During early-November 1995, we had a detailed discussion on the Pirates e-mail list concerning the prospects for Bill Mazeroski to be elected to the Hall of Fame (HOF) via the Veteran's Committee (VC). Maz's first look by the VC will be in March 1996. I thought that the discussion on the e-mail list was so good, that it should be included here as a source of information for future reference. I have lightly edited the e-mail postings and placed them here with the author's permission.
Chuck raises a couple of interesting points in his lengthy discussion of the HOF and Maz's qualifications for same. I want to emphasize that (1) I haven't done any lengthy statistical justification for Mazeroski, thus I have no idea what the comparisons will show, and that (2) I'm not suggesting that statistical comparisons across eras are not valid, merely trying to point to some of the difficulties involved in adjusting for differing conditions.
The first of these is that there are players no better than
Maz who are in the Hall, which is certainly true. It's an
argument that I hate, though, because if everyone better
than the HOF's worst mistake is let in, we'll have 2,000
players in there.
Agreed. I think for Mazeroski's case to be viable, you have to do something besides compare him to the worst players in the HOF. It's probably far better to compare Maz to (1) the 2Bs who *are* in the HOF, and (2) the field of players eligible for the HOF who aren't currently in there.
Basically, I feel this way because, if hypothetically the
greatest defensive 2B ever also hit .100, no one would
argue for him to be in the Hall, because it'd be clear that
the offensive ineptitude took away more than the glove
gave. Once we accept that principle, I believe it's
incumbent upon us to show that Maz's defensive #s add
enough to his total value to offset the
fact that Maz hit a lot more lightly than the level one
thinks of as associated with HOF-caliber hitters.
Anybody who hits at or below the Mendoza line isn't going to have a 10+-year career as a regular in the bigs, no matter how good his defense. (Yes, I know about Belliard...that's why I said *regular*). People cite Mark Belanger here, but Belanger had years where he hit above .220, too. Maz was a regular from 1956 until the late 60's. No one has a long career on defense alone.
I think, as I said above, that a fair comparison for Maz would be to the other 2Bs in the HOF, rather than to the HOF at large. It's not fair to compare a Mazeroski to a Ruth or Ted Williams, but it is fair to compare him to someone like Eddie Collins or Bobby Doerr or Joe Morgan. With suitable adjustments for park and era played, of course. In that context, I don't THINK that Maz hit a *lot* more lightly that HOF caliber.
In other words, I don't think it's heresy to suggest that
Joe Morgan or Ryne Sandberg belongs in the HOF over Maz,
because it's clear that whatever edge he has over them
defensively, they have more than sufficient offensive value
to offset it. Can we safely say that Maz's glove made him
a better player overall than, say, Bobby Grich or someone
else with a stronger bat? What about Nellie Fox, who also
bases much of his claim on his defense but was thought of
as a better hitter? Are Maz's true peers HOF-caliber
players? If Maz is in, which of them should go in?
The early-to-mid 60's were a time of extremely depressed offense, during which the rules were very different. You had a *huge* strike zone, high mounds, and pitchers who could (and did) come inside with impunity. There were more examples of pitchers with control problems (a la Bob Veale) who became successful in this era who I don't believe could have been successful in any other era.
One of the knocks on Clemente, for example, that I've seen cited which depresses his value in comparisons to other players is that he didn't walk much. It was *tough* to walk much in the 60's. Would Clemente have drawn more walks in the 80's? How can you make an appropriate adjustment for the changes in the strike zone?
What I'm saying is that I think it's extremely difficult to put offensive numbers in the appropriate context for cross-era comparisons for the 60's (as it is for the opposite reason for the 20's), precisely because the conditions under which the game was played were so very different. So even if we'd adjust Maz's numbers using current methods to a neutral park/neutral era to try to get a basis for comparison, I'd suggest that there's a reasonable chance that we're still underestimating what he could have done playing today, for example.
So while I accept that Maz's overall offensive numbers, when adjusted, aren't as good as some other 2Bs (Grich, Morgan, Sandberg, etc.), I think that some of the difference results from a cross-era distortion which works to Maz's detriment. Maz was a decent offensive player, who very likely would have had substantially better numbers in almost any other era and in many other parks. When combined with his defense, you have a viable HOF candidate. Possibly the best 2B eligible and not in yet (although you'd have to make a case for Joe Gordon, too).
