2013 HOF In Balloting Thread

[Valadius]

I'll have to look. It's not like I bookmarked them.

[Frayed Knot]

Career WAR (acc to BB-Ref)

Bonds = 158
Clemens = 134
Bagwell = 77
Schilling = 76
Walker = 70
Trammel = 67
Palmiero = 66
Raines = 66
Lofton = 65
E. Martinez = 64
Biggio = 62
McGwire = 59
Piazza = 56
Sosa = 55
Wells = 49
McGriff = 48
Bernie Williams = 46
Dale Murphy = 43
Finley = 40
Mattingly = 40
Julio Franco = 40
Morris = 39
Reggie Sanders = 37

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Jay Jaffe on SI:

"It is also the one most fraught with controversy, as the top newcomers � Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Mike Piazza � have connections to performance-enhancing drugs to one degree or another."

Has Piazza EVER been connected to PEDs, other than the writer and the back acne stuff? He later said that Piazza admitted to using Andro. I don't recall this. Do you guys?

Val is right about the guys who only vote for a couple of people and no more. When I worked in Flint, two of the writers had ballots. One was very thoughtful and had a whole set of criteria he worked through for every guy on the ballot. I didn't always agree with him -- he always insisted on Ron Guidry -- but I respected the amount of work that he put in to it. That, and he always let me photo copy the blank ballot, which looked even more amateurish than you can imagine. I was always like, "This is it? Seriously?"

The other writer was one of those "Someone has to feel like a Hall of Famer" guys, and only picked two or three. Most of them Tigers....

[Theoldmole]

And let's not forget the ever-unconscionable snub to Marvin Miller.

[Frayed Knot]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Jay Jaffe on SI: "It is also the one most fraught with controversy, as the top newcomers � Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Mike Piazza � have connections to performance-enhancing drugs to one degree or another." Has Piazza EVER been connected to PEDs, other than the writer and the back acne stuff? He later said that Piazza admitted to using Andro. I don't recall this. Do you guys?

Via rumors, yeah. But that's how the majority of these guys are connected.

Val is right about the guys who only vote for a couple of people and no more. When I worked in Flint, two of the writers had ballots. One was very thoughtful and had a whole set of criteria he worked through for every guy on the ballot. I didn't always agree with him -- he always insisted on Ron Guidry -- but I respected the amount of work that he put in to it. That, and he always let me photo copy the blank ballot, which looked even more amateurish than you can imagine. I was always like, "This is it? Seriously?" The other writer was one of those "Someone has to feel like a Hall of Famer" guys, and only picked two or three. Most of them Tigers....

But a writer not voting for ten guys isn't the same as saying he did so because he put some kind of artificial (sub-10) numerical limit on his ballot.

[Ceetar]

I'm both tickled and disturbed that I'm getting old enough to actually look at candidates and remember most/many of their careers and actually feel somewhat qualified to actually decide if I think they're worthy.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Frayed Knot wrote: Jay Jaffe on SI: "It is also the one most fraught with controversy, as the top newcomers � Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Mike Piazza � have connections to performance-enhancing drugs to one degree or another." Has Piazza EVER been connected to PEDs, other than the writer and the back acne stuff? He later said that Piazza admitted to using Andro. I don't recall this. Do you guys? Via rumors, yeah. But that's how the majority of these guys are connected.

Bonds and Clemens had legal action taken against them, and Sosa tested positive in 2003, that's more than rumors.

Edited November 28, 2012 by Guest

[metsmarathon]

pretty sure piazza admitted to trying andro or something in either college or the minors and said he didn't like it or it didn't help and he stopped.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Ceetar wrote: I'm both tickled and disturbed that I'm getting old enough to actually look at candidates and remember most/many of their careers and actually feel somewhat qualified to actually decide if I think they're worthy.

I'm on the other end of that. Some of these guys played most of their careers after I had stopped paying close attention.

[nymr83]

metsmarathon wrote: pretty sure piazza admitted to trying andro or something in either college or the minors and said he didn't like it or it didn't help and he stopped.

Wasn't Andro, at that time, a legal product available over-the-counter in the U.S. And not banned by baseball?

