Hall of Fame Ballot 2017

smith's at 69% now...i bet he's going to get a lot more votes this year since it's his final season but i'm not expecting him to come close to making it. i feel good about raines.

i felt good about the US election...

i remember feeling good

i don't

Bud Selig, for his Kenesaw Mountain Landis-resolve in staring down the emerging PED problem during the 1990s.

grew it to a $9 billion/year industry, i think that's the relevant fact here.

who's the last commish who didn't get in? Eckert?

Ueberroth, Giamatti, and Vincent aren't in (didn't serve long enough), but I think every commissioner who served 10+ years is in.

I can't think of any specific skill that Selig used to grow the game to 9B/yr, I think that would have happened with just about any other commissioner.

This got things started, unless you count Ripken's streak, which I don't really see from an economic standpoint.

http://sportsthenandnow.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/McGwire-Sosa-3.jpg

http://sportsthenandnow.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/McGwire-Sosa-3.jpg

I can't think of any specific skill that Selig used to grow the game to 9B/yr

of course not, but he'll get the credit anyhoo.

how the hell is Giamatti, not to mention Marvin Miller, not in when a dozen stooges put BOWIE KUHN in? HOF is a joke.

@jonahkeri
Per BBWAA vote: Starting next year, all Hall of Fame ballots will be made public.

https://twitter.com/jonahkeri/status/806184630583967748

Lotta Bill King love in the Bay Area today.

Seeing as the early public ballots tend to be PED-friendly, there's a strong possibility Gary Sheffield's going to come in under 5%--he's 1 for 22 so far.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/12/cardinals-nearing-deal-free-agent-with-dexter-fowler.html

oops, wrong thread

steven marcus, new york newsday

https://twitter.com/Sean_Rosales/status/809162740556300288

52 ballots so far.

1. Raines and Bagwell are going in. They're marching in lockstep, 50 out of 52 both.

2. Right now I-Rod is ahead of Vlad 80% to 71%. I don't know if there's still a late-vote = more-traditional component to the voting--all ballots are public now, right, which would eliminate that. If it is still there, I would expect that gap to narrow and that they'll both be close.

3. Hoffman's at 75%, so I'd say doubtful.

4. Clemens and Bonds are both at 68%--if not this year, maybe they are going to make it before their ten years are up.

5. Edgar and Mussina are doing pretty well at 64%.

Edgar should be doing better!

I agree--he should be in--but he hasn't cracked 45% yet, so if time doesn't run out on him (two more tries after this year, I think), that indicates he may get in at the wire.

The SABR-friendly writers always publicize their ballots first, so Edgar and Mussina will drop a lot. Clemens and Bonds in the upper 60's is surprising though!

126 ballots public, and Clemens and Bonds are at 77%. Maybe not this year, but pretty clearly they are going in.

Love Vlad of course, but him getting into the HoF before Mussina, Edgar and Walker is a bit much.

Very different players, but I might put him on par with Walker. Walker does better on the JAWS scale by 10+ WAR, but I think that's distorted a little bit by his years in Colorado and Guerrero's early retirement. Their years in Montreal are hard to compare--Vlad was there during the offensive boom, whereas Walker caught just the beginning--but for what it's worth:

Guerrero -- 1004 games, .323/.390/.588, 234 HR, 148 OPS+, 5.8 WAR/650 PA
Walker -- 674 games, .281/.357/.483, 99 HR, 128 OPS+, 5.6 WAR/650 PA

Again, hard to compare. Walker was just getting started when he left, Vlad had his greatest years there.

wasn't sure vlad was ever gonna get in, surprised he could be a first ballot guy

always thought walker was a hof player, vlad too def

looks like raines is going to slide in easily and here i was worried he wouldn't crack through in the end.

i have a little hope for larry walker even though he's only got three years after this one. i feel like he could be the next cause célèbre for a lot of the writers. out of the batters on the ballot, he seems to be the one who needs the most help and who would deserve it. can't see the writers getting energized over edgar or kent or mcgriff or the PED brigade.

