Hall of Fame Poll: Nomar Garciaparra

The next three on the Hall of Fame ballot are Jermaine Dye, Darin Erstad and Cliff Floyd, but I'm going to skip them.

Jermaine Dye was a much better player than I thought. In a 14 year career, he hit .274/.338/.488 with 325 home runs and 1072 RBI. Baseball Reference has him at a 20.3 WAR. In his last 6 seasons he hit 23, 31, 44, 34 and 27 home runs. He had over 20 home runs 7 times in his career and over 100 RBI 4 times. His best season was 2006 when he hit 44 home runs, drove in 120 with a .315/.385/.622 slash line.

But he only appeared in 2 All-Star games, only got MVP votes in two seasons, coming in 5th in 2006 and 15th in 2008. He won 1 Silver Slugger and 1 Gold Glove. He also finished 6th in Rookie of the Year voting back in 1996. He was a very good player, but I don't think anyone would argue that he deserves to be in the Hall.

Darren Erstad was also a pretty good player. He had a 14 year career, with a .282/.336/.407 slash line, 124 home runs and 699 RBI. He was a human highlight film on defense (though I'd imagine Zaun would say he was a master at the TV dive). He made 2 All-Star teams, won 3 Gold Gloves, 1 Silver Slugger and picked up MVP votes twice, finishing 14th in 1998 and 8th in 2000. 2000 was his best season by far, he hit .355/.409/.541 with 25 home runs and 100 RBI. Baseball Reference has him at a 32.3 career WAR, mostly off his defense. He was a pretty good, but no where near someone that should be in the Hall.

Cliff Floyd had a 17 year career, hit .278/.358/.482 with 233 home runs and 865 RBI. He started his career with the Expos. He played on 1 All-Star game. He has a 25.9 career bWAR. Another good player but short of a Hall of Fame career.

Nomar Garciaparra is a pretty interesting case. Early in his career he looked like a sure thing. but he didn't age well. He was 1 of the 3 great shortstops, with Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, in the 1990's. 10 years ago we thought all would make the Hall. Now only Jeter is a sure thing.

In a 14 year career, Nomar hit .313/.361/.521 with 229 home runs and 936 RBI and a 44.2 bWAR.

He was named to the All-Star team 6 times, was Rookie of the Year in 1997, had 1 Silver Slugger and had MVP votes 7 different seasons, coming in 2nd, 7th twice, 8th, 9th, 11th and 13th.

Nomar's best years were early in his career, when he was a Red Sox, but he wore out his welcome there by 2004, mostly because he paled in comparison to Jeter and ARod. He was part of a 4 team trade that sent him to the Cubs. He also played for the Dodgers and A's.

There is a shortage of shortstops in the Hall, but, to me Nomar comes up a bit short.