Edgar had 643 in 8674 games.

Anyone who plays 8674 games is going to get my vote.

With Palmeiro I think he's marginal to begin with. Any demerits drop him to off ballot for me. It would be similar to Trevor Hoffman squeezing out a few extra years.

Anyone who plays 8674 games is going to get my vote.

????

Oh, I am. That one's easy.

McGwire had 633 offensive runs above replacement in 7660 PA's. Edgar had 643 in 8674 games.

Mac was a better hitter per PA and actually played the field. To me, that's an easy call.

Agreed. Mac clears the borderline players like Edgar and Walker, it's all about whether his peak was enough to enter into the no doubt territory and his career long enough for consideration. I think it's enough to put him in the clearly in line, but I do see the argument for not, especially for those who like to discount all narratives.

A reasonable case can be made for Walker over McGwire. He wasn't that much worse as a hitter, and he was excellent in the field and on the bases. They have similar in season durability issues.

This is the second best ballot I've seen, only Posnanski's has been better - these eight plus, yup, Walker and McGwire.

I would vote for Martinez if I had an eleventh slot, probably for Palmeiro 12th, probably not for Sosa, Lofton, Murphy.

Can somebody give me the short version on how this site's groupthink came around to deciding that the roiders are AOK?

Moral relativism combined with a refusal to stand on basic principles of fairness and decency, i.e., moral cowardice. People to whom only process matters and to whom justice is something to be laughed at and never enforced.

Moral relativism combined with a refusal to stand on basic principles of fairness and decency, i.e., moral cowardice. People to whom only process matters and to whom justice is something to be laughed at and never enforced.

I was thinking, maybe the fact that it wasn't against the rules at the time, the fact that when it became against the rules, the league enacted their own penalties and that doesn't include a permanent ban from baseball, the fact that cheating has always been a part of the game , and in fact was a celebrated part of the game....

Can somebody give me the short version on how this site's groupthink came around to deciding that the roiders are AOK?

Not sure about the group, but I can summarize my own reasoning that led to that conclusion:

1. It simply has not been shown that steroids significantly impact baseball performance.
2. Before there was testing, using steroids was not against the rules and was not even thought to help.
3. I don't think using steroids is "cheating," but "cheating" has never been a HOF disqualifier (e.g., Ruth; Pud Galvin; Gaylord Perry).
4. Use of amphetamines by players in the 60s and 70s raised broadly similar issues, and was never considered a HOF disqualifier.
5. It is dishonest or irrational to keep players out of the HOF for steroids use but not care about amphetamines use.
6. Legality isn't an issue because (a) it never was with amps, and (b) there are legal ways to obtain/use steroids (jurisdiction, etc.).
7. The character clause was never invoked for amps players, and hardly was invoked at all if ever, and so invoking it for steroids players is without historical precedent and thus grossly unfair given the standards already in place.
8. Steroids have been available since the '60s so there's no sense in obsessing over '90s/'00s players.
9. The HOF vote is not the proper venue to take inconsistent, incoherent, and dishonest "moral" stands.
10. Many players used steroids and weren't caught, and there's no good reason to pretend that players who weren't caught didn't use.

11. When players like McGwire were using, MLB didn't show that they cared very much (they didn't care enough to make the necessary concessions when collectively bargaining; they overlooked players who were using), the players as a whole didn't show that they cared very much, the media - to the extent they knew - didn't show that it cared very much, and the fans - to the extent they knew - didn't show that they cared very much.

The bottom line, for me, is that when people state that they would keep players out of the HOF on this basis, or they would "discount" a player's stats on this basis, these people are some combination of petty/dishonest/irrational.

54. J.R. Wolf Posted: December 25, 2012 at 01:39 PM (#4332228)
[ Ignored Comment ]

Ah, much better...

Merry Xmas everyone!

Moral relativism combined with a refusal to stand on basic principles of fairness and decency, i.e., moral cowardice. People to whom only process matters and to whom justice is something to be laughed at and never enforced.

