2014-15 Hall of Fame elections

ya - *just* missed.

Raines' vote total went down last year. His chances aren't looking good.

I was going to say that Raines is headed for the "golden era" committee (what an awful name), but I see he falls well outside the cut-off date. Will that cut-off be revised every few years? Is there still a regular Veterans Committee? I've lost track...He'll get in somehow, at some point.

i know. dontwanttoliveonthisplanetanymore.jpg

xpost - he will get in even if i have to sneak in a home-make plaque myself.

Nice that two Expos will go in this year, though. Imagine if they'd hung on to Johnson, still traded for Pedro, and had them together in the mid-late '90s. That's a next-level Johnson/Schilling .

Something they do yearly on James's site:

http://www.billjamesonline.com/2015_bjol_hof_ballot/

wowowow nice to have a ballot that isn't overstuffed

Randy Johnson
Pedro Martinez
Curt Schilling
John Smoltz
Kenny Lofton
Kevin Brown

depressing to see all these massive-hall ballots in the comments tho

also i can't comment

I cut-and-paste a comment for Kevin once--if there's something you want to say, post it here and I'll move it over there (making it clear it's not me).

nah thanks tho. i just wanted to vote. but apparently bill wants me to pay 3 bucks a month for the privilege of voting alongside enlightened baseball fans who put bernie williams on their ballots without irony

If you're saying James's readership is unenlightened...I'll take a pass on that one.

I will say that $3 a month for the most influential baseball writer ever doesn't seem all that unfair.

naaaaaah it is for me

and i don't think the paid accounts are any more or less 'enlightened' than any other ball fans. keeping the voting behind the paywall just rubs me the wrong way.

Enlightened is your word, and I'm not sure where you get me saying there's a correlation between a paywall and the level of discussion...$3 is too much for you, because you have little interest in James--that stands to reason. I think for those of us who pay it, it's amazingly cheap. Especially given the opportunity to engage in some back-and-forth with James. I only wish I had a chance to do the same with Pauline Kael or Greil Marcus.

Bernie Williams falls well short of a HOF career in terms of his career numbers, but from 1995 to 2002, when he was the centre fielder on a team that won four WS, his 7-year peak (37.5 WAR) was not that far below the average HOF centre fielder (43.5). He was exactly the kind of player who gets overlooked, because he did a number of things well instead of one or two things really well. He's hardly the most egregious name to put on a HOF ballot.

i'm sure he's a hall of fame guitarist

I'm 100% behind Trammell in the HOF.

You would have to be quite the ballplayer to be in front of him in the HOF.

I can only read part of this, and probably the same for you:

http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/buster-olney/post?id=8805&ex_cid=Insider_share_8805_Why+I%27m+abstaining+from+HOF+voting

>To repeat: I think Mussina, Schilling and Raines and others are Hall of Famers, but it’s better for their candidacy if I don’t cast a ballot.

cuts out before I can any sense of his logic here.

the electorate is the problem

As it stands, once you are eligible to vote for the Hall of Fame, you get that vote for life, which means that a great many voters who are no longer covering baseball — including many who never really covered baseball in a meaningful way — get a vote. Editors who oversaw baseball writers for a time. People who covered baseball for a few minutes during the Carter Administration but later went on to do other things. At the moment, the BBWAA will take away everyday credentials from a member if he or she is not affiliated with a BBWAA-approved outlet for two years, yet it will not take away a Hall of Fame vote from someone who has had no professional need to pay attention to baseball for decades.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/12/05/the-hall-of-fame-ballot-limit-is-a-problem-but-the-composition-of-the-electorate-is-a-bigger-one/

Randy Johnson is a photographer now? Here's his photo spread from Slipknot's Knotfest festival in RS:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/randy-johnson-knotfest-photos-20141030

A couple of pieces on Dick Allen (the Times piece is from yesterday); some context for his malcontent reputation that shouldn't surprise anyone.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/cooperstown-confidential-dick-allen/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/sports/baseball/weighing-the-complexity-of-a-hall-candidate-and-his-times.html?_r=0

nothing from the golden era committee

Disappointing. Dick Allen only fell a vote short (ditto Oliva). Not sure if that's his one chance, or whether there'll be others. I sensed from the Times piece and from a Facebook discussion group I'm on that there was some real advocacy out there for him.

