Hall of Fame Candidate Thread: Lawrence Columbus LaLoosh

[bcslouck]

I started looking at reports, but remembered we have the Unified History sheet. Soooo good.

By my count, I see 17 players with at least 3 Nebraska's in the history of the league. The only 3 not in the HOF are Dempster, Cannon, and LaLoosh. Dempster is a lock and Cannon will be in this year. That would leave LaLoosh by himself.

LaLoosh's WAR is the lowest of the 17, and don't even think it's close.

Now, Ted did say there was a weird period in there. Most of those guys came before that. LaLoosh's last award was 2035, the year Dempster won his 2nd and before any of Cannon's 3 (I know, different leagues). So there may be something in that he won his awards in a little bit of a down time, at least in the Frick. But LaLoosh's last award was his best year (WAR wise).

The injury killed him. I think most of those guys made it through at least 35. I think his numbers would look much better if he pitched like a #2 for another 5 years. To me, 3 is the magic number for the major awards. If you have at least 3, you probably have a really good peak.

At this point I'm probably rambling and may have made a case in either direction depending on how you vote. I voted for him and will continue to do so.

[Ted]

I started looking at reports, but remembered we have the Unified History sheet. Soooo good.

By my count, I see 17 players with at least 3 Nebraska's in the history of the league. The only 3 not in the HOF are Dempster, Cannon, and LaLoosh. Dempster is a lock and Cannon will be in this year. That would leave LaLoosh by himself.

LaLoosh's WAR is the lowest of the 17, and don't even think it's close.

Now, Ted did say there was a weird period in there. Most of those guys came before that. LaLoosh's last award was 2035, the year Dempster won his 2nd and before any of Cannon's 3 (I know, different leagues). So there may be something in that he won his awards in a little bit of a down time, at least in the Frick. But LaLoosh's last award was his best year (WAR wise).

The injury killed him. I think most of those guys made it through at least 35. I think his numbers would look much better if he pitched like a #2 for another 5 years. To me, 3 is the magic number for the major awards. If you have at least 3, you probably have a really good peak.

At this point I'm probably rambling and may have made a case in either direction depending on how you vote. I voted for him and will continue to do so.

My expectation, is that guys who were so good that thy win a best player award 3 times by 30 are usually inner circle elite types. Most of those guys are like 80 WAR plus. Most of them also do the majority of that by 30. Laloosh's injury did hurt him, but he still pitched for four or so seasons after it, and picked up around 5-6 WAR. So his "by 30 WAR" is only like 50. Which is strangely low for a guy who was dominant enough to win 3 best player awards. It should be like 60 or even 70. It's just weird. And this isn't just a WAR thing. The ERA, the strikeouts, etc. They just aren't there.

So I'm just gonna go with the award voters and chalk it up to a weird stats period for pitchers and vote for him. But the "he was one of the best and got wiped out by injury after 30" narrative doesn't match the stats.