"Moral relativism" is code for "actual thinking makes my head hurt too much". Instead it's easy to spout a mishmash of gibberish because no one agrees with your opinions of what fairness, decency, and justice are.

Wake me when you can explain how Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and other known "cheaters" should remain in the HOF.

A reasonable case can be made for Walker over McGwire. He wasn't that much worse as a hitter, and he was excellent in the field and on the bases. They have similar in season durability issues

Walker was nowhere near McGwire in hitting, esp. in peak value. McGwire's bifurcated career lowers his average value, but still leads 163 to 149 in OPS+, but as I've pointed out Big Mac had almost a decade at 188 OPS+.

BBref gives Walker only 59.5 WAR, which shocks me. He has 73 fWAR, slightly more than Big Mac in slightly more games, and is 12th among right fielders all time, to me that is HOF worthy (assuming 13 starting positions with 4 starting pitchers, 12 gives 156 inductees over 130+ years. Just like Big Mac if Larry avoided some injuries he has 80 WAR and skates in. Unlike Big Mac, a lot of his value is tied up in his defense and I don't think voters appreciate that enough (UZR has him 8th all time for RF)

But the counter arguments against Walker are his giving the ball to a fan in the stands when there were only two outs, and that his nick-name was "Booger".

Oops, I think those are actually arguments in favor.

Surely when we are talking Hall of Fame and not Hall of Merit McGwire gets credit for being of the great "must see" players of all time. During his peak he was awe-inspiring, get to the ballpark early just for batting practice great.

To me, that stuff counts for the Hall of Fame, and it is enough to push someone arguably borderline into the for sure list.

Jeff Bagwell Craig Biggio Barry Bonds Roger Clemens Mike Piazza Tim Raines Curt Schilling Alan Trammell

That's a good enough Hall of Merit ballot, though if there were unlimited choices I'd add Edgar, McGwire, Raffy, and Sosa, and with an write-in vote for Whitaker.

---------------------------------------

Can somebody give me the short version on how this site's groupthink came around to deciding that the roiders are AOK?

The shortest version: Demographics.

The slightly longer version: It's an understandable reaction against the nauseating hyping that many of today's moralizing writers were once giving to the same players that they're now moralizing against. The most coherent spokesman for this POV about hypocrisy is Gonfalon Bubble.

Or this: They mark a different point on the dividing line they see between acceptable and unacceptable forms of "performance enhancement", based on their different reading of history, ethics, and in some cases, the law. Hence the distinction we often see made between pre-testing and post-testing users.

There's more to it than that, but I'd bet that the great majority of the "groupthink" here (if you want to call it that) can be explained by those first two points alone. And if all I had to go by in formulating my thoughts were the arguments of some of the more mentally challenged writers like Chass & co., I'd probably be writing the same things myself.

BBref gives Walker only 59.5 WAR, which shocks me.

It shocks BB-ref too; his total there is 69.7.

Edit: Looks like he has 59.6 oWAR, which adjusts for position but not defense.

libertarians + lawyers.

shorter yet: hypocrisy

IOW, I'd rather have a beer with a 'roider than with the writers who glorified 'em until they detected a shift in the wind

It shocks BB-ref too; his total there is 69.7.

Edit: Looks like he has 59.6 oWAR, which adjusts for position but not defense.

Thank goodness, he really was a fine player. Somehow the BB-Ref data layout often confuses me, while the FanGraphs layout does not.

MLB and the media both reveled in the longball show seven ways to Sunday and to the bank. Backlash against it now is pure hypocrisy

You forgot us, the fans too. We were complicit.

You forgot us, the fans too. We were complicit.

Just the Chicks digging the longball.

One last point on Big Mac that I think helps accentuate the dominance he showed. Mark is 81st all time in OBP & 8th in SLG, which in combination works out to 10th all time in OPS, and 11th in OPS+. Given the many thousands of players who had full careers in baseball (Fangraphs has 3,747 MLB players with at least 1,000 PAs) those rankings are by themselves insanely impressive, but we know that OPS/OPS have lots of flaws.

wRC+ is the correct stat to use, and even there Mark is 12th all time in wRC+, so that's pretty dominant. But instead of leaving it there, I"d like to take a side trip into a more simplistic stat to illustrate how effective he was as a TTO hitter.

