That's a good point, and it demonstrates how the argument for Palmeiro is actually a direct opposite to your typical HoF conversation. As Bill James has observed, you typically stack up any player against the dregs of the hall, pointing to their stats against Tony Perez or whomever, and proclaim them a first-ballot entry. However, with Palmeiro, the stats are almost overwhelming, making you think twice of how somebody with such a low career peak, with no real "dominance" of the game, could accumulate stats like his.

 

Read that last sentence again. While at work, the thought occured to me. There is a player very similar to Palmeiro, who is continually denied entrance to the Hall: Bert Blyleven. Like Palmeiro, Blyleven was never thought of as a particuarly dominant player. He only played in two All-Star games, and never finished higher than third in the Cy Young voting. Yet he finished 25th in career wins, 5th in strikeouts (and actually ranked third upon his retirement), and ninth in shutouts.

 

The problem with Blyleven is that he really was a great young pitcher. From his debut as a 19 year old in 1970 up until 1978, Blyleven posted ERAs of 3.18, 2.81, 2.73, 2.52, 2.66, 3.00, 2.87, 2.72, 3.03. Think about that. Over a period of nine years, Blyleven's HIGHEST ERA was 3.18. I think when writers think about Blyleven, they see the gopherballing junk pitcher of the mid 80s. That, coupled with the poor teams Blyleven played for, hurt his candidacy. I do think it is worth noting that Blyleven sports a 5-1 record in postseason play.

 

When we look at players like Blyleven and Palmeiro, we often think that they are not truly Hall of Fame players, that they just got their gaudy statistics from hanging around a long time. However, most times these players WERE Hall of Fame caliber players at their peak, and we just missed them for one reason or another. Fred McGriff may be a fringe candidate, but I can assure you that in my youth, McGriff was one of the most feared hitters in baseball.

 

I'm wandering a bit, so let me draw a conclusion here. There's a perception regarding players like Rafael Palmeiro, Bert Blyleven, Don Sutton, etc., that they merely became great players by being very good for a long time. I think if you really examine their careers however, they are far different from players such as Milt Pappas, whose HOF candidacies rest on having career numbers similar to another HOFer (in this case, Don Drysdale), but in actually were far apart in quality.

What's more impressive though? Being a good player like Palmeiro over the course of 20 years or being an elite player for 4 or 5 years and then being irrelevent the rest of your career.

What's more impressive though?  Being a good player like Palmeiro over the course of 20 years or being an elite player for 4 or 5 years and then being irrelevent the rest of your career.

The Palmeiros, because there are many, many of the second type. Joe Adcock, Dick Allen, Herb Score, Doc Gooden, etc. Actually, that brings another thought to mind. Will the same writers who dismiss Rafael Palmeiro give fair consideration to Juan Gonzalez, who had exactly the opposite type of career? Gonzalez isn't a Hall of Famer of course, but in 1994, he was often touted as the player most likely to break Maris's record.

Sports writers are a strange creature. I think this is the exact kind of situation where they'd take flash over substance. I could see Skip Bayless or Jay Mariotti being stupid enough to give Juan Gonzalez a fair chance. But this is assuming that he improves his stat lines a bit before retirement. Which I doubt considering he wasn't even good enough to find a bench spot on the Indians big league team this year.

He was good enough actually, but literally injured himself running out a groundout in his first at bat.

I can't imagine Juan Gonzalez will get much love at all, as most of the sports writers will point to his injury-plagued nadir and automatically attribute it - along with all of Juan Gone's successes at the plate - to steroids.

Juan Gonzalez should probably get more consideration for the hall of fame then many people think. Won two MVPs, lead the league in Home Runs twice, and hit over 434 home runs and only played 9 full seasons.