hall of fame, next vote...

Hall of Fame Ballot 2004

Bruce Sutter was the pitcher that brought back and popularized the split finger fastball, which considering how popular a pitch it has become in the past 25 years, it is something that he should get some credit.

"Boggs, for instance, is not a classic Hall of Famer, in my eyes, despite his 3,000 hits; he was a very, very good player, but not a dominant player."

Appearantly Buster forgets the mid 80s when Boggs career batting average was at .355 or so, he won 5 of 6 batting titles and his on base percentage was at a SABERMETRIC stoner high. He also won two of those batting titles by more than twenty points! After age 32, he only once hit over .330, but a bunch of players peak around that time in their career. Boggs average with runners on base and the bases loaded is also off the chart.

Oddly enough, I don't think Boggs was quite the same player after that whole scandal with Margo Adams broke. I think opposing teams quit putting chicken on the buffet when Boston was in town or something.

I think it would be interesting to know how many hits Boggs would have put up if he would have been brought up in 81, when he was 21 instead of 24. Boggs always claimed that he was just a good a hitter at 21, but since he played 1b was always behind Yaz in the depth chart and never got the chance to play in the bigs until he learned how to play 3b. He didn't get called up in 84 until they were wracked with injuries, then he hit over .400 for a month or so and stayed in the lineup from then on.

I grew up mostly watching NL baseball, but Boggs was one of my favorite players to follow and watch hit. Maybe not as fearful as some of the great power hitters of his day, but like Tony Gwynn, he was one of those hitters that seemed to dumbfound pitchers on how to get them out.

Earl OTM about Boggs, the guy was an offensive powerhouse.

It's the usual BS with guys like Sandberg -- 2B and 3B are underrepresented positions in the HoF because their offensive numbers aren't at the level of 1B or OF, they're not remembered for being "flashy" like SS, and they're not "on-the-field leaders" like C. Sandberg is a no-brainer.

Gossage should be in, I hear the arguments for Sutter that he wasn't great for as long as some other guys, but a) he was dominant for about the same length of time that Mo Rivera has been (and a lot of people consider him a future HoF player -- yeah, I know Mo's postseason performance is part of that, but still), and b) he INVENTED a pitch, which is a damned significant contribution to the game.

The Blyleven arguments boil down to the fact that he WAS great, but was pitching for bad teams. I think people are wising up to the idea that there are guys like Sutton who are in only because they pitched for good teams.

That season I remember seeing Jack Morris throw a no hitter on TV against the White Sox as it was the game of the week Saturday Afternoon on NBC. I can remember my dad was working in the garage and coming in every so often to check it out how the game was going, as he joked after the first inning or so wouldn't it be funny if he threw a no hitter.

But if that were the case, there'd be 80 or 90 members, except for what, 240 now?

By the established standard, Blyleven belongs. If you're "very good" for long enough (BB was in the top 10 in league Adjusted ERA 11 times from '71-89), that's worth 5-6 years of dominance (the peak vs career, Koufax vs Spahn argument). There was some research I read in the last year that showed Bert didn't suffer quite as much from his teammates' inadequacy as generally thought, but it wasn't enough for him to drop off my "ballot."

>The funny thing about Morris, as I recall, is that he always seemed to pitch just good enough to stay ahead.

"I know not seems..." I'll try to find a link for you, Thermo, but someone recently did a study of Morris's career in this regard, and it showed *no* special ability to pitch that way. He threw 1150 fewer innings than Blyleven and his career ERA was only 5% better than the league's (Bert 18%) -- that's not a negligible difference. Morris had a good career, but not a HOFer.

I'd vote for Gossage on greatness and longevity, Sutter on peak and pioneer role, close but unconvinced for Lee Smith. Rest of ballot: Boggs, Sandberg, and TRAMMELL, most deserving SS of that era below Ozzie. Dawson and Rice fall short.

It's sad that the Vets Committee process has obviously been fucked up to the point where they may never elect anyone, as I fear Ron Santo will die before his deserved induction.

I'm not sure that would be worst thing ever actually, but my problem with Blyleven is that during his time he was never really recognized as being one of the best in the game. He wasn't voted to All Star games, he didn't make Cy Young top 10s, he wasn't talked about as being a great pitcher. And I think that hurts him. NOW if the reason why none of those things occurred was that he toiled entirely in obscurity for shitty teams and if he'd been on the Dodgers, the Red Sox, the Yankees and the Reds for those years instead that there would be a complete about face and he'd be considered among the best pitchers of his era, well all I can say geez that's bad luck for Bert, but I think that's a hard argument to make conclusively.

