hall of fame, next vote...

ortiz: 77.9%

bonds: 66
clemens: 65.2
rolen: 63.2
sheffield: 40.6
a-rod: 34.3

schilling at 58.6

Ha haahahaha!

Very clear, consistent message here.

In trying to separate Ortiz from Clemens and Bonds, I almost want to put it down to Ortiz's magnetic personality and paraphrase Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction: we're talking about one charming motherfucking DH/PED-user. Except Sosa had personality to spare.

Bonds made me a baseball fan, what he did on the field made other men seem small by comparison. i get that he cheated but not getting a ring is his punishment. not being voted in when other cheaters from this era are in is stupid.

I'm surprised today Schilling got so many votes, I thought he'd see a Visquel-like dropoff. Besides being all kinds of crazy, if a player says he doesn't want to be considered then AFAIC that's that. What's the endgame for the people who voted for him? Do they think that if he gets in he'll morph into a nice guy all of a sudden and have a "moment" at the induction ceremony?

I'm really happy for Ortiz, this should have been a no brainer but somehow became a big debate. WAR isn't everything. When Posey and Molina are on the ballot will people still say "they're only 6563th all time in WAR with 50 unelected players ahead of them"?

much less than i expected. i thought it was still going to be close, figuring those already voting for him would have been prone to stubbornness

so Jeff Francis is going into the Canadian baseball hall of fame. played 11 season, had a career ERA of 10.2 and an ERA just south of 5...

even tho i never made my high school baseball team, seeing this i feel like i should have stuck with it and could have had a shot at the Canadian hall of fame too

tbf there are 16 canadian batters who've played 1000 games and 12 canadian pitchers who've pitched 1000 innings. he's one of the latter, and he ranks 13th in pitcher WAR and fifth in games started

big halls, baby

Trying to think of what Canadians would make up that other 12 ahead of him in WAR... Jenkins - obvs, Dempster, Rich Harden... ahhhh I should know this! Gagne, Quantrill?! someone help!

there are two others i think you should get, the rest seem harder (to me)

Reggie Cleveland?

John Hiller, for sure.

I'm kind of amazed Reggie Cleveland fell short. Always thought of him as a decent pitcher, and he was around long enough to win 100 games.

I looked it up. Should have gotten two more than I did.

I don't know how to look that up...who else?

https://www.baseball-reference.com/bio/Canada_born.shtml

the two i missed that i should have gotten were Paxton and Bedard.

I have no recollection of Francis ending his career with the Blue Jays in 2015.

this is a contribution to the project of critiquing mlb.com headlines:

https://i.imgur.com/Dlaj1so.png

speaking as someone who personally _would_ vote for yadier molina in the hall of fame: has there ever been a borderline hall of famer whose case was pre-ordained as him?

By WAR, he's borderline but I would argue that WAR does a poor job of recording the true value of a great catcher, especially one like Yadi whose value is tied to his defense.

among catchers of his era, only posey and mauer are clearly better. (arguments can be made for russell martin and brian mccann, but few will make them)

between that, and doing it forever, and his rep vs. basestealers, i don’t think it will matter that he’s nowhere near piazza or ivan rodriguez

I wonder if the phrase "Future Hall of Famer" helps someone who's maybe on the fence--do some writers begin to internalize that after enough repetition?

*gestures at the world writ large*

have we discussed the trajectory of nolan arenado? because it seems pretty promising

looking good but so did longoria once. i'm wondering if this season is an illusion with hitting. outperforming his xwOBA by a ton, which he's always done but that's at least expected in coors (xwOBA isn't park adjusted). also hitting back up to his career .292 BABIP average, but that's always been coors-boosted too. there's a much larger post-coors sample from 20-21 with a .247 BABIP which basically made him a one dimensional power hitter. it'll probably stabilize somewhere between those two points but if he starts losing power i could see him falling off the face of the earth pretty quickly

one thing he has over longo - all the defensive metrics like him a lot better. had no idea longo's numbers fell off so drastically after his first four extremely good seasons.

winning a golden glove every single year he's played may not be super-meaningful, but nor will it hurt

Arenado looks like a very good bet. I was always really skeptical about his offense, but his two years out of Coors have been good.

(And Walker, and soon Helton probably, make his path easier.)

i was also skeptical, especially after in his first year in busch stadium his offense declined somewhat, about to the level you'd expect after moving half of your home games from coors to st louis. but his defense, unlike someone like pujols, will keep him relevant and at least somewhat valuable through his 30s. he's not brooks robinson, but he is in a tier just below with rolen, beltre, schmidt, and some others i'm probably forgetting. and unless injury strikes, he seems like he can pull off a couple more elite offensive seasons before he's done. good lord he's slow though

winning a golden glove every single year he's played may not be super-meaningful, but nor will it hurt

― mookieproof, Monday, August 1, 2022 9:15 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i was gonna try to make another longoria counterpoint but he only ever won 3 of them!

Winning 9 in a row speaks to his reputation more than his performance, which bodes well for his hof chances imo

Posnanski evaluates candidates born between 1978-1987 (all upcoming). Arguing at the margins here, but I strongly disagree with the following:

1) Posey better than 50/50 but Molina a lock. I'm positive Posey will be first-ballot and Molina won't be.

2) Votto better than 50/50 (rather than a lock).

