hall of fame, next vote...

Tony Mullane - I was there the day that he went into the Reds Hall of Fame. Mullane had been dead since 1944, but it is still cool. The guy was born in Ireland.

Felix, Verlander, and Sabathia are all scrambled up right now. The best of them, Felix, may fall short because of health (unless it's a mid-career blip); the least impressive, CC, may be back in the picture after he looked dead. Verlander, who knows.

― clemenza, Monday, June 19, 2017 7:49 PM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

two years pass....

Felix is looking not just like a guy who won't make the HOF but he probably won't even come close, like possibly sub-5% first time out. It's really unfortunate, he turned 33 just a couple months ago and could have put up some crazy numbers but things don't always work out...

Sabathia has been pretty solid the past few years and added to his WAR total and i have no idea what the HOF voters will make of him. He's so much better than Morris, but in the end his career will fall short of a few other contemporaries who seem "arguable".

Verlander is first-ballot at this point.

i think cc's probably in; he got the 3000 K, he got the 250 wins, and i think we're getting to the point where there won't be too many more starters like that

also i think he should go in as a brewer, because that was pretty much the only time he was truly dominant

I hope on Bernie's slide

i had wondered about Ortiz getting in on the first ballot but now i think he makes it in easily the first time around...

clearly Felix needs to get himself shot.

there's no particular reason for ortiz to go in before manny tho

Manny needs to also get shot

i mean all the intangibles involving Ortiz winning a third WS title, finishing his career in Boston with a season on par w/his peak era, being generally beloved by everyone, getting wounded by an idiot assassin...he will get in before Manny for sure.

those are all basically tangible

i guess they are fairly tangible...

i think he does deserve to make it personally, Morbs i suspect maybe you're not exactly "con" on that point but more ambivalent...?

Ortiz getting in on "lovability" will surely crack the door for Bonds Mcguire Clemens et al

I continue to be interested in David Price's case.

There are definitely pitchers ahead of him--obvious ones like Kershaw and Scherzer, but probably Lester and Hamels, too. I think he's plugging along, though.

His two biggest obstacles will be wins and WAR. (Or, by the time he comes up for induction, WAR and wins.) He's 33 and has won 149, so he may--should--get to 200. I'd say getting to 200 is important. He's at 40 WAR; he'll probably end up between 50-55. That'll be a tough sell.

Everything else is good. His ERA+ is 125, his FIP is right in line with his good career ERA, he's just shy of a strikeout per inning, has good WHIP and K/BB ratios. And other stuff: ace of many staffs, a Cy Young, a WS title, and--counteracting his poor overall postseason numbers (which was a story)--his great WS last year (I still think he should have won MVP).

He's in a precarious spot--if he doesn't do much from this point forward, he could conceivably drop off the ballot after a year. But 4-5 more solid years and I think he has a chance.

if you give him the benefit of the doubt and say that 2020-24 will be as good as 2015-19, he'd get to 200 wins and 60 WAR. but i just don't think he's got much of a chance. maybe better than Felix, on par w/Lester and Hamels, not as good as CC, nowhere near as good as Scherzer/Kershaw/Verlander, nor Greinke for that matter.

I'd say that has him about exactly right, with Lester/Hamels. I'd give him a slight edge over those two because of his Cy and two ERA titles, plus he has two years on them.

And throw in Chris Sale as one of the guys ahead of him. Kluber--33 and in the midst of a terrible season--hard to say at this point.

Kluber was top-tier for a few seasons but he'd have to recover and pitch close to that form and clear 200 wins to have a chance, i think. otherwise he'll be in Santana/Saberhagen territory.

i'd put Greinke ahead of Price as well.

kluber wasn't even a full-time big league starter until he was 27 -- he's been extremely good but just getting the appropriate quantity is almost impossible

I think Greinke's having the best HOF-directed season of anybody this year (along with Verlander). He was in very good shape going into the season, he may be close to a lock now.

oh right – Verlander too.

price has broken 4 bWAR in three seasons and 5 in just one

and verlander probably should have won price's cy young

Because they have to follow through on the premise, obviously some of these are silly--they even put "likeliest" in quotation marks in the title.

https://www.mlb.com/news/every-team-s-next-hall-of-famer

Of the legitimate picks, I disagree with one: no knock on C.C., but I think Stanton's a better choice for the Yankees, assuming his current injury isn't long-term serious.

500 HR: 27 players
3,000 K: 17 pitchers
600 HR: 9 players

I guess it depends on whether you think Stanton will hit 500 or 600 HR. I'm guessing 600.

If you use the Favorite Toy, he has a 96.9 % chance of hitting 500 and a 46.9% chance of hitting 600.

Sounds reasonable. That'll drop, maybe quite a bit, going into next season, but the drop would be artificial if you assume the injury's a blip.

I would not assume the injury is a blip

I thought it was something he's coming back from 100%. If that's not true, you can throw out everything I've said--even if he got to 500 with a few average seasons, I doubt very much he'd go in.

something funky is defintely going on w Stanton, the official word on his injury (injuries?) has been shifting and vague both times on the IL.

There is something about the way he moves even when healthy, a kind of rigidity to his motions, that has me feeling he won't perform well deep into this contract.

I’m not really a fan of the way his swing works now that I’ve seen him “everyday”/not in highlights. seems like a lot of upper body jerking without any hips, if that makes sense

it's gotta be the ugliest swing in baseball

You should see mine!

I'm sure your OPS is lower but I doubt it's not a sweeter stroke

Stanton would be an interesting pick, he's had a great career but he's also periodically been the Tulo of slugging outfielders. his injury history would worry me if i had money riding on his HOF induction, and he's turning 30 in a couple of months and doesn't strike me as a guy who's going to age exceptionally well.

