Mike & The Mikettes: 2014 HOF Ballot

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

I think it was a huge fiasco. It's not like there wasn't worthy players on that ballot. There were writers turning in blank ballots as a protest to lower everyone's percentage. My plan makes voting stunt-proof.

I'll find Mark Faller's column from last year. It will make you scream.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

See, here's the thing, FK: when you limit the voting body to "working beat writers," you limit the electors to a group of people who likely watch LESS baseball-- and certainly less out-of-market baseball-- than your average analyst/blogger/involved fan, who can watch 5-10 games a night, and follow the relevant game-to-game stats as they happen, all while the beat writer watches his one game a night. These days, access begets less actual access, and-- apparently-- far less circumspection.

[Frayed Knot]

I agree that it would be better to have a more consistent number of guys getting in each year than it is to have none one season then a bunch the next - but it doesn't always work out that way and rigging the outcome just to make it so would be the worse option IMO.
That whole 'well the guys who get X pct eventually wind up with 3/4' is true ... until it isn't and then you have lowered the standard.

And let's not lose sight of the fact that coming out of the juice era is the major reason for the lower than normal votes in some cases. That's hardly the fault of the writers or of the way the system is set up and if Deadspin, or anyone else for that matter, seeks to crowd-source the "right" answer from fans they're going to find the same lack of consensus about what to do with known users and abusers that the writers are struggling with.



oe: it's not just limited to beat writers. It's members of the BBWAA with at least ten years covering the sport. That includes columnists and the like, and has recently been expanded to include various internet writers, etc.

[Lefty Specialist]

Piazza, Gl@v!ne, Biggio, Maddux. Big Hurt waits a year.

[batmagadanleadoff]

It seems that the older I get, the less I understand. I just took a quick glance at the eligibles and it seems that there's more than 10 that are deserving of enshrinement. If I'm right, then I could justify how some might not get in this year, but only provided that 10 get in. I don't know why some HOF'ers have to wait. Some of your ballots are including a half dozen or so candidates, while at the same time acknowledging that there are other deserving candidates who nevertheless should wait. I still don't know why Yogi Berra didn't get in in his first year of eligibility, or why Tom Seaver is the all-time leader in voting % - with less than 100% of the vote. Seaver should've gotten every vote possible ... along with dozens of other players throughout history. There's probably more than 50 HOF'ers who are no-brainer automatic inner circle MLB'ers who were so great, so transcendent, they make some other HOF'ers look like crapola. Why nobody ever got 100% of the ballot still beats me. Someone left Willie Mays off their ballot? Stan Musial? Mickey Mantle? Explain those omissions to me. Someone doubted Jim Palmer's or Willie Stargell's bona fides?

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: NOBODY living ... with a connection to the game was inducted last year. That means ... a logjam for the foreseeable future that might actually work to PERPETUATE what happened for the next ten years or so, at least... and push some of the finest pitchers and hitters in the game-- like, top-5 best EVER-- to the Veteran's Committee, if then.

I disagree. I'm not necessarily siding with last year's non-vote or boycott, but it shouldn't create a logjam. Unless every season going forward produces more than 10 new eligible HOF-worthy candidates. And that hasn't happened since the initial inductions. And that's only because there was no HOF prior, and the first ballots represented 50 or so years of HOF-less baseball. If there was a moratorium on HOF admission for the next 50 years, the 2063 ballot would undoubtedly include more than 10 eligible inner circle candidates, too. To the extent the voters might create logjams is not really new. They're already creating somewhat of a logjam by enforcing their own self-invented rules about who deserves to get inducted in their first year of eligibility. I mean, if you think that Jim Rice is a HOF'er, then he should've gotten in immediately. 'Cause he didn't get any better during his retirement, waiting out the HOF balloting process.

[Ceetar]

See, here's the thing, FK: when you limit the voting body to "working beat writers," you limit the electors to a group of people who likely watch LESS baseball-- and certainly less out-of-market baseball-- than your average analyst/blogger/involved fan, who can watch 5-10 games a night, and follow the relevant game-to-game stats as they happen, all while the beat writer watches his one game a night. These days, access begets less actual access, and-- apparently-- far less circumspection.

except the vote's not limited to 'working beat writers' but 'guys who at have at least at one point in the near or distant past been working beat writers' meaning there are golf writers voting on the HoF and guys that have admittedly not watched much baseball.

