hall of fame, next vote...

being cool should def matter a little bit but the floor should probably be somewhere closer to like, david ortiz

fair

Luis Tiant, very cool. Dick Allen had the great Sports Illustrated juggling-and-smoking cover. Tommy John...most uncool from what I remember.

https://www.cigaraficionado.com/article/the-legend-of-el-tiante-9223

Posnanski: "I kind of thought we were done with Garvey as a Hall of Fame candidate. This will be his TWENTIETH Hall of Fame ballot, and he has never received even 50% of the vote. I happen to know there are a couple of big Garvey boosters with a lot of sway who keep pushing his case, and I get it. Garvey was a fine player. He did a lot of things that we appreciated in the 1970s—played every day, knocked 200 hits annually, drove in 100 runs a bunch, had some postseason moments, appeared regularly on a variety of daytime game shows. But, at some point, you have to say: The Garvey vote has been taken. Let’s give somebody else a chance."

The often overlooked game-show factor.

Well, at least Garvey got trounced last night.

Good Posnanski piece today on how badly overlooked Chet Lemon has been by the Hall of Fame (1 vote the year he came up on the writer's ballot). Short version:

1) Dave Parker - 40.1 career bWAR
Chet Lemon - 55.7 career bWAR

2) "...there have been THREE centerfielders in baseball history with 90 or more fielding runs and a 120 OPS+. Two are gimmes:

Willie Mays, 185 fielding runs, 155 OPS+
Tris Speaker, 92 fielding runs, 158 OPS+

And the third you already know, but let me just say it’s not Andruw Jones (111 OPS+), and it’s not Kenny Lofton (107 OPS+), and it’s not Garry Maddox (101 OPS+), and it’s not Mickey Mantle (minus-37 fielding runs), and it’s not Duke Snider (minus-22 fielding runs), and it’s not Carlos Beltran (doesn’t qualify on either count).

Nope. It’s Chet Lemon."

never having seen him play - was he a flashy centerfielder or more of a position / ball-route expert that tends to perform under people's radars (especially back then)?

I wasn’t aware he was doing so poorly health wise

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/columnists/jeff-seidel/2024/08/29/chet-lemon-detroit-tigers-1984-team/74851096007/

I saw him during his Tigers heyday, but I'd be lying if I said I remember much--he was an integral part of the '84 team, along with Trammell/Whitaker/Gibson.

I don't even know that Posnanski's arguing Lemon should be in the HOF; he got so little attention in his day (as opposed to Parker, say), that it'd be kind of weird--especially when someone like Dwight Evans isn't in, who did have some measure of fame. But I'm glad he brought some awareness to what a good player he was.

Chet Lemon was memorable to me primarily as a guy who had a great name and was obviously a good player, but fame-wise as a casual fan he was as famous to me as Lloyd Moseby or Cecil Cooper or Tony Armas.

I really don’t know why Dwight Evans hasn’t come closer to making it, I feel like they reward pitchers with mustaches, but penalize hitters with any facial hair. It’s the only other explanation I have for Munson and Grich.

Barry Bonds shaved his off and they still kept him out ☹️

I feel like they reward pitchers with mustaches, but penalize hitters with any facial hair

Needs to be codified into Bill James's Hall of Fame Monitor immediately!

Assuming Tiant/Allen/John go in this time--all three may not--my list now starts with Evans/Whitaker/Lofton/Munson/Delgado. (Grich too has had advocates for decades.)

After aging off the BBWAA ballot, Garvey is now on his fifth Era Committee appearance in the past decade and a half.

five strikes and

I could have sworn Lemon's autograph was on the baseball I have autographed by most of the '80 (or '81) White Sox, but he's one of the missing names...

Are Fisk and Baines on there?

Neither of them. But I just realized this one squiggle is Orlando Cepeda's signature on there -- he was a coach in '80.

Lou would be my top pick for “get him in immediately”, his last two seasons combined into one nice swan song.

.298/.375/.503/4.0 bWAR

571 AB
103 hits
170 runs
35 doubles
2 triples
26 hr
87 rbi
6 sb
72 bb
88 so

The other thing about Whitaker is, it's bizarre to have Trammell in there without him. Have two teammates ever been so closely aligned? Ruth-Gehrig, obviously, and I suppose there are others, but it's amazing how closely their careers tracked each other--'77 to '95 with the same team (Trammell lasted one extra season). They're even high on each other's Similarity list, even though they played different positions. Whitaker's five games ahead in bWAR, 75 to 70. The only real edge I can see for Trammel is that he had one monster season ('87, should have won MVP) and Whitaker didn't.

