That Other Hall of Fame

[Guest Edgy DC]

Once Bonds gets elected, the argument against McGwire will look impossibly silly. That is, unless Bonds doesn't get elected, in which case there's a different kind of silliness to be dealt with.

[smg58]

Bonds was a hall-of-famer without the roids. I don't believe that McGwire was. Either way, he's not close to the player that Bonds was.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the steroids issue regarding the Hall of fame. And until I can make up my mind on a consistent and impartial way to adress it, I can't justify voting for anybody suspicious, including Bonds.

But Blyleven, Raines, and Alomar get my vote, even though I'm still puzzled/annoyed at how Robbie turned mediocre the minute he donned the orange and blue.

[Gwreck]

I think we have this McGwire argument every year at this time. As usual, my position is to vote him in under the theory that he was hall-of-fame caliber in the context of the era. (Plenty of HOFers who got in the in context of their eras too -- ie. not having to play against anyone but whites).

Anyway, my ballot:
Alomar
Blyleven
Martinez
McGwire

[Guest Edgy DC]

OE: Tim Raines
Roberto Alomar
Bert Blyleven
Barry Larkin
Alan Trammell

A lot of borderline guys who I want to look more closely at: Martinez and Gallaraga and Dawson, but those are my four.

One extra thing to factor in about a longtime DH is the amount of injury risk he's protected from that other guys don't have to confront. I'm not sure how to factor that in, but it was certainly relevant in Paul Molitor's case. Take his offensive record and he's a Hall of Famer even if he was a poor second- or third-baseman through the latter half of his career. I think evidence suggests he wouldn't be, but evidence also suggests he'd've had trouble staying in the lineup.

[Guest Number 6]

Now, looking at the rougly barbell shape of his career, it's tempting and almost too easy to say that he was having his troubles, tried performance-enhancing drugs, struggled for a few years to find the right balance betwixt performaning enhancing dosages and muscle-injuring dosages, until he arrived at the right cocktail, and hit the jackpot. But until he's more forthcoming, I don't begrudge the judges a bit for being miserly with their votes.

[Vic Sage]

Roberto Alomar
Bert Blyleven
Barry Larkin
Alan Trammell

A lot of borderline guys who I want to look more closely at: Martinez and Gallaraga and Dawson, but those are my four.

One extra thing to factor in about a longtime DH is the amount of injury risk he's protected from that other guys don't have to confront. I'm not sure how to factor that in, but it was certainly relevant in Paul Molitor's case. Take his offensive record and he's a Hall of Famer even if he was a poor second- or third-baseman through the latter half of his career. I think evidence suggests he wouldn't be, but evidence also suggests he'd've had trouble staying in the lineup.

[Guest Edgy DC]

The argument you stated then relies on a myriad of assumptions that we need to make in order to support that his numbers are due to PED use. 1.) McGwire used steroids throughout this period. 2.) The steroids caused an increase in skill that directly led to his HOF numbers. 3.) Known steroid use is a viable criteria for denial of admission into the HOF.

I actually said that it's almost too easy to build this argument, but I don't think it's unfair for a voter, if that's what he's of a mind to do, to draw the broadest conclusion from McGwire's weasel move before Congress. Innocent until proven gulity is not a standard a Hall of Fame voter has to meet. The Hall of Fame is not a right that a player is denied by not being admitted to, but a privelege he has to earn.

And I don't think the statistical argument is so airtight. Through age 27, when he had been up and down for years, his comparables are this:

1) Nate Colbert
2) John Mayberry
3) Fred McGriff
4) Willie McCovey (HoF)
5) Carlos Delgado (Not Yet Eligible)
6) Richie Sexson (NYE)
7) Derrek Lee (NYE)
8) Justin Morneau
9) Jason Thompson
10) Pete Incaviglia

Through age 30, when he was turning a corner, but couldn't stay on the field, his comps look like this:

1) Cecil Fielder
2) Richie Sexson (NYE)
3) Willie McCovey (HoF)
4) Fred McGriff
5) Nate Colbert
6) Pat Burrell (NYE)
7) Glenn Davis
8) Gil Hodges
9) Ryan Howard (NYE)
10) Mo Vaughn (NYE)

The judges are enjoined to take sportsmanship and character into account when voting, and it's totally fair to say that he failed them in this regard. It's damn unfair that McGwire was sobpoenaed and others weren't, but how he acquitted himself is a fact of history.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Roberto Alomar
Bert Blyleven
Barry Larkin
Alan Trammell

A lot of borderline guys who I want to look more closely at: Martinez and Gallaraga and Dawson, but those are my four.

