hall of fame, next vote...

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.

fangraphs does give more of an edge to CC in terms of WAR, but it's interesting anyway.

Andy Pettitte is probably a better comp to Buehrle than CC, but interesting how close they all are in some ways. and all better than Jack Morris obv.

I think Morris would be a useful test case for the fine-starts concept; I bet he comes in lower than his win total for his career. (Started to count them myself, but didn't get past 1978--incomplete Game Score information back then, too lazy to start doing that myself.)

CC and Ichiro were both at 100% for a dozen ballots, but now CC is 12/13. Bruce Jenkins voted for Ichiro, Vizquel, Manny, and A-Rod.

it's cobra time

Wow--surprised they'd go for Parker over Tiant. But I get it; they've made that mistake time and again, passing over a player who's still alive.

Jesus, Tiant didn't even get five votes.

Long Soto post yesterday from Posnanski yesterday, long HOF post today. The HOF post is all over the place, of course: "I'm happy, but..." Happy for Parker, but Dwight Evans. Happy for Allen, but he's gone. Etc. And he think it's time to remove Tiant permanently--not because he's not deserving, Posnanski's a big advocate, but because he's been on ballots 20 times now and never drawn any support, and at a certain point, enough.

Yesterday--did I make that clear? (Posting while with a difficult grade 5 class.)

Jay Jaffe writes that Russell Martin's pitch framing was worth > 20 wins during his career, making him a clear HOFer:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2025-hall-of-fame-ballot-russell-martin/

I am definitely open to these new metrics for evaluating catchers.

I'm always open to new stats, but in that specific case, I have a hard time seeing Martin as a HOF'er. (Haven't read the piece yet.) I just don't think he hit enough. Baseball's 50% offense, and the other 50%, the run prevention part, I don't know--30-35% pitching, 15-20% defense? I'm sure Martin is as much or more of a HOF'er as Bill Mazeroski, but I don't think Mazeroski should be in the HOF either.

agreed. i don't doubt his pitch framing was very good, but was he "famous" for it? no one went to a game to see the guy frame pitches, and outside of analysts and stat-heads, i don't think his skills were really all that revered. maybe if he was a borderline case, i could see that pushing him over; but as you said, his bat just wasn't good enough to get him close.

the argument for him might be strengthened if you compare him to Yadier Molina, he was a better hitter than him and maybe the pitch-framing brings him closer to him behind the plate. fwiw BBR has Martin at 38.9 career WAR/3.7 per 162, Yady at 42.1/3.1 per 162. On Fangraphs they're basically equal in WAR, 54.5 and 55.6 respectively, but Martin played in 533 fewer games and a couple thousand fewer plate appearances. however I'm also agnostic on Yady, who seems like a guy who is more a vibes HOFer than an actual HOFer.

If we’re talking vibes i always thought martin was cool. Yadi was cool too (admitted under protest) but martin’s whole thing for me was “this is an elite athlete! A catcher who dicks around at shortstop for kicks,” whereas yadi was more of a bulldog. They do different things. Im a big hall guy tho so

Baseball's 50% offense, and the other 50%, the run prevention part, I don't know--30-35% pitching, 15-20% defense?

Yes, that's baseball as a whole. But if we look at individual positions? For a non-premium defensive position such as 1B, it's probably 95% hitting, 5% defense. It's always great if someone can add more on defense, but realistically that's what you're looking for from a first baseman.

But a catcher? Maybe it's 40% hitting, 30% defense, 30% in-game management (incl. pitch calling, directing the defense, controlling the running game, pitch framing, probably 50 other things ...). You could argue for a different breakdown, but the point is that for everything besides hitting, we don't really know how to evaluate catchers.

For instance, check this post and link from five years ago on this thread about Yadi.

I don't have a good feel for catchers who are on the fence. Bench and Piazza and I-Rod are easy. Martin and Molina for me are like Jim Sundberg, who I have a hard time thinking of as a HOF'er. But they're all bunched together on the bWAR catcher list. Which doesn't factor in pitch framing, I take it. If Salvador Perez can have two or three more seasons like his 2024, I like him better--but he doesn't do especially well with WAR.

Weirdly enough, Martin's most famous defensive moment was the throw back to the mound that almost cost the Jays the bat-flip game. (Nothing I'd factor in, obviously, just a strange footnote.)

big thing in my mind with Martin vs Molina, is the World Series(s) and the fact Molina was on one team his entire career. not that being on one team making a difference in talent - but it def helps his "fame-yness" factor a lot when he was the constant over 19 years, 13 playoff runs, 4 world series and 2 rings.

also career playoff slash line...
Molina: 104 G, .273/.326/.357/.682
Martin: 54 G, .191/.306/.327/.633 and hitting a bat with a throwback that lead to one of the wildest chain of events i've ever seen in the playoffs

Jaffe makes the case that Martin was valuable because he moved around and his teams won when he arrived. The Pirates and Jays broke 20-year playoff droughts when he signed with them.

