Fave time of the year! A couple of ballots/partials in already…Let the stupid begin!
• Jeff Bagwell: No. He has a Hall of Fame credentials (449 homers, 1,529 RBI, .297 average, MVP). But he was well short of induction last year with only 41.7 percent of the vote, at least in part because he has been suspected of using PEDs. Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci summarized the Bagwell debate nicely when he wrote: “Bagwell was an admitted Andro user who hired a competitive bodybuilder to make him as big as he could be, who claimed, [Mark] McGwire-like, that Andro “doesn’t help you hit home runs,” who went from a prospect with “no pop” to massively changing his body and outhomering all but six big leaguers in the 13 seasons before steroid penalties (Ken Griffey Jr. and five connected to steroids: Bonds, [Sammy] Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, McGwire and Juan Gonzalez), and who condones the use of steroids — but said, “I never used.” Yeah. I’m going to need a few more years on this one.
• Don Mattingly: Yes. Over 2,000 hits, nine Gold Gloves, seven All-Star Games. One MVP. A great ambassador for baseball. A thousand times, yes.
• Jack Morris: Yes. He also should be in already (received 53.5 percent of the vote last year). Beat John Smoltz (barely) in the greatest pitching match-up most have ever seen (1991 World Series). Won 254 games, finished with 2,478 strikeouts, 175 complete games.
• Dale Murphy: Yes. Murphy won’t get in but I’m voting for him anyway — again. I’ve heard the arguments about him not having the career numbers. But when you win consecutive MVP awards, there’s an acknowledgement that you were one of the best players in the game. Five Gold Gloves, four Silver Slugger Awards, seven All-Star selections, 398 homers — and he mostly played on crummy teams. And yes, he should get points for not juicing and representing the game the right way.
• Bernie Williams: No. Another very good player, but that’s it. If his vote total becomes inflated, it’s because he played for the Yankees.
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1. cardsfanboyEdit: I guess I also enjoy the 'Yes' for Mattingly (39.8 WAR), the 'No' for Trammell (66.9 WAR) combined with the shot at the 'Yankee bump' taken in the Bernie Williams comment.
I agree with this evaluation of Don Mattingly.
Hmmm... Does this mean McGwire gets in too? Or, is the St. Louis press box fire-proofed?
That's unpossible. Doesn't he know he's only supposed to vote on value?
I like how the number of votes he received previously is used as an argument that even more people should've voted for him. Nice work!
EDIT: Lest someone think I'm taking him out of context, he does the same thing in the Bagwell entry, except there he's arguing that it shows he SHOULDN'T be in.
Are we talking about the Hall of Setting Sh*t on Fire? If so, Santo should be in that one too.
Jimmy Dugan wins that one.
On another thread we were talking about the hall of fame monitor, and I was thinking about the points they used, and honestly think that the hof monitor should give negative points if you weren't a pitcher for the Cubs or Tigers. Even Sandberg should have been a first balloter. But you look at the votes for Santo, Sandberg, Trammell, Whitaker, Greenberg took 10 years, Cash was one and done, Freehan was one and done, Billy Williams took 6 tries. Some people argue for Stan Hack and he got nearly no consideration.
Murphy. Next.
more seriously 2 mvps, 4 seasons(by war) better than Bernie's best. 12 seasons where he played over 150 games vs Bernie did it twice. Bernie wins on the obp ability and average. In their primes or peaks it's all Murphy, career value they are about equal because of Murphy's spectacular flame out, but I just don't see how anyone could take Bernie over Murphy.
Bernie won't be getting in this year, either. If he even does as well as Bagwell did on last year's ballot, I'll be surprised.
I'm thinking Pettitte will be your poster child for this discussion. He was clearly a HOVG player and I am sure there will be some lengthly discussion on both sides regarding his HOF credentials.
Yankees do better than they should on the ballot, Thurmon Munson is not the best catcher not in the hall of fame, yet you constantly hear about him, he stayed on the ballot forever while Ted Simmons was one and done. Mattingly is massively inferior to Hernandez and does much better on the balloting, and Hernandez has a couple of world series wins on his resume and a New York pedigree.
