Schilling year 1 support at 37% would compare favorably to Brown's 2.1%. 35 points difference is a big segment of writers who are pro 3,000 K milestone pro post-season narrative and anti-steroid.

                                                                                                                                    
Player           ERA+   W From   To   Age   G  GS CG SHO GF   L W-L% SV     IP    H    R   ER  BB   SO  ERA  HR    BF IBB HBP BK  WP
Curt Schilling    127 216 1988 2007 21-40 569 436 83  20 81 146 .597 22 3261.0 2998 1318 1253 711 3116 3.46 347 13284  43  52  8  72
Kevin Brown       127 211 1986 2005 21-40 486 476 72  17  1 144 .594  0 3256.1 3079 1357 1185 901 2397 3.28 208 13542  42 139 15 108

per post 37, only Bell among that group that is HOM-eligible is not in the HOM.

Free Buddy Bell!*

:)

* or Sal Bando or maybe Ron Cey or Robin Ventura. Free someone at the hot corner, dammit!

Of course some of those "steroid blackballers" could be "one year penalty" voters, but that theory never seemed to work for McGwire, whose percentage has actually gone down since his first ballot.

If Mark would only admit what he did and show some appropriate contrition, a lot of the writers would forgive him, because there's nothing more American than a story of redemption.

Or did I only dream that I heard that somewhere? In a hundred different dreams?

If Mark would only admit what he did and show some appropriate contrition, a lot of the writers would forgive him, because there's nothing more American than a story of redemption. 

In fairness, it was not a good PR move for a bodybuilding athlete to go on TV and sit next to comparatively tiny 5'7" Bob Costas to admit steroid use with the weasly disclaimer of using them "only [...] for health purposes."

I shy away from predicting any 2014 or beyond vote percentages given the nearly unprecedented wave of inner circle guys coming.

Let's for the moment say that two guys debuted on the 2013 ballot and got about 50% each and were behind 4-5 other guys in the 60-75% range. That is let's leave side roids for the moment and just assume for the sake of argument that the finish is roughly what Repoz has at the moment. Feel free to elect one guy in 2013 if you want.

Under normal voting history what might we expect?

Well, in 2014 you have one slam dunk (Maddux), one absolutely certain to make it quickly (Glavine) and one ... well, should be an easy induction (Thomas). Under normal circumstances, with three big candidates joining the ballot, we'd expect to see the backlog stagnate if not fall back. I think we'd expect our two 50% candidates to stay where they are or drop back. In 1998, Perez was at 68%. In 1999, with Ryan, Brett, Yount and Fisk joining the ballot, he fell back to 61%. But with no major 1st year candidates joining in 2000 (well, Morris :-), he jumped to over 75%.

But our backloggers will not be so lucky as Unit, Pedro and Smoltz come on in 2015. Smoltz may or may not do well -- he could get Schilling treatment, he could get Eck treatment or anywhere in-between -- but Pedro and the Unit look like easy 1st-year inductions to me. Maybe somebody in the 60-75 group will make progress (and Morris will be gone) but it's hard to see why the 50%ers would make any real progress.

2016 sees Griffey coming on. Also Trevor Hoffman -- closers are hard to predict and I'd think he'll at least get the Lee Smith treatment but Lee Smith might not get that treatment once Hoffman is on. Some progress can be made here but probably to clear some whatever's left of Glavine, Thomas, Bagwell, Biggio, Piazza, Raines. But our 50%ers might make some progress.

2017 might be the first break although you do get Pudge and Vlad -- both legit shots at 1st ballot induction under normal circumstances but more backlog clearing and progress for the backlog.

2018 will have Chipper and maybe Thome and things might stall out again.

Point being that roids or no roids, I'm not sure we'd expect 50%ers to make much progress until maybe 2017. The HoF voting comparison pool is gonna be might small -- 50%ers with 4-5 strong candidates in front of them and 7+ "no brainer" HoFers joining over the next 4 years. If Bonds and Clemens make progress in 2013 that would be a pretty clear sign they're going to be elected; but a lack of progress won't tell us much of anything since advancement wouldn't be expected anyway.