I do agree with Chuck that we have to forget about the mistakes already in the HOF, and focus on making a case FOR Mazeroski as one of the greatest of all time.
I've GOT to get my baseball books out of storage...
Chuck Blahous (Chuck_Blahous@simpson.senate.gov) provided this reply:
I really appreciate Mike's response. I'd feared the consequences of sending my message to fellow Buc fans. . .
I do agree that the era and park factor into the evaluation of Maz as an offensive player, or at least should. I share Mike's dismay over the constant elevation of undistinguished players from the 20's and 30's into the Hall (not to mention the underrating of pitchers from that era). For some reason the overrating of pitchers from the 1960's bothers me even more, probably because it's more prevalent and I'm always hearing some not-so-great pitcher from the 60's touted as the greatest. (I think Don Drysdale is one of history's most overrated pitchers, but that's another story). . . I mean, the whole league ERA one year was under 3.00 -- so yes, I think it should be a factor.
That's one reason why I brought up the idea of Nellie Fox as a standard of comparison. Maz was the greatest defensive second baseman ever, but Fox wasn't far behind, was considered the great Gold Glove 2B of his era. Plus he played for many of the same years as Maz, and my memory tells me he was probably a comparable hitter if not better. I'm almost certain he had more recognition in terms of MVP voting and All-Star appearances during his career than Maz did.
So I don't mean to sell Maz short, but I'd suggest that perhaps other 2B-men -- including Joe Gordon and Bobby Grich -- probably were significantly better hitters that era adjustments don't begin to make a dent in the differences. I am curious about what Maz's inclusion implies about the going standard for 2b-men in the Hall, and I'm not sure that he wouldn't be a weaker candidate than most of the guys in there, and weaker than a few who aren't. I do know that Maz's hitting runs data for much of his career tends to be negative -- not that this is an end-all, but it does take into account his defensive position and era.
By the way -- I don't advocate Concepcion for the Hall by any means, but I think of Concepcion as much better than an "awful" hitter. He was hitting 8th, true, but in an amazing lineup, and was probably the finest shortstop of his league for almost an entire decade.
I'd definitely be curious about reactions to the Nellie Fox comparison. Fox's MVP support during his career was outstanding, far ahead of Maz. Not arguing for him, but to me he's an example of someone I think it's questionable we should elevate Maz past.
On Friday, 10 Nov 95, Steve Alvin (salvin@heartland.bradley.edu) said:
Total Baseball (TB) has a formula, called Total Player Rating (TPR), which attempts to judge players across eras. Without getting too deeply involved in the math, the TPR is determined by weighing a players offensive, defensive, and stealing ability and adjusted by era. Babe Ruth has the highest TPR at 105.1 lifetime.
Bill Mazeroski, according to TB II (so the numbers may have changed a little, as TB II only goes through 1988 season) has the 56th highest lifetime TPR at 34.4. This makes him 9th all time at second base behind:
This rounds out the list of second basemen who rate above Maz in this category (Note: all except Grich are in the HOF). Some other second basemen who have been mentioned: Joe Gordon (93rd at 27.6), and Nellie Fox (280th at 12.5) round out the list.
***Rod Carew has a TPR of 41.0, good for 31st on the list. But, since I think he played more games at first and DH than second, I don't consider him a second sacker for this study.
Using just the era from 1961-1968, Maz is rated the 21st best player of that period.
There has also been some comment on Maz's offensive ability to go along with his outstanding defense. TB also has a stat called Adjusted Production (PRO/A) that is a combination of OBA and SLUG, adjusted for park factors and normalized to league average. A player with a PRO/A of 100 would be a league average player.
Over his career, Maz's PRO/A is 84, which isn't bad for a middle infielder from his era. A quick look of Maz's contemporaries at second base show the following PRO/A: Nellie Fox, 93; Johnny Temple, 91; Frank Bolling, 85; Maz fits in here; Billie Martin 82 (yes, THAT Billy Martin!), Glenn Beckert, 81, Don Blasingame, 79; Jerry Adair, 79; Julio Javier, 78; and Bobby Richardson, 77. Now, admittedly, this is just a small sample, but it seems to indicate that Maz was an average or slightly above average hitting second baseman.
Now, I believe that arguably that greatest fielding second baseman of all time, who just happened to be a decent, but not great, hitter for his position deserves to be in the HOF. Defensive players tend to be overlooked in the Hall. The reason for this is obvious--hitting numbers are more impressive, but there is no way to indicate a spectacular fielding play in a box score!
On Friday 10 Nov 1995, I jumped into the conversation (gegearha@nps.navy.mil - see mail link below)
We have been discussing Maz and the HOF. I am not versed in the adjustments for park effects/era... like some other members are, but since I did start this topic around the horn, I wanted to make some contribution.
I'll list the stats for the HOF 2B-men and Maz's career stats. I'll leave the interpretation/discussion to all of you. If some one could break out their copy of Total Baseball, perhaps you could post the stats of Bobby Grich etal... that have been mentioned in this thread.
In no particular order:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI AvgBobby Doerr 1865 7093 1094 2042 381 89 223 1247 .288 Billy Herman 1922 7707 1163 2345 486 82 47 839 .304 Jackie Robinson 1382 4877 947 1518 273 54 137 734 .311 Nap Lajoie 2475 9589 1506 3252 652 164 82 1599 .339 Joe Morgan 2650 9281 1651 2518 449 96 268 1134 .271 Rod Carew 2469 9315 1424 3053 445 112 92 1015 .328 Tony Lazzeri 1740 6297 986 1840 335 116 178 1191 .292 Eddie Collins 2826 9946 1816 3309 437 186 47 1307 .333 Rogers Hornsby 2259 8173 1579 2930 541 169 301 1578 .358 Charlie Gehringer 2323 8860 1774 2839 574 146 184 1427 .320 Red Schoendienst (Chuck asked if Red was a HOF'er) 2216 8479 1223 2449 427 78 84 773 .289 Johnny Evers 1776 6136 919 1659 216 70 12 538 .270 Frankie Frisch 2311 9112 1532 2880 466 138 105 1242 .316 ***************************************************************** Bill Mazeroski 2163 7755 769 2016 294 62 138 853 .260
add to that these records for 2B-men:
Additionally, from a 1984 Baseball Encyclopedia, here's how Maz ranks on the all-time list among his fellow Second Basemen:
Maz has the lowest BA, and Runs compared to the HOF'ers, but his other stats (without adjustment) seem comparable.
I wouldn't rule him out because of those numbers. Here are a few other HOFers: Brooks Robinson .267; Joe Tinker .264, 716 Runs; Bobby Wallace .267; Luis Aparicio .262; Rabbit Maranville .258; Pee Wee Reese .269; Harmon Killebrew .256; Reggie Jackson .262;
Yeah, but Harmon hit 573 HRs and Reggie hit 563!
Yeah, but Maz could be the best fielder of all time (you get my point).
Phil Rizzuto just went into the Hall in 1994 with these stats:
1661 5816 877 1588 239 62 38 562 .273
OK, That's my contribution for today. Can someone else help out with some of the other stats of 2b-men/IF not in Hall? Could someone cut and paste Maz's stats from my post with those of: Nellie Fox, Joe Gordon, Mark Belanger, Bobby Grich? Dave Concepcion too please.