You can argue some based on what you think the Hall is for I guess, but to me it's an extension of the sport and a way to continue to celebrate the greatest players. Sure, some people might not make the cut for greatest in some eyes, but they're still certainly very good players that shouldn't be forgotten. To misconstrue very good players as great once in a while is a minor sin compared to giving us nothing to celebrate at all in a given year for BS reasons like proclaiming yourself the moral authority and ultimate judge of guilt.

All those things are absurd. So is sending in blank ballots to purposely discount other peoples vote.

I mean, last year would've been a spectacle. It probably would've set records in attendance. And that's just for Piazza, a New York legend, not including all the Giants fans in the area and right or wrong, the Bonds drama.

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

I agree about making guys wait. I think it was Phil Niekro who said something like "I guess my stats got better" when he finally made it after like 13 years on the ballot.


I've been thinking about the "watering down" discussion and the 75 percent. (And FK, you know I respect your opinion.)

Say that there were set standards for induction -- say 300 wins for the sake of discussion -- and everybody who hit that number was automatically inducted and everyone who did not is not. If the ruling group suddenly said that the new number would be 250 wins, that would be lowering the standards.

But we're talking about a percentage of the vote where people casting the ballots have no set criteria, and growing and rather suspect group with varying agendas.

I'm not saying to open the floodgates, but I don't see the sense in making some people wait 15 years because some people casting ballots don't think more than two people should be inducted in a given year, or they're deciding to take a self-aggrandizing stance. Or, if they're not electing people at all when there are people who are over-qualified on the ballot.

(And I certainly don't see the value in electing poor Ron Santo the year after he's dead after debating his candidacy for nearly 40 years. He got screwed.)

[batmagadanleadoff]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: I'm not saying to open the floodgates, but I don't see the sense in making some people wait 15 years because some people casting ballots don't think more than two people should be inducted in a given year, or they're deciding to take a self-aggrandizing stance. Or, if they're not electing people at all when there are people who are over-qualified on the ballot.

The irony is that the writers aren't staving off the floodgates either. In the end, every deserving candidate usually gets in anyway. And to the extent the voters make some mistakes, whether an admission or an exclusion you might disagree with, it's almost always at the fringes, or boundaries of admissions. In the end, the Rod Carews still get in and the Don Bufords don't. So if the voters are withholding votes from knowingly deserving candidates to stem some imaginary tide of entry, it isn't working.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, but justice delayed = justice denied, and all, and while this isn't a matter of justice, it is meaningful to be rewarding some of these guys in a timely matter. Marvin Miller died unrewarded simply because nobody could agree on the rules.

See, here's the thing, FK: when you limit the voting body to "working beat writers," you limit the electors to a group of people who likely watch LESS baseball-- and certainly less out-of-market baseball-- than your average analyst/blogger/involved fan, who can watch 5-10 games a night, and follow the relevant game-to-game stats as they happen, all while the beat writer watches his one game a night. These days, access begets less actual access, and-- apparently-- far less circumspection. except the vote's not limited to 'working beat writers' but 'guys who at have at least at one point in the near or distant past been working beat writers' meaning there are golf writers voting on the HoF and guys that have admittedly not watched much baseball. You can argue some based on what you think the Hall is for I guess, but to me it's an extension of the sport and a way to continue to celebrate the greatest players. Sure, some people might not make the cut for greatest in some eyes, but they're still certainly very good players that shouldn't be forgotten. To misconstrue very good players as great once in a while is a minor sin compared to giving us nothing to celebrate at all in a given year for BS reasons like proclaiming yourself the moral authority and ultimate judge of guilt.

You mostly have me until here, Ceet. I have no problem with the body proclaiming themselves the ultimate judge of guilt. They are, after all, asked to be the ultimate judge on everything about these careers.

What I have a problem with is the lazy way they exercised their judgment, lumping in with admitted users the likes of Piazza and Bagwell and Biggio and Raines, which to me represents a pretty steep slide downwards in the realm of incriminating evidence.