[batmagadanleadoff]

November 28, 2012
The Doomsday Ballot
Posted by Ian Crouch

History is messy; so is baseball. The Hall of Fame is full of players who spiked each other with their cleats or slicked up the ball or otherwise broke the rules. It is home to bigots and liars and drunks. And soon it may welcome, knowingly, a group of players whose successes may have been due, in part, to steroids. Five years have elapsed since Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa retired from baseball. That means they are all eligible for election into the Hall on the 2013 ballot, which was released on Wednesday afternoon. The voting, results of which will be released on January 9th, thus is something of a nightmare scenario for a sport that has spent the past decade refusing to credibly confront the full implications of what is now known as the steroid era. The way the balloting unfolds over the next month and a half won�t just influence the way history views the past twenty years of baseball; it could end up calling into question the role and value of the Hall of Fame itself. In any other scenario, Bonds, Clemens, and Sosa would, deservedly, be all but guaranteed election to the Hall on this first ballot: Bonds is a seven-time M.V.P. and the majors� all-time leader in home runs and walks; Clemens won three hundred and fifty-four games and seven Cy Young awards across three decades; and Sammy Sosa hit six hundred and nine home runs. Bonds and Clemens are perhaps the best left-handed hitter and right-handed pitcher, respectively, of all time. But there�s the other side of the story to consider, too: during his perjury trial, Bonds admitted to using steroids; Clemens� DNA was found along with traces of steroids and human-growth hormone among drug paraphernalia kept by his trainer, Brian McNamee (Clemens has denied taking steroids and disputes this evidence); and Sosa reportedly tested positive for steroids in 2003 (though he too has repeatedly denied taking illegal performance-enhancers). For the past few years, the Hall of Fame has rather clumsily been trying to sort out what to do about the legacy of performance-enhancing drugs. The disgraced home-run hero Mark McGwire, who has been eligible since 2007, has never gotten more than twenty-four per cent of the vote in ballots cast�seventy-five per cent is the threshold for entry�and last year he received his lowest vote total yet. His candidacy appears doomed. Rafael Palmeiro, who had more than three thousand career hits but tested positive for steroids in 2005, got just over twelve per cent of the Hall of Fame vote last year, his second on the ballot. Absent the connection to steroids, both players would have been locks for induction at Cooperstown, yet a large majority of the more than five hundred voters from the Baseball Writers� Association of America�the journalists who play gatekeepers for the Hall�have decided that confirmed users have no business being enshrined among the game�s greats. That decision may seem sensible and fair, but nothing about baseball�s steroid era is so simple. The Major Leagues didn�t even begin testing players for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs until 2002, and it wasn�t until 2005 that a strict and coherent punishment plan was put into effect. This despite years of rumblings about P.E.D. use dating back to the nineteen-eighties and nineties, and nearly daily visual evidence that something was going on: McGwire�s arms, Bonds�s expanding head, the once-enduring records that were suddenly being smashed every season. We all looked the other way when McGwire, grown to Paul Bunyan in the flesh and keeping androstenedione on full display in his locker, whapped seventy home runs in 1998. Baseball writers, a group with members now wagging their fingers in disgust, penned paeans to the great slugger. Revisionists may point to Cal Ripken as the man who won baseball fans back after the strike season of 1994, but it was McGwire and Sosa who made baseball appointment viewing across the country. Both men violated a public trust, but the public was more than happy to meet them halfway. Now, with their uniforms hung up and their muscles melted away, we�d rather not think about them anymore. Further confusing the issue is that fact that neither McGwire nor Palmeiro�nor any other confirmed steroid user, for that matter�has been given an official post-retirement punishment or sanction. Pete Rose lives in exile, while McGwire was just hired as the hitting coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Bonds was welcomed back to San Francisco during the World Series in 2010 as a kind of beloved rascal. The current guidelines for voters, as ordered by the Baseball Writers� Association of America, include �integrity, sportsmanship, character� among the categories by which to judge a player. Yet that phrasing is patently vague�useful when a writer wants to come down hard on a steroid user, but markedly fishy when applied to some of the more ethically specious past inductees. Voters have no consistent way to judge confirmed steroid-users, since Major League Baseball doesn�t quite know what to do with these guys either�in other words, if these players aren�t banned from baseball, why is it obvious that they should be banned from Cooperstown? Things become even less clear when one considers a group of players who have never admitted to taking drugs and have not tested positive for anything, but who�because of their changing appearances, or just rumor and innuendo�have the taint of steroids attached to their name. Former Astros great Jeff Bagwell went from skinny-strong to gargantuan during his career. That turned heads and set people muttering, and despite a strong Hall of Fame case he has yet to get above fifty-six per cent of the vote. Joining him on the ballot this year is Mike Piazza, one of the best-hitting catchers ever, who has been followed by whispers of steroids as well. We don�t know if Bagwell or Piazza took steroids; they both say they didn�t. Few voters, it would seem, know for sure, either, and yet we are certain to see both players, and more after them, hurt by this lingering cloud. Jose Canseco, equal parts clown and whistleblower, was called a fool when he said that eighty per cent of baseball players took steroids. But Canseco has been right before, so let�s just say, for argument�s sake, that the true figure was anywhere close to his number. Were hitters cheating more than pitchers? How do you determine if players were using designer drugs that didn�t change how they looked? And, finally, who should be banned and who should be considered clean�what tools can baseball journalists use to label one player a cheater and another a saint? There are no good answers to these questions, and that�s Major League Baseball�s fault: when it ignored the steroid problem, it left an entire generation of players in historical limbo. If it wants to help the Hall of Fame maintain its relevance as shrine to the game�s great and a museum to its past, it should now offer voters official guidance. With so much confusion, the most equitable solution, no matter how unpalatable to the great moralists in the ranks of baseball reporters, is for the voters to do what they�ve always done and grant entry to even the tainted among the era�s great players, and for the Hall to use this as an opportunity to tell the story of the decades when the game was captivating and wonderful and blackened by scandal all at the same time. While they�re at it, it�s time for them to acknowledge another unpleasant part of baseball�s past�and the way it was overcome. The death of the famed baseball labor leader Marvin Miller reminds us that the Hall is also full of players who were denied a fair paycheck and the right to get a better deal from a team other than the one that owned them. In a Postscript about Miller, Malcolm Gladwell noted that the man who finally got the game�s on-field talent their due share of the wealth was never elected to its Hall of Fame. With his death, there is a growing chorus calling for that error to be corrected, for Miller to be voted in on the ballot for the class of 2014. Miller, of course, won�t be there to give the speech that he should have had the opportunity to deliver years ago, but at least one part of history will be set right. If, in a hundred years, mothers and fathers are still taking their sons and daughters to Cooperstown, they should visit the plaques to Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron. But they should also hear the stories of Gaylord Perry�s spitballs, Ty Cobb�s sharpened spikes, and the decades in which the game excluded players of color. They should read phrases like �the reserve clause,� �antitrust exemption,� �free agency,� �strike,� and �BALCO.� And they should ask questions about how Roger Clemens, his legs like a bull�s, was still able to throw a blistering fastball well into his forties, and about Barry Bonds�s lightning-quick jerk of a swing, and all those baseballs that flew into McCovey Cove in San Francisco. Then they should get to read about what many players of this era did to themselves to be able to toss and bat those balls so well.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2012/11/the-doomsday-ballot.html#ixzz2DcvsokLD

