hall of fame, next vote...

Oh no, I meant his extended bubble or near-misses thing

You mean his not-in-the-hall series? He's down to #13 (Gil Hodges)...but there's not a running list I can link to. Maybe he'll post one when he's finished. I think his Top 10 is going to be filled with players he already wrote about for his Top 100, though; I wish he'd avoided overlap.

gotcha ty

Abreu's career OBP was .395 (that's a little bit better in the margin department); Bonds' was .444, Henderson's .401.

.395 obp is nothing to sniff at. Abreu was more deserving than Santo who I like

.395 obp is amazing. if it's anywhere near henderson's, that's impressive as hell

.395 is an excellent career OBP. "A little bit better" was only in reference to where the writer arbitrarily drew the line (.375/275 HR/400 SB); 20 points of OBP (an extra 200 times on base over his career) is a more reasonable margin that 13 extra HR or no margin at all for SB. Abreu's got a long way to go (15% right now), but he still has eight years, and he's moving in the right direction.

abreu was really good and has great numbers but i think he's gonna be hurt by the fact that he doesn't ~feel~ like a hall of famer

the OBP is great, but also slightly behind that of jason giambi and brian giles

didn't hit .300, didn't hit 300 homers, didn't reach 2500 hits, never made the top ten in any mvp race, wasn't a great fielder (one gold glove), has no playoff resume to speak of, only made two all-star games. was there ever a time when he was considered one of the top 10 or whatever players in the game? or even among the best outfielders?

obviously he's more deserving than harold baines and any number of other dudes already in! but somehow (not his fault!) he never became a *name* like most of them

as a longtime fantasy dude Abreu was always a sleeper pick for all those reasons...

...and for this reason I nominate him for my own personal fantasy HOF.

Congratulations Bobby!

Abreu hit a lot of doubles and triples. He wasn't just accumulating walks. That's not as sexy as HRs, though.

Giambi is an interesting borderline case if not for roids.

I'd put Sheffield in before Abreu.

Same. I think Sheff should be in the hall tbh

apart from other considerations, sheff had an immediately recognizable (and fearsome) *stance*

that's hof stuff

Abreu hit a lot of doubles and triples

current era of homers-or-nothing has made me very nostalgic for hitters like abreu so i will be voting for him personally

After all that stuff about Abreu, Posnanski basically does the same thing this morning to make his HOF case for Dale Murphy (#11 on his not-in-the-Hall list):

"Here is a list of players who have (deep breath now) won multiple MVP awards and won multiple Gold Gloves and stolen 30 bases in a season and received the most votes for the All-Star Game in a season and won the Lou Gehrig Award for best exemplifying the spirit of Gehrig and won the Roberto Clemente Award for combining good play with strong work in the community."

It's not quite the same thing--except for the SB, it's not based on arbitrary numerical benchmarks--but it sort of is.

I feel like maybe he should be in the hall?!

yeah.

his first mvp probably should have gone to schmidt. second one was less fraught. also he was better than andre dawson in 1987 (but so were some other people).

his seven-year peak JAWS isn't even that great, and his overall WAR is severely lacking despite 398 homers. but also i think there's a significant stretch there in the 80s where you could legitimately claim he was one of the very best in the game.

also he is, to my knowledge, a really good guy

My biggest problem with Murphy--and I've said about Andruw Jones and Joe Mauer--is the steep drop-off at age 31. It's a career arc that has always bothered me. But I was thinking about this in the context of Albert Pujols today, and it's probably something I need to reexamine. Obviously I want Pujols to sail in--but if he'd left the game when Jones and Murphy did, instead of hanging around as one of the worst everyday players in the game, his career would look better, not worse. Old habits die hard, but I'm going to try not to think about this anymore.

"said this"--every post of mine this week is strategically missing one word.

I blame the Big Mac I got when I was 15, by the way, the '74 edition. I became mesmerized by those career boxes that had nothing but big numbers from someone's early '20s through their mid-'30s and beyond.

I never actually noticed how low his career WAR was! Huh

The beginning of Murphy's career isn't too hot either. He didn't exactly come into the league hitting like Pujols.

I guess he’s more “Dwight Evans” level hall of very good.

Speaking of whom, #10 on Posnanski's list this morning.

Interesting point in the essay: Evans, Bobby Grich, and Buddy Bell were all great in the '81 strike year, any one of the three could have won the MVP won by--when they still did things like that--Rollie Fingers, and that that might have pushed him into to the HOF. I checked '94, and I don't think there was anyone where that was true; Lofton had more bWAR than Frank Thomas, but even today, I'm pretty sure Thomas would win.

