hall of fame, next vote...

The other thing is, Piniella had a good career as a player, too: ROY, MVP votes four seasons, important member of the '77/78 WS winners.

Maybe the Non-Players Committee officially isn't allowed to take that into consideration...but unofficially, you'd think that that would be hard to do.

It's kind of the Gil Hodges situation redux. When he kept falling just short as a player on the BBWAA ballots, some people said that his years as a manager should put him over the top.

He was eventually elected by the Golden Age committee as a player, but I don't they were given instructions to look only at his playing career. We've basically revived the problems with the old Veteran's Committee, there's way too much cronyism going on. Essentially, they elect who they want based on the criteria they decide for themselves.

Posnanski's column today makes the same points:

Being honest: I’m not at all sure why Leyland cruised into the Hall of Fame first time around while Piniella — who objectively has at least as good a case — has now TWICE finished one vote shy of election. It’s getting ridiculous.

Piniella fell one vote short in 2019 — that was the year that Lee Smith and, bizarrely, Harold Baines were elected. It seemed like a sure thing that Piniella would get elected next time on the ballot.

And then, here we are in 2023, and 14 of the 16 committee members are different (only Joe Torre and Andy McPhail were on both committees) and again, Piniella finished one vote shy.

I mentioned that Leyland had that persona thing...obviously Piniella had it, too, though Piniella’s persona seemed just a bit more cartoonish, lots of rage and hat throwing and kicking dirt on the plate and spitting and in-your-face arguments*.

*Though, interestingly, Leyland actually got thrown out of more games than Piniella did.

I could make a pretty compelling argument that Piniella is even more deserving of the Hall of Fame than Leyland. In fact, were it just those two guys and I had to pick only one for the Hall...I’d pick Piniella. For one thing, I’m a big believer that Hall of Fame voters should take into account the whole lifetime in baseball, and Piniella the ballplayer won Rookie of the Year, was an All-Star and was a key part of the Bronx Zoo Yankees. Leyland never played above Class AA.

But even matching them up purely as managers — well, start with their World Series victories. I rate the job Piniella did with the 1990 Reds higher than the job Leyland did with the 1996 Marlins. Piniella came into a mess, he got the Reds job after Pete Rose was banned from baseball, there were no expectations, that team did not have 30-home run hitter or a starter who ended up with more than 15 wins. What they had was a killer bullpen (the Nasty Boys!), Juan Marichal’s son-in-law as a starter (Jose Rijo), a brilliant young shortstop just coming into his own (Barry Larkin) a lunch-pail worker who drove a Ford Escort and wore glasses at third base (Chris Sabo) and a hot-headed right fielder who found his power groove (Paul O’Neill).

And that team came together somehow, some way, knocked out Jim Leyland’s more talented Pirates and somehow swept the Bash Brothers A’s in the World Series. That was just about as good a managerial job as anyone can do.

And yes, that was Piniella’s only pennant, while Leyland had two others. But Piniella managed the 1995 Mariners to their greatest triumph — that ALDS victory over the Yankees — and managed the 2001 Mariners to an incredible 116 victories. He also managed the 2008 Cubs to 97 wins — the Cubs actually led the league in runs that year, though if you look at the lineup it would be hard to figure out exactly how.

Piniella won more games with a higher win percentage.

Look, that’s just me trying to make the Piniella argument...I could play the other side, too. The point is that it’s IMPOSSIBLY close between Leyland and Piniella and it makes no sense at all to me that Piniella would twice finish just short of election while Leyland sails in. If you’re going to put one in, put ’em both in.

I was looking at Jay Jaffe's Fangraphs HOF post on Carlos Beltran today:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2024-hall-of-fame-ballot-carlos-beltran/

God, that's long--almost 6,500 words. (Pasted it onto a Google Doc.) That's like 10-15% of a book.

hadn't checked in on the HOF tracker in a minute, and not much new to report but:

a whopping 15 ballots are in -- Beltre is at 100%, Mauer is at 80%, Utley is at 60%.

