Hall of Fame Ballot

[Edgy MD]

Well, you probably have to eliminate one of your ballot votes. You can only check 11 boxes, man.

[MFS62]

This made me change my mind on Chipper.
Let others vote for them if they will, and he'll probably make it on his first attempt. But his comments about Sandy Hook (even though he later retracted them) don't sit well with me. Let him not be unanimous. And this voter feels the same way:
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/will-past-controversial-tweets-impact-chipper-jones-hall-fame-chances-205915891.html

Later

[Guest 41Forever]

MFS62 wrote: While we're voting, the BBWAA voting will begin soon. And voters will be receiving a letter signed by Joe Morgan. In case you missed it, here is Jeff Passan's article about the letter. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/giving-hall-fame-vote-joe-morgans-letter-144738128.html Later

That's an odd column from Passan. It seems like he is accusing the Hall itself of drafting the letter and getting Morgan to sign it.

This particular paragraph struck me:

My ballot will arrive this week. I will not fill it out. I will not participate in this charade where the shepherds charged with telling the story of baseball want to avoid telling the ugly parts. I will not even though players like Edgar Martinez really could use my vote. Sorry, Edgar. Blame Joe Morgan’s sanctimony for this one.

Hopefully he's just throwing it out and not sending in a blank ballot, which lowers everyone's percentage. Think about that when a guy like Trevor Hoffman falls five votes short.

And telling Edgar to blame Joe Morgan's sanctimony is ridiculous. It's Jeff Passan's sanctimony that's hurting him.

Voting for the Hall of Fame is a privilege. You're going to pass on that privilege because one goofball sends a letter? Please.

As for Chipper, a nice thing about social media is that we get to know people a little better. The downside is that we get to know people a little better -- and we don't always like what we see. Not sure if that should reflect how we think about his on-field performance.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm particularly comfortable with factoring in character (or lack thereof) a player displays after his career. I mean, I'm a supporter of Curt Schilling, and he's been a public jerk since the day he retired.

That said, I don't reject that line of thinking either. Isn't the argument for Buck O'Neil largely rooted in the public profile he displayed after his retirement? I wouldn't particularly blame the Hall of Fame if they tossed out Rabbit Maranville if he turned into a terrorist turncoat subsequent to his induction.

[Guest 41Forever]

On one hand, I love reading Hall of Fame ballot columns, because for some reason, I actually care about these things.

But on the other hand, I hate reading these because the writers jump at the chance to show us how smug, condescending and sanctimonious some of them can be. Today's exhibit is Lynn Henning.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/columnists/lynn-henning/2017/11/27/henning-eight-deserving-hall-fame-enshrinement/108080420/

He's voting for: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Vladimir Guerrero, Chipper Jones, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Curt Schilling and Jim Thome.

On Vlad, "a vote cast too soon?" The five years between his retirement and ballot appearance were not enough? Do his stats get better over time?

Guerrero just missed my list last year, his first on the ballot, for reasons not regretted. I wanted more time to think and talk about his candidacy. It got a bit sticky, comparing his WAR (wins above replacement) with a player such as Walker. Rather than invite second thoughts about a vote cast too soon, it was decided here to spend extra time assessing his case. This year, he makes it.

On Chipper, who is "the Ned Flanders crowd?" People of faith? Are there any pastors out there calling for Jones to be kept out? People care that he had an affair?

Jones is an easy first-ballot pick, even if some of the Ned Flanders crowd wants to make past marital indiscretions a reason for lopping him. Others don’t appreciate his views on issues of simple human harmony that seemingly were resolved in the Stone Age. Jones isn’t always a subscriber there, but his career and his career WAR (85.0) are first-ballot good.

He also goes on a rant about the 10-player limit:

With a silly, anachronistic 10-man limit, too many of us began the disgraceful process of figuring out which Hall of Famer was less worthy than others.

But note that he's voting for just eight players, not casting a ballot for Trevor Hoffman and changing his vote for Jeff Kent from a yes to a no.

And we get Buster Olney, joining Passan in not voting.

http://www.espn.com/blog/buster-olney/insider/post/_/id/17691/how-worthy-hall-of-fame-candidates-become-collateral-damage

Last week, Joe Morgan sent a letter to voters lobbying for them to keep steroid users out of the Hall of Fame. This is the most transparent evidence we've seen of the Hall's gerrymandering to keep Clemens and Bonds, in particular, from being elected. Given that many performance-enhancing drug users have already been inducted, the Hall of Fame's targeting of those two players (and Sosa and McGwire) seems strange -- particularly for an institution that had long served as a museum, impartial in presenting history. The folks who oversee the place will have to make their own peace with the decision to publicly demonize a very small handful of players for the sins of generations of baseball PED users.

