10 December 09

The Yankees won the World Series this year and a lot of the talk afterwards was about the "Core Four", Jeter, Posada, Rivera, and Petitte. Nowwhen you look at these four that now have 5 World Series Championships apiece, who makes the Hall of Fame. At first glance, we know that Rivera will go in for his Post Season stats alone and is a virtual lock first ballot HOFer. Next, Jeter is also a first ballot HOFer, and thats even if neither played another game, they are both in. Now you get to Pettite, and with him coming back for another year, he can further make his case. He wont be the lock that the other two are, but he has a very reasonable chance. He could end up with over 100 more wins than losses if he wins six more than he loses in the upcoming season. All pitchers that have that stat that are eligiable are in. He has the most post season wins. He pitched in 8 World Series with two teams. He does have a high ERA but this is the steroid era where hitters obviously had the advantage. He admitted to HGH but his reason of trying to recover from injury and being honest about it will help him and he is very likeable. He should make it. Last, we get to Posada, and he will be the hardest case of the "Core Four", because of his stats. Yes he has 5 Rings, he is a reasonably good hitting catcher which is a very tough position. But his stats dont jump out at you at all. His best years are average, maybe not for a catcher but for hitters in general. Only once did he reach 100 RBIs. He hit 30 HRs once. He will finish with probably around 1700 hits, so his case will be very debatable. It gets back to his contributions to the teams that won 5 Rings, and the first one he was a backup, the next time he split time. So where does he rank with HOF catchers? The Yankees will undoubtably retire all 4 of these guys numbers when they quit playing. Its tough sometimes because these are Yankees and the Yankee lore and history will be most of what these guys are judged by, but they are truly great players and probably only three will get the Hall Call. The biggest thing to remember when looking at these four is this, it is A LOT HARDER now to win it all than it was for Yankee teams of years gone by. You can say Pettite has more wins in post season because of the extended playoffs, but keep in mind to win it all you have to go through three rounds now and that makes it so much harder to keep playing at a level of excellence because each series you play against tougher and tougher teams. Wouldnt it be amazing if all four retired together and got inducted to the HOF together, but alas that wont happen. Jeter will play a lot longer than the other three as Rivera, Posada and Pettite are all older and have dimishing skills where as Jeter could keep hitting for years to come. By the way, Jeter is ahead of Pete Roses pace for all time hits.