I felt Jason Bay and Roy Halladay were both in the category of haven't been good for long enough yet, they've been great (especially Halladay) but not quite Hall-worthy yet.

jason bay? really?

and halladay? no way. i think oswalt's been better the better roy.

It is very hard to get into the Hall of Fame, for baseball especially. The writers who vote are traditionally very, very tough on guys who haven't reached any of the numbers that would make them a lock (i.e. 500 HR's, 3,000 hits, 300 wins). I suspect the numbers a player needs to get in will change in coming years because some of the milestones are tougher to reach because the game has changed. There are a couple listed as no doubters who are far from that. Todd Helton has been very good but I suspect his numbers away from Coors Field will be cause for a lot of people not to vote for him. And Vladimir Guerrero still has an awful long way to go before he's in the conversation. As far as the players listed as "iffy", probably only Mussina and maybe Curt Schilling have a legitimate shot. Both are very interesting cases. Mussina has never won 20 games or a Cy Young but he may benefit from voters reconsidering their stances on what exactly gets you in. He has won over 260 games and has a winning percentage of .635, which is better than Glavine or Smoltz. Schilling is a bit more of a stretch but he may be given a lot of credit for how he has performed in the post season. He has only won 216 regular season games but he may get a boost when voters consider his postseason numbers (19 starts, 11-2, 2.23 ERA, 0.970 WHIP, a World Series co-MVP and 3 World Series wins).

Well yea okay, I let the Jason Bay one slide a bit too much before without thinking about it. I'm not sure he's at this point much more than just a "very good All-Star level" player. But Halladay, again, he's in my category of not having played long enough yet to even get into the argument, but 123-63 in 11 seasons (.661), 3.56 ERA ain't too bad considering he's been in the AL East the whole time, especially averaging 228 IP each year (& 38 total complete games).

But you've got a perfectly valid stance with Roy Oswalt. He was also in my "not just yet" category, I just didn't trot out every single name that came thru my head for that. 120-62 in 8 seasons (.659), 3.20 ERA, averages 183 K's. I'm not exactly sure what's been the deal with him this season, I hope for his sake it's that he's been hurt to some degree, because he's been VERY un-Oswalt-like. But normally, shit yea do this for another 8-10 years at least, he could make his way in.

Jason Bay is seriously being mentioned as a potential hall of famer?

Well not by me, the thread starter. just to make that clear

if ichiro is a lock...then pujols can't be too far from being one.

both debut the same year... Pujols has a sleight edge in batting average, and a huge edge in power numbers, but isn't as strong defensively and has a couple hundred less hits.

Wow, when I looked this up to confirm I was shocked that you're totally right, both started in MLB in 2001. And, I apologize, I think I fell victim to I guess sort of including Ichiro's foreign accomplishments in the back of my mind, you just automatically think of him being this elite hitter for such a long time now. But no, 8 seasons, no matter how well you do with them, are not enough just yet for Hall Of Fame consideration, I don't think.

Although, now I think about it, there does seem to be a little hypocrisy at work here, that is, MLB wouldn't include Ichiro (or Matsui at his time) in consideration for Rookie Of The Year in 2001 no matter how well he did because he'd already been playing so long at what's also deemed a "professional" level (& I tend to agree with this stance), and yet at the same time, we say he's not done enough to quality for HOF consideration because he's been playing MLB for "only 8 years". Just saying.

edit: and I will say for what it's worth, if Ichiro hasn't been the fastest guy in history to reach the 1700 hit mark (done this year), I figure he can't possibly be any worse than 3rd on that list.