Now, if we're sitting here a few years from now and none of the hitters have made it through, that would probably be evidence that there's at least a 25% super blackball faction refusing to vote for even Bagwell, Piazza, Biggio and Thomas.

As to voting behavior, it's never rational (group decisions by large groups will never look rational) but one key thing to understand is that the voters seem to treat it on a year-by-year basis. Morris has progressed in part because he and Blyleven were the best (only) starters on the ballot for a number of years. Barry Larkin, Andre Dawson, etc. progress in large part because they were the 4th best player, then the 3rd best player, then the 2nd best player on the ballot. ("Best" being imprecise of course ... probably more accurate to use the placement in votes) Perez didn't look so great in comparison to Brett, Yount and Fisk, but the following year he was the #2 returning vote getter with no names joining the ballot.

And that's the issue facing the 50%s if treated as regular 50%s. They'd finish 6-7 on this ballot. If nobody is elected this year, with those 3 biggies coming on, they fall to 9-10. Even if all three new guys are elected they only move up 1 spot at most with 2-3 biggies coming on. Elect three but Griffey comes on and they only advance 2 slots. It's hard to see how they can move into the top 5 before 2018 at the earliest. Seriously, if I counted right, you may have to elect at least 10 guys before Bonds/Clemens will be the returning vote getter under "normal" circumstances.

But it ain't normal. Anybody applying a one-year penalty will jump B/C to the front of the queue so to speak. But, as Andy notes, there's no evidence of a large "one year penalty" contingent in the Mac/Raffy vote histories. It's possible that's because they are more borderline to start with but you'd still expect some bump.

Hold on, shouldn't this be the 2013 ballot collecting gizmo. I know it's still 2012 to us but it is the 2013 ballot.

Hold on, shouldn't this be the 2013 ballot collecting gizmo. I know it's still 2012 to us but it is the 2013 ballot.

That was an objection taht should have been raised several gizmos ago.

49. thetailor Posted: December 27, 2012 at 06:54 PM (#4333292)
I know that this is a little belated, but I'm shocked that Juan Gonzalez got so few votes last year. The man had 434 home runs and was a two-time MVP. He wouldn't get my vote either, but you'd think there would be enough people in Cleveland or throwing votes around a not-full ballot that he'd get a couple of percent.

Cleveland? How'd we get pulled into that conversation? Gonzalez had one good year with Cleveland and went back to Texas. He later returned to Cleveland and got injured in his one and only at bat. I will agree it is surprising he got so little support. 2 MVP's, more than 400 HR with good BA, 904 OPS & 132 OPS+ sounds like kind of guy who gets to hang on the ballot for 15 years if he isn't elected. And that was before the crazy crowded ballot problem.

Smoltz may or may not do well -- he could get Schilling treatment, he could get Eck treatment or anywhere in-between

Smoltz is going to be an interesting one, as he's another member of the 3000-strikeout club with a low win total. To the writers who don't know what WAR is (and brag about not knowing), I think the equation looks a lot like:

"Smoltz = Schilling + Cy Young + mucho saves + more postseason wins + lower (unadjusted) ERA + better hitting + likable personality + shirt-ironing bravery"

and so I'd expect them to lean heavily towards the Eck side of voting. (Then again, I also expected Schilling to get about 50% of the vote, and he's not there...)

I do expect Smoltz to miss out on ballot 1, esp. since he'll be side by side with Johnson and Pedro. But he'll probably go in before Schilling, fair or unfair.

Of course some of those "steroid blackballers" could be "one year penalty" voters, but that theory never seemed to work for McGwire, whose percentage has actually gone down since his first ballot.

If Mark would only admit what he did and show some appropriate contrition, a lot of the writers would forgive him, because there's nothing more American than a story of redemption.

Or did I only dream that I heard that somewhere? In a hundred different dreams?

That was a theory that I never bought to begin with, and in McGwire's case by the time he got around to it, it had been so long after the fact that any possible effect had long been nullified.

And BTW since you're the robinred of sportswriter closet skeletons, maybe you can dig out a few post-2007 quotes from specific writers saying that they would actually vote for McGwire if he would only confess. IIRC most of those statements were made within a year or two of his testimony, and not five years afterwards.

