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1. DarrenAnd "on the fence" for Piazza HOF? Who IS going to get in?
It is a wacky world. On the one hand, you have guys saying Piazza and Thomas may not make it, and others saying Omar Vizquel should be a slam dunk.
Omar Vizquel?
He wouldn't be a good choice, but if in general voters start to give "more consideration to a candidate’s all-around ability and impact" and that translated into more consideration for the Barry Larkin, Alan Trammell, Tim Raines types that did much more than hit home runs that wouldn't be a bad thing.
Not that I think that will happen.
Seriously.
I never thought the guy got the national respect he deserved... looks like that's still the case.
I'd be curious to know what aspects to catching other than throwing out runners he thinks made Piazza a liability.
Same here. I don't get it why so many people assume that performance enhancing substances only help sluggers. When so many different types of athletes from other sports use those substances for a whole host of diverse reasons.
Hint to Connolly, athletes also use performance enhancing substances to run faster. To jump higher. To be more athletic.
I do think this very well could end BBWAA voting in the next 10 years or at least BBWAA voting as is currently designed.
The writers are already doing a terrible job at clearing some of the roadblocks and the Hall now runs the very real risk of the ballot becoming a clogged artery, with tons of deserving HOFers simply hovering in the 30%-60% range because of the lack of consensus in how to treat the so-called steroids era.
In the space of a few years, you're going to have Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, Piazza, Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Clemens, Thomas, Thome, Sheffield, Kent, Griffey, Biggio, Palmeiro, Alomar, Rivera, Schilling, Johnson, Hoffman, Mussina and maybe even Pedro all being added to the ballot while the writers still dither around not electing some of the remaining best 80s/90s players that are clear Hall of Famers, like Trammell, Raines, and Larkin. Imagine just enough voters wavering on easy slam dunks like Bonds and Maddux and the situation becomes pretty messy if obvious Hall of Famers are still blocking the doorway when the Jeter/ARod/Posada/Manny cohort starts retiring.
So the Hall ends up with two choices fraught with problems. If they just let it go, they cause the problem in which recent players as a group start making HOF inductions an incredibly high hurdle. To some people, it's just a list of players, but the festivities are massively important to the Hall's bottom line. The Hall isn't really hurt when an individual Rose or Bonds don't get in, but business will be hurt if *nobody* is getting in, which is certainly possible if you look at the Vet Committee problems. Leave enough clearly deserving players out of the Hall and the Hall of Fame induction starts to lack the credibility to honor the best players, which will also sap attendance at these events.
The other choice is to revamp the voting system, which the Hall has good reason not to be crazy about. One of the biggest bonuses of the BBWAA doing the voting isn't that the BBWAA voters are smarter or anything, but that they provide oodles of free press and attention to the process.
By 2018 there will be a ton of deserving players who aren't in, and may not ever get close to getting in (at least by the BBWAA). From the "broad brush" guilt-by-association ("If one of them juiced then they are all suspect) thing, to the huge amount of candidates we will be seeing, it isn't going to be pretty folks. So go ahead and sharpen your knives for Jim Rice's election next year if you want-that ain't nothing compared to what's coming.
I agree with you that it makes sense that pitchers should also have their performance impacted, but keep in mind there have been quite a few people here and on other boards who don't seem to believe that steroids and other PEDs actually help baseball performance at all. As a result, I can't imagine it would be too hard for someone to maintain the odd position of "hitters were helped to get bigger and stronger, whereas pitchers only used it to get healthy" or some other crap thing like that - especially if they've already come to the position that offensive numbers are inflated and they're looking for a way to devalue todays results against those of the players they first grew up watching.
There's actually an even bigger denial about PED use in the hockey world, which keeps saying thing like "It's too important to be flexible - our guys wouldn't want to be muscleboud". Of course, since in Canada no one wants to believe that hockey players might be users, they never ask the follow up question of "So, players wouldn't want to be bigger, stronger, and faster?"
They're going to elect Omar, aren't they.
I thought one of them was going to be the old "We don't like Italians" deal.
That makes no freaking sense. I'm not ranting against you, to be clear. I mean any athlete can train more to get stronger, faster etc, if (s)/he could just get "healthy" faster. The most fundamental principle of sports training is basically, "train as hard as you can, as often as you can, without overtraining", and the corollary, "do stuff so that you can train, without overtraining".
Huh. Point these people to some "musclebound" weightlifters, bodybuilders, who are flexible enough to do full splits. Or point to weightlifters, say watch them during the Olympics, many of whom are extremely flexible in the shoulders, hips, knees and ankles.
And also, I wish people would stop the obsessive focus on muscle. The neural system is just as important. And there are performance enhancing substances that can enhance the neural system.
The first obvious thing they need to do is increase the size of the ballot to 15. The 10 player ballot was established for a 16 team league. There is no one on the BBWAA ballot who played in league smaller than 24 teams. Blyleven debuted in 1970.
The second thing they need to do is consider a blank ballot or a ballot not returned as a resignation from the electoral body, for both the BBWAA and the Veteran's Committee. This will of course lead to an uncomfortable review of voting patterns to keep electors from casting a trivial vote or two to deny votes to potential Hall of Famers and summarily dismissing them, but I feel this is a lesser evil.
I agree completely. One of the key advantages that no one likes to talk about is the impact of targeted PEDs on thing like twitch reflexes. In pretty much any competetive sport, an ability to significantly improve that would be of bigger advantage than piling on muscle.
