2014-15 Hall of Fame elections

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!

One of those vote trackers--not sure if it's the only one:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AmkBNPY405WAdFBOUVBhbjNRZjYzbWI2d201bm0tSmc&toomany=true

He's got about 120 ballots on there right now.

ESPN's voters:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/12118585/craig-biggio-randy-johnson-pedro-martinez-mike-piazza-tim-raines-john-smoltz-elected-espn-2015-baseball-hall-fame-ballot

Surprised by Raines' strength relative to Piazza and (especially) Bagwell.

2 votes for mussina smdh

Votes can be explained lots of different ways, but I look for internal consistency. I expect Bonds and Clemens to have identical support, whatever that is. I expect Bagwell and Piazza to be very close--both near 100%, both around 70%, whatever, but not separated by 20% (conceding it's a small sample, and that just means two or three votes). With Raines's support so strong, I assume it's a group with a solid sabermetric grounding--and if so, Mussina getting only two votes makes no sense. (Only two votes doesn't even make sense by traditional wins/ERA criteria, not unless you make zero adjustment for era.)

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

― linda cardellini (zachlyon)

i wonder if there are a few voters who are skeezed out by the mindy mccready thing.

had no idea about that

The support that Smoltz is getting (compared to Schilling and Mussina) is just baffling.

Mussina's timing and luck couldn't have been worse. Nine top six Cy Young finishes, but he never won. If Roger Clemens didn't get all that run support in '01 and go 20-3 then he might have won (I think he had the worst run support of any qualified starter that year, or close to it). He joined the Yankees the year after they won 4 WS in five years, and retired the year before they won their next one, so he wasn't a "winner". He starred for those great Orioles teams of the late 90's, but never won a championship because of, yeah, the Yankees. He came into the league just as offense started to spike and retired just as it nosedived. He could have pitched another year or two and maybe hit some round numbers in his career stats (300 W, 3000 K) but didn't. And now he's fighting for attention on the ballot with Unit, Pedro, Smoltz, and others. Just in time to hit the ballot when the eligibility period got lowered from 15 to 10 years. Two years ago his top competition would have been Jack Morris.

that is a perfect storm of circumstances virtually guaranteeing that he won't get in for like, 2 more years?

interesting re: the ESPN voter results (granted small sample size, relative quality of voters, ESPN zing here) that you can't even predict the sanctimony of baseball writers w/much certainty given that piazza gets 13 votes on that list and bonds/Clemens both get 9.

Jay Jaffe's short explanation expanded on in the BP podcast: "Smoltz is famous."

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=25288

He thinks Mussina will take 6-8 years.

ha! can't argue with that. was just about to listen to effectively wild

One obvious factor--Jaffe probably mentions this--is how Smoltz is inseparable from Maddux and Glavine for most people. Plus he had those two plus Cox very vocally advocating for him last year. Not saying those things should matter, but they do.

yeah he made a point of highlighting the maddux coattails/90s barves appreciation factor

here's his recent ballot column

http://www.si.com/mlb/2014/12/26/jaws-2015-hall-of-fame-ballot-final-ten

Posnanski's rundown and ballot:

http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/joe-posnanski-hall-of-fame-ballot/

I like that he scrapped strategic voting and just went with the 10 he thought were best. "The Hall of Fame was basically invented so that one day Pedro Martinez would be in it."

With 30% of the vote accounted for, it looks like there might be four this year--Biggio's still at 82%, Smoltz at 86%, and I think they'll both do all right with more traditional (stodgy if you prefer, clueless if you insist) voters who don't make their ballots public. Piazza's at 78% right now, and I expect he'll drop below.

i generally prefer to avoid hall of fame stuff because it's a ridiculous process run by sanctimonious assholes. and never more evident than with the whole 'first-ballot' shit. fuck these guys 4eva

no Tim Raines.
P Martinez, Johnson, Smoltz and Biggio: in.

How much did Piazza miss by? Ludicrous.

Randy Johnson 534 (97.3) Year 1
Pedro Martinez 500 (91.1) 1
John Smoltz 455 (82.9) 1
Craig Biggio 454 (82.7) 3
Mike Piazza 384 (69.9) 3
Jeff Bagwell 306 (55.7) 5
Tim Raines 302 (55) 8
Curt Schilling 215 (39.2) 3
Roger Clemens 206 (37.5) 3
Barry Bonds 202 (36.8) 3

http://bbwaa.com/

hey, Eddie Guardado got a vote

today is yet another day dodger fans punch themselves in the nuts and hate on tommy lasorda for trading pedro for delino deshields

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6rZkUQCEAA1Tli.jpg:large

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