As a Jays fan, I find it puzzling that McGriff is still hanging around on the ballot and Delgado didn't even last a year. Slightly different eras, I know. But to me, McGriff just treaded water after the age of 30, whereas Delgado was fairly productive right till he was 36 (and then left the game quickly). And even accounting for era, McGriff didn't have a season as awesome as Delgado's 2000 (or maybe his 2003, too). I don't ever recall any kind of PED suspicion with Delgado, so I don't know why he had such little support.

In Florida, early voting trends narrowly favor Clinton

What changed with Bonds and Clemens? Was it just a matter of getting through the backlog of other deserving candidates?

Delighted getting in

Selig

https://twitter.com/susanslusser/status/805561827434168320

^others basically say the same but Slusser was on the front of the discussion

can't see the writers getting energized over edgar or kent or mcgriff or the PED brigade

i'm not sure how many years edgar has left, but i've seen writers energized by the fact that his numbers are significantly better than david ortiz's

plus if trevor hoffman gets in, there's even less of a rationale for excluding designated hitters

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1D20NLVIAAVw64.jpg:small

say what you want about selig/steroids/etc -- the main issue is clown voters

It is funny because Vlad was actually Gold Glove good in 1998, and an absolute defensive disaster the rest of the career. How many players have this one excellent defensive season while being average/plain bad the rest of their career? What clicked in Vlad's brain that year?

How many players have this one excellent defensive season while being average/plain bad the rest of their career?

Haven't checked Jeter numbers; he had an anomalously good D-metrics year in 2012, I think?

Jay Jaffe on Vlad's case

http://www.si.com/mlb/2016/12/13/jaws-2017-hall-of-fame-ballot-vladimir-guerrero

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1WdaGzUQAEevGB.jpg

there are a lot of guys getting a good percentage this year. really surprised by Bonds and Clemens both still hovering around 70% and surprised to see how Mussina has both gained and lost a decent number of votes from returning voters (i'm assuming it has something to do w/Raines seeing a huge jump and people finally deciding to cast their votes for the PED suspects, Vlad, and I-Rod.)

next year i'm gonna guess Edgar gets in, along w/maybe one of the current top five who may miss out? Chipper is a shoo-in, Thome seems like a probable near-miss but he shouldn't be.

still think Larry Walker has a shot at a significant groundswell of support but i'm probably overestimating it.

thome's in, no prob

i trust the voters to do the right thing more than I did a few years ago but i'm not betting on it. i hope you're right! he was really, really well-liked and also HI I'M JIM THO

the PED suspects, Vlad

Didn't know that. I always thought Guerrero was like Griffey, completely free of suspicion.

don't think that's what he meant

Ah, the serial comma...(I-Rod is a PED suspect, though, which is what threw me.)

yeah but he's like Bagwell or Piazza as opposed to Clemens or Bonds or McGwire.

I don't think arguments over the players who fall short will ever stop--everyone has a pet project--or arguments over A-before-B-but-after-C. What I was saying was that (Hoffman aside, who will likely be the last closer for a long while) arguments over the deservedness of inductees are going to all but disappear. As James says above in mookie's link, the quality of inductees now is stronger than at any time since the first few years, and I can't see that reversing course.

who will likely be the last closer for a long while

i can think of one other

probably should give hoffman a break, over his career his WAR is almost at the level of Pedro

(Astacio)

(xposts)

Oops--one other, duh. After him, I don't think the issue will come up again until at least 2032, when possibly you'll have Kimbrel and/or Chapman and/or Jansen. Unless the whole idea of a closer in the HOF is a non-starter by then.

i think the whole idea should be a non-starter now, i think closers are basically the https://38.media.tumblr.com/cfc78865c263aa2b61bdbdea149525e9/tumblr_inline_mxybtzhwSD1r4xj1z.gif of MLB

You'd at least make an exception for Mariano?

yeah i mean Mariano was I think on another level, far lower ERA than hoffman and double the WAR and all the postseason stuff. but i don't think he's "inner circle" or whatever, which is what his vote total will indicate.

how do we feel about andruw

despite his utter collapse at age 31, his numbers are almost there and he played some otherworldly defense

i think that unlike vizquel (to whom he is probably gonna be compared), andruw was a true superstar for a solid stretch of time

I think we got into this a couple years ago...Myself, Sandy Koufax excluded, a player who accumulated almost all his value before he was 30 should not be in the Hall of Fame.

i dunno,, i mean his ten season run from age 20-29 was pretty amazing. he averaged about 6 WAR at that time. i'm not totally sold on him but if he got in i'd be cool with it.