But these two issues are only marginally related.
As for steroids, other than McGwire and (possibly) Bonds, what otherwise slam dunk players are going to be blackballed for steroid suspicion? And what marginal players are getting in because of their squeaky clean reps?
IOW I'd wait to see how the voting really plays out before jumping to hysterical conclusions. If players like Thomas and Thome don't get in, and you read writers using that "we just don't know" bullshlt as justification for their "no" vote, then we'll have something to worry about. But I wouldn't bet on either of those two not getting in easily. I'd be surprised if the only players affected by steroids weren't just McGwire, Bonds and Clemens, and it also wouldn't surprise me if Bonds and Clemens still got in.
And as for Jim Rice, his impending election has much more to do with the writers' continuing fascination with traditional triple crown statistics than anything else. We could just as easily have witnessed the whole Jim Rice debate if steroids had never been invented.
I seem to remember a bunch of articles turning up when Thome hit his 500th HR indicating that he really wasn't a Hall of Famer. I wouldn't recommend using him as the criteria for whether the writers have gone nutsy on their voting. Thomas, on the other hand, I definitely agree with you.
While I hope that you're right, I'm inclined to think that the frothing rage of many of the voters have worked themselves into over Bonds will not subside with time. Rather, you'll just have people continuing to amplify the stories which have been told a millions times about his bad attitude and poor treatment of the press.
Before I play devil's advocate, let me mention that I think that Piazza should be a slam-dunk HOF'er, McGwire should already be in, that I'm not aboard with the anti-steroids hysteria, etc. etc.
But...
Is it really that crazy to think that steroids help some types of players more than others?
Sure, being bigger, stronger, faster, etc. is a benefit to any type of player, but, given that different types of players use very different skills, isn't it very unlikely that it all just evens out? Especially given that the period of unchecked steroid use corresponds to an era of increased power hitting numbers?
I do think this very well could end BBWAA voting in the next 10 years or at least BBWAA voting as is currently designed.
So you're saying I should be rooting for chaos?
I do agree that Thomas would be an even bigger red flag, but Thome would be bad enough, since (a) his credentials (149 OPS+ over the course of what's already a fairly long career) easily place him among previous solid HOF picks; and (b) the only way you could possibly lump Thome with the known juicers is by saying that "they're all guilty."
Remember, a few isolated columns written while Thome's still active don't necessarily mean that more than 25% of the voters are going to agree with them. I'd be very surprised if Thome doesn't get in. Give it time.
Sure, being bigger, stronger, faster, etc. is a benefit to any type of player, but, given that different types of players use very different skills, isn't it very unlikely that it all just evens out? Especially given that the period of unchecked steroid use corresponds to an era of increased power hitting numbers?
This Eric Walker thread from a few months ago deals with this very issue, and I think presents both sides fairly well.
I agree with you that he probably should get in, but I question how likely it is - while he undoubtedly has the numbers, I don't know how many people think of him as a Hall of Famer. For the most part, his numbers have included middling averages, he's competing for votes against a incredible crop of (often higher profile) First Basemen, he's rarely been thought of as the best player on his team, and he's never won a World Series.
This isn't to say that he shouldn't (or won't) be elected, but rather to say that it wouldn't be too hard to come up with a scenario under which he would be kept out.
Yes, obviously different athletes benefit differently from different banned substances. But unless you have a complete list of everyone who was using, and using what, and how they trained, how they ate, how they recuperated, etc, you have zero chance of figuring who benefited more, and who benefited less.
To use an example, let's say player A and B both used some performance enhancing substance, the same substance, and the same dosage too. Let's say player A was smart, ie he combined his usage of the performance enhancing substance with very diligent training, very strict nutrition, lots of recuperation, ie massage, sauna, getting enough sleep. Let's say player B didn't train as hard, was lazy with nutrition and recuperation. Let's say you know all of this. Which player are you going to penalise more? Should you penalise one of them more?
Palmeiro. Sosa.
Rice. Maybe Vizquel.
I'd enjoy that very much - especially in the event that you're right.
Okay but the guy was a freakin catcher not some first basemen. Even if you start removing some of his power he still ranks as one of the ten best if not 5 best hitting catchers of all time. Outside of not being able to throw runners out in an era when that wasn't important you got nothing to keep him out of the hall.
You won't be able too, our food supply will kill us all before that.
Well put. I will say, though, that if it wasn't steroids with writers, it'd be something else. Witness the ever-changing rationale for MVP voting.
The process is always altered to fit the desired outcome.
First of all, I was criticizing the very specific argument that "pitchers did PED's too, ergo power numbers weren't inflated".
Maybe my criticism wasn't clear, but let me rephrase:
1) For that argument hold, PED's would have to benefit all types of players to the same extent. This is very very unlikely.
2) The correlation of unchecked PED use and increased power numbers suggests (doesn't prove, but suggests) that PED use inflates power numbers.
So I'm not saying I know how to sort out the affect of PED's on stats; but the idea that pitcher use somehow makes everything cancel out is absurd. Point number 2 was merely an ancillary to point 1, and stands even if we don't know exactly what the effects are. It's sufficient to know that the overall effects were more than nothing, and I think that can be established without knowing detailed regimens.
