Nationals Baseball: First Nat cap in the Hall of Fame? Not from these guys

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

First Nat cap in the Hall of Fame? Not from these guys

The Hall of Fame vote (and shafting of the Hawk) got me thinking. Who will be the first player to enter the HOF with a nifty new Nat cap on his noggin? (quick, what's a N-word for cap?). Taking a look at the players we got currently on the roster, I'd say we haven't seen that man just yet.

There are four players with at least one all-star appearences under their belt, Vidro, Hernandez, Castilla, Guzman. I'll toss in Brad Wilkerson too since he is our best player and all. Let's take a look at the players they most resemble at this age (thanks to Baseball-Reference.com for the similarity scores) and their accomplishments so far.

Jose Vidro (29) - 3 All-Star games, 0 Top 10 MVP, compares to Bill Madlock
Not bad being compared to the MadDog. Only one HOF on his comparison list and frankly Charlie Gehringer got his stats under slightly different circumstances. Needs a couple of MVP type seasons to even begin to be considered

Livan Hernandez (29) - 1 All-Star game, 0 Top 10 Cy Young, compares to Rich Dotson (or for those younger in the audience Daryl Kile)
A workhorse, he has the requisite post season heroics but not much else. If he had 148 instead of 98 wins right now I'd give him an outside chance. In that situation, theoretically, he could average about 15 wins for another 10 years would put him close to the magical 300 and god knows he's going to start 33 games a year, 8 innings per until he keels over. Of course if he could average 15 wins a year he'd probably have done it more than twice in the past 7 years. Needs to pitch till he's 45.

Vinny Castilla (36) - 2 All-Star games, 0 Top 10 All-Star games, compares to Joe Adcock.
His comparison list reads like a who's who of "Not quite good enough to be consdiered for the HOF". Ron Cey, David Justice, Matt Williams, Andres Galarraga, Fred Lynn... and Vinny doesn't ring your bell any more than these guys. It's Coors Field plain and simple. Someone is going to be the Colorado test case and something tells me it's more likely to be Larry Walker or Todd Helton than a man who was often a near embarrasment on the road. Needs 4-5 good seasons away from Coors.

Christian Guzman (26) - 1 All-Star, 0 Top 10 MVP, compares to Jack Glasscock.
That's a funny name. Glasscock. Oh, Guzman's chances? Hmm. Uhh. That's a real funny name. Glasscock.

Brad Wilkerson (27) - 0 All-Star, 0 Top 10 MVP, compares to Ivan Calderon.
Ooh, Ivan the not so Terrible. Wilkerson is just starting to come into age and I'm afraid it's too late for him. If he can stretch together a decade of seasons just like the last one, he'll start to warrant a glance.

1 comment:

Eman said...

How 'bout Noggin' Cover? Or Noodle Warmer?