He does acknowledge both those as contentious. I think I'd move Greinke into the lock category too.

https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/hall-of-fame-candidates-by-birth?r=1jtu0&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

thanks for the link!

those same things stand out to me as well. i think both posey and molina are locks. i expect posey to go in before molina, though. i've mentioned it before but i don't think molina has a no-doubt case. but his reputation -- i listen to all the away team broadcasts because of the frequent presence of jim edmonds on home broadcasts. molina is almost universally described as a hall of famer, and many of the broadcasters just refer to him as "future hall of famer" or even "hall of famer yadier molina". it's weird. because of that, i think he'll definitely get in, and it wouldn't surprise me if he got in on the first ballot.

votto is a lock. i don't want to live in a world where he is not.

looking at the rest of the names, i don't disagree with much. hanley ramirez, tulowitzki, lincecum, jose reyes, longoria, cano, mccutchen and king felix - they all seemed like can't miss to me at some point. you look at their stats, through their mid to late-20s and you wonder how in the world they could possibly miss. grady sizemore, jfc. then, they did. especially David Wright. he was so, so, close before the injuries. he was even nearly good enough to warrant going in despite the total dropoff -- but not quite. just horrible timing.

(cardinals are 150% retiring wainwright's jersey)

I don’t know that votto is a lock!

Ya, I’m def thinking he could go either way

Second part:

https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/hall-of-fame-candidates-by-birth-dfd?r=1jtu0&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Votto won't be on the ballot for six, maybe seven years, during which time the more analytic parts of a guy's career box will continue to be more important, as will the player's peak (rather than final totals). I think he's a lock to go in, though it may--but shouldn't--take two or three years.

Posnanski is cautious with this group, which is understandable, but I'd put another three or four of them into the lock category--meaning I think they've done enough that they can just drift along for a few more seasons. Career-ending injuries are obviously something else.

out of this new group, i would maybe quibble with some of these (maybe not)

(Posnanski's groupings)

Projects as Hall of Famer: deGrom

Posnanski compares him to dazzy vance and babe ruth due to his low wins (only 79) and innings pitched. i can't help but think of koufax. but even in koufax's short lived career, he threw almost twice as many innings as deGrom, and was also a legendary part of the 60s Dodgers teams (and had roots stretching back to that '55 brooklyn team, which is my favorite non-Cardinals team ever). if deGrom can throw another 3 healthy years at anywhere close to his current level, he seems like a lock, but for now i might demote him to Pos' "On the Right Path" category.

Longshots: Salvador Perez

there's such a big difference between fWAR (15 ) and bWAR (30) here. when fangraphs updated their catcher value to incorporate framing (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/war-update-catcher-framing/), salvador perez was the biggest hall-of-fame-caliber loser -- his WAR from 2008-2018 dropped 8 fWAR, overnight, and his poor framing has limited his overall value ever since. (the biggest "gainers" from that fangraphs framing update were McCann, Martin, Molina, Y., and Molina, J.) actually, i don't think i even quibble with his spot as "longshot", though i think it's closer to impossible. i suppose the biggest factor is that he's already playing a decent amount of DH and will probably do that more and more as he ages.

Not quite Hall of Fame but very good players: Rendon, Kolten Wong

More than anything, it's just funny to see these two players in the same category. I love Wong, don't get me wrong. but his peak peak was Not Quite Hall of Fame. Rendon, i haven't seen play much and had wrist surgery. if his power is sapped for his career, maybe he's not even a longshot. in 3 years with the angels, he's hit 20 HRs, total (over 155 games). his ISO this year and 2021 are down in the .150 range. on the other hand, he's signed through 2026, gets to play with both ohtani and trout, and maybe he just had the most perfect wrist surgery ever

Oh What Might Have Been: Strasburg

just want to say oof here. oof.

His Own Category: Ohtani

had a good chuckle at this, thinking of clemenza reading it :D

I immediately cancelled my subscription to JoeBlogs.

The only thing I take issue with in his Ohtani comment is "probably unanimously." I don't understand why Rivera was the first unanimous choice, and I especially don't understand how Jeter wasn't the second once the precedent had been set, so that's a murky subject. But, though I do agree Ohtani is headed for the HOF, I can't see how the split career--the very thing that will get him in--won't also cost him at least a handful of votes.

I think DeGrom should get the same "His Own Category" designation as Ohtani. As you point out, you can't really even compare him to Koufax, who for at least a short time piled up innings like he was Old Hoss Radbourn. Posnanski mentioned in a recent column the big difference between the baseball and hockey HOFs: in hockey, all they care about is how good you were, so there are a bunch of players in the HOF with relatively short careers. DeGrom would probably already be a lock if he were a hockey player.

degrom… like try being healthy once. you don’t get into the HOF just for everyone agreeing you’re good

https://www.mlb.com/news/2023-contemporary-baseball-era-hall-of-fame-ballot

Oh man

the first three all no-doubters imo

i have a soft spot for guys who hit for average and for awhile it was mattingly and boggs on a plane of their own and everybody else just stood and watched, but mattingly did not really sustain that level for long enough probably

I actually think the guy with the best chance here is McGriff -- probably along w/Frank Thomas, one of the most reputedly clean guys in a dirty era, and his numbers are just huge (albeit contextually less impressive because of that era.)

Mattingly has a shot too; i think there's a lot of nostalgia for what he was able to accomplish during that massive four-year run. Or six, if we're being slightly more generous.

may not quite deserve it but i'd like to see the crime dog get in

xxp

mattingly and boggs on a plane of their own

Tony Gwynn would like a word

yeah that’s fair. i was an AL guy though. still am

Murphy probably a decent dark horse candidate here, he was a huge star, for awhile was one of the top three or four batters in the game, and had half a dozen HOF caliber seasons, plus the back-to-back MVPs.

Downside for him, he had some mediocre years in the mix during his peak era, plus he was basically just a non-entity after his age 31 season.