Edit: Bernie shouldn't do as well as Bagwell on the ballot, he's not remotely close to the same caliber of player as Bagwell, Bagwell at the time of his retirement, was probably the greatest first baseman in national league history(at least of the modern era-1910 and later) Bernie Williams isn't even the 5th best centerfielder to play for a New York team.
Bruce, one complaint I hear is how long Yankee players tend to stay on the ballot as compared to others. Not sure how true it is, but often pointed out are...Freehan 1-year (2-votes!) - Munson 15 years ~~ Dewey Evans 3-years - Maris 15 years. Maybe Jaffe could run something on this...
I was thinking the same thing. If Roger Maris had hit 61* for the Twins, would he be getting all the HOF support?
On the other hand, Willie Randolph has a pretty good case (61 WAR), and he was one and done.
Graig Nettles has a pretty good case (62 WAR), and he was 4 and done.
Guidry never got over 9%
Of course, since none of those guys got elected, it's all irrelevant anyway, yes?
agree, just like my theory on Tigers getting the shaft, you can find counter examples like Jack Morris.(which is why I modified it to position players) Graig Nettles and Willie Randolph's war case is helped by their defense to a large degree and I think that is partially why they didn't get the love. They also play positions that is historically undervalued by the hall voters.
Some other players not already mentioned:
Elston Howard - 15 years
Roy White - never got a vote
Gil McDougald - 9 ballots, but never over 2%, so, one and done under today's rules
Moose Skowron- never got a vote
Tino Martinez - one and done.
That one truly shocked me. I do not think Tino Martinez should sniff the hof, but at the same time, I find it hard to believe that he couldn't muster enough writers to keep him on the ballot for one more year.
Seriously, couldn't the same discredited argument be made for the Dodgers' electoral hangers-on, or the Tigers', or the Pirates'? Mattingly gets the same peaky support as a Tony Oliva or a Maury Wills; John is a borderline choice with a storyline hook; Guidry has a thin case but it's not nothing; Munson had a more severe version of the Puckett bounce. Whereas the Yankee guys with no hope (e.g. O'Neill, Righetti, Key, Tartabull, Piniella, Tino M., Gamble, Rivers, Sax, Chambliss, Wetteland, Murcer, Knoblauch, Brosius) have been immediately bounced. That latter group includes Cone and Randolph, who shouldn't have been.
Is there a secret vote pipeline, siphoning votes from Trammell and Evans to New York City? If Bobby Grich had been a Yankee, would he be breathing that sweet rarified 14.8% air today?
* As we all know, the rest of the country has impeccable taste.
He's a 1B with only a 0.271 career average (112 OPS+) and 339 homers in a high power era, with 2 All Star appearances, and no notable multi-year peak. New York bonus or not, I would have been quite surprised if he did manage to stay on the ballot for more than one season.
He had a good career, but he was outclassed when he was playing by the careers of McGriff, Delgado, Olerud, McGwire, Bagwell, Thomas, Thome, Mo Vaughn, Palmeiro, Edgar Martinez (depending on whether you want to lump DH and 1B together) and others. The 10th best player at a position during any era is unlikely to get much in the way of love from the BBWAA, unless he's got some other really interesting hook.
agree. Cardinals have the second most hofers in baseball, and have the most if you limit it to one team, one city(Giants have the most) Yankees are third.
Oh I know that, but it only took something like 25 votes to keep him on, and he was beloved in New York, and lesser players have stayed on the ballot (at least I think so). Heck Willie McGee was able to stick around a second time.
I doubt it. Grich was better, but in subtler ways, than Randolph, and Randolph was one and done as well.
And of course no one has ever said they are taking away votes from more deserving players. All the comment was that Yankee players(or I should say star---why the heck would anyone mention Tartabull? I didn't even remember him playing for the Yankees, thought he was a Royal)
It's a general feeling about star Yankee players, they seem to do better than they should, as mentioned a few don't, and I think that Sosh(post 27) is right in his assessment about the voters at least to a degree. It's not all players who have worn the pinstripes, it's the ones attached to their identity and of course not even all of them.