Tinker to Evers to Chance?

Glavine and Smoltz come to mind, but Glavine has those swan song years with the Mets, plus psychologically their association is a bit diluted by being a trio with Maddux for some but not all of their reign. I think Trammell and Whitaker have as much claim to the closely-aligned crown as anyone

one thing I’ve gotta say about the tigers is for a solid decade starting with that World Series team they were one of the coolest squads, they had so many underrated players whose primary talent was they hammered the shit outta the ball. Whitaker, Trammell, Gibson, Lemon, Parrish, Evans, Nokes, Fryman, Tettleton, Phillips, Deer…they even had Incaviglia for a minute.

and Fielder obv

The three Atlanta starters are a good match. And even though Maddux was clearly superior to the other two, it would be silly if two of the three were in the HOF and the other guy still waiting.

FB reminded me today that Curt Flood's still not in the HOF, so let me amend my list to include him near the top (different thing, obviously, though he did exceed 40 bWAR in a career that ended after his age-31 season).

Whitaker is 84th all time in bWAR (tied with Johnny Bench). Everyone ahead of him is in the HOF, with the exception of a few 19th century players, still-active slam-dunk candidates (e.g. Kershaw, Verlander), recently retired slam-dunk candidates (Greinke, Pujols), PED-suspects (Clemens, A-Rod), and "extenuating circumstances" players (Schilling, Rose).

tl;dr version: Whitaker may very well be the very best player who is eligible but isn't in, with the exception of PED-suspects who have fallen off the regular ballot.

just a bit of fun, let's be cool, the current top 25 active players in bWAR, dropped here for easy reference. apologies to Soto and Acuna and Alvarez, who just haven't played enough to make the list.

Mike Trout (14, 32) 86.2
Justin Verlander (19, 41) 80.5
Clayton Kershaw (17, 36) 79.4
Max Scherzer (17, 39) 75.4
Mookie Betts (11, 31) 69.6
Paul Goldschmidt (14, 36) 62.8
Freddie Freeman (15, 34) 60.7
Manny Machado (13, 31) 57.9
Nolan Arenado (12, 33) 56.7
Chris Sale (14, 35) 53.3
Jose Altuve (14, 34) 52.8
José Ramírez (12, 31) 52.4
Aaron Judge (9, 32) 52.2
Bryce Harper (13, 31) 51.1
Francisco Lindor (10, 30) 49.7
Andrew McCutchen (16, 37) 49.3
Marcus Semien (12, 33) 45.8
Jacob deGrom (11, 36) 45.2
Giancarlo Stanton (15, 34) 44.7
Carlos Correa (10, 29) 44.4
Shohei Ohtani (7, 29) 43.8
Gerrit Cole (12, 33) 43.3
Christian Yelich (12, 32) 41.9
Jason Heyward (15, 34) 41.8
Xander Bogaerts (12, 31) 40.8

Wild to think that trout in an inner circle guy and how much longer the runway is for manny harper ohtani and judge

We got ballot

https://baseballhall.org/2025-bbwaa-hall-of-fame-ballot

Carlos González
Curtis Granderson
Félix Hernández
Adam Jones
Ian Kinsler
Russell Martin
Brian McCann
Dustin Pedroia
Hanley Ramírez
Fernando Rodney
CC Sabathia
Ichiro Suzuki
Troy Tulowitzki
Ben Zobrist

New ^

Will be curious if Ichiro gets 100%. Probably not. Otherwise, it's CC and Felix who'll be the ones to watch. CC will go in, though maybe not first ballot; Felix, I don't know. I'll be personally paying a visit to each and every writer who votes for Troy "I'd much rather be in Colorado, I just want to be clear" Tulowitzki.

Closer look, and Felix is a no. Great peak, right on track till he's 30, but that's basically it.