____________________________________________




On Baseball
Hall of Fame Voters Confront the Steroid Era and Its Questions
By TYLER KEPNER
Published: November 27, 2012

excerpt:

Those three words � integrity, sportsmanship, character � are critical to some voters. �In each of those areas, players who used steroids fail the test � period,� Scott Miller, of CBSSports.com, said in an e-mail. �I know it isn�t the Hall of Choirboys. I know the stories about Ty Cobb and others who at times were miscreants. But I also know that the Steroid Era was one of the most shameful chapters in the game�s history. It made a mockery out of the record book. It pushed retired legends into the shadows when they should have remained in the spotlight, and it put the spotlight on others who never should have been there.� Miller continued: �To me, just because the commissioner, the owners and the players� union abdicated their responsibility to the game for so long by looking the other way only increases the obligation for somebody, somewhere, to stand up for what�s right. And if I can do that even from my small corner of the voting world, then I�m grateful to have that chance.� Miller�s colleague, Danny Knobler, said he initially voted for McGwire, but felt bad about it and reconsidered. Knobler now has a zero-tolerance policy. �I decided that for now, I will not vote for anyone where there is a reasonable belief that he could have used,� Knobler wrote in an e-mail. �I know some people dissect a career and try to determine if a player would have been a Hall of Famer without help. While I respect that view, my feeling is that if I�m voting against you, it�s because I believe there�s a reasonable likelihood that you cheated the game. If that�s the case, I don�t want to vote you into the Hall of Fame.�

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/sports/baseball/steroid-era-players-pose-difficulty-for-hall-of-fame-voters.html

[Vic Sage]

Wasn't Andro, at that time, a legal product available over-the-counter in the U.S. And not banned by baseball?

i believe that's correct.