MIR, here's a 4-year-old Neyer column on Blyleven... Alex, I think it's conclusive:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/s/2000/1213/943398.html

And he later wrote:

"Blyleven was, over the course of his career, a better pitcher than Ted Lyons or Early Wynn or Bob Lemon or Red Ruffing or Rube Waddell or Red Faber or Catfish Hunter or Lefty Gomez, all of whom are in the Hall of Fame... It's not Blyleven's fault that he generally pitched for unspectacular teams that played in hitter's parks. In fact, Blyleven pitched for 22 seasons, and in only four of those 22 seasons did Blyleven's home ballpark favor the pitcher, statistically..."

And to appeal to the butch old-timers: 242 complete games!

Four of 'em (third twice).

http://baseball-reference.com/b/blylebe01.shtml

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1815

It concludes that there is no evidence to suggest that he could.

That's the article I meant, MIR, thanks.

I think he's written a couple of other columns on Blyleven, maybe I can find them ...

Those are some mind-numbing stats!

This, and many other articles stating his HoF case are collected -- where else? -- on Blyleven's web page:

http://www.bertblyleven.com/hall_of_fame.shtml

xpost -- yeah, the Morris article is a bit of a numbers slog, but it's well done.

Enough, believe me. And I saw him compare him to two HOF pitchers, one of whom is IMO a mistake and the other who is basically in the Hall because he had a zillion strikeouts and a slew of no hitters. Compare him to Carlton or Seaver or Hunter or any of the really great pitchers from his era, if you want to make your point (that this guy is getting job) don't just claim he was "better than Don Sutton" cuz my response to that is so the fuck what.

That second ESPN article is much better btw and makes a pretty good case.

No, Bert is not Seaver or Carlton.

He played for fifteen years, and he had about four great years, four good years, and the rest were downright BAD. If he'd pitched for anyone other than the 70's A's and Yankees dynasties, there's no way he'd be anywhere near a serious HoF discussion.

See this is where I get the impression that cold-dispassionate analysis of the stats lies a little. For 5 years (71-75), Hunter was probably hands down the most feared pitcher in baseball. No he might not have been Koufax, but he was still by all accounts pretty amazing. Those five years count for more to me than 20 some odd years of just pretty good workmanlike pitching (I will admit that these breakdowns of Blyleven's stats are making a pretty case that he was better than that.) (I do have to wonder WHY if Bert was so great, he um didn't get snatched up by better teams? I mean that can't all be bad luck, right?)

Postseason Pitching

Year Round Tm Opp WLser G GS ERA W-L SV CG SHO IP H ER BB SO
+------------------+-----+--+--+------+-----+--+--+---+-----+---+---+---+---+
1970 ALCS MIN BAL L 1 0 0.00 0-0 0 0 0 2.0 2 0 0 2
1979 NLCS PIT CIN W 1 1 1.00 1-0 0 1 0 9.0 8 1 0 9
WS PIT BAL W 2 1 1.80 1-0 0 0 0 10.0 8 2 3 4
1987 ALCS MIN DET W 2 2 4.05 2-0 0 0 0 13.3 12 6 3 9
WS MIN STL W 2 2 2.77 1-1 0 0 0 13.0 13 4 2 12
+------------------+-----+--+--+------+-----+--+--+---+-----+---+---+---+---+
3 Lg Champ Series 2-1 4 3 2.59 3-0 0 1 0 24.3 22 7 3 20
2 World Series 2-0 4 3 2.35 2-1 0 0 0 23.0 21 6 5 16
5 Postseason Ser 4-1 8 6 2.47 5-1 0 1 0 47.3 43 13 8 36
+------------------+-----+--+--+------+-----+--+--+---+-----+---+---+---+---+

He didn't get many chances, but Blyleven pitched well in the playoffs and was a part of two World Series Champions.

Many of his best years came before free agency, so he didn't have much choice in the matter.

Even with free agency, it's only during the last ten years or so that all the best players end up on big-market winning teams at some point, since eventually those are the only teams that can afford them. If Jaret Wright can bounce around for a while, have one good season after a slew of crappy ones, and end up with a multi-year deal from a perennial contender, then Blyleven would have ended up playing for more winning teams too, if he was playing today.

Even so, every era has a few great players who toil away in relative obscurity. Look at Bobby Abreu, or even Carlos Delgado. If Delgado goes to the Mets, maybe in 20 years people will be saying "if he was so good, why did his teams always finish in third place?"