Baseball Writers Assn votes to recommend to Hall of Fame that voters be allowed to vote for up to 12 candidates instead of 10

so here's the full list for 2015 with how long each player's been on the ballot and their previous vote%

Craig Biggio 3rd 74.8%
Mike Piazza 3rd 62.2%
Jeff Bagwell 5th 54.3%
Tim Raines 8th 46.1%
Roger Clemens 3rd 35.4%
Barry Bonds 3rd 34.7%
Lee Smith 13th 29.9%
Curt Schilling 3rd 29.2%
Edgar Martinez 6th 25.2%
Alan Trammell 14th 20.8%
Mike Mussina 2nd 20.3%
Jeff Kent 2nd 15.2%
Fred McGriff 6th 11.7%
Mark McGwire 9th 11.0%
Larry Walker 5th 10.2%
Don Mattingly 15th 8.2%
Sammy Sosa 3rd 7.2%
Randy Johnson 1st
Pedro Martinez 1st
John Smoltz 1st
Gary Sheffield 1st
Brian Giles 1st
Nomar Garciaparra 1st
Carlos Delgado 1st
Darin Erstad 1st
Tom Gordon 1st
Jason Schmidt 1st
Cliff Floyd 1st
Jermaine Dye 1st
Rich Aurilia 1st
Troy Percival 1st
Aaron Boone 1st
Tony Clark 1st
Eddie Guardado 1st

Really is amazing how strong the return candidates are as a group. Who's the worst player among them? Probably one of the bottom two, Mattingly or Sosa, unless you think it's McGriff. And, Sosa's issues aside, that's 600+ HR, almost 500 HR, and a guy who was brilliant for a short period of time.

Oops--missed Lee Smith's name. Most people would pick him.

Results for the poll Dave Fleming runs:

http://www.billjamesonline.com/2015_bjol_hof_results/

LOL "at I really respect Schilling for being a complete idiot with no filter" comment.

asserting that the single most awful personal life thing about a baseball player is a factor that makes you (the writer) even more likely to respect him is confounding as fuck, and I say that as a sox fan

I think the quotation marks are a stretch, Alex.

While I seldom share either his political or scientific opinions, I always appreciated his willingness to put himself out there. Schilling seems like one of those people who is fundamentally honest; one of those persons who can’t help but be themselves. This means saying what they think, even if those thoughts occasionally cause controversy. I like people like this: they seem somehow more true than all of us who end up living multiple versions of ourselves. In an era when most athletes stay behind the curtain, it was nice to have a guy who didn’t come to us filtered through the reports of others.

I'd hardly say that's branding him an idiot.

I'm branding him a complete idiot. Fleming is politely skirting around him being a complete idiot.

I understand that you feel that way. But I don't see that Fleming is politely skirting around anything he feels himself--you're conflating your opinion with his.

Sure so what?

Well...I don't know. That presenting your own opinion as someone else's is misleading?

That was my interpretation of that paragraph. If I didn't make it clear that's my opinion I'm sure that Dave Fleming will live.

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/what-would-strategic-hall-of-fame-voting-look-like-010115

wholeheartedly endorse this

Randy Johnson – best left handed starter of his generation and a unique player.
Pedro Martinez –arguably the hardest right hander to hit at his peak, just nasty. At his peak, he’s as good it gets.
John Smoltz – I think the guy has a decent shot to go in on first ballot it seems, although I don’t think he was quite that good. He was very good and should be in the hall. Smoltz was the most overpowering of the big 3. Verlander kind of reminds me of Smoltz.

Gary Sheffield- HOF numbers, but I got to think the roids and just Shef’s mercurial style will drag him off the list and into discussions for a decade or more.
Brian Giles, Nomar Garciaparra- decent career, too many injuries
Carlos Delgado 1st
Darin Erstad- had one great season and a couple decent ones. Dude liked to get his shirt dirty.
Tom Gordon- awesome nickname, ties to pop culture with Steven King…good pitcher and with better health might have taken that next step.
Jason Schmidt- best pitcher in the NL for a couple years
Cliff Floyd- Nice career, maybe not as great as expected. He’s kind of a step down from Crime Dog.
Jermaine Dye- This was a guy Atlanta moved probably too early, although he had some lost seasons. He was really good in his 30s with the White Sox. I still don’t quite get how his career ended, as that still seems weird.
Rich Aurilia- He had some good seasons and some injuries. The guy had some pop for a shortstop.
Troy Percival- decent closer
Aaron Boone- Never as good as advertised but people know who he is for that HR against the Red Sox. As a Reds fan, I dug it when him and his brother played in Cincy and would have liked to have had some of those bats with the pitching they have had the past couple years.
Tony Clark- Best player on some crappy Tigers clubs.
Eddie Guardado- he pitched a lot, dude had some flair on the mound.

