Today I’d like to go over Albert Belle’s case for the Hall of Fame. “What?” you say. “He has a case?” Yes, a little bit of one, he does. Disagreement is rife among the cognoscenti when it comes to the relationship between peak value and overall career value, when talking about ranking players or deciding who gets a bronze plaque in that nice baseball museum up in New York. Albert Belle, with his ass-kicking peak and short career, is on one extreme end of that spectrum; somebody like Vada Pinson or Omar Vizquel would be on the other end.

First, I’m going to run the Keltner List for Belle, and then after that, I’m going to compare him to few other candidates. I’ll say in advance that I lean toward peak value more than career value when evaluating candidates, myself. Anyway, here’s the Keltner List. It’s a little long, so if it starts to bore you, just scroll on down until you reach the end.

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1. Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball? Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in baseball?

I don’t know that Belle was ever regarded as the best player in baseball; that’s a very tough standard. Frank Thomas was around, just among right handed hitters that beat the living hell out of opposing pitchers, plus Barry Bonds was in his prime in the mid-1990s, Ken Griffey Jr., and so forth. But at his best, Belle was part of the discussion, at least. That’s a positive for him.

2. Was he the best player on his team?

Albert Belle was, indeed, the best player on some very loaded Indians teams circa 1994-1996.

3. Was he the best player in baseball at his position? Was he the best player in the league at his position?

Again, Barry Bonds is part of his peer group, so this is a tougher standard for Belle than for most Hall of Fame candidates. Even so, Belle stands as clearly the second-best corner outfielder of the 1990s, after Bonds, and had several seasons (1994, 1995, 1998) when Belle was the best corner outfielder in baseball, even above Bonds. In his best season, 1995, Belle was the best player in baseball.

4. Did he have an impact on a number of pennant races?

Well, the 1995-1996 Indians weren’t really involved in pennant races; they ran away from the rest of their division. In the post-1993 era this question really ought to be amended to simply take playoff performance into account, with the longer playoffs. Belle was basically his normal beastly self in the playoffs, leading the Cleveland Murderers’ Row as he always did. But thanks to the strike and his move to Chicago in 1997, Belle actually appeared in the playoffs only twice (1995 and 1996), playing only four postseason series.

5. Was he good enough that he could play regularly after passing his prime?

Belle didn’t play after passing his prime, but that was because of a career-ending injury, definitely not because he wasn’t good enough. In fact, the end of Belle’s career is startlingly abrupt. Most guys whose careers are ended by injuries tail off, either falling off a cliff in their last seasons or having a last year or two where they play in 29 games and hit .191 or something. Mark McGwire is a fair example; in 2000, McGwire hit like Mark McGwire, but played only 89 games, hitting .305/.483/.796. But then his back completely gave out; in 2001, he played 97 games, but hit .187, and then his career ends.

Belle? His performance dropped sharply in 2000, but he was still a plus hitter, at .281/.342/.474, and he played nearly the full season, 141 games. Then his career ends; that’s it. Somebody who doesn’t know anything about Albert Belle would look at his stat line, I suspect, and assume he died in a plane crash during the 2000 offseason.

This is as good a place as any to note that, despite the sadly sudden end to his career, Albert Belle was not a fragile or injury-prone player. He played only ten seasons, but he played almost every game. That’s valuable, too.

6. Is he the very best baseball player in history who is not in the Hall of Fame?

Clearly not. He’s far behind Tim Raines, and behind Ron Santo and Alan Trammell, too, at the least.

7. Are most players who have comparable statistics in the Hall of Fame?

There are two ways of looking at this, and once again it’s going to be a matter of peak vs. career taste. The literal answer to the question is no; if you look the list of players whose overall career statistics are similar to Albert Belle’s, they’re not Hall of Famers, because his career is so short. Only two of his top ten comparables (Hank Greenberg, 6th, and Ralph Kiner, 9th) are in the Hall, and they’re not exactly inner-circle guys. His #2 comp, Vladimir Guerrero, would probably go in if his career ended today. Guerrero almost certainly will go in eventually, but as he plays on he’ll drop off Belle’s comps list. Same deal with his #4 comp, Jim Edmonds.

If, instead of looking at career stats, you look at year-by-year impact, you get a different story. Belle scores 28 on the Black Ink Test, dead on the average for a Hall of Famer, and he scores 137 on the Gray Ink Test, just a touch below average. His Hall of Fame Monitor score of 134.5 puts him in the Likely Hall of Famer category.

