What about Dawson?

[pretorius]

I am curious as to what the delegation thinks about Dawson and if he is hall worthy. I think he is. He didnt reach alot of major milestones but as I compare him and say a Dave Winfield I think they are just about equal except for the fact that Dave hit for higher average. My criteria for the hall is usually two fold. I first ask if the player was special and then I see if he has the stats to back it up. Dawson was a special player. I have always seen Dawson as a link between Mays and Bonds. Dawson could run, hit and throw. I know he only had that 1 monster year in 87 but Dawson was a special player. He also didnt play much in the home run and power explosion of the mid to late 90's. I have to think that for the time in which he played that 436 HR, 1577 RBI's, 2,758 hits, 501 doubles, 314 stolen bases, a few gold gloves and more career extra base hits then the likes of men like Schmidt, Hornsby, Wagner, Ernie Banks and many others would qualify him for the hall.

Opinions on the hawk?

[leecemark]

--I would have to say Dave Winfield was a much better player than Andre Dawson. As you say, his BA was a little better. More importantly his OBP was much better. Dawson wouldn't take a walk and ended up with a worse than league average OBP for his career.
--Dawson isn't near the top of my eligible but not in list of RFers. I'd take Tony Oliva, Gavy Craveth, Dave Parker, Dewey Evans, Reggie Smith and Bobby Bonds ahead of him. He probably has a better chance of actually making the Hall than any of them though.
--If Dawson's knee had held up long enough for him to have remained in CF for more of his career I'd like him better. He wasn't as good as Dale Murphy and Freddy Lynn at their best, but lasted longer than either. You could make a case that if he was consdiered as a CF he would be at or at least closer to the head of the line. I am more impressed with his two 2nd place MVP finishes as a CF in Montreal in the early 80s than his undeserved win in 1987 with the Cubs.

[tibber]

i'd vote for him.

[Chadwick]

Dawson's case would be "sexier" had his knees held up longer from the artificial turf of Stade Olympique. However, given the actual standards of the Hall of Fame as they have existed from 1936-present, I think there is a stronger case for his inclusion than there is for his exclusion.

Dawson made my phantom ballot in the 2004 BBWAA election and I expect he'll do so again this winter. I've got Dawson as the third most deserving outfielder (after Murphy and Rice) in the pending election this Christmas.

[ElHalo]

Dawson, Murphy, Rice... all get no, no, and no.

The eligible outfielders I'd like to see make it in include Sherry Magee, Gavvy Cravath, and... call me if you find somebody else deserving.

[micsmith]

Dawson is the only guy with 1000 career extra base hits that is not in the hall. He's also got the most total bases of guys not in the hall. Almost 1600 RBI, over 400 HR and over 300 stolen bases. Plus the first MVP for a last place team and he had a ton of hits. 8-time all star too. I think he should be in the hall ahead of contemporaries like Harold Baines and Dave Parker.

[leecemark]

--Well I can't argue him deserving it more than Baines and I'm no fan of Dave Parker either. Dawson has alot of points that make him worth considering. His only real negative is that godawfull OBP. He has a reasonable chance of getting the BWAA vote before he runs out of time. Unless the VC becomes a little more sabermetric or goes out of business before he becomes eligible I can't imagine him missing out on that second chance. Baines doesn't deserve a sniff and Parker has no chance of getting the BWAA vote. He will be a storng VC candidate someday too though.

[micsmith]

I think that it is perfectly fine to have major points against you for having some awful stat like Dawson's career OBP, which is admittedly horrendous. But, Reggie Jackson shattered Willie Stargell's (i think) record to become the king of strikeouts and he still leads that list. The top 7 guys on the all-time pitching losses list are in the hall. How many walks did Nolan Ryan give up? Rollie Fingers blew over 100 saves. So I think it is permissable to have some blemishes on your record.

[Eddie Collins]

Andre Dawson: Why Not?

When Andre was playing, I always felt he was a great player, destined for the HOF. Here are some of his credentials:

He has the most Hits, Total Bases, RBI, and extra base hits of any eligible, non-HOFer. He was an 8 time all-star, ROY, and MVP in 1987 and came in second 2 other times.. He won 8 gold gloves.

