Hall of Fame Voting: This Year, Next Year, and Beyond

[Guest Edgy DC]

The death exception is actually now an ongoing rule. It's just that nobody's got in under it since Clemente. It was waived for Thurman Munson, it was waived for Darryl Kile, and it was waived this year for Rod Beck.

It may actually backfire in some cases. While it may allow a player to get a potential sentimental boost from the voters, it can also deny the voters critical perspective.

I'm certain that a nine-year veteran who hit like Babe Ruth would get a chance.

[Valadius]

Ira, I refer you to a post I made nearly two months ago:

Valadius wrote: I am a firm believer in assessing players in two ways for the Hall of Fame: 1. Accumulated statistics (career totals) 2. Peak performance (ideally 10 seasons) I've come across the cases of Hack Wilson and Chick Hafey. Both are Hall-of-Famers, but they had abbreviated careers. One drank himself out of baseball and the other was derailed by injury. In Hafey's case, he suffered from what Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig, in their book, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time, call "Smokey Joe Wood Syndrome". They defined this as, to quote Hafey's Wikipedia article, "where a player of truly exceptional talent but a career curtailed by injury should still, in spite of not having had career statistics that would quantitatively rank him with the all-time greats, be included on their list of the 100 greatest players." I think this argument really ought to get more consideration. The way measurements and formulas are weighted is predominantly in favor of players with longer careers. However, some great players can't help that their bodies might deteriorate faster than others. It happens. Therefore, I would like to make the case that, failing that a player doesn't accumulate large enough numbers to initially satisfy induction, that you apply both the Ralph Kiner Exception and the Smokey Joe Wood Exception, meaning that if a player has 10 exemplary full seasons under his belt, preferably in a row, he should get in. If for 10 years he was considered one of the best in baseball, he should get another look.

So let me update that somewhat and agree with you. If someone was unbelievably good for less than 10 seasons but had their career derailed in some fashion that they could not control, I agree that they should at the very least get looked at. Let's take the case of Ichiro Suzuki. He's a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer in my book. He hasn't played 10 years in America yet, only 7. If he were to retire tomorrow, is it fair to penalize him because he played in Japan during the other 3 years he would have needed at a minimum? Or what if Albert Pujols were to get injured somehow and never be able to play again? Would we penalize him for something completely out of his control? However, I do think there should be a limit to how few seasons are needed for consideration, and that this should be the exception, not the rule.

[Guest iramets]

Nymr83 wrote: skirted? where is Joss' tenth year?

Well, the thinking is that Joss died in April of 1912, a couple of decades before the HOF began, and nowadays his team would have made sure that a dying nine-year veteran would be on the roster, on the DL, or some technicality to allow him to be eligible, so they retroactively conceded that, since now the Indians would have him on the roster in some form during the first game of 1912 season, that should count. At least I think that's what was argued.

[nymr83]

if [ujols got hurt tommorow he's been that good that i'd want to see him in the hall. ichiro aint even close on his 7 years

[Guest iramets]

A rule that most sensible people think should be waived if circumstances dictate really isn't much of a rule, is it? Look at all the players who've had HOF careers, but who barely qualified (and in Joss's case, really didn't): Koufax, and Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella and Ralph Kiner and a number of others who barely scraped by the rule's requirements. I suspect in almost all of these cases the rule either would have or should have been waived, which doesnt say much about the rule.

It's there, I think, more as a book-keeping thing, to make the eligibility lists more manageable, and less prone to controversy ("Why isn't the 10-year rule being waived for Player X, who had six nice years with twelve different teams and deserves the minimal honor of being rejected by the HOF, when it WAS waived for player Y, who had only seven crappy years with sixteen different teams" yyybbb). But as a rule, it kinda sucks. Maybe we should call it the "Ten-Year Eligibility Guideline" or "suggestion" or "useful starting point for the beginning of a notion" or something.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Let's kill them and find out!

[Guest iramets]

Also, if some with even stronger stats and a shorter career than Addie Joss came along now, I'm sure there could be all sorts of bogus ways to get him on the roster and even in to a game, or however many games were needed. If someone had seven off-the-charts years and then had to retire, and his team wanted him eligible, I think they might find a way to get his name in an official lineup (announce him as pinchhitter and then have him pinch-hit for, in an expanded roster game, perhaps for two or three years in a row).

[nymr83]

i don't think they'd even have to go that far, the "problem" with baseball reference is that we only see years in which a player did something. but i'm sure that for pension purposes and whatever else all you need to do is be on the roster not appear in a game. Our hypothetocal player X could easily spend a day in september on the expanded roster, broken leg and all.

[nymr83]

Another hall question-
has Craig Biggio hurt his legacy by sticking around and sucking the last 2 years? or does getting to the arbitrary number of 3000 hits make up for the suckiness?
This is why I think counting stats should never be a barometer for the HOF, Biggio has (i'd guess) upped his chances of induction by getting to 3,000 hits when in reality the last 2 years should have lowered his chances.
Put another way, if you had 2 players (Biggio 1988-2005 and Biggio 1988-2007) which one would be more deserving of induction? you'd be nuts not to say the first one (although both shouldget in) but the people who actually have votes seem to give credit for sticking around to reach "milestones" instead of subtracting credit for bad years.

[Guest Edgy DC]

No, I don't think anyone would be nuts.

[Guest iramets]

You neither help nor hurt yourself for getting into my HOF by having undistinguished seasons. To my mind, it's purely a question of how many distinguished seasons you have, and how distinguished they are. Bidge would be exactly as HOF-worthy if he'd retired soon after his greatness went away as if he'd lingered for years and years afterwards.

