Neyer: Hall of Fame voting and October glories

From SABR member Rob Neyer at Baseball Nation on January 8, 2013:

As near as I can tell, postseason performance has essentially been ignored throughout the history of Hall of Fame balloting. Of course, there’s at least one very good reason for this: Very few Hall of Fame candidates finished their careers with enough postseason action to merit serious discussion.

Today, that’s changed. Some of the longtime Yankees and Braves, especially, do have enough postseason action. Andy Pettitte has made 44 postseason starts. Derek Jeter has now played in 158 postseason games. Should we simply ignore those contributions?

The argument for ignoring them is fairness. If you give these guys extra credit, players who didn’t get those chances in October are disadvantaged. The argument for not ignoring them is obvious: the postseason is really important.

Read the full article here: http://mlb.sbnation.com/2013/1/8/3847904/hall-fame-2013-voting-results-bernie-williams-postseason-stats



Originally published: January 8, 2013. Last Updated: January 8, 2013.