The Hall of Very Good (Part 3)

More nominees for my Hall of Very Good:

Whenever HOF voting comes around, Jack Morris becomes a popular subject of discussion.  There is some reason for his supporters: 254 wins, 3-time 20-game winner, 6 times with at least 18 wins, and 5 times in the top 5 of Cy Young voting.  Morris was a solid workhorse for 13 seasons and is hurt by his 3.90 career ERA.  He is certainly close to a hall-of-famer, but I rate him below Mussina.

Mark Grace is another big-time pro hitter with only fair power who sprayed hits all over the field for 16 years but falls short of HOF numbers.  Grace hit over .290 for 12 seasons and finished at .303 with an OPS of .825.  He also had 511 doubles and nearly 2,500 total hits.  He was, yes Very Good.

Joe Carter ripped 396 homers including a walk-off to win a World Series.  He had six 30-homer seasons and ten 100-RBI seasons, and was a consistent power threat, running off 12 straight seasons of 20+ dingers.  He was also a stolen base threat for the first half of his career.  For his entire career he averaged over 100 RBI per 162 games.

Dale Murphy was the rare back-to-back MVP winner in the 80's and considered one of the top 2 or 3 players in the game for a short time.  He was really good for about 7 years and fell off quickly.  But he totaled 398 homers and was one of the real good guys in all of sports.

A player with true HOF talent who was on a HOF trajectory before injury was Don Mattingly.  For 6 seasons Donny Ballgame may have been the best hitter in baseball rolling up a batting title, an MVP, a 2nd place MVP vote, and leading the league in hits twice, doubles 3 times, RBI once, and slugging once.  His average over that span was .327.  Back problems derailed Mattingly who played 6 more seasons with no power.  But he was on track to be an all-time great.

S