Friday, May 24, 2013
MLB: Don Sutton never shy about voicing his opinion
(mlb.mlb.com)
Sutton: Because that’s where the defaced money is.
Read More...The outspoken Sutton—who came up with the Dodgers in 1966 and pitched with them for 16 of his 23 seasons—has his own opinion about everything.
He said in an interview last week that he hates pitch counts.
“I say it with a laugh in my voice when I broadcast: ‘That’s 100 pitches. On the next one, he’s going to turn into a troll.’ At 101, you just disappear. Poof, you’re gone,” Sutton said.
...MLB.com: Did you cheat?
Sutton: No, I never got ...
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< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > Last ›Yeah. Hard to separate those camps on the evidence. There's a huge WAR gap on the current ballot between #2 (Clemens, 133.9) and #3 (Bagwell, 76.7). If you think Bagwell is a juicer and give a 20 WAR discount, that might be enough to knock Bagwell off your ballot. But for Clemens, he's safe even on a 60 WAR discount.
A-Rod will be the first (and maybe only, unless anything comes out on Randy Johnson or Greg Maddux) that could survive a substantial steroid discount, but not a timing question.
Doesn't seem like very much difference, as Palmeiro's vote percentage is smack in the middle of Sosa and McGwire.
As others have said, in 20 years the steroid issue will have vanished and other issues will take its place (genetic cheating, bionics, whatever). Bonds, Clemens and others (A-Rod for example) will get in by writers while others (Palmeiro) wait for a future vet committee to put them in as they are pushed too far down early on to recover in time.
I suspect in 20 years people will look back at the voting from this period much like many here look back at the 1980/1990's Cy Young and MVP voting - very weird and rewarding the wrong guys (Jack Morris getting more votes than Bonds & Clemens - what were those voters thinking).
H
True story, I ran into Bernie today in San Juan, immediately recognized him and wished him luck in the upcoming HOF vote. He thanked me and mentioned that it would take "ten years" if it were to happen. Hopefully he gets to hang out on the ballot for the full 15 years.
It didn't. It meant he paled in comparison to Sandberg and therefore was never perceived as the best 2B in the game.
On a related note, I knew people, close to the Red Sox organization, who believed that Clemens was using steroids as early as 1990. If you had asked me at any time in the 1990s to guess the roiders, I would have said Canseco and Clemens, 1 and 2.
Personally I would just ignore the whole issue and vote. But spare me the whole court of law thing on the friggin' Hall of Fame vote.
I assume that you also accept religious edicts on morality blindly without rational thought or question as to their purpose.
Despite attitudes like this, The Steroid Enlightenment and Reformation will eventually happen.
Repoz--exactly how many blank ballots do we currently have in the sample?
Mark--A moral judgment, when applied to an individual, requires a burden of proof, and thus needs to adhere to the principle of "innocent until proven guilty." Otherwise gossip and hearsay legitimize lynch mobs. Your personal inclination is the right one, because it recognizes that in the absence of incontrovertible proof, moral judgment needs to be set aside.
How does this possibly make any sense? While displaying an obnoxious prejudice against religious belief, you fail to offer any valid critique of Mark Armour's comment.
As it is, I think Mark Armour is wrong, but it's hardly a simple question. If the moral issue is relevant, then there's no particular reason why the criminal standard of proof is needed (or indeed the civil standard). Nevertheless, I think there should be some threshold of likelihood at which one applies a moral judgement. The alternate view is respectable in respect of non-substantial penalties, like Cooperstown honours- that with a 5% likelihood of guilt, one should apply 5% of the relevant penalty, and at a 95% likelihood of guilt, one should apply 95% of the relevant penalty.
The tight standards today could easily become loose in a few years. I figure 2-3 vets (or more) plus 2 writers choices a year at some point will be common in an effort to 'fix' the empty space due to the steroid issue and the writers ignoring guys who played in the 80's (Whittaker for example).
The 1980 ballot had 12 get in with good candidate in Gil Hodges waiting still. That was a weak ballot with just 5 over 60 WAR and another 2 over 50. 1990 had 6 over 60, and 6 more in the 50's and 2 who did get in below that (Cepeda & Mazeroski) and 2 others who are viewed as serious candidates below 50 (Kaat & Minoso).
1970's had 4 60's, 7 50's and 6 lower than that get in as well.
1960's had 6 60's, 11 50's, 28 lower than that who got in with the lowest being Leo Durocher who was in due to managing as were many low WAR guys.