When it comes to Hall of Fame voting bias, clearly you've never heard of the legendary "Seinfeld effect."
Obviously(I guess)
I honestly think there is a pro voter bias for players for the Yankees, Cardinals, Dodgers, Red Sox and maybe the Giants(I didn't mention the Reds because I honestly think their bias existed for only a short era) . I think it's pretty hard to ignore. Of course some of that has to do with a halo effect of having good teams(doesn't explain Mattingly though) Of course I can find counter examples for each of those teams (Ted Simmons, the aforementioned Nettles and Randolph, Kevin Brown/Hershiser, Evans, --having problems finding a Giant so maybe not them) but it doesn't disprove the theory that those teams consistently get better hof votes than the players talent/value indicates they should have gotten.
The smart-ass answer is Herb Pennock, Waite Hoyt, Left Gomez, Tony Lazzeri and Earl Combs. Could probably throw in Red Ruffing, Phil Rizzuto and Tony Lazzeri. Jack Chesbro. Of course, the reasonable response is that only Lazzeri and Rizzuto were inducted after 1972 and that was about 20 years ago.
We hear about that feeling all the time. The only snag is that there's no there there. Which Yankee candidate is doing better than they should?
Mattingly debuted with a too-large "hi, hey, how are you" vote, but has since settled into the teens, a totally reasonable spot for someone who was once discussed as the best player in baseball before a back injury and extended fade. For a couple of years, Guidry got twice the support of somebody who'd get knocked off the ballot, which also seems about right.
Half-a-Yankee Tommy John shouldn't even be on the suspected bias list. He would have stuck if he'd collected his 288 wins for the Expos and the Padres. And Munson is a one-off; if he had made it to be a Yankee Old-Timer, he wouldn't have gotten nearly the voting support he did.
Who else is there to grumble about? Now, if you go back to Don Larsen and Roger Maris, then yeah, you've got some ex-Yankees with unreasonable vote totals. But then, so did Johnny Vander Meer, and so does Jack Morris.
The only other one is Elston Howard.
Reggie! and Duke Snider only got in because they played in New York.
Dale Murphy winning more Silver Sluggers and Gold Gloves than Duke Snider means something (Silver Sluggers didn't exist until well after Snider's career ended, Gold Gloves came about 2/3 of the way into Snider's career).
Hank Aaron and Willie Mays weren't first ballot inductees.
The Hall NOT being only for the Mays, Mantles and Aarons of the world is a new development.
Mattingly did twice as well on the balloting than Hernandez, and Hernandez was twice as good of a player. Mattingly falling back a little, isn't a point against the Yankee bias.
Munson is a one off? he spent 15 years on the ballot, while superior catchers like Simmons were one offs, and equal catchers like Freehan, Tenace, Porter or even Lance Parrish disappeared off the ballot in one. I really don't think his death made that big of a difference on the 15th ballot.
and of course as you mentioned Don Larsen and Roger Maris...and I don't see any reason not to go back that far, it's a trend throughout the history of the hof voting. How does Allie Reynolds garner 33% of the vote and doc gooden is one and done? Elston Howard spent 15 years on the ballot, Catfish Hunter is in because of his Oakland A's days, but I don't doubt that his New York days helped him(his name also helped). (I'll forgive Sparky Lyle, 13% and then a backlash and off the ballot in four years although him and Mike Marshall entered the ballot roughly the same time and Marshall was off with a 1.3% of the vote total--but that is because Mike Marshall's prime was so much farther back)
Again there are also opposite claims, players who should have done better on the ballot than they did who were Yankees, but overall when it comes to Yankees and having a good week or month or season while wearing the pinstripes, does more for your hof votes than just having a very above average career.
Al Kaline got in on the first ballot.
That's some odd phrasing for two a trade that happened two years before said championship.
