The Hall of Fame Really Does Hate Center Fielders — and LFs and 2Bs, and Especially 3Bs
But if you're a catcher, first baseman or right fielder, your odds shoot up.
In my long-running Hall of Pretty Damn Good Players series, I highlight athletes overlooked by their sport’s power brokers, with each story standing as its own case study in the biases that shape how a player is remembered by history. But there are also themes that tend to run across the different featured players — and one of them, I’m realizing, is the position someone played.
For instance, I’ve done HoPDGP entries on three different MLB second basemen…
…and three separate entries on center fielders as well:
Kenny Lofton, Welcome To Our Hall Of Pretty Damn Good Players
Bernie Williams Deserves More Credit For Making The Yankees A Dynasty
The latter group stood out to me after watching this video by Jolly Olive, in which he highlights the cases of Lofton, Jones and Jim Edmonds to simply ask: “Why Does the Hall of Fame Hate Center Fielders?”
As Olive points out, CF seems to have an abnormal number of head-scratching snubs like the trio above, while only three primary CF Hall of Famers in Baseball-Reference’s data — Ken Griffey Jr., Andre Dawson and Kirby Puckett — have played since Willie Mays’ career ended… in 1973.
This made me wonder if center field is the most hated-on position by Hall of Fame voters and, generally, how much playing different positions would add or subtract from the candidacy of a given player at the same overall level of career value.
