hall of fame, next vote...

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

Abreu was underrated at his peak and overrated after his peak. He played for high profile teams after his peak, so that's the version that people tend to remember better, which probably works against his HOF case.

People used to build up Tim Raines' credentials by noting that he reached base more times than Tony Gwynn. Abreu reached base more times than Gwynn and Raines. He's #49 in that category, ahead of a few 3K hit guys. There's definitely a case to be made for him, but combining counting stats with conveniently chosen cutoffs isn't it.

Curt Schilling walking up onto the Cooperstown stage with a lectern he stole from the capital

— Richard Staff (@RichardStaff) January 8, 2021

THey can put Schilling, Bonds and Clemens in the year after they die.

Ron Santo was by most parts a pretty cool guy who spent literally his whole life playing and working in the MLB and he did not get the shot to enjoy being in the hall, so these creeps can suck it.

I’m praying schilling can’t help but way in on the insurrection and completely and permanent disgust any unsure HoF voters

he already has. but i think this year's ballots have already been submitted?

i think they have, and hopefully he falls short and never gets this close again.

also: of course he has

does anyone know id the Posnanski list has been neatly consolidated anywhere—names only—so I can dip in and read selectively?

Public ballots have been really slow this year--but I know Posnanski hasn't posted his yet. He did make it clear he didn't vote for Schilling for the first time.

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