3 players hit 400 HR and had 300 SB. Mays, Bonds, Dawson. He's a HOF'er.
400 HR and 300 SB? That's kind of a puzzling combination of thresholds. No matter how you look at it, 400 HR is a much bigger accomplishment than 300 SB. Only 45 people have hit at least 400 HRs, but about 3 1/2 times as many people (155) have stolen at least 300 bases. 400 HRs represents just a little over 1/2 of the all-time record, while 300 steals is only about 1/5th of the all-time record. Seems to me that if someone is going to create a 2-threshold test for identifying the cream of the crop, both thresholds should be roughly equal in identifying the same level of performance.

If you were going to pick two thresholds that were roughly equal in their significance, I'd think that a better choice might be 400 HR and 450 SB, (about 45-50 players meeting each threshold). Or if you like 300 SB and want a HR threshold that is roughly equal to it, maybe 275 HR and 300 SB (about 155 players meet each threshold). Or if you wanted to mirror that sportswriter habit of creating "30-30" clubs or "40-40" clubs, you could have used 300 HR and 300 SB, or 400 HR and 400 SB, or split the difference and go 350-350. After all, it isn't like anybody talks about a "40-30" club.

Oh, wait, I see what you've done here...you've cherrypicked the thresholds to create an artificial category that allows Dawson to just barely sneak in with Willie Mays and Barry Bonds, to let you make the argument that he must be just like them since he meets the same thresholds. Or is it just a coincidence that Dawson's 314 steals is just an eyelash above your 300 SB threshold, and his 438 HR is just barely above your 400 HR threshold, and any other combination of thresholds leaves Dawson on the other side of the line? Move either one of those goalposts just a hair, and the "Dawson is in the same club as Barry Bonds and Willie Mays" argument disappears. But keep them right at 400 HR and 300 SB, and we can pretend that 438 HR/314 SB is a next-door neighbor to 762 HR/500 SB and 660 HR/338 SB, when in fact it isn't even in the same zip code.

I always liked Dawson, so maybe I shouldn't criticize this type of tailor-made standards. Maybe powersackers is onto something very useful. Let me see...I think Tim Raines belongs in the HOF, so here goes: 3 players hit 150 HR and had 650 SB. Henderson, Morgan, Raines. Ergo, Raines is a HOFer. And I always really liked Bert Campaneris, even though I'd never thought of him as a HOF prospect, but as it turns out, only 3 players stole 550 bases and played 1800 games at SS. Honus Wagner, Ozzie Smith, Bert Campaneris. Holy mackerel, Campy is a HOF'er after all.





Last Edited By: What Cheer Wombat 01/09/10 02:57 AM. Edited 3 times.