re: Joe Nameth Spinoff Thread: personality trumps stats. Name your examples

Kirby Puckett. I know he had the eye issue which cut his career short but was he really deserving of being a first ballot HOFer? If you look at the ten most similar batters to Puckett, only one of them is a HOFer. He is 23rd all-time among CFs in WAR behind players lie Carlos Beltran, Andruw Jones, Kenny Lofton, Jim Edmonds and Johnny Damon. He's 23rd all-time in WAR7 which measures the seven best WAR seasons by player behind the likes of Andruw Jones, Carlos Beltran, Kenny Lofton and Jim Edmonds. And if you compare his numbers to Bernie Williams, they're very similar. OPS+ is very close, their WAR is very similar, and there's very little difference in career numbers or their stats using their 162 game average. Plus Bernie was a brilliant postseason performer so you can't use the postseason argument against him in Puckett's favor. So why was one a 1st ballot HOFer and the other off the ballot after one year?