Setting literal statistical comparisons aside, Belle’s top comparable in baseball history, clearly, is Ralph Kiner. Kiner’s career, and his skills, are virtually identical to Belle’s in all regards, and Kiner wasn’t generally beloved during his career, either, though he was, of course, nowhere near the borderline-crazy guy Belle was. Kiner’s in the Hall of Fame; whether or not you think that was a mistake will probably determine whether or not you think Belle will be in. Their respective qualifications are essentially identical.

8. Do the player’s numbers meet Hall of Fame standards?

I answered this question together with #7, above. In short: Yes.9. Is there any evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his statistics?

Nothing particularly. Belle was an underrated fielder and baserunner, but that doesn’t really add much to his Hall of Fame case.

10. Is he the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame?

If you define his position as Left Field, then yes, I’m inclined to believe that he is. If you apply a more general definition of an outfielder, which is reasonable, then he’s competing with guys like Andre Dawson, Dale Murphy, Dwight Evans, and such, and the picture gets cloudier. He was much better than Jim Rice, of course.

11. How many MVP-type seasons did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? If not, how many times was he close?

As we mentioned above, Belle was the best player in baseball in 1995 and very nearly the best player in baseball in 1994, 1996 and 1998, as well. He never won an MVP award–his personality didn’t exactly work to endear him to the writers–but he was visible in the balloting all of those years.

12. How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star games did he play in? Did most of the players who played in this many All-Star games go into the Hall of Fame?

Belle played in only five All-Star games, and could have played in a few more. He’s not a long-career candidate.
13. If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant?

Belle was the best player on the best team in baseball in 1995. He’s overqualified by the standards of this question.

14. What impact did the player have on baseball history? Was he responsible for any rule changes? Did he introduce any new equipment? Did he change the game in any way?

Nothing here.

15. Did the player uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?

Well… he never killed anyone, right? Belle sort of stretches this question, but I guess he can skate by. There’s no obvious character-related reason Belle shouldn’t be in the Hall, unless they’ve started excluding people on basis of being assholes.

Of course, there’s a good argument that Belle should be excluded on the grounds this question raises, because he was busted and suspended for corking his bat, and his blowhard teammate Omar Vizquel claimed, in print, that “all of his bats were corked.” So, yes, Belle was a cheater. And that, of course, opens the doors for the steroids witch hunters…

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Okay, we’re done with the Keltner List now.

Andre Dawson will be going into the Hall of Fame sometime in the next few years. Let’s compare him to Albert Belle using WARP3:

Andre Dawson: 107.1 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 10.4, 9.1, 8.7, 8.2, 7.8
Albert Belle: 93.5 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 14.6, 12.3, 12.0, 11.5, 11.1

An argument can be reasonably made, in my opinion, that WARP3 is overrating Belle’s defense, and thus those figures should be tempered a bit. Belle rates, in fact, as well above average in his best seasons, which seems extreme to me. Belle was a better defender than his general reputation suggested, but he wasn’t a good outfielder.

Even allowing for that, though, if I had a franchise and was given the choice between adding Albert Belle’s career for the next ten seasons or Andre Dawson’s for the next twenty, I would not hesitate to choose Belle. His peak value is far, far beyond Dawson’s, and my opinion is that his career is more valuable than Dawson’s. Reasonable people will disagree, though.

One could also argue–and I do not entirely discount these kinds of arguments–that you would much, much rather have Andre Dawson in your clubhouse than Albert Belle. That is true; there is no doubt you would. There’s a subtle counter-argument that Belle was actually not a bad guy, and not disliked by his teammates, during the 90% of the time when he wasn’t totally insane, and the more obvious argument that Belle’s personality did nothing to hold back his Indians teams from winning.

Anyway, the clubhouse/personality element does matter, and it does make it a harder decision, but I would still choose Belle.

Let’s compare Belle to another historical figure comparable to him, Dick Allen:

Dick Allen: 93.1 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 13.1, 10.8, 10.7, 9.6, 8.5
Albert Belle: 93.5 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 14.6, 12.3, 12.0, 11.5, 11.1

Allen’s personality was much, much more destructive to his teams than Belle’s, and his career is also short (Allen played 5 more years than Belle, but only 200 more games). There are some people, including some people smarter than me, that think Dick Allen is a Hall of Famer. There is simply no way to imagine Dick Allen was a better player, or a more desirable player to have on your team, than Albert Belle.

Albert Belle vs. Dale Murphy… well, I won’t bother with the numbers here. By WARP3, Murphy basically was 85% of Andre Dawson. Belle rates as superior to Murphy, too.

