Baseball will announce the new inductees to the Hall of Fame today. You can watch it live on MLB.com. (It's not the point of this post, but I really like the way MLB is developing radio and TV on the web. Eventually, it will slide right in to satellite radio and TV, if it hasn't already done so.)

I find myself becoming less interested in Hall of Fame arguments as time goes on. Most take two forms:

1. I really like this player, and he's done something some other hall of famer did, so he should got in. This we'll call the Don Mattingly argument.
2. This player was good for a long time. He should go in the hall. This we'll call the Tommy John argument.

The first argument is usually made fan-to-fan. I don't believe it has much bearing on the voting. The second often leads to debate in the media. To me, it's a weak argument. The Hall isn't about being good, it's about being great, and greatness comes in many forms. So if you are going to get in being good for a long time, you better reach an important milestone like 3000 hits. I'd much rather see a player go in who had five unbelieveable seasons in the middle of his career than one who above average skills that happened to age well.

It looks like Wade Boggs is the leading candidate for enshrinement this year. Whenever I think of Boggs, I think of Tony Gwynn also. Two great hitters who on the surface look very similar but had very different approaches to the game and different career paths. Here are their career averages:

Boggs and Gwynn both had high averages, but Wade was better at not making outs. Tony was the better hitter in that he was more likely to get a hit when he stepped to the plate. But Boggs was the better offensive player because he didn't use up the team's supply of outs. So you'd use these two hitters in very different ways. If you have a man on 2nd with two out in ninth, and you need that one run, you send up Gwynn. Tony is more likely to get the hit to drive the runner home. But if the situation is bases loaded and you need one run, you send up Boggs because he's more likely to reach base, and his reaching base will push the run across.

Boggs and Gwynn are also different in the path of their careers. Boggs had the best part of his career in his first half, Gwynn in his second.

You can see where Bogg's advantage in OBA helps him out in win shares. Boggs averaged 22 win shares per season vs. 20 for Gwynn. Boggs is going into the hall because of the great seasons he had early and a subsequent good career that allowed him to reach the hit milestone. Gwynn saved his best averages for late in his career, although injuries and a strike limited his playing time.

Two great hitters, two different approaches, two different career paths to the Hall of Fame. We'll see if Boggs gets in later today.