2011 Hall of Fame Ballot

[MFS62]

Edgy DC wrote: I don't get it. The math is in place to adjust the numbers accordingly, and it's easy enough to use. We shouldn't be arguing in 2010 whether to embrace the numbers at face value or throw them out entirely.

Interesting point.
I wonder if anyone has used the new numbers to reexamine the numbers of players already elected who played in bandboxes such as Baker Bowl, Ebbets Field and Crosley Field.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

Sure they have. Bill James was doing it decades ago.

[Guest Edgy DC]

In fact, you can now click a button on a player's baseball-reference.com profile and see what his stats would look like projected to a neutral run-scoring environment.

Take Jose Cruz. You knew he was an All-Star, but his numbers in the Astrodome of the seventies and eighties look pretty pedestrian. Click-click, and you see a neutral world projection of someone with the badass career we know Jose really had.

Source	BA	OPB	SLG	OPS	H	HR	RBI
Real	.284	.354	.420	.774	2,251	165	1,077
Fake	.304	.376	.449	.825	2,547	189	1,267

[Guest Edgy DC]

Consider Chuck Klein on the other hand, a Hall-of-Famer piling up excellent stats for losing teams in the Baker Bowl and, for a few years, Wrigley.

He was a heckuva player, but not quite the slugger his baseball card suggested.

Source	BA	OPB	SLG	OPS	H	HR	RBI
Real	.320	.379	.543	.922	2,076	300	1,201
Fake	.304	.362	.515	.876	2,024	291	1,113

[MFS62]

Thanks.
Didn't know that was available.
Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

You're welcome.

And as to the point we're discussing, Larry Walker looks like this.

Source	BA	OPB	SLG	OPS	H	HR	RBI
Real	.313	.400	.565	.965	2,160	383	1,311
Fake	.299	.384	.539	.924	2,092	365	1,175

Still a damn fine player in any era or home.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Larry Walker's lifetime batting average at home was 70 points higher than his career road average. Seventy points. Lifetime. His home HR total is almost 30% greater than his career road total.

Here's Larry Walker's career home/road splits:


If I was only permitted to look at Walker's road stats, without knowing that they were Walker's stats, I'd guess that this was a fine player ... a player who, at his peak, was an all-star for a few years and perhaps, even MVP caliber. There are dozens and dozens of players that fit this description but don't belong in the HOF. I think that Walker gets in. I'm not sure that I would vote for him, if I had a vote.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Compare Larry Walker's road stats to the road stats of six modern players that are familiar to everyone on this forum:

"su"


"tu"


"ae"


"ee"


"kd"


"nd"

Edited December 5, 2010 by Guest

[nymr83]

coming late to the party here...
I'd put these guys in...
Roberto Alomar
Jeff Bagwell
Bert Blyleven
Barry Larkin
Tim Raines
Alan Trammell

and I'd want more time to think about McGwire, Walker and E.Martinez

[Guest Edgy DC]

Hey, Nymr's back.

[metirish]

Gillick the only one elected today by Vet committee....

[batmagadanleadoff]

Compare Larry Walker's road stats to the road stats of six modern players that are familiar to everyone on this forum:

Road stats below, identified:



Moises Alou


Rusty Staub


Shawn Green


Joe Torre


Frank Howard


John Olerud


To me, what stands out most about Walker's career is his run of batting averages from 1997-2001: .366/.363/.379/.309/.350 - an amazing run, evocative of what the back of Honus Wagner's baseball cards would've read, Wagner permitting and all, and also assuming that the tobacco companies deigned to put stats on the back of their cards. Of course, Walker played in a park that inflated offense to an absurd cartoonish extreme: over the course of a season, a player gained about one point of batting average for every game played in pre-humidor Coors, on average. On average includes all batters, even the pitchers.

[Vic Sage]

a guy who, in over 4000 PAs, put up an tOPS+ of 80 on the road is not HOF worthy. the fact that his overall stats were of such magnitude just shows the park effect he benefited from. i think the comparable players you've identified solidify the point that he was an excellent player who falls just short of HOF, and we wouldn't even be having this conversation but for the Coors effect.