As for Eric Walker's stuff...(and thanks for the link to it)...
that seems like a can of worms that oughtn't be reopened here, but I can't resist a couple of points:
A) I'm not a fan of using Power Factor to look for PED effects. I don't see how one can suppose that PED's can turn singles into doubles, etc., but can't turn non-hits into hits. Isn't a hard grounder typically more likely to be a hit than a softer grounder? Thus I think the effect of PED use on PF numbers is non-obvious.
B) Eric Walker's site also claims
"No one has ever claimed that any PED improves visual acuity or reflex response speed; all that PEDs can possibly do is increase muscularity. In baseball terms, that means power--the distance balls are hit. If PEDs have a discernible effect in baseball, then that effect must be on power, and only on power."
In this respect he disagrees with much of what has been stated in this thread.
I'm throwing down on the St. Louis manager skirting this train wreck with nary a bruise....
I thought Palmeiro too, but Andy had said "suspicion," and that's not the case with Palmeiro, who was caught outright.
Sosa is a case to watch, because he's never even been accused. More telling cases perhaps are Gary Sheffield, who very probably juiced in some form, and Ivan Rodriguez, who was accused by Canseco and has in latter years gone from looking like a 5'9" version of The Thing to being a little wisp of a guy. Pudge, despite the accusations, is usually described in the media as a future HOFer, often as the greatest defensive catcher ever.
Palmeiro. Sosa.
Possibly Clemens.
And what marginal players are getting in because of their squeaky clean reps?
Rice. Maybe Vizquel.
I don't think that's what is getting Rice in. The big PR push by the Bosotn media has more to do with it.
Look it up, and that seems to be teh case. In 1998, when all the sportswriters now blasting McGwire & Sosa were lauding them profusely, Rice received 42.9% of the vote in his fourth year on the BBWAA ballot.
Since 1956 (when the 5-year wait rule came into affect), that's the 19th best showing for someone 9 years removed from retirement.
In 20th place is Goose Gossage, at 42.1%. He just went in.
In 21st place is Luis Aparicio at 41.9%. The BBWAA put him in also.
Of the 18 guys ahead of Rice, only 2 have not gone in. One is Andre Dawson. He will go in. The other is Lee Smith, who is still on the ballot. Only two of the sixteen enshrined had to go via the VC. One of those, Jim BUnning, got over 74% of the vote before being overwhelmed by a gaggle of 300-game winners. The other was Enos Slaughter, who had a hometown chorus singing his cheers, just like Rice.
The guys from 22nd to 24th place have all been denied, but in two cases there are odd circumstances going on. They are Maury Willis and STeve Garvey. Both became involved in character-ruining off-field scandals. Plus as an added bonus, people reassesed their careers and found them wanting after they retired (Willis had Henderson, COleman, and Rainses make him look smaller; Garvey had the rise of OBP). Not only did they not get in, but both of them had their vote crater while on the ballot. I've looked at the votes on-and-off for the last several months, and I know of no other example in the last half-century of a player's support crumbling like it did for that pair. As for Hodges, he has the distinction of being the man with the most proncouned and prolonged BBWAA support to still not be in Cooperstown.
25th place was Pee Wee Reese, who went in via the VC, but he also had barely 30% in his fourth year on the ballot.
In other words, if you have over 30-35% of the vote in your fourth year on the BBWAA ballot, you stand an excellent shot to go in. That's where Jim Rice stood well before people went up in arms over 'roids.
Palmeiro. Sosa.
As Bob just pointed out, Palmeiro's beyond suspicion, unless you analogize back to the old Frank Rizzo line about "the lie detector lied."
Sosa's in a class by himself, and he's harder to gauge. He's got big HR totals, but (for instance) compared to Thome, his overall numbers (128 ERA+) aren't all that impressive for an outfielder, and Wrigley sure didn't hurt those HR totals. He's got the traditional biases (pro: 609 home runs; con: one dimensional player) working in both directions, and the steroid issue only makes his case even more muddled, since he's the poster boy for the Twilight Zone of Suspicion. I don't think he juiced myself, but I know that plenty of people disagree.
So the vote on Sosa might be seen as an indicator of how the steroid issue affects the voters, but it's also true that even without that, he wouldn't be all that slam dunk anyway, in spite of the home runs. I would vote for him myself, though.
But the bottom line is that I don't think that there's going to be anything resembling a wholesale HOF punishment on the grounds of "they all did it", or any wholesale inductions on the grounds of "his numbers were deflated because he played before steroids came along." I just can't see this happening.
It doesn't need to be a wholesale punishment to cause serious problems, however. It just needs to be enough of a punishment to reduce the votes of players like Bonds and Clemens enough so that they don't get in the first few tries.
Shouldn't, for example, the voters who didn't vote for Schmidt or Carlton have to justify that on some level? I mean, whatever that Swedish academy is that awards the Nobel prizes, I'm sure that they wouldn't let someone judge the chemistry prize if that person felt that radioactive decay could cause ninja turtles or if, in addition to nickel, there were elements called dime and quarter.
...is probably toast. He was probably already on the bubble, being the kind of player... shortish career, no major milestones, broad-based skillset but not best at any one thing, not well-known outside his home market... that these voters hate. Now there's been a specific doping allegation made against him for the first time. The source is extremely sketchy, but even if this story goes absolutely nowhere from here, it may be enough to finish him...
That is so funny that I almost fell out of my chair. Pure gold, Dan!