Raines is a perfect example of a player who may miss out entirely based largely on this deliberate logjam. This is, what, his seventh ballot?

[Guest 86-Dreamer]

Piazza
Bagwell
Biggio
Gl@vi#e
Kent
Maddux
Mussina
Schilling
Trammel
Thomas

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: You mostly have me until here, Ceet. I have no problem with the body proclaiming themselves the ultimate judge of guilt. They are, after all, asked to be the ultimate judge on everything about these careers. What I have a problem with is the lazy way they exercised their judgment, lumping in with admitted users the likes of Piazza and Bagwell and Biggio and Raines, which to me represents a pretty steep slide downwards in the realm of incriminating evidence. Raines is a perfect example of a player who may miss out entirely based largely on this deliberate logjam. This is, what, his seventh ballot?

if they want to be judges, they need hard and fast laws. That means if you haven't turned conclusive evidence in the FIVE YEARS since the player retired, you have to work with what you've got. No "well, let's see if he admits it in the book" nonsense. That's absurd. It's a yes or no question, you've got his stats and records and all that, and no evidence to support not putting him in.

I think it's absurd to keep Bonds (and Clemens) out, but if you want to go that route, even without the actual 'failed test' stuff, I can at least understand the logic and reasoning.And sure, Sosa, McGuire (and none of this 'oh, he admitted it so I'll forgive him' nonsense either.

[MFS62]

My votes go to Piazza, Maddux, Biggio, Bagwell, and Kent.

I know its been a rule for 50 years or so, but I still can't bring myself to vote for a player who was predominantly a DH. National League roots, I guess. Frank Thomas played first base in only 971 of his 2300+ major league games. I'd have to be convinced about him.

Later

[Edgy MD]

Ceetar wrote: I think it's absurd to keep Bonds (and Clemens) out, but if you want to go that route, even without the actual 'failed test' stuff, I can at least understand the logic and reasoning.

If you can understand the logic and reasoning, then it's definitively not absurd. It's just something you disagree with.

Ceetar wrote: And sure, Sosa, McGuire (and none of this 'oh, he admitted it so I'll forgive him' nonsense either.

You disagreeing with it doesn't make it nonsense, either.

Listen, I disagree with their lack of selections last year too. It was lazy and riddled with guilt by association. But guilt does exist, and people have a serious challenge sorting that out, and we ought to at least respect that it's hard. Just effectively saying "I can't figure this out so everyone should be considered absolved" is just as intellectually lazy as saying "I can't figure this out so everyone should be considered guilty."

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Well, yes, but what if it isn't throwing your hands up at first sight of the problem, but a deliberate, deliberated conclusion that we can't ever know not only who did what, but what sort of effect any hypothetical "juice" would have actually HAD? I'm not so sure such a conclusion isn't just plain The Most Reasonable Possible Conclusion.

[Gwreck]

Who SHOULD get in:

[u:1np5wfch]No-Brainers:[/u:1np5wfch]
Bonds
Clemens
Maddux
McGwire
Piazza
Thomas

[u:1np5wfch]Tier 2:[/u:1np5wfch]
Bagwell
Glavine
Raines
Trammell

[u:1np5wfch]Next Year:[/u:1np5wfch]
Biggio
Martinez
Schilling
Walker

[Gwreck]

Who WILL get in:

Maddux. Won't quite beat Seavers record due to some blank ballots or whatever but it'll be close.
---
Morris, I fear. The juxtaposition with Maddux will be amusing, but the voters are dumb.
Biggio, probably. The 3000 hits thing
---
Thomas?

Piazza goes up but remains a bit short. Glavine gets 70% and goes in next year.

[dgwphotography]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I don't understand the desire to get as many people as possible into the Hall. If I was a voter, I doubt I'd ever vote for more than three or four players in a given year. I'd never vote for ten. I seem to be in the minority here, but I want the Hall of Fame to be very exclusive, even though it's already too late for that.

This. So Much this.

