Damon
Query: Could Johnny Damon be the first 3000 hit player to miss the Hall of Fame? Of course, this excludes the obvious problems (Rose, Palmeiro), and assumes that Biggio will make it… Damon is currently 36, and has 2425 hits. It’s not at all difficult to imagine that he could play for four more years and collect his 3000th hit without substantially improving his candidacy. Baseball Reference lists Damon’s HoF Monitor at 78 (100 is the average HoFer), and HoF standard at 38 (50 is average). Damon has played for the Red Sox and the Yankees, but I don’t think that he’s ever been perceived as much more than he is; a good, valuable baseball player who falls short of greatness.
While I doubt Damon has 600 hits left in him, I think he’ll get in with 3000. He shouldn’t, but he the championships and people like him and he’s played for big market teams. Meanwhile the far superior Tim Raines will languish with 60% of the vote.
I think in 15 years these milestone numbers won’t mean so much, what with people who care about meaningful statistics a growing number of HOF voters. But when Damon comes up, they’ll be lots of old-school voters out there ready to vote him in.
Context is everything. Damon has been the centerfielder on some good teams, but I don’t think he’s ever been one of the top three centerfielders in the league– or in baseball– at any point in his career. Good rotisserie guy? Sure. That’s different.
But I don’t think with a lot of HOF voters that context is everything. I think a lot of those guys will see someone with 3000 hits and without any PED or gambling issues and say, that’s a hall of famer!
I don’t think he’ll get 3000 hits- I suspect he’ll be a bit worse than last year this year, somewhat worse than this year next year, and then have an obs of about 710 or less, with injuries, the year after next and be done, finishing with about 2800 hits. He’ll get some votes but not get in. But if he does manage to get to 3000, I think he’ll get in, being something like the Don Sutton of hitters. (Maybe that’s unfair to Sutton, whose stats I’m not going to look up just now, but my memory is that he was thought to be a good pitcher for a long time rather than a great one, and that’s why it took him several years to get in, even though he had 300 wins.)
It’s pretty unfair to Sutton; he’s has a clear HoF resume, even as he lacks some of the flashier stats that some voters look for.
As for Damon’s chances at 3000, 46% seems about right to me…
I agree about Sutton, and I think it’s even more true about Biggio. Some people will deride him as a “compiler,” but he’s a clear-cut HOFer even without the magic number.
A guy that played for the Red Sox and Yankees and was on World Series winning teams for both.
And you think he’d have trouble getting in the HoF with 3000 hits? Hell, the writers are going to be looking for excuses to put him in if he even gets close while guys with better stats get screwed for not playing for the Red Sox or the Yankees.
Yeah, I agree with this. I can’t imagine Damon deserving inclusion into the HOF, but I’m pretty confident voters will “cowboy up” and let this “scruffy, bluecollar, lunchbox toting dirt devil” in, especially with his NY/Boston ties. Isn’t that roughly the equivalent of an Oxbridge man advancing through the academic ranks?
I won’t say the HOF is meaningless–it’s a very cool place to visit so you can look at old uniforms and gloves and balls and enjoy the ambience of baseball history. But I well past the point at which I angst over who will and will not make the cut.
If Damon sticks around long enough to get 600 more hits – what, 150 hits a season means four more years? – and waits the prerequisite five before being HOF eligible, then that makes him HOF eligible in 9 years at the earliest. If his best case scenario for HOF enshrinement a decade down the road relies on granting him a milestone that seems more and more antiquated every year now, then his chances aren’t good.
I think he’s destined for one team or another’s ring of honor or whatever, but I just don’t see him in Cooperstown.
Rose is ineligible, but I don’t see why Palmeiro is a special case. If he doesn’t make it in, he will be an eligible player with 3000 hits who didn’t get in the Hall of Fame.
I mean, Barry Bonds is obviously going to get in at some point, right? There’s no rule saying steroids players can’t get in, right?
Palmeiro also had 500+ home runs, along with Aaron, Mays, and Eddie Murray.
Seen on a t-shirt in Boston:
Johnny Damon
Looks like Jesus
Throws like Mary
Acts like Judas
I don’t think that 3000 hits has been “devalued” like 500 homers have. But Palmeiro had 3020, and I don’t see him getting in any time soon. Other than not-yet-eligibles, the highest hit total for a non-Hall of Famer is 2866 by Harold Baines.
For what it’s worth, Bill James’ projection system has Damon with a 46 percent chance of 3000. I’m surprised it’s that high; the only ones higher are Jeter and A-Rod, who are basically locks (96 and 89 percent respectively).
Although the 3000-hit criterion seems quite arbitrary, it’s actually worked pretty well. Almost nobody who has gotten there is even a marginal HOF case, while lots of players who have fallen two or three or four hundred hits short clearly don’t deserve to be in.
FWIW I suspect Damon will be in the latter category — I agree that the favorite toy projection of a 46% probability is too high in his case. People act like 150 hits in a season is no big deal, but you have to be a good everyday player to get that many.
Damon’s been a good player but not a great one, and when a guy like that loses 25% of his value he really shouldn’t be a regular any more. Prior to the PED era basically everybody lost at least that much of their value in their mid to late 30s, and the only guys who were regulars at much past 35 were guys who had been major stars at their peak.
So I guess a lot will turn on how good the PED testing actually is.
In Damon’s favor, though, I think sheer longevity, at a high level (even if not the highest) should be a factor in making the hall of fame – the Don Sutton factor, if you will…. It’s hard to see Damon getting in without hitting some popular milestone, but another 4 years like his last 4 years (however unlikely that is) probably should put him in the conversation. If he decides to hang around until he’s 45, trying to scrounge up that last 50 hits to make 3K, that’s another story, obviously…
Damon is currently 199th among position players in WAR http://www.baseballprojection.com/war/top500.htm
(disclaimer: rough tool, etc). At 46.5 if he adds another 8 wins over 4 seasons (which I think he’d need to to get 3000 hits) he’s be in the 54 WAR range and as you can see that area has a bunch of HOFers in that range. So if he gets 3000 he’s in, but I don’t think he’ll get 3000.
Think I’ll echo the general line that if the conditional is fulfilled, Damon remains good enough to get 3000 hits, then he’s probably going to get in; but it’s unlikely that the conditional will be fulfilled.
As Paul says, the 3000 hit standard has worked out pretty well. I’m glad Mac checked the favorite toy, because it indicates that 3000 hits is still not being devalued. ARod and Jeter are almost certainly in even if they retire tomorrow. And Damon is the third most likely active player to reach 3000. My memory is that James used to sum all of the probabilities of reaching a milestone and that total was the likely number of active players to reach it. I haven’t checked the list, but it can’t be more than about 6.
Writers have loved him for years. Nice guy, funny looking, played on WS-winning Red Sox and Yankees teams (and had two of his better years during those seasons), forgiven by Red Sox fans once they won another series without him – I agree that writers will be looking for an excuse to vote for him. 3000 hits would be that excuse, even if, for some of them that means they vote for Biggio when they wouldn’t otherwise.
Don’t think he’ll get to 3000, though. If he regresses to the mean in Detroit this year, he’ll probably fade out as a part-timer and not get the AB’s to hit 3000.
After he leads the Tigers to World Series wins the next four years, he’ll be in the HOF for sure!
Time to cut rea off the sauce.