Can someone please explain...

[ajgnydc722]

Why Don Mattingly can't get in the HOF and Kirby Puckett was a first ballot HOFer??

Makes no sense. Mattingly was plauged by injuries during his career but he was the best player in the game at a time, and still finished with numbers equal to Puckett. Yeah, Puckett was a good CF, but Mattingly won more gold gloves, 9, and he was a much more feared hitter.

Why is Kirby Puckett and no brainer and Mattingly gets no consideration?

[JDD]

Easy... Mattingly only had four Hall of Fame type seasons.

[nsulham]

I defer to Simmons on this one:

DON MATTINGLY: NO
Nobody enjoyed the cheesy 'stache and Bird-esque Indiana roots more than me, and nobody sympathizes with someone suffering from a bad back more than me ... but I can't imagine how Donnie Baseball makes it, not when his career tailed off in the late-'80s faster than Anthony Michael Hall and Andrew McCarthy combined. He's not even remotely close, and that's before we even mention the obvious Ewing Theory ramifications here -- the Yanks promptly rolled off four championships after he retired, then gave us The Greatest Choke In Sports History during his first season back as hitting coach.


(Of course, every Yankees fan believes that Mattingly was a Level 4 Hall of Famer. You haven't really lived until you argued about the Hit Man's Hall of Fame credentials at a bar with a bunch of Yankees fans. It's like arguing about the existence of dinosaurs with Carl Everett -- relevant facts, statistics and evidence simply don't matter. I'm afraid to even make fun of them about this; I never had a car bomb put under my car, and I'd kind of like to keep it that way.)

[rodg12]

That's something I would like to know as well AJ. THe only difference between them I can see is that Puckett has the two rings where Donnie has none. I think he definetely deserves to be in the Hall. He was one of the few dominant hitters of the 80s and the best defensive 1st baseman in the history of baseball. That, coupled with the dibilatating back injury, should be enough to get him in.

[LBJackal]

Puckett shouldn't be in... it's as simple as that. If everybody was compared to Kirby then the hall would have hundreds more mediocre players inducted.

[ocmusicjunkie]

Puckett is in with his numbers because of the rings and the way he contributed to winning them, and also because his career was shortened due to medical reasons. There is no question he would have played longer and put up better numbers otherwise, and the voters know this.

[The Thrill]

Despite the critics or lack of support, I also would like to see Donnie Baseball in the Hall. Too bad it probably won't happen.

[GotowarMissAgnes]

Jackal's got it right. Neither of them is anything more than a marginal HOFer at best, but you can certainly make a better case for Puckett, who played a more demanding defensive position, still hit as well or better than Mattingly, and did not have the decline at the end of his career as Mattingly did.

At best, you can argue that Mattingly had one season where he was the best player in the game (1986--even in 1985, Brett was much better). Mattingly was only a dominant hitter for less than half of the 1980s, 3-4 seasons (1984-1987). From 1990 onward he was a below average first baseman at the bat, and that's about 40 percent of his career.
See
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/artic ... icleid=856

Guys who are dominant for 3-4 seasons, average for 2 seasons, and mediocre to poor for 6 seasons don't belong in the Hall. The ONLY reason he gets considered is because he's a Yankee.

[ajgnydc722]

Puckett is in with his numbers because of the rings and the way he contributed to winning them, and also because his career was shortened due to medical reasons. There is no question he would have played longer and put up better numbers otherwise, and the voters know this.

Pucketts career was shortened by injury? Mattingly's was worse than Puckett's. And Mattingly was better than Puckett on their best days.

Rings shouldn't make a difference to whether a guy gets voted in. It's not Mattingly's fault he was on a bad team, and there's no credit due to Puckett that he was surrounded by good players. I'm not saying Mattingly is a definate Hall of Famer, but how in the hell is he not considered when Puckett makes it first ballot?

[FatGuyWithAMullet]

Phil Rizzuto.