One flaw to OPS is that it essentially double counts hits, i.e. SLG is total bases per AB, but OBP is also counts base hits, so it tends to favor high average hitters who get to double count as many hits as possible. Counting bases created per PA, i.e. total bases + walks/PAs is significantly better than OPS ( would be even better with base-running but that's beyond the scope of a short post and a simple stat). The best hitters ever at creating bases per PA are



Mark moves up to 8th all time in this measure, despite that low BA.

Other interesting players who see their ranks change significantly under this "more accurate" version of OPS, include



Obviously, wRC+is the beginning and end of comparing offensive performance rates, but I thought it was interesting that Mark ranked so high in OPS, despite his TTO style of hitting being somewhat "undervalued" by it.

One flaw to OPS is that it essentially double counts hits, i.e. SLG is total bases per AB, but OBP is also counts base hits, so it tends to favor high average hitters who get to double count as many hits as possible.

That is not a flaw, that is a feature, a single is better than a walk. Any system that treats walks and singles as equals is doing a horrible disservice.

I like TB + Walks/PA a lot, very intuitive stat. No doubt Mac was a historically great hitter. Horrible defensive and baserunning value, as well as playing in an extremely high offense era, make him borderline to me though.

What does Primer think of Manny Ramirez as a HOFer?

That is not a flaw, that is a feature, a single is better than a walk. Any system that treats walks and singles as equals is doing a horrible disservice.

Um, OPS says a single is worth twice as much as a walk. That's a lot further from the truth than treating them equally.

But walks are not as good as singles, sorry. A walk doesn't move the other runners unless they are forced.

Mark McGwire is the most efficient player ever at achieving the best outcome in the game. Hall of Famer. Next question.

This makes perfect sense to me. I second.

For a guy like McGwire, he's borderline with the roids, so you can easily make a case that he would not be HOF worthy without roids.

No, and few mainstream voters would have found McGwire "borderline" absent steroids.

Um, OPS says a single is worth twice as much as a walk.

OPS does. OPS+ does not, because league average slugging is higher than league average OBP, so an extra single doesn't increase SLG+ as much as it does OBP+.

Either way, if you want to accurately value events, use wOBA. If you want an intuitive stat, I like walks + TB/PA much more than OPS.

McGwire hit a lot of fly balls. For whatever reason (steroids, juiced ball, strike zone, global warming, whatever), fly balls were anomalously likely to turn into home runs during McGwire's stint in the league. Here is the breakdown of McGwire's balls in play:

GB 1159 / FB 2171 (416 HR) / LD 818 (68 HR)

Compare this to Sosa:

GB 2649 / FB 2524 (507 HR) / LD 1354 (94 HR)

I'm not sure where you get these numbers but they conflict with b-r. B-R puts McGwire's HR/FB at 22.5% for his career and Sosa at 18.6%. McGwire's 22.5% is higher than anybody I've found yet -- Thome is at 19-20% and even Bonds in his HR-hitting heyday only barely beats Mac at 22.8%. (Numbers don't go back very far but true TTO hitting is fairly new so I'm not sure we're missing many legit candidates.)

What does Primer think of Manny Ramirez as a HOFer?

I suspect Ramirez's case is going to be tied pretty closely to Palmeiro's case.

A sure fire HOF player, but actually got caught by testing (twice!).
I think that most supporters for those players who don't have a positive test (but are in the web of PED performance accusations) will sacrifice Ramirez on the altar.

"Ramirez failed a test, so if he doesn't get in that's okay. Clemens/Bonds/etc. never failed a test, so don't lump them with Manny. They deserve to go in."

As for players like ARod, who have admitted using but never failed a test that resulted in suspensions, his case is going to be even more complicated than Manny or Bonds.