Alex, nobody's saying Hunter wasn't GOOD, just that Blyleven was better for MUCH longer, and that "good press" shouldn't be a measure of excellence. And I don't see Hunter '71-75 being "amazing" ... His most "impressive statistics" are wins (ie, having good teammates) and innings pitched (which blew out his arm, as MIR says). I think he got extra credit for the pennants and the sexy nicknames. And it's cute how you use high Cy Young finishes as relevant to Hunter, not relevant for Blyleven. (Also, I don't see Hunter's status as the first Big Splash free agent being relevant; see Marvin Miller's book for how clownishly Catfish handled that situation.)

The "cold-dispassionate analysis of the stats" is the most reliable evidence there is. Not "what you heard" (from Joe Morgan?). And it isn't so much that Blyleven toiled for bad teams (they were more often mediocre), but pitched in hitters' parks.

I hope it happens soon so that he lives to attend his own induction.

It's not lookin' good for Marv, MIR -- when the Vets voted last in '03, no one came close to getting 75% ... and of the 60 votes required for election, Miller got 35. He got three FEWER votes than Walter O'Malley -- or as we call him in Brooklyn, Satan.

Miller and other non-players are on the "composite" ballot. Here's this year's players' ballot:

http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/veterans/2005/2005_vc_candidates.htm

The only one I'm sold on is Santo, but Dick Allen and Tony Oliva have decent cases -- as does Curt Flood for courage and legal pioneering.

Mickey Lolich won't get in the Hall, but his pitching in the 68 World Series may be the best performance ever in the fall classic by a starter. The guy out pitched Bob Gibson in Game Seven on TWO days rest. ESPN Classic was showed that game a few months back and it was great. Harry Caray was doing the play by play.

While I don't know if he is good enough player to make the hall, Al Oliver had a pretty good career and never gets put on these kind of lists.

My general point is that "b...b...but he was a bit of an asshole" is a criticism that's used far too often despite being irrelevant most of the time. As long as the guy didn't compromise the game of baseball (Pete Rose being the most obvious example) then I couldn't care less if he was moody and didn't get along with everybody. If he could bring it on the field, then that's the most important thing.

(xpost)

Haha I need to learn to check baseballreference.com before I say stuff sometimes.

Rolen: 76.3
Helton: 72.2
Wagner: 68.1
Jones: 58.1
Sheffield: 55
Beltran: 46.5
Kent: 46.5
A-Rod: 35.7
Manny: 33.2
Vizquel: 19.5
Pettitte: 17
Abreu: 15.4
Rollins: 12.9
Buehrle: 10.8
K-Rod: 10.8
Hunter: 6.9

I'm surprised just Rolen...I guess that early-declaration theory is null and void.

Helton and Wagner look good to go for 2024. The next ballot will have some names: Beltre, Mauer, Utley. David Wright. Bartolo!

early-declaration theory??

Beltre feels like an easy first balloter to me. Helton for sure next year, I’d think.

i'm guessing Beltre at over 90% and Helton close to 80%. Mauer will have to wait a bit.

Utley is the one who i've got no idea about. huge, huge peak value guy, but didn't get those nice round numbers a lot of writers dig.

(xpost) The theory was, for a few years--more of a fact, actually--that certain kinds of players would get a lot of public votes, then drop off drastically with undeclared voters. Two things that were true of such players: they were very strong analytically, and (almost all) had PED associations. I figured Rolen was the more analytical candidate here, and that Helton would at least keep pace with him, and probably pass him with undeclared voters. But I guess it was just PEDs: voters who wanted to leave Bonds, Clemens, etc. off their ballot didn't want to go public with that.

Ahhhh

Probably as famous as the Magic Bullet Theory and the Worlds Colliding Theory.

Even though only Rolen was elected, there were positive outcomes for a lot of guys, I think a few others will eventually be elected (Helton, Wagner, Beltran, Jones).

I’m a major closer agnostic obv w/r/t the HOF but if you gotta have them in there, gotta have Wagner. He could be the last of them to get in for quite awhile though.

i don’t think Kenley Jansen is that far off tbh. His era etc is a little higher but he’s 40 saves behind and about the same amount of strikeouts. He’s one good season away from having about as good a case as Wagner I feel.

I don’t know, I mean I think w closers the thing that frequently separates the chosen ones from the also-rans is some kind of folk hero status, some kind of “it” factor. and they have to be money their entire career, they can never be sidelined. I don’t think Jansen ever got sidelined iirc but he doesn’t really stand out from the Nathan/Papelbon types beyond the postseason stats. That last bit might be considered a plus but idk, closers really do need some intangibles which add to their legend for people to vote for them.