Let’s compare him to Jim Rice, because the comparison is frankly embarrassing for Rice, and the Jim Rice Bandwagon has made me really quite vindictive about him:

Jim Rice: 84.3 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 9.9, 9.9, 8.6, 7.5, 7.3
Albert Belle: 93.5 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 14.6, 12.3, 12.0, 11.5, 11.1

And by the way, WARP3 probably also overrates Rice’s defense a bit.

Jim Rice’s ballyhooed 1978 season, once you look through the illusion of Fenway Park, was nowhere near as valuable as Albert Belle’s fifth best season. And Rice had less total career value than Belle.

Even after Rice goes into the Hall of Fame next year, you still can’t expect to put Belle, or anybody else, in by comparing him to Rice. You build a case by comparing a guy to legitimate Hall of Famers, or by showing he’s better than everybody else that isn’t already in, not by comparing him to obvious mistakes that are in.

Let’s compare him to a couple of Hall of Famers.

Albert Belle: 93.5 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 14.6, 12.3, 12.0, 11.5, 11.1
Kirby Puckett: 93.0 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 11.1, 10.6, 9.1, 8.3, 7.3
Tony Gwynn: 125.9 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 12.3, 10.9, 9.7, 9.3, 9.1
Billy Williams: 114.0 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 10.6, 10.0, 9.7, 9.7, 8.8
Willie Stargell: 101.0 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 10.1, 9.5, 8.4, 8.1, 8.1
Carl Yastzremski: 134.3 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 12.1, 11.6, 9.4, 8.2,7.0
Reggie Jackson: 124.9 career WARP3; top 5 seasons 11.2, 10.5, 9.4, 8.9, 8.5

At their best, Albert Belle was a more valuable player than any of these guys, and Belle didn’t have Jim Rice’s career, either, with two skyscraper years standing out over an otherwise not terribly impressive career. He had five serious, hall-of-fame caliber seasons, and five other quality years to go along with them.

You wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, take Belle’s career over Yasztremski’s or Gwynn’s or Jackson’s; the extremely high peak is valuable, but you don’t want to leave 30 or 40 wins over the course of a career on the table to get them. However, I think Belle’s career was more valuable than Willie Stargell’s, and of comparable value to that of Billy Williams, and those are what most people consider real hall of famers.

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So, does Albert Belle belong in the Hall of Fame, or not?

Well, my opinion is that, based on pure performance, he stands at the front of the line of fairly recent outfielders that aren’t already in, ahead of Andre Dawson or Dale Murphy, and certainly far, far ahead of Jim Rice. Well, Dwight Evans is probably still ahead of him; I didn’t do a Belle-Evans comparison, but if you believe WARP3, Evans’ career is right up there with Yastzremski’s or Reggie’s, both in career and peak value. It’s certainly true that the wrong Red Sok is going into the Hall of Fame next year.

Albert Belle could really, really hit the living snot out of a baseball, and though his career was shortened by injury, his peak was long enough to be worth considering. If Belle had been able to go through a normal decline phase, say, through his age 34-37 seasons, he may have reached 500 home runs, and he would likely have amassed enough WARP3 (or Win Shares, or whatever you want to use) to finish with a career that looks a lot like that of Yaz, or Gwynn, or Al Kaline–and those are serious, no-questions-asked Hall of Famers.

Those things didn’t happen, and of course you’d need to relocate the Hall of Fame to the Empire State Building to make room for all the plaques you’d be forging if we inducted everybody who might have made it if he hadn’t gotten hurt. But Belle at his best was among the very best hitters in history; put another way, there’s no player in (modern) history with anything like Albert Belle’s extended peak that isn’t in the Hall of Fame. King Kong Keller is probably as close as you can get. And for that reason, had I a ballot, I would be inclined to put his name on it, along with Dwight Evans’.

Let me say one final thing, and then I’ll let you go: Andre Dawson is going into the Hall of Fame, and Belle is not. Though Belle was, in my opinion, the better player, this doesn’t bother me all that much, because I’m of the persuasion that being a good citizen and a good teammate does count for something. It’s not as important as, you know, hitting and catching and throwing baseballs, but it’s important, and Dawson does deserve credit there that Belle does not. Belle has my support for the Hall, but both because of his short career and because of his general sourness, his exclusion from it isn’t a tragedy on the level of Tim Raines, Ron Santo, or Alan Trammell. And if you want to exclude him because of the bat corking/general willingness to cheat, I won’t argue against that, either.

But hey, he could always make a bronze plaque himself and then hire Jason Grimsley to sneak into the Hall of Fame and hang it up there.