Source: Numerous National Baseball HOF voters have reached out to the Hall hoping to amend their ballots, removing their votes for Curt Schilling after he supported the seditious acts in Washington D.C. 2 weeks ago. HOF officials are concerned about the precedent this could set.

— M@ (@MattSpiegel670) January 21, 2021

More like what did curt do in the last 72 hours

Because it’s likely nothing he hasnt said before

Like, who did they think he was?! But mainly lol. I hope they let them.

yikes

That's amazing. My first reaction was Thermo's above, but I guess everybody has their line (he crossed Posnanski's and Jaffe's before this). Can't remember who it was, but I read somebody a few weeks ago who said it was his last vote because he was exhausted having to wrestle with stuff like this.

idk if he's really bowing out, but rosenthal mentioned his exhaustion with it

That was it. "Right now, I’m reconsidering everything, including whether I still want to vote for the Hall of Fame"--not dropping out, but considering doing so.

I’ll take his vote

"Character" is one of the key merits and Schilling failed that test on multiple occasions. I'm sure many of the current HoF are equally if not even more repellent than Schilling but this is an era where consequences are harder to dodge.

Curious what James thinks about this, but I think I already know the answer.

I was thinking the announcement was on the 31st, but it's tomorrow. I wrote about Shilling on my home page. He'll probably fall short, but brace yourself for the possibility he gets in: he's just above 75% with close to half the vote on the Tracker.

i'm going to barf is he gets in. i wanted to go there with my kids one day when they're old enough - but it would be enough to kill that idea.

I don't get that, Thermo. He's one guy--you can easily avoid his plaque. The bloody sock is probably already in there, as are Yawkey, Cobb, and others. Or, if nothing else, you can use his presence as what my former job likes to call the "teachable moment."

(Your second sentence, I mean--I get the first.)

I was just reading this David Schoefield post from today:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30777119/2021-baseball-hall-fame-everything-need-know-ballot-reveal-day

I think I knew about Helton's two DUI's; I didn't know about Andruw Jones' domestic violence arrest. "Character counts" is a great idea, but I don't know--do they really want to go down this road? It's so murky. (And for the nine millionth time, I'll add that whatever issues I have with PEDs, none of them, in any way, shape, or form, have to do with character.)

I actually didn’t know about Helton’s DUIs

Schoenfield should expand that list and include the guys who are in the Hall already. They don't all stack up super great. The idea of there being a moral test to join the company of Ty Cobb...

Ty Cobb tho, played in a very different time and i feel like separating the fact and fiction of who he was today is rather tricky.

any hall of fame is going to be full of some HOF assholes

Posnanski's ballot is entered on the tracker now, though he hasn't posted anything on The Athletic: Bonds, Clemens, Helton, Jones, Manny, Rolen, Sheffield, Sosa, Wagner. He dropped Shilling, but didn't replace him with anyone else.

yeah, it's murky. but so are the purely baseball judgments.

i think it was jaffe who went into detail on this in his schilling piece, but: no one is owed induction and schilling was well-compensated for his baseball prowess. as was pete rose.

the hall is about what and who we want to celebrate. like clem said, the bloody sock is probably already there, so it's not like schilling will be erased from baseball history if he doesn't get in. and just because ty cobb is there doesn't mean we have a duty to induct further assholes.

voters will draw lines in different places, but that's why there are a whole bunch of them. in any case, i presume the veteran's committee will be more sympathetic to schilling than the writers, if it comes to that -- i don't think schilling has supported murdering ex-players

give it time.

yesssssss

Good day for Thermo's daughter. Schilling ~ 71%, Bonds and Clemens ~62%, Rolen just over 50%.

There's no way Schilling gets in his last year after what happened three weeks ago. I suspect he'll have a tough time with the Veteran's Committee too--aren't they, in general, bigger on character-counts than even the writers?

Scott Rolen's character seems pretty good why isn't he in ffs.

Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are on the floor of the senate right now, trying to get the vote de-certified...I googled Schilling for some reaction and came across a letter he posted yesterday on Facebook (and linked to on Twitter--I thought he'd been kicked off). I only skimmed it--it's long and rambling. Obviously, I feel bad for him re his wife, who's in the middle of chemotherapy. Elsewhere, there's a real passive-aggressive self-pity going on: "I don’t think I’m a hall of famer as I’ve often stated but if former players think I am then I’ll accept that with honor." Read at your own risk.

https://www.facebook.com/1044701480/posts/10223220822362596/?d=n