One extra thing to factor in about a longtime DH is the amount of injury risk he's protected from that other guys don't have to confront. I'm not sure how to factor that in, but it was certainly relevant in Paul Molitor's case. Take his offensive record and he's a Hall of Famer even if he was a poor second- or third-baseman through the latter half of his career. I think evidence suggests he wouldn't be, but evidence also suggests he'd've had trouble staying in the lineup.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

[u:tdj9lcc8]Definites[/u:tdj9lcc8]
Tim Raines
Roberto Alomar
Barry Larkin
Bert Blyleven

[u:tdj9lcc8]Borderline [/u:tdj9lcc8]- I could go either way with their vote.
Edgar Martinez
Alan Trammel
Fred McGriff
Harold Baines
Andre Dawson
Don Mattingly

[Chad ochoseis]

I've got to admit that I don't get all the Tim Raines luv. I was a Tim Raines fan. I like speed and OBP. He was fun to watch and my memory is that he was good but not great defensively. I enjoyed seeing the Expos not suck for a few years back in the Raines/Dawson days. There's no question that Raines had an excellent career.

But his stats aren't clearly HOF quality. His career OPS+ of 123 is less than five points better than Andre Dawson's, Dale Murphy's and even Dave Parker's, and it's not as good as Burks, McGriff, or Mattingly. It's one point less than Rusty Staub's and five points less than Jim Wynn's. I wouldn't vote for any of those players, but if I had to choose one, I'd flip a coin to decide between Mattingly and Murphy.

Alomar, Larkin, Blyleven and Martinez are on my ballot. Maybe Trammell, if I'm in a good mood on the day I'm voting. McGwire is a tough call for me for the same reasons Edgy gives.

I'll vote for Raines to join Bert Campaneris, Tommy John, Dwight Evans, Al Oliver, and hundreds more in the hall of Really Good Ballplayers Who Aren't Quite HOFers. Enjoy the honor, and be sure to keep a spot warm for Scott Rolen.

[Guest Number 6]

I actually said that it's almost too easy to build this argument, but I don't think it's unfair for a voter, if that's what he's of a mind to do, to draw the broadest conclusion from McGwire's weasel move before Congress.

[Valadius]

The weakness of OPS and OPS+ is that it disproportionately favors power hitters and slugging percentage. Tim Raines is one of four players with 800 stolen bases. The man tore up the 1980s. I'm not getting people who aren't getting Tim Raines.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Sportsmanship and character are a small part of voting. How do you quantify them against on-field accomplishment? Clearly, there is a give-and-take there, or the HOF wouldn't have several deserving players that are currently enshrined. So, how do we balance "sportsmanship and character" against on-field accomplishment?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Count me among those who think McGwire disgraced the game, and no matter what his numbers are, he doesn't deserve Fame.

Same for Bonds and Clemens. It's not the Hall of Great Statistics.

[duan]

I'm not voting for McGwire, but we're going to get in really sticky territory now that we know that 104 (or whatever the number was) of MLB players definitively failed drugs tests, obviously the player who's be the best player of his generation was one of them. Does this mean that we have no Alex Rodriguez in the hall of fame?

Similarly people have mentioned about Tim Raines' candidature being invalidated by his cocaine abuse. Frankly, I don't think cocaine was used to be performance enhancing and that his use of cocaine was recreational, that he was prepared to challenge his dependancy and come out the other side is actually a positive aspect in my book.

The lack of appreciation for his consistently high obp and his extremely efficient and plentiful stealing proves that Rickey Henderson knew what he was doing when he was trying to make his name, the gap between them is a few points of eqa and a slightly longer tail of speed.

[MFS62]

Count me among those who think McGwire disgraced the game, and no matter what his numbers are, he doesn't deserve Fame.

Same for Bonds and Clemens. It's not the Hall of Great Statistics .

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Duan - "The lack of appreciation for his (Raines) consistently high obp and his extremely efficient and plentiful stealing proves that Rickey Henderson knew what he was doing when he was trying to make his name, the gap between them is a few points of eqa and a slightly longer tail of speed."

I agree wholeheartedly. Ricky Henderson is arguably among the greatest leadoff hitters in the history of major league baseball. Few people question his first ballot election into Cooperstown. However, Tim Raines' career statistics closely mirror those of Henderson and I am amazed at the difficulty he has had in garnering support.

Henderson .279/.401/.419/.820/127/80.8% (Avg./OBP/SLG/OPS/OPS+/BS%)
Raines.......294/.385/.425/.810/123/84.7%

Both Henderson and Raines made his ML debut in 1979 and had long illustrious careers (Henderson played 25 seasons and Raines played 23 seasons). Henderson appeared on 94.8% of the ballots in his first year of eligibility to the HOF, while Raines appeared on only 24.3% of the ballots his first year. The discrepancy between their numbers is not nearly that vast to account for such a difference in their recognitiion by the HOF voters, in my opinion. I think Tim Raines two biggest problems were that he generally did not have the good fortune of playing for as successful a teams as Henderson frequently did and he was not nearly as good at self promoting as was Ricky Henderson.* Raines never fully escaped from the immense shadow that Henderson cast over the game.