Since I don't hold steroids use against a player, I don't care whether a player failed a test or not. Steroids are simply not a factor for me in HOF support.

Excellent list in #67, but it looks like The Man gets overlooked again. 6,134 TB + 1,599 BB in 12,717 PA (all per BBRef) comes to .608, tied for 10th with DiMag.

And while I agree that Big Mac is hall-worthy, I see his title as "greatest pure HR hitter ever" as a bit suspect despite his top HR/AB, for two reasons. First, Ruth had over 1,100 AB during the pre-1920 deadball era, in which he had 1 HR/22.7 AB. Drop those and he's pretty close to McGwire. 2nd is the difference in HR environment between their two eras; Ruth outhomered many teams throughout much of his career. (And yes, it was in a segregated time, reducing the talent pool, probably more than the diversion into linebackers and shooting guards reduces the talent available to MLB today.) I think Ruth/McGwire together set the standard for pure HR hitting. No one else is particularly close.

I'm saying numbers wise is Manny a clear HOFer? He's similar to Mac in that he is a historically great hitter who's terrible at everything else.

Yes, Manny is a clear HOFer. And even if you hate his defense - I don't; I think Fenway ruins the numbers - bWAR hates it, and he still finishes with a 65.

11. When players like McGwire were using, MLB didn't show that they cared very much (they didn't care enough to make the necessary concessions when collectively bargaining; they overlooked players who were using)

There was only one CBA negotiated between the strike and introduction of testing in 2003, and I can see why MLB wouldn't want to go to the mat for testing in the wake of the 94-95 debacle.

I'm saying numbers wise is Manny a clear HOFer? He's similar to Mac in that he is a historically great hitter who's terrible at everything else.

There is a pretty big difference between Manny's playing time (9774 PA) and Mac's playing time (7660 PA). Also, Manny adds nearly another full season of work in the post-season at a .937 OPS (493 PA) while Mac has much less time (151 PA) and performance (.669 OPS). I think Manny is pretty comfortably over the line numbers-wise and I don't share Ray's opinion of his defense, I think it was legitimately quite poor.

Bonds DID fail a PED test. For amps in 2006. His positive was leaked to an NY paper who ran the story. This was before penalties were enacted. According to his Wiki page, he was subjected to six additional tests as a result.

Wouldn't affect my vote one iota, but it's not true that he never failed a test.

Clearly, most people don't care about the confession in the slightest. Poz discussed it in his most recent Poscast, but it's rarely even mentioned that it occurred. It's depressing to me to think that it makes no difference at all.

I think the confession is conspicuous in how it more or less terminated the discussion. If he hadn't, we'd still be seeing calls for McGwire to come clean, just like we did for twenty years with Pete Rose.

As for players like ARod, who have admitted using but never failed a test that resulted in suspensions, his case is going to be even more complicated than Manny or Bonds.

Which HOF candidates have admitted? Just McGwire, A-rod, and Pettitte, right? It seems that a confession pretty much does get the media off your back. Once you spill, there's no more sanctimonious high-horsemanship and the writers can get back to baseball.

Which HOF candidates have admitted? Just McGwire, A-rod, and Pettitte, right? It seems that a confession pretty much does get the media off your back. Once you spill, there's no more sanctimonious high-horsemanship and the writers can get back to baseball.

I don't think the media is off A-Rod's back. You could argue that the current hatred for him isn't steroid-related, but the A-Rod hatchet jobs still tend to mention his PED use.

Sheffield also admitted (unintentional) use, didn't he?

His positive was leaked to an NY paper who ran the story. This was before penalties were enacted. According to his Wiki page, he was subjected to six additional tests as a result.

was that the same leak that listed Sosa among others, including a number of people higher than the number of positive tests?

Excellent list in #67, but it looks like The Man gets overlooked again. 6,134 TB + 1,599 BB in 12,717 PA (all per BBRef) comes to .608, tied for 10th with DiMag.