I don't think Buster understands what gerrymandering is. Morgan's letter, even if it was, as he suspects, penned by the Hall leadership, has no real impact on this ability to vote. In theory, it's one guy's opinion to influence the writer's ballot decisions. We used to call those endorsements or editorials. Campaigning can be annoying, but it's still Buster's choice on which box he checks off. And if he wants to vote for Bonds or Bat-chucker -- and his column says he would, had he not been overcome with outrage -- then Joe Morgan's letter won't stop him.

Edited November 28, 2017 by Guest

[Guest cooby]

Edgy MD wrote: Chipper lost a vote! He's down to 119%!

Yay!

[Edgy MD]

He's down to 117%.

Come on, folks, if you've voted, click the I VOTED box on the ballot!

[G-Fafif]

41Forever wrote: I don't think Buster understands what gerrymandering is.

It's when you replace your manager overnight with Gerry Manuel.

[Edgy MD]

Using Chipper's vote total (21) as our denominator, we're looking at a two-man year, with Chipper (100%) and Vladdy (81%) crossing the magic threshhold.

It seems like cooby is not a Chipper supporter, though, so using a denominator of 22, we get Chipper (95%) and Vladdy (77%) still squeaking in.

Third place and out of the money is Barry Bonds with either 71% or 68% of the Crane vote.

Voters get accused of setting sweeping policies for or against apparent steroid-era malefactors, but I think as things develop, it's more true to say they (and we) are making nuanced moral distinctions among Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire, and Giambi and such, and I think that's good.

[Ceetar]

i didn't check off Chipper either.

[Guest 41Forever]

G-Fafif wrote: 41Forever wrote: I don't think Buster understands what gerrymandering is. It's when you replace your manager overnight with Gerry Manuel.

Bang! Bullet of cool!

[Edgy MD]

Well, that gets Vladdy down to 73.9% and out of the money!

[Guest 41Forever]

I'm surprised by the lack of love for Trevor Hoffman. I thought he was a shoe-in. What am I missing?

[Frayed Knot]

41Forever wrote: I'm surprised by the lack of love for Trevor Hoffman. I thought he was a shoe-in. What am I missing?

That most fans in both the eastern & central time zones were examining the inside of their eyelids by the time he even entered the game 95% of the time, and that his post-season appearances were
both limited and not of his usual character.
Are those good reasons? Not very, but they do play a role.

I think he also played the 1B role to Mariano's 1A in the same way that Raines did to Rickey; same role but a cut below an almost perfect contemporary in that same role.

[Edgy MD]

East Coast elites think recycled Metallica > AC/DC.

[nymr83]

41Forever wrote: I'm surprised by the lack of love for Trevor Hoffman. I thought he was a shoe-in. What am I missing?

There were 10 guys I felt more deserving. Even the best reliever won't get my vote over a deserving starter who had to face lineups 2 or 3 times and pitched 3 times more innings. When Clemens, Schilling, Mussina, and all the deserving position players are in, i'd think about him.

[Edgy MD]

I voted for Mussina. His legacy is weird. He spent 10 years with Baltimore and eight with the Yanks, and neither fanbase really rushes to claim him as their own. He seemed to be suffering from the Don Sutton/Bert Blyleven lack-of-20-win-seasons tag, when at 39, seemingly in decline, he suddenly went 20-9 with a 3.37 ERA.

Crediting pitchers with wins being the misleading practice that it is, this was actually perhaps his eighth-best season, but it seemed to have cemented his legacy, and he was all fuck it, I'm outa here, perhaps hoping to leave the voters with the best possible memory of him. But it ain't working yet.

[Valadius]

Where we stand at the moment, via Ryan Thibodaux's ballot tracker:

73 public votes (estimated 17.5% of the total)

Chipper Jones - 97.3%
Jim Thome - 97.3%
Vladimir Guerrero - 91.8%
Edgar Martinez - 84.9%
Trevor Hoffman - 75.3%
Roger Clemens - 72.6%
Barry Bonds - 71.2%
Mike Mussina - 69.9%
Curt Schilling - 69.9%
Larry Walker - 41.1%
Omar Vizquel - 34.2%
Manny Ramirez - 31.5%
Fred McGriff - 16.4%
Scott Rolen - 13.7%
Sammy Sosa - 11.0%
Andruw Jones - 9.6%
Gary Sheffield - 8.2%
Billy Wagner - 8.2%
Jeff Kent - 5.5%

Biggest movers thus far: Walker (+16 votes), Guerrero (+11), Martinez (+11), Schilling (+7)

I think we're looking at a class of at least Guerrero, Jones, and Thome. Hoffman missed election by 5 votes last year but hasn't gained any net votes so far. Martinez has gained 11 votes out of a needed 73 and seems to currently project at finishing just outside of election, with next year being his final year on the ballot.

The story, as always, is that the steroid era has resulted in a logjam on the ballot, and absent lifting the 10-man restriction, we will continue to see voters focused more on who they have to leave off their ballots rather than voting for everyone they believe deserves it.

[Edgy MD]

The era has also given us a surfeit of sluggers at the top of the ballot relative to starting pitchers.

