Regular visitors of Notinhalloffame.com know that we are slowly working on the top 50 of every major team in the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB. Once that is done, we will examine how each team honors its past players, coaches, and executives. As such, it is important to us that the Pittsburgh Pirates have announced three new members to their franchise Hall of Fame.

Kiki Cuyler, Vernon Law and Al Oliver will comprise the Class of 2025, adding to the 26 that have been inducted since the Hall’s inception in 2022.

Cuyler played his first seven years with the Pirates (1921-27), where he helped them win the 1925 World Series.  As a Pirate, the Outfielder twice led the National League in Runs Scored (1925 & 1926), Stolen Bases once (1925), and batted .336 with 680 Hits for the team.  He entered the Baseball Hall of Fame via the Veterans Committee in 1968.

Law played all 16 of MLB seasons with the Pirates (1950-51 & 1954-57) and was the top arm and Cy Young winner on the team that won the 1960 World Series.  He had a record of 162-147 with a 3.77 ERA and 1,092 Strikeouts.

Oliver was with Pittsburgh from 1968 to 1977 and helped the team win a World Series in 1971.  He was a three-time All-Star, collected 1,490 Hits with 135 Home Runs with a .296 Batting Average as a Pirate.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate the incoming members of the Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Fame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signing as an Amateur Free Agent in 1964, Al Oliver first made the Pirates in 1968 and became their starting Centerfielder the year after.  

Oliver tied for second in Rookie of the Year voting and would help the Pirates win the World Series in 1971.  An All-Star the following season, Oliver developed his hitting stroke, batting at least .300 four times, and from 1969 to 1977, always at least 11 Home Runs, peaking with 20 in 1973.  Finishing seventh in MVP voting twice (1972 & 1974), Oliver added two more All-Stars (1975 & 1976), and by the mid-70s, he was regarded as one of the better hitters in the National League.

Despite his success, the Pirates were looking to shake things up, and Oliver was sent to Texas as part of a four-team trade.  Oliver batted .296 with 1,490 Hits and 135 Home Runs with Pittsburgh.

A two-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger with the Texas Rangers, Al Oliver continued his hitting ways at Arlington.  “Scoop” was a .300 hitter in all of his four seasons in Texas smacking 668 Hits over this relatively short time span.

Al Oliver was only with Montreal for two seasons but those were excellent offensive campaigns, which saw him win the National League Batting Title and lead the league in Hits.  Oliver was an All-Star both years and also led the NL in doubles both times.  Had he been a better defensive player (or at least not a liability as he led the NL in errors for a First Basemen both years) he would have been ranked much higher.

Al Oliver came to the league in 1969 as a line-drive hitter and, for eighteen years, consistently smacked the ball for hits.  He had over 2,700 hits in his career, and despite not being a genuine power hitter, he had a plethora of RBI’s.

Oliver’s main gift was hitting for average.  In addition to his 1982 Batting Title, he had ten other seasons where he hit the .300 plateau.  Oliver wasn’t known for hitting home runs (though he did over 200 in his career), but he found the gap often and was perennially among the league leaders in doubles.  As he was a decent clutch hitter and was always in the hunt for Batting Titles, it would have been thought that Al Oliver would have had more support for the Hall of Fame.

That support might have come had Oliver won an MVP (he came close in 1982) or been a better fielder.  He also had a relatively low On Base Percentage, which has been the vogue baseball stat in the past fifteen years.  Regardless, a decade and a half of consistent contact hitting should have been worth more than 4.3 percent in his first year of eligibility.

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.