hall of fame, next vote...

but anyway, floyd bannister was not a name i expected in the top 20!

Mike Witt!

I guess Ryan was maybe better in the ‘80s? Weird though I mean at least half a dozen of the other non-HOF guys felt like the best pitcher in the game for a minute or a bit longer. Saberhagen was incredible.

Between the early-mid 70's Carlton/Seaver/last of the 300 IP hurlers era and the 90's Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz era, a lot of pitchers were great for a few years and flamed out. There's also Ron Guidry in addition to the guys you named. I don't know if they've been locked out of the Hall, but something weird was happening in the 80's where all the best pitchers had no longevity and somehow only Jack Morris and Frank Tanana were left standing. There are too many of these pitchers over too many years to say it's just a coincidence, but I've never seen a convincing explanation. One explanation: for or most of baseball history, even the very good teams were built from stars and scrubs, and there were always weak hitting middle infielder types who you could get out without using maximum effort. That was changing by the 80's, but it was before the more modern understanding of pitcher development with pitch counts and innings limits, so a lot of great pitchers simply flamed out too soon. And that's how we end up with Jack Morris as the HOF representative for the era. How can this be corrected? I'm not sure.

The 80's were so messed up that Vuckovich, Hoyt, and a whole bunch of closers all won Cy Young awards, but Dave Stieb didn't. Stieb was still great into his 30's and was settling into that Maddux post-2000 phase of his career where he could pitch forever and get by on his smarts, but the back injury ended his career almost overnight. Even so, he's got a better HOF case than most of his peers.

As a kid I always thought Stieb was the best pitcher in the AL maybe because it seemed like he started every all star game during his peak (I’m definitely aware he probably didn’t btw). However he didn’t have enough wins and also his mustache was not Earnhardty enough to impress sportswriters like Morris’ did. But his five best bWAR seasons are way beyond Morris’ best.

and yet, he ended up with the second most wins of the 80s (140)! basically it just comes down to the mustache

wins were hard to come by in the '80s! if Stieb stuck around for another 4-5 seasons injury-free and cleared 200 he'd have that plus i'm sure a vv solid career WAR. or he might fall into Kevin Brown purgatory.

i'd be curious to see if in the future some other guys with these amazing brief meteoric peaks get more consideration. i'm not opposed to the notion that peak value should be heavily revisited when it comes to guys like Hershiser and Will Clark and other stars from the '80s.

orel doesn't really have the overall numbers but i think there's a lot to be said for having that scoreless streak + being the only guy to win NLCS/ALCS/WS MVPs etc

he may have really hurt himself by trying to squeeze out that last season (24.2 IP, -2.0 bWAR!)

You can make a career argument for Will Clark, too, if you don't penalize him for retiring at 36 instead of padding his numbers--his bWAR is 56.5. Actually, if you look at his career box, I think he's more of a career than peak guy (three or four years tops).

Clark had the misfortune of seeming to have peaked early and instead of becoming this perennial 35-40 homer guy, he wound up being a perfectly excellent John Olerud-type first baseman in an era when his contemporaries like Palmeiro and McGriff really padded their power stats, and younger hitters like Bagwell and Thomas put up those Jimmie Foxx stats across the board. he didn't really decline as much as he missed some time due to injuries. he was pretty consistent up to the end, he was always a great and patient hitter. if anything i think his outlier power season in 1987 made his subsequent career seem disappointing rather than borderline HOF.

would be curious to see how many players set a career high in homers in '87.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EJq7bOxUwAA_Fwh?format=png&name=small

vote jose valverde

Incredible to me that cliff lee has been retired for 5 years

seems probable that only one player from this list will make it, w/the next most likely i think remaining Walker (who really needs a push and a campaign he may not receive) followed by Schilling, who is still such a piece of shit that i think ppl might make him wait awhile longer.

Walker needs a really big push, I don't see it happening and it is tragic.

it's so crazy to me that it's completely non-baseball-related stuff that's keeping schilling out

b-ref's sean forman says he's not voting for jetes (because he will vote strategically for 10 players who need it more)

Putting PED guys to one side (because I hate talking about the subject), I'd vote for Jeter, Schilling, Walker, and Helton. I'm on the fence with Rolen; not sure why, but there's something that seems diffuse about his career. If he goes in eventually, that's fine.

My Just Jeter Hall of Fame ballot for 2020. #keepthehallsmall pic.twitter.com/lFEOfqLhxO

— steven marcus (@newsdayalum) November 21, 2019

an excellent reason for someone to vote for ten, excluding Jeetz

I hope Jacques Doucet gets the Frick award. He is the greatest ambassador of baseball to the french language, his work is heroic and having met him multiple times, a truly nice person.

steven marcus was the drummer in Gay Dad.

not sure where to post this, but this list is made up of a bunch of current and future hall of famers, so

https://i.imgur.com/o14Z2Dm.png

https://i.imgur.com/piRPuiy.png

besides the fun of seeing guys like Gene Tenace in the top 50, it's also interesting to look at the top fWAR list and look for the outliers, although i guess it's players you'd mostly expect.

for example, derek jeter (42nd by fWAR, 280th per PA) eddie murray (48th fWAR, 316th per PA), pete rose (35th WAR, 409th per PA), dave winfield (111th fWAR, 459th per PA)

shoutout to trot nixon, with 22.4 career fWAR, but coming out ahead of hall of famer craig biggio by WAR/PA

#43 Russell Martin, I was not expecting that.