If you're a sports writer who was alive (probably young, too) in 1979, you remember the news of Munson's death.
1. Because this guy felt the need to address every player on the ballot he managed to use almost every bit of bad reasoning we've heard to explain votes. He even found a way to use the Jim Rice patented FEAR argument regarding Tim Raines. Don't get me wrong, Raines should be enshrined, but it shouldn't be because some writer was scared of him. The few times he bothered to include stats in his "analysis" he demonstrated a mastery of the art of cherry picking. He used over 2,000 hits as a positive for a 1B (Mattingly) but dismisses it for a SS (Trammell). While I can laugh at his vote for Morris, I'm pissed at how he dismisses Martinez completely for the sin of being a DH.
2. My guess is fans of every non-New York team feels some envy of the NY teams and can identify a guy who primarily played for their team who dropped from the ballot quickly and believe Yankees stay on the ballot much longer. Some of the concerns are valid some are merely perception. As an Indians fan, when I was a kid I used to look at Colavito and wonder why his 374 homers didn't get more consideration. 374 was 12th or 13th all time when he retired. More recently I saw Albert Belle fall of the ballot after little consideration. I'll let fans of other teams identify who fell off the ballot too quickly for their team (Whitaker!!!).
I'm confused. Isn't Tim Raines is a classic HOM pick, who shouldn't be in the HOF? How can someone be wrong for not voting for him? He's not famous, by definition, because he isn't getting enough votes.
I think Pettitte will be lucky to reach 20% of the vote, and will likely only last a few years on the ballot. We're talking about a guy who made 3 All-Star teams and only came close to winning the Cy Young Award once. He never got paid like an ace except when on one-year deals. I think the world has a pretty good idea of how good Andy Pettitte actually was.
EDIT: Oh yeah and he admitted to using PEDs.
I think you'll be surprised. However, his support or lack thereof will be largely a product of how the voters handle the ballot the years before Pettitte shows up. If no one gets 75% in 2012 and 2013 then Pettitte's situation becomes much different. However, if the voters actually put some candidates in (and get them off the ballot) then Pettitte will likely follow Morris' path and slowly climb to the high 40's.
I'm not sure where you are trying to go with this, if it's in regards to the other thread, Andy has flat out stated that he has a different opinion than the hof, but that he doesn't begrudge the hof choices, while at the same time saying they have missed out on some guys.
Tim Raines is not famous because of his location, if he played his ten primary years in St Louis or New York, he's in the hof today.
Given they both did a lot of pitching for the Yankees, I wonder if Pettitte will suffer in comparison to Mussina. I doubt Mussina will go in easily, and Pettitte has thirty fewer wins, a worse ERA, pitched 500 fewer innings, has 600 fewer strikeouts, half as many complete games, one sixth the shutouts (Pettitte had all of four, an extremely low number), seven fewer Gold Gloves (none, to be precise). The two are easy for a voter to compare, and its not a comparison that does Pettitte any favors.
Yeah, I really get the sense of respectful disagreement in the comment: "I'm just amazed that a monkey like this managed to slip a piece of paper in his typewriter and compose a paragraph in support of Tim Raines. I'm told that the odds against such miracles are usually several skyrillion to 1."
No grudge there.
I'm confused. Isn't Tim Raines is a classic HOM pick, who shouldn't be in the HOF? How can someone be wrong for not voting for him? He's not famous, by definition, because he isn't getting enough votes.
Yeah, I really get the sense of respectful disagreement in the comment: "I'm just amazed that a monkey like this managed to slip a piece of paper in his typewriter and compose a paragraph in support of Tim Raines. I'm told that the odds against such miracles are usually several skyrillion to 1."
No grudge there.
I respect the procedure that often results in stupid choices, and I can live with the occasional "mistake" like Rice.
OTOH I don't necessarily respect writers whose ballots are as screwloose and scattershot as Schultz's. If the actual HoF inductions were as all over the lot as his, I'd be much less enamored of the procedure, but fortunately, that isn't the case.