Two days in the screwed-up making...but Marc Maturo's ballot is finally done.

Two days in the screwed-up making...but Marc Maturo's ballot is finally done.

My eyes and brain hurt from reading that.

Hard as it may be to believe, Rose may have missed a potential cash generator in the last few years: it seems any number of sportswriters and other masochists would be glad to pay for the chance to be urinated upon by Pete.

Edit: I guess I shold explain that Maturo wrote in Rose's name.

Some blogger named Lewie Pollis has a spreadsheet with 27 ballots on it. Not sure if he has anyone that Repoz doesn't but figured I'd post it just in case.

Blog Article

Spreadsheet

Edit: The spreadsheet has 33 entries. He's likely updated it since he wrote that article.

I know that Mattingly usually gets strong support from the population that never post their ballots, but he is still perilously close to dropping below 5% in his 13th year on the ballot. I'm not in a position to check, but has there ever been a player that fell off the ballot in their 10th appearance or later? I know both Ron Guidry and Keith Hernandez lasted nine ballots.

Bobby Bonds fell off the ballot in his 11th year with 4.2%.

Curiously, Dick Allen seems to have "fallen off" that same ballot, his 14th, with 16.7%. I don't understand that. I'm sure someone can explain it.

Curiously, Dick Allen seems to have "fallen off" that same ballot, his 14th, with 16.7%. I don't understand that. I'm sure someone can explain it.

Allen received less than 5% on his first (83) ballot and was therefore not on the 84 ballot. The dismal performance of Santo and Allen (and maybe others) led the HoF to put together a committee to put some of these guys back on the ballot despite the 5% rule. Santo and Allen both re-entered with the 85 ballot.

BBWAA eligibility rules require that you aren't eligible once you're 20 years past your last game. Which they ignored in Santo's case but not Allen's ... that is curious.

Allen received less than 5% on his first (83) ballot and was therefore not on the 84 ballot. The dismal performance of Santo and Allen (and maybe others) led the HoF to put together a committee to put some of these guys back on the ballot despite the 5% rule. Santo and Allen both re-entered with the 85 ballot.

BBWAA eligibility rules require that you aren't eligible once you're 20 years past your last game. Which they ignored in Santo's case but not Allen's ... that is curious.

Yeah. There is a lot of curious stuff on the BBREF ballots. Vada Pinson also fell off in year 14 despite ~7%. He also wasn't on the 1984 ballot. But he drew a mere 4.5% in his debut in 1981, and then returned for 1982 when he got 1.4%. that got him onto 1983 where he got 3.2%. THEN he fell off, for 1 year. But Santo with 3.2% in 1980 didn't return till 1985. So I thought maybe the 5% rule was in effect in 1980, but not 1981-1983. But no. In 1982 when Pinson got 6 votes for 1.6% and returned, Dave McNally got 5 votes for 1.2% and was done. BTW, McNally, after falling off in 1983, came back in 1985, got 1.8%, and then returned for 1986.

They also ignored the 20 year rule for Curt Flood, who first got votes in 1977, then fell off after 1979, was restored in 1985, and had a full 15 years on the ballot. Ken Boyer, same thing.

Some blogger named Lewie Pollis has a spreadsheet with 27 ballots on it. Not sure if he has anyone that Repoz doesn't but figured I'd post it just in case.

That's actually my spreadsheet, not Lewie Pollis. It's never as complete as the work Repoz does but I have fun aggregating everything.

#37 - The One and Done Team

I'll take John Olerud over Darrell Evans at 1B. Olerud was a better hitter and a better defensive 1B. Evans gets lots of WAR credit for playing 3B for the majority of his career, but that doesn't make him a better choice at 1B.

I'll take John Olerud over Darrell Evans at 1B. Olerud was a better hitter and a better defensive 1B. Evans gets lots of WAR credit for playing 3B for the majority of his career, but that doesn't make him a better choice at 1B.

Why not? I mean, he *could* have played the easier position his whole career.

Why not? I mean, he *could* have played the easier position his whole career.