My threshold is, unless you're a worse human being than ty cobb, you are not disqualified for HOF consideration.
put them all in and let god sort them out, says I.

some of baseball's story is grand and some sordid, but its all part of the story. This Orwellian instinct among baseball writers to whitewash the history of the game is grotesque, especially considering they chose to ignore it while it was happening.

good column about the hypocrisy of sports writers on this issue:
http://www.amazinavenue.com/2012/11/29/3702220/groundhog-day-for-hall-of-fame-hypocrisy?ref=yahoo

Edited November 29, 2012 by Guest

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, but there's being a bad human (and Cobb isn't the game's, or the Hall of Fame's, worst) and there's cheating at the game (which, I think the record shows, Cobb did too, if not at the same level as some others).

I don't think it reflects poorly on a writer to make that distinction. Just make it well.

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: Yeah, but there's being a bad human (and Cobb isn't the game's, or the Hall of Fame's, worst) and there's cheating at the game (which, I think the record shows, Cobb did too, if not at the same level as some others). I don't think it reflects poorly on a writer to make that distinction. Just make it well.

and maybe, just maybe, consider using actual evidence?

[Edgy MD]

Let's not get overbroad, here. Jeff Bagwell didn't get to 500 homers or 3000 (or even 2500) hits. He's a great candidate in my mind and a better candidate than some who did reach those milestones.

He got 56% of the vote last year, and most that reach 50% reach 75% so the idea that he's being blackballed without evidence is a little overstated. It sometimes takes folks a while to sort a legacy out of context, or to understand that 1400 walks is a lot.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

I'd vote for:
Bonds
Clemens (reluctantly)
Piazza
Bagwell
Schilling
Walker
Trammell
Raines
Palmeiro
McGwire
Biggio

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: Let's not get overbroad, here. Jeff Bagwell didn't get to 500 homers or 3000 (or even 2500) hits. He's a great candidate in my mind and a better candidate than some who did reach those milestones. He got 56% of the vote last year, and most that reach 50% reach 75% so the idea that he's being blackballed is a little overstated. It sometimes takes folks a while to sort a legacy out of context.

time? they have 5 years. 6 now. voters have indeed come out and said it's basically their own personal suspicions that he took something that is why they're keeping him out. He looks like a Hall of Famer to me and I've ready plenty of convincing cases for him and none against him (he didn't get 500 homers or 2500 hits isn't one). Yeah, he'll eventually get in, but that doesn't mean he's not being snubbed.

[metsmarathon]

Nymr83 wrote: metsmarathon wrote: pretty sure piazza admitted to trying andro or something in either college or the minors and said he didn't like it or it didn't help and he stopped. Wasn't Andro, at that time, a legal product available over-the-counter in the U.S. And not banned by baseball?

yes. and it was legal in america and in baseball in 1998, too.

now, that legality was through a loophole/oversight built into the law, but it was still legal and allowed and pervasive.

in 1997 it was banned by hte olympics, and in 2004 its sale in the us was banned, and it was officially made a controlled substance, making it "illegal".

now, it's certainly fair to argue that it's use prior to 1997 and certainly 2004 was at best gray in a world of black and white, but to claim that anyone who so much as touched the stuff prior to that time (and even after) is a dirty rotten awful cheater who should never ever never be allowed enshrinement into the hall.

in baseball today, many first base coaches carry stopwatches to assist baserunners in timing hte pitchers' delivery. carlos beltran for one avails himself of this knowledge to great success. it could well be argued that this is a gray area beyond the pure pastoral beginnings of the sport, and it's certainly envisionable that a future rule change may make such an activity illegal. since carlos beltran were using this crack in the rule of the game for his statistical benefit, would that make him a retroactive cheater who should be prohibited from enshrinement or due recognition of his accomplishments?

what of those players who gain an advantage by smearing the back line of hte batters box? are they not violating a rule and exisitng in the gray inbetween? should this be held against tehm as well?

[Edgy MD]

Ceetar wrote: time? they have 5 years. 6 now. voters have indeed come out and said it's basically their own personal suspicions that he took something that is why they're keeping him out. He looks like a Hall of Famer to me and I've ready plenty of convincing cases for him and none against him (he didn't get 500 homers or 2500 hits isn't one). Yeah, he'll eventually get in, but that doesn't mean he's not being snubbed.

Yeah, time. Cream rises to the top and oil separates itself from water at different rates depending on volume and concentration. It's a tough job drawing distinctions, made tougher by the huge amount of superlative performances in the era.

If you want to take issue with a particular voter and his explicit explanation for his non-vote, please cite it and do so. But that person wouldn't speak for all the others who elected not to vote for him, and certainly not for the majority who did.

