hall of fame, next vote...

(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.]

I was tuned out enough that I didn't realize Robinson Cano had a very good season, at least offensively. I assume he's dead for the HOF...may end up with 3,000 hits, almost 400 HR, and a .300 career average.

yeah he was locked in, but a *second* positive really ended it

there's a psych study waiting to happen there

Going to be 38 next year and is 375 hits shy of 3000, so he would probably need to play at least three full seasons to hit that number. This will be 81 game suspension for second time, I think.

Ha--when I posted yesterday, I hadn't even heard the news. Definitely RIP now.

Happy 80th to Luis Tiant--get him in there!

Ballot #8 comes from a voter who wishes to remain anonymous. Aramis Ramirez and Torii Hunter are on the board. We're not able to report on any gained or lost votes, if any, on anonymous ballots.

Anonymous ballots are listed at the bottom of the Tracker: https://t.co/cVpo9e9n0y pic.twitter.com/A06B0pqzCe

— Ryan Thibodaux (@NotMrTibbs) November 25, 2020

Still extremely early--17 ballots--but my recollection is that, early on, eventual inductees tend to jump out really fast. Rolen leads with 65% right now (along with Bonds/Clemens, who always drop as the vote progresses); wouldn't be surprised if no one goes in. Along with the lack of a sure-thing debut, the pandemic makes it all feel that much more remote.

Find it interesting how little support Jeff Kent gets--he's running just above 5% in his 8th year on the ballot.

Checked Jay Jaffe, and he's got him 21st among second basemen. What's interesting to me is the seven non-HOF'ers ahead of him: Cano, Grich, Utley, Whitaker, Randolph, Kinsler, Pedroia. Cano is active, and a PED case who won't go in, and Pedroia's career was derailed by injury. The other five guys are all sabermetric favourites. I suppose Kent loses votes from some writers because Grich, Whitaker, and Randolph aren't in. (I think Utley will also fall short, and Kinsler obviously won't go in because of the nature of his career.)

I've listened to Jeff Blair so much on the Fan the past few years, but I didn't realize he had a HOF ballot. He only used three spots this year: Bonds, Clemens, Manny (but not Sosa or Sheffield).

Schilling has moved over 70%; still only 37 ballots. Normally he's the kind of guy that doesn't do well with late, non-public voters--a sabermetric rather than bulk-numbers pick--but, I don't know, maybe supporting Schilling is something you'd rather keep to yourself.

You're right that he's an early voter guy, he's actually doing worse than last year. Added to one ballot, removed from two.

good.

Schilling briefly edged over 75% a few days ago, but he's back down now. The one big success this year is Helton, who seems like a sure thing within a year or two (or maybe three, depending upon who's coming on). He's at 50% in his third year, with a gain of 12 votes over last year and no defections.

jaffe did a looong piece on schilling at fangraphs that boiled down to a) his on-field performance totally merits getting in, and b) jaffe himself will neither be voting nor persuading anyone to vote for a guy who approves of lynching journalists

does jaffe re-write those every year or just take last year's version and update?

schilling's still at -1, and i don't think he's been in the positive at all

thibodeoux said a while ago that the reporting has been really weird this year because writers haven't been sending him or revealing their ballots at the point they usually do, so the YOY percentage differences have been wonky despite the +/- being around 0 for a lot of guys

i assume jaffe just updates

a guy like schilling would usually be getting a gradual boost from voter churn, but it seems to be getting more popular for young voters to draw the ethical line at him xp

Poz says hes not voting for schilling anymore (might have been linked upthred?); short version is ‘being in the HOF allows you to sell being in the HOF wrt speakers’ fees, endorsements and the like and i dont think we need to platform this guy more and allow him to use his HOF credentials to be an asshole’

Jaffe just updates, yes.

HOF motto, now more than ever: "Friendship, character, ethics."

http://deadshirt.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/MILLERScROSSING-pOLITO.jpg

(Jon Polito, as you might guess.)

I posted a link to the Schilling piece in the Posnanski thread. If you haven't read it, you should. Paywalled, so here's a Google Doc (if it doesn't work, let me know):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14RUdNLsh5yfbyJP8PbX5pbooC_WSKGbo4S98r56tDpY/edit?usp=sharing

“Etics!”

I should have mentioned Rolen as the other big breakthrough: 4th year, 60% at the moment, 14 votes gained, only two lost. (Thanks to this thread, I'm paying more attention now to the +/-.)

The voting deadline passed yesterday--only 27% of the ballots public this year.

Scott Rolen is really making a run at it; he's up to 68%. He seems like the kind of sabermetric player who would fall back with the undeclared ballots, but who knows? If not this year, next year for sure. (Ortiz and A-Rod, and only the first is going in.)

Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling are all bunched around 73%. If they're ever going to go in, it wouldn't be a bad idea to put them in together. They can give their speeches to an audience of 23, everyone else can boycott.

Came across this in Ryan Fagan's column explaining his HOF picks: "Let’s take another look at Abreu’s case, starting with this: There are only three players in MLB history with at least 275 career home runs, 400 stolen bases and an on-base percentage of .375 or better. Those three are Barry Bonds, Rickey Henderson and Bobby Abreu."

I do think there's a case to be made for Abreu, and if you step back--way, way back--I can see the rationale for grouping those three players together. But that's a textbook case of that thing writers do when they start combining categories, drawing the line exactly where they need it to be drawn. Not that I haven't done it myself.

Abreu hit 288 HR; Bonds hit 762.
Abreu stole exactly 400 bases; Henderson stole 1,406.
Abreu's career OBP was .395 (that's a little bit better in the margin department); Bonds' was .444, Henderson's .401.

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/baseball-hall-of-fame-2021-sporting-news-ballot-ryan-fagan/1eek0100dmvuk1ffv7r1od5vfh