Any player with less than 130 at-bats, 50 innings pitched or 45 days on the active roster of a major league club before September 1 is eligible. Ichiro was the American League Rookie of the Year and MVP in 2001. Matsui finished second to Angel Berroa in 2003 in one of the closest votes ever and the year before Ichiro, Kaz Sasaki won the award at age 32 after 10 seasons in Japan.

anyone see Billy Wagners performance last night?

haha, hall of famer my ass

errrr.. okay, well obviously I am a complete and utter baffoon

I suppose what it is, I remember there being a lot of debate during Matsui's first year with the Yankees, whether or not he should be eligible for ROY despite his pro Japanese years, and it seemed quite a few baseball people felt he should NOT, and over the years I must've mashed that around in my head to it being fact that the league didn't consider him eligible, and so then Ichiro sort of retroactively by extension. Hence, that pretty much completely negates EVERYTHING I said in the post with which you quoted me.

It occurs to me I want to try and look things like this up in the future before I shove my foot in my mouth

I was going to suggest that maybe that was the reason you thought so. I will admit that I checked to be sure because I remember the controversy when Matsui was eligible and it made me wonder if I had it wrong. The thing that struck me as odd about those two years (Ichiro's and Matsui's) was that I don't recall the same controversy when Ichiro was a rookie. I know there were definitely people that voiced the opinion that Ichiro shouldn't be eligible but not to the same extent as when Matsut was eligible. It seemed to me what these people were really saying was that they would vote for a foreign player with experience elsewhere if he was the clear cut choice, but if it was close they'd give the nod to the guy who hadn't played elsewhere simply because he hadn't played elsewhere.

I think a part of why there wasn't much controversy over Ichiro's rookie season was because nobody really gave the Japanese leagues much credit for being a "real" league and when Ichiro had the season he had then all sudden the writers' opinions of Japan baseball started to change.

I think even Lou Piniella said Ichiro should've have been ineligible for the ROY when he was coaching in Tampa Ray a couple of years later. H.Matsui was somewhat a victim of Ichiro's success in some writers' eyes.

In my opinion, I don't think their Japanese records/experience should count against them, and also it shouldn't count for him either if they're considered for Cooperstown.

billy wagner is not a hall of famer nor is jason bay. average players who are good. cant believe no one has mentioned david wright yet. gold glover, all star a few times, 20/20 guy a few times. he can be a 40/40 guy easily and probably hit 500hr.

No one has mentioned David Wright yet because he is in the middle of his 5th season. Now I'm not saying that 500 HR is the only thing that will get you in the Hall but since you said he has the ability to hit 500 (and I agree) we'll use that as an example. In his first 5 seasons he's averaging just under 24 HR's a year. Since he's only 25 and should improve steadily for a while before he starts to decline lets say he averages 35 HR's a year for the next 10 years and then retires. That'll give him 447 career HR's. Obviously all of these things are variables and we have no way of knowing how long he will continue to improve, when his decline will come or when he will retire but it gives you an idea of why it's too early to talk about a guy like that. Hell, after 5 or 6 seasons Nomar Garciaparra looked like he was building toward a Hall of Fame career and we all know what happened there.

Yea the unfortunate thing is I didn't fully flesh out the list of "players who if they keep up their pace could very well make it in, but just haven't played long enough yet", I wrote down the names Johan Santana, Brandon Webb and Chase Utley in my opening post, but quite frankly I figured all the rest of the names on that list would be fairly obvious, so I didn't bother.

I already said that Jason Bay is a gross overstatement. Granted, I regret at this point including Billy Wagner on the "definite" list, but okay I STILL say that even as of this moment, he at least makes the "iffy" list.

Jason Bay

If Ichiro's first 8 years had been played in the MLB as opposed to Japan, he would be a lock at this point for sure. Does the MLB place any emphasis on impact on the game? If it does, the cultural impact he has had on the game makes him a lock at this point anyway, in my opinion. When's the last time a player brought the game to a completely new fanbase altogether? Because of him, kids in Japan will grow up dreaming of playing for the Seattle Mariners in the Major Leagues instead of for Japanese teams. I think within the next decade or so we'll really start to see his impact, as more and more Japanese players start coming over at a young age as opposed to once they have established careers in Japan.

scott brosius

CLUTCH!!!