Dawson was one of the most complete players in major league history. He did absolutely everything. He hit for power, hence the 503 doubles and 438 homers. He was an excellent defensive player, as his 8 GG's show. He ran the bases well, with 314 stolen bases. He did the little things too, as marked by his having the 39th most HBP, and 7th most sac flies ever. His power speed number is 6th best all time, behind only Bonds, Henderson, Bonds, Morgan, and Mays.

The only big knocks against the Hawk are his strikeouts and lack of walks. But look carefully, and you will see that he really struck 100 or more times only 3 times in 21 years, and only once past age 24.
His OBP, I admit is bad. He wasn't the most patient of hitters. But he surely made up for it in the field, on the bases, and with small-ball execution. In fact, his OBp seems to be the only week spot in his game.

Any thoughts? I know I'd vote for him.

[Ontarioguy]

I would love to see Hawk in the HOF. He was an amazing player who did it all.
MVP, 30-30 man. A career .279 avg. The list goes on as Eddie described.

His resume is very impressive.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/d/dawsoan01.shtml

I would love to see him in the hall with an Expos cap on. But he may get in wearing the red white and blue of the Cubs.

[pretorius]

Two players that I have always for some off reason linked (maybe because of Montreal) is Andre Dawson and Tim Raines.

I feel both are somehwat overlooked and both deserve in the hall.

[csh19792001]

When Andre was playing, I always felt he was a great player, destined for the HOF. Here are some of his credentials:

He has the most Hits, Total Bases, RBI, and extra base hits of any eligible, non-HOFer. He was an 8 time all-star, ROY, and MVP in 1987 and came in second 2 other times.. He won 8 gold gloves.

Dawson was one of the most complete players in major league history. He did absolutely everything. He hit for power, hence the 503 doubles and 438 homers. He was an excellent defensive player, as his 8 GG's show. He ran the bases well, with 314 stolen bases. He did the little things too, as marked by his having the 39th most HBP, and 7th most sac flies ever. His power speed number is 6th best all time, behind only Bonds, Henderson, Bonds, Morgan, and Mays.

The only big knocks against the Hawk are his strikeouts and lack of walks. But look carefully, and you will see that he really struck 100 or more times only 3 times in 21 years, and only once past age 24.
His OBP, I admit is bad. He wasn't the most patient of hitters. But he surely made up for it in the field, on the bases, and with small-ball execution. In fact, his OBp seems to be the only week spot in his game.

Any thoughts? I know I'd vote for him.

Eddie, I'm surprised.

Aren't there far more valuable position player candidates? Van Haltren? Santo? Sandberg? Dahlen?

Positives- good speed/homer combo, but for all those hr's and doubles, still a very low relative slugging percentage. He had a tremendous arm, and was a great OFer.

Dawson struck out 3 times for every walk, which is AWFUL. How many positon players in the HOF did that? His OPS+ of 119 is also terribly low.

You mentioned walks- but I don't care about walks if 1)a guy has a high BA, or 2)he doesn't strike out. Unfortunately, Dawson was neither- he was an out machine. Low BA, lots of K's, very few walks, GIDP a lot. Guys like that don't belong in the HOF.

Ironically, he was the diametric opposite of one of your heroes, (Eddie Collins himself.) Collins was all brains, extremely adaptive, and incredibly clutch. Dawson was none of these things.

[leecemark]

--Eddie, I agree Dawson's only real flaw was a poor OBP, but that is a pretty big one to pick if you're going to suck at one area of the game. He was a big star in the 80s before people started really focusing on how important it was not to make so many outs (although you'd think people might always have seen that as a problem). His star fell pretty quickly in the 90s thru today.
--Still as you say, he does have alot of nice counting numbers. I think he has a fair to middling chance of election some day. Whether that would be a good thing or not is debatable. He is solidly in the grey area for me.

[Eddie Collins]

Eddie, I'm surprised.

Aren't there far more valuable position player candidates? Van Haltren? Santo? Sandberg? Dahlen?

Yes, of course they are. He isn't one of the top 10 left out or anything, and Santo, Minoso, and a plenty others have a better case, but he was one of my favorites growing up, and I always thought he was a great player when he was playing. I guess this once again goes back to that issue on the perception of greatness.

[J W]

You are dead-on, EC. I'm sure if you asked anyone one month after he retired if he was a HOFer, you'd get a higher percentage than now.

He's borderline for me, but he makes it in my book. Like the others, the longer I look at him, the less bright his star shines. Ultimately though, his defense does it. From what I see, he deserved his gold gloves.