happybat4

I agree. But this is a great way to see how under appreciated players from past years were.

I do understand that. You asked me when Abreu should have been an all star. I did, he was better than Vlad in 1999 and deserved to be an all star. I'm literally answering the question you asked.

I was answering two different questions. Somebody mentioned that Abreu was only a 2 time all-star and Gwynn was a 15 time all star so therefore Gwynn was much better. All star selections are not a good measure for HOF. Gwynn was certainly a great player and deserved many all star selections, but certainly not 15. Abreu was definitely underrated and deserved more than 2 selections. I was simply giving an example of one time Gwynn didn't deserve a selection and one time Abreu did. And according to war that was only Abreus 4th best season.

All those players deserved it over Gwynn. All star selections for outfield weren't by outfield position back than. They didn't care if you were LF, CF, or RF, they simply just chose outfielders.

Vlad only had a .914 OPS at the break. Abreu was better that year.

Abreu had a 1155 OPS the second month of the season. Gwynn had a good month and fell off the next few months. I don't know how you can argue he was deserving that year. I showed you the first half stats, many players had better OPS, way more speed and we're better defensive players.

I just gave 1999 as an example.

1999 would be a great example.

He still was voted because of his reputation that year.

1999. He had a 858 OPS at the break and was voted in (also less than a single WAR at the break.) Abreu didn't make it that year even though at the break he had a 970 OPS (and a 323 average) with 11 stolen bases. Brian Giles had a 980 OPS at the break and didn't get selected. Ricky Henderson had a .894 OPS at the break with 24 stolen bases and wasn't selected. Carl Everett had an .878 OPS with 21 stolen bases at the break and wasn't selected. Mike Cameron had an 848 OPS and 28 stolen bases at the break and wasn't chosen (plus great defense that year). Andrew Jones had a 7+ WAR that year and didn't get selected (he had a .840 OPS at the break). Kevin Young had a 918 OPS at the break (14 SB) Reggie Sanders had a 985 OPS at the break with 20 stolen bases and wasn't selected. This is one year, but Gwynn certainly had years where he was an all star and certainly didn't deserve it.

Who and in what years?

Abreu had a 853 career OPS pre all star break. Gwynn is great and he certainly deserved most of his all star appearances, but he didn't deserve all of them and Abreu certainly deserved more. People loved batting average back than so he was going no matter what.

Gwynn had 7 seasons that were sub 3 war and was selected as an all-star. Abreu had 7 seasons with over 3 war in which he wasn't selected for the all-star game.

I personally don't think he is a HOF player, I think he falls just short. But it does show how underrated he was and how overrated Gwynn was.

Sure it is. Their based off reputation instead of actual production.

Yep and Jeter won a bunch of gold gloves.

Why only look at hits? Value comes in plenty of forms. Abreu and Gwyn were much similar value wise than Abreu and Salmon. Abreu was far better than Salmon.

I'm always amazed how quickly Lofton fell off the ballot, he was a stud.

Can we trade for Bauer.

I'm not as familiar with older players but Randolph has a 65.9 career WAR. He's better than a lot of players in the HOF.

Jeff Mathis is available.

When do Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker get in?

I really think getting a future HOF pitcher like Kershaw or Greinke would help the young guys, just so they can see how those guys go about their business.

Chad Cordero comes to mind, he was in the minors for a season or two. Andres Gallaraga also, though he played a few meaningless games in September, I remember hoping he would hit home run #400 but he was stuck at 399.

I saw a video of Freddie Freeman putting the ball from the final out of the world series in his back pocket? What happened to the ball that Erstad caught? Is it on display, did Erstad keep it?