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: If you want to take issue with a particular voter and his explicit explanation for his non-vote, please cite it and do so. But that person wouldn't speak for all the others who elected not to vote for him, and certainly not for the majority who did.

no? rumors spread like wildfire and these guys respect each other. When one person writes he thinks Bagwell did something, some others might waver and think to themselves "hmm, makes sense at least.." It's hardly just one or two guys who have engaged in this holier than thou judgement on baseball players and PEDs. There are columns and columns written up already about specific voters. Just google "I'm not voting for Bagwell" if you haven't already gotten the gist of it.

[Edgy MD]

Ceetar wrote: no?

No.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I get your point, but there ARE more than a few. I've read more "he should wait because of the accusations" or "no cheaters" justifications on him than "he wasn't THAT good a player" ones.

See here, here and here (that last being a vote FOR Bagwell THIS year by admitting what he did LAST year), for starters.

[Edgy MD]

I'm sure there are several.

My point, and I make clear that I support Bagwell's candidacy, only is that sorting out folks and separating their performance from the realities of the era is hard, and I think I understand the restraint.

My main complaint with the no voters is that they might withhold the vote in one year based on suspicions and not spend at least a little time in the next year, as reporters, pursuing those suspicions.

[Edgy MD]

By the way, big fat vote for Schilling.

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: By the way, big fat vote for Schilling.

I don't know if it's big and fat, but yeah. Haven't dug into numbers as much with him. his ERA seems a little high, but it does look like that's inflated a little around the beginning/end of his career. Quite a few impressive years and dominating years. 300 Ks twice. Damn good postseason numbers.

Damn, 15 complete games, 300 Ks, led the lead in innings pitched with 268.2 and not even a singular Cy Young vote?


he's a damn Phillie though.

[Edgy MD]

He was a Phillie before they were the damn Phillies, and that robbed him of a more than a few numbers in the win column, I think.

Tyler Kepner just posted this.

Here's the complete list of pitchers in MLB history with 3,000+ strikeouts and fewer than 750 walks: Curt Schilling.

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: He was a Phillie before they were the damn Phillies, and that robbed him of a more than a few numbers in the win column, I think. Tyler Kepner just posted this. Here's the complete list of pitchers in MLB history with 3,000+ strikeouts and fewer than 750 walks: Curt Schilling.

I don't hate him because he was a Philly, just upset they'd get another hat is all. That was actually Ruben Amaro Jr's last year in the majors. Yeah, I imagine wins and ERA is what hurt him, pre-moneyball revolution or whatever. Hoffman probably shouldn't have gotten that many votes as a reliever either, and then there were the Randy Johnson votes despite the league switch.

Man, '98 was a crazy year wasn't it? pitching wise too.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

I was voting for Schilling before it was cool.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

Here's the complete list of pitchers in MLB history with 3,150+ strikeouts and fewer than 761 walks: Pedro Martinez.

[Edgy MD]

Cool things about Curt Schilling:

[*:1uxtf7s3]3,000+ strikeouts and fewer than 750 walks[/*:m:1uxtf7s3]
[*:1uxtf7s3]Roger Clemens-like, without being Clemens.[/*:m:1uxtf7s3]
[*:1uxtf7s3]Utterly disowned Roger Clemens. (I hope he hasn't gone back on that.)[/*:m:1uxtf7s3]
[*:1uxtf7s3]300 strikeouts twice.[/*:m:1uxtf7s3]
[*:1uxtf7s3]His middle name is "Montague."[/*:m:1uxtf7s3]
[*:1uxtf7s3]Raised millions for the fight against ALS.[/*:m:1uxtf7s3]
[*:1uxtf7s3]Looked like a fat little short-order cook next to Randy Johnson on all those magazine covers they shared back in 2001.[/*:m:1uxtf7s3]
[*:1uxtf7s3]Was a big part of the playoff win that utterly exploded the feeling of entitlement an entire generation of Yankee fans was comfortable with.[/*:m:1uxtf7s3]
[*:1uxtf7s3]A huge part, actually. Hurt them badly twice, in fact.[/*:m:1uxtf7s3]
[*:1uxtf7s3]11-2 with a 2.23 ERA in the post-season, with 120 strikeouts in 133.1 innings, against only 25 walks. With a post-season record like that, I'd vote Steve Trachsel into the Hall of Fame.[/*:m:1uxtf7s3][/list:o:1uxtf7s3]