That doesn't make him a better first baseman, just a less valuable Darrell Evans. Such a shift presumably wouldn't have made him a better hitter than Olerud, and since it's quite likely he wasn't a better defensive player than Olerud at first, then I think it makes perfect sense to choose Johnny if you're looking to fill that position.

[69] Ah,I see. Perhaps you two should exchange info to expand your data.

[70] Olerud and Evans ahead of Will Clark?

Olerud and Evans ahead of Will Clark?

I'd quite forgotten about Will Clark, and he's remarkably similar to John Olerud. Overall, I think I'd prefer Olerud's defence to Clark's slight advantage on offence, but it's certainly very close. Olerud's career was a little longer, but Clark (from the stats- maybe he got injured) could have played longer.

Is that infamous blank ballot from earlier counted in the totals? Trying to get a sense of the votes/ballot. If it's part of the 60, then the average is currently around 6.8 votes/ballot.

At 61 ballots we're now +/-11.9% if it is a random sample (last years had just one outlier and that was barely). That means to have a shot at 75% you need to be at 63.1% right now. That puts Morris just outside the viable range but keeps Biggio/Bagwell/Piazza/Raines in the range.

The biggest losers right now seem to be...
16.2%: Lee Smith 50.6% to 34.4% (magic closer dust wearing off)
11.4%: Larry Walker 22.9% to 11.5%
11.2%: Don Mattingly 17.8% to 6.6%
6.3%: Bernie Williams 9.6% to 3.3%
5.9%: Fred McGriff 23.9% to 18.0%
5.7%: Alan Trammell 36.8% to 31.1%
5.4%: Edgar Martinez 36.5% to 31.1%
4.4%: Jack Morris 66.7% to 62.3%
1.5%: Mark McGwire 19.5% to 18.0%

Now, those can change drastically and the only statistically significant one is Lee Smith with Walker & Mattingly close to statistical significance. McGwire and Morris can shift to the + side with just a few votes.

Gainers?
16.9% : Tim Raines 48.7% to 65.6%
11.2% : Jeff Bagwell 56.0% to 67.2%
3.8% : Rafael Palmeiro 12.6% to 16.4%
3.5% : Dale Murphy 14.5% to 18.0%

Only Raines is statistically significant, but Bagwell will be there soon most likely (if the next ballot is positive then he is there). Quite surprised to see Palmeiro gaining, and expected a few sympathy votes for Murphy in his final year and as a contrast to the 'steroid era'. Palmeiro & Murphy can shift to the other side quickly though with a few no votes.

The takeaway? The PED ballot has cost Lee Smith, Larry Walker and Don Mattingly the most, while helping Tim Raines & Jeff Bagwell. I suspect for Lee Smith it is getting lost in the shuffle, Walker is viewed as well behind Bonds thus costing a few votes I'm sure, Raines issue with cocaine is probably viewed as a 'so what' with the PED issue, and Bagwell's "he looked big" is becoming less of an issue with guys who had far stronger PED ties on the ballot.

Bagwell may also be benefiting from Biggio being on the ballot - writers may think it's "cool" to have them go in together.

Murphy will almost certainly get a final year bump.

Can you run stats on the likelihood nobody gets inducted? I imagine they're rather high.

Olerud and Evans ahead of Will Clark

Plus Olerud was as pitcher in college and could be used as the 5th starter.

Plus Olerud was as pitcher in college and could be used as the 5th starter.

No need. There's plenty of quality starters left. Just from the last 10 years you can add Appier, Finley, Saberhagen, Gooden, Martinez. My personal favorite might be a guy who was one and done twice, Jose Rijo.

Ron Kroichick on his Bagwell/Biggio only ballot...

"Spent lots of time contemplating Jack Morris & Tim Raines. Both close calls. But when in doubt, keep 'em out"

Actually I can agree with that line from Kroichick - that if you have serious doubt about a guy's HOF case that you should vote against (or not for) them. I don't agree with his limiting his ballot to Bagwell & Biggio, but the sentiment is a good one. Weird to put Morris on 'close call' though on a stacked ballot like this one.