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

tOPS is just relative to the other side of the split, though. That .865 OPS on the road is pretty great. Not sure about hall-worthy, but pretty great, anyway.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Yeah, everybody's tOPS+ at home and on the road is going to pretty much add up 200.

[metirish]

Heyman has a vote for the HOF , he has spent the weekend making jokes on twitter about the likes of Lenny Harris on the ballot, no class.

[batmagadanleadoff]

[Walker's] .865 OPS on the road is pretty great. Not sure about hall-worthy, but pretty great, anyway.

It's an awesome number. An .865 career OPS would put a player --especially an outfielder-- in the company of mostly stellar, though non- HOF'ers. Most HOF'ers with a career OPS close to. 865 have mitigating circumstances. Bill Dickey (.868) was a catcher; John McGraw (.876) played in the deadball era and was one of baseball's greatest managers; Jesse Burkett (.861) was also a deadballer.

Kevin Mitchell's career OPS is .880; Jason Bay's is .882. David Wright is firmly in HOF territory OPS-wise (.899 career).

The lowest OPS' for a modern (post WWII) HOF outfielder are:
Lou Brock -- .753 (Brock's 39.1 lifetime WAR is even lamer for a HOF'er)
Robin Yount -- .772 (also played shortstop)
Richie Ashburn -- .779
Andre Dawson -- .806

The highest OPS' for a modern (post WWII) HOF outfielder (but < .865, Walker's career road OPS) are:
Al Kaline -- .855
Jim Rice -- .854
Billy Williams -- .853
Tony Gwynn -- .847

Walker's career OPS of .965 places him in the company of the game's greatest, for the most part --it's 16th all-time.

Also in the top 20 all-time OPS are:
fellow Coors Crusher Todd Helton (.979 -- 11th place, anybody else see a pattern here, or are Walker and Helton two of the game's inner circle greatest?);
Jim Thome (.963 -- 17th place);
Lance Berkman (.954 -- 20th place).

Here are two more modern road stat comps for Larry Walker:

Jose Canseco


Jack Clark


Walker's career WAR, 67.3, is higher than HOFer's:
Eddie Murray (66.7, 3,000+ hits)
Gary Carter (66.3, greatest defensive catcher of his generation)
Willie McCovey (65.1)
Ozzie Smith (64.6)
Ernie Banks (64.4)
Harmon Killebrew (61.1)

[Valadius]

Philly writer Bill Conlin wins the Spink Award, elected to the Hall of Fame.

[Guest Edgy DC]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Gary Carter (66.3, greatest defensive catcher of his generation)

Here's a vote for Bob Boone, who only got better with time, while Carter was never really a defensive star with the Mets.

Seaver raved about Carlton Fisk.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy DC wrote: Here's a vote for Bob Boone, who only got better with time, while Carter was never really a defensive star with the Mets. Seaver raved about Carlton Fisk.

Grote, Bench and Fisk: Seaver pitched to the best of them.

[ashie62]

Fred McGriff .886 career OPS Career WAR 50.5.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Baseball-Reference supports you, however, and gives Carter more defensive win shares than Boone or Fisk (or Munson or any other catchers coming up around that time). I don't particularly agree with their methodology (Jerry Grote gets a negative number), but they probably have them in more or less the correct order.

They give Carter a net 10.0 defensive WaRs, 10.9 as an Expo, -0.8 as a Met, -0.1 as a Giant, and 0.0 as a Dodger. I imagine a tiny fraction of that is at positions other than catcher, but still.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

One day to go in the voting, so it seems about time for some brain-bending "here's how I'm voting" columns.

Hey, you, the cheery guy in the corner! Jeff Pearlman, step on up! And disagreeing with a markedly superior
pal, too? Sure!

