hall of fame, next vote...

(xpost) The theory was, for a few years--more of a fact, actually--that certain kinds of players would get a lot of public votes, then drop off drastically with undeclared voters. Two things that were true of such players: they were very strong analytically, and (almost all) had PED associations. I figured Rolen was the more analytical candidate here, and that Helton would at least keep pace with him, and probably pass him with undeclared voters. But I guess it was just PEDs: voters who wanted to leave Bonds, Clemens, etc. off their ballot didn't want to go public with that.

Ahhhh

Probably as famous as the Magic Bullet Theory and the Worlds Colliding Theory.

Even though only Rolen was elected, there were positive outcomes for a lot of guys, I think a few others will eventually be elected (Helton, Wagner, Beltran, Jones).

I’m a major closer agnostic obv w/r/t the HOF but if you gotta have them in there, gotta have Wagner. He could be the last of them to get in for quite awhile though.

i don’t think Kenley Jansen is that far off tbh. His era etc is a little higher but he’s 40 saves behind and about the same amount of strikeouts. He’s one good season away from having about as good a case as Wagner I feel.

I don’t know, I mean I think w closers the thing that frequently separates the chosen ones from the also-rans is some kind of folk hero status, some kind of “it” factor. and they have to be money their entire career, they can never be sidelined. I don’t think Jansen ever got sidelined iirc but he doesn’t really stand out from the Nathan/Papelbon types beyond the postseason stats. That last bit might be considered a plus but idk, closers really do need some intangibles which add to their legend for people to vote for them.

He’s likely to have a better case than Chapman (postseason meltdowns, abuser) or Kimbrel (occasionally awful and benched)

Something I posted in a different thread, seems pertinent to the last few posts:

true or false baseball challop: not a single one of the modern day closers belongs in the Hall of Fame

I thought Kimbrel/Chapman/Jensen were solid; then they tailed off, and then Josh Hader came along and made what I thought were basically unsurpassable rate stats look a little less awesome. And now Hader may have peaked, although the postseason suggests otherwise.

I think I might be in the minority on this but I really disagree with "unquestionably a Hall of Famer." I think he probably is. I might change my tune when I consider him more. But he's not, like a Mays/Griffey no-brainer here where you skip past the merits of the case entirely.

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) January 25, 2023

i'm not sure he's a hall of famer at all, and definitely not a first vote kind of guy. i should note that i never really saw him play too much since he was always in the AL. but imo he was a no doubt hall of famer until concussions pushed him from catcher. after that, he was a slightly above league average hitter playing DH and 1B with very little power but good OBP

a slightly above league average hitter playing DH and 1B with very little power but good OBP

which is useful, but almost every team has at least one player in AAA who is an above average hitter but limited by their inability to defend anywhere other than 1B, or to play DH. and he hit that point at age 31. if he's a no doubter, than so is david wright. they were both phenomenal in their 20s

yeah I’ve got no problem with mauer particularly, but he’s an interesting case when considered in the context of the changing faces of the hall-eligible…there seems to be an belief gaining currency that players at every position from the modern era deserve serious consideration even if they didn’t really play that much (catchers and closers in particular). it feels pretty inevitable

and maybe that’s fine, particularly with regard to catchers and there not being really any inner circle candidates. like after mauer the next catcher up is gonna be…molina?

oh I guess posey

There are lots of guys getting in for short peak value, which Mauer has obv. Posey as well. There’s probably a lot more sympathy for the grind of being a catcher idk.

Gotta say though that Posey being mentioned constantly as a future HOFer makes me wonder why Thurman Munson has never been revisited, he and Posey were the same player basically and it’s weird that he’s not considered. they have almost the same exact bWAR per 162 games (5.3 for Posey, 5.2 for Munson), slightly more than Mauer (4.8). Molina is 3.1 btw. Very similar career stats, MVP awards, championships, leadership etc.

i'm always kind of amazed that munson isn't in - not just the stats but also his iconic HR, playing with the yankees, his career tragically short

oh wait, the home run was carlton fisk lol

Mauer was OK after moving to 1B permanently, but he wasn't a star player anymore. 10 WAR over his last five seasons isn't all that bad.

But at his peak, you could argue he was the best hitting catcher ever. He'll also get credit for signing with his hometown team and staying there his entire career. He'll get elected easily (probably not on the first ballot though).

I mean the reason Munson isn’t in is because the voters at the time cared a lot more about career home runs and hits etc than peak value. And he wasn’t like Koufax-good enough to get a pass at the time for the shorter career.

yeah he definitely falls shy in those old-school standards. just curious if they'll ever bring him around again for consideration.

Koufax also had a remarkable postseason resume, just crazy good.

I'm thinking Mauer gets in on his second or third ballot.

Salvador Perez is another interesting current catcher who might have HOF prospects. But it's hard to say, it's a thin line for him between winding up another Lance Parrish, or a Yadier Molina with power.

is beltran not getting 50% due to the sign stealing or

I don't think he was ever a first ballot guy but yes definitely

is there any kind of philosophical split between HOF nominators who look at all pitchers (SP and RP) based on the same criteria and all other players based on the same criteria, versus nominators who compare catchers only to other catchers and RPs only to other RPs and make their choices that way? i'm thinking about it like how the oscars lump all movies together and so you have people trying to compare the merits of "all quiet on the western front" vs "everything everywhere all at once" versus the ebert philosophy of judging a movie based on how well it accomplishes what it is trying to do. i don't know if this makes any sense.

