And stay out!!!

A few days ago I went through the players I would vote for in this year's HOF class and now I'm going to go a slightly different route...

This time I'm singling out a few guys who have no business being considered for the Hall of Fame, even though they get a good bit of support in some baseball circles.

Quick disclaimer: none of what I write below is in any way personal. I have had little-to-no interaction with these players during my broadcasting career and my opinion is based on nothing more than my own analysis of the performance of these players.

And so it begins...

Tommy John

Seems like a nice guy and might be a candidate for selection as a "pioneer" - since a significant surgical procedure that has saved many a career was named after him - but as a pitcher I just can't come to grips with him being a Hall of Famer.

Every argument I hear on John's behalf begins with his 288 career wins, which is ludicrous since he pitched 26 years in the big leagues. The man averaged 11 wins a season for God's sake and only notched 74 wins (8 per year) in his last 9 seasons!

Consider the following:

* Only 4 All-Star appearances in 26 years
* Averaged 4 strikeouts per game
* Never won a Cy Young Award and finished in the Top 10 in voting only 4 times
* Finished in the Top 5 in ERA just 6 times in 26 years.
* 3.34 career ERA was just 0.35 better than the league average (3.69) from 1963-1989

In other words, Tommy John was a slightly above average pitcher for a very, very, very long time. That's not what a Hall of Famer is...

He was certainly a very valuable baseball player, don't get me wrong about that, but the Hall of Fame should be about greatness and not about being pretty good for 2 1/2 decades.

Was Tommy John ever the best pitcher in baseball for any signficant stretch of time? How many times was he even the best pitcher on his own team?

Dale Murphy

He's close, make no mistake about it, but he's just shy.

The .265 batting average certainly doesn't separate him from the crowd and while his power numbers were impressive, especially given the era he played in, they're not as impressive as they appear at first glance.

Murphy spent the relevant portion of his career playing at Fulton County Stadium, aka "The Launching Pad." His HR totals are a bit elevated because of that.

Look at Bob Horner's HR totals as an example of what I'm talking about - Horner hit 215 HR in 3571 AB as Murphy's teammate in Atlanta from 1978-1986. Murphy hit 264 HR during that same span but needed 4876 AB to do so. Compared directly, same team and same era, Horner hit a HR every 16.6 AB and Murphy hit a HR every 18.5 AB.

Clearly Murphy is the superior player of the two, I'm not questioning that. I'm just pointing out that it was relatively easy to hit HR's in Atlanta during that period of time.

From 1978-1987 Murphy was an awesome two-way player - 7 All-Star appearances, 2 MVP's, 5 Gold Gloves and 4 Silver Sluggers - but I'm just not sure he was good enough for long enough to merit Hall of Fame consideration.

Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, Dave Parker and Tim Raines are all better candidates for the Hall and if they all get in someday then I'll be more willing to add someone like Dale Murphy.

Don Mattingly

This is a truly unfortunate case of bad luck. "Donnie Baseball" was an awesome, awesome player and would have certainly been Hall of Fame material were his career not limited by back problems.

For 6 seasons (1984-1989) he was an absolute monster: .327 average while hitting 27 HR and driving in 114 runs per year during that stretch.

That's crazy, especially given the era.

The problem is that he only hit 58 home runs over the next 6 seasons and was no longer a true impact player.

If he had been able to have 3-4 more completely healthy seasons than he had, then Mattingly would have been a dead-cinch lock for the Hall since he had 7 All-Star appearances, 1 MVP, 9 Gold Gloves and 3 Silver Sluggers as it was.

Mattingly was a great player but just wasn't able to hold up physically for a long enough period of time.