I've been checking in every few days...Really small sample, but I wonder if there's an outside chance of 100% for Beltre? There's zero rationale for not voting for him, but then that's been true of dozens of players who weren't unanimous. I'm still not sure how Mariano dodged that. The writers' vote does get more informed over time, though.

i think Mariano being probably twice as valuable as any other closer in the history of the game, plus his fairly unassailable clutch credentials, really put him into the stratosphere. he's sort of the Gretzky of RPs. no one else was close.

i think some fool will withhold a vote for Beltre. probably more than one.

Mariano deserved it, no argument, it was more the timing I found puzzling. A few years after the writers seem to conclude that closers shouldn't get anywhere near a Cy Young, they make a closer the first unanimous HOF pick.

i think it really probably was just his breathtaking consistency and dominance at that position, i guess. plus two things can be true, closers deserve HOF enshrinement (the bar should be vv high, and Rivera cleared that bar to such an unprecedented degree), but on a season-by-season basis, it's hard to argue they ever deserve Cy Young over a starting pitcher, let alone MVP over a batter. I do think the one year where Rivera probably should have beaten the Cy winner in the vote (2005, vs Bartolo), is also a year where the winner should actually have been Santana.

Not to fixate on this one narrow point, but 3/440 writers didn't vote for Jr. in 2016; I'm assuming that one, two, or all of three of those writers voted for Rivera three years later. If I'm right, would love to hear their rationale.

i personally would probably not care to

the only thing I can imagine is a voter who believes that a first round HOF should be the very best at that specific position, literally the #1 player. So Mariano is the greatest RP of all time, whereas Ken Griffey Jr was merely one of the top ___?

Possible, but looking around online--there are a couple of pieces and a Reddit thread asking the same question--I think they're might be a simpler explanation: strategic voting. That was right in the middle of the logjam:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hof_2016.shtml

Steroids aside, the top 20 on the list, right down to Edmonds, are all HOF caliber, and I think voters were still a little unclear if the PED players were viable candidates. By 2019, things have cleared up a little:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hof_2019.shtml

Fewer obvious candidates, PED players more clearly not viable. So maybe those three voters felt they had room enough not to leave Rivera off to make room for someone else.

No logjam this year, so leaving off Beltre for that reason would be quite unnecessary.

there/their/they're--will work on that.

They jumped to 27 ballots.

http://www.bbhoftracker.com/

I'd say Beltre has a chance at 100%. The precedent of no-unanimity no longer applies, so that excuse can't be used, and there's lots of room on the ballot, so no need to strategize.

And Utley's support is a lot shakier than Mauer's thus far.

(Which was always a terrible excuse: "I'm still really angry that Christy Mathewson wasn't elected unanimously, so I'm passing on Greg Maddux.")

I'm not surprised Mauer has more support than Utley, but I am surprised it's that wide a gap (thus far.) I'm maybe more surprised Jimmy Rollins has picked up two votes, he at best feels like a Hall of *almost* very good type player.

Gonna be real annoyed* when scheff doesnt get in

*not really but also yeah kinda really bc scheff is ill

Beltre will not be 100%

Beltre will not be 100%

Yep Bill Ballou didn't vote.for him

Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre waves to the crowd in Seattle as he leaves his final game, in 2018.
Beltre will get plenty of support, and maybe even make it on this year’s first ballot. There are voters who are passionate about Beltre’s qualifications, and those qualifications are impressive.

The last five Hall ballots cast by this voter, however, have all only included the elite of the elite, which is what Cooperstown is supposed to be all about. Only eight players have received this vote — Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Roy Halladay, Derek Jeter, David Ortiz, Rivera, Ramirez and Rodriguez.

Beltre was good, but not as good as anyone in that group.

😵‍💫

Outstanding

Curious how he figures that Halladay, Ortiz, and Ramirez had more career value than Beltre, Ortiz especially. I don't like reducing things to WAR, but Beltre's ahead of Ortiz in oWAR alone by 15 games, before you even get to defense. They all belong, but that's an odd formulation.

Forget it jack wtc

-etc

Forget it, Jake, it's Cooperstown.

(Just to flesh that out.)