If you still don't understand the distinction I'm making here, I'll be glad to try again, but I'm not sure what's so complicated about it. The "monkey...in his typewriter" crack simply reflects my astonishment that anyone with such otherwise erratic selections could ever find the eminently deserving Raines a worthwhile candidate to be placed among the Murphys and the Mattinglys and the Morrises.
Yeah, and this is just mindblowing:
• Don Mattingly: Yes. Over 2,000 hits, nine Gold Gloves, seven All-Star Games. One MVP. A great ambassador for baseball. A thousand times, yes.
• Alan Trammell: No. Another Hall of Very Good member. Over 2,000 hits, four Gold Gloves and a World Series MVP won’t be enough.
I didn't mean that Thurman Munson was a "one-off" because his candidacy only lasted one ballot. Munson is a one-off because of his unique circumstances, which I think we can agree were overly rewarded on the HoF ballot. Any other catcher with an identical stat line, the identical awards, and the identical amount of championships would have a totally different vote history. Munson himself would have had a totally different vote history if he'd taken the train.
and of course as you mentioned Don Larsen and Roger Maris...and I don't see any reason not to go back that far, it's a trend throughout the history of the hof voting. How does Allie Reynolds garner 33% of the vote and doc gooden is one and done?
I don't think the Hall of Fame voting really settled into the form and pattern that we're familiar with until around 1969-72 or so. And that makes comparing individual head-to-head results even more conjectural. Example: Allie Reynolds had already been getting votes for several years before Dwight Gooden was born. He fell off the ballot when Gooden was 9 years old. You'll have to ask Ken Rosenthal and the ghost of Jimmy Cannon why their votes don't match up.
Clearly Trammell wasn't a great ambassador for baseball. Remember that time he refused to shave his sideburns when Sparky Anderson told him to?
That last point is so screechingly obvious that I can't believe it doesn't penetrate some thick skulls. You might as well ask the ghosts of Lyndon Johnson and FDR why they offered different proposals for dealing with racial discrimination, when we were living under the same Constitution in 1964 as we were between 1933 and 1945.
Look its hard to convince a traditionalist that Keith was a better hitter than Steve Garvey, convincing them that he was as good as Mattingly with the bat is impossible.
Mattingly is a weird case because he was an awesome player derailed by the back injury.
HoF talents with their career cut short always out perform. It's a lesser version of the Puckett effect.
His back holds up 2 more years, he's got Puckett's career.
Mattingly is a weird case because he was an awesome player derailed by the back injury.
HoF talents with their career cut short always out perform. It's a lesser version of the Puckett effect.
His back holds up 2 more years, he's got Puckett's career.
That's selling Mattingly a bit short, even if you didn't mean it that way. Puckett's career wasn't derailed until he'd just turned 36. Prior to that he'd been injury-free. Mattingly's career was limited by his back injury when he was only 26. Give Mattingly as many years of good health as Puckett did, and I don't think there's much question he's a first ballot HoFer.
Of course all that "if" won't get Mattingly a subway ride from the Battery to the Bronx, but when you look at what he was doing before that fight with Shirley in June of 1987, it's a conjecture that's got some basis in fact.
Of course all that "if" won't get Mattingly a subway ride from the Battery to the Bronx, but when you look at what he was doing before that fight with Shirley in June of 1987, it's a conjecture that's got some basis in fact.
I meant, 2 more 6 WAR seasons, and he'd match Puckett's career value, but yes, he had a much higher peak.
I think there's something to this. Mattingly is the exception because of what Andy said, plus he's immune from the rest of the country's righteous, tasteful damn Yankee bias because Mattingly's Yankees weren't the boring, bullying, juggernaut of dollars and ############# they became under Torre and have remained ever since. Donnie Baseball is probably the only Yankee of the last 30 years that even diehard Yankee haters found likeable to some degree.
