—DROPPED OFF MY LIST FROM LAST YEAR TO THIS YEAR/
*ALAN TRAMMELL (36.8% of the vote last year). I’m sure I’ll re-visit his case next year, as I did this year; I used to agree with the conventional railing that either a guy is a Hall of Famer or he’s not, why vary the vote from year… Now that I have the vote, it feels so much more fluid than that.
The elections aren’t conducted frozen in time–they come in relation to the moment we make them, to the developments of the day and the overall strength of the candidate pool.
I believe Trammell has a very strong case–compared to Barry Larkin last year, or whoever you want.
I voted for Trammell last year… barely. But mixed against this field, I withheld the vote this year, with an asterisk. Next time around, I will go through it again.
—NOTABLE FIRST-YEAR ELIGIBLES I DID NOT VOTE FOR/
*MIKE PIAZZA. Close call, great hitting stats (better than Johnny Bench’s career stats, mostly), but I’m wary of voting for such a mediocre defