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  Follow us as each week as our best writers from around the Bloguin Network take aim at each other and square off on anything and everything baseball from "who was better, Mays or Mantle" to "Should MLB have a salary cap?"
Pick a side and agree or disagree. Take part in the debate by posting a comment giving your own opinion. There are no holds barred and nothing is held back in the "The Great Bloguin Baseball Debate."
Today's Debaters are:
Gene Zarnick of Favre Dollar Footlongs
Bill Parker of The Daily Something
Today's Topic is:
Should Albert Belle be in the MLB Hall of Fame?
Albert Belle SHOULD Be in the MLB Hall of Fame
By Gene Zarnick, Favre Dollar Footlongs: The Annoyances of Players, Fans, the Media, and of Course Brett Favre
 The criteria to become eligible for the MLB Hall of Famer is simple; play ten seasons and be retired for five. Other than that it's all a subjective based vote by the Baseball Writers Association of America. It's a long road for some, a long tedious process that eventually gives the players who deserve to be there their rightful spot. For Albert Belle, it was a process that ended much quicker than what is deserving for one the most dominating baseball players of his time.
Albert was on the 2006 ballot and he received 7.7% of the vote. Not nearly close to the 75% needed to get in, but still enough to keep his name on the ballot. The following year he only received 3.5% and therefore was removed from future ballots. Not having his name on current ballots is an injustice in itself.
Okay so by now I've basically told you nothing; except you learned that his chances are slim to none to make it, but let's examine why the writers got it wrong and why I'm right in proclaiming that Albert "Don't call me Joey" Belle should be in Cooperstown.
First, let's look at Albert's career stats and compare him to other Hall of Fame Left Fielders.
As you can see from Albert's career numbers, he is easily amongst one of the best left fielders. His slugging percentage is second best, only below Ted Williams. His home runs are in the upper half of the players inducted. Batting average and RBI's are in line with other Hall of Famers. Actually, most of all his stats are in line with other Hall of Famers. We can clearly see that Albert's numbers make him Hall worthy, but what really makes him that special type of player that deserves to be in the Hall of Fame?
Here are some facts. Albert Belle led the American League in home runs in 1995 with 50 home runs. Yes, 1995 when there was a strike. Albert was elected to five all star game appearances, won three RBI titles, and made it to one World Series. He was the first player to ever have 50 home runs and 50 doubles in the same season. He led the Major Leagues, yes, the entire major leagues in RBI's with 1,099 during the 90's. He was dominant, he was feared, but most importantly to the Hall of Fame debate, he was hated.
That's the real case against Albert Belle. He wasn't the nicest of folk. He had the corked bat incident, threw a baseball at someone, and even chased after some trick of treaters. Can you blame him? He wanted the king size candy bars. Just because Albert Belle wasn't the greatest of personalities doesn't mean he doesn't' deserve to be placed amongst the greatest. He clearly was one of the most dominating players through the 90's and without a somewhat shortened career due to hip injuries he would've put up numbers that would rival almost any left fielder to date other then Ted Williams and Barry Bonds.
The Hall of Fame is subjective, so let's look at it that way. When we see Hall of Famers we see people who were great when they played; they were the best during their time and they were feared during every at-bat. We don't have to know every single stat that Ted Williams had to know he was great. We don't have to know exactly how many stolen bases Ricky Henderson had to know he excelled on the base paths. We know these players were great because we saw it. Albert Belle has the numbers to be put in the Hall of Fame, but most of all we all witnessed his Hall of Fame abilities with our own eyes. So if we want to be subjective, then it's not about what we heard about a player or the stats we read about a player. No, the Hall of Fame is about seeing the greatness; and we saw the greatness with Albert Belle.
If you think otherwise, he will come after you! - Gene Zarnick, Favre Dollar Footlongs
Albert Belle SHOULD NOT be in the MLB Hall of Fame
By Bill Parker, The Daily Something: The Daily Something is a general baseball blog (with a strong pro-Twins slant) that provides just that: something about baseball every day, or at least every weekday. It gets pretty heavily into the analytical and statistical side of the game, but the site also features plenty of commentary and analysis on the current season (or offseason), glimpses into baseball history, and miscellaneous nonsense.
 So, Albert Belle. Great hitter. Terrifying hitter. Short career, not much of a fielder, awfully hard to like, but man, for a few years there, that was one hell of a hitter.
Hall of Famer, though? No chance.
Everybody has his or her own way of determining who is a Hall of Famer and who isn't. But if we look at all those different ways, I think it becomes clear that if there's one thing everybody should be able to agree on, it should be this: no matter what makes a Hall of Famer, Albert Belle isn't it.
Traditional Stats
Well, this is probably the most common way to look at it. Do his raw numbers stack up with the greats?
Well, no, of course they don't. Belle played 1539 games, fewer than any other Hall of Fame position player (skipping the ones in the Hall as managers or executives) except four guys who spent time in the Negro Leagues (Larry Doby, Jackie Robinson, Monte Irvin and Roy Campanella), great catcher Mickey Cochrane, a guy who gave five of his best years to World War II (Hank Greenberg), Ralph Kiner (see below), and a bunch of really questionable selections made by the Veterans' Committee thirty to fifty years after their playing days were over (Combs, Kelly, Bresnahan, Lindstrom, Hafey, Hack Wilson, Ewing, Jennings, McCarthy, Youngs).
Belle's 1726 hits are 391st all time, tied with Jim Fregosi and Steve Brodie. But of course he was known most for his power, and his 381 homers are nice, 51st all-time, and there are a lot of Hall of Famers around him...but they're Hall of Famers who had much longer careers and did other things (like play defense). Also in his general neighborhood are Frank Howard and Joe Carter. His 1239 RBI put him just 121st, behind guys like Paul O'Neill, Lee May, and Steve Garvey. Guys who have both more HR and more RBI than Belle include Harold Baines, Dwight Evans, Graig Nettles, Joe Carter, Dale Murphy, Andres Galarraga, Darrell Evans, Juan Gonzalez, and Jose Canseco.
Belle hit .295, but so did Bob Watson and Mark Loretta.
So, he put up some nice power numbers and everything, but nothing that says "Hall of Famer." What else we got?
The "Feel," "Look" or "Smell" Test
You hear it all the time. When you watched Player X play, did you feel like you were looking at a Hall of Famer? Does Player X feel like a Hall of Famer to you? Does it feel like the Hall would be missing something without Player X in it?
I believe that there are ways of phrasing that question about Albert Belle that would make the answer "yes"...and that's how you know it's a stupid question. Sure, if you watched Belle hit in 1994 or 1995, you probably thought you were looking at a Hall of Famer. His career was so short that you might remember that and still think you were looking at a Hall of Famer. If he'd played until he was 38 or 40, though, and your last memory of him was of a guy who just couldn't get it done anymore, you might not feel the same way.
Take Eddie Murray. A lot of people around my age (30ish) have said that Eddie Murray just never felt to them like a Hall of Famer. Well, Murray from 1980 to 1985 was as good a hitter as Belle was at any point in his career, and certainly "felt" like a Hall of Famer to anyone who was following his career back then. But then Murray kept playing for another 12 years. He deserves credit for being able to stay in the league and keep playing when he was less than his best, but the "feel test" punishes him for it, while unfairly boosting guys like Belle who didn't have many of those down-slope years.
So, maybe at one point Belle felt like a Hall of Famer. But so did Mark Fidrych, and Doc Gooden, and Darryl Strawberry. Next?
Advanced Metrics
As my readers know, this is where I'm a lot more comfortable. There are several players whose traditional numbers didn't reach certain milestones, but whose actual on-the-field contributions were clearly more than valuable enough to make them Hall of Famers (see, e.g., Tim Raines and Bert Blyleven). Maybe Belle is one of those guys?
Nope. Belle is 318th in career Wins Above Replacement, at just 37.1, tied with Jason Kendall and Chili Davis. He's got a few Hall of Famers around him, but they're all those questionable Veterans' Committee guys again; you have to go way, way up the list before you find a hitter who you're really sure belongs in the Hall.
But of course Belle was going to suffer in the career comparison, because his career was so short. But, I mean, that's waaaaaay short. There's nothing here that suggests he was better than his raw numbers would indicate. If anything, because of the hitting-happy era he played in and the fact that he didn't play good defense or at least take up an important defensive position, he falls even shorter. He's way behind Dwight and Darrell Evans, for example, despite similar counting numbers.
The Koufax Exception
Sandy Koufax, like Belle, played parts of twelve seasons. He won just 165 games, fewer than all but four Hall of Fame starting pitchers, only one of whom threw a pitch after 1910. He breezed into the Hall, of course, based on an amazing stretch of peak seasons. In the five seasons from 1962 to 1966, Koufax led the league in ERA each year, in wins and strikeouts three times each, and in innings and complete games twice each. He was helped by a great pitchers' park (his park-adjusted ERA+ was 167, which is still great, but he led the league in that stat in just two of those five years), but there's also no question that he was far and away the greatest pitcher alive during that time, and was having one of the greatest peaks anyone had ever had. Did Belle have a peak like that? Was he a hitter so amazing that you have to let him in on those five or six years alone, even if he hadn't had another at-bat outside of those years?
I really don't think so. If you were to pick a five-year period like Koufax's, Belle's would have to be 1994 to 1998. He was kind of pedestrian in 1997, hitting just .274/.332/.491, but was fantastic in those other four years, and for the whole stretch he hit .314/.393/.626, good for a 160 OPS+ (meaning his park-adjusted on-base plus slugging was about 60% better than average). He averaged over 40 homers and 40 doubles a season, despite the fact that both 1994 and 1995 were shortened by the strike.
That's great, but for that time, it's not that great. His 160 OPS+ over those five years falls behind McGwire (191), Bonds (177), Thomas (172), Bagwell (171), Piazza (164) and Edgar (162), and is tied with Sheffield. Now, normally I'd say that it was his performance against average, not against the cream of the crop, that matters -- especially when he's up against legendary hitters like Bonds and Frank -- but it seems to me that the Koufax Exception is built entirely around dominance. If Koufax was exactly as good as he was from 1962-66, but wasn't so clearly the best -- if, say, six guys were even better -- would Koufax even be in the Hall?
I don't think so. But in either case, I don't think Belle's peak comes anywhere close. There are only a few other guys who had an OPS+ of better than 160 in five consecutive years (Dick Allen and Frank Howard are the only ones I could find who aren't in the HOF or headed there), but his peak just doesn't have that Koufax smell. One comparable awesome-peak, short-career Hall of Famer might be Ralph Kiner...but Kiner led his league in home runs seven times in a row. There's nothing about Belle's career that really sticks out the way that that sort of factoid does.
The Puckett Exception
Belle's supporters often point to Kirby Puckett, another guy who, just like Belle, played parts of just twelve seasons. was forced to retire due to a freak injury in his mid-thirties, and had subsequent legal troubles. Now, full disclosure: I'm a Twins fan, and Kirby is my all-time favorite player. Still, being as objective as I possibly can, I don't think the comparison to Puckett does Belle any favors, and for a few reasons:
- First and foremost, Kirby was just a better player than Belle. Belle's 143 OPS+ beats Kirby's 124, But Puckett spent most of his career as a centerfielder, and was considered a very good one, winning six Gold Gloves. Even using the advanced metrics, which aren't nearly as impressed by Puckett's glove as observers were, Kirby kills Albert, picking up 45.0 WAR to Belle's 37.1. 45 is still low for a Hall of Famer, but there are more than a hundred names between Puckett and Belle on the all-time list.
- Puckett played more than Belle (which is some small part of the WAR difference). Puckett played 200 more games and picked up 1200 more plate appearances than Belle. There's really no precedent for the BBWAA to elect a position player with a career as short as Belle's.
- Kirby hit .308/.393/.518 in two World Series (both of which his team won), was the 1991 ALCS MVP and more or less single-handedly won a World Series game. Belle played very well despite a .235 batting average in his one World Series, but his team lost, and he certainly didn't have anything like the iconic moment(s) Kirby enjoyed in 1991. If that kind of thing means something to you.
- Whatever the reality, Kirby during his time was perceived as one of the good guys, a team leader and all that. Bob Costas named his kid after him. Meanwhile, nobody, least of all the media, liked Belle, who redefined the word "surly." For better or worse, voters have, occasionally, made choices on the margins based on perceptions of character. Puckett and Belle are both more or less on the margins, and the perceptions of their characters during their careers couldn't be more different.
For whatever it's worth, I think you could do the same analysis on two pitchers with short careers in the Hall: Dizzy Dean and Addie Joss. Dean might have been the best pitcher in the Majors over the first five years of his career, which was then derailed by injury. He was also a universally beloved character and an endlessly quotable interview. Addie Joss had a 1.67 ERA from 1904 to 1909, then suffered a freak injury at age 30, and died very suddenly of meningitis less than a year later. Both Dean and Joss, like Puckett, were both better players than Belle and had more compelling off-the-field stories.
Bill James' Various Toys
I don't think anybody really puts much stock in these anymore, but just for the sake of completeness, Bill James created two Hall-related statistics many years ago; one, the Hall of Fame Monitor, was intended to measure a player's likelihood of getting into the Hall, while the other, Hall of Fame Standards, attempted to measure a player's worthiness for the Hall.
Belle's Hall of Fame Monitor score is 134; a "likely" Hall of Famer hits about 100. So, finally, we have something in Belle's favor; remember, though, that that just tracks whether we should expect the writers to vote him in, not whether he actually deserves to be in. The Monitor doesn't know that Belle was a jerk who never talked to the media; for that matter, it doesn't know that Belle played in the most hitting-friendly era in history.
Belle's Hall of Fame Standards score is 36; an average Hall of Famer scores 50. That's a lot more in line with what we've been seeing so far.
James also created "Similarity Scores," which are just what they sound like -- a very rough way to gauge how similar two players are. Belle's five most similar batters are Juan Gonzalez, Lance Berkman, Carlos Lee, Dick Allen, and Jim Edmonds. His four most similar will never make the Hall, while the fifth might, but was also a Gold Glove centerfielder. After that comes Albert Pujols, but that just shows you the weakness inherent in the system; Pujols scores as very similar because he's got about the same HR, R, and RBI numbers as Belle had, but he's gotten there in 600 fewer plate appearances, has about 40 points of batting average and 60 points each of OBP and SLG on him, and plays a stellar first base. The Hall of Famers on Belle's similarity list are easily distinguishable; the Juan Gonzalezes and Lance Berkmans, not so much.
Better Players Who Aren't In
I'm not a big fan of the "if player X is in, player Y should be in" game, but I think there's a lot to be said for the "if player X isn't in, player Y really shouldn't be in" version. Simply put:
And so on. Those are just guys from power positions who came to mind right away, ignoring other guys who crush Belle like Raines, Lou Whitaker, and Alan Trammell.
Can you tell me how Belle is better or more deserving than any of these guys? I can't think of a way to set him apart, other than arbitrary silliness (first 50 2B, 50 HR season, more "feared," etc.). I don't think anybody would say all these guys are Hall of Famers (Santo, Edgar and maybe Evans, along with Raines, Whitaker, Trammell and Blyleven, would get my vote), but yet every single one of them has a much stronger case for the Hall than Belle. To make Belle fit in the Hall, other than with the Veterans' Committee guys like Hafey and Lindstrom, we need to totally change the whole character of the Hall. Put all these guys in, and then maybe you can start talking about finding room for Belle.
So there it is. It's not so much that I want to argue that Belle doesn't belong; it's that I don't think there's a way you can argue he does belong. - Bill Parker, The Daily Something
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