Piazza
Maddux
Biggio
Raines

Bonds, Clemens, and Martinez can buy tickets. The rest can wait

[Edgy MD]

But what if there are more than four, and pretty much close to ten, you feel are not only clearly past the post, but clearly above the HOF mean.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Also, if YOU think that 9 or 10 players deserve to be in eventually, but you don't vote for them now, for weird "first-ballot"-type reasons, well... isn't that disingenuous? Isn't that vote becoming less about actual baseball achievement, and more about arbitrary, yearly limits? Isn't that sort of vote more about you than about them, or the game? Are you Angel Hernandez?

A little part of me-- the German part, if I had to guess-- likes the idea of a tiny, superexclusive Hall, player-wise. But since you can't unring the numerous, weird, Vet Committee and Doofy Voting bells of the last several decades, well... I sure as hell don't want a Hall with Bruce Sutter, Catfish Hunter, and Lloyd Waner, and without Jeff Bagwell or Tim Raines or BARRY FUCKING BONDS.

[Frayed Knot]

I've been thinking about the "watering down" discussion and the 75 percent. (And FK, you know I respect your opinion.) Say that there were set standards for induction -- say 300 wins for the sake of discussion -- and everybody who hit that number was automatically inducted and everyone who did not is not. If the ruling group suddenly said that the new number would be 250 wins, that would be lowering the standards. But we're talking about a percentage of the vote where people casting the ballots have no set criteria, and growing and rather suspect group with varying agendas.

But there AREN'T set standards for induction so the threshold remains 75% based on the opinion of those who vote. And, yes, those opinions are going to differ as one man's sure thing is a close miss in another's ballot.
What I don't get is the notion being floated here that these opinions were fine all this time but have suddenly changed to some arbitrary nonsense that needs to be corrected because we didn't like the number of people elected last year. The only thing that's changed recently is that the first crop of steroid-era players are coming for consideration and I think that it's going to be a while until that issue all gets sorted out. But, again, the vox populi vote on this issue is going to be just as varied and the two sides (assuming there are only two) just as antagonistic as they are in the BBWAA voice.

I'm not saying to open the floodgates, but I don't see the sense in making some people wait 15 years because some people casting ballots don't think more than two people should be inducted in a given year, or they're deciding to take a self-aggrandizing stance. Or, if they're not electing people at all when there are people who are over-qualified on the ballot. (And I certainly don't see the value in electing poor Ron Santo the year after he's dead after debating his candidacy for nearly 40 years. He got screwed.)

I don't advocate not voting just for the sake of not voting either. But while stats don't change after retirement sometimes perspectives do so folks are allowed to change their minds from time to time.
A tiny minority of voters (we're talking: you can count 'em on one hand kind of numbers) refuse to vote for ANY 1st ballot guys (hence the non-100% head scratchers) and while I presonally think that's stupid I also realize that it makes no difference to the eventual outcomes. Maddux at "only" 97% will still be in. But the majority of voters aren't limited by any self-imposed constraints and sometimes only two votes means that only two in their minds for that year are worthy of a vote.

Yes, Santo got screwed ... or he was a guy who was undeserving simply because he fell short in the minds of too many people and then was wrongly inducted because of a sympathy vote. It all depends on how one looks at it and I don't find the latter choice any better than the former.

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

Bonds, Clemens, and Martinez can buy tickets. The rest can wait

Here's the part that confuses me. They can wait for ... what? What made Jim Rice and Bert Blyleven better candidates in year 15 than in year 1?

Here's the Faller column I referenced. He was a colleague at the Bridgeport Post years ago.

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/heatindex/articles/20121220nobody-deserves-my-hall-vote-year.html?nclick_check=1


