Wow big Hall guy. Pretty darn good ballot. I probably wouldn't vote for Lofton or Walker and I'm on the fence about Edgar, but it doesn't cheapen the Hall to have any of those guys in.

Lofton and Edgar but no Piazza is sort of weird - but Raines/Bonds/Clemens/Trammell plus no Morris is cause for celebration from where I'm standing.

Are the statistics good in the clubhouse?



(sorry)

edit: Am I reading that correctly? He MAY vote for Piazza if he gets the 5% necessary to stay on the ballot? WTF? If you don't for him now you never will because Mike Piazza won't be on the ballot next year.

Also, Piazza once didn't speak up when the team tried to change a passed ball to a wild pitch.

Damn, can't really argue about this too much. What's the fun in that?

Well, the massive flaw in using this method is you pretty much never end up with a catcher in the HOF, which seems silly. WAR is a counting stat, so the nature of the fact that catchers don't play nearly as many games means they don't stack up nearly as many WAR, so they never make the hall in the first place and therefore never can be compared to existing HOF catchers using JAWS. On the BBRef all time WAR list you go down to 45 before you find your first catcher - in the meantime you've passed 18 or so OFs, a bunch of 1Bs, and a bunch of 3Bs, i.e. the positions where players rack up a bunch of 150 game seasons.

EDIT: That being said, otherwise a good ballot. I'd substitute Piazza for Walker or Lofton or Martinez, but otherwise his picking based on actual value yields great results. Who knew?

I'm sorry, there is no way that Piazza isn't one of the top ten candidates. Lofton, Edgar, Walker and Raines are all behind him. Heck Piazza is a slam dunk worthy candidate, those guys need a narrative.

This run-down just illustrates that there are not enough spaces on this ballot. None of the 10 he chose were weak choices, and he still left off McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, and Piazza. That's crazy.

You felt like all of his homers flew about a foot over the shortstop’s glove and then soared over the wall, breaking a car window in the process.

I seem to remember Piazza's home runs being towering fly balls, not heat-seeking line drive missiles ala Sheffield.

Am I reading that correctly? He MAY vote for Piazza if he gets the 5% necessary to stay on the ballot? WTF? If you don't for him now you never will because Mike Piazza won't be on the ballot next year.

I can see voting for Piazza later if you think there are equally worthy players at a greater risk of falling off the ballot.

Then again, that's only going to make the bottleneck worse.

Just to be fair, I'm good with the rest of his ballot, but I don't get the logic re: Piazza. To me he's one of the easy choices this year. I'm really surprised a New York writer wouldn't write him in twice if he could.

I'm a Piazza is a an automatic first ballot guy, but it is nice to see Kenny Lofton get a vote. I'll be shocked if he gets more than a few votes.As an Indians fan, it saddens me that there is no chance that Lofton gets the 5% necessary to stay on the ballot and get full consideration. Obviously, he isn't an inner circle guy. However, when you consider he got a late start (wasn't a regular until 25) and played CF his stats don't fall that short of HoF standards. Failure to elect Bagwell in past years as well as others will cause guys like Lofton to be one and done when they might otherwise have gotten several looks.

In a sane baseball world Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, and Alan Trammell would've been in already, as would McGwire & Palmeiro (crossing both magic numbers makes it hard to argue against without PED's). Edgar Martinez & Larry Walker both would have to fight to get in no matter what as neither hit magic numbers and both had a clear thing against them (career DH and Coors Field) that have yet to be measured clearly historically for the HOF. We'd also not have to deal with Rice & Sutter being in or Morris on the edge of getting in. If all of that happened then 5 slots would've been cleared making it so Piazza was on this writers ballot.

I do like seeing a writer who doesn't just go by 'my gut says' but instead has a method and mixes it with gut feel.

This is also a very good column in the he goes out of the way to celebrate the careers of (most of) the noes, rather than feeling the need to trash players who had excellent careers.

Other than that, I think the consensus here is right that he has a thoughtful method that needs a catcher adjustment. You don't have to be that much of a "big hall" guy to get to ten on this ballot, especially when considering the number of votes per writer ballot has been in decline for reasons that do not appear related to the quality of the candidates.

Aside from the Piazza omission, which is just kind of silly, it's a nice ballot. And I'm glad to see Lofton get a vote.

