- Bonds and Clemens each gain no more than 10% in 2014. The "first ballot penalty" is wishful thinking on our parts. The voters are going to be just as sanctimonious next year as this.

I tend to agree that there is no "first ballot penalty" for steroids users. We didn't see that with McGwire or Palmeiro, who IIRC even lost votes as the years went on.

And it makes no sense anyway. "I found you so repulsive that I refused to vote for you in Year 1, but, hey now! It's year 2! So I'm totally gonna vote for you, dude!!!!"

I agree Bagwell's chances next year are pretty thin (certainly lower than Morris's) but even chances like 30, 20, 10 and 5% get you over 50% for at least 1 of the 4. But Morris, with Maddux, Glavine and Mussina joining and Schilling around -- he's got a really tough job. Poor old Bunning got up to 74.2% in 88 only to have Perry, Jenkins, Palmer and 3 first ballot hitters swamp the ballot in the next two years. Even the staunchest Morris supporter will have a hard time considering him better than the #3 pitcher on the ballot -- they'll all vote for him anyway since it's his last ballot. But there's very little incentive for the Morris non-voter to add him -- even last ballot sympathy won't be strong given there are better pitchers on the ballot, a crowded ballot and you know he'll go in by VC.

I'll admit I can't see any reason for Bagwell to pass Biggio but I might as well give my wishcasting a 5% shot. :-)

I just don't get that. I mean I get the sadden part etc, but I don't get why that would all the sudden change your view on who should go in. If it's revealed a significant number of people goes in, then I would understand why it would change your view, but as I compared it to, one confirmed user in the hof, is like using Jim Rice as the hof standard. Mistakes happen.

I see the argument, but at that point I don't think it would be right to retain the honor for a player who made it in by lying while denying it to someone who got caught before the vote.

But note what you're doing for amps players: they got in via one standard (the standard where the voters didn't care about performance enhancing drug use), and then the steroids players were given another standard, and you think that's fine.

Who is Lowell Hickey, and how do 'honorary' voters receive that status?

Frank Thomas is the first steroid era slugger with the numbers and reputation to be on the ballot. Not sure if it will be enough for first ballot induction, but I think he gets in second or third.

Frank Thomas is the first steroid era slugger with the numbers and reputation to be on the ballot. Not sure if it will be enough for first ballot induction, but I think he gets in second or third.

If the voters can fabricate steroid-use reputations for Bagwell and Piazza, they can do it for Thomas, too.

Veterans committee question. Which of three between Cox, LaRussa, and Torre is least likely to get in? My guess is LaRussa only because people will wonder if he's truly retired.

He also said: "Pettitte wasn't allowed to say that Clemens used steroids."

He's right. It's called perjury, and it's not allowed.

Well, again, what is the evidence that voters care about postseason performance?

I agree with you that it's overstated but Don Larsen is exhibit #1. Larsen didn't even have half of Morris' career yet he stayed on the ballot the entire 15 years, peaking over 12%. Given he should not have received a single vote, that's a lot of votes for one great postseason game.

Bill Wambsganss got at least one vote in four separate elections.

If the voters can fabricate steroid-use reputations for Bagwell and Piazza, they can do it for Thomas, too.

Easy-peasy. The guy tried to get his entire team to fail a drug test, so that he could hide among the herd. And when Congress held their hearing, guess who was too gutless to show up in person, and had to testify by video? Video can be edited. And oh, what a birthday "coincidence"; Craig Biggio picked up some of the rumor rub/contact high from Mr. Justlookathim, and Biggio was born in December. I'll save my vote for Human-Sized Hurts, thank you.

And the shoplifting vs. grand larceny thing is just saying that both spitballs and steroids are cheating, but you're only going to penalize the steroids user because he happened to find a more effective way of cheating. Makes no sense.

I'd probably make the comparison of spitballing as picking someone's pocket, and PED use as mugging them at gun point. The intent the same, stealing the wallet, but the later is more serious crime because there's a potential of dangerous, or even deadly escalation. PED use exposes the cheater use drugs that are either known to be dangerous (like speed) or haven't been clinically tested enough to fully know the potential side effects (like most anabolic steroids), and pressures others to do the same.