On Friday, 10 Nov 95, Steve Alvin (salvin@heartland.bradley.edu) replied; if you are not familiar with Statistical Terms PRO/A, and TPR, then refer to Steve's previous post above:
The numbers that Glenn posted are only part of the story when looking at offensive totals. Batting averages, for example, can be very misleading and the combination of on base % and slugging % give us a much better picture. OBA and Slugging combined gives us a stat called by *Total Baseball* Production. When that stat is normalized for league average and park factors you get PRO/A, in which 100 is a league average player. Using this number and TPR we get the following for the players Glenn mentioned:
Name PRO/A TPR TPR Ranking Bobby Doerr 114 35.6 51st Billy Herman 112 34.0 59th Jackie Robinson 131 33.3 64th Nap Lajoie 151 85.2 6th Joe Morgan 133 63.9 15th Tony Lazzeri 122 15.0 235th T Eddie Collins 142 70.5 12th Roger Hornsby 176 77.3 9th Charlie Gerhinger 124 43.5 29th Red Schoendienst 93 15.0 235th T Johnny Evers 106 -1.6 NA Frank Frisch 110 37.2 46th _______________________________________________________________ Mazeroski 84 34.4 56th
For the other players Glenn mentioned:
Brooks Robinson 105 23.3 138th Joe Tinker 96 20.2 158th Bobby Wallace 106 34.0 59th T Luis Aparicio 82 13.0 261st Rabbit Maranville 82 3.3 NA Pee Wee Reese 98 19.0 175th Harmon Killebrew 142 32.8 67th .379 OBA w/ 573hr's Reggie Jackson 140 44.0 25th Phil Rizzuto 93 15.4 227th
Maz's PRO/A is the third lowest on this list.
Now, some lifetime stats for some other players Glenn mentioned:
Name AB R H RBI BA OBA SLUG PRO/A TPR Mazeroski 7755 769 2016 853 .260 .302 .367 84 34.4 Bobby Grich 6890 1033 1833 864 .266 .373 .424 125 47.4 Nellie Fox 9232 1279 2663 790 .288 .349 .363 93 12.5 Joe Gordon 5707 914 1530 975 .268 .357 .466 121 27.6 Mark Belanger 5784 676 1316 389 .228 .302 .280 67 7.1 D. Concepcion 8723 993 2326 950 .267 .325 .357 88 15.1
I think what all of this proves is that the WORSE argument to make in favor of Maz's entry of the HOF is to point to his offense. Obviously, Maz does not have the offensive numbers to justify his admission. The argument for enshrining Maz into the HOF should be that he was the finest fielding second baseman of his era, arguably the best ever, and that he was an average or slightly above average offensive player when compared to other middle infielders of his era.
Note: My TPR rankings come from TB II, which only goes through the 1989 season, so there could be some adjustments to the rankings.
On Saturday, 11 Nov 1995 I replied (gegearha@nps.navy.mil - see e-mail link below):
Maz does not have a HOF "bat", but how do we adjust his overall contribution with the glove to make him a viable HOF candidate? I listed a few notes: ML records he holds for 2Bmen, Gold Gloves, All Star appearances. What other defensive stats/accomplishments can we cite to boost his claim to the HOF?
After reading a few of the posts again I'm starting to understand a few of the "other" ratings that Steve has presented from Total Baseball.
PRO/A: is a combined "offensive" stat. Looking at this stat only, there is not a good argument for Maz to be in the Hall.
TPR: is a total contribution stat (offense/defense); here, Maz seems to have a GREAT claim to the Hall - and a few others already in there are questionable.
Another factor to consider is this: What is the role of the Vet's Committee? Do they elect overlooked players, or do they weigh these Maz-type cases? Perhaps if the later is the case, then election by the Vet's Committee (VC) is the exact right place to consider Maz for the Hall.
I also think that Joe Brown (former Bucs GM) could have a big effect on the VC. Other members like Buck O'Neil, Al Lopez, Stan Musial, Monte Irvin, Pee Wee Reese, Yogi Berra.... may help to swing the vote.
Also, after looking at some of the info Steve put together, it looks like I also have to make a case for Bobby Grich for the HOF too. But I'll save that for another post.
The Vet's Committee can make their picks,
But Maz goes in... in Ninety-Six!
On Tuesday, 14 Nov 95, Chuck Blahous (Chuck_Blahous@simpson.senate.gov) said:
I did a little homework this weekend on the Maz for HOF question and thought I'd send it along.
With respect to the question of the HOF standard for 2Bs, I decided to take a look at the offensive output of the standard HOF 2b-man to figure out how much ground Maz had to make up with his defense.