However, when you consider he got a late start (wasn't a regular until 25) and played CF his stats don't fall that short of HoF standards.

I am happy to see Lofton get recognized as well, but the argument that he wasn't a regular until 25 only adds to his case if he was KILLING it in the minors for a few years and not getting a chance at a full time job. He spent a full year in A+ ball in his age 23 season (hitting .337 in the FSL is impressive, but it's still the FSL), then he posted a .308/.367/.417 in the PCL the next year at age 24. Not bad, but nothing there says he was good enough to be in the majors in those years. He doesn't have much of a peak by HoF standards, either. Granted, averaging a .390 OBA and 52 SB from 1993-99 is no small feat.

Piazza's average 162 game line over his career: 36 hr's 113 RBI's .308 .377 .545

Holy Toledo! And that's playing his entire career in Dodger Stadium and Shea.

What I did was, I looked at every candidate on this ballot and ranked him according to both WARs, Baseball-Reference’s WAR7 (which takes a candidate’s best seven seasons by WAR, to consider a player’s peak) and Jaffe’s JAWS.

I had to look up WAR7, as I'd never heard of it.

Turns out, it is part of JAWS, so he uses JAWS, and then equally weights a component of JAWS:

JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score system) was developed by sabermetrician Jay Jaffe as a means to measure a player's Hall of Fame worthiness. A player's JAWS is their career WAR averaged with their 7-year peak WAR.

According to the JAWS stats at BB-ref, Piazza is ranked 5th among all catchers in JAWS, 3rd in WAR7. But no hall of fame for that guy.

I really enjoyed the article and appreciate his vote and that he went through each and every candidate, even the obvious no's, except one, for some reason. I thought he sort of insinuated that he would vote for Piazza next year when the ballot got cleared away from this year's over abundance of choices. Could just be that he wants to make a first ballot distinction, although I think, if you ignore the PED question, Piazza ought to be a first ballot choice.

And that's playing his entire career in Dodger Stadium and Shea.

Almost his whole career.

(I know he played for the Padres and A's too, but that's not as funny.)

(I know he played for the Padres and A's too, but that's not as funny.)

And the Marlins! San Diego and Oakland are pitcher's parks, too.

edit: Dammit. Should have clicked your link first.

This is the first year on the HOF ballot for Roberto Hernandez and Mike Stanton. There are currently active MLB players named Roberto Hernandez and Mike Stanton. Okay, one of them was previously called Fausto Carmona and the other is now called Giancarlo Stanton, but I wonder if that's ever happened before.

Ken's voting by WAR, and as the one who created the WAR system used by BBref, it makes me sort of feel like I have a vote. That said, I hope Ken reconsiders Piazza if he has a chance to in the future.

The situation with catchers is that they take such a beating at the position that they cannot compile the same career WAR numbers that other positions can. I think the fairest way to deal with this is to have a different WAR HOF target for catchers than other positions. So if 65 WAR is the cutoff for others, use maybe 50-55 for catchers.

In addition, Piazza was very good at working with pitchers. This made up for his more easily measurable defensive deficiencies. I have Piazza as worth about 10 wins more than an average catcher over his career by his gamecalling. My career ratings are here: http://www.baseballprojection.com/special/catcher_gcall.htm

But the problem here is greater than Piazza. You might notice that this writer who explicitly says he's not disqualifying steroid users had no space for Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, or Rafael Palmeiro either. The problem is that 10 spots is too small on a ballot with so many qualified players. And it will get worse, not better.

I think even if Ken reads my post, accepts and agrees with my pro-Piazza arguments, he may not have room for him on next year's ballot. There's a very good chance that only Biggio from this ballot will get in, and the names of Frank Thomas, Mike Mussina, Greg Maddux, and Tom Glavine will be added. If that happens I don't know if I'd have room to keep Piazza.

Could just be that he wants to make a first ballot distinction, although I think, if you ignore the PED question, Piazza ought to be a first ballot choice.

I think it's quite obvious he's not trying to make some first ballot distinction. He just ran out of room. The problem is the 10 player limit. We can quibble about the rankings, I would put Piazza ahead of guys like Lofton or Walker, but the thing is I support every one of his 10 picks, plus at least 4-5 others, and it looks to me that if you give Ken a bigger ballot, he'd keep adding names.