I

am choosing to speak loudly by using silence. This is my way of expressing my anger to baseball. Angry that the powers-that-be turned their backs while this was going on. Angry that it took us so long to shine light on it. If you think I�m being stubborn, illogical or naive, or you think I�m ducking the issue, you are welcome to those opinions. And here�s something else that might push you off the deep end: I probably won�t do the same thing next year. Over time, the debate has gone from outrage to disinterest. The prevailing winds now blow toward a reconciliation of sorts: Baseball�s issues from the past haven�t impacted the Hall of Fame, so why is this stain different? I�m not sure I buy that, but I acknowledge that lots of people are sick of talking about this. Straw polls have made it pretty clear that Bonds, Clemens and Sammy Sosa won�t get enough support for election when the voting results are announced on Jan. 9. But Hall of Fame voters have a history of changing their minds, and I can see some of these players getting voted in some day, maybe even next year. That drives players nuts; they argue that the statistics haven�t changed, so their chances shouldn�t either. But a Hall of Fame is more than a set of impressive numbers. It�s a reflection of the times in a given sport, an assessment of who rose above their peers. The passage of time can impact one�s evaluation. I don�t know what I�ll do next year, but I�m fairly sure I won�t send in a blank ballot. This one-year protest should make my point. I admit to a tiny bit of guilt over possibly keeping out an innocent player by not voting, but I can live with it since there is no one I�d vote for who is in his 15th and final year of eligilibity. I�m not jeopardizing anyone�s legacy.

[HahnSolo]

I really dislike the 15-year window. Make it 2 or 3 years and have no limit on how many guys you can vote on in a given year. Whether you advocate for guys like Rice, Morris, or Blyleven, I see no reason that these guys should twist in the wind forever because voters have the opportunity to "think about them next year."

[Edgy MD]

Well, if the balloting wasn't public, they wouldn't be twisting in the wind, but I have no problem with the extended window. Even though a guy's legacy isn't changing over the time, our understanding of it is, as is our shifting perspective of context in which is legacy occurred. That's the way history works.

[Frayed Knot]

btw, there seem to be two schools of leaving first-timers off the ballot - both of which I disagree with, but here they are:

1) DiMaggio didn't get in on his first shot so nobody gets in
This one may be dying out and it was probably more prevalent among NY-area writers, and possibly Italian-American ones as well, who worshipped JoeD to the point where no one else could possibly match his standard. But there was also no five-year rule then, so the first time DiMag was eligible not everyone was convinced he was going to stay retired (he was only, what? 36*?). By year 2 he got more votes but not enough (one guy said that that was the year he married Monroe so why not wait another year - after all, how good a year could one guy stand?) before finally getting elected on the third go around.
But the larger point is, that without the five year rule there wasn't any kind of rush to get guys elected which is what led to Joe not getting in the first time around, not because there were those who thought he wasn't good enough.

2) Some writers (and fans too for that matter) have created in their minds a kind of two-tiered Hall where only the greatest of the great deserve 1st ballot entries which puts them into some kind of sacred ring of honor above and beyond the others. This is what leads to the 2nd year jump for most players which, even though it's true that those players don't get any greater with an extra year of sitting on their ass, is ultimately harmless in the long run.





* I heard a story just recently that claimed that in Dimaggio's final game he walked off the field mid-inning after failing to get to a ball on defense that he thought he should have (and in his better days, would have) gotten to. I had never heard this before and considering the source--some ESPN discussion involving (what else?) Kobe's new contract that used the Dimag story as an example of "dignified players" who knew when it was time to get out--I tend not to believe it now. But has anyone else ever heard this?

oe: the game description at BB-Ref has DiMaggio walking and later scoring in the Yanqui 3rd but then not coming out for the top of the 4th inning. There had been a Boston single to CF in the top of the 3rd but, of course, no description as to whether that hit was catchable by a younger Super-Joe or whether such a hit was the tipping point to his great pride. What is clear if this account is correct is that he certainly did NOT walk off the field mid-inning unless he first took the field in the 4th but was pulled prior to the first pitch in which case it was probably a designed play to get him some applause for the final game of the season. He hadn't played in games #151-153.

[Edgy MD]

Frayed Knot wrote: 2) ... even though it's true that those players don't get any greater with an extra year of sitting on their ass, is ultimately harmless in the long run.

I'd say it's largely harmless. Not completely.

