Hall of Fame Trial - Lou Whitaker

[splitterpfj]

The Hall of Fame is filled with pitchers, outfielders and first basemen...second base has been a tougher ticket. Here's Lou's case...

 

http://www.baseballintheblood.com/?p=719

[RockCoCougars]

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Mazeroski is in the HOF and Whitaker is off the ballot. I'd say that Whitaker is a better candidate than Alomar too. Frankly I'm not sure if any of these three should be in, but for Whitaker to be the one left out makes no sense.

[JohnBriggs12]

I don't know how Mazeroski is in there either. Dick Groat was a better player on the same team and he's not in. But I wouldn't compound things by putting Whitaker in there. He was very good, but not a HOFer. His highest finish in MVP balloting was 8th, his only time in the top 20. He had good HR numbers for his position at the time, but Tiger Stadium was a band box for lefty pull hitters.

 

Compare Whitaker's number to Tiger 2B HOFer, Charlie Gehringer. Sweet Lou is no Charlie Gehringer.

[endaround]

WAR

 

Robin Yount 74.0

 

Lou Whitaker 74.3

 

This really shouldn't be a debate, he should be in.

[DuWayne Steurer]

What hurts Whitaker is he never had that "WOW" season like Robin had in '82. Lou was NEVER a dominant player, hew as always just a pretty good one, to very good one. Whitaker never had an OPS+ over 150 (tops was 141), Robin got over 150 (what I personally consider a 'dominant' offensive season) 3 times.

 

Overall, their careers are extremely similar, but Lou doesn't have the counting numbers that Yount does (including the milestone number, 3000), or the few dominating seasons like Yount had, including those 2 MVP's.

 

Now, the argument can be made that those MVP's and counting stats aren't nearly as important as rate stats, and for the sake of figuring out who was simply a better player, I agree, but the Hall does (and should) consider counting stats as a criteria.

 

Would I vote for Lou? Probably, and I honestly like Lou's case a LOT more than Trammel's, to be honest. But, I don't think it's a tragedy that he's not in there.

[Outlander]

It always annoyed me that he was taken off the ballot after his first year as he certainly is way better than the types of players that get removed after year one. However, it is going to be such a long time before his next chance or trial to be elected that I'll save the debate for another day.

[joepepsi]

Both Trammell and Whitaker deserve HOF in my opinion. Not only is 2B underrepresented in the HOF, aren't the 80's generation of players underrepresented in general?