Lance Berkman on Cecil Cooper, the interim skipper in Houston:"He's been around a long time and, in my opinion, he's a borderline Hall of Fame player," Berkman said.
I suppose he's right if you assume that the borderline is about ten miles wide. Don't get me wrong, Coop was a good player who had a nice little run there in his late 20s and early 30s, but a "borderline Hall of Famer?" Eh, not so much. Cooper's career line is .298/.337/.466, and most of that OBP was batting average-driven. He did better in MVP voting than his production warranted, finishing fifth three times, yet only breaking the top 10 in OPS for his league twice. Bill James ranked him as the 28th best first baseman of all time in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, and he has probably slipped in the six years since that was published. I'd Keltner-list him, but that's not going to help his cause.
I'll suppose I'll give Berkman a pass, though, because hey, who hasn't kissed up to the new boss from time to time?
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