Actually, it's the very lack of "wholesale punishment" that's going to cause problems. As Doc Nabbit has explained, the BBWAA vote process is an "ongoing conversation" about which players are deserving of enshrinement, so that, over time, consensus emerges that, for example, Jim Rice deserves to be in the Hall of Fame and, say, Steve Garvey does not. If everybody agreed on who the "roiders" were and everybody rejected them, then they'd simply drop off the ballot, and the HOF conversation would simply shift to the "non-roiders".
The problem is that, more and more, the different factions of the BBWAA electorate are talking past each other. Look at the BBTF mock-HOF vote for example. In our consensus view, Blyleven, Trammell, Raines, and McGwire are all deserving HOFers. Come 2010, they'll likely be joined by Larkin and Alomar, with McGriff and Edgar Martinez getting significant support as well. By the time 2011 rolls around, then, the typical BBTF voter will have something like 7 slots filled with what they view are obvious HOFers. If, say, Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, and Sosa miss induction and keep reappearing on ballots, all of a sudden the typical BBTF voter's ballot is full with no real room to consider new guys. Now, when, say, Greg Maddux appears on the ballot, he's obviously better than, say, Palmeiro, Sosa, McGwire, and McGriff, so folks will find room to put him on the ballot.
But what about, say, Curt Schilling, a borderline but, I think, pretty clearly deserving HOFer? By the time he shows up on a ballot, there could be enough deserving HOFers who still haven't made it - e.g., Raines, Larkin, Alomar - coupled with enough guys who are being punished for their alleged roid use - e.g., McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Clemens - coupled with enough other borderline guys who are hard to compare to Schilling - e.g., McGriff, Trammell, Kevin Brown, Smoltz. There could be enough guys hanging around that there's simply no room for Schilling to make it onto 75% of all HOF ballots. If this happens to enough guys, then nobody'll get elected (save the very occasional "no-brainer"), and the ballot logjam will simply grow worse and worse, until eventually borderline or better HOF candidates will simply start falling off the ballot altogether because of the 5% rule.
Without knowing detailed regimens, you have no idea how much of the overall effects are due to what interconnected factors. How do you know that offensive inflation is not due to modern training regimens being more beneficial to hitters? That Pitcher Abuse Points is considered a "scientific", "progressive" measure, indicates just how much work has to be done when it comes to regulating pitcher workload. Or that advances in medicine have not benefited hitters more? A shoulder injury, rotator cuff or labrum, is often career threatening / ending for a pitcher. Modern training and medical methods still struggle mightily to resolve shoulder issues. Hitters do not really have any type of injury that is comparable. Most of the injuries that afflict hitters can be resolved more successfully by modern training and medical methods.
It can't? Wow, then I guess that I've killed a whole lot of turtles for nothing.
So, even if there's a blanket dampening of enthusiasm towards power hitters, it's clear Piazza was considered one of the elite players in the league and the best catcher in the NL over a 10-year period. The talk of his defence isn't a new thing, and it still didn't keep him from being considered by most people to be the best catcher in the NL for a long period.
Not being hysterical, just that the math, as Kiko explained, is going to work strongly against this generation of players. And then, on top of that, if a mere 5-10% of the voters will be much less inclined (going much further than de-emphasizing their numbers "some") to vote for anybody from this generation, that pretty much eliminates the narrow margins by which Perez, Sandberg, and Drysdale got elected. If the best pitcher and the best hitter from this generation don't get in, and none of the marginal guys get in (and maybe even don't get the 5%), and the solid middle-of-the-roads are all stuck in a huge unelected clusterf*ck, well just wait for all the articles and blog-entries that will be written.
Not for nothing. For SCIENCE!
Without knowing detailed regimens, you have no idea how much of the overall effects are due to what interconnected factors.
"No idea" is an overstatement, but basically I agree...the correlation between unchecked PED use and increased power numbers does not by itself prove causation, nor does it, by itself, quantify anything. There are many other factors that affect the offensive environment of an era, blah blah blah.
So no, it's not a proof, but it is a piece of evidence nonetheless. It wasn't intended to quantify exactly "how much of the overall effects are due to what interconnected factors", it was to address the first few initial posts that seemed so bewildered about how anyone could believe that PED's inflate power numbers. Posts like yours:
I don't get it why so many people assume that performance enhancing substances only help sluggers. When so many different types of athletes from other sports use those substances for a whole host of diverse reasons.
Hint to Connolly, athletes also use performance enhancing substances to run faster. To jump higher. To be more athletic.
To re-recap:
One doesn't have to assume that performance enhancing substances only help sluggers in order to conclude that they inflate power numbers. They need only help slugging more than they help other skills.
And muddied though the matter may be, evidence suggests that the latter is the case.
That is probably why people think that PED's inflate power numbers.
It's not an airtight case, but it's not unreasonable either, so there's no need to be bewildered about why people think that PED's inflate power numbers.
"Get it" now?
EDIT: Wow, I didn't mean for that to come off as bitter/ranty/whatever as it did. Sorry about that.
It doesn't need to be a wholesale punishment to cause serious problems, however. It just needs to be enough of a punishment to reduce the votes of players like Bonds and Clemens enough so that they don't get in the first few tries.
That's only a problem if you think that steroids shouldn't be a consideration, or unless you're a holdout for a signed confession.