But, alas, Joe�s still right�perhaps Jeff Bagwell never used. Perhaps, as dozens upon dozens of his teammates turned to steroids and HGH throughout the 1990s and early 2000s (Reality: No two teams in baseball had more PED connections than the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros), Bagwell looked the other way and continued to pop his GNC-supplied Vitamin C tablets. Maybe, just maybe, that happened. But, as the game was being ruined in his very clubhouse, where was Bagwell�s voice of protest? Where was Jeff Bagwell, one of the best players in baseball, when someone inside the game needed to speak out and demand accountability? Answer: Like nearly all of his peers, he was nowhere. He never uttered a word, never lifted a finger (Now, once he retired, he was more than willing to defend himself and speak up for the sport. Once he was retired). This, to me, is why we are allowed to suspect Jeff Bagwell and, if we so choose, not vote for him. The baseball players have cast this curse upon themselves�A. By cheating (And the usage of PED was, factually cheating. I don�t care how often you say, �It wasn�t outlawed by baseball� blah blag blah blah. In the United States, the obtaining and usage of HGH and steroids without a proper perscription is illegal. And �proper perscription� does not merely mean one given by a doctor. It means one rightly given by a doctor for a necessary medical condition); B. By not standing up against cheating and doing everything to assure a clean product. If he did use, Jeff Bagwell deliberately sought an advantage over other players�an illegal advantage. If he didn�t use, Jeff Bagwell, stood by and watched his sport morph into WWE nonsense. So, again, Joe�s right: Statistically, Jeff Bagwell is a Hall of Famer. And, on a personal note, he was always an approachable and nice guy. But, dammit, thanks to baseball�s meekness (for lack of a better word), Hall of Fame voters (I�m not one, for the record) have the right to suspect anyone and everyone from the past era. They have the right to view muscles suspiciously; to question a guy putting up six-straight 100-plus RBI seasons in the heat of PED Madness; to wonder why�when, oh, 75 percent of players were using�one extremely succesful, extemely large, extremely muscular man wouldn�t. Did Jeff Bagwell use PED? I don�t know. Do I have the right to hold his era against him? Damn right I do.

My head's full of fluid already, so I don't know where to begin with this one. Except, you know, to point out that he should probably take things in a less Glenn Beckian direction next time out.

I mean, good gravy.

[nymr83]

His argument is only "valid" if he wants to extend it to ALL players and say that nobody from the steroid era gets in because they're all either users or accomplices. Does he want to make that leap? Or just take this lame excuse to not vote for Bagwell?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Hey, look! Nymr in the Baseball Forum!

In ranking people on how they failed baseball morally on a scale of 1--10 --- 1 being dastardly villains who would undermine the game and forsake their responsilbiities wherever it would advance their own interests, 10 being beatific paladins who would give anything and everything to advance the game and improve it's standing as the virutous cultural enterprise it can be in it's best state --- where do you place the following groups of folks?

[*:3p95fh35]Established steroid users.[/*:m:3p95fh35]
[*:3p95fh35]Players never established as steroid users, but didn't investigate and report on their teammates, despite playing in a steroids-intensive era.[/*:m:3p95fh35]
[*:3p95fh35]Reporters who worked in the clubhouses, but didn't investigate and report on their teammates, despite playing in a steroids-intensive era.[/*:m:3p95fh35][/list:o:3p95fh35]

Me? I've got to view group three as more culpable than group two. And I've got plenty of guilt left over for the executives who failed to clean up their own clubhouses, and not a small amount for the fans like myself who threw their money after a dirty game.

Few of us probably fall below a 5.

[Willets Point]

(Reality: No two teams in baseball had more PED connections than the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros)

How about the New York Yankees, the roidiest team ever to win a World Series?

I'd put BALCO's Bay Area customers in San Francisco and Oakland on that list too.

