Throughout the history of the Hall of Fame, certain milestones have been considered enough for near-automatic induction. Other than the ineligible Pete Rose, until Bonds and Clemens made their debut on the BBWAA ballot in 2013, no player in history who had at least 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, 300 wins, or 3,000 strikeouts had ever been excluded from Cooperstown (although not all were first ballot selections). While Bonds, Clemens, and other steroid users have been excluded so far, the trend has continued even with clean players, such as Fred McGriff (who was inducted by the Veteran's Committee), Curt Schilling (who has been canceled by the liberal media), and now Gary Sheffield. Though the milestones are not a voting rule by any means, a longstanding baseball tradition is crumbling by ignoring them. Other than Rose and the steroid users, I think each player who has reached one of those milestones is deserving of his plaque in Cooperstown, as they are truly impressive achievements. Well, maybe not all of them deserve their plaques. Enter Lou Brock.
The heir to Stan Musial as the St. Louis Cardinals' leftfielder, Brock was one of the flashiest players of his era. An eight time leader in stolen bases, Brock set both the single season and career records for steals, both eventually falling to Rickey Henderson. Brock was also a World Series hero, batting .391 with 14 steals in three Series, taking home two rings. He collected his 3,000th hit in his final season, 1979.
While I hesitate to call Brock a lucky Hall of Famer because of his hit total, his Hall of Fame case has some serious drawbacks. Brock's signature talent was his stolen base prowess, which led to 938 thefts over his 19 year career. What voters failed to realize was that Brock was gunned down 307 times, second on the all-time list behind Rickey Henderson, who stole over 400 more bases. While Rickey had an 81% success rate, Brock only succeeded 75% of the time, meaning that, despite the hype, he actually provided little value on stolen base attempts. While Brock was an eight time stolen base champion, he also led the league in caught stealing seven times.
The other phases of Brock's game do not help his case for Cooperstown, either. At bat, he slashed .293 / .343 / .410, good for an OPS+ of 109, an extremely low number for a Hall of Fame leftfielder. He didn't walk much for a leadoff man, and although he wasn't a power hitter, he still managed to strike out 1,730 times (second on the all-time list at the time of his retirement), further convincing me that he was a weak hitter. On the defensive side, Brock had the range to get to the ball, but had a bad reputation as a fielder because he simply dropped a lot of fly balls. Over his career, Brock had a woeful .959 fielding percentage, leading the league in errors seven times. And outfielders' errors are typically more costly than infielders' errors, often counting for two bases instead of one.
Overall, it seems as though Brock wasn't really that good at anything. He wasn't an amazing hitter, he was a bad fielder, and his baserunning was less valuable than advertised. On the traditional five tool test for position players, Brock scores a lowly two (hitting for average, yes; speed / baserunning, yes; hitting for power, no; fielding, no; throwing, no). Yet he sailed into Cooperstown on his first ballot.
Brock was a decent player, fortunate enough to play for 19 years and compile some impressive counting statistics, such as 3,023 hits and 1,610 runs scored. He is also somewhat historically significant for his briefly held stolen base records. However, he is not an ideal Hall of Famer. Of all the players in Cooperstown who had either 3,000 hits, 500 homers, 300 wins, or 3,000 strikeouts, each is deserving of his plaque... except Brock.
My opinion: The traditional Hall of Fame benchmarks are very strong indications that a player is Hall-worthy, but there can be exceptions, such as Brock.
