hall of fame, next vote...

Mauer is really holding steady, he's been consistently one or two votes ahead of Helton. it's always hard to tell but for most candidates with credentials some might find borderline, there's usually a 6-7% drop from where the tracker finishes. I feel like Mauer is somewhere between 73-79% in the end. Wagner and Helton are cutting it close.

it's going to be crowded again next year, anywhere from a dozen to fifteen players returning, plus Suzuki in the Adrian Beltre 95%+ shoo-in role, Sabathia, Pedroia as an Utley type, Kinsler as the poor man's David Wright, and King Felix.

I anticipate being bummed out at how little support Felix is going to receive.

Can't share, but these are Posnanski's predictions (many obvious by this point):

Will Be Elected -- Beltre, Mauer, Helton
Will Just Miss -- Wagner, Sheffield
Coming Soon To a Hall of Fame Near You -- Jones, Beltran
Solidly on the Ballot Going Forward -- Utley, A-Rod, Manny (seems to think A-Rod will eventually go in, Manny "not ever, not by the writers nor by any veterans committee")
The 15% Club -- Rollins, Abreu, Pettitte, Vizquel
Will Make Another Ballot -- Buehrle, K-Rod, Hunter, Wright
Will Not Make the Ballot Next Year -- the rest

He came up with a fun thing yesterday, based on something his friend said: a player's Hock Score:

I’m going to talk a bit over the next couple of days about my friend Jon Hock’s Hall of Fame thought experiment, which he sent in to express his support for Thurman Munson’s Hall of Fame candidacy:

"Try this as a thought experiment: Imagine Munson’s plaque in the Gallery in Cooperstown, then imagine watching a day’s worth of fans passing through. Tell me, where would Munson’s plaque rank in terms of fans stopping a little bit longer, maybe removing their cap and saying something about him to their daughter or grandson? I’d say top ten or 15 in the entire Gallery."

I’m not entirely sure that Munson’s plaque would draw quite that kind of attention, but I love the concept: Which players’ plaques would stand out in the Hall of Fame plaque room? That’s a really interesting way of thinking about the Hall of Fame, emphasis on the word "fame."

I can say with some confidence, that if Bartolo Colón somehow made the Hall of Fame, he’d have a HUGE Hock Score.

Just to clarify, his predictions are not reflective of his own preferences--he voted for Manny, always has, and lobbies hard for him. But: "...and I can certainly live with that." ("That" being what I quoted above.)

i kinda think Wagner might make up enough ground to get in but it'll be a true squeaker. i also think he'll be the last closer to make it for an extremely long time and maybe that's appropriate.

Think this is the first time I've ever watched this live...hey, I'm live-blogging!

let's go

Jose Bautista just ran across the screen and did a bat-flip...not sure what that means.

You take the first one, Omar.

Beltre, Mauer...

aaaaand Helton!

Still majorly surprised that Mauer is a first-ballot guy. Not complaining, just surprised.

Beltre, Helton, Mauer, and that's it

You were like 30 seconds ahead of me, Thermo. Is St. Marys that deep in the woods?

gonna be curious to see those percentages. not surprised Wagner didn't make it.

does this mean Posey is going to be a first ballot guy now?!

Sheffield is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXP1MSFwMnc

Not sure how he'll fair with the VC, which is much the harder of the two to predict.

(Never doubted that Posey would be first-ballot, I guess because his career ended well rather than petering out--plus, obviously, the WS titles.)

Under 30% for Utley...that'll change quickly, I think.

the best chance for several of these guys is the upcoming desert of star candidates, post-suzuki. Posey, Molina, and uh Hamels are the "best" between the Suzuki ballot and the Pujols ballot.

not counting Cano and Braun, who seem like sub-10% guys potentially.

I'm glad Scott Boras isn't sitting on that couch.

i'd be shocked if Cano was under 10

Hard to say--the writers are especially punitive to players who tested positive well along the timeline.

plus it was two PED suspensions, and his stats are really impressive but not A-Rod/Manny territory.

i think he's also sort of a curiously forgotten guy, maybe because of the manner in which his career petered out statistically. i've gotta believe he'll do better than Braun for reasons both related to their stats and obv Braun's much worse behavior w/r/t his PED use.

Mauer's only the third first-ballot catcher after Bench and I-Rod.

poor billy

obviously there are arguments to be made about the true value of relievers, but he was lights-out when it was asked of him

Anyone else listen to Grimes’ “We Appreciate Power” and always hear “power” as “Mauer” and then start re-framing the lyrics to be about him?
No one? Ok.

Next five ballots: https://www.mlb.com/news/future-baseball-hall-of-fame-ballots-preview

Ichiro, Posey, Pujols, and Cabrera are first ballot inductees i bet. Molina, hard to tell. Sabathia? I'm maybe slightly agnostic on him; as far as lefty starters go he's probably closer to David Wells than he is Clayton Kershaw, but might have to dig in deeper considering the era he pitched in.

guys like Lester and Wainwright had nice careers, not dissimilar at all, but they should be in their team HOFs, not the MLB one.

really kinda curious to see where Granderson, Hernández, Kinsler, and Pedroia wind up in the voting next year. they were all great players to varying levels, though i don't think they would or necessarily should get voted in.

Jimmy Key (among my favourite Jays ever) and Russell Martin into the Canadian Baseball HOF.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/article/martin-key-among-six-inductees-to-enter-canadian-baseball-hall-of-fame/

Paul Godfrey, I should mention, was instrumental in getting Toronto a franchise. He engineered the deal that almost landed us the Giants in '76, before George Moscone rescued them and kept them in San Francisco.

Comparison graphics frequently turn up on my FB wall. Some of them are far-fetched special pleading--someone trying to make a case that Dale Murphy was better than Reggie Jackson, stuff like that. One caught my eye today: John Smoltz vs. Kevin Brown. The graphic provided overall stats, i.e. including Smoltz's years as a closer, and their career lines were very similar. Just as starters:

Smoltz: 209-149, 3.40, 7.90 K/9, 2.92 K/BB, 1.192 WHIP, 3211.2 IP
Brown: 210-143, 3.26, 6.60 K/9, 2.67 K/BB, 1.219 WHIP, 3237.2 IP

Again, very close. I thought Brown might actually come out looking better, but I think there's a small but clear edge there to Smoltz. When you add 1) Smoltz's three seasons as a first-rate closer (a role that, if I remember correctly, he volunteered to step into), 2) Smoltz's stellar post-season record (overall, Brown was mediocre in the post-season in a much smaller sample), and 3) Brown's PED associations, it's more clear-cut why Smoltz in the HOF and Brown isn't than I thought it would be.