hall of fame, next vote...

Jay--Saw Ted Simmons over the weekend. He repeatedly and effusively thanked the analytics community for, as he said, "bringing him back to life" as a Hall of Fame candidate. Trying to make sure everybody hears that.

— Bill James Online (@billjamesonline) January 22, 2020

here are the (non-PED tainted, non-gambling*) guys on the outside looking in, showing their all-time rank by bWAR.

Some of these guys will never become the next cause célèbre, obviously. i know Pettitte and Brown had some smoke around them w/r/t PED use but i think for the former it's never come into play since it was a murkier situation than others iirc and he doesn't seem like a dick, he's just a guy who seems to fall short. Brown was amazing but also does in fact seem like a dick which is probably why he didn't even get to 5%.

65. Curt Schilling (20) 79.5
72. Jim McCormick (10) 76.2
74. Bill Dahlen (21) 75.4
78. Lou Whitaker (19) 75.1
92. Bobby Grich (17) 71.1
100. Scott Rolen (17) 70.2
106. Rick Reuschel (19) 69.5
118. Kenny Lofton (17) 68.3
120. Graig Nettles (22) 68.0
124. Kevin Brown (19) 67.8
126. Dwight Evans (20) 67.1
130. Tony Mullane (13) 66.5
133. Buddy Bell (18) 66.3
136. Luis Tiant (19) 66.0
137. Willie Randolph (18) 65.9
143. Reggie Smith (17) 64.6
156. Ken Boyer (15) 62.8
Andruw Jones (17) 62.8
161. David Cone (17) 62.3
167. Jack Glasscock (17) 61.6
168. Sal Bando (16) 61.5
Tommy John (26) 61.5
172. Todd Helton (17) 61.2
173. Tommy Bond (10) 60.9
175. Charlie Buffinton (11) 60.7
Willie Davis (18) 60.7
Wes Ferrell (15) 60.7
180. Jim Edmonds (17) 60.4
Keith Hernandez (17) 60.4
185. Andy Pettitte (18) 60.2
189. Bobby Abreu (18) 60.0

*maybe some of the old timers were gamblers? idk. there are some 19th century cats on this list.

Reuschel is a dude who should get a Blyleven-esque second look, he was an incredible pitcher who didn't wind up on an actual good team for a full season until he was 40 years old, if i'm researching correctly. he was one of those supremely unathletic-looking soft tossers who didn't inspire much fear but who got the job done. a better pitcher than Jack Morris, but one with a more tepid mustache and worse teams behind him.

Lofton should be in the HOF, i think. he's another guy whose traveling ways cost him. he did spend 10 years w/Cleveland but he also played for ten other teams, playing no more than 129 games for any one of them (that was w/the Dodgers in 2006). and even w/Cleveland it wasn't ten consecutive seasons, he had a season in Atlanta bookended by 5 and 4 seasons with CLE, and then finished his career w/52 games with them in 2007.

Grich was one of the (if not the very first) early preoccupations of Bill James; I do think he'll hit right with the Veteran's Committee one year. I think Whitaker will get in for sure, Lofton and Evans probably, Reuschel maybe. I don't think Luis Tiant or David Cone will, although I'd personally put them in ahead of Reuschel. (Tiant's maybe my favourite guy on the whole list, but then I'm one of those simpletons who's swayed by nostalgia.)

Sal Bando and Buddy Bell and Graig Nettles (and Boyer, I suppose) are a category unto themselves; maybe Rolen will open the door for at least one of them.

My own sense is that Grich/Whitaker/Evans/Tiant (maybe).

Cone was a great pitcher who had some poor luck by peaking in KC, and during the strike, which cost him 200+ wins. Plus an injury a bit after that. Regardless he likely would’ve suffered the same fate as Brown (a pretty similar pitcher in some respects tho Brown was better). Though he’d also have cleared the slightly more *~~magical~~* 70+ bwar threshold with a bit more time.

Those third basemen are to an extent the poor man’s Santo, who is the old man’s Rolen.

i know Pettitte and Brown had some smoke around them w/r/t PED use

According to pages 215-217 of the Mitchell Report, both of these guys were turned in by Kirk Radomski with validated purchasing receipts and signature tracking shipments of vast quantities of HGH.

...but to your point, maybe they just bought it to collect it or save it for a rainy day or what have you.

(nevermind, Randomski testified under oath he injected Pettite with HGH)

Oh yeah I guess Kirk snitched on those guys too I remembered some Pettitte thing with “injury recovery” used as an excuse, and he was very “ashamed” iirc. Obviously never did it before that, very out of character, etc.

I think Cone came out about even for the strike year in terms of his HOF résumé : you're right, it may have cost him 200 wins (although he would've needed 22 on the year), but he eked out a Cy Young that he could very well have lost to Johnson or Key or Mussina if the season had played out.

guys andy pettitte was just trying to get healthy so he could help the team

For just those two days out of his whole entire life.

from that list, grich and whittaker should already be in

i will fight for lofton and evans

i will root for reuschel, the only decent thing about some truly horrible mid-80s pirates teams

It would have been great if Big Daddy's comeback started in Chicago in '84, they could have used him and with a good Reuschel in the rotation, they might have won it all.