My problem with the "when in doubt keep 'em out" philosophy is that some voters used that as an excuse to not vote for Eddie Murray. It becomes a cover for personal peccadillos rather than an understandable sense of caution. Perhaps baseball writers should follow legal precedent- "when in reasonable doubt...."

Looks like Smith is going to join Gil Hodges in the "50+ but didn't make it" club. I can't see the whatever-it-is committee voting him in either.

I'm not too strong on stat math, but I suspect no one is getting in this year. It seems funny to me that not one of the 60+ folks is at 75+. Then again, we're sure this isn't a random sample - it's skewed towards Net-friendly voters, and based on last year, possibly underrepresents the NY crowd. And of course, those who haven't voted yet might see this thread, get depressed about the low numbers, and go on a voting rampage. We can only hope.

Tracy Ringolsby
@ROOTSPORTS_TR

Hall of Fame votes: Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Morris, Murphy, Piazza, Rainges, Trammell and Walker. Ran out of room for others.

Larry Stone
@StoneLarry

HOF ballot: Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Martinez, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Trammell, Walker.

HOF ballot: Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Martinez, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Trammell, Walker.

Given that this is an exact match for my ballot in the BTF mock election, I have my leader in the clubhouse for best ballot of the year.

Tracy Ringolsby
@ROOTSPORTS_TR

Hall of Fame votes: Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Morris, Murphy, Piazza, Rainges, Trammell and Walker. Ran out of room for others.

You'd have more space if you hadn't voted for Morris.

And since it's Morris at the expense of Curt f-ing Schilling, who is CLEARLY better, it's even more egregious.

Larry Stone
@StoneLarry

HOF ballot: Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Martinez, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Trammell, Walker.

That is my identical ballot. Larry Stone FTW!

HOF ballot: Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Martinez, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Trammell, Walker.

I think I have Palmiero swapped out with Walker, and McGwire with Edgar but close enough. (Repoz needs to put the "time" of the most recent update.)

Stone's ballot is the second that I approve of :)

HOF ballot: Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Martinez, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Trammell, Walker.

I'd swap out Bonds for Lofton and Clemens for McGwire. While I'm not an absolutist in excluding steroid users, I don't think they should keep anyone off the ballot I'd normally vote for (Lofton); and among those who did use McGwire is the least objectionable to me.

16. John DiFool2 Posted: December 27, 2012 at 02:35 PM (#4333134)

Looks like, Junior excepted, it will be a long time before we get another HoF CFer-since Mays retired in 1973 it's been Puckett & Bust. Among actives (the much-discussed-this-week Andruw aside), Beltran is probably the best bet, but he's pretty much a long shot. Hint to writers: a CFer needs a different set of offensive standards vis a vis corner outfielders.

Someone else mentioned Andre, so I'll just disagree, some, wrt Beltran.

If you meant he'd be a long shot if his career ended now, I'd tend to agree. But for his HOF chances, 2012 was a huge season for Beltran. 2011 let him re-establish himself after a season which looked like it might be the last of his career, and 2012 showed that he'd continue to be healthy and productive playing 150 games a season. While it's preposterous that CFers having to put up corner OFer hitting stats to get serious consideration, Beltran is getting there.

Games 1919
PA 8349
Runs 1267
Hits 2064
Doubles 416
Triples 74
Home Runs 334
RBIs 1243
SB-CS 306 - 47

.282/.360/.496

OPS+ 122
7 All-Star games (including 2012)
3 Gold Gloves

I can see Beltran sticking around for another five years, until he's 40. Maybe three years as a full-timer, and two in a part time role. He just put up a 128 OPS+ in 151 games. His health has been very good since his microfracture surgery in 2010. Maybe another 555 games if you give him something like 140, 130, 120, 90, 75 games played through 2017.

Even if you give him only another 450 games, he has a good chance at getting to 1500 runs and rbis, and a decent shot at 400 HRs. He'll be up around 2400 games played, well over 10,000 plate appearances, close to 500 doubles, and well over 1,000 walks. He's got the world class postseason record, and a legendary SB percentage. 7 seasons with 100+ runs scored, 8 with 100+ RBIs. Nothing that jumps out at you: no black ink other than games played, once, but enough to get him something like 30-35% of the vote, and he's got the kind of career that over time will get him in.