In addition to his congressional testimony Thomas was, of course, the only current player who (a) co-operated with the Mitchell Report people and (b) was prepared to be named as having co-operated. I am interested to see if voters who "linked" Piazza and Bagwell to PEDs do the same with Thomas, because it seems to me that Thomas is exactly the sort of candidate these voters should be voting for.

My main concerns about Thomas's candidacy -- and these are concerns about where he debuts and how long it takes him, I'm pretty confident he goes in ...

a) It's a tough ballot -- by WAR, Thomas is only tied for 8th. He's down at the Walker, Trammell, Raines, Edgar part of the world -- not exactly guys hauling in the votes. He'll get plenty of votes but only some of the folks who stop at 5 or 6 will list him.

b) He was quite good but kind of limped to the end (by Thomas standards) -- e.g. he didn't make an AS game after 29. Add any DH penalty and he's looking like some cross between Raines (who peaked early) and Edgar.

c) He ended up with a bit of a soft, whining reputation it seems.

In the long run, no problem but he'll be in the mix with Biggio, Piazza, Bagwell, Raines (and Glavine and Morris and maybe Mussina). I can see him elected and I can see him starting out around where Bagwell did (low 40s).

Remember Thomas was unusually great in his prime. Two time MVP, and the only person to go .300, 100 walks, 100 RBI, 100 Runs, and 20 HR in 7 straight seasons. Hitting wise he was the best you could hope for. A person who could hit for average, for power, and had an eagle eye to draw out a ton of walks.

Also as far as level of suspicioun goes, he is the least likely. I personally think Hall of Famers Roberto Alomar, Kirby Puckett, Paul Molitor, Rickey Henderson,and even Cal Ripken come off as more suspicious, than Thomas.

Every pitcher with 300 wins is in the HoM.

Not true. Mickey Welch is still on the outside looking in because pitchers made a ton of starts in that era and he was just an above-average pitcher.

Sam Rice got in on the 14th ballot, but he had 2987 hits.

Somebody should have fudged that for him

Given the record keeping of the day it's entirely possible he didn't know he was within spitting distance of a milestone.

Similarly there was little attention paid to such milestones in no small part because of the lousy record keeping.

Given the record keeping of the day it's entirely possible he didn't know he was within spitting distance of a milestone.

He said his much after his retirement, which, for Sam, was really opening up.

In 1982, Hank Aaron joined the ballot, and was elected with 97.6% of the vote. Fine, you say, but Maddux isn't Hank Aaron. And you're right.

Frank Robinson also joined the ballot in 1982, and was elected with 89.2% of the vote. Again, this is the most-supported set of returning candidates in 30 years, plus Hank Aaron, and Robinson sailed in anyway. Maddux may not be Aaron, but he's roughly Frank Robinson, and there's no Aaron joining the ballot next year.

I will take this bet for just about any amount you want that doesn't require a second mortgage. Larkin pulled 86% last year, Alomar 90% the year before.

Yeah, you guys are right, 82% might be lowballing Maddux. Frank Robinson is a great comp in value and recognition. I still think Maddux doesn't hit 90% though.

- Nobody reaches 90% before Jeter.

After Maddux, Griffey will.

It'll depend on how crowded the ballot is by Griffey's time, but I think he'll miss 90% too. At least one out of ten voters will either think he declined far enough to not merit a first-ballot induction, or not fit him after their self-imposed 5-7 player limit, (or a combination that Griffey's first ballot ranks behind 5-7 returnees), or pull a Rickey and forget him, or even still be blank-ballot crusading.

There's no freaking way he [Piazza] can possibly pick up the votes he needs to jump that much. This would be true under these circumstances whether there were roids or whether they understood how good he is. But, really, stop freaking out

Oh yeah, Piazza will make it eventually, nobody opens over 50% then stalls. Just not 2014. Probably about 2016.