The problem is that, more and more, the different factions of the BBWAA electorate are talking past each other. Look at the BBTF mock-HOF vote for example. In our consensus view, Blyleven, Trammell, Raines, and McGwire are all deserving HOFers. Come 2010, they'll likely be joined by Larkin and Alomar, with McGriff and Edgar Martinez getting significant support as well. By the time 2011 rolls around, then, the typical BBTF voter will have something like 7 slots filled with what they view are obvious HOFers. If, say, Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, and Sosa miss induction and keep reappearing on ballots, all of a sudden the typical BBTF voter's ballot is full with no real room to consider new guys. Now, when, say, Greg Maddux appears on the ballot, he's obviously better than, say, Palmeiro, Sosa, McGwire, and McGriff, so folks will find room to put him on the ballot.
But what about, say, Curt Schilling, a borderline but, I think, pretty clearly deserving HOFer? By the time he shows up on a ballot, there could be enough deserving HOFers who still haven't made it - e.g., Raines, Larkin, Alomar - coupled with enough guys who are being punished for their alleged roid use - e.g., McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Clemens - coupled with enough other borderline guys who are hard to compare to Schilling - e.g., McGriff, Trammell, Kevin Brown, Smoltz. There could be enough guys hanging around that there's simply no room for Schilling to make it onto 75% of all HOF ballots. If this happens to enough guys, then nobody'll get elected (save the very occasional "no-brainer"), and the ballot logjam will simply grow worse and worse, until eventually borderline or better HOF candidates will simply start falling off the ballot altogether because of the 5% rule.
I think you're underestimating the ability of the writers to make distinctions. I'm not saying I think that they always get it right, but I'd bet you fifty bucks right now that Schilling and Smoltz will have no trouble getting in in one or two ballots, and if the other three you mention (McGriff, Trammell and Brown) don't make it, I don't see how steroids will have kept them out. I'd vote for Trammell and Brown myself, but there's certainly room for honest disagreement in those cases.
And the BBTF vote isn't all that relevant to this discussion, because---sorry, folks---steroids are going to influence the HOF votes. I know I've only said this about a million times, but the Hall of Fame is not the Hall of Merit. Just look at the McGwire vote if anyone seriously doubts this.
But I'm not trying to re-hash the whole steriods debate again, since everyone here has already given their views on that over and over. I'm only saying that the steroid effect is likely to impact a very small number of choices (McGwire, Bonds, Palmeiro, Clemens, probably---and unfairly---Sosa), and that the fears being expressed here beyond that are at this point wholly speculative and somewhat melodramatic.
Whereas you're absolutely correct about Thome's perception, I'd say a damn credible case can be built that Thome was the best player on his team in '96 (over Joey Belle and Chuck Nagy), '97 (more playing time than Justice -- plus it was the Tribe's second WS year; and yes, it was a loss, but still), 2001 (20-point OPS+ advantage over Alomar, but good defense at second probably trumps Thome at first -- still, an argument can be made), '02 (pretty convincingly), '03 (highest MVP finish), and '06 (though Konerko may get the nod for actually playing in the field).
I know the perception isn't there, but the reality is. And though the perception will likely keep Thome out of the Hall for a few ballots, I do think he'll get in via the BBWAA. And he deserves to.
A lot of this seems like a moot point. I'm not sure anyone really believes that Piazza won't get enough votes to get in, and if Aaron, Ryan, and Ripken can't get 100%, no one can. It may be in the mid-low 80% range, but I haven't seen enough outcry against Piazza specifically to drop him under 75% or so.
And did I not read these comments closely enough, or did no one make a Piazza's-press-conference-to-announce-his-heterosexuality joke?
But he's far and away the best hitting catcher in MLB history; and I don't honestly know if he's a better hitter than Josh Gibson or not. Even with the crap arm (in the '90s, so who give a ####), he's still at least the fourth-greatest catcher of all time. Maybe better than Bench and Berra. MAYBE better than Gibson.
Anyone who doesn't vote for Mike Piazza on the first ballot should not only be stripped of HoF voting rights, but should be fired by their hometown paper.
How has reality impacted Hall of Fame voting? Look at Jim Rice vs. Evans, Trammel, Raines, Whitaker, etc. With respect to the Hall of Fame, voting has always been colored by perception rather than reality. If you want to talk about reality (or our best interpretation of reality against specifcic metrics), the Hall of Merit is always open.
Now, I'll agree with you that Thome was probably the best (most valuable) player on his team for multiple years. However, if you ask the writers, how many of them would pick Thome as the best player on his team in those seasons? Hell, look at the MVP voting (flawed, but relevant) - in most of the seasons in which he's received a vote, he's been behind one or more of his teammates.
Hasn't this been said for dozens of HoF candidates over the years? And has this sort of statement ever had any impact on the voters, other than to make them more hostile to the candidate in question?
Writers repeatedly group together Bonds, a huge home run hitter with strong circumstantial evidence of steroid use with Sosa, a huge home run hitter in which the evidence of steroid use is that he corked a bat and didn't want to speak to Congress in his second language, so I don't think I'm underestimating the ability of the writers to make distinctions.
I agree that Sosa is the most interesting case. Never anything remotely resembling any evidence against him. As Dan says, his worst crime seems to be using an interpreter in front of Congress. For that, he's been forever damned as the biggest liar and cheat in history.
