but his Black Ink, HOF Monitor & HOF Standards are h

Here's a good starting point on understanding Joe Start and why he has a much stronger case than his stats on bbref suggest:

http://baseball-fever.com/showpost.php?p=940013&postcount=71

[leecemark]

--Again, BBR does not tell the full story for Start or anyone from his generation. He was to the 1860s and 1870s what Fred McGriff was to the 1980s and 1990s. Maybe that is a Hall of Famer to you and maybe it isn't, but if you dismiss him without learning a little about his story then you are not making a fair judgement.

[Paul Wendt]

ranked groups

It's possible to score a survey where people provide lists of different lengths and rank them incompletely (ranked groups).
For example in this forum the the author might suggest 20 players completely ranked to be scored 20-19-18-. . . -1. If someone lists 22 in two groups of 11, score that as a one tie for ranks 1 to 11, worth 15 points each, and one tie for ranks 12 to 22, worth 4 points each.

[MadHatter]

1. Jim Rice
2. Jack Morris
3. Dale Murphy
4. Ted Simmons
5. Ron Santo

[steve rogers]

1. Tim Raines
2. Bert Byleven
3. Ron Santo
4. Buck O'Neil
5. Minnie Minoso

Other guys I'd like to see: Cannonball Dick Redding, Dwight Evans (better than Rice IMO), Ted Simmons, Dan Quisenberry, Joe Torre (as a player), Jim Kaat, Al Oliver (maybe a little underqualified but he's one of my favorites).

Scott

[BSmile]

I've always been mystified by the lack of support for Steve Garvey. Mind you, I am a NYY fan who grew up in the 70's/80's, so Garvey isn't exactly my favorite person. However, I always thought of him as a HOF player back then (and now). The only 2 serious knocks on his career (IMHO) would be his poor OBP (.329 career) and his "goody-too-shoes" personality. Otherwise, his career numbers are pretty strong. He was always a consistantly good performer in the post-season as well. In 55 post-season games, he hit .338. He had 10 All-Star selections, 4 Gold Gloves, 2,599 career hits for a BA of .294.....not too shabby.

In any case, what do you all think was the bigger problem for his HOF case:
1) His numbers just didn't stack up against the other elite 1B HOFers
-or-
2) His super clean cut image that seemed to tick off quite a few people

I get the feeling that #2 had a lot more to do with it than some writers might admit.

[Windy City Fan]

Top 5

1) Ron Santo
2) Tim Raines
3) Dick Allen
4) Bert Blyleven
5) Bill Dahlen

Others off the top of my head:
Lee Smith
Dan Quisenberry
Minnie Minoso
Gavy Craveth
Ted Simons
Joe Torre
Bobby Grich
Sherry Magee
Fred McGriff
Alan Trammell
Andre Dawson
Bill Freehan
Keith Hernandez
Joe Gordon
Ken Boyer
Albert Belle

[willshad]

I dont think theres really any player who is OBVIOUSLY a hall of famer, who isn't already in. Seems to me all the candidates have pretty glaring flaws. The guys with good longevity and counting stats dont seem to have been quite dominant enough ( Blyleven, Garvey, Dawson, Raines, Morris, Simmons, Hernandez). The guys who were dominant had short careers and flamed out early ( Allen, Belle, Murphy, Guidry, Gooden, Clark, Cravath, Mattingly). The guys who are big 'sabermetric' favorites are only candidates usually because they were 'good' (but not really ever 'great') at weak positions (Trammell, Torre, Santo, Grich) . I suppose Rice is probably my favorite because he has counting stats that are VERY near typical hall of fame level, and also was a very dominating figure during his time. But even he i think probably falls a bit below the borderline. Dwight Evans is about on the same level. McGriff, if he is even eligible yet, is another good choice. Ditto Dave Parker.