2010 Baseball Hall of Fame Voting

[HahnSolo]

Jack Morris "was a general force in the American League!"

Well, hell, now I'm convinced.

[Frayed Knot]

Jack Morris "was a general force in the American League!"[/quote:bl1upaa4]

That's two levels better than being a major force!!

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

I get frustrated when he says things like McGwire is an "unrepentant alleged steroid user." I don't thing you can be both alleged and unrepentant. How can you repent if you are facing only allegations?

And I don't want to defend McGwire much, but the guy has been sheepishly in hiding since that congressional testimony. That's sort of repenting. Now Bonds, that's someone who is unrepentant.

Let's see if Heyman oftens his stance a little when his boy Clemens is on the ballot.

And he's liking Mattingly based on his MVP votes? OK. Where's the vote for Dale Murphy, who has more -2 - than Mattingly and had a bunch of top-10 finishes. Be consistent.

His Raines discussion makes no sense.

And I don't like this idea of "I didn't vote for him this year, but I might later." Either you think he's a Hall of Famer or you don't. Raines isn't gonna steal any more bases. Jim Rice had the same number of stats in his first year on the ballot as he did in his 15th.

[Guest Edgy DC]

And I don't want to defend McGwire much, but the guy has been sheepishly in hiding since that congressional testimony. That's sort of repenting.[/quote:7t3n01hj]
I'll disagree. Avoiding difficult questions is not repentance.

[Valadius]

And I don't like this idea of "I didn't vote for him this year, but I might later." Either you think he's a Hall of Famer or you don't. Raines isn't gonna steal any more bases. Jim Rice had the same number of stats in his first year on the ballot as he did in his 15th.[/quote:m8k9zqkk]

Out of everything that annoys me with the Hall of Fame voting process, it's THAT that drives me crazy the most. I completely agree with you.

[metsmarathon]

do you think there's some readily available (and preferably already analyzed) evidence out there that could refute or support the notion of truly great pitchers pitching to the score, as heyman contends?

i could envision looking at comparing runs allowed versus run support for hall of fame pitchers in individual games, and seeing if there's any notable correlation. i would expect that in blowout wins, the elite pitchers would have no problem allowing 4 or 5 runs, but in shutout losses, the elite pitchers would only ever allow one (unearned) run. rarely would an elite pitcher allow a bunch of runs in a blowout loss, and rarely would an elite pitcher bother shutting out his opponent in a blowout win.

i mean, that's gotta be the way these things work, right?

in fact, if i do a quick look at sandy koufax, in '64 and '65, i find something very interesting. using bbref's game logs, i plotted sandy koufax's runs allowed in each game, and, based on the score of the game at the time he exited the game, tabulated the run support he received. i did this for only the games he started, throwing out the three relief appearances as not necessarily representative. then i plotted a linear trend line.

mind you, the r2 values on these trendlines render them essentially meaningless, but the direction the trendline points in nonetheless interesting. you see, in 1964, the trendline slopes slightly downward, suggesting that for each run his team scored, he allowed 0.04 runs fewer. for all intents, this is probably flat. in 1965, the trendline slopes upward, but gently so. for each run that his team scored, he allowed an additional 0.13 runs. this is bolstered tremendously by a single game in which he allowed 5 runs with 12 runs of support. combining the two seasons together shows that for each run he received in support, he allowed 0.10 additional runs.

a tenth of a run. with negligible at best correlation in an admittedly miniscule sample size.

is that what we mean by "pitching to the score"?

[Frayed Knot]

I've seen articles where guys looked for "pitching to the score" evidence (and specifically for Morris) and found it either bogus or at least as hard to nail down as "clutch".

Up the thread a ways I noted the (Newsday's) Ken Davidoff piece where he notes in his dismissal of Morris how it's funny how pitchers who 'pitch to the score' always seem to be those on good hitting teams whereas the same guy backed by a weak lineup will be labeled as flawed because he's always pitching 'just well enough to lose'.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I recall seeing a study done on that very subject, using Seaver among the study group. It must have been a SABR thingy.

