Parker/Allen
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Congrats to Dave Parker and Dick Allen for being elected by the Veterans Committee Hall of Fame.
Parker is the classic Veterans Committee guy, in that he was a very good but not great player who no one is going to really complain about in terms of being elected, but he only had a few great years and according to Baseball Reference’s JAWS stat, he’s the 42nd best right fielder of all time. For the record, the top 3 right fielders eligible but not inducted into the HOF (minus Shoeless Joe and Sammy Sosa for reasons) are Dwight Evans, Reggie Smith, and Bobby Abreu. Evans and Smith are the type of guys who seemingly never get a VC consideration; like Bobby Grich or Thurman Munson or Lou Whitaker, I guess it’s never going to happen and I don’t know why.
Dick Allen is a better choice. On the JAWS stat, he’s the 17th best third baseman of all time, which puts him just ahead of the current set of excellent but not quite HOF 3B such as Evan Longoria and Manny Machado. Taken just as his career alone, Allen is entirely defensible, if perhaps a tiny bit of stretch. But then when you add in the social importance and all the racism Allen dealt with, it makes it a pretty easy call. Allen was the 5th best third baseman eligible but not in, but really just behind the others, who are Graig Nettles, Ken Boyer, Buddy Bell, and Sal Bando.
Incidentally, the closest person to get in this year who came up short was Tommy John, which, meh.
Seems like a place for the Juan Soto contract, signing with the Mets for 15 years and $765 million. Lot of $$!