2000's (since I'm covering decades) had 4 60's, 3 50's, and 3 lower get in with Sutter's 23.1 WAR the lowest to make it so far. I can easily see Morris, Kaat, Tommy John, Luis Tiant and maybe Keith Hernandez getting in from that ballot eventually. Funny looking at the 2000 ballot I see no one with 400 HR, just one with 1500 RBI's, no one with 2800 hits.
4- Faller, Ebro, Gurnick and Chris Jenkins (which I'm counting as being turned in)
There are also the not-turned in ballots of Fay, Knapp and Quinn.
Absurd. Without evidence, it's just a witch hunt.
http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/59708/my-ballot-no-bonds-clemens-piazza-in-13?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Seriously? This take has been presented here since 1999 or so. It's surely been raised in almost every "who's on steroids", "steroids and HoF" threads we've ever had. Andy alone probably brings it up 3 times per 60 posts. The conversation usually goes like this:
"X used steroids."
"What's your evidence?"
"C'mon just look at him."
"That's not evidence."
"Hey, this isn't a court of law."
Do not ask me to make a moral judgment and then tell me I need some burden of proof.
Eek-a-mouse.
"Steroid use in baseball was wrong" is a moral judgment.
"Roger Clemens used steroids" is an evidentiary statement. Although the spell-checker doesn't think evidentiary is a word so sue me.
Now you don't want that burden of proof to be beyond a reasonable doubt. OK. But "the preponderance of the evidence suggests that Clemens used steroids" is still a statement of evidence. "There's a 25% chance Clemens used steroids" is a statement of evidence.
"A rapist who can't keep his story straight and that nobody impartial has yet had reason to believe says that Clemens used steroids" is a kind of evidence I suppose.
Some guy on the internet says he knew guys who were "close to the Red Sox organization"* who believed (based on what evidence?) that Clemens used steroids is an even lower level of evidence than that ... which is pretty impressive.
* Rented an apartment near Fenway?
Not really. I believe that the religious people that wrote the divine texts were extremely intelligent and tried to put the world and its citizens into some semblance of order with the knowledge that they had at the time. They are excellent parables - stories - that help guide us as to how we should try to live our life if we are lost or unsure.
I don't want to spend my time quantifying the value of souls or HOF votes for character - that is another deity's full time job.
Without questioning the top down authority of any institution as we acquire knowledge, we would have no progress. To that, I assume that the church of baseball of the Middle Ages would prosecute the advances proposed by sabrmetricians as heretics!
Now there's someone you don't see mentioned every day in these threads.
GolfersWest.com has 3 retired HOF voters on their staff. I guess everyone plays golf when they retire. They are Jim Street, Kirby Arnold and Bob Sherwin. Check out their ballots, all anti-PED users.
Not really. I'm actually used to seeing solid candidates drop off after one ballot. They are usually pitchers - Dave Stieb, Bret Saberhagen, Orel Hershiser, Dwight Gooden, David Cone, Kevin Brown, etc. Centerfielders tend to get overrated by Hall of Fame electors.
So if I'm not mistaken, they have the same number of votes as The Sporting News. This election just keeps on giving....
Which ones?
Kirby Puckett and ???
So much stupid in there but Street gets the victory with this note about Lee Smith;
I don't really remember Smith as being a good fielder but maybe my memory is wrong. But that stat isn't even close to being convincing.
Edited to correct which writer was truly stupid.
I'm surprised it's not Ray King or someone else who averaged .5 innings per game. I guess in that sense, it's an accomplishment.
I never really formed an opinion, either. His double play to error ratio was 9:4, Maddux was 98-53, Kaat and Gibson were both just a little better than 1:1.
Jose is right about the level of stupid there. That being said, Arnold's ballot given that he's a "no proven steroids" guy is actually pretty good: Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Jack Morris, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, Curt Schilling, Lee Smith and Alan Trammell. Morris is of course an awful choice and Smith's not so hot either, but the rest are good given the limitation.
It is my belief that the HOF rules are being generally misinterpreted. Well, more uninterpreted, as the steroid-hysteria has created much more variation among the voters in how these rules are applied. While some evolution is inevitable, the current situation is radically discomfiting much of the electorate, putting voters at polar opposites in how they interpret the rules. The consensus is breaking down, which I think is a serious problem that is only just beginning to dawn on the HOF’s board of directors.
Due to this negligent oversight, the HOF rules are transmuting into a polymorphic state making the process increasingly untenable; they can mean what anyone wants them to mean. The rancor, confusion, and frustration are at unprecedented and increasing levels. There can be no rational discussions of candidates’ qualifications because the shiny peel of my apple is incomparable to the juiciness inside your orange; there is less and less agreement about what makes players worthy or unworthy for the HOF. Voters are not just arguing their preferences in assessing players, but are battling over how the rules should be interpreted. Clearly, the Hall needs to step up and clarify the rules.
