metirish

Ballot 9, 10 and 11 https://twitter.com/ShutTheDore/status/1731652181445533793 https://twitter.com/ShutTheDore/status/1731736176300527843

Yes I went with Cookie , plus Judge is up top on REGIFTED

I like him, although I think as an outfield we haven't been hitting a lot of home runs

Oh wow , thanks

Won? What does that even mean? And I totally agree with FK , wait and see , Jon

How to properly pronounce Kelenic ? Is it Kell-en-ich ? Or Ke-len-ic? Or something else ?

Excellent headline, I was sure it was a general post about the players signed so far

Some conflicting reports, Mets are out , then still in, still, I'd be surprised if we get him

Must bring back some memories?

Early but anyway here's the latest count

Interesting ballot

Nope, or Wagner , looking stark for Wright too

Not every move can be a banger , having said that I've never heard of him

Braves should Cease and desist

Thought he was a basketball guy?

Ah ok, thanks

So far only one voter out of five posted (Rubin) voted for Wright, how many votes would he need to reach that 5%?

Same , I thought Serevino was the guy that was drunk in the clubhouse?

Jayson Stark makes a case for David Wright Stark :One-And-Done? No! Why David Wright deserves a long look on the Hall ballot It was the day before Thanksgiving, just last week. So, much like you, I was thinking about turkey and mashed potatoes more than I was thinking about iconic Mets of the 21st century. But then an always-thoughtful American League executive texted me, unprompted, with this important Baseball Hall of Fame bulletin: Kirby Puckett is a Hall of Famer, so why isn't David Wright? OK then. We interrupt those dreams of the 5,000 calories I was about to digest to thank him for that thought, because it's not just holiday-eating season. It's Hall of Fame season. So naturally, ever since that text arrived, I've devoted way too many waking hours reflecting on the special career of David Wright. Here's what I've concluded about the Mets' longtime third baseman/face of the franchise: • His career ended way too soon, thanks to debilitating back, neck and shoulder troubles that wiped out his days as a full-time player after his age-31 season. • So is he a clear-cut Hall of Famer, let alone a guy who is about to rumble into Cooperstown on his first spin through this ballot? No chance. • But does he have a case more compelling than you might expect, especially in an era when voters seem to be shifting away from those magic counting numbers of yesteryear and gravitating toward players with big-time, impactful peaks? He does. So before we get to that case, I have one holiday wish for how Wright's first ride on the Hall of Fame roller coaster will wind up this winter: He needs to survive Year 1 to make it to Year 2! I would hate to see David Wright added to the sport's long list of embarrassing one-and-dones. In the words of that same AL exec, who had no vested interest in this topic by the way: That would be terrible. So exactly how terrible? I have some thoughts on that. The All One-and-Done team. By and large, when my good friends in the Baseball Writers' Association of America vote, we're mostly not the knuckleheads you undoubtedly think we are. We get lots and lots and lots of these votes right. No kidding. But we have whiffed on some really good players, who deserved better than to get booted off the ballot after one appearance because they didn't get at least 5 percent of the vote. Here's a partial list of our worst one-and-dones, just from the last decade — and I didn't even include any obvious PED luminaries: 2022 — Mark Teixeira 2019 — Lance Berkman, Roy Oswalt 2018 — Johan Santana, Johnny Damon 2017 — Jorge Posada 2016 — Jim Edmonds 2015 — Carlos Delgado 2014 — Kenny Rogers, Luis Gonzalez 2013 — Kenny Lofton, David Wells In our defense, we were dealing with massively overstuffed ballots in many of those years and not enough slots to include everybody. Still, every player on that list except Posada (42.7 WAR) and Delgado (44.4) finished his career with at least 50 wins above replacement (the Baseball Reference version). Edmonds and Lofton were in the 60s. So it's hard to believe that not one of them collected enough votes to get even a second look. That's just awful. It's also had an impact on how I vote. If I'm worried a player with that good a career could be an endangered one-and-done species, I've started doing my part to make sure he stays above 5 percent in his first year. I'd prefer not to vote that way. I'd much rather rewrite or repeal the 5 percent rule. But if the Hall is going to force us to grapple with both that rule and a 10-player limit, it's pushing us into ballot-management mode. So we'll have to do what we'll have to do. Now, with that out of the way, back to the fascinating case of David Wright. Wright's first 10 seasons were spectacular. If we'd been writing a pick-the-active-Hall-of-Famers column a decade ago, 10 seasons into Wright's career, he'd have zoomed right to the top of that list, alongside Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera and Joe Mauer, who also is making his first appearance on the ballot this year. Wright was still only 30 years old after those first 10 seasons (2004-13). And his eyeball-grabbing stat line looked like this: .301/.382/.506/.888 slash line 222 HR, 183 SB 46.5 Baseball Reference WAR 48.7 FanGraphs WAR • How stellar were those numbers? For one thing, Wright had more bWAR, through 10 seasons, than 20 current Hall of Fame position players, whose careers began in the expansion era (1961-present), had at the same point. • Also, only six retired third basemen from that era were ahead of him on the WAR leaderboard through their first 10 seasons. All six are in the Hall of Fame: Wade Boggs, Mike Schmidt, Ron Santo, George Brett, Chipper Jones and Scott Rolen. • And let's not underestimate Wright's combo of power and speed. A mere four players from that era — at any position — rolled up that many homers, steals and wins above replacement in their first 10 seasons. How about this foursome: Mike Trout, Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonds and … David Wright. • Finally, how many players, whose careers began in that era, had that many wins above replacement, that many homers, that many steals and that good a slash line after 10 seasons? It's only two, believe it or not: David Wright … and Mike Trout. But let's keep going, because you should know how Wright's full career stacks up against the greatest third basemen of all time. Wright had eight seasons with an OPS+ of 124 or better. So how many third basemen in history had that many seasons that were that much better than league average (with at least 475 plate appearances)? Well, only three finished their careers with more than eight of those seasons: Schmidt (11), Eddie Mathews (11) and Brett (10). Plus there were four others, besides Wright, with exactly eight: Chipper, Boggs, Santo and Rolen. And all seven of those third basemen have plaques in Cooperstown. Wright had five seasons with at least 40 doubles and 20 homers. So is that good? It seems good. In fact, it's the most by any third baseman in history — two more than anyone else who ever played there. He once spun off four straight seasons (2005-08) with at least 70 extra-base hits. That's monster production at third base, friends. The only third baseman in history with a longer streak is Nolan Arenado, with five — all in his Rockies years, with some minor assistance from Coors Field. But back at sea level, the only other third baseman who even had four in a row was some guy named … Mike Schmidt. And Wright had six four-win seasons* (or better) in nine years (2005-13). OK, that's not a record. But it's more than Manny Machado has as a third baseman (five), just to pick a name that got my attention. And it's a reminder of Wright's consistent excellence in those first nine full seasons of his career. (*via Baseball Reference WAR) So about that Kirby Puckett comp … David Wright isn't the first player to find himself in that if Kirby Puckett is a Hall of Famer discussion. I'm sure he won't be the last. Not that Puckett's first-ballot election in 2001 was any sort of blight on the process. But because the Twins' center fielder awoke one day in spring training 1996 and found himself essentially blind in one eye, his career was way too short (12 seasons). So that opens the door for comparisons to other players whose Cooperstown path was also rudely interrupted by health issues beyond their control. All right, so how does Wright stack up against Puckett? Incredibly well … if you choose the right metrics. Such as these, for instance: STAT WRIGHT PUCKETT fWAR 51.2 44.9 bWAR 49.2 51.2 HR 242 207 SB 196 134 OPS+ 133 124 wRC+ 133 122 WPA 30.2 27.0 JAWS* 44.3 44.4 WAR7** 39.5 37.6 (*The Jay Jaffe metric that factors in both career WAR and seven-year peak WAR.) ( **A way to measure a player's peak, via combined WAR over his seven best seasons.) So by all those measures, does David Wright look like a Hall of Famer if Kirby Puckett is a Hall of Famer? I'll say. Except … We left some really important other factors out of that chart! Let's discuss. • For one thing, volume does (and should) still matter. So it's not exactly irrelevant that Puckett played nearly 200 more games (1,783) than Wright (1,585). • It's even more relevant that Puckett topped 2,300 hits, but Wright never made it to 1,800 (finishing with 1,777). It has been nearly 50 years since the writers elected any player with fewer than 2,000 hits (Ralph Kiner in 1975). • And then there are all those bonus points Puckett rolled up … by winning two World Series (to Wright's zero) … by winning a batting title (while Wright never led his league in any traditional stat) … by winning six Gold Glove awards (to Wright's two) … and by making 10 All-Star teams (to Wright's seven) … among other things. So once you factor all that in, is David Wright a Hall of Famer? I can hear the Andruw Jones Fan Club howling from here. If we based our Hall of Fame votes just on how everybody's career looked through age 30, we'd have a very different Hall than we have now. So we're traveling down a rocky road if we start selectively deciding to overlook lack of longevity in some players but not others. Trust me. I get that. But there's also this: Hall of Fame voting in 2024 should never be confused with Hall of Fame voting in, say, 1954. Voters are different and better informed, with more tools to make these votes than ever. But players are also different — which means those magic numbers that used to drive these votes don't look so magical anymore. This is not a David Wright is a Hall of Famer and anybody who doesn't think so is an idiot kind of column. This is a column that says I've seen what can happen when we allow ourselves time to give the best players of their era the long, thoughtful look they deserve. Ask Edgar Martinez. Ask Tim Raines. Ask Larry Walker. And now it's David Wright's turn. He's earned that long look. So let's hope he gets it. All it will take is for a couple of dozen voters (at least) to do the Wright thing. https://theathletic.com/5100592/2023/11/30/david-wright-hall-of-fame-case?source=user-shared-articlehttps://theathletic.com/5100592/2023/11/30/david-wright-hall-of-fame-case?source=user-shared-article

https://twitter.com/ShutTheDore/status/1730080178334728341

Hopefully the X-ray comes back clean

Absolute banter

⚾️ Immaculate Grid 241 9/9: Rarity: 134 IMMACULATE! 🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩 Play at: https://immaculategrid.comhttps://immaculategrid.com @immaculategrid x @baseball_ref Bannister - Dotel - Brett Alomar-Eckersly - Manny Pedro - Taguchi -Schmidt

I wish Wagner got more love