hall of fame, next vote...

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

i hope David Wright sticks around awhile, despite the brief career he's eminently more qualified than the likes of Vizquel, K-Rod, and probably Wagner tbh. he's a Mauer type in that respect, just an absolute monster at his position. But catchers have more allowance for a brief peak. his fellow Met Jose Reyes is getting zero support but he's probably just a step below Rollins.

Make of this as you will:

https://i.postimg.cc/1zB4Jm08/glove.jpg

Jones is at 71%, Hunter at 4.7%. Did Hunter win all those GG on reputation? Seems like a wider gap than it maybe should be.

I think Hunter was good in the field, but not really vastly superior to others. if you look at the metrics, Jones was an all-time great. I think where they were actually closer in terms of career value was at the plate, Jones had bigger numbers in a couple of huge years but I think Hunter wasn't far off in his all around offensive game.

two who are also pretty close are Rollins and Reyes. i don't see Rollins getting in, he's nowhere near, though 29 votes vs zero for Reyes is probably a bit unfair to the latter, who was really quite the player.

Just realized this is tomorrow. All I know for sure: Beltre is in, DeSantis is out...Agree with all that about Jones/Hunter (although I'm trusting the defensive metrics on blind faith). I think a 60/40 split, or 65/35 split, would be more reasonable than 71/5.

Mauer is really holding steady, he's been consistently one or two votes ahead of Helton. it's always hard to tell but for most candidates with credentials some might find borderline, there's usually a 6-7% drop from where the tracker finishes. I feel like Mauer is somewhere between 73-79% in the end. Wagner and Helton are cutting it close.

it's going to be crowded again next year, anywhere from a dozen to fifteen players returning, plus Suzuki in the Adrian Beltre 95%+ shoo-in role, Sabathia, Pedroia as an Utley type, Kinsler as the poor man's David Wright, and King Felix.

I anticipate being bummed out at how little support Felix is going to receive.

Can't share, but these are Posnanski's predictions (many obvious by this point):

Will Be Elected -- Beltre, Mauer, Helton
Will Just Miss -- Wagner, Sheffield
Coming Soon To a Hall of Fame Near You -- Jones, Beltran
Solidly on the Ballot Going Forward -- Utley, A-Rod, Manny (seems to think A-Rod will eventually go in, Manny "not ever, not by the writers nor by any veterans committee")
The 15% Club -- Rollins, Abreu, Pettitte, Vizquel
Will Make Another Ballot -- Buehrle, K-Rod, Hunter, Wright
Will Not Make the Ballot Next Year -- the rest

He came up with a fun thing yesterday, based on something his friend said: a player's Hock Score:

I’m going to talk a bit over the next couple of days about my friend Jon Hock’s Hall of Fame thought experiment, which he sent in to express his support for Thurman Munson’s Hall of Fame candidacy:

"Try this as a thought experiment: Imagine Munson’s plaque in the Gallery in Cooperstown, then imagine watching a day’s worth of fans passing through. Tell me, where would Munson’s plaque rank in terms of fans stopping a little bit longer, maybe removing their cap and saying something about him to their daughter or grandson? I’d say top ten or 15 in the entire Gallery."

I’m not entirely sure that Munson’s plaque would draw quite that kind of attention, but I love the concept: Which players’ plaques would stand out in the Hall of Fame plaque room? That’s a really interesting way of thinking about the Hall of Fame, emphasis on the word "fame."

I can say with some confidence, that if Bartolo Colón somehow made the Hall of Fame, he’d have a HUGE Hock Score.

Just to clarify, his predictions are not reflective of his own preferences--he voted for Manny, always has, and lobbies hard for him. But: "...and I can certainly live with that." ("That" being what I quoted above.)

i kinda think Wagner might make up enough ground to get in but it'll be a true squeaker. i also think he'll be the last closer to make it for an extremely long time and maybe that's appropriate.

Think this is the first time I've ever watched this live...hey, I'm live-blogging!

let's go

Jose Bautista just ran across the screen and did a bat-flip...not sure what that means.

You take the first one, Omar.

Beltre, Mauer...

aaaaand Helton!

Still majorly surprised that Mauer is a first-ballot guy. Not complaining, just surprised.

Beltre, Helton, Mauer, and that's it

You were like 30 seconds ahead of me, Thermo. Is St. Marys that deep in the woods?

gonna be curious to see those percentages. not surprised Wagner didn't make it.

does this mean Posey is going to be a first ballot guy now?!

Sheffield is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXP1MSFwMnc

Not sure how he'll fair with the VC, which is much the harder of the two to predict.

(Never doubted that Posey would be first-ballot, I guess because his career ended well rather than petering out--plus, obviously, the WS titles.)

Under 30% for Utley...that'll change quickly, I think.

the best chance for several of these guys is the upcoming desert of star candidates, post-suzuki. Posey, Molina, and uh Hamels are the "best" between the Suzuki ballot and the Pujols ballot.

not counting Cano and Braun, who seem like sub-10% guys potentially.

I'm glad Scott Boras isn't sitting on that couch.

i'd be shocked if Cano was under 10

Hard to say--the writers are especially punitive to players who tested positive well along the timeline.

plus it was two PED suspensions, and his stats are really impressive but not A-Rod/Manny territory.

i think he's also sort of a curiously forgotten guy, maybe because of the manner in which his career petered out statistically. i've gotta believe he'll do better than Braun for reasons both related to their stats and obv Braun's much worse behavior w/r/t his PED use.

Mauer's only the third first-ballot catcher after Bench and I-Rod.

poor billy

obviously there are arguments to be made about the true value of relievers, but he was lights-out when it was asked of him

Anyone else listen to Grimes’ “We Appreciate Power” and always hear “power” as “Mauer” and then start re-framing the lyrics to be about him?
No one? Ok.

