Sammy Sosa and the Hall of Fame

If I had a vote for the baseball Hall of Fame - I'd vote no on Sammy Sosa. Everyone agrees that Sosa was no great shakes in the field (he's more likely to be called a liability than anything else). When you look at his offensive numbers only home runs and RBI stand out. Sosa doesn't have the batting average (.273), the hits (2,365), or even the slugging percentage you'd expect from a "slugger". His slugging percentage is behind contemporaries such as Carlos Delgado, Jason Giambi, Larry Walker and Chipper Jones. The only thing Sosa is known for is hitting home runs but at what cost did those 600 HR come at?

With all the hype over his 600th HR - one thing I noticed is that nobody seemed to mention the fact that Sosa is second on the all-time strikeout list. Only Reggie Jackson has struck out more in the history of professional baseball. However, Jackson was known as Mr. October for coming through in the the clutch. Sosa, on the other hand, is known as a guy with a huge steroids cloud hanging over his head (and as a guy who suddenly forgot how to speak English when called in front of Congress).

For his career Sammy has struck out once every 3.8 AB. That means that for every HR they saw - Cubs fans had to grit their teeth through about 4 strike outs. Another way to put it is for every base you touch in a home run - Sosa sacrificed a strikeout in order to touch 'em all.

OPS+ is a stat that is used to compare hitters from different points in time. Sosa's career OPS+ of 128 (with 100 being exactly average) puts him in a tie with such names as Jim Rice, Moises Alou and David Justice. It also puts him behind players like John Olerud and Tim Salmon

EDIT: Kevin had some similar thoughts on Sosa