I also agree with the rest, though I think Schilling's uninspiring showing kind of takes the air out of the "loves the story" angle.

Schilling had a great showing. How many other pitchers open at 38% with under 220 wins? He's already ahead of Morris's path, in a vastly more crowded and noisy ballot environment. He'll go in by 2020.

Schilling's case will also depend in some part on whether the Red Sox turn it around back to national prominence, giving him chances to stay in the media eye. (I have a pet theory that HOF balloting correlates with contemporary success by that player's associated franchise, and will someday get my lazy ass in gear to seriously research that.)

Schilling had a great showing. How many other pitchers open at 38% with under 220 wins? He's already ahead of Morris's path, in a vastly more crowded and noisy ballot environment. He'll go in by 2020.

He belongs in. He got 38 percent of the vote. It's not embarrassing, but neither is it a sign the writers are drooling over him and his story.

Among the many reasons to suspect he used steroids, should the writers stumble into a Bagwell-ish narrative about him, there is no more damning one than this:

Thomas played SEC football in the 80s.

This really is getting absurd. Many voters aren't voting for "roiders". That does not mean the voting process has become an irrational, random grab bag.

Even before this steroid mess, it had already become an irrational, random grab bag[/Private Pyle Voice]. You have the arguably 20th best candidate finishing 2nd in this year's balloting-it doesn't get any more irrational or messier than that, sorry. The current electorate is a huge chaotic mix of people with widely disparate and often-conflicting philosophical viewpoints who are unable in the case of most of the candidates to come to any sort of consensus, and on top of that a hopelessly flawed voting structure-you are virtually guaranteed in such circumstances to end up with a huge pile of swirling suck, even if a Maddux comes along once in awhile whom most everyone agrees belongs.

"Right shoulder HUH! Left shoulder HUH! This is my ballot! There are many like it but this one is mine! My ballot is my best friend! My ballot, without me, is useless. Without my ballot, I am useless. I must fire my ballot true..."

Don Sutton took so long for two reasons. The smallest part was that some voters remembered that he was slated to be suspended for scuffing the ball, threatened to sue and MLB backed off.

The biggest issue was that he was "just" an accumulator. "Never" great.

The New York Times sports section is a bit moribund, but they printed a terrific first page today.

He belongs in. He got 38 percent of the vote. It's not embarrassing, but neither is it a sign the writers are drooling over him and his story.

Not drooling, but getting him noticed and visible. It's Schilling's story that separates him from Mussina and Brown and Cone and Saberhagen.

Not drooling, but getting him noticed and visible. It's Schilling's story that separates him from Mussina and Brown and Cone and Saberhagen.

And his pitching. He's better than them (well, Moose is close). And Brown's failures have more to do with Brown (the Mitchell report, the arc of his career, the end, the fact that seemingly everyone hated him) than any comparison to Schiling. Cone, of course, was a level below all of them, and Moose hasn't even gotten rejected yet.

But sure, the exemplary postseason record will surely aid his case. As it should.

Here are the players who received the most votes on the BBWAA ballot but not 75%:

2013 Biggio
1996 Niekro
1971 Berra
1967 Ruffing
1964 Appling
1960 Roush
1958 Carey
1950 Ott
1949 Gehringer
1945 Chance

Every one (except Craig) was later inducted. So just change the rule to induct either: Anyone over 75% or The top vote getter. Guarantees someone is there to give a speech, and does not water down the HOF membership.

Biggio: "I'm excited about the situation we're in...I'll study a little harder this time and hopefully get a 75 next year,"

We need a wiki entry or something where people lay out the cases for and against the players from the BBTF perspective. Objectively, of course. :) I have a discussion at work going on right now about Lee Smith, Curt Schilling, Alan Trammel, etc. and while I know where I fall on these players after years of reading threads, I can't pinpoint the arguments to make.

1971 Berra

Good Lord! I had no idea that Yogi didn't make on his first ballot.