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

Well, I googled "pitching to the score", and the first three hits are Greg Spira's article saying there's no such animal (he uses the James Pythagorean theorem to debunk the myth), Joe Sheehan's article, which agrees (he uses Morris' record in games grouped by run differential), and Joe Posnanski's article, which uses a similar argument as Sheehan to reach the same conclusion.

Pitching to the score doesn't really exist, and it took me about ten seconds to do the research necessary to figure this out. It's astounding how lazy some baseball writers are. Absolutely astounding.

[ashie62]

Is pitching to the score the same as "that pitcher is tough when he has a lead?

[Valadius]

New Update from the Baseball Think Factory's BBWAA ballot compiler:

Hall of Fame Ballot Gathering Machine % Leaderboard after 99 Full Ballots� 88.9 - Alomar 80.8 - Dawson 79.8 - Blyleven 57.6 - Larkin 50.5 - J. Morris 43.4 - T. Raines 41.1 - Edgar 39.4 - Lee Smith 34.3 - McGwire 26.3 - Trammell 21.2 - McGriff 10.1 - D. Murphy 9.1 - Parker 8.1 - Baines 6.1 - Mattingly Top Partial Ballot Leaders� (124 Full/Partials) 94 - Alomar 89 - Dawson 84 - Blyleven

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Is pitching to the score the same as "that pitcher is tough when he has a lead?"[/quote:3bkfqrzw]

More like "that pitcher with 20 wins and a 5.00 ERA isn't lucky to be playing for an offensively-gifted team; he magically knows that he can ease up, and can control how many runs he allows... while still allowing runs."

(Yeah, I think that sounds clunky and weird, too.)

[HahnSolo]

I'll probably sound stupid, but in Val's chart what does "Top Partial Ballot Leaders" mean?

[Frayed Knot]

I was going to ask the same question.
I believe it means that folks are reading and tracking those ballots that writers have made public in an attempt to gauge how the votes are leading in advance of tomorrow's announcement.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Sounds like "pitching to the score" just a way to justify the validity of the flawed Win stat.

It's silly. Even with a 9-0 lead, a good pitcher should still be getting outs. Sure, he can go ahead and give up eight runs if he wants, but it's better if he doesn't. In the process of giving up those eight runs, he's throwing unnecessary pitches, keeping his fielders out in the field longer, making pitchers warm up in the bullpen when they could be resting, etc., etc., etc.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

My guess is some writers not revealing their whole ballot, but standing up for one or two candidates.

Would be nice to see Alomar get it, for no reason other than to have another New York NL on a plaque -- and have it mean us.

So far, I think we have Seaver, Mays, Spahn, Ryan, Carter, Berra, Murray, Rickey, Asburn, Snider ...am I missing someone? Are we on Stengel's plaque or was he inducted prior?

I should research before posting...

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Sounds like "pitching to the score" (is) just a way to justify the validity of the flawed Win stat.[/quote:2ch867ww]

Has and always will be.

[Guest attgig]

I voted: Alomar, McGwire, Blyleven, Martinez.

I don't see DH as the "absence" of a position as mentioned earlier; it's more accurately described as "half" of a position (the corresponding other half being the pitcher).[/quote:4bfg96yo]

that would make him the greatest hitting pitcher of all time, and definitely should be in the hall :-P

does that also detriment AL pitchers, since they don't have to hit? do NL pitchers get an extra leg up in the hall???

[Guest attgig]

Alomar, By, Dawson, Larkin, Edgar, McGriff, Raines

[G-Fafif]

My guess is some writers not revealing their whole ballot, but standing up for one or two candidates.

Would be nice to see Alomar get it, for no reason other than to have another New York NL on a plaque -- and have it mean us.

So far, I think we have Seaver, Mays, Spahn, Ryan, Carter, Berra, Murray, Rickey, Asburn, Snider ...am I missing someone? Are we on Stengel's plaque or was he inducted prior?