Baseball's 50% offense, and the other 50%, the run prevention part, I don't know--30-35% pitching, 15-20% defense?

don’t agree with this framing (no pun intended). baseball is 100% scoring more runs than the other team. that said I just don’t know if I trust the framing numbers

I think the basic 50/50 split is rock solid: 50% scoring runs, 50% preventing runs. That's how you score more runs than the other team.

Sabathia looks pretty certain now, I'm cool with it.

it's kind of a joke how well Vizquel and Rollins are doing vs Pedroia, Abreu, Kinsler...I'm still not saying Kinsler was a HOFer but he was probably several more peak seasons away from being a Lou Whitaker-type case. The more I think about Pedroia the more I kinda think he belongs, maybe less in a Puckett way like I said previously but more in a Posey way. Abreu seems like a guy who will stick around the full ten years and maybe get some Vet committee love down the road.

Meaningless, but I'm interested in whether or not Ichiro is unanimous. Strategic voting during the logjam a decade ago isn't a credible explanation anymore for not voting for someone.

perspectives of yore:

https://sabr.org/journal/article/is-pitching-75-of-baseball-expert-opinions/

This article was written by James K. Skipper Jr.

This article was published in 1980 Baseball Research Journal

weird to note that Pettitte and Buehrle have picked up 4 and 3 votes apiece at this point in the voting (just under 10% of the ballots are in the tracker.) I'm guessing it might have a bit to do with voters taking a look at them lined up next to Sabathia and thinking they weren't so far off in a lot of respects.

Utley has picked up 2 votes but lost 3, which is weird.

About 1/8 of the way through:

https://www.bbhoftracker.com/

There sure are some good players in that zero-votes group.

https://i.imgur.com/5CxPZAn.jpeg

(it is a real shame we had so many seasons of wildly-overpaid-albert-in-decline because he was a fucking beast)

Interesting: Beltran has picked up 12 votes, only lost one, and sits at 78.5% right now.

King Felix looks like he’s not just going to be returning to the ballot, but he’s received a pretty healthy amount of support. Pedroia is looking safe too.

Utley gaining 9 votes but also losing 5 is weird. Whatever the case I think he’ll eventually get voted in because that peak is pretty undeniable.

Just shy of 25%; could have five guys go in, but Beltran and Jones are pretty iffy.

https://www.bbhoftracker.com/

Glad Torii Hunter finally got a vote--50 WAR, 350 HR, 9 GG. I know he didn't deserve them all, but I wonder how many, say, 300 HR/5 GG-players there are?

It’s still pretty strange to me that Hunter is hanging around on the ballot, Jones is trending towards election, and meanwhile, Jim Edmonds was one and done. I’m pretty sure he was kind of regarded as a prick, but that much of a prick?

it's wild how similar the two are. only thing that tips the scale slightly in favour of Jones, is he surpassed 400 career HR and lead the league in HR and RBI once - which is once more time than Edmonds ever did.

based upon his broadcast skills alone (and i think he's done now, merifully? or getting "promoted" to some off-camera role), he was arrogant, almost always wrong, and couldn't stop talking. he hasn't been made famous for inanely talking over a season highlight yet just because the cardinals have not done well and they finally started decreasing his time on camera last year. however, he was very good at playing baseball, and i hope he gets serious consideration on a committee vote soon

that's right - i'm calling you out, jim edmonds. no one is impressed by who just texted you. you shut up!

Posnanski had a good column today on the players (Edmonds among them) who really got shafted by the mid-2010s glut. This will give you the gist of it:

Here’s a look back at the number of players on every Hall of Fame Ballot this century with a 65-plus WAR.

2020s

2025: 3
2024: 4
2023: 4
2022: 6
2021: 5
2020: 7

2010s

2019: 8
2018: 10
2017: 10
2016: 10
2015: 13
2014: 14
2013: 11
2012: 7
2011: 10
2010: 7

2000s

2009: 5
2008: 4
2007: 5
2006: 3
2005: 5
2004: 5
2003: 6
2002: 6
2001: 4
2000: 4

...This is why I truly believe that a handful of players who first appeared on the ballot from 2013 to 2018 should get a redo. And by this I mean they should be put back on the BBWAA ballot--I just don’t think that veterans committees are set up to reevaluate their careers.

He goes on to single out four players: Lofton, Edmonds, Posada, and Johan Santana.

I would agree on those guys. I think it's a shame that the voters would favor lesser pitchers like Pettitte over Santana, just because the former remained healthy and pretty decent over a longer period of time, vs the latter being a supernova talent for a shorter period.

It's good to see that Pedroia, Hernandez, and Wright will be sticking around, and that Jones and Beltran are getting closer to election. I increasingly think Pedroia really is a HOF guy akin to a Santana or, as I said before, Posey.

K-Rod picked up several votes bc voters treat saves like home runs, idk.