Joe Sheehan writing in today's newsletter:

In the coverage on MLB Network the past few days -- which I admittedly did not consume whole, lest I end up on a three-state killing spree -- there was at least one reference made to steroids as "nuclear weapons" that changed the capability of players. I wonder if Jorge Piedra feels that way. I wonder if Matt Lawton and Eliezer Alfonzo share that opinion. The people who have the largest audiences are the ones getting the issue most wrong, and that's inordinately frustrating. They're reducing the question of the efficacy of these substances to a handful of data points, ignoring all of the evidence that those data points were influenced by a dozen factors specific to the era, not to mention everything we know about variance and outliers in baseball statistics. They're treating steroid use as qualitatively and quantitatively different from amphetamine use, for no reason other than they want to do so.

They're going to win. There is, at this point, no way to turn the tide on this issue. The bad math and the bad analysis is going to carry the day, because the people providing it are completely invested, in one way or another, in the narrative of the "steroid era", a specific period of time in which specific drugs were used to alter the game's record books, and they simply will not listen to reason nor allow more datacentric approaches into the room.

...The voters are wrong. There's simply no other way to put it. They're applying a standard that is not just inconsistent with that applied for 75 years of Hall elections, but one that is inconsistent with the one MLB applied both throughout the era in which these events happened and on to today. It's time for the Hall to stop cowering behind the bullies with ballots and lead, not with a cosmetic move for publicity's sake, but with a real one that serves the institution, the people who care about it, and the players who deserve to be in it.

- Nobody reaches 90% before Jeter.

After Maddux, Griffey will.

Maddux maybe. Griffey's probably going to have to wait a year. If he makes it, he'll be in the 75-85 range.

Griffey's probably going to have to wait a year.

I'd be delighted to BBRef wager with you on that claim.

...The voters are wrong. There's simply no other way to put it.

Yeah, there is -- that the voters aren't wrong.

Where is this implicit entitlement to the Hall of Fame that people like Sheehan imagine, written? There's always been one path and one path only to induction to the Hall of Fame -- selection by 75% or more of the voters.(*) The steroid users are not even close to meeting this qualification.

(*) For people still eligible for writer induction, of course.

I'd be delighted to BBRef wager with you on that claim.

I'm with SoSH. I think Griffey walks in with about 90% of the vote.

I think Griffey walks in with about 90% of the vote.

If he gets 90% of the vote he'll pull a hamstring. Best he get 75.0%

If he gets 90% of the vote he'll pull a hamstring. Best he get 75.0%

We're all talking about Junior here, no? 630 home runs? Popularly believed to have been a good centerfielder for most of his career? No whiff of steroids? Most hyped player of his generation? That Griffey? I think you guys are being too cynical. Griffey coasts in and the narrative is he's the anti-Bonds, the superstar you can feel good about.

My recollection of Griffey is he played about 80 games per season on a mediocre team for the last 18 or 19 years of his career. If he gets into the Hall of Fame in the first couple years on the ballot, it's going to be very close. Also true of Frank Thomas. And anyone else except Maddux and Jeter. There are too many people on the ballot and even with 6.6 names per ballot this year nobody got in and only one somewhat worthy person even got 60%.

I'm with Harveys interpretation on the writers attitudes. A change is a-comin' but it will take a few years. I think it will take 8-10 years, but "people will come (around), Ray, people will most definitely come."

My recollection of Griffey is he played about 80 games per season on a mediocre team for the last 18 or 19 years of his career. If he gets into the Hall of Fame in the first couple years on the ballot, it's going to be very close. Also true of Frank Thomas. And anyone else except Maddux and Jeter. There are too many people on the ballot and even with 6.6 names per ballot this year nobody got in and only one somewhat worthy person even got 60%.

How old are you?

Griffey is as much of a lock as Maddux. More than Thomas, more than Glavine, more than Pedro. About the only upcoming names who could arguably be as big of a lock as Griffey is Jeter when he retires..... Not Chipper, not even Randy.

Griffey went out in really ugly fashion. He was napping during a game, then someone (Mike Sweeney?) challenged whoever publicized that to a fight and then George retired mid-season.

