Neither is Tim Raines.By the way, Bert is ranked 13th in career WAR for pitchers. 13th. No matter how flawed you think the statistic is, it would have to be wrong by about 20 wins for anybody to even have a case against him.
And Dawson? He's 130th...among hitters. And like 40 wins behind Blyleven*. Worse yet, he's about 10 wins behind Raines, who's ranked 81st among hitters. You know why the numbers are like that? Because Raines could take a walk and Dawson could not. Seriously though, Dawson's career OBP is .323, his career OPS was .806, and he didn't even achieve the worthless counting stats that so many love to use. He drove in 100 runs a mere four times, and scored 100 runs only twice.
For most of his career, watching Dawson was basically like watching Matt Kemp in 2008. So i'm not saying that Dawson wasn't valuable in center field, or that he wasn't a good player, but if guys like him go into the Hall Of Fame, and guys like Roberto Alomar or Raines are kept out, then something is seriously broken.
Now i'm not saying everybody should go straight by the numbers, because doing that is almost as bad as going by feel. There's always wiggle room with statistics, and WAR is no exception. However, 40 wins is not "wiggle room" nor can it be made up by "intangibles". 40 wins is saying Darin Erstad is better than Jim Edmonds.
Erasing 40 wins basically makes you an idiot. Like Jon Heyman.
On that note, why does Heyman bother me so much? I'm not quite sure, as it's not like he's the first person to continually take shots at "stat guys" or anything. I'm starting to think it's a combination of things. Like being Scott Boras' lackey or being a hack, in general.
Can somebody seriously explain to me why he gets to mock the opinion of anybody else? He votes based on how he feels, not statistics, which I suppose would be fine, if he actually had any qualifications whatsoever. Using his own logic, why do sports writers get to determine anything at all? None of them have played baseball, nor do they really have any clue about what they are seeing. Ugh.
By the way, Heyman voted for Don Mattingly and not Raines. Look, I fully understand that there are no pre-determined standards for the voting. Anybody can be in and anybody can be out. However, on your own personal ballot, at least be consistent. Jesus.
*By the way, you'd be surprised by how alike Blyleven and Nolan Ryan are. Look it up. One just happened to throw 100 mph and be born in Texas. One just happened to be from the Netherlands.