I should research before posting...[/quote:1eilwg6i]

Final line on Casey's plaque: NEW YORK METS 1962-1965. Listed with N.L. TEAMS MANAGED.

As for Alomar, they should just etch in REDACTED where it will say NEW YORK, N.L. 2002-2003. There was nothing remotely Hall of Fame-like about his tenure here, not even a sense that he used to be great. Cut off his info at 2001. Nothing Hallworthy, not even a sense that he was once great, from his time as a Met.

[Theoldmole]

Do you suppose Trammell and Whittaker get less HOF respect than they deserve because they played their whole careers for one team, and never got free agent bigbux headlines?

[Valadius]

Lou Whitaker's immediate fall off the ballot was a disgrace, in my opinion. He deserved more consideration than that.

[Chad ochoseis]

Do you suppose Trammell and Whittaker get less HOF respect than they deserve because they played their whole careers for one team, and never got free agent bigbux headlines?
[/quote:fujiy87q]

Funny, I was just thinking the opposite - that Blyleven gets less Hall luv because he played for so many different small-market teams. A Tony Gwynn or a Kirby Puckett (or an Alan Trammell) gets remembered not just for greatness, but for being a huge part of his team's culture. Blyleven is maybe kinda sorta associated with the Twins, but not to the same degree as Puckett.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Do you suppose Trammell and Whittaker get less HOF respect than they deserve because they played their whole careers for one team, and never got free agent bigbux headlines?
[/quote:3potlv20]

Funny, I was just thinking the opposite - that Blyleven gets less Hall luv because he played for so many different small-market teams. A Tony Gwynn or a Kirby Puckett (or an Alan Trammell) gets remembered not just for greatness, but for being a huge part of his team's culture. Blyleven is maybe kinda sorta associated with the Twins, but not to the same degree as Puckett.[/quote:3potlv20]

Ditto. It also helps fix the player's iconic image in the collective mind's eye... which seems to loom large among voters who tend to vote along "most dominant/most feared of his era" lines. If we close your eyes and imagine Ripken, we'll all see the same stuff, most likely-- that rangy home-run stroke, starting a DP from a strangely upright posture, or tipping his cap after breaking Gehrig's record. It's the same for a lot of others... hell, even one-move guy Ozzie Smith is easy to picture turning backflips in Cardinal Red. I think a frequent-flying player's string of different unis tends to distract from that (see: Henderson, Rickey).

That may also have something to do with Trammell or Whitaker lacking respect... they didn't out-and-out excel at one aspect of the game. Ripken was a superlative hitter for a SS. Ozzie was the best fielder. Henderson was the premier base stealer of all-time, and perhaps the finest baserunner, too. All these players did more, yes, but they've got a defining characteristic-- they were superlative at one thing. All-around greatness like the Tiger duo's can be tougher to picture, and sell... and vote for, absent accompanying impressive counting numbers. (Sadly, I suspect Larkin's vote totals may eventually suffer from this as well.)

[nymr83]

Do you suppose Trammell and Whittaker get less HOF respect than they deserve because they played their whole careers for one team, and never got free agent bigbux headlines?

Trammell was as good or alot better (depending on how you want to value their respective defense) of a player than Derek Jeter is, he gets ignored partially for not being lucky enough to be surrounded by stars and partially for not playing in New York.

I'm not sure if I'm as sold on Whitaker, but considereing the CRAP that manages to stay on the ballot sometimes it is perplexing that he fell off.

[Guest Edgy DC]

A secondbaseman slugged .500 his last year --- yeah, hit was a half season, but still --- and then he retires at 38.

If he did that today he could cash that in for $6 million playing on one leg.

And yeah (John Heyman), he only got MVP consideration in one season, but unlike Ryne Sandburg, he never had a bad one. OK, one disaster at 23, but then 15 straight good, very good, or excellent ones. Mercy!

[Guest attgig]

woulda thought

would've helped. C'mon Selleck. Don't you have any pull with the baseball writers?