The baseball play I would have loved to have seen and I guess there is no video of is that Jim Abbott hit a triple off Big Daddy in spring training.

Reuschel looked like the ringer pitcher on any Indiana slow pitch softball team in the 80s. For authenticity, you know they are good if they are wearing work boots on the field.

Grich and Lofton should 100% be in. The case for Grich is stronger, but Grich was a little before my time so I feel more emotionally engaged with the case for Lofton.

Lofton's career box is kind of amazing: 10 years in Cleveland (two tours), exactly one year with 10 other teams. Not saying it should--I think he was far more a player that teams always wanted rather than wanted to get rid of--but I'm sure that's a big part of what's holding him back.

I feel like it should be the other way! Nobody really LIKES Derek Jeter except Yankee fans, nobody really likes Ryan Braun except Brewers fans; but half the fans in the league cheered for Kenny Lofton at some point!

People often confuse Lofton with Willie Mays Hays, that might be part of the problem.

Congratulations to the 2020 Inductees.
Canadian slugger Justin Morneau, former Blue Jays first baseman John Olerud, ex-Blue Jays set-up man & later closer Duane Ward & Montreal Expos broadcaster Jacques Doucet will be inducted on June 20 in @townofstmarys. https://t.co/BDqrTtnl2a pic.twitter.com/8LBkTwbIpi

— CDN Baseball HOF (@CDNBaseballHOF) February 4, 2020

If all goes as planned, I'll be a volunteer there by the time they're inducted.

awesome!

isn't it way outside the GTA?

I live in St. Mary's now, Thermo--I can walk to the HOF.

(St. Marys--no hyphen.)

there is a town
in southwestern ontario

Nothing too contentious here:

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/what-active-mlb-players-will-make-hall-of-fame-trout-cabrera-pujols-among-locks-cano-on-the-bubble/

Is Betts being given a pass for sign-stealing in a way that Altuve isn't? I really don't know the details there.

Betts is probably the consensus best player in baseball

I would like to contend this!

I hadn't read the piece, but I see that now and, uh, that might actually be an actionable offense. (Much better might have been that at many points in history, except this one, Betts would have been the best player in baseball.)

2020 induction ceremony officially canceled

evan longoria turns 35 today. as he's now merely a league-average hitter at best, he's not going to get there, but he's closer to hall status by bWAR/JAWS than i anticipated

Could see him being one of those guys who moves to a hitters park and goes nuts for a few years

none of this during playoff games

Not sure that I've ever seen someone's HOF case take a bigger hit within a year than Altuve's, both on and off the field--from somewhere up near near-certain down to almost no chance.

eww

https://i.imgur.com/bwNjXQj.jpg

there's still like 9 on there

If all goes well for Schilling, he'll get to show up at his induction ceremony without a mask.

none of the new adds this year should make it (in an ideal world), right?

seems like a mediocre set of adds

one could make (weak) arguments for buehrle, hudson and hunter. the other additions aren't even close

Whole lot of baseball played by guys on the list, but outside your usual 'roid and ragers of different stripes, more the hall of very good for the most of them.

It just seems weird that Dan Haren has been out of baseball that long, seems like he should still be pitching.

LaTroy Hawkins had such an odd career. At points he was a great reliever, but then at others he was very hittable. Hawkins still had a pretty good fastball late into his career. For whatever reason, the guy seemed to really struggle when he was the 'closer'. I guess like retail, it's all about location in the end.

Shane Victorino always seemed like a fun player, but he played for teams I usually did not like. Seemed to be a fan favorite where ever he played. I dug that he used a two ear batting helmet as a switch hitter.

Heh...Nick Swisher's similars on Baseball Reference is a fun list. Swisher always looked to me that he knew the strike zone and what to do at the plate. I kinda think he might be one of those guys that made the most out of his talent. Considering the time he played in, the guy did not look nearly as athletic as his team mates.

Similar Batters

Carlos Santana (955.8)
Jayson Werth (929.3)
Bob Allison (926.7)
Jeff Burroughs (926.0)
Andre Thornton (920.5)
Pat Burrell (918.8)
Kevin McReynolds (913.1)
Matt Stairs (910.8)
Mark Reynolds (908.1)
John Mayberry (907.1)

Will never forget watching Dan Haren warming up while sitting next to Dr. Morbius whose running commentary had me (and several others in earshot) in stitches.

I always enjoyed Victorino's nickname ("The Flying Hawaiian") more than his gameplay itself.

I think that nickname is mandatory for anyone from those islands with functioning legs.

uh, are you willing to expand on that?

Well I can’t seem to find any evidence - maybe it was just a thing my uncle would do

I was thinking there was a football player that got called 'The Flying Hawaiian' and I guess it has been applied to any football player that was a non-lineman or known as 'The Throwing Samoan'. Outside both Marcus Mariota and Troy Polamalu, there is a guy that plays for the Argonauts and a football character on King of the Hill that use that nickname. [sorry good doc for talking football on ILB.]