Comparing the HOF Ballot to the Middle Tier HOFer

How good is this year’s HOF ballot? There’s about 15 players on it who not only meet the Hall’s minimum criteria, they greatly exceed it. Many people argue against players getting in because a guy isn’t as good as Willie Mays, which is not, nor has it ever been the Hall standard.

But even if you are a “small Hall” guy which, to be honest, I’m not because I like the whole story of baseball. More people getting in, so long as you’re not inducting Ryan Klesko, encourages preserving history and more talking about baseball. All of these guys were great, if that makes sense. Anyway, I don’t want to get bogged down in a small/large Hall debate.

If you look at the people in the Hall, there’s the inner circle Willie Mays type, and then there’s the bulk of the Hall of Fame, and then there’s the true borderline guys (I’m looking at you, Johnny Evers). So, I made a team of the roughly 5th best person in the Hall at each position, leaning towards recent players. These are rock solid Hall of Famers, but not those “inner circle” guys.
Here’s my team of the Middle Tier Hall of Famers:

1B: Willie McCovey
2b: Rod Carew
SS: Lou Bourdeau
3B: Ron Santo
OF: Reggie Jackson
OF: Carl Yastremski
OF: Roberto Clemente
C: Carlton Fisk
DH: Paul Molitor

SP: Carl Hubbell
SP: Whitey Ford
SP: Jim Palmer
SP: Steve Carlton

RP: Bruce Sutter

A team made up of this current ballot, I think, would soundly beat that team. But what do y’all think? Here’s the Ballot Team:

1B: Jeff Bagwell/ Fred McGriff
2B: Craig Biggio
SS: Alan Trammell
3B: Edgar Martinez (slight cheat)
OF: Larry Walker/ Dal Murphy
OF: Tim Raines
OF: Barry Bonds
C: Mike Piazza
DH: Mark McGwire/ Raffy Palmeiro (slight cheat)

SP: Roger Clemens
SP: Jack Morris
SP: Curt Schilling
SP: David Wells

RP: Lee Smith

Clearly weaker pitcher for the Ballot Team, but it’s not that thoroughly outclassed, but the lineup beats the actual Hall of Famers.

The point here is that most of this ballot comfortably fits in the Hall of Fame. Not just the minimum, but far above the minimum standards.