Eli Cash - contributing reporter
Decided to turn this series into a further dive on certain players who are vying for the Hall of Fame. This series will just give you better information on who the player is and you can decide for yourself if those numbers are Hall worthy. For now it will focus on position players as our database isn't complete for pitchers. Our first deep dive will be on the shitter, I mean Lee Schlitter; assuming he makes the ballot next season. S53 he received 4 votes, S54 & 55 he received 15 votes; just 2 votes shy of induction. Then S56 & 57 he dropped down one to 14 votes. Here's the quick rundown of his stats and any awards he may have won, we've also listed his own team at the time and which current franchise they are now known as.
We've started tracking player WAR as well as wOBA, wSB, and WRC+. We'll highlight a few areas that are good to note. 200+ H, 100+R, 40+ HR, 100+ RBI, 30+ SB, .300+ AVG, .400+ wOBA. For a players WAR we'll denote a few items. 4-5 in purple, 5-6 in blue, 6+ in green.
I'd call his prime 5 seasons S43-47, where he won the Silver Slugger at 1B each season, averaged 4.34 WAR, crossed the base paths no less than 127 times a season, always stole more than 40 bases, unloaded for 20-40 HRs, and hit the 200 base hit mark 4 of the 5 seasons. He's not your typical power hitting 1B, but he definitely got the job done as lead off for the Empire during those seasons.
He currently ranks #30 for position players on our all-time WAR list at 51.5. Ahead of many HoF members with the exception of Albert Cruz, Johnny Sherman, Andres Candelaria, and Trey Padgett. He's 10th all-time for 1Bs. Judging by his HoF Test (60) and Monitor (146) scores he's a shoe-in for election but he's still struggled with our voters. On the all-time list he also ranks #7 in runs, #16 in hits, #15 in stolen bases, #22 in walks. Remind you, that's the All-Time career list. He's also #16 in my very own Fantasy Points system.
His 162 game average is 187 hits, 121 runs, 26 hr, 89 rbi, 41 sb. A wRC+ of 146; which means he's 46% better than league average in a typical season. And finally a 3.4 WAR.
Let the debate continue!
