Michael Cuddyer announced today on the Player’s Tribune that he will forego his final season of his contract with the New York Mets and has retired from Major League Baseball.

The 36 year old was a two time All Star and spent most of his fifteen years with the Minnesota Twins, but it was with the Colorado Rockies in 2013 that he had his best season where he would win the Batting Title and was named a Silver Slugger.  He joined the Mets last season to play with his childhood friend, David Wright, and it was there that he made his first trip to the World Series in a losing effort to the Kansas City Royals. 

Cuddyer retires with 1,522 Hits, 197 Home Runs, a Slash Line of .277/.344/.461 and a bWAR of 16.6. 

We always the question when someone retires if he is a Hall of Famer and with Cuddyer, who would be eligible in 2021, had a good career he isn’t one.  Still, that does not take away from what was a productive career, and he could wind up in the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame one day.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to wish Michael Cuddyer the best in his post-playing career. 

There is something about lists that bring out my obsessive-compulsive disorder. As a child, I would go through almanacs ranking the most inane things, and since this was well before the Internet age, and the development of Excel, I had hand written lists of varying topics in what felt like exhaustive research; or at least my eight year old self thought so.

My desk was littered with lined sheets of such arbitrary lists like the top 100 tallest buildings in North America or who had the most Home Runs in a season that did not win a MVP Award. In retrospect, it probably would have been a lot healthier for my wellbeing do be outside playing but whatever was on television was far more interesting as was almost anything non-fiction hence my very pale complexion and inability to master road hockey during my youth.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com thought it would be fun to take a look at the major awards in North American team sports and see how it translates into Hall of Fame potential.

Needless to say, different awards in different sports yield hall of fame potential.  In basketball, the team sport with the least amount of players on a roster, the dividend for greatness much higher.  In baseball, it is not as much as a great individual season does not have the same impact.

Former NBA Power Forward, John “Hot Rod” Williams passed away today at the young age of 53 after losing a battle with prostate cancer. 

Williams, while never an All Star, was a popular player with the Cleveland Cavaliers but had to endure trials (literally) and tribulations to get there.

While playing at Tulane, Williams was not exactly an honor student and was labeled as a troublemaker in some circles.  Most notably, he would be charged with point shaving in three games.  Williams went to trial twice, the first resulting in a mistrial, the second being found not guilty, but as he was going through the judicial system, he was not able to suit up for the Cleveland Cavaliers who had selected him 45th overall in the draft.

Williams would play for Cleveland for nine seasons beginning in the 1986/87 season and would average over 10 Points per Game every season.  Overall, his Cavalier numbers were very good, as over 661 Games he averaged 31.5 Minutes, 12.9 Points, 7.1 Rebounds and 1.8 Blocks per Game with a PER of 16.4. 

“Hot Rod” would play another four seasons in the NBA, with the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks.

While he was perceived by some as a problem in college, his Cavaliers teammates praised him for personality and devotion to his team. 



We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to extend our condolences to the friends and family of John Williams at this time.