Another thing working in his favor is WAR. He's already up to 62.3 bWAR, and he doesn't have to play well at all by his standards to get to 70 before his career ends. That's the kind of number, even if only half the writers know what it is, that gets serious attention. Enough to get him off to a respectable start on the way towards building a case over 10 to 15 years.

Of course, he could get hurt again, and be out of the league in a year or two, but even then he'd have a chance. I think it's promising that he'd still have a chance if his career ended tomorrow, but that there's good reason to believe he can put up the equivalent of three full seasons of productive play.

Beltran is hurt by being a Royal for the first half of his career and then factor in the inherent bias against journeymen players and the argument that his New York career was disappointing(regardless of the truth of the matter, the perception was of disappointment)

I do see him along with Edmonds getting serious consideration when their time comes up, Beltran is helped that some of the backlog might be cleared out by the time he becomes eligible though.

I'm guessing we already have Danny Knobler? Morris, Trammell, Raines

"Journeymen"? Beltran would have to swing one-handed before he'd be considered a journeyman?

I also don't recall an anti-KC bias, though his NY career was considered something of a disappointment.

Beltran would have to swing one-handed before he'd be considered a journeyman?

I'm using the term journeyman to refer to a guy who journeys through a bunch of teams (So far Royals, Astros, Mets, Giants and Cardinals) Not to mean he isn't a quality player.

As to anti-Royal bias. Small town that didn't succeed while he was playing there is going to make it difficult for him to garner national attention.

The biggest losers right now seem to be...
16.2%: Lee Smith 50.6% to 34.4% (magic closer dust wearing off)
11.4%: Larry Walker 22.9% to 11.5%
11.2%: Don Mattingly 17.8% to 6.6%
6.3%: Bernie Williams 9.6% to 3.3%
5.9%: Fred McGriff 23.9% to 18.0%
5.7%: Alan Trammell 36.8% to 31.1%
5.4%: Edgar Martinez 36.5% to 31.1%
4.4%: Jack Morris 66.7% to 62.3%
1.5%: Mark McGwire 19.5% to 18.0%

Walker, Mattingly, Bernie and I think Smith all do better with non-Repoz voters. I remain stunned Walker does but he was down around here on the Repoz ballots last year too.

But in general, with Bonds, Clemens, Biggio, Piazza and Schilling all making reasonably strong debuts (by historic HoF standards), you would expect all in the backlog below 50% to fall back. Any McGriff voters who are willing to vote Bonds, Biggio, Piazza (and therfore probably Clemens and almost certainly Bagwell) don't have much room left for him on the ballot.

Also what value of p are you using for your standard errors? I tried .5, .65, .7 and .75 and none of them hit 11.9% after 61 ballots (all close of course). Also, technically, you want the finite population correction (1-n/N) in there -- we've got 10% of the population of voters, it's starting to make a bit of a difference.

Just using http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm and a population of 600 (more than last year, but not crazy more). A simple tool but useful. At the moment we are at 69 which shifts it from 11.9 to 11.1. We crack 10% at 83, 5% at 235 (which we won't hit given past results). 150 puts us at 6.9% which is as good as we can hope for I suspect.

So at 11.1% the magic line is 63.9% (less means the statistical odds are extreme of getting in) which means Morris is right on that line. Given he seems to get a boost late thanks to non-printed ballots (older writers love him or something) he still has a shot, but it seems slim at this point. I'd love Biggio & Bagwell to get in together but right now the odds of anyone getting 75% is low as iirc most blank ballots and one name only guys are the ones who don't print. I am happy to see Raines in the 60's though.

Deacon White could be the 'marquee' inductee then.

Chaz Scoggins just released his:
Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Murphy, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Smith

Source

Replace Murphy with Trammell,and that's a hell of a ballot. To me, part of getting an "A" for your ballot is voting for 10 guys.Th ere are so many candidates for whomyou could make a reasonable argument that to leave some of your ten slots blank means you are not understanding the historical anomoly of the current ballotsituation, and thus, you are not doing your part to address it.Good for Scoggins.