This list uses total WAR (offense and defense), which makes WAR/PA (implies offense only) a bit misleading.

A few catchers i wouldn’t have expected and also a good amount of 3rd basemen.

I gather from a local sportswriter that other voters are submitting Jeter-only ballots? He seemed to hint there were a few. That's so ridiculous.

marvin

he was a friend of mine

were you not a friend of ted?

more of an acquaintance

one of my great thrills as a fan was sharing an elevator in Cincinnati with MM and his wife in 2004

pity he has to share that gallery with Bowie the Clown Kuhn

Better late than never I guess. Miller wouldn't have cared either way but he transformed baseball and needs to be in the HOF.

well, he did care -- he said he didn't want it

to wit

https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2019/12/09/marvin-miller-wanted-no-part-of-the-hall-of-fame/

I was going to post that too--both James and Posnanski have written about Miller telling them, very adamantly and not in any way subtly goading them into doing the opposite, that he did not want to be voted in posthumously, and that they should not vote for him under any circumstances. (Posthumously, I'm sure about--he may even have not wanted in after missing the first time.)

From Posnanski's HOF post today:

Word is that his family, indeed, will not attend, which could make for an awkward ceremony. His son Peter says that his father told him his wishes “many, many times.” His daughter Susan told the Associated Press, “it would have been a great honor 20 years ago.” It is unclear who, if anyone, will speak on Miller’s behalf. Perhaps the Hall of Fame will just play back some old interviews Marvin Miller gave, which might be the best that they can do.

send donald fehr and/or sean doolittle

i'll bet dale murphy would do a solid job as well

I knew he felt slighted and disrespected by the HOF selection committees and said he didn't want to be voted in. But I didn't know he was so adamant about it. I figured he wasn't losing sleep over it but would eventually be accepting of the honour, if he was still alive to receive it. Obviously that's not the case. His daughter is right -- too bad they didn't induct him twenty years ago. But there was no chance of the powers that be allowing that to happen just a few years after the '94 strike.

Revisiting some HOF predictions from James in one of the Historical Abstracts, Posnanski listed his picks for the next 25 years:

2020: Derek Jeter, Larry Walker
2021: Curt Schilling, Omar Vizquel
2022: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens
2023: Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz
2024: Adrian Beltre, Ichiro Suzuki
2025: Carlos Beltran, Manny Ramirez
2026: Scott Rolen, Joe Mauer
2027: Albert Pujols, Chase Utley
2028: C.C. Sabathia, Yadier Molina
2029: Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano
2030: Joey Votto, Buster Posey
2031: Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke
2032: Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer
2033: Evan Longoria, Felix Hernandez
2034: Josh Donaldson, Paul Goldschmidt
2035: Clayton Kershaw, Freddie Freeman
2036: Stephen Strasburg, Jose Altuve
2037: Christian Yelich, Jacob deGrom
2038: Mike Trout
2039: Mookie Betts, Manny Machado
2040: Gerrit Cole, Bryce Harper
2041: Chris Sale, Nolan Arenado
2042: Francisco Lindor, Javy Baez
2043: Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger
2044: Juan Soto., Walker Buehler
2045: Fernando Tatis Jr., Madison Bumgarner

I don't think it's meant all that seriously. I'm impressed that Verlander's going in twice, though.

By the internal logic of his picks--getting past the PED boycott--McGwire and Palmeiro ought to be there, probably Sheffield, and maybe Sosa too.

I’d have Sosa, Sheffield and McGwire before guys like ARod, Manny and Clemens for sure.

If I had to rank the PED guys:

1. Bonds
2. Clemens
3. A-Rod
4. Manny
5. McGwire
6. Palmeiro
7. Sheffield
8. Sosa

I like Palmeiro more than most do. I know he was never dominant, always in the shadow of Thomas/Bagwell/McGwire, but he was so consistent--from '87 to '03, his OPS+ only dips below 110 once, below 120 three times; mostly he's in the 130-160 range. I guess he was a "compiler," but at a level where I don't see that as a negative. And he did draw consistent mid-level MVP support.

Sosa might be ahead of Sheffield...but Sheffield did almost win a Triple Crown pre-PED, and Sosa didn't really do anything outside of that window.

9. Ortiz

a HOF w/out Bonds and Clemens is meaningless

OK, it's meaningless with them, too

A HOF with Harold Baines and no Charlie Hustle

i would put palmeiro above mcgwire. i think he's going to have a little extra problem though -- actually going before congress and straight-up lying will, i think, stick in peoples' craws more than regular juicing

Ortiz won’t be regarded as a PED guy he’ll glide in pretty easily I think. First ballot would be my guess. He’ll be extended the benefit of the doubt even more than Bagwell.

agreed unfortunately

My own take is he deserves to make it and is possibly underrated by WAR since he was such a force at the plate for so long. But also that the other guys on the list should make it but a lot of them will never get anywhere near enshrinement.