In any case, these guys who have such "inside knowledge" spent the late 90s telling us how these monsters were saving baseball and how cool the HRs were. I'm disinclined to now give them a pass when the same people tell me how terrible that era was.
plus no the players themselves friends and associates are in the best position to know writers tend to get 2nd and 3rd hand info
and the primary reason a writer does not publish something juicy is generally that they cannot get corroboration and the reason for that usually is...
Are you also fine with those writers who are belatedly discovering their consciences? Maybe, in the interest of fairness and perspective and setting the record straight for posterity and the children, they should shelve the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for a while, at least until they cycle past the "making good coin promoting the steroid era era." Maybe that will happen. And maybe Barry Bonds will be the first unanimous electee and Mike Lupica will give him a soul kiss at the ceremony.
And Marc Ecko will erase the asterisk.
I think Pettitte will hang around on the ballot, getting substantial support, for years.
I think the writer's Mattingly-Trammell comments can be viewed as him deciding first that the former is a HOFer and the latter isn't, and then going back later to try to justify that conclusion.
Oh, I see someone else has commented on Andy's logic :-)
This was like a JFK moment if you were a 9-year-old in the northeast. I was in swim practice and a kid we called "Shivers" told me. I just assumed he was lying, and told him so.
They were in the best position to judge and, you know, do their job and report on it. Instead they decided to participate in the cover up, using code words such as vitamins in their articles, all because they wanted to maintain friendships with the players and hopefully get an extra serving at the buffet table. (or if you look at most writers, extra 3 servings)
They don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to moralizing about roid usage, they are just as guilty as the players, the league, owners and management. You can't punish the players for doing what was tacitly approved by common consensus.
They don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to moralizing about roid usage, they are just as guilty as the players, the league, owners and management. You can't punish the players for doing what was tacitly approved by common consensus.
Moralizing about it is one thing, but rewarding it is another. Nobody ever asked me if I was part of that "common consensus", and beyond that, the "common consensus" is always subject to change as more people become aware of the underlying reality of what that "common consensus" really entailed.
There's a good case to be made that the media fell down on the job. Gonfalon in particular has made that case very well for the past several years, as well or better than anything I've read or heard in the MSM. But that still leaves writers with the question of whether or not players who juiced deserve to be honored for their steroid-aided feats. It's not an easy question, and there's no "correct" answer, but the question still exists independent of the role of many writers in turning off the curiosity switch while the juicing was going on.
I guarantee you one thing: This issue isn't going away anytime soon, and however it eventually gets resolved, it's going to be one vote at a time. Anyone who thinks that some hoped-for "new revelation" is going to change millions of minds at once is living in a world where hundred dollar bills are found lying on the sidewalk.
Don't disagree with you there, but anytime I see an over the top MSM article about the evil and corruption of roids use on the game today, I can't help but wonder "where was this reporting at when you were in the loop?"
Not that I disagree with the point, but I did once find a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk.
Yeah, I can also do without the moralizing from writers who were telling us back in '98 about how McGwire and Sosa saved us from a Communist takeover, or whatever it was they were allegedly saving us from.
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Not that I disagree with the point, but I did once find a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk.
Best I ever found was a five dollar bill on a local playground's football field, about six inches beyond where an overthrown pass had settled. That fin would only be worth about 42 bucks today, but if I'd invested it in unopened packs of baseball cards** I could have bought and sold this website.
**Doing the math: Unopened 5 cent packs of Topps BB cards from 1954 (with the Aaron, Banks and Kaline RC's) sell for a minimum of $1000 each today. In 1954, five bucks would have bought you about 6 boxes (at the box rate of 75 cents back then) x 24 packs / box = 144 packs, + 10 more packs with your 50 cents change. Would Furtado sell his baby for $154 G's? Does baby need a new pair of shoes?
Most I ever found was 27 bucks (a 20, a 5, and two ones) at the base of a gas station pump. But I found a 24 carat gold engagement ring with a bunch of (probably real) diamonds in it that had to have been worth a whole lot more than that on my elementary school playground once.
Or did I entirely miss the point of why those unopened packs are valuable?
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