I have no doubt there will be articles come election time arguing that Sammy isn't really worthy anyway - just like there was with McGwire - but just like Mac, it'll all be bullsh!t. If McGwire had been eligible before his trainwreck performance at the congressional hearings, he'd have sailed in with over 90 percent of the vote on the first ballot. All these "He was a one dimensional player who wouldn't have deserved election anyway" articles are coming from cowardly sportwriters who don't want to vote for Mac because he juiced but don't have the guts to say that that's the case...probably because they plan on voting for Bonds or Clemens or some other roider and don't want to look inconsistant or hypocritical.
Oh, and posts 41 and 47 were pure comic genius. Seriously. Bravo, guys. Bravo. *clapping hands*
Writers repeatedly group together Bonds, a huge home run hitter with strong circumstantial evidence of steroid use with Sosa, a huge home run hitter in which the evidence of steroid use is that he corked a bat and didn't want to speak to Congress in his second language, so I don't think I'm underestimating the ability of the writers to make distinctions.
First, not all writers by any means do this. Second, Sosa is perhaps the only case where the steroid stench has been attached by so many people on such flimsy evidence. All I'm saying is that you can't overgeneralize from that.
But it'll be interesting to see how all this plays out. Of course the other real question concerns Bonds and Clemens. This is the firewall test for the idea of a steroid disqualifier, since if you don't factor in steroids you're arguably talking about the greatest hitter and the greatest pitcher of all time. I can't possibly see one of them in and the other one blackballed, unless it's 75% in one case and 74% in the other.
And with luck they'll both be eligible in the same year---now that's going to be a HOF debate for the ages!
But not all writers have to do this. Only 25.1% have to do this, and then he doesn't get in. What percentage of writers would you say are strongly anti-steroid? Based on my own readings, I'd have to say a higher percentage than that.
But not all writers have to do this. Only 25.1% have to do this, and then he doesn't get in. What percentage of writers would you say are strongly anti-steroid? Based on my own readings, I'd have to say a higher percentage than that.
I've acknowledged that, but again, outside of possibly Sosa, the only blackballs I can foresee are going to involve the four players with clear (to me, anyway) statistical HOF credentials, but who have been linked to steroids far more convincingly than Sosa has been: McGwire, Bonds, Palmeiro and Clemens. And whether Bonds or Clemens will be blackballed remains to be seen. Five+ years is a long time.
And yes, I'd say that from the two McGwire votes about 75% of the writers aren't too fond of juicers. But that's not the same thing as saying that they're going to vote against players for whom there's no convincing steroid connection.
And it's also not the same thing as saying that they won't distinguish between Bonds and Clemens and everyone else. I think it's pretty obvious that a lot of that anti-McGwire sentiment was based not on a "steroids = no HOF" sentiment, but on a belief that steroids had made McGwire into a HOFer, and that without them he wouldn't have been. And that sort of a case would be nearly impossible to make against Bonds, and almost as tough to make against Clemens.
Which is why I say that the hard core anti-steroid vote can only be measured by those two. Voting against McGwire or Palmeiro can be justified by "steroid discounting" rather than "steroid disqualifying." Those aren't the same things at all, even if they often get lazily lumped together.
Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you on the merits of the voters' ability to get it right. ;)
I do, however, think that Thome's counting stats, wherever they end up, will get him in. Regardless of how deserving Evans, Trammell, Raines, and Whitaker are, they don't have 500 homers. That will ultimately matter to the voters. As will Piazza's numbers.
I think Piazza will make it on the first ballot. Thome will have to wait a while. But I do think they'll both end up in Cooperstown.
What about Gary Sheffield, Ivan Rodriguez, and as of today, Jeff Bagwell?
Well, Bagwell has been linked to steroids by an anonymous source who says a guy who has publicly denied (and apparently privately to the FBI) any knowlege of steroid use by Clemens, Pettitte or Bagwell said he was selling to them. The chain to form even the most basic verifiable connection between Bagwell and steroids just isn't there.
Sheffield, on the other hand, admitted to using steroids during the grand jury proceedings, but denied any knowledge as to what they were. At least there a link can be drawn, but most people seem to have already let that link drop - he admitted it in front of a grand jury, and said it was an accident, and hasn't been chased for perjury, so people seem to be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Which is a stronger source than has ever been linked to Sosa, of course.
What about Gary Sheffield, Ivan Rodriguez, and as of today, Jeff Bagwell?
Well, the news about Bagwell is too recent to sort out yet. And even without any steroid cloud around them, the other two are kind of marginal HOFers anyway. Like many others, I can see arguments both ways about either of them, though forgetting any steroid connection, I'd be much more inclined to vote in a great defensive catcher like I-Rod over a defensive fiasco like Sheffield, even if Sheffield's been a far better hitter.
IOW I don't know how you could really infer from a "no" vote about either of those two that steroids played a key role---unless, of course, the writers specifically mentioned that. Again, I'd wait to see the actual vote, and read what being said at that time, before presuming how it'll turn uot.
After all, he did average 58 HR a year over a 5 year period, so I'm willing to bet that the average person who follows baseball will think he's a user - especially with how the average person will also view his testimony. None of the other guys set a HR record, or challenged for one, so people will be more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt.
While I agree that Sheffield may find himself at the edge of the HoF, I honestly can't think of a way that iRod doesn't go in. He's an MVP, a 12 time All-Star, a 13 time GG winner, and will retire as the all time leader for hits by a Catcher. By all accounts, he's one of the top 10 catchers to play MLB. If he's marginal, then your personal Hall of Fame must be tiny.