[Fman99]

One day to go in the voting, so it seems about time for some brain-bending "here's how I'm voting" columns. Hey, you, the cheery guy in the corner! Jeff Pearlman, step on up! And disagreeing with a markedly superior pal, too? Sure! But, alas, Joe�s still right�perhaps Jeff Bagwell never used. Perhaps, as dozens upon dozens of his teammates turned to steroids and HGH throughout the 1990s and early 2000s (Reality: No two teams in baseball had more PED connections than the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros), Bagwell looked the other way and continued to pop his GNC-supplied Vitamin C tablets. Maybe, just maybe, that happened. But, as the game was being ruined in his very clubhouse, where was Bagwell�s voice of protest? Where was Jeff Bagwell, one of the best players in baseball, when someone inside the game needed to speak out and demand accountability? Answer: Like nearly all of his peers, he was nowhere. He never uttered a word, never lifted a finger (Now, once he retired, he was more than willing to defend himself and speak up for the sport. Once he was retired). This, to me, is why we are allowed to suspect Jeff Bagwell and, if we so choose, not vote for him. The baseball players have cast this curse upon themselves�A. By cheating (And the usage of PED was, factually cheating. I don�t care how often you say, �It wasn�t outlawed by baseball� blah blag blah blah. In the United States, the obtaining and usage of HGH and steroids without a proper perscription is illegal. And �proper perscription� does not merely mean one given by a doctor. It means one rightly given by a doctor for a necessary medical condition); B. By not standing up against cheating and doing everything to assure a clean product. If he did use, Jeff Bagwell deliberately sought an advantage over other players�an illegal advantage. If he didn�t use, Jeff Bagwell, stood by and watched his sport morph into WWE nonsense. So, again, Joe�s right: Statistically, Jeff Bagwell is a Hall of Famer. And, on a personal note, he was always an approachable and nice guy. But, dammit, thanks to baseball�s meekness (for lack of a better word), Hall of Fame voters (I�m not one, for the record) have the right to suspect anyone and everyone from the past era. They have the right to view muscles suspiciously; to question a guy putting up six-straight 100-plus RBI seasons in the heat of PED Madness; to wonder why�when, oh, 75 percent of players were using�one extremely succesful, extemely large, extremely muscular man wouldn�t. Did Jeff Bagwell use PED? I don�t know. Do I have the right to hold his era against him? Damn right I do. My head's full of fluid already, so I don't know where to begin with this one. Except, you know, to point out that he should probably take things in a less Glenn Beckian direction next time out. I mean, good gravy.

Great googily moogily, what a line of shit. So, the guy who doesn't get a vote wouldn't vote for the guy who had no public forum accusations of PED use, because he didn't do enough to condemn his friends and coworkers who were cheating?

By the way (let me digress), this style of writing (the constant insertion of parentheses) is not only inane and distracting (well, duh!) but also a sign of an inferior intellect (OH SNAP).

[Valadius]

I forget, where does one go for that breakdown of already-published Hall ballots?

[Vic Sage]

HBT blogger responds to Pearlman by suggesting that, by the same logic, sportswriters are more culpable than players, and should be stripped of their HOF voting privileges. While he's only being sarcastic, or ironic, or something, to highlight the stupidity of Pearlman's position, I fully support most ideas that strip sportswriters of any kind of privilege. In fact, they should have to buy tickets to get in, too! (also sarcastic, but only sorta).

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/lets-ban-the-sportswriters-from-voting/

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Pearlman seemed to like the steroid era just fine when he was watching it unfurl, and clapping like a caffeinated seal while doing so. (I guess he's not voting for Griffey, either?)

It was one of the fantastic baseball moments of my 27 years -- not a man bashing a 500-foot rocket or hitting 98 on the radar. Simple theater. An historic stage. A pair of gladiators. The Colosseum. Griffey and McGwire, the game's two ruling entities, hugging each other at home plate, swinging imaginary bats for effect. Maybe neither one really wanted to be there. Earlier in the day, Griffey answered All-Star questions with all the emotion of a turtle dove. McGwire, the chipper good ol' boy of a season ago, has been mostly cold through '99. No matter: This night they were pacing pack and forth, smiling, Griffey with his hat on backwards, McGwire and Sammy Sosa sitting cross-legged on the grass, two pals who could've been 10 and 15, not 30 and 35. Griffey vs. McGwire. Good vs. Good.