Next five ballots: https://www.mlb.com/news/future-baseball-hall-of-fame-ballots-preview

Ichiro, Posey, Pujols, and Cabrera are first ballot inductees i bet. Molina, hard to tell. Sabathia? I'm maybe slightly agnostic on him; as far as lefty starters go he's probably closer to David Wells than he is Clayton Kershaw, but might have to dig in deeper considering the era he pitched in.

guys like Lester and Wainwright had nice careers, not dissimilar at all, but they should be in their team HOFs, not the MLB one.

really kinda curious to see where Granderson, Hernández, Kinsler, and Pedroia wind up in the voting next year. they were all great players to varying levels, though i don't think they would or necessarily should get voted in.

Jimmy Key (among my favourite Jays ever) and Russell Martin into the Canadian Baseball HOF.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/article/martin-key-among-six-inductees-to-enter-canadian-baseball-hall-of-fame/

Paul Godfrey, I should mention, was instrumental in getting Toronto a franchise. He engineered the deal that almost landed us the Giants in '76, before George Moscone rescued them and kept them in San Francisco.

Comparison graphics frequently turn up on my FB wall. Some of them are far-fetched special pleading--someone trying to make a case that Dale Murphy was better than Reggie Jackson, stuff like that. One caught my eye today: John Smoltz vs. Kevin Brown. The graphic provided overall stats, i.e. including Smoltz's years as a closer, and their career lines were very similar. Just as starters:

Smoltz: 209-149, 3.40, 7.90 K/9, 2.92 K/BB, 1.192 WHIP, 3211.2 IP
Brown: 210-143, 3.26, 6.60 K/9, 2.67 K/BB, 1.219 WHIP, 3237.2 IP

Again, very close. I thought Brown might actually come out looking better, but I think there's a small but clear edge there to Smoltz. When you add 1) Smoltz's three seasons as a first-rate closer (a role that, if I remember correctly, he volunteered to step into), 2) Smoltz's stellar post-season record (overall, Brown was mediocre in the post-season in a much smaller sample), and 3) Brown's PED associations, it's more clear-cut why Smoltz in the HOF and Brown isn't than I thought it would be.

Only because he came up on a different thread today, I looked up Davey Johnson's one year on the HOF ballot (as a player; I think he was on the VC ballot as a manager this year). Three votes. You know who else got three votes that year? Jim Bouton!

Agree with Posnanski here:

With Sale, though, the story goes beyond this year. This guy was one of the best pitchers in baseball from 2012 to 2018. He finished top-six in the Cy Young voting in each of those seven seasons, and he piled up almost 50 WAR (both Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs), and you know what? He’s 35. If he can pitch like this for three or four more years--even close to this level--and maybe take one Cy Young Award, he’s going to the Hall of Fame.

Of course, that last sentence there is loaded with a million question marks. But I do think he's still viable. And I had totally written him off.

Jason Stark's (read a really annoying book by him a few years ago) "tiers," explanations of which are found in a long Athletic piece:

IN RIGHT NOW

Mike Trout
Justin Verlander
Max Scherzer
Freddie Freeman*

(*new to the In Right Now Club)

INJURED LIST DIVISION OF THE “IN RIGHT NOW” CLUB

Clayton Kershaw
Joey Votto

IN THE RED ZONE

Mookie Betts
Paul Goldschmidt
Bryce Harper
Nolan Arenado
Manny Machado

ACROSS THE 50 (FUN NEW CATEGORY!)

Aaron Judge
Shohei Ohtani
Jose Altuve

MOVING THE CHAINS

Gerrit Cole
Juan Soto
José Ramírez
Francisco Lindor
Carlos Correa

GET BACK TO ME IN FIVE YEARS

Ronald Acuña Jr.
Bobby Witt Jr.
Gunnar Henderson
Adley Rutschman
Julio Rodríguez
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Fernando Tatis Jr.
Rafael Devers
Kyle Tucker
Yordan Alvarez
Corbin Carroll
Emmanuel Clase

LET’S TALK NEXT YEAR

Jacob deGrom
Corey Seager
Christian Yelich
Alex Bregman
Marcus Semien
Andrew McCutchen
Xander Bogaerts
Yu Darvish

STILL ALIVE (SOMEHOW!)

Giancarlo Stanton
Chris Sale

CLOSERS CORNER*

Craig Kimbrel
Kenley Jansen
Aroldis Chapman
Josh Hader

(*could all be sending thank-you cards to Billy Wagner next January)

CATCHERS CORNER

Salvador Perez
J.T. Realmuto

GRADUATED

Miguel Cabrera
Adam Wainwright
Zack Greinke
Evan Longoria
Nelson Cruz
Madison Bumgarner

NOT PICTURED ANYMORE

Wander Franco

I like Correa's chances a little more than Lindor's; same career WAR, Correa has a year on him. Lindor's been accumulating WAR with the Mets, but he doesn't seem like the same player: .285/.346/.488 in Cleveland, .252/.329/.447 in New York.

GRADUATED

Miguel Cabrera 1st year
Adam Wainwright no
Zack Greinke yes
Evan Longoria *
Nelson Cruz *
Madison Bumgarner no

very different players, but longoria and cruz are kind of flipped versions of each other in terms of how their early and late careers went. longoria did all his outstanding stuff in his 20s, and provided average value throughout his 30s with a bunch of injuries. cruz didn't cruz until his late 20s going into early 30s, and then had an absolutely outstanding 30s. but...he was a dh, so the bar for his career offensive output is higher