For carry-overs, Wagner should be a cinch (73.8% last time), but this is his last shot. Andruw is at ~60% with two years to go.

without looking, i would have though King Felix would have had a better shot and never really though of CC as a HoFer, but he def has a better case

CC was a much better pitcher for sure

i'm sure CC will get in -- 3093 strikeouts is a lot -- but honestly he's kinda marginal stats-wise

his run with the brewers in 2008 was incredible tho, and i appreciate that

This is a really interesting crop of first ballot players. Obviously Ichiro is a no-brainer, but at least half of them had legitimate 4-5 year HOF peaks. Pedroia would have cleared the bar easily if he hadn't gotten injured. CC wasn't an elite pitcher after his age 31 season and was a compiler after that, but a lot of people argue for Andy Pettitte and he was far, far better than Pettitte with similar career numbers. Felix was unquestionably a HOFer in his 20's and then fell off a cliff, but so did Andruw Jones and he's probably going to get in soon.

he was far, far better than Pettitte with similar career numbers

Far better at his peak, that is.

Ian Kinsler is a guy who might not deserve to make the Hall of Fame but when you look at his career, playing 14 seasons and putting up 4.6 bWAR per 162 games is pretty impressive.

Pedroia was even better obv, i’m a bit more pro when it comes to his case, he had a great career that was cut short by injury, I think one could argue he belongs in based on what he accomplished, kind of like Kirby Puckett.

Sabathia is a weird case, I don’t actually think he’s that much better than Andy Pettitte, I think they both wind up in the realm of guys who had very good careers with several Hall-worthy seasons apiece.

in within first few years: Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia

catchers who will have to wait a while: Russell Martin, Brian McCann

hall of famers who were destroyed by injuries in their 30s: Felix Hernández, Hanley Ramirez, Troy Tulowitzki

King Felix might make it anyway

for the catchers a lot depends on what you think about catching stats and "value" and all that shit

God help me RM seemed HOF worthy to me at the time whereas McCann the Tiger did not

Closer look, and Felix is a no. Great peak, right on track till he's 30, but that's basically it.

― clemenza, Monday, November 18, 2024 2:03 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

consider that he threw a PG on my birthday and i was having a shitty day working late but my friend warned me and i got to watch the last couple innings on my second screen. work this into your HOF analysis please

I’m sure all these guys will get in via some eras committee down the road

(xpost) Have added a WMA to my rigid HOF screening process.

Tracker up and running with six votes:

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF%2169204&authkey=!ACe58mCXDocB0Ls

We can maybe infer that CC's going in (6/6), Felix isn't (0/6), and Andruw might (3/6).

Pedroia is like so many good second basemen where their career falls off a cliff at age 32-33.

Pedroia is like so many good second basemen where their career falls off a cliff at age 32-33.

Injuries? That's what I remember.

Also: Wagner at 5 and Beltran at 3

Relevant to the HOF...Posnanski has a long thing up today on "fine starts"--Game Score of 58+; obviously needs a better name--as a replacement for wins. He starts from the fact that Tommy John had 288 wins and 288 fine starts. A couple of lists.

Leaders, post-deadball:

1. Nolan Ryan, 452
2. Roger Clemens, 410
3. Don Sutton, 389
4. Steve Carlton, 385
5. Gaylord Perry, 381
6. Tom Seaver, 379
7. Greg Maddux, 377
8. Warren Spahn, 368
9. Phil Niekro, 354
10. Randy Johnson, 353

Where it really helps is with starters this century. Active and recently retired leaders:

1. Clayton Kershaw, 277
2. Max Scherzer, 273
3. Zack Greinke, 265
4. CC Sabathia, 240
5. King Félix Hernández, 216
6. Gerrit Cole, 190
7. Chris Sale, 184
8. Jacob deGrom, 155

Highest Career Fine-Start Percentage (minimum 200 starts)

1. Jacob deGrom, 71.1%
2. Clayton Kershaw, 64.6%
3. Chris Sale, 63.0%
4. Pedro Martinez, 61.9%
5. Sandy Koufax, 61.8%

Mark Buehrle remains a kind of interesting case especially if we're lining him up next to CC, who has 37 more wins but played for longer.

162 game average on BBR --

Buehrle is at 14-11, 4.0 bWAR, 221 IP, 126 K (3.81 career ERA)

CC is 15-10, 3.7 bWAR, 217 IP, 188 K. (3.74 career ERA)

both average out at 2 CG and 1 SHO.