Those rules specify six criteria to be considered by voters:
the player's record
playing ability
integrity
sportsmanship
character
contributions to the team(s) on which the player played
The Hall has left it entirely open to interpretation from there. Sooner or later that was going to cause trouble and that’s where we are now.
Well, fools rush in, as they say, so I’ll take a stab at interpreting what I think was intended by this set of rules. This interpretation is based upon some of my own assumptions, the historic environment in which they were generated 70+ years ago, as well as their meaning as evidenced by voting results.
1) Player’s record – This is basically the WAR question. How good was he? What does the record tell us?
2) Playing Ability – This is the Narrative question. Is there anything beyond the record to indicate he was better or worse than that? Was he feared/respected by other players and media? Did he win awards? Did circumstances beyond his control reduce his playing record from what it should have been?
3) Integrity – Did he gamble? This was THE question back in the reign of Judge Landis. More generally, Did he do anything to damage baseball’s public image? The media’s/Congress’ newfound outrage against PED users has made this a pertinent question for some candidates.
4) Sportsmanship – This is the popularity question. Did the fans like him? Did the media? Was he a Sport?
5) Character – This means character as related to professional baseball. Did he show up every day ready to help his team win? Did he stay in shape? Did he play hard? Was he sober? These days, this criterion is popularly misapplied to non-baseball related behavior. Note that the very first HOF class had men of fairly suspect personal morals. It’s clear to me that individual’s peccadilloes are not what Cooperstown wants voters to consider when assessing candidates.
6) Contributions to the team – This is the leadership question. Did he have a positive influence on his teammates? Back in the day, players traveled long distances in close quarters. Did he get along? What do his teammates say about him? Collecting lots of rings is often (mis)interpreted as evidence of this.
That’s how I see it. Anyway, it’s exactly what the HOF needs to do – define each criterion so that voters can work from the same base.
You want a simple system? Assume that these six criteria were intended to carry equal weight. (Or come up with your own weighting scheme, if you’re so inclined.) Rank each candidate 1 to 10 in every category. A “5” is an average hall of famer, so the average HOFer should score a total of 30 points.
Here’s Barry Bonds:
10 - Player's record: an all-timer
10 - Playing ability: terribly feared, IBB totals are off the charts. Was black-balled out of the game, record would have been more.
2 – Integrity: one of the guys at the center of the Game’s current black eye, although this status is not entirely of his making.
2 – Sportsmanship: often acted like a jerk, but nobody loves Goliath.
5 – Character: not quite what one thinks of as a “Team Player”. Fortunately, baseball doesn’t demand this as much as other sports.
4 - Contributions to the team(s) on which the player played: seen as selfish, but took a serious approach to the game. Generally a positive example for his teammates, AFAIK.
So I have him with 33 points. YMMV. He should be in, according to my interpretation of the Hall’s voting criteria.
This is the percentage of non-K outs each pitcher recorded himself as a PO or an assist, for every pitcher with 350+ saves, plus Maddux and Ray King:
Greg Maddux 14.9%Mariano Rivera 13.8%
Ray King 11.7%
John Franco 10.8%
Billy Wagner 7.9%
D. Eckersley 7.7%
Trevor Hoffman 7.4%
Lee Smith 6.2%
Jeff Reardon 4.7%
Troy Percival 3.9%
That doesn't mean a damn thing except that Smith gave up more flyballs that Rivera does, but it at least demonstrates that you can't use simple defensive stats to say that Smith was especially good as a fielder. Realistically, I can't imagine that advanced stats say anything useful either. His career high in chances was 20, and he had 167 in his career. There's no way that sample size rises above randomness and noise.
Aside from gambling being foremost in their minds back then, I can't imagine this being any more wrong. "Sportsmanship" has nothing to do with popularity -- it's more related to the criteria of the Lady Byng Award in hockey. The ultimate sign of sportsmanship would be admitting that a call that went in favor of your team was incorrect, but it would also include not slamming an opposing player who was momentarily vulnerable. I don't think there's any reason to think "character" was supposed to be restricted as some sort of term of art within baseball -- if you don't think Cobb belonged, you're probably overestimating the morals of the day.
1) Player's record certainly can start with "the WAR question" (and end there for some), but I happen to think that there is room for a player to earn enshrinement by excelling in one facet of the game without necessarily accruing value (however defined) that places him in the top x% all-time. If you retire with the all-time career and single-season stolen base records, for instance, you get a plaque in my personal HOF even if you only have 43 WAR.