Freeman does have a pretty decent case though i could see him falling into the Olerud trap: great career but not given the respect due because of the types of power stats associated with first basemen.

I think if Bryant keeps up a consistent career with decent WAR numbers he could get in with a boost from the MVP and Cubs' world series title.

I think Scherzer was in already before this season, he had just been too good. But sure, this year helps.

Exactly my sentiments on Freeman. Whereas there would seem to be a ceiling on him that falls short of the HOF--always good+, never great--there isn't yet a clear ceiling on Acuna, and I'd be more inclined to go with him (or even Albies).

I can always count on you guys to extrapolate future health/performance on a player who is still shut down from all baseball activities from an injury that happened in May.

You realize I'm a licensed physician, right?

freddie has the advantage that he was a full-time player at 21, but a career .503 SLG for a first baseman isn't going to get it done

He had four seasons where his SLG was below .500 but that hasn't happened since 2015.

His high was .586 in 2017

Sabathia fully deserves to get in, btw, and would logically do it before Stanton. xpost to Clem.

He has a big jump on a timeline, agreed. They've got a disconnect at SI between the article's title--"likeliest," how I interpreted their picks--and the URL, which I just noticed says "next." The two are not necessarily the same.

Yadier, huh....well time to fire up the Jim Sundberg veterans committee case.

Stephen Strasburg: long, long way to go, but he's quietly--well, not so quietly his first couple of years--built some underlying foundation. What he doesn't have is anything close to a flashy peak phase.

he had one, it was just that brief glimpse in 2010 before he got injured. he was must-watch baseball back then

jaffe:

With 1.1 more bWAR this year, Trout will surpass Mickey Mantle's 7-year peak (WAR7) total of 64.8. With 1.7 more bWAR he'll surpass Ken Griffey Jr. for 5th among CF in JAWS (68.9).

With 1.1 more bWAR, Verlander will climb from 48th to 39th in SP JAWS, surpassing HOF Jim Palmer, Carl Hubbell, Hal Newhouser, Roy Halladay, and Juan Marichal in the process.

it’s funny how jaffe writes for fangraphs and they have their own version of JAWS but he still uses rWAR

Donaldson is going to be a fun case.
― Van Horn Street, Friday, May 25, 2018

I thought Donaldson was building a really interesting case going into this year--maybe the first viable position player who didn't get started till he was 27. (I'd have to check.) He was already close to taking care of the peak-value half of the argument--four-and-a-half seasons that match almost any third baseman this side of Schmidt. But he needed some background, and this year has really set him back. He doesn't have much margin of error.
― clemenza, Friday, May 25, 2018

Donaldson’s not gonna make it, unless he comes back with another few years like the previous few. His peak is amazing but so was Mattingly’s.
― omar little, Friday, May 25, 2018

ya, i don't think i ever thought of Donaldson as a HOF.
― Mad Piratical (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Friday, May 25, 2018

Anyway, as I say, almost no margin of error. He'd have to put up another 4-5 solid seasons--All-Star caliber, if not quite MVP-caliber--to have a chance. And this year, plus the injury last year, makes that seem increasingly unlikely. (If he did pull it off, though, he'd be in a better position than Mattingly. For HOF voters, I'm pretty sure playing well through your 30s is preferable to early peak and then a sudden end, or, even worse, a long, prolonged slide.)
― clemenza, Friday, May 25, 2018 9:03 PM

Viable again? Posnanski had something funny the other day:

"Don’t look now, but Donaldson is quietly having another excellent season. It’s 'quiet' because he’s hitting .257. But he continues to do many things well (he walks, hits for power, plays good defense, etc.) and those things add up, and few people notice. Donaldson has 42 career WAR — three or four more seasons like the one he’s having now, and he will be up in the Hall of Fame range and a whole lot of people will say, 'Ugh! Hall of Very Good! I never saw him as a Hall of Famer, even when he won that MVP!' That’s how it goes."

i still don't quite see it, not bc of how he's playing now but i think he would really have to go on like this for 3-4 more years and the past couple of seasons he's been hindered by some injuries. currently his career seems to be playing out a bit like Chase Utley's with a slightly lower and brief absolute peak. It remains to be seen if he can hang around enough to accumulate a similar WAR. i think if he winds up with that level it looks better but Utley isn't a certain HOFer either (i think he should be, probably).

The most relevant comparison is probably Scott Rolen. Let's say, taking Posnanski's cue, you pro-rate Donaldson for this year, then give him another four seasons like this one (roughly--that'd be the bare minimum for him to have a chance): 35 HR, 100 RBI, and 150 hits for bulk, .250/.350/.500 for rate stats, and 5.0 for WAR. Here's where they'd sit for their careers:

Rolen: 2077 hits, 316 HR, 1,287 RBI, .281/.364/.490, 70.2 WAR
Donaldson: 1747 hits, 383 HR, 1,113 RBI, .263/.361/.505, 66.6 WAR

(Tiny bit of estimation on OBP.) So if Donaldson were to do what Posnanski laid out and then walked away immediately, he'd be in range of Rolen--better overall peak, I'd say (even though Rolen's 2004 is the best single season by WAR), but a much later start, so his hits and RBI lag. (More HR, though.) But he wouldn't walk away immediately--he'd tack some more bulk numbers on towards the end, presumably as a less effective player, and end up close to Rolen there, too, and probably very close in WAR.

A lot of ifs there, I know, but a possibly encouraging precedent. Rolen went from 10% his first year to 17% his second year--he's at least headed in the right direction, and may get in down the road.