What About Al Oliver?

 

When I made THIS POST last week commenting on the newest members of Baseball's Hall of Fame,  Carlos Beltran, Andrew Jones, and Jeff Kent, it prompted a response from Big Brother Bill Sproule similar to the question posed in the headline above.

Ask and you shall receive.....

	Carlos Beltran	Andruw Jones	Jeff                Kent	Al                     Oliver	Dave    Parker
Seasons	20	17	17	18	19
Games	2,586	2,192	2,298	2,368	2,466
Hits	2,725	1,933	2,461	2,743	2,712
Runs	1,582	1,204	1,320	1,189	1,272
HR	435	434	377	219	339
RBI	1,587	1,289	1,518	1,326	1,493
BA	0.279	0.254	0.290	0.303	0.290
OPS	0.837	0.823	0.855	0.795	0.810
per 162 games
Hits	171	143	173	188	178
Runs	99	95	93	81	84
HR	27	32	27	15	22
RBI	99	95	107	91	98
“Similarity Scores”	7 of 10 Hall of Famers	2 of 10 Hall of Famers	4 of 10 Hall of Famers	5 of 10 Hall of Famers	4 of 10 Hall of Famers

I also threw in the numbers for Pirates HOF'er and Al Oliver Bucco contemporary Dave Parker.  While Scoops had more hits and a better average than these four, he lags behind all of them in terms of home run power and OPS.  A case can certainly be made for putting Al in the Hall of Very, Very Good, and that seems to be what it takes to get into Cooperstown these days.

Interestingly enough, one of the five Hall of Famers that baseball-reference rates as "similar to" Al Oliver is Roberto Clemente.