Delgado was a step beneath the Crime Dog too, still a very solid player.

BP's staff of 40 votes

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=25275

if only Tim Raines had that much support with the rest of the voters.

I wonder how two presumably enlightened voters (or maybe it was the same person) decided that Johnson and Pedro didn't deserve a vote.

that person or persons included them on the unlimited ballot so they just pulled the "doesn't need my help" strategy

what i want to know is why the h*ck someone votes for bonds but not clemens

Okay. I can understand (without necessarily agreeing) doing that for the actual HOF, but strategic voting on a make-believe ballot strikes me as a little silly.

well looking at walker's limited vs unlimited votes it might not be nuts

Posnanski recently had a good column on the same limited/unlimited disconnect:

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/a-hall-of-fame-experiment/

the HOF is also make-believe

nah man, it's real! i've been there and beheld it with mine own eyes!

chitlin circuit then

Mickey Morandini ftw

https://twitter.com/BenLindbergh/status/553576841408020481

my man

The newest members of the Baseball Hall of Fame will be revealed on Tuesday, and three overpowering aces of the 1990s — Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz — seem certain to be cast in bronze in Cooperstown.

Among them, they made 26 All-Star teams and won nine Cy Young Awards. They collected 735 victories and 11,113 strikeouts. Some of the game’s greatest hitters quaked in their presence.

Not Mickey Morandini.

Morandini was a second baseman for 11 seasons in the majors. He once turned an unassisted triple play, and Baseball-Reference.com lists his nickname as Dandy Little Glove Man. He never hit .300 in a season, but when he faced those pitchers, he became Rogers Hornsby. Morandini stepped into the box more than 100 times against Smoltz, Martinez and Johnson and hit .352.
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“There’s just certain pitchers you pick up the ball well against and certain pitchers you don’t,” Morandini said Monday from his home in Pennsylvania. “I can name a handful of pitchers who threw probably 75 or 80 miles an hour, and I couldn’t sniff them. I can’t tell you how many ground balls to second I hit off Bob Tewksbury.”

It is one of baseball’s endearing charms that an otherwise ordinary player can sometimes own a legend. Over three starts in 1965, at the height of his powers, Sandy Koufax was flummoxed by a jocular backup catcher for the Cardinals. The catcher went 5 for 6 with a double and a home run off Koufax in those games, and then Koufax walked him intentionally.

The catcher’s name? Bob Uecker.

Morandini was a better hitter than Uecker, who turned his .200 average into a career in comedy and broadcasting. Morandini, a Class AAA coach who aspires to manage in the majors, batted .268 for his career. He appeared in the All-Star Game in 1995 as a backup to Craig Biggio, who could also be elected on Tuesday.

But while Morandini could handle Smoltz (.344), he was hopeless against Tewksbury (.133). He faced Martinez 30 times and hit .370. He faced Omar Daal 30 times and hit .185. He could always turn on fastballs, he said.

“It was a gift, I guess,” Morandini said. “A lot of repetition, a lot of work.”

The games against Smoltz and Martinez, though, were more fun than work. Mariano Duncan, a right-handed hitter who was Morandini’s teammate with the Phillies, could not touch Smoltz’s slider and dreaded the thought of facing him. Morandini, a left-handed hitter, would play instead and hack at the first fastball.

“Normally when Smoltz got me, he had a good split-finger, and on days when he also had that slider working and it was really sharp, he’d give guys fits,” Morandini said. “That’s why you never wanted to be up there with two strikes off him.”