Steve Finley

...I don’t think anyone would peg him as a Hall of Famer. He’s a No. But he’ll be remembered quite fondly by the fans of the teams for which he played.

This is not entirely true.

This is not entirely true.

But he got you Edgardo Alfonso!

There's a very good chance that only Biggio from this ballot will get in

if that. There's a very good chance that no one from this ballot will get in.

-- MWE

This is not entirely true.

That was so frustrating. We had to listen to Rex talk about what great shape he was in for his age, then watch Finley hit and field like Ted Williams. Headless, cryogenically frozen Ted Williams that is.

if that. There's a very good chance that no one from this ballot will get in.

True. Maybe Morris, but then Davidoff isn't voting for him so he is irrelevant to Ken's ballot crunch.

In addition, Piazza was very good at working with pitchers. This made up for his more easily measurable defensive deficiencies. I have Piazza as worth about 10 wins more than an average catcher over his career by his gamecalling. My career ratings are here: http://www.baseballprojection.com/special/catcher_gcall.htm

Interesting...do you have an overview of this somewhere?

Does BPro treat closers like 14K gold? If not, how might this impact Ken's 2019 ballot re: Mariano Rivera?

EDIT: 31.3 WARP!

Interesting...do you have an overview of this somewhere?

Craig Wright wrote about this a few years ago in one of the THT Annual books.

To reinforce AROM's point, even if 3 players were elected this year, Piazza will be 14th in WAR on the 2014 ballot. Elect another three off that ballot and he'll be 14th in WAR on the 2015 ballot. Elect three more and he makes it up to 13th on the 2016 ballot. Elect three more and he's up to 11th on the 2017 ballot. In the real world where three players aren't going to be elected every year ...

I suspect a simple email to Davidoff explaining why Piazza's WAR-based numbers are so low would change his mind and Piazza might be on his 2014 ballot. Doesn't solve the problem though.

One change in HoF voting I think we have a reasonable chance of seeing is an expansion of the ballot. Voters who are squeezed should ask for it ... neither the HoF nor BBWAA members who aren't squeezed have any good reason to object.

It's one of the points I keep making -- PEDs or no PEDs, these ballots were going to be cluster****s.

If Piazza is on next year’s ballot _ I assume he’ll get the five percent of the votes necessary to carry him over _ then I absolutely would consider voting for him. He’s a very worthy candidate. On this clogged ballot, though, I don’t believe he’s one of the 10 best. Not when you look at the historical value measures like WAR and JAWS.

So roughly the same offense between Piazza and Edgar Martinez gets the DH in but not the C.

Huh.

This is the first year on the HOF ballot for Roberto Hernandez and Mike Stanton. There are currently active MLB players named Roberto Hernandez and Mike Stanton. Okay, one of them was previously called Fausto Carmona and the other is now called Giancarlo Stanton, but I wonder if that's ever happened before

Best I can come up with is in 1987 Mike Marshall and Jim "Catfish" Hunter were on the ballot, while Dodgers outfielder Mike Marshall was active and future MLBer Jim Hunter was in the Brewers farm system.

The 2010 ballot had Dave Parker, Tim Raines and Mike Jackson. There were three minor leaguers (well, indy leaguers) in 2010 with the same names.

Wow big Hall guy. Pretty darn good ballot.

Disagree. Any ballot that doesn't have the greatest catcher ever is a pretty sucky ballot.

Piazza should be on ahead of everyone except Bonds and Clemens.

This ballot is almost a follow-up trolling of the Mets.

Yes, it's a good ballot OTHERWISE, but no Piazza is plain dumb.

I agree on Piazza being a better choice than perhaps Walker or Lofton --

OTOH -- Raines, Lofton, Walker, and Trammell are really fighting for relevance -- so I think there's a very strong tactical argument to be made for them getting votes if only to build/keep some semblance of momentum... and for Lofton/Walker/Trammell, with the upcoming/ongoing ballot crunch, I think it's also a worry about one of them getting Whitaker'ed and inexcusably falling below 5% too soon.

Davidoff, though, is one of those guys whose ballots really ought to be worth like 50 of his peers... He's also far and away always been the best to trade e-mails with, both gracious and conversant whether you're agreeing or disagreeing with him.