I've really come to hate stats that exist for their own sake, the guy who plays crappily (and unhappily) just so's he gets to that 3000-hit mark or 500-HR level or 300-win club, and the guy who tells the manager "I don't wanna pitch in a non-save situation, or for longer than the minimum it takes to get my save' and the guy who doesn;t want to switch positions because it will make him known as a utility player rather than being identified with one position only. All this misuse of stats for personal glory makes me puke up great gobs of rancid, semi-digested curdles of unidentifiable matter with little bits and pieces of recognizable remnants of gristly meat and the odd kernal of corn here or there...but maybe that's TMI.?

[metsmarathon]

only problem that i have with the mvp vote is that, as we've seen, those votes can get distributed for wacky and unjust reasons.

[Guest iramets]

metsmarathon wrote: only problem that i have with the mvp vote is that, as we've seen, those votes can get distributed for wacky and unjust reasons.

Agreed. But maybe this would compel the voters to think about the long-term effects of their decisions? OTOneH, MVP might not get the right result, but OTOH rarely omit altogether someone who should have contended.

[metsmarathon]

can't think of good examples, other than, of course, pitchers.

though any metric that shows dwright's 07 to be worth half of rollins', or hanley ramirez & pujols' 2007 to be worth a mere 7th of rollins can't be too good...

i am curious of course as to how it does historically for current hall of famers.

[Valadius]

Baseball Prospectus' Jay Jaffe says that Tim Raines absolutely deserves to be elected:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/11/29/bp.raineshalloffame/index.html

Jaffe ranks Raines as the 9th-best left fielder of all time, behind Barry Bonds, Stan Musial, Rickey Henderson, Ted Williams, Pete Rose, Jim O'Rourke, Ed Delahanty and Carl Yastrzemski. He points out that Bill James ranked Raines 8th in his 2001 Abstract, and the 2nd-best leadoff hitter in history, behind Henderson. Jaffe puts his own spin on WARP to take into account a player's peak, and finds that Raines was more valuable than the average HOF left fielder career-wise and peak-wise. He is also WAY more valuable than Lou Brock or Jim Rice.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Kuhn in, Miller out.

I give up.

[Guest Edgy DC]

That's as shocking as Milledge for Church, and I think it's somehow (I haven't really thought it through yet), related to the same skewed values.

Or maybe it's just a case of what happens when good men do nothing. A smart guy like Tom Seaver knows what Miller's legacy has been (for owners as well as players), but would rather grow grapes than help mount the campaign that Miller deserves.

Heavens to Betsy.

[Guest sharpie]

Hard to pinpoint a single achievement of Bowie Kuhn's.

[MFS62]

O'Malley in.

A shonda (tragic shame)

A dark pall has been cast over Cooperstown.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

="sharpie"]Hard to pinpoint a single achievement of Bowie Kuhn's.

Sticking around for a long time, long enough that a vote for him represents a vote for "Yay, baseball" in some mindsets.

Lazy mindsets, but that's my opinion.

Who will linger at that plaque?

[Vic Sage]

the Kuhn family.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

What will the placque read?

BOWIE KUHN
COMMISSIONER, 1969-83

UNDERQUALIFIED, VISIONLESS LEADER
AND PROMOTER OF ANTIQUATED LABOR PRACTICES
ALLOWED FIVE WORK STOPPAGES ON HIS WATCH
FOUGHT PROGRESS UNSUCCESSFULLY
DISGUSTEDLY LET GO BY EMPLOYERS

[Vic Sage]

...BUT HE HAD A GOOD BASEBALL NAME

[Guest Edgy DC]

BOWIE KUHN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL COMMISSIONER 1969-83 HE BATTLED

[Valadius]

Moving past the disgrace that is Kuhn getting in and Miller being left out, let's look at those inducted (and those that came close):

HALL-OF-FAMERS

Walter O'Malley - I know, I know, he ripped out the hearts of New Yorkers. But if he hadn't moved the Dodgers, the Mets never would have existed.
Barney Dreyfuss - THANK GOD this man is in the Hall. The man that created the World Series and thus created the modern major league structure deserved this.
Dick Williams - A great manager. Taking three different teams to the World Series and winning two straight has to count for something.
Billy Southworth - Deserves it. Underrated as hell. Fifth-highest winning percentage in history. Four pennants, two championships, three straight 100-win seasons.
Bowie Kuhn - Fuck him. Doesn't deserve it.

BARELY MISSED THE CUT

Whitey Herzog - I hope he gets in next time.
Doug Harvey - The 2nd-best umpire of all time didn't make it?!?!? This REALLY surprised me.

AND...

Marvin Miller - He deserves it, and I don't understand what the damn problem is.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Valadius wrote: Dick Williams - A great manager. Taking three different teams to the World Series and winning two straight has to count for something.

Yes, it has to count for something, Why it has to count for the Hall of Fame is what is at issue.

[nymr83]

Miller doesn't belong in any HOF unless its the organized labor hall of fame.
Kuhn doesnt belong anywhere near the place either.
what makes Doug Harvey "the 2nd best umpire of all-time" Val?

[MFS62]

Seems to me the eligible voters who avoided Miller got hung up on a technicality. They'll claim the category was owners, managers and executives.

They will alibi that Miller didn't fit with any of those labels.

I wonder what they'll do with the "player and pitcher" category when it comes to voting for a DH (who is "technically" not a player IMO because they didn't play defense).

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

Don't be stubborn --- the two of you. Open your hearts and minds. It's a techinicolor world and you're looking through black-and-white glasses.

There hasn't one guy on a Hall of Fame players ballot who hasn't played defense, so you're just being stubborn for the sake of it.

[Valadius]

SABR ranked him as such in 1999, behind only Bill Klem.