I'm also having a bit of trouble matching your view of iRod as marginal, and Thome as in.
What you're not buying Andy's a lot of people have linked him with no proof as proof itself?
How do you think his testimony, through his legal representation played? As stated above, I'd be surprised if a significant percentage of baseball fans didn't believe he was using, solely based on his on-field performance. After all, given that every other hitter who took a run at the record during the late 90s was linked to steroids, he's got the "guilt by association" clause working against him.
Besides, Andy's not saying that Sosa used PEDs, but rather that he's likely to be viewed as a user, even in the absence of evidence.
But what about, say, Curt Schilling, a borderline but, I think, pretty clearly deserving HOFer? By the time he shows up on a ballot, there could be enough deserving HOFers who still haven't made it - e.g., Raines, Larkin, Alomar - coupled with enough guys who are being punished for their alleged roid use - e.g., McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Clemens - coupled with enough other borderline guys who are hard to compare to Schilling - e.g., McGriff, Trammell, Kevin Brown, Smoltz. There could be enough guys hanging around that there's simply no room for Schilling to make it onto 75% of all HOF ballots.
Disagree with the worst case scenario. The HoF ballot works fairly routinely - guys near the top move up in votes as time goes on, guys under 10% generally fall off and the rest mill about. It really is a long conversation about players. Steroids most certainly does make it interesting by adding in multiple guys who woulda got in and will thusly clutter numerous ballots. My own hunch is that either the BBWAA will make distinctions for some of the players, and/or the defenders of the most denigrated wil start leaving them off their ballots.
Over the last 20 years, names-per-ballot is at an all-time low. The 2008 ballot actually set the record for fewest names/ballot in Cooperstwon history. So if it does become a problem, there's an historic amount of wiggle room to work it out in.
Now as for the players you mentioned . . . Blyleven, Trammell, Raines, McGwire, Larkin, Alomar, McGriff, Edgar Martinez, Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, Sosa, Brown, Smoltz, Maddux, and Schilling. . .
Blyleven -- he'll go in before this becomes a real problem. He'll go in the next 2-3 years.
Trammell -- should continue to mill about around 10%. When this becomes an issue, he'll only have a handful of years left on the ballot. If people have to squeeze someone off the ballot to make room, it'll be him because his backers won't see a need to make a strong case for him.
Raines -- he'll go up & in. It might take the full 15 years, though. He'll go down in '09 when Rickey shows up, but then he'll rise up. He'll have his backers and it's a good argument to make on his behalf. Also, steroid usage (and it's lazy assumption that it only impacts homers) will likely aid the case of a man whose career was based on speed, not power.
Larkin --- he's screwed. 'roids or no 'roids, I think he's an excellent case to fall under 5%. Not necessarily the first year, but soon. Overshadowed by Ozzie Smith on defense, Cal Ripken & Robin Young on offense, and Jeter & A-Road afterwards. Playing in Cincy doesn't help his profile. Best case scenario is Alan Trammell's candidacy.
Alomar - I forsee a Sandberg course for him, where he doesn't get in right away, but will start off pretty high on the ballot. Since he's so high and becasue there's no 'roids taint, he'll go up'n'in. He'll probably get elected around or just before the time Bonds, Sosa, & Clemens enter the ballot, so won't create much backlog.
Edgar Martinez. Will never get 10%. Harold Baines barely gets 5% and had a much longer career with a good initial chunk in a fielding position. Yes, EM's a better hitter, but he was under the radar. He's 229th in career MVP shares, giving an idea what the writers thought of him. He didn't break into a starting role until he was 26, which I believe would be the oldest for a HoF position player.
Fred McGriff. Historically underrated. He was the last great slugger before the Silly Ball Era began, making his achivements look smaller than they should. Then he hung around forever not impressing many, further making him seem like a good-not-great player. He'll take Dave Parker's slot as a guy who constantly bums around 15-20%. If ther's a steroid-induced extra-sized backlog, he'll really drop.
The 'roiders. Here's where it gets tricky.
McGwire. Back-to-back elections around 23% of the vote. I think he's in the most trouble because his career is so dependent on homers and was so short.
Sosa. Has the best chance to have a sustained defense made in his case. I can see him getting held out, though.
Bonds. Well, this is atricky one, now innit. Will he be in jail? Will charges be dropped? He sure as heck won't go in right away, but I can see his backers making a case that he was good enough pre-1999 when he's supposed to have begun taking 'roids to merit induction.
Clemens. An even trickier one that Bonds. Depends how hard he fights to clear his name & how successful he is. If it fails miserably, then he's really in trouble. I think he's got a better shot than Bonds because he's not as detested as Bonds.
bBy the mid-2010s, there will be numerous writers with Bonds, Clemens, Sosa on their ballot and to a lesser extent McGwire. If ballots start getting too crowded, the players with the worst returning votes will be the most affected. That's the way it's always gone. I'd guess Edgar, Trammell, & Larkin will all be off the ballot by 2020, falling under 5%. McGriff might even be in danger, and he's the slugger most likely to really fall in case of backlog.
The nature of BBWAA voting always puts the most focuse on the highest returning candidates. And, by and large, people are far more likely to be wlooking for reasons to start voting for them than to stop. Blyleven will already be in, Alomar (if he's not in already) will go in, and Raines will move up until he's in.