Greg Maddux is a lock for induction.

Fwiw, if I had a ballot, I wouldn't vote for him.

I see 18 players on the ballot who I believe should be in the Hall of Fame. But I'm only allowed to vote for 10.

I'm voting for guys numbered 9 through 18 on my list, to ensure that the guys at the bottom at least stay above 5%.

So: No on Maddux/Bonds/Clemens. Yes on Kent/Sosa,Palmeiro.

Griffey's probably going to have to wait a year

The one "clean" 50-hr slugger of the late 90's? The 13-time All-Star, 10-time GG winning, 1-time presidential candidate, backwards-cap wearing, All-Century team making Ken Griffey Jr?

I think it more likely that we will be getting articles about him talking about how much greater he was than Barry Bonds, prior to Barry starting PEDS. Most of the writers are going on narrative, and Griffey's narrative is as the best player of the '90s, deserved or not.

edit: Coke to Shooty...

I remember several of Griffey's years in Seattle. All I'm saying is, there are any number of reasons why some voters who spend no time on their ballots would say "let's wait a little while on this guy". His career was a disappointment compared to expectations. There goes some of the vote. He only got to an LCS once, that doesn't help. As noted by JJ1986 his career ended not with him as a beloved leadership figure but as a bit of a joke. (also true of Bagwell) There was the whole thing where he insisted on being traded to Cincinnati and nowhere else, which rubbed some people the wrong way. And he hit 56 home runs in both 1997 and 1998! How could someone hit 56 home runs! Those numbers are wacky. And in 1998, the year the frauds pretended to save baseball and duped all those innocent writers! Hey, wait a minute!

No whiff of steroids?

He had dinner with Barry Bonds once. PED QED


Seriously, I agree that he'll go in. I think Junior and Maddux will be first balloters. I also agree they won't get as much of the vote as the probably should. My hamstring comment was a joke.

Griffey coasts in and the narrative is he's the anti-Bonds, the superstar you can feel good about.

And that's important, given the fact that the induction ceremony is supposed to be a celebration of the inductees' careers.(*) Certainly there are things to admire about Bonds's career, or even stand in awe of ... but celebrate?

One thinks not.

(*) The inductees aren't supposed to be jammed down the throats of the game's various factions, and inducting Bonds and Clemens this year would be precisely that. Who could support such a thing, much less deem it mandatory?

I'm with Harveys interpretation on the writers attitudes. A change is a-comin' but it will take a few years. I think it will take 8-10 years, but "people will come (around), Ray, people will most definitely come."

I think so too for the most part. There are still going to be guys like Verducci for whom the story is about him, but I think there are a fair number of writers who are going to look at this ballot as their "We showed them!!!" moment and lighten up in the years to come. 15 years is a really long time - what were you doing in 1998? At some point there will be an enough-is-enough movement and the big roid guys (Bonds, Clemens, etc.) will start going in. I could see year 10 or so. That's still a really long time away.

The inductees aren't supposed to be jammed down the throats of the game's various factions

Ryne Sandberg disagrees.

There are still going to be guys like Verducci for whom the story is about him, but I think there are a fair number of writers who are going to look at this ballot as their "We showed them!!!" moment and lighten up in the years to come.

Mark McGwire has been on the ballot seven years. His already paltry support has shrunk by a third.

The writers are becoming less favorably disposed to the roiders as time marches on.

McGwire is the "Steriods made him a HOFer" player. Bonds and Clemens are "Would have been a HOFer anyway, Steriods are just a reason for punishment".

His career was a disappointment compared to expectations.

Hoo boy. What more could he have done? I think people are going to realize how great a player he was when the vote comes around. He was supposed to be the next Willie Mays, sure, but I don't think the voters will hold it against him he only became Frank Robinson. The last couple of years of his career were sad, and the end with Seattle was really sad, but that's just a footnote on his career. No one remembers Yogi Berra playing for the Mets or Steve Carlton reduced to a fungible middle reliever as a Giant or Babe Ruth stumbling around for the Braves, etc. etc.