Peer pressure takes over and it doesn't matter if they feel you fall just short.) How do you convince a voter you're great?īe undeniably great - be so great that any "but" in the conversation feels like an attack rather than an argument. (once you get to 2/3rds there starts to be a "I don't want to be the jerk who keeps him out" effect on the remaining voters. Getting into the Hall of Fame amounts to convincing 2/3rds of the voters that you were great. Of course this was the case a decade ago when he first appeared on the ballot, why does he only get elected now? Dawson was very good for a very long time.Īdd to this that through the first third of his career he was a legit great defender and stolen base threat, and you have yourself someone who is good enough to be a hall of famer.
He played over 138 games 13 of 15 non-strike years. 16 straight years with an OPS+ of 100 or better, 13 of those were above 110, 7 above 130. The former is a guy who is probably "secretly" hurting the team, the latter is a guy who is very good rather than great. 260 with moderate power and a guy with a. 328 OBP is pretty damn bad, but there's a distinct difference in being a guy with a. But while that hurt him offensively, it didn't make him a bad offensive player. So what's a boy to do?ĭawson was a borderline case mainly because he didn't get on base and we're in a time where we realize that it's very important to get on base. Thing is - I didn't start following the franchise till 15+ years after Dawson left, my consistently failing memory only vaguely recalls "Expo Dawson" and most importantly, I wouldn't have voted him in if I had a vote. I kind of feel like I should say something about Dawson as I'm constantly bringing up that this is a franchise that includes the Expos history.