He’s likely to have a better case than Chapman (postseason meltdowns, abuser) or Kimbrel (occasionally awful and benched)

Something I posted in a different thread, seems pertinent to the last few posts:

true or false baseball challop: not a single one of the modern day closers belongs in the Hall of Fame

I thought Kimbrel/Chapman/Jensen were solid; then they tailed off, and then Josh Hader came along and made what I thought were basically unsurpassable rate stats look a little less awesome. And now Hader may have peaked, although the postseason suggests otherwise.

I think I might be in the minority on this but I really disagree with "unquestionably a Hall of Famer." I think he probably is. I might change my tune when I consider him more. But he's not, like a Mays/Griffey no-brainer here where you skip past the merits of the case entirely.

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) January 25, 2023

i'm not sure he's a hall of famer at all, and definitely not a first vote kind of guy. i should note that i never really saw him play too much since he was always in the AL. but imo he was a no doubt hall of famer until concussions pushed him from catcher. after that, he was a slightly above league average hitter playing DH and 1B with very little power but good OBP

a slightly above league average hitter playing DH and 1B with very little power but good OBP

which is useful, but almost every team has at least one player in AAA who is an above average hitter but limited by their inability to defend anywhere other than 1B, or to play DH. and he hit that point at age 31. if he's a no doubter, than so is david wright. they were both phenomenal in their 20s

yeah I’ve got no problem with mauer particularly, but he’s an interesting case when considered in the context of the changing faces of the hall-eligible…there seems to be an belief gaining currency that players at every position from the modern era deserve serious consideration even if they didn’t really play that much (catchers and closers in particular). it feels pretty inevitable

and maybe that’s fine, particularly with regard to catchers and there not being really any inner circle candidates. like after mauer the next catcher up is gonna be…molina?

oh I guess posey

There are lots of guys getting in for short peak value, which Mauer has obv. Posey as well. There’s probably a lot more sympathy for the grind of being a catcher idk.

Gotta say though that Posey being mentioned constantly as a future HOFer makes me wonder why Thurman Munson has never been revisited, he and Posey were the same player basically and it’s weird that he’s not considered. they have almost the same exact bWAR per 162 games (5.3 for Posey, 5.2 for Munson), slightly more than Mauer (4.8). Molina is 3.1 btw. Very similar career stats, MVP awards, championships, leadership etc.

i'm always kind of amazed that munson isn't in - not just the stats but also his iconic HR, playing with the yankees, his career tragically short

oh wait, the home run was carlton fisk lol

Mauer was OK after moving to 1B permanently, but he wasn't a star player anymore. 10 WAR over his last five seasons isn't all that bad.

But at his peak, you could argue he was the best hitting catcher ever. He'll also get credit for signing with his hometown team and staying there his entire career. He'll get elected easily (probably not on the first ballot though).

I mean the reason Munson isn’t in is because the voters at the time cared a lot more about career home runs and hits etc than peak value. And he wasn’t like Koufax-good enough to get a pass at the time for the shorter career.

yeah he definitely falls shy in those old-school standards. just curious if they'll ever bring him around again for consideration.

Koufax also had a remarkable postseason resume, just crazy good.

I'm thinking Mauer gets in on his second or third ballot.

Salvador Perez is another interesting current catcher who might have HOF prospects. But it's hard to say, it's a thin line for him between winding up another Lance Parrish, or a Yadier Molina with power.

is beltran not getting 50% due to the sign stealing or

I don't think he was ever a first ballot guy but yes definitely

is there any kind of philosophical split between HOF nominators who look at all pitchers (SP and RP) based on the same criteria and all other players based on the same criteria, versus nominators who compare catchers only to other catchers and RPs only to other RPs and make their choices that way? i'm thinking about it like how the oscars lump all movies together and so you have people trying to compare the merits of "all quiet on the western front" vs "everything everywhere all at once" versus the ebert philosophy of judging a movie based on how well it accomplishes what it is trying to do. i don't know if this makes any sense.

it seems obvious that if you're judging for example buster posey's worthiness as a HOFer you should be comparing him to all other catchers, but then the HOF ballot has everyone lumped together so the implication is you're comparing posey to all the other players nominated that year regardless of their position

it does make sense! i think there are both, along with many other splits in approach. there are also some people who make a habit of maxing out their ballot, selecting 10 players even if they're kind of iffy after a few of them, while there are others that will only vote for a handful (or less) and leave the rest of the ballot blank