2) Playing ability is playing ability. Period. Did the player's skills stand out in ways that are not necessarily dependent on or reflected by his statistical record? That could form the basis for a narrative, but it's not the same thing. Narratives sometimes start with our impression of a player's raw ability (or a few specific manifestations of that ability), but more often center on things like post-season heroics.
6) Contributions to the team are contributions to the team -- on the field. Did the player help win games? Much closer to "the WAR question" than to "the leadership question" IMO. I'll certainly grant that lots of people want to inject intangibles into their HOF analysis, and maybe some of them justify that as "contributions to the team," but that's not the way I read the instruction.
I agree. The peak argument for Dawson is looking at his years as the Expo centerfielder. Dawson for me is borderline but on the right side, I supported him. Puckett is borderline (getting to the border on the strength of postseason heroics) where I would not have voted for him, but am not bothered by his induction.
Other borderline center fielders in the HOF are among the many questionable mistakes made from guys who had high batting averages in the 20's/30's.
On the other side, I don't see a clearly qualified HOF cfers who were kept out. Lofton and Edmonds are test cases here. I presume Griffey will go in on year 1, crowded ballot or not, with 95%+ of the vote.
Dawson's a weird case. He was actually elected to the Hall of Merit before the Hall of Fame, despite him being generally disdained in sabermetric circles for his stunningly low walk totals (Dawson averaged 27 unintentional walks per 162 games for his career) and his 1987 MVP being widely regarded here as among the worst ever. I get the sense that the Hall of Merit (somewhat reluctantly) elected him on the strength of his having been an excellent CF in Montreal. His HOF case, on the other hand, was pushed most strongly, it seemed to me, based on his years as a Cub, where he never played an inning in CF, with his 1987 MVP award being front and center in the discussion. Although my perception there might be biased by my living in Chicago, but Dawson is absolutely adored here and Chicago sportswriters were always very vocal supporters of his HOF candidacy.
When you update the post can you add a timestamp and perhaps add a note that this is through comment #242 in the thread, etc. I would also encourage you to post a google doc if you could.
The Ballot (9): Bonds, Clemens, Martinez, McGwire, Palmeiro, Piazza, Smith, Sosa and Trammell.
He looked big and lumbering especially late in his career, but I remember him being surprising athletic for such a big man. Sabathia also surprised people by fielding better than you'd expect from his build. Having said all that, this guy is an idiot for basing anything on a per game ratio when talking about a reliever or in this case consecutive game error less streak. There is a reason we consider strike outs or walks, etc per 9 innings pitched not per game.
Y U no have Biggio or Bagwell? Or Raines?
I'm really starting to feel the Bonds and Clemens may not even hit 40% when all is said and done, making their future election much less likely. I highly doubt 35% of the voters would withhold their vote for only one year, not to mention the volume of highly decorated "clean" players.
2) Playing ability is playing ability. Period. Did the player's skills stand out in ways that are not necessarily dependent on or reflected by his statistical record? That could form the basis for a narrative, but it's not the same thing. Narratives sometimes start with our impression of a player's raw ability (or a few specific manifestations of that ability), but more often center on things like post-season heroics.
You seem to be conflating #1 and #2 yourself. "Excelled in one facet of the game" would seem to be "playing ability" (which presumably also therefore usually results in a good playing record).
Post-season performance wouldn't seem to belong under playing ability at all -- either performance record (i.e. look at his performance in the postseason) or contribution to team.
Playing ability is pretty clearly the "peak" criterion -- at his best, he was one of the best ... unfortunately he got hurt. Ernie Banks is a near-perfect example of this (along with Greenberg and Kiner). Essentially this is the hit-by-bus criterion, with some room for "best fielding SS ever" but that guy's not getting in on peak anyway.
Contribution to team is the baffling one. I'd guess it's about "leadership". Also, given the era of origin, maybe it was even intended to include player-managers.
Integrity sportsmanship and character are almost impossible to separate, especially if we assume they are meant to be limited to actions within the sport itself. One of our HoF history buffs here once claimed that Landis' intent in including these clauses was more about including war heroes and other players of extremely high character not to keep out the scoundrels. Of course there wasn't much doubt about how Landis would have handled anybody he thought was a major scoundrel.
Well, it is difficult not to conflate playing ability and playing record, but the specific example that I used to illustrate my point was one of a player excelling statistically in one facet of the game. An overall playing record that arguably falls short, but an unmatched record in one aspect of the game.
Which is exactly why I cited it as a driver of "narrative" distinct from playing ability. You know, to counter Dan's interpretation that playing ability = narrative.
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