Confession: my calculations weren't exactly right, I took a short-cut.

I actually did (SLG+BB%)/(AB+BB%) because those numbers are easy to get from FanGraphs for all 3700 or so players in their DB. But it's not the same as (TB+BB)/PA because PA is more than BB+AB due to sacrifices & HBP (I believe).

The Man ended up 20th in my list (0.594), just after Albert Belle.

A single is worth almost exactly 50% more than a walk so counting them equal is as dumb as counting a single twice a walk. OPS+ does a better job but not great.

With a small handful of exceptions (McGwire is one, Dunn is another) a batter's hit rate is his single most important component, much more important than walks and extra base rate. ISO does have a higher variance though so can be more discriminating to an extent.

Player Bases/PA
Babe Ruth 0.726
Ted Williams 0.678
Lou Gehrig 0.668
Barry Bonds 0.657
Jimmie Foxx 0.646
Hank Greenberg 0.641
Albert Pujols 0.640
Mark McGwire 0.636
Manny Ramirez 0.622
Joe DiMaggio 0.608
Rogers Hornsby 0.607
Mickey Mantle 0.606
Jim Thome 0.604
Frank Thomas 0.602
Larry Walker 0.600
Johnny Mize 0.596
Ralph Kiner 0.596
Alex Rodriguez 0.594
Albert Belle 0.594

Didn't the fact that 9 of these 17 players played in the last 20 years tip you off that this might need to be era-adjusted? That almost all of these folks come from high offense eras?

And of course McGwire didn't hang around for a decline phase so this, like all the career stats you keep popping out, are biased in his favor. For example, Jim Thome from 1995 to 2007 had 7631 PA and a .645 rate. Manny from 98-09 also beats him in 7200 PA. From ages 22-32 (6800 PA) Thomas beats him as well. Thomas declined at 33-34 before bouncing back at 35-36 -- he is a smidgen ahead in 7772 PA if you include his age 35-36 seasons. There may be others.

Obviously doing as well as Thome, Manny and Thomas is damned impressive. But each of them went on to another 2000+ PA of damned good but not great (TB+BB)/PA totals. And even by your preferred measure, controlling for equal playing time, McGwire is no better than the 5th best of his era ... unless you don't think Pujols overlaps his era (fair enough) in which case he's 4th. None of Thome, Thomas or Manny contributed anything defensively either but you have a hard time arguing that Mac contributed more or was better than these guys, even by your preferred measure.

It is always unfair to look at career rate lists without adjusting for playing time differences. And I suspect that if you league/era adjusted that guys like Reggie, Killebrew and McCovey might well give him a run for his money too (in equal playing time). (this is hard to do given pitcher batting) But fair enough, if you park adjust as well, McGwire will go up ... and maybe create separation from Thome, Manny, Thomas.

Note also the silliness of this (and many other) rankings. Sometimes you are talking rates which are .002 apart which is 1 TB or BB per season. McGwire does have good separation (without a decline phase) so that doesn't apply to him ... until we adjust for playing time.

Anyway, it is certainly true that McGwire was one of the great pure power hitters of all-time. Yes, that should probably be more than enough to put him in the HoF ... certainly one that has fairly recently voted in Tony Perez and Jim Rice. But that should have been enough for Allen and Mize and an easier time for Greenberg and Kiner.

How are you getting a single worth 1.5 times as much as a walk?

http://www.insidethebook.com/woba.shtml

I'm not sure where you get these numbers but they conflict with b-r. B-R puts McGwire's HR/FB at 22.5% for his career and Sosa at 18.6%. McGwire's 22.5% is higher than anybody I've found yet -- Thome is at 19-20% and even Bonds in his HR-hitting heyday only barely beats Mac at 22.8%. (Numbers don't go back very far but true TTO hitting is fairly new so I'm not sure we're missing many legit candidates.)

Ryan Howard is 28.7% so far for his career. I'm sure that will go down, but I'm guessing he'll be the highest ever.