I think comparing to other players at the same position makes sense to an extent, but my personal opinion is that there is not all positions have players who, on their own, provide the same value. relief pitchers are the obvious example, they’re akin to role players or a sixth man in the NBA; occasionally you will have a special case like manu ginobili or mariano rivera, but generally these players play less and provide less value, and (imo crucially) are *selected* for these roles because they would not be able to handle a bigger load

catchers aren’t quite the same, and philosophies are going to differ, but there is a similar argument to be made that shorter careers and fewer innings just simply means less value. and something that I feel isn’t said enough is that generally teams will try to have their top catching prospects switch positions for this reason, to extend their career — bryce harper is the most obvious example. so it stands to reason that the talent pool of the catchers that remain isn’t as strong as like, shortstops

Jaffe's JAWS system for the HOF is based on the idea that you compare positionally--although I don't think the implication is that you need all positions represented equally.

again — different philosophies, but is it not? the average JAWS for a center fielder (of which there are 19) is 58.1, and that’s not including trout. for the 16 catchers, it’s 44.2

if one takes it to its logical extension, there is a lower bar to entry for catchers (and certainly relief pitchers)

The Oscars lump all the movies together but voters can only select one winner in each category. HOF ballots have "multiple winners" so comparisons can, and should, be made according to position.

This becomes a problem if someone wants to vote for more than ten players, but most voters don't (in most years).

the world does not, in theory, need closers. most of them are failed starters anyway

but you have to have a catcher every single inning, every single pitch, and it requires skills and experience that other ballplayers rarely have. so for me the question of joe mauer vs mike trout is far less important than joe mauer vs an average or replacement level catcher.

i’m not even sure ‘replacement-level’, which assumes a ready supply of fungible quad-a players, should apply to catchers — there just aren’t that many guys who can do an even passable job of it (which is why austin hedges, coming off a .489 OPS (!) season, will earn $5m this year)

mauer hit .328/.409/.481 in 897 games as a catcher (and was more than playable at 1B/DH). JAWS has him as the sventh-greatest catcher of all time. he’s not ray guy; hes travis kelce

you need a catcher every single pitch, for sure. unfortunately most of the top catchers, once they’re made it to the point where their teams want them to be long-term catchers, are catching about 60% of the pitches. which introduces some wrinkles

I would put Munson in, for all the reasons Omar mentioned. The parallels to Posey are uncanny: from WAR to awards to World Series to shortened career to being on each other's Similarity Score list. The biggest difference was that Thurman was never picked as the Face of Baseball because he looked kind of gnarly and scowled a lot.

for awhile when i was a younger MLB i thought Munson actually was in the HOF, he just checked a lot of the boxes. He was a legend.

it's weird to look back and see just how many of these players whose names resonated w/me as a kid when looking at the old stats, whose stats were largely massive, are on the outside looking in. Some worthy of inclusion, some probably not but awesome regardless: Norm Cash, Rocky Colavito, Dick Allen, Graig Nettles, Frank Howard, George Foster, Dwight Evans, Darrell Evans, Buddy Bell, guys like that. Not saying all would deserve it, but it's preposterous that a lot of these guys wound up w/less HOF voting percentages than K-Rod.

Luis Tiant, there's another guy i always thought was in the HOF

Im a big hall guy and think the Fame part is the undervalued resource rn

Like i dont think fame when i think billy wagner but do think fame for scheffield for ex

Totally agree, and part of the argument for both Munson and Tiant. Tiant was a better pitcher for Cleveland, but he became a legend in Boston.

I'd even extend that argument to someone like Jim Rice. There are many players who should be in ahead of him, yes, but I don't think you can dismiss him out of hand without first factoring in that for years he was widely viewed as a sure-thing HOF'er. Would I rather see Lou Whitaker or Dwight Evans in? Yes, but I get why Rice was voted in.

Yeah rice is a good one vs jack morris who i do not think of as famous, the One Big Game aside

jack morris was a jack mcdowell peak level pitcher in terms of quality, w/better durability and that one game.

I've mentioned this before: as valuable as fame in getting into the HOF is mystique. I won't even put it in quotation marks--it does exist, and I think it's different than fame. Billy Williams wasn't famous, but from the time I started watching in the early '70s, he had mystique: he was the best pure hitter in the game (or, expressed differently, had the sweetest swing). I don't think Eddie Murray was necessarily famous, but he had mystique: RBI guy, clutch hitter, consistent. Denny McClain was famous, and then he was infamous; Juan Marichal had mystique.

Sometimes, it aligns with actual value: Ted Williams. Sometimes it's disproportionate: I'd say Morris had it far in excess of his value.