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

Frayed Knot wrote: btw, there seem to be two schools of leaving first-timers off the ballot - both of which I disagree with, but here they are: 1) DiMaggio didn't get in on his first shot so nobody gets in This one may be dying out and it was probably more prevalent among NY-area writers, and possibly Italian-American ones as well, who worshipped JoeD to the point where no one else could possibly match his standard. But there was also no five-year rule then, so the first time DiMag was eligible not everyone was convinced he was going to stay retired (he was only, what? 36*?). By year 2 he got more votes but not enough (one guy said that that was the year he married Monroe so why not wait another year - after all, how good a year could one guy stand?) before finally getting elected on the third go around. But the larger point is, that without the five year rule there wasn't any kind of rush to get guys elected which is what led to Joe not getting in the first time around, not because there were those who thought he wasn't good enough. 2) Some writers (and fans too for that matter) have created in their minds a kind of two-tiered Hall where only the greatest of the great deserve 1st ballot entries which puts them into some kind of sacred ring of honor above and beyond the others. This is what leads to the 2nd year jump for most players which, even though it's true that those players don't get any greater with an extra year of sitting on their ass, is ultimately harmless in the long run.

I think you are exactly right -- and maybe a little attention-seeking on the part of those voters. Kind of like Brian McCann "enforcing" the unwritten rules. I'd be in favor of making all the ballots public so these guys can defend their choices. The guys who didn't vote for Willie Mays and Hank Aaron should have to defend that.

And, really, who, after a few years, remembers who was a first-ballot guy. Robin Yount was a first-ballot guy. His plaque looks pretty similar to Jim Rice's plaque.

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: 2) ... even though it's true that those players don't get any greater with an extra year of sitting on their ass, is ultimately harmless in the long run. I'd say it's largely harmless. Not completely.

Here's a thought, say they punish Piazza for his era/acne and it takes him 10 years to get in. That's 2023. He retired in 2007 and if you want 'true Piazza' you gotta go back a little further. Anyone that saw him play even close to in his prime will be approaching 30. (an aside here, in that it kind of makes sense. I'm 31 and it's only just recently that I've seen more than one or two electees play) Isn't there value in letting the kid that was 10 when Piazza played in the World Series and became a Mets/baseball fan because of it get to celebrate it while they're still younger, perhaps when they're at a time when other interests might take them away from baseball?

When you take a 8, 10, 12 year old kid to the museum, doesn't it lose some appeal when everyone is "This guy was great...before you were born"

5 years feels like a good time to allow the legacy to settle, but then put the guys in so we can celebrate them.

Part of baseball has always been debate and arguing over who's better. This guy played in that era, this one didn't face segregation, this guy had a larger pitchers mound, this guy took steroids.. It is what it is. Baseball has rules. In the end, the stats and records stand based on those rules, and inventing reasons why you think they shouldn't count, or count less, is absurd.

[Edgy MD]

Regarding the DiMaggio tale, his final game was the last game of that season. So if he suddenly realized he had to honor America by withdrawing at exactly the moment he wasn't able to perform up to his gilded standard (why not quit smoking, you clown?), how remarkable the coincidence that this epiphany took place when his bags were already packed.

And for the record, he was replaced at the top of the fourth inning, not mid-inning, by Archie Wilson.

There was a single to center with two out in the top of the third, so one can imagine that this was the heartbreaking drive the great DiMaggio shamed the gods by failing to get to, but then he stayed in the game as Spec Shea fanned Clyde Vollmer. If he was so distressed by his mortalness, it didn't stop him from taking his turn at bat in the bottom of the third, walking, and scoring on a Berra single.

Next inning. No DiMaggio. Oh, the horror. Attendance was 35,814. All of them heart-in-their-throats historians. A four-year-old Thomas Boswell was said to been led from the field in tears. A 17-year-old David Halberstam had to be hospitalized.

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

Wallace Matthews chimes in today, complete with Yankee worship and the obligatory shot at a Met.


http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/yankees/post/_/id/67233/a-moose-on-the-wall-of-fame

NEW YORK -- The 2014 Hall of Fame ballot was released today, and 19 new names will be on the ballot, including apparent shoo-ins like Greg Maddux and almost-definite throwaways like Armando Benitez.

Bentiez is not a Hall-of-Famer, but he was named to two All-Star teams, got some MVP votes and led the league in saves (topping 40 three times). There are worse players on the ballot.

[seawolf17]

Wally probably doesn't even realize Benitez was a Met. He's probably thinking about Armando's nine innings as a Yankee, which means he falls just six innings short of HOF enshrinement, and the home run he gave up to ol' whatshisname as an O.