How are you getting a single worth 1.5 times as much as a walk?

http://www.insidethebook.com/woba.shtml

Probably from the batting runs linear weights formula. Which doesn't count the cost of an out (about .3 of a run) as part of the individual components. If you strip that out from the figures you linked to, you are left with .47 for a hit and .33 for a walk.

For me, the Hall of Fame question regarding steroid users is answered by historical precedent. The induction of Gaylord Perry renders any thought of excluding "cheaters," however defined, laughable. And the induction of the amphetamines generation says that the Hall clearly doesn't care about taking illegal drugs intended to improve performance.

That said, I can certainly see failed tests as lines in the sand. If you were using prior to testing, and got clean afterward, fair play to you. It wasn't banned by the game, and can therefore be easily construed as within the rules. I'd even argue that it was part of a level playing field established by the culture of the sport at the time.

When Palmeiro and Ramirez failed their tests, though, the sport had announced its intention to clean itself up; steroids were no longer part of the level playing field. And so I can see the argument for excluding them, although I'd certainly say that the induction of Perry, McGraw, and others says that the Hall historically turns a blind eye to cheating.

For now, I'm wait-and-see on Palmeiro. I think he belongs on the ballot, but I wouldn't vote for him in a year this crowded. I also want to see how the cleanup of steroids in baseball actually shakes out. If baseball goes the way of the NFL, where a couple of people a year get suspended for steroids, but it's generally assumed that the entire league is using and a failed test is no disqualification for major postseason awards that same season, then I'm completely for inducting Palmeiro and Ramirez. If baseball goes the way of the Olympics, where several people per Olympiad get disqualified for steroids, are sent home in disgrace, are banned from competing in their sport for a year or more, and are viewed dishonorably on an international scale, I'm for excluding them. If it's somewhere in the middle, we're right back to trying to parse the steroid discount, I'm afraid.

And of course McGwire didn't hang around for a decline phase

He had a decline phase! It started at age 37, he just wasn't healthy enough to make it last more than 97 games;)

More seriously he partially offset his very quick decline with losing 3 full seasons in his peak years. Two years of 110 OPS+ with 2 more years of 188 OPS+ wouldn't change his rate stats much.

More seriously he partially offset his very quick decline with losing 3 full seasons in his peak years.

This is called not being durable. If your career takes a "tragic" turn a la Puckett or Dizzy Dean (but not Thurman Munson), then you get credit for time lost due to injury (who knows why but that seems to be voting tradition). If you lost peak time because you went off to war, you get credit for lost time. If you had foot, knee, etc. problems that caused you to miss lots of time throughout your career, you get no credit for lost time. Nobody is really going to point to Griffey's 30s and treat them as if he'd never gotten hurt. Nobody is playing "what if" games with Walker -- if anything they're holding his fragility against him.

If you want to give McGwire credit for time lost to injury, you have to give it to Walker, Larkin, Edgar, Griffey, Thomas, Giambi (2004 and 2007), etc. and McGwire won't look any more special than he already does or doesn't in relation to those guys.

I agree that a couple of average years here or there wouldn't add substantially to his case. But they add to his case relative to some other guys. For example I showed that (by your stat) that Thome was slightly better than McGwire from 95 to 07 in the same number of PA as McGwire's career. Well, shifting to the easier WAR, Thome had 2.6 WAR in 800 PA before 1995 and 8 WAR in 1900 PA after 2007. Thomas is similar to Mac in that he added only 6.7 WAR in about 2300 PA, nothing special. But the only reason Thome was at .604 and Thomas was at .602 and McGwire at .636 on your measure was because Thome and Thomas accumlated those other 2700/2300 PA when they didn't crush the ball quite as much. You can't tout McGwire's ranking on that list, or any career rate list, without adjusting for playing time.