I think I'd probably swap Walker for Piazza, but then -- I'm absolutely certain Piazza will be available next year and I'm only pretty sure Walker will be.

OTOH -- Raines, Lofton, Walker, and Trammell are really fighting for relevance -- so I think there's a very strong tactical argument to be made for them getting votes if only to build/keep some semblance of momentum... and for Lofton/Walker/Trammell, with the upcoming/ongoing ballot crunch, I think it's also a worry about one of them getting Whitaker'ed and inexcusably falling below 5% too soon.

I don't think there's any justification for 'tactical' voting. If you think he is one of the 10 best candidates, you should vote for him.

I don't think there's any justification for 'tactical' voting. If you think he is one of the 10 best candidates, you should vote for him.

I'd agree with this as well.

Craig Wright wrote about this a few years ago in one of the THT Annual books.

Oh yeah, the article about Piazza?

I don't think there's any justification for 'tactical' voting. If you think he is one of the 10 best candidates, you should vote for him.

I'd agree with this as well.

Get a room...

I disagree -

In a world populated with idiots, I think there are lots of times where it IS necessary to do things tactically -- and HOF voting is probably a pretty good exhibit A.

On a 10 person-limited ballot with what I think we'd all agree probably has at least 11 reasonable candidates, I think I'd probably worry more about squeezing in someone out of concern he'd be lopped off next year.

It's the Hall of Fame. It doesn't matter. Stop making sportswriters think that they are actually important or do something that has value.

Actually, the Hall of Fame does matter to a lot of people, including you. Otherwise you wouldn't be posting on this thread. Amirite?

This is also a very good column in the he goes out of the way to celebrate the careers of (most of) the noes, rather than feeling the need to trash players who had excellent careers.

Yeah, I really like this too. Todd Walker is the only guy without any comments. I really like his bit on Royce Clayton:

I remember him for 1) succeeding Ozzie Smith as the Cardinals’ shortstop; 2) getting into a “heated discussion” with his Rangers teammate Chad Curtis concerning some profane music that Clayton liked and 3) playing Miguel Tejada in “Moneyball.” I wouldn’t mind being remembered for those things. He’s an obvious No for the Hall of Fame.

Clayton was more useful than I remembered. From age 22 to 32 he was good for about 2 WAR a year, by being consistently above average with the glove and a little above replacement at the plate. He hung around way too long, but that's not his fault.

Really, the worst players on the ballot -- Clayton, Todd Walker, Aaron Sele, Sandy Alomar, a couple of the relievers -- were all pretty good for at least a chunk of their careers. The HoF ballot should in part be an opportunity to give a shout out to some old warhorses like these guys. Good for Davidoff.

Clayton played Miguel Tejada in a major movie, but wasn't he played by an actor in "The Rookie"?

Hey, did anyone notice he left Piazza off his ballot....

I thought I remembered Royce Clayton in the dugout during the 2007 post-season, doing one of those Fox "Sounds of the Game" things and reminding Jacoby Ellsbury of the free taco everyone will get if he steals a base. He was on that team in 2007, but I don't see his name for these games in BB-Ref. Do they only list the guys who saw playing time, as opposed to everyone on the post-season roster?

3) playing Miguel Tejada in “Moneyball.”

Royce Clayton was Jim Morris's first strikeout of the big leagues. Oddly enough, he does not portray himself in The Rookie.

EDIT: coke to AG#1F.

Do they only list the guys who saw playing time, as opposed to everyone on the post-season roster?

I think guys might hang out in the dugout even if they aren't on the postseason roster. Or maybe he was disabled.

I think the fairest way to deal with this is to have a different WAR HOF target for catchers than other positions.

Or one could just compare catchers to catchers and realize Piazza is one of the Top 5 MLB catchers ever (in fact he is 5th in the JAWS measurement Davidoff cites as being so important to his decision). Personally I'm much more sceptical of the HOF worthiness of a position player whose team regularly had to find a replacement for him 20 times or more a year than I am of a catcher who had trouble throwing out base stealers

Interesting, Royce Clayton's IMDB lists an uncredited appearance as himself in The Rookie. His wiki says he was portrayed by Jorge Sanchez, but IMDB doesn't have that name in its cast listing.

One way or the other, the internet contains a factual error that must be rectified. Or maybe Jorge Sanchez is the Latin Alan Smithee?