it seems obvious that if you're judging for example buster posey's worthiness as a HOFer you should be comparing him to all other catchers, but then the HOF ballot has everyone lumped together so the implication is you're comparing posey to all the other players nominated that year regardless of their position

it does make sense! i think there are both, along with many other splits in approach. there are also some people who make a habit of maxing out their ballot, selecting 10 players even if they're kind of iffy after a few of them, while there are others that will only vote for a handful (or less) and leave the rest of the ballot blank

I think comparing to other players at the same position makes sense to an extent, but my personal opinion is that there is not all positions have players who, on their own, provide the same value. relief pitchers are the obvious example, they’re akin to role players or a sixth man in the NBA; occasionally you will have a special case like manu ginobili or mariano rivera, but generally these players play less and provide less value, and (imo crucially) are *selected* for these roles because they would not be able to handle a bigger load

catchers aren’t quite the same, and philosophies are going to differ, but there is a similar argument to be made that shorter careers and fewer innings just simply means less value. and something that I feel isn’t said enough is that generally teams will try to have their top catching prospects switch positions for this reason, to extend their career — bryce harper is the most obvious example. so it stands to reason that the talent pool of the catchers that remain isn’t as strong as like, shortstops

Jaffe's JAWS system for the HOF is based on the idea that you compare positionally--although I don't think the implication is that you need all positions represented equally.

again — different philosophies, but is it not? the average JAWS for a center fielder (of which there are 19) is 58.1, and that’s not including trout. for the 16 catchers, it’s 44.2

if one takes it to its logical extension, there is a lower bar to entry for catchers (and certainly relief pitchers)

The Oscars lump all the movies together but voters can only select one winner in each category. HOF ballots have "multiple winners" so comparisons can, and should, be made according to position.

This becomes a problem if someone wants to vote for more than ten players, but most voters don't (in most years).

the world does not, in theory, need closers. most of them are failed starters anyway

but you have to have a catcher every single inning, every single pitch, and it requires skills and experience that other ballplayers rarely have. so for me the question of joe mauer vs mike trout is far less important than joe mauer vs an average or replacement level catcher.

i’m not even sure ‘replacement-level’, which assumes a ready supply of fungible quad-a players, should apply to catchers — there just aren’t that many guys who can do an even passable job of it (which is why austin hedges, coming off a .489 OPS (!) season, will earn $5m this year)

mauer hit .328/.409/.481 in 897 games as a catcher (and was more than playable at 1B/DH). JAWS has him as the sventh-greatest catcher of all time. he’s not ray guy; hes travis kelce

you need a catcher every single pitch, for sure. unfortunately most of the top catchers, once they’re made it to the point where their teams want them to be long-term catchers, are catching about 60% of the pitches. which introduces some wrinkles

I would put Munson in, for all the reasons Omar mentioned. The parallels to Posey are uncanny: from WAR to awards to World Series to shortened career to being on each other's Similarity Score list. The biggest difference was that Thurman was never picked as the Face of Baseball because he looked kind of gnarly and scowled a lot.

for awhile when i was a younger MLB i thought Munson actually was in the HOF, he just checked a lot of the boxes. He was a legend.

it's weird to look back and see just how many of these players whose names resonated w/me as a kid when looking at the old stats, whose stats were largely massive, are on the outside looking in. Some worthy of inclusion, some probably not but awesome regardless: Norm Cash, Rocky Colavito, Dick Allen, Graig Nettles, Frank Howard, George Foster, Dwight Evans, Darrell Evans, Buddy Bell, guys like that. Not saying all would deserve it, but it's preposterous that a lot of these guys wound up w/less HOF voting percentages than K-Rod.

Luis Tiant, there's another guy i always thought was in the HOF

Im a big hall guy and think the Fame part is the undervalued resource rn

Like i dont think fame when i think billy wagner but do think fame for scheffield for ex

Totally agree, and part of the argument for both Munson and Tiant. Tiant was a better pitcher for Cleveland, but he became a legend in Boston.

I'd even extend that argument to someone like Jim Rice. There are many players who should be in ahead of him, yes, but I don't think you can dismiss him out of hand without first factoring in that for years he was widely viewed as a sure-thing HOF'er. Would I rather see Lou Whitaker or Dwight Evans in? Yes, but I get why Rice was voted in.

Yeah rice is a good one vs jack morris who i do not think of as famous, the One Big Game aside

jack morris was a jack mcdowell peak level pitcher in terms of quality, w/better durability and that one game.

I've mentioned this before: as valuable as fame in getting into the HOF is mystique. I won't even put it in quotation marks--it does exist, and I think it's different than fame. Billy Williams wasn't famous, but from the time I started watching in the early '70s, he had mystique: he was the best pure hitter in the game (or, expressed differently, had the sweetest swing). I don't think Eddie Murray was necessarily famous, but he had mystique: RBI guy, clutch hitter, consistent. Denny McClain was famous, and then he was infamous; Juan Marichal had mystique.

Sometimes, it aligns with actual value: Ted Williams. Sometimes it's disproportionate: I'd say Morris had it far in excess of his value.

freddie freeman is getting into near-lock territory. very similar kind of career to goldschmidt, consistently excellent, across a very similar time period too

https://theathletic.com/4553833/2023/05/26/baseball-hall-of-fame-active-players-cases/

I think betts is in already and ohtani is in for sheer Fame reasons

i am going to read that, but every time i read jayson stark i become more convinced he gets paid by the word and has some amazing contract situation that accidentally allows him to use as many words as he wants

Thoughts on @jaysonst's list? 🧐 pic.twitter.com/O2M0eyqE29

— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) May 23, 2023

oh, i see in the article he also has two more categories:

USED TO BE IN THE RED ZONE
Craig Kimbrel
Kenley Jansen
Andrew McCutchen
Chris Sale
Evan Longoria

CASE NOT CLOSED
José Ramírez
J.T. Realmuto
Carlos Correa