Clemenza, i somehow misread that as you saying you were in the BBHOF

he said "should" -- clemenza should be in the HOF

Believe me, I accumulated all my value before I was 17 at best--I've just been killing time since then.

I'll admit to a huge blind-spot with Jones: I'm not conversant with newer defensive metrics, and remain far more trusting of offensive numbers. To a certain extent, I'm still stuck on the eye-test when it comes to defense...I can confidently say Pillar's great, and I can be stubborn about saying Alomar was great, but with Jones, besides the awkward (again, for me--it doesn't bother everyone) shape of his career, I have to accept that 40% of his career value is tied up in defensive numbers that I find much more elusive than offensive or pitching stats. I'd rather see Jim Edmonds in there (they're close--Jones does a little better under JAWS).

he did hit 434 homers and stole 152 bases, so it's not like he was *only* defense

and yeah it was a time of many dingers, but he's ahead of both piazza and ripken. decent counting stats considering the shape of his career

i'd probably put Edmonds in ahead of Jones but i think both should be in there tbh. i don't anticipate either getting in unless there's some miracle via the vet committee.

I think Walker will get in one day, speaking of underrated OFers. i think the vets will put him in eventually.

FG on andruw

are we resigned to ortiz getting in without much debate? lower WAR than jim rice, who i figured he'd spend his candidacy being compared to before he went and had his best season since 07

Likely behind the paywall, but James's Andruw piece from three years ago:

http://www.billjamesonline.com/andruw/?AuthorId=3&pg=6&F_All=y

I have done the best I could to place Jones in the "right" position as a defensive player, and, as I said, I have confidence that my system is generally right on a certain level. But I can’t prove that those who would give more weight to his defense are absolutely wrong, just as I don’t believe that they can prove that they’re right. But based on my understanding of the record, Jones’ fielding

a) Was only truly outstanding through 2002; after that his Gold Gloves were mostly just reputation, and

b) Was not of substantial enough value that we should consider him an all-time great player.

I would put Andruw in a class with Vada Pinson, Cesar Cedeno, Fred Lynn and perhaps a few others. Jimmy Wynn and Dale Murphy. These men, all center fielders, were all tremendous players when they were young--such tremendous players that they didn’t need to develop in order to become Hall of Famers; they merely needed to sustain their level of performance for a reasonably full career. But, for whatever reason, they weren’t able to do that, and fell short of a Hall of Fame standard.

I think he's revised his opinion a little upwards--he posted something yesterday that put Andruw as a B-level HOF'er, whereas Edmonds fell into the C category--but I'm not sure if he's in favor of induction yet.

For me, if you dominate your position for ten straight years then you have a strong HOF argument. So I think Edmonds has been underrated.

On one hand I agree with clem about Andruw Jones but OTOH the age think seems arbitrary. Roy Halladay also had ten great years and literally nothing else but most of us think he's a clear HOFer. However Jones got fat and arguably wasted his talent whereas Halladay got injured which was a kind of fluke and not his fault, should this matter? My gut feeling is that it should, but again I'm not sure.

age thing, not think

i have absolutely no problem with david ortiz going into the hall of fame

Hope Edgar gets there first, but I think Ortiz is automatic at this point.

Some cool pics of I-Rod visiting Puerto Rico today and tonight going around on the internet I saw on a baseball group on Facebook. He visited a children's hospital and then was a guest at the team he played winter ball back on.

Is there a chance for Scott Rolen to get in? or is he going to Edmondsed?

I think he's headed for a Tim Raines-like extended stay on the ballot, but because things are moving more and more in a sabermetric direction, he will get in towards the end of his 10 years.

he's gonna have trouble getting 5% though, isn't he? the ballot is still crowded