Maybe we need those detached old cranks that were swept out of the electorate after all.

I disagree that folks are more focused on who they leave off their ballots.

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: I disagree that folks are more focused on who they leave off their ballots.

I'm hoping a few more voters leave Edgar Martinez off their ballots, because I believe that silly AL rule kept him a regular in the majors long after he would have been before that rule.


Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

If I had a ballot, I don't imaging that I would ever ever vote for ten people. I think the Hall of Fame should be very exclusive, and there are probably quite a few that I would remove if I had the chance. (Don Sutton is one who comes to mind.)

[dgwphotography]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: If I had a ballot, I don't imaging that I would ever ever vote for ten people. I think the Hall of Fame should be very exclusive, and there are probably quite a few that I would remove if I had the chance. (Don Sutton is one who comes to mind.)

Agreed - I'd remove Phil Rizzuto before Don Sutton, though.

MFS62 wrote: I'm hoping a few more voters leave Edgar Martinez off their ballots, because I believe that silly AL rule kept him a regular in the majors long after he would have been before that rule.

Same here. I don't care how good of a hitter he was. A career DH does not a hall of famer make.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I agree on Rizzuto.

[Edgy MD]

If pitchers who never hit are eligible and are enshrined, why not hitters who never fielded (though Martinez actually played over 500 games on defense)?

[Guest 41Forever]

dgwphotography wrote: Same here. I don't care how good of a hitter he was. A career DH does not a hall of famer make.

That's a tough one -- especially when you have guys like David Ortiz on the horizon! Frank Thomas is in the Hall -- and deservedly so! -- and he spent a lot of time at DH.

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: If pitchers who never hit are eligible and are enshrined, why not hitters who never fielded (though Martinez actually played over 500 games on defense)?

A pitcher's ability to hit is not part of the job description of "pitcher". Martinez isn't a pitcher, and he is not being voted on as a pitcher.
But to me, "Player" involves the classic 5 tools; hit, hit with power, field, run, throw. And IMO to be a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, a player must do those things well enough to be worthy of the Hall, even if they don't do one of them (like run) particularly well. But he must DO them.
When the rule was first announced, I thought it might have an effect on career statistics by keeping players around at the end of their careers who would otherwise have retired. I was right.
Look at the numbers Paul Milotor put up after his final year as a player (at age 34). Those extra stats put him into HOF consideration by a wide margin.
In the case of Martinez, those 500 games as a position player don't cut it for me.

Later

[nymr83]

DH isnt an automatic disqualification for me, but I will treat the guy as if he were a worse-than-Jeter level defender when considering his career.

[Edgy MD]

MFS62 wrote: Edgy MD wrote: If pitchers who never hit are eligible and are enshrined, why not hitters who never fielded (though Martinez actually played over 500 games on defense)? A pitcher's ability to hit is not part of the job description of "pitcher".

That seems arbitrary. A hitter's ability to field is not part of the job description of "hitter." But both are part of the job description of player. One guy gets protected from his weakness by a rule he never asked for, and isn't penalized. Another guy gets protected from his weakness by a rule he never asked for, and is penalized — indeed, disqualified from the Hall of Fame. Why?

We have no real evidence to conclude that, had the DH rule not been available to his managers, he wouldn't have been in the lineup. Nor do we have any reason to conclude that he played the field any more or less than Honus Wagner or Ron Santo or George Kell would have, had the DH rule been available to their managers.

The only fair thing to do is to give him a zero on defense for the years he didn't play, and judge him by his bat alone. You can even give him less than a zero, believing that his lack of a glove and presence at DH puts a lesser hitter into the game on average. This puts him at a disadvantage to Mike Schmidt and George Brett (and Wagner and Santo and George Kell), but doesn't exclude him outright.

I don't like the rule either. But to declare year in and year out that he's never going to get your vote in order to make a point about a rule he had nothing to do with creating seems miserly.

What if he hit 1,000 homers and stole 1,500 bases? We're still going to screw him because five years into his career, his manager had a lineup that just fit together best with him DH'ing, and the rest just went along with it?

[Edgy MD]

MFS62 wrote: But to me, "Player" involves the classic 5 tools; hit, hit with power, field, run, throw. And IMO to be a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, a player must do those things well enough to be worthy of the Hall, even if they don't do one of them (like run) particularly well.

This is inherently contradictory. A player must do all five of these things "well enough to be worthy of the Hall" while not doing them "particularly well"? That's impossible. If a failure to do any one of these at a Hall of Fame level is disqualiftying, then 80% of the guys already in are disqualified.

Hank Aaron didn't field particularly well. Who knows how early he'd've been moved to DH, with or without his consent. He's also one of the greatest players ever to wear a pair of underpants.

MFS62 wrote: But he must DO them.

It's just untrue that he didn't field.

[nymr83]

Edgy MD wrote: He's also one of the greatest players ever to wear a pair of underpants.

who is the greatest player to regularly "go commando"?