I'm not arguing that Henderson wasn't the better player. He was certainly the best leadoff hitter of his era and possibly in the history of the game. However, Tim Raines was easily the second best of the quarter century era in which he played and arguably amongst the elite leadoff men in the the history of the game.

*No one short of possibly Reggie Jackson was as good at self promotion as was Ricky Henderson.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Raines' biggest problem is likely the less productive (disease impaired) second-half of his career disallowed him from reaching the magic number of 3000 hits. He'd also be in right now if he had also passed Lou Brock on the all-time stolen base list.

Nonetheless, I'm certain that he'll get in. The Henderson comparison will continue to come up and boost his candidacy, just as Sutter boosted Gossage and Reese (slowly) boosted Rizzutto. Some people are just so naturally compared that they can't help getting caught in each other's drafts.

[Gwreck]

Count me among those who think McGwire disgraced the game, and no matter what his numbers are, he doesn't deserve Fame.

Same for Bonds and Clemens. It's not the Hall of Great Statistics.

[Benjamin Grimm]

What's the beef about Whitey Ford?

I wouldn't have voted for Gaylord Perry.

And Ty Cobb? More of a scoundrel than Pete Rose. Yes, I'd drop him if I could.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

What's the beef about Whitey Ford?

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm not voting for McGwire, but we're going to get in really sticky territory now that we know that 104 (or whatever the number was) of MLB players definitively failed drugs tests, obviously the player who's be the best player of his generation was one of them.

[metirish]

I think Halls of fame are overrated , it might well be becasue it's not a big deal in the part of the world I come from. Having said that I would really like to visit Cooperstown.

[Centerfield]

To me, applying "the broadest" unsubstantiated assumptions to McGwire is arbitrary and unfair for the reasons I stated above, and I expect the judges to apply a standard that's not arbitrary and unfair.

That privilege, again speaking idealistically, is best earned by a fair and universally applied set of standards. In order to be so, those standards must be founded on what we do know rather than on what we may arbitrarily assume, otherwise the concept of "earning" is utterly meaningless and subjective. Again, I expect those voting to abide by this as well. If they don't, I'm disappointed, as I am with McGwire's poor showing in the HOF voting thus far.
[/quote:3maj9rrh]

It seems like I spend hours trying to make this point every year we discuss Hall of Fame standards. From now on, I'm just going to quote Number 6. Well said.

[Guest Edgy DC]

But I didn't apply the broadest assumption to his candidacy. As I tried to make clear, his career track through age 30 suggested he was heading for fringe candidacy.

[Centerfield]

The way I understood you (based upon the first post in this thread) was that you wanted to draw broad assumptions from his actions before Congress and conclude he used steroids. You seemed to intimate that "innocent until proven guilty" was a standard Hall of Fame voters need not adhere by.

My point, this year and years before, was that if the Hall is going to have any credibility, you must have some sort of established standards. The only way I know to do that is to presume innocent until proven guilty.

The only way you could go "guilty until proven innocent" is if

1. All players were put through the same, uniformly-applied background checks for performance enhancing drugs.
2. No player were eligible for the Hall until they had met some minimum standard of innocence

Otherwise, as Number 6 says, the Hall becomes more and more arbitrary and meaningless.

[Guest Edgy DC]

The way I understood you (based upon the first post in this thread) was that you wanted to draw broad assumptions from his actions before Congress and conclude he used steroids.

[Centerfield]

What do you do with players where the evidence is inconclusive?

Or where there is no evidence one way or the other?

[Guest Number 6]

But I didn't apply the broadest assumption to his candidacy. As I tried to make clear, his career track through age 30 suggested he was heading for fringe candidacy.[/quote:2vcpq51o]

My use of the word "broadest" was in response to this:

I actually said that it's almost too easy to build this argument' date=' but I don't think it's unfair for a voter, if that's what he's of a mind to do, to draw the broadest conclusion from McGwire's weasel move before Congress.[/quote:2vcpq51o']

From what I understand of this post, and correct me if I'm wrong, while you may not apply the broadest of conclusions, you would have no criticism for those who do. The broadest conclusion is not just that he used steroids. It's that he used them, he used them throughout the period in question, they impacted his numbers, and this turned him from a fringe to a HOF player.

While I certainly see how one can rationally construct steroid use out of his testimony, the rest you can't. In fact, McGwire probably couldn't even substantiate the latter two assumptions himself even if he was being 100% candid.

[Guest Edgy DC]

If there is no evidence one way or the other, there's no evidence.

The electorate is made up of reporters, and I think they'd do very well to call up every player they are considering and question them on the subject.

Yeah, I guess that I did use the word broadest, but I wouldn't indict him that deeply myself. But we can reasonably assume he cheated. He refuses to clarify the extent. But I guess I shouldn't defend any conclusion but my own.