I mean everyone he voted for I would certainly vote for but beltre absolutely raises the bar even within that small, highly qualified group.

Tony Massarotti also declined to vote for Beltre, who's 74/76 with almost 20% of the ballots in on the tracker.

Mauer is over 80% and Utley is below 50%, so things are looking good for Joe to come close at the very least. The remainder of the first-timers are toast, except for David Wright, who might get to 5%.

Things are trending pretty decently for Beltran, for the future ballots at least. Helton lost three votes vs two picked up, which is a little odd, but you figure he'll get in. Everything else is pretty status quo, lots of guys who gained a couple or lost a couple and are probably sticking around for another go.

weird thing, both guys who didn't vote for Beltre also *only* voted for Manny and A-Rod.

I noticed the second non-Beltre voter...How stupid is that? "I don't agree with freezing out PED players, so I'll punish Adrian Beltre and Todd Helton (and also not vote for Gary Sheffield) to make that clear. And get lots of attention for myself along the way."

Was yesterday the deadline? The Tracker is up to 93 ballots (26%):

Beltre - 98%
Mauer - 83%
Helton - 82%
Wagner - 79%
---------------
Sheffield - 73%
Beltran - 65%
Andruw - 64%

I'd be very surprised to see four guys go in--assume Wagner will drop.

2% and under: Bautista, Bartolo, Adrian Gonzalez, Matt Holiday, Tori Hunter, V-Mart, Reyes, James Shields.

It looks like we're at 100 ballots now, if we include the seven anonymous/unverified. Mauer is outperforming at least my own expectations.

Mine too. If he holds over 80%, that'll be the clearest signal yet how much more peak value has come to be valued. Career value will continue to be the safer path for the foreseeable future, I'd say, but the gap seems to be narrowing. (A theory that is completely negated by Utley's mediocre showing thus far...)

I figure Mauer being a catcher gives him some extra credit, plus there are a lot of intangible and narrative factors that come into play with him that Utley doesn't have. I do think Utley deserves it on peak value though.

Bautista got his first vote. Big surprise: Richard Griffin, a Toronto guy. I'm glad--I didn't want to see him shut out.

also gave Wagner a vote.

Who continues to hold at 80%--a little surprised.

Joey Bats had more HOF caliber seasons than some HOFers. other than those seasons he didn't do enough, but he def deserves to get some honorary votes.

That's the difference between Bautista and Joe Carter, who exceeded Bautista in the traditional HR/RBI/BA metrics. Carter really didn't have a single HOF-caliber season, and had many that were just barely above replacement level; Bautista had at least two HOF seasons, and arguably a third.

I think he definitely had three, and a fourth if we count his 92 game season (over a full season I think he comes out close to 7.0 that year.)

I don't quite yet want to be all, "I've seen enough. Joe Mauer is elected with etc etc" but it's looking more and more like he'll get in this year.

I think he's in. That old thing about analytic voters declaring early and old-school guys holding off--because they didn't want to explain themselves on PEDs or traditional stats--I don't think that applies so much anymore.

maybe more surprising to me than Mauer doing this well (83% now) is he's doing a bit better than Helton (who has a net gain of zero votes with over 35% of the ballots revealed.)

I am actually bummed about Sheffield not making it. Even recognizing how he was absolutely a detriment in the field, as a hitter he was just about as dangerous as anyone during his peak. He just put up some absolutely sick statistics. I know there are some PED issues swirling around him, but I feel like it's a gray area in his case. I think what actually is hurting him is the nomadic path of his career, not being defined by any one team at all. And yet, everywhere he went he had one or two or more absolutely all time seasons. San Diego, Florida, L.A., Atlanta, NY. Just such a force.

Whats also hurting him is his relationship to the media

Your opening sentence made me think they released results today. He's not out of it yet--just shy of 75%.

Just looking at everything, he needed to pick up 70-something votes in order to make it. He's picked up 10 so far with a bit over 40% of the vote in. I hope I'm pleasantly shocked by an unprecedented late rally!

Basically knock 5-10% off of whatever the score is for the hidden ballots they always sink everything. It wouldnt surprise me if helton missed by single digits