SandyRiver and Walt - I have no objection to your arguing that McGwire was not quite as good as Ruth, Thomas and Thome because of a short career. Ruth and Thomas are obvious top Hall guys, and I think Thome is, too - in fact, I think Thome is badly underrated in general perception. If that's the company that Mac is playing in, I'm not arguing. If I were doing rankings, Frank's time as a DH would drag him down, in the same way as Mac's short career does, but not everyone administers the very strong DH deductions that I do. I am also inclined to argue that part of Ruth's astonishing homer performance was that pitchers took a while to adjust to what he brought to the game. I mean, it's not as if there were suddenly 50 40-homer guys by 1921. There was Ruth. And the kind of pitching that works best on Ruth's type of hitting works worst in dealing with bunters and slap hitters, of which there were many many more at the time. And that's not to mention that pitchers have to practice to acquire new pitches, and doing all that work just to deal with Babe Ruth is asking too much. By 1930, there were enough of those guys that you had to adjust to them, but not in the early 1920s.

However, it's not true that Mac played his career during the Sillyball era. He played half of his career before then, and half during then. As it happens, his second peak (he really has two), which is outstanding, occurs during Sillyball, and I think you can argue that his context helped him there. But I also think you have to admit that his context hurt him before 1994.

The main argument against Palmeiro is that he was an "accumulator", meaning that he has no discernible peak or prime. That has nothing to do with steroids. Most systems deduct for low peaks and primes. If yours doesn't, then of course you think more of Raffy than I do. But, then, I was one of the last holdouts, not voting for Raffy in the HoM, because of the lack of peak and prime, and also for the DH deductions I make. The HoM elected him last year, which does impose a limit on how influential my opinion must be. - Brock

Confession: my calculations weren't exactly right, I took a short-cut.

I actually did (SLG+BB%)/(AB+BB%) because those numbers are easy to get from FanGraphs for all 3700 or so players in their DB. But it's not the same as (TB+BB)/PA because PA is more than BB+AB due to sacrifices & HBP (I believe).

The Man ended up 20th in my list (0.594), just after Albert Belle.

No big thing. I'm more than a bit anal about arithmetic (and Musial has been a favorite since I first got interested in baseball in the mid-1950s.)

bjkanke: Your arguments are always well presented, and thoughtful people can disagree agreeably.

Just the Chicks digging the longball.

I used to dig chicks who dig the longball. So it's really all my fault.

To me Palmeiro is a clear HOFer. He fits comfortably in with the middle tier. From 1988-2003 he provided a lot of value, and never had a bad season. His peak isn't special for a HOFer, but his prime is very nice, and he's more of a career candidate anyway.

With all due respect to the previous explanations, here's the shortest version: libertarians + lawyers.

Ack. I am neither (feel free to look at the OT: Politics thread). And I disagree with Ray on 90% of everything (just a guess), but steroids and baseball is one area we agree. In fact I agree with much of Ray's list in 56 though that is not the reason I am against.

For me it is fairness. We don't really know the whole of usage (who, when, what) or what the impact of that usage was. We know bits and pieces and we will likely never know more. These players were operating in one of two environments, the first is when steroids were basically an open secret, no one really cared, "chicks dig the long ball", and winning matters more than anything. So people used and did what they needed (they thought) to win. During the second there was testing and established penalties to getting caught (and well the chicks and winning were still pretty much the same).

I don't think it fair (especially given the unknowns) to judge players retroactively - guess what those steroids we didn't care about, well we know/suspect/think we know you used, so no HOF for you. That is just wrong, especially for the first era listed above when MLB, the press, fans and so on really did not care (just like they really didn't care about speed, spit balls, stealing signs and so on).

I also don't think the legality of steroids plays in this at all. Baseball is baseball and life is life. Law enforcement needs to happen in real life and baseball on the field. Baseball doesn't need to act like cops. Especially since one could legally do steroids out of the US.

In fairness I also should mention that Barry Bonds is one of my favorite players and played for the Giants (one of my favorite teams), but I didn't care about steroids when it was Canseco and such so I don't think that changes my opinions but I wanted to mention it.

It is funny that if I had told someone watching the great Mac/Sosa home run year and that it was likely neither would make the Hall of Fame they would have thought me an idiot.