The most-deserving players not in the Hall of Fame: Center fielders

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I recently asked 425 respondents to rank the most-deserving players at each position not in the Hall of Fame, ranging from 1 for most-deserving to 10 for least-deserving. With respect to Carlos Beltran, the results for center field might have surprised me most.

Again, I mean no disrespect to Beltran, who recently wrapped an outstanding career and compares favorably to numerous Hall of Famers. My friend Adam Darowski inducted Beltran into his Hall of Stats and ranks the former Kansas City Royals standout in front of Ernie Banks, Andre Dawson, and Roberto Alomar, among others. Still, I didn’t expect such a clear divide here between Beltran and the other nine center fielders on the ballot.

That said, having previously presented results for pitchers, catchers, first basemen, second basemen, third basemen, shortstops, and left fielders, here’s how voting went for center fielders.

Q8 – Rank the following center fielders, ranging from 1 for most-deserving of Hall of Fame induction to 10 for least-deserving

Player	Average ranking
Carlos Beltran	2.34
Andruw Jones	4.19
Kenny Lofton	4.46
Dale Murphy	4.52
Jim Edmonds	4.67
Bernie Williams	6.32
Curt Flood	6.47
Cesar Cedeno	6.63
Johnny Damon	7.30
Jim Wynn	8.10

[From a survey of 425 respondents, fielded via Qualtrics]

Perhaps Beltran benefits from having a recently-completed body of work. I also wonder if Beltran might’ve dropped a little in the results had I gone with my initial instinct to include Mike Trout as a candidate. I decided against it because Trout’s only in his ninth season. Still, somehow just days past his 28th birthday, Trout’s 71.7 WAR is already better than any man here. It’s also better than Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, or any other center fielder in baseball history through their first nine seasons.

A more detailed breakdown of the voting shows that Beltran wasn’t a consensus first pick. He got the fourth-fewest first-place votes of a position winner after Adrian Beltre (46), Joe Mauer (80), and Lou Whitaker (161), with Andruw Jones and Dale Murphy each siphoning a fair number of votes.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Beltran	198	89	58	29	17	16	9	3	1	5
Cedeno	2	25	19	35	49	59	66	62	68	40
Damon	1	6	20	17	44	57	63	73	67	77
Edmonds	20	59	53	86	71	49	36	25	17	9
Flood	36	22	25	21	32	46	44	75	72	52
Jones	52	65	80	65	41	42	30	26	18	6
Lofton	32	73	72	71	47	29	37	34	23	7
Murphy	65	60	53	45	43	41	44	43	25	6
Williams	16	21	35	31	49	57	65	38	76	37
Wynn	3	5	10	25	32	29	31	46	58	186
Total	425	425	425	425	425	425	425	425	425	425

As I’ve been saying repeatedly through these posts, I’m struck again about the parity in the results between Jones, Murphy, and Kenny Lofton and Jim Edmonds. I wouldn’t really have a problem with any of these men being enshrined. Murphy’s long been a personal favorite. Jones, Lofton, and Edmonds are all underrated and, unfortunately, look destined to be for years to come.

With the help of filters via Qualtrics, here are some more findings:

• The 65 voters who rated Dale Murphy the top center fielder ranked Roger Clemens behind Curt Schilling, 4.02 to 3.80, and Barry Bonds behind Shoeless Joe Jackson (and Lance Berkman), 4.42 to 2.35 (with 4.34 for Berkman.)
• Generally, the more favorable a view that a voter held of Curt Flood — a standout center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals before he sacrificed his career challenging the Reserve Clause — the dimmer a view the voter tended to take of Clemens and Bonds. Because of Flood having such an unusually-wide distribution of votes, we can break it down a little further (rounding to the nearest tenth of a percent for Bonds and Clemens’ totals):

Flood	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Bonds	3.6	4.2	2.5	2.7	2.6	3.3	2.5	2.3	2.4	1.6
Clemens	3.3	3.9	2	3.3	2.2	3.3	2.1	2	2.3	1.6
Votes	36	22	25	21	32	46	44	75	72	52

• Meanwhile, Bonds and Clemens fared better with the 282 voters who ranked Beltran, Jones, or Lofton first, with Bonds receiving an average ranking of 1.8 from these voters and Clemens receiving an average ranking from them of 1.84.

Beyond this, there isn’t too much else to say. If I field this survey again in the future, I might swap out Johnny Damon and Jim Wynn for Trout and either Reggie Smith (who was on a packed right field ballot) or Fred Lynn. It’s interesting to see a bit more support up top for Cesar Cedeno and Bernie Williams, though there’s a pretty clear division with them as well.

Anyhow, that’s all for now. We’ll finish up with right field tomorrow.

Just getting caught up? Check out results for pitchers, catchers, first basemen, second basemen, third basemen, shortstops, and left fielders.