Too Old for “The Hall”?
Posted by Raphy on January 20, 2008
In 2007 87 position players made their major league debut. Their ages ranged from 19 (Justin Upton) to 29 (Guillermo Rodriguez). For those players hoping to embark on a Hall-of-Fame career, how old is too old?
(All ages refer to the "season age" of the player i.e. their age as of June 30.) Once you eliminate managers and players who had to start late because of segregation rules, the list of position players who started a Hall-of-Fame career at an older age is quite small. Earl Averill began his playing career at 27 and Earl Combs at 25. (Edit: As BunnyWrangler mentions in the comments, Sam Rice also started at 25, but is not on the list because he started as a pitcher.) Other than that, the age of 24 seems to be the ceiling. In fact no member of the 3000 hit club started his career after 24 and no 500 homer player started after 22!
Of course, this is a two way street, as players with HOF talent will be rushed to the majors. It is therefore interesting to look at the lists of players with 3000 hits from the age of 24 (5 players) and those with 500 homeruns from that age, both in the presteroids era (5 players) and in the steroids era (4 players!).
In summation, starting a career in your age 24 season makes it difficult to make “The Hall”. Anything after that is nearly impossible.
BTW- This is my first post on the SOTD blog. Until now I have been posting as OscarAzocar in the comments section. At Andy’s suggestion, Sean has invited me to post. I thank them both for the opportunity.
January 20th, 2008 at 7:14 am
I've always felt that 3,000 hits was due, in some part, to resiliency and good luck leading to longevity. What I mean is that a player who starts early in the majors and sticks around a long time ha a distinct advantage. I know that's kind of obvious, but compare Cal Ripken, Rickey Henderson, and Craig Biggio to Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, and Rod Carew. Nobody would argue that the first trio is a better group of hitters, or even as good a group of hitters as the second trio, but all 6 players have 3,000 hits.
January 20th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Andy- you obviously are correct. Of the 15 players with the most hits in their first 10 seasons ( http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/3Gwn ) only 6 made it to 3000 hits. However, all (except Rose) are in the Hall-of-Fame.
January 20th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Sam Rice, who ended up 13 hits short of 3,000, started his career at 25, but I can't find him on the Hall of Fame list.
January 20th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Thank you BunnyWrangler for catching that. In my attempt to eliminate pitchers from the list, I forgot that some Hall of Fame hitters started out as pitchers. Sam Rice (and probably Babe Ruth) was eliminated. I'll try to figure out who else is missing.
January 20th, 2008 at 9:59 am
OK, I checked it out. There are 11 Hall of Fame players with at least 2000 career hits and 1 game pitched. Of those 11, only 3 (Rice, Ruth and George Sisler) pitched in their first season. Sisler played enough games in the field to make my list, Rice and Ruth did not.
I'll edit the original post include Rice.
January 20th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
My 6th edition of the Baseball Encyclopedia (1985) says Minnie Minoso was born on November 29, 1922, in Havana, which would have made him 28 when he played in his 10th ML game in 1951.
His page in B-R says the correct year is 1925. Usually, of course, players claimed to be younger than they were, not older, but the story is that Minoso had to allege greater age to be allowed to begin play in a Cuban men's (not boys') league. Maybe so -- I don't know if a forsure birth record has ever been seen.
In any case, Minoso lost years to discrimination, as his rookie stardom indicates. Minoso was a better player than Larry Doby. Doby was (apparently) two years older but was able to play in the bigs three years earlier. Had Minoso been able to play regularly before age 21 (as Roberto Clemente did, beginning in 1955), that would have given him at least four more seasons. Minoso could have been Tim Raines to Clemente's Tony Gwynn -- not as many hits but more times on base. . . and just as deserving of the Hall. Clemente, fortunately, came along after the color line had been broken and the early color-quotas relaxed (and broke in with a team, Pittsburgh, which was not already quota-full with good black players).
January 20th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
B-R seems to be split on the issue. Minoso's bullpen page says 1922.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Minnie_Minoso
The write-up includes two facts based on the 1922 date.
January 20th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Thanks for your response, Raphy. If Minoso really was born in 1922 and is therefore almost a year older than Doby, then he REALLY should be in the Hall. Based on what he accomplished beginning 1951, a Minoso born in 1922 would surely have been deprived of six or seven ML seasons, because of the color line and the fact that, as a very dark Spanish-speaker, he wasn't going to be one of the first chosen as an integration pioneer.
I think he should be in the Hall anyway, even if he was born in 1925 and was therefore deprived of some fewer number of seasons. 282 win shares (as many as Jim Rice) in a seriously foreshortened career.
And Buck O'Neil may not have been one of the greatest Negro League players, but he certainly merited lifetime enshrinement based on his playing, he being the first black coach in the majors, his scouting, and his contributions with the Kansas City museum and commentary for Ken Burns. In this case, I guess the Hall will chooses you based on one category only, not on the totality of your person.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:03 am
"as players with HOF talent will be rushed to the majors"...
This got me to wondering: how early is HOF talent usually identified?
I looked at the players in HOF that were drafted in the amateur draft starting in 1965, draft position perhaps being one indication of "HOF talent". The results (Name, round drafted, year):
Bench 2 1965 (7 other catchers were picked before him!)
Seaver 10 1965 (but not signed, drafted again in 1966, but pick voided)
Reggie Jackson 1 1966
Schmidt 2 1971
Yount 1 1973
Ryan 12 1965
Brett 2 1971
Fisk 1 1967
Winfield 1 1973
Puckett 1 1982
Ozzie Smith 4 1977
Eddie Murray 3 1973
Gary Carter 3 1972
Molitor 1 1977
Eckersley 3 1972
Sandberg 20 1978
Boggs 7 1976
Sutter 21 1970 (not signed)
Ripken 2 1978
Gwynn 3 1981
Gossage 9 1970
Total 21 players, only 6 drafted in first round (all position players).