hall of fame, next vote...

*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.

Obligatory "To hell with a Hall without Lou Whitaker" comment

Agree that McGriff has the best shot; he's become one of the primary didn't-use-steroids symbols because of the way his numbers stayed steady while so many others' exploded. And yeah, how did they leave off Whitaker?

I don't know, but I suspect Bonds/Clemens/Palmeiro will do worse with the VC than the with the writers; I think Schilling, I'm afraid to say, will do better.

Can't find who the 16 people are on the committee anywhere.

at least TLR is *probably* not one of them

Oh, this is going to be a fun vote.

Now watch them induct Mattingly and nobody else ...

More seriously, Murphy and Mattingly's HOF cases have been debated from every possible angle. Much like Jack Morris, their names keep coming up and many people obviously want them in, and at this point it's pretty much inevitable that they will get in sooner rather than later.

I've always thought Mattingly had a better case than Murphy, but when I look at the career boxes, he really doesn't (not even in peak value, where I assumed he did). Murphy's two MVPs were relatively weak fields, but he had a good case in '87 too. Murphy's peak lasted six seasons; Mattingly's, as pointed out above, was either four or six--he's still solid in '88/89, but there's a clear drop-off from '84-87.

god. these people are going to put schilling in, aren't they?!

and this might seem funny coming from a blue jays fan; but i never thought of Mcgriff as a HoF'er. he was a solid for a long time and, outside of the "he was squeaky clean" narrative, there's not much else. only one ever top-5 MVP finish. was only a seasonal stat-leader three times (HRs twice and OPS once). didn't seem to ever stand out as a defender...
i won't be annoyed if he gets in or anything, but don't really feel he belongs either.

I do think the argument as to whether or not McGriff’s numbers (plus award finishes and all star games) took a comparative hit due to a lot of other extraneous factors is a *decent* one, as far as assessing his historical value. One that may tip the scales. ‘88-‘94 was a really outstanding stretch, on the lower end of HOF caliber. I don’t think he’s a Harold Baines case, I mean there were seasons where Freddy was absolutely one of the best in the game.

I'm a bigger Delgado fan, but--for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me--McGriff is ahead by 8 games in bWAR. They both get dinged equally for defense. Delgado's prime years fall in a much better hitting era than McGriff's (height of PEDs vs. late '80s), so I get that there's an adjustment there, but Delgado still has the edge in career OPS+. McGriff played two more seasons, but he had more years where he was just okay than Delgado, who from '97 to '08 only had one season where his OPS+ dropped below 127. I would think, all in all, they'd be about equal in career bWAR.

McGriff is another guy who probably lost a career year to the '94 strike.

i mean, if we're going to sit down and rate the best Blue Jays 1B – Olerud is also in that conversation imho!

Ha, I was just going to mention that (bWAR of 58.2, ahead of both). McGriff to Olerud to Delgado has to be one of the great 1-2-3 positional handoffs ever.

McGriff probably would have wound up with 45-48 HR in '94

he's up a dozen in fWAR on Delgado!

and behind Olerud by 1!

Olerud is sort of the more likeable version of Will Clark. Clark's career more obviously with a trajectory that took him from an all-time great level to merely good, Olerud had those two amazing seasons mixed in with a bunch of good ones; i wish he'd been more consistent, that guy was a huge talent.

I don't know if any of the guys discussed really meet the HOF threshold but clearly Olerud being one and out with 0.7% of the vote, Delgado out after one year with 3.8%, vs McGriff sticking around for the full ten years and now making this ballot just shows how much the big counting stats still do matter.

Similarity scores are interesting: McGriff and Delgado's are on each other's list, Olerud on neither (no surprise, not a big power hitter). Delgado has three HOF'ers on his list (Stargell, Bagwell, and McCovey), McGriff has five on his (those three, plus Frank Thomas and Billy Williams).

Mattingly and Murphy are two of the many '80s guys who felt like HOFers at the time but just didn't have the long-term careers which would get them in (get them in the usual way, at least.)

But the pitchers of the '80s are an unusual bunch. I came across a list of the top 21 pitchers in WAR that decade, and only four of them (Blyleven, Ryan, Morris, and Carlton) are in the HOF, with Clemens the special case out of the remaining 17.

The list:

Stieb - 45.2
Welch - 35.1
Valenzuela - 34.8
Blyleven - 34.0
Hershiser - 32.8
Clemens - 32.3
Ryan - 30.8
Gooden - 30.2
Tudor - 29.7
Saberhagen - 29.0
Hough - 28.7
Morris - 27.9
Soto - 27.3
Higuera - 27.3
Sutcliffe - 26.7
Reuschel - 25.7
Carlton - 25.6
Guidry - 25.5
Viola - 25.1
Quisenberry - 24.6
Gubicza - 24.6

i kinda think more and more maybe Stieb should be in the HOF. even with a weirdly crappy '86 season, he remains what he felt like at the time: the dominant pitcher of that decade.

One of the better arguments for Morris is that he had the longevity that so many of his contemporaries didn't. The 70's and 90's had many great pitchers and 300 game winners, and in the 80's everyone seemed to flame out early. I have never seen a good explanation for it.

As representatives of their era, you could make cases for Stieb, Saberhagen, and Hershiser, but each one falls short of the overall HOF standard.

In that argument for Morris, you have to assume that his longevity was a skill, i.e. the game changed in some fundamental ways at the end of the 70's, but he adjusted whereas many others couldn't, and should get credit for it.

The 80's were a weird time for Cy Youngs, you had one year wonders who weren't even all that good in their "career" year (Pete Vuckovich, LaMarr Hoyt), closers clogging up ballots, etc. Stieb should have won two or three CY's and probably would have won if the present day electorate was voting. His lack of hardware really hurts his HOF case. Without the awards, he's a longshot, but with them, he'd be the 80's version of Johan Santana and maybe even a little better.

older us should get special mention in the hall for wearing his helmet in the field

*olerud lol