As for the newer gusy ..
Maddux- 1st ballot.
Kevin Brown - wasn't coming close in the first place. The sort of guy who might have trouble staying over 5% in normal cicumstances.
Smoltz - Going in. Maybe 2 years, but I'd be surprised if it's as long as three years. Eck is too close a parallel. The 'roids thing affects slugggers more than anyone else, and guys are more likely to make room for a 2nd pitchers than a 7th slugger on their ballot.
Schilling - he's not perceived as a borderline players. Too many great seasons and the superlative post-season rep. Again, if a backlog of sluggers emerges due to 'roids, that's less likelly to hurt a pitcher like Schilling. It's be more trouble for Bagwell, I suppose.
I wasn't really "arguing" at all. I was honestly questioning whether Andy or others thought that these other guys would be "blackballed". I agree with Andy that it's too soon to say on Bagwell and that Sheffield is probably more borderline than he deserves for other reasons in addition to the 'roids. I also agree with you that, absent steroids, Ivan Rodriguez is a slam-dunk HOFer. I think for all of these guys - Sosa included - we're just going to have to wait and see what voters do.
I'm glad someone else sees it this way. McGriff was the guy I always feared would get screwed the most by the Steroids Era. I graduated HS in 91 and I remember when one of us was pulverizing the ball at the plate we used to refer to them as McGriffing.
1. Not hitting 500 homers
2. The sudden decline (solid in 2002, then boom)
3. Not being associated with one particular team (more to the point, wasting some good seasons with the Devil Rays)
4. Not really having a signature "moment" (although he was a good postseason player)
Actually, he'll probably go down as the player most screwed by the Steroids Era and the '94 strike. If not for the latter, he clears the 500 HR barrier, and probably takes that last embarrassing season with TB off of his resume, so he doesn't have to deal with being viewed as hanging on to hit a milestone. He also probably moves up a slot or two in MVP voting (an maybe more) in '94 as Bagwell would have missed the rest of the season with a broken hand.
He was 38 that season. A sudden decline isn't exactly unexpected at that age.
If this is true, it's a really sad comment on HOF voting. Baines had a grand total of ZERO seasons out of 22 where his OBP matched Edgar's career average. And three seasons where his SLG matched Edgar's career average.
And while Edgar is see as a lifetime DH, he did play almost 600 games in the field (only about 450 less than Baines), most of them at 3B, a more premium position. And he really wasn't that bad at it either. He had to DH for health reasons, not because he was such a terrible fielder to begin with.
Anyways, not to restart the whole Edgar HOF discussion, but I think people forget just how dominating a hitter he really was. And if the stupid Mariners had just brought him up 3 years earlier, he would have much better counting stats, and would have 3 more full seasons of games at 3B. I think his candidacy then would be a no-brainer.
But the issue is that most people appear to assume that performance enhancing substances only help sluggers, not just that it helps sluggers more. No one ever says Ichiro's career needs to be considered carefully, because PEDs might have helped him run faster, jump higher, play better D. No one ever says Omar Vizquel's career needs to be considered carefully, because PEDs might have allowed him to play good D late into his career.
It's interesting looking at the list of players who hit 400 homers but not 500: there are a lot of guys who I thought were locks or safe bets to hit 500--McGriff, Sheff, Bagwell, even Juan Gone.
And is anyone else surprised to see how many homers Carlos Delgado has hit? He's going to pass Bagwell very soon.
As a Toronto fan, I can say that I'm not - he's been pounding out 30+ a year since the mid 90s. To be honest, my biggest surprise is that Bagwell didn't hit more.
He seemed like the ultimate sure-fire bet. It still stuns me the way his career just completely fell apart - it makes Dale Murphy's collapse look graceful.
People always throw out the "unless he falls off a cliff...." as if it's a minor caveat, but it really happens.
We're all aware that it happens. That doesn't mean it can't still be surprising. After all, not every player ages the same way.
Besides, with many of the other players discussed, you could at least point to a good reason - Alomar's eyesight, Belle's hip, Canseco's progressive injuries, inability to play the field, big mouth, bad attitude, and strange contract demands. Juan Gonzales, on the other hand, just stopped hitting, fielding, walking upright, and everything else. It's one's like that where everything goes at once that seem so shocking and unexpected.
I know I, and some other Braves fans have a "signature moment" to associate McGriff with. Granted it isn't one about on-field stuff, or that is relevant to the HOF, but I always remember the press-box section at Atlanta-Fulton Co Stadium the day McGriff became a Brave.
As an aside..
Man, McGriff for Melvin Nieves and couple no ones was a nice swindle for the Braves.
ANOTHER ASIDE.. I didn't realize Nieves actually had a few 20 homer years. I thought he never became more than a cup of coffee guy
I see what you did there.
Look at McGriff's strange late-career resurgence, his OPS+ from 1991-2002:
age OPS+
27 147
28 166
29 143
30 157
31 119
32 119
33 106
34 111
35 142
36 110
37 144
38 125
In his late prime, 1991-94, his average OPS+ was 153.
In his decline pahase, 1995-98, his OPS+ was 114.
The next year, Jose Canseco became his teammate.
McGriff found new life, 1999-2002, his OPS+ was 130.
I believe that most of the PED users have yet to be named.
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