The best catch-all offensive stat, in my view, is Bill James's invention, offensive winning percentage (OWP). The stat measures how often a team composed of one particular hitter would win its games, given average pitching and defense. As such, it compares a hitter to his own offensive environment, thus automatically adjusts for era, park, etc. I also think it's better than most of the Palmer-Thorn stats, because of the absolute frame of reference of winning games, and measuring runs created as a function of outs generated, and so forth, as opposed to some nebulous things such as linear weights etc which have meanings that seem to shift with context.
The stat isn't perfect, because after all it's what I call an "intensive" stat rather than an "extensive" or cumulative one. That is, it's like batting average -- it'll get lower, the longer a player's decline phase turns out to be. So it doesn't measure everything -- a guy who plays good D and hangs around a while, like a Brooks Robinson (or a Maz) will look a little worse relative to a player like Grich or Ron Santo who ducks out quickly near a fairly high level of performance. So after we look at the OWPs I want to refer to some cumulative stats.
The HOF 2Bs are: Carew, Collins, Doerr, Evers, Frisch, Gehringer, Herman, Hornsby, Lajoie, Lazzeri, Morgan, Robinson, and Schoendienst. (I count Carew because he achieved his peak value at 2B).
The highest, clearly-qualified HOFers in terms of OWP are:
and I think one would also have to include Carew (.668), and Gehringer (.646).
The ones who are marginally qualified, and are candidates for "mistakes" are: Evers (.602), Herman (.601), Frisch (.591), Lazzeri (.582), Doerr (.578), and Schoendienst (.521).
Herman, Frisch, Lazzeri, and perhaps Doerr are classic examples of players who are thought of as being better than they were because of the high-offense era in which they played. I would say that the "borderline HOFer" therefore is probably around .600 in offensive output, if his defense is just OK. Or we could look at it another way and say that Schoendienst and Doerr represent the lower limit of what is thought of as a Hall of Fame player. I'm not sure that I think either one should be in there.
Now here are some guys sitting outside the Hall, ranked in order of OWP: Laughing Larry Doyle (.653), Bobby Grich (.644), Joe Gordon (.619), Del Pratt (.593), Miller Huggins (actually he did go in but as a manager -- .588), Nellie Fox (.531), and Maz (.439). Again, due to varying defensive abilities which affected career lengths, those might not be in exact order of actual quality of offensive performance, but looking at the cumulative offensive won-lost records, they'd likely have to be ranked something along the lines of: Doyle, Grich, Pratt, Fox, Gordon, Huggins, and Maz. (For the record, Maz's offensive W-L was 99-127, as compared with Huggins's 99-69, and Doyle's 123-65).
Total Baseball (I think I'm remembering Steve's message correctly) says that Maz's offense was 84% of the league average that year, and the above figure might be near that same rating, perhaps a little bit worse. I suspect there might be a bit of a discrepancy there, and if so I'd say it's likely because Thorn/Palmer's methods, relative to James's, underrate the importance of not making outs as opposed to simply having plate appearances. Since outs are the lifeblood of an offense, as opposed to # of plate appearances, a more accurate evaluation of offense has to be figured in the context of outs made, and this is probably where Maz gets hurt the most. James lists him as having a career OBP of .296, and Total Baseball at .302, which is just abysmal in any era -- soaking up outs 70% of the time is as tough on an offense as playing a mean defense is to an opposing offense. (I'm sorry to mention this but Maz's career OBP isn't within 30 points of any of the others listed here, including guys like Fox who played many of the same years). Maz may have been uniquely hurt by Forbes Field, but this data already reflects that offensive environment in a general way.
Now to defense: Maz's greatness as a defender was mostly due to his being the all-time master of the Double Play pivot, which increased his assists total, and thereby his range factor. His Range Factor is the highest of the 2B's listed here. Maz checks in at 5.57, Grich at 5.53, Fox at 5.43, Gordon at 5.47, Pratt at 5.43, Huggins at 5.30, and Doyle down at 4.79, which really isn't bad for his era.
Defensive #s are a little tough to compare across eras -- DPs were very hard to turn in the early part of the century -- so it's hard to get a handle on what these mean, exactly. My biggest beef with Thorn/Palmer's stats are in the defensive area -- I haven't seen any compelling reason to do anything than to throw their #s out the window, with all due respect. We can, I think, use these figures to "eyeball" the defense a bit. They do indicate that Maz was the greatest defender of these HOF "candidates" -- let's furthermore give him every benefit of the doubt and say that every intangible breaks his way, and he's really not 0.1 or 0.2 better than these other guys, but something way up there are 0.5 -- which I don't think is realistic, but for the sake of arguing on Maz's behalf:
Again: my mission is not to bury Maz (though I must sound like it at this point). But I do think that the evidence is that the HOF standard is quite a ways up there relative to him. Not to bust on Thorn/Palmer/Total Baseball, but I really think their methods are rather suspect -- Bobby Doerr gets an absolutely ludicrous rating, I'd say they don't measure the values of specific defensive actions properly, they don't account for decline phases properly, they measure players relative to the average so that a below-average season actually assumes the player had negative value, and a lot of other things that distort the ratings, and I"d argue that a cursory review of their career ratings list shows some glaring absurdities.
But in sum, I'd say that my view is that the Schoendienst/Lazzeri/Frisch level tests the boundaries of the HOF's worst past mistakes, and the best outside candidates are represented by such guys as Doyle and perhaps Nellie Fox or Grich. And this doesn't account for eventually-eligible guys like Ryne Sandberg. I still want to keep an open mind on Maz but I'm not yet convinced we can argue him past the Doyles and Foxes and perhaps even the Willie Randolphs when they're eligible.
Your thoughts?
On Wednesday, 15 Nov 1995, Ray Skirsky (rskirsky@qualcomm.com) provided a short excerpt to add to the discussion:
From For the Hall of Fame: Twelve Good Men by Bob Carroll. Originally printed in "The National Pastime," the publication of the Society for American Baseball Research. Reprinted in a book collection of the same name, edited by John Thorne.
Bill Mazeroski
You have to start with THE home run. When Bill Mazeroski smacked Ralph Terry's pitch over the Forbes Field wall in the ninth inning to win the 1960 World Series, he carved an ironic monument to himself. Remembering Maz for hitting is like remembering Dolly Parton for her elbows.
Not that he was a cipher. His respectable .260 for seventeen years with the Pirates kept rallies alive, and he had a penchant for clutch hits, twice topping 80 RBIs in a season. Six times he managed double figures in homers. Still, a whole team of Mazeroskis would score fewer runs than a roster of Joe Morgans.
Maz purchased his ticket to Cooperstown with defense. He was simply the best second baseman who ever put glue in his glove, coupling the hands of a magician with the range of a Magellan. Five times he lead his league in putouts, nine times in assists, eight times in total chances. His .983 lifetime fielding average is barely a bad hop under the record.
He was the Da Vinci of the double play. Other second sackers caught the shortstop's toss and then threw; with Maz, the ball seemed to ricochet at lightning speed to first, earning him the nickname "No Hands." He set the major league record for twin kills in a season (161), years leading (8), and in a career (1706). If we named baseball situations like diseases, we'd call double plays "Mazeroskis".
In LWTS [any Sabremetrician out there care to enlighten me on what this is?], Maz ranks first in lifetime defensive wins. Of the top seventy-five seasons by a defensive player, Maz has six! Think of it this way: put Mazeroski on the same team with ANY second baseman in history, and the other guy gets to play left field.
On Tuesday, 14 Nov 95, Steve Alvin (salvin@heartland.bradley.edu) said:
Chuck's earlier analysis of Maz and the HOF reminds me of the old saying "there are lies, damned lies, and statistics." This is not meant to be a criticism of Chuck, as I agree with most of what he says about Maz. There are numerous stats out there to analyze the game and its players, and I don't want to start a fight over which is better.
Anyway, we basically agree that Maz's offensive number do not match up with other second basemen in the HOF. I never argued otherwise. If Maz is to enter the Hall it will be based on his defense. And unfortunately, defense is almost impossible to analyze accurately for historic players. The argument that Maz is the best, or one of the best, fielders at his position is impossible to prove one way or another.
This leads to another query -- what is the purpose of the HOF? Is offensive ability, like Ruth's or Gehrig's the primary factor for selection? Does the Hall have a place for a player who's claim to the Hall is his outstanding defensive ability?
But, all this discussion about Maz's stats when compared to other HOF'ers or potential HOF'ers really misses the boat. Supporters of Maz' entry have to realize that they are dealing with the Veteran Committee -- a body that, quite frankly, doesn't give a damn about any statistical analysis. After all, it was the Veteran Committee that in recent years has inducted such players as Phil Rizzuto and Vic Willis. This year the front runner, according to member Ted Williams is Dom Dimaggio!! Obviously, stats do not mean much to them or none of the above would be elected. So, what Maz partisans (and I am still one) would probably best be served by talking him up as the best fielding second basemen and the hitter of that home run in 1960 (I know, there already is an exhibit in the HOF honoring this) than by trying to use stats as the main indicator.
On Wednesday, 15 Nov 95, Chuck Blahous (Chuck_Blahous@simpson.senate.gov) wrapped up the discussion on Maz and the Hall of Fame:
I agree with Steve about the Vets' committee -- if they let Maz in, he'd be far from their worst selection. Not only do they not care about statistical analysis, I don't think they care about much beyond who they may have played with or watched and liked. Witness the endless honoring of Frankie Frisch's buddies in the early 1970's.
I promise to make the following my last comment about this topic: I love Maz; if the HOF is a place to honor particular players who did particular things better than anybody else, there is clearly one thing Maz DID do better than anyone else, and that was to play D at second base. My personal view is just that, purely personal -- I tend to rate HOF candidates based on what is my best guess of their sum total contributions to winning baseball, as opposed to achieving a particular extremity in one localized area of performance.
Glenn's final comments: I started this topic "around the horn" on our e-mail list, so I am obviously interested in the thread. I was extremely pleased with the quality of the discussion from the list members. Each writer made a distinct contribution that helped to move the discussion along. The conversation was detailed, supported, and mature. I thought it was so good that it should be retained as a source of information for whenever some one asks, "Hey, what about Maz and the Hall of Fame? What are his chances of getting inducted via the Veteran's Committee?" My special thanks to each of the contributing authors who have made this particular page possible.
The Vet's Committee can make their picks,
But Maz goes in...... in Ninety-Six!
The conversation continued. On January 7, 1999, Ray Regan (RroryR@aol.com) added these comments:
Here's an excerpt (about Mazeroski's offense) from something that I've been
putting together for use in another venue:
Bill Mazeroski had a good bat. His career hit total, 2016, is around 200th on
the All-Time list. When he retired in 1972, he was probably around 120th to
125th on the list. Of the 14 second basemen now in the Hall of Fame, three
(Jackie Robinson, Johnny Evers, and Tony Lazzari) had fewer hits. Maz hit as
many as nineteen homers in a season, and drove in as many as 82 runs.
On offense, Maz labored under two unfair conditions. The first was the redefinition of the strike zone that favored the pitcher in the years 1963-68. Maz batted over .270 four times by 1962 (he turned 26 that year), but only once thereafter. In a normal era, Maz would have batted over .270, instead of his actual .260 lifetime average.
The other unfair condition was the bane of every right-handed power hitter who played in Forbes Field-- the 365 foot left field foul line. Maz was, essentially, a right-handed power hitter. Even with the long foul line, Maz hit 138 home runs in his career. Of the fourteen second basemen in the Hall of Fame, only Rogers Hornsby, Joe Morgan, Bobby Doerr, Charlie Gehringer, and Tony Lazzari hit more home runs in their careers. That is extremely fast company for a supposed "glove man" to be in.
The company gets even faster. Of Maz's 138 home runs, 93 were hit on the road, only 45 at home. The great slugging Yankee, Tony Lazzari, also hit 93 homers in road games. The Red Sox Bobby Doerr hit 223 home runs in his career, but 145 of those were hit in friendly Fenway. Doerr hit just 78 homers in road games. And the great Charlie Gehringer managed to hit just 92 homers outside of his home fields, usually Tiger Stadium. Among the Hall of Fame second basemen, Only Rogers Hornsby and Joe Morgan outhomered Mazeroski outside of their home fields.