Smoltz was a master of the postseason, 15-4 in his career, but his first loss came to Morandini’s Phillies in the 1993 National League Championship Series. Smoltz fanned 10 but allowed two unearned runs and a pivotal single to a pitcher, Danny Jackson. Before he could pitch a seventh game, the Phillies won the series in six when Morandini knocked out Greg Maddux with a triple.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story

That was also the season Morandini first faced Martinez, before Martinez was traded from the Dodgers to the Expos for Delino DeShields. Morandini would often face Martinez in the N.L. East and remembers how Martinez’s curveball and changeup improved in Montreal, how he learned to pitch and not just throw heat.

Morandini also remembers a brawl when Martinez charged the mound against Mike Williams, firing his helmet in a rage.

“Pedro was just wild enough that you couldn’t get comfortable at times,” Morandini said. “He’d put you on your butt any time he wanted to, and then when he went to the A.L. and didn’t have to hit, he could do it at will.”

Still, Morandini’s fastball-hunting plan often worked. It was less effective against Johnson, whom he faced while playing for the Cubs in 1999. A right-handed hitter, Gary Gaetti, had become ill, putting a reluctant Morandini into action.

“As frightening as it was for some right-handers to face Pedro and Smoltz, that’s how frightening it was for me to face Randy,” Morandini said. “He was dealing. I don’t even think I swung in my first at-bat because I really didn’t see it.”

Yet somehow, after that strikeout, Morandini pulled a first-pitch triple down the right-field line in his next at-bat. His reward: a starting assignment against Johnson the next time the Cubs faced the Diamondbacks. Morandini went 0 for 3 with a walk that day but did not strike out.

Johnson led Arizona to a championship in 2001 with help from Curt Schilling, a teammate of Morandini’s in Philadelphia who is also up for the Hall. The voters have a blind spot regarding Schilling, who has not topped 40 percent in his first two appearances on the ballot despite the best strikeout-to-walk ratio of the 20th century.

“He thrived in big games,” Morandini said of Schilling, who was 11-2 in the postseason. “That’s what he lived for.”

One of the biggest games of Morandini’s career, at least at the time, was on Sept. 8, 1998, when Mark McGwire trotted right by him as he rounded the bases on his 62nd home run. It broke Roger Maris’s single-season homer record and was heralded as an epic moment.

Now McGwire, who has never received even 25 percent of the vote, is in danger of falling off the ballot. Like other giants of the time — Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens — McGwire has ties to steroids that give him little hope of election.

“It’s tainted,” Morandini said. “It’ll always be tainted. There were some of the best athletes to ever play the game in that era, but are they Hall of Famers? Probably, by their stats. But there will always be some issues with what went on, and a lot of those guys obviously aren’t going to make it.”

Still, some players will make it on Tuesday, most likely that group of aces. They all achieved excellence, and they all felt the wrath of a dandy little glove man named Mickey.

"Dandy Little Glove Man" is a great moniker

http://www.warm-mouse-heated-keyboard.com/images/micky.gif

he used to work out with my american legion team when he was home from college. best arm of any fielder i ever met, wasn't enough to stay at short.

aside from his lousy arm, Piazza's defense was pretty damn good

http://mets360.com/?p=24200

unit going in as a d-back

lol'd at first and then remembered that it makes the most sense

good for them

Seems fair. Most successful years were there.

kind of a misnomer for "chooses barely legible logo for plaque"

ie i'm still free to think of him as a Mariner.

also if he left the cap blank ppl would think he was from 1884.

i wasn't really around then but johnson as a mariner just seems like a prelude for the relevant years.

http://i.imgur.com/H54qV01.jpg

i'll just picture this

I said on a Facebook group that even though Johnson is still basically a Mariner to me, he has to go in as a Diamondback; easy call.

it's NOT "going in" -- it's just the goddamn plaque. THERE IS NO OTHER FACTOR INVOLVED IN THIS CHOICE.

yeah shouldn't be surprising that he is entering the hall of fame as a member of the diamondbacks

are you secret zlyon?

he is dead i am the replacement morbs troller

when i visited the hall of fame, i went in as a blue jay!

whatever happened to jqhiggins aka the other orioles fan

i went in as a Brooklyn Bushwick

whatever happened to jqhiggins aka the other orioles fan

― mookieproof, Friday, January 16, 2015 9:43 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he is dead there can only be one

so do i need to watch any speeches from yesterday?

Pedro dancing of course.

also still sad at the non-inclusion of Minoso.

so, fewer voters

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/baseball-joe/blog/p-r-or-not-hall-change-is-good-one-072815