I think of Hall of Fame candidates as being in five categories:

1)      He’s the kind of guy that the Hall of Fame is made for (Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Babe Ruth, etc.)

2)      He is above the standard of the average Hall of Famer,

3)      He meets the standards of the Hall of Fame player, the average Hall of Famer,

4)      He is below the usual and desirable standard of a Hall of Fame player.  Players of this caliber are sometimes elected and some are included, but most players of the same performance level are not elected and are never seriously considered. 

5)      A player of this caliber does not belong in the Hall of Fame.  Certain players of this caliber may have been selected in the past, but those were mistakes, and cannot be used as a standard for future selections without qualifying many hundreds of players. 

It is very obvious to be me where Gil Hodges fits in this scheme.  He’s a 4.  He’s a middle 4.  He is nowhere near being a "3"; he is nowhere near being a "5".  He pretty much defines the concept of a "4". 

A "4" is  a player about whom we say that players of this caliber HAVE been selected in the past, so let’s name some of those.  Tony Lazzeri, Joe Gordon, Waite Hoyt, Earl Averill, Bobby Doerr, Bill Terry, Lou Boudreau, Joe Sewell, Pie Traynor, Johnny Evers, Red Schoendienst, and Joe Tinker.  There are probably others that you could put in the group, but that’s pretty much a full list, and then there is a list of "5s", players who were selected but frankly should not have been. 

But there are literally a hundred players of a similar level of contribution who have NOT been selected, many of them never even considered.   Naming just some of the ones you might remember:  Ron Cey, Ken Boyer, Julio Franco, Fred Lynn, Steve Garvey, Bobby Murcer, Robin Ventura, Dave Concepcion, George Foster, Jim Kaat, Bobby Bonilla, Eddie Yost, Bill Freehan, Chet Lemon, Vern Stephens, Don Mattingly, Roy White, Don Baylor, Jim Fregosi, Ellis Burks, Ken Griffey Sr., Paul O’Neill, Rick Monday, Gary Matthews, Rocky Colavito and Jorge Posada.   I know that it will annoy some of you for me to say this, but Gil Hodges was NOT a better player than that group.  Six of those players won MVP Awards.  Hodges never finished higher than 7^th in the MVP voting.   Almost all of those guys did better than that in their best seasons, although Hodges had more "best seasons" than some of those.    

Understanding, of course, that statistical benchmarks should not be used as a final determinant of Hall of Fame status, they are still used to bring clarity to the discussion.  I credit Gil Hodes with 263 career Win Shares.  All of the players above are in the range of 260 to 279, I think, and the "Four" range goes on above and below that.   I would, as a general rule but not absolutely. . .as a general rule I would support the candidacy of a player with 300 or more Win Shares, and would not support the candidacy of a player below 300 Win Shares.   In the range of 280 to 299 Win Shares—that is, with one good season ABOVE the level of Gil Hodges—we have Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris, Omar Vizquel, Boog Powell, Chili Davis, Amos Otis, Kenny Lofton, Adrian Gonzalez, Brian Giles, Toby Harrah, Miguel Tejada, Chase Utley, Tommie John, Dale Murphy, Mark Grace, Brett Butler, Cesar Cedeno, Steve Finley and Brian Downing.   I wouldn’t support most of THOSE guys for the Hall of Fame, either.  My point is, there’s a LOT of guys who actually had better careers than Gil Hodges who are not in the Hall of Fame.   Just lining up the first basemen, Gil Hodges would not be one of the 15 top FIRST BASEMEN on a Hall of Fame candidates list.  Just among first basemen or sometimes first basemen, by Win Shares, there is Albert Pujols (492), Miguel Cabrera (415), Rafael Palmeiro (393), Darrell Evans (363), Rusty Staub (358), Mark McGwire (343), Dick Allen (342), Fred McGriff (342), Will Clark (331), Jason Giambi (325),  Joey Votto (320), Todd Helton (318), Jack Clark (316), David Ortiz (316), Norm Cash (315), Lance Berkman (313), Keith Hernandez (311), Al Oliver (305), Carlos Delgado (303), John Olerud (302), Mickey Vernon (296), Mark Grace (294), Ed Konetchy (287), Adrian Gonzalez (286), Boog Powell (282), Steve Garvey (282), Joe Judge (270), Ron Fairly (269), Bobby Bonilla (267), Mark Teixeira (266), and Don Mattingly (263, the same as Hodges.)  Not to mention Pete Rose, 547.   Throw out the not-yet-eligible guys and the steroid suspects, and you’ve STILL got more than 20 FIRST BASEMEN who rank ahead of Hodges, in career Win Shares. 

Baseball Reference WAR lines up these players in a similar order. . . .Hodges 43.9, Delgado 44.4, Rusty Staub 45.8, Konetchy 46.4, Mark Grace, 46.4, Joe Judge 47.8, Giambi 50.5, Teixeira 50.6, Norm Cash 52.0, Lance Berkman, 52.0, Fred McGriff, 52.6, Jack Clark, 53.1, David Ortiz, 55.3, Will Clark, 56.5, John Olerud, 58.2, Dick Allen, 58.7, Darrell Evans 58.8, Keith Hernandez, 60.3, Joey Votto, 61.5, Todd Helton, 61.8, Mark McGwire, 62.2, Miguel Cabrera, 68.4, Rafael Palmeiro, 71.9, Albert Pujols, 99.6.   Hodges passes a few guys on the WAR list and is passed by others (Fred Tenney, Paul Goldschmidt, Gene Tenace), but you have essentially the same problem.  He is WAY down the list.  

Myself, I have two levels of support.  I only advocate for a very limited number of players at any time, the very BEST of those not included; at the moment this would be Dwight Evans, Bobby Abreu and Minnie Minoso, perhaps one or two more.  But I acknowledge the validity of other candidates.  Keith Hernandez was a Hall of Fame caliber player.  I’m not advocating for him, but I acknowledge that he belongs. 

I am, of course, aware that Gil Hodges managed the Miracle Mets, and we’ll get to that in a second.   The issue of limited opportunity vs. extended opportunity is a difficult one to think clearly about.   Rusty Staub has almost 100 more Win Shares than Gil Hodges, but then, he played in like a thousand more games.  (Hodges and Staub actually played against one another in one game—May 2, 1963.   Between them, they were in the majors from 1943 to 1985.)    Anyway, some people have tried to make a limited-opportunity argument for Gil Hodges because, like Rusty Staub, he was in the majors at age 19, but then was out of the majors for several years.   The argument is that World War II delayed the start of his career; otherwise his numbers would be bigger.

That’s pretty much a bullshit argument in the case of Hodges, and I would suspect that most of you already understand that, so I won’t belabor the point.   It’s a legitimate argument for some guys; Hodges was a major league regular at age 24.   If we’re going to give him anything for limited opportunity, it’s 20 Win Shares or so. 

Opportunity can be limited by injury, illness, wartime interruptions, divorce, racial discrimination, personal bias, player strikes, pandemics or exceptional circumstances.   Willie McCovey lost a thousand or so at bats because the Giants had another Hall of Fame first baseman one year ahead of him, already in possession of the job.  The point of a limited-opportunity argument is not that a player MIGHT HAVE or WOULD HAVE done something, given better opportunity.   Hank Sauer would have been a Hall of Famer if he had come to the majors eight years earlier; you don’t put someone in the Hall of Fame based on what he might have done in an alternative universe.   We don’t put Lyman Bostock in the Hall of Fame (although the Frankie Frisch crew did do a similar thing, when they stuck in Ross Youngs.)  We don’t put Tony Conigliaro or Herb Score in the Hall of Fame because of the player that he could have been, even though it is pretty clear that he could have. 

The point of a limited-opportunity argument is that, when two players have similar accomplishments, we of course give more consideration to the player whose opportunities were limited by things beyond his control.   Tony Oliva had 245 career Win Shares, the same number as Jay Bell, Jimmy Dykes, Jason Kendall, Magglio Ordonez and Wally Schang.   We can notch Oliva above the others because, of course, he had limited opportunities due to injuries and a late start.   Gil Hodges has 263 Win Shares and 43.9 WAR; Don Mattingly had 263 Win Shares and 42.4.   But we reasonably rank Mattingly well ahead of Hodges, as a player, because Mattingly has a legitimate limited-opportunity argument.  Mattingly played 300 fewer games than Hodges, and for the last 500 games of those, he wasn’t really Don Mattingly.   Of course we make an allowance for that in how we evaluate his career. 

There are limited opportunity arguments, and there are extended opportunity arguments.   What a player does in the World Series is an extended opportunity, because not everybody gets to play in a World Series, and some players get that opportunity much more often than others.   Stan Hack, who has a good Hall of Fame case, got to play through World War II.  That’s an extended opportunity argument, compared to others of his generation.   Hal Newhouser dominated the American League for two years when Bob Feller wasn’t around.  That’s an extended opportunity.  Rusty Staub and Al Kaline got to play regularly at age 19; that’s an extended opportunity. 

Then we come to the managed-the-1969-Mets argument, which is, of course, the key to this discussion.  People want to set aside the analytical evaluation of Gil Hodges as a player by giving him a vast amount of credit for managing the 1969 Mets.

Well. . .OK; it is a legitimate line of analysis.  The question of how we balance managerial accomplishments with playing accomplishments is a very, very difficult one, and I don’t have any really good explanation for how that should be done. 

But I have two problems with that argument.  One is, why doesn’t anybody make that argument for Jim Fregosi, or Alvin Dark, or Ozzie Guillen, or Mike Scioscia or Dusty Baker?   In 1993 the Philadelphia Phillies were coming off a long string of bad seasons. Starting in 1987, they were 80-82, 65-96, 67-95, 77-85, 78-84 and 70-92.   They had finished last in their division in the previous season (1992), and had finished last several other times in that stretch.  Fregosi led them to a 97-65 record, and into the World Series.   In fact, 1993 was the only season between 1987 and 2000, in which the Phillies played even .500 ball, and then they won 97 games plus the playoffs.  Surrounding Fregosi’s miracle is, in fact, a record of sustained failure very much in the same vein as the first 14 years of the New York Mets. 

Gil Hodges played 2,071 games, had 263 Win Shares and 43.9 WAR.

Jim Fregosi played 1,902 games, had 260 Win Shares and 48.8 WAR. 

Dusty Baker and Alvin Dark, as players, had value comparable to Fregosi and Hodges.  My point is, if people made this argument on behalf of other managers who had comparable or better managerial records, then I would listen to the argument more sympathetically when it is offered on behalf of Gil Hodges.  If there was an analytical structure which proposed a way to integrate managerial accomplishments with playing records, that would be interesting.  But as long as the argument is offered only on behalf of Hodges and the 1969 Mets, then it seems more like the advocates are trying to use the magic of the 1969 Mets to make Hodges an exception to the normal process of review.   And I will tell you why this argument is only offered in support of Hodges, as opposed to others.

Because it is New York.   He’s the only guy who did it in New York, that’s why.  It’s not a good reason.

And here is the other problem with that argument.   Suppose that, in addition to Hodges 273 Win Shares as a player, we give him credit for his nine years as a manger—let’s say, 12 Win Shares a season for the other years, and 30 Win Shares for 1969.   Then he is up around 380, 390 Win Shares, and then he looks like a legitimate Hall of Famer. 

But what that also is is, it’s extended opportunity.   It’s greatly extended opportunity.  Yes, if we give him another 9 years to work on his resume, then his credentials improve.  That doesn’t make him a Hall of Famer; that makes him Rusty Staub. 

OK, maybe I have overstated the argument against Gil Hodges sometimes.   If he is elected, it is not a horrible thing.  He was a good guy, a good player and a good manager, and there are guys in the Hall of Fame whose credentials are no better.  And yes, maybe the "combined accomplishments" argument HAS been used before, in a disorganized fashion, to elect Red Schoendienst and. . .not sure if there is anybody else.   Don’t talk to me about Joe Torre; Joe Torre had 315 Win Shares, an MVP Award and 2,326 wins as a manager, six pennants and four World Series rings.  That’s a different level.

Anyway, electing Gil Hodges, in the absence of a sound analytical explanation of why he belongs, seems wrong to me.  Not an outrage, not a disgrace, not an erosion of standards (and by the way, the selection of Harold Baines wasn’t any of those things, either.)  The selection of Harold Baines was a relative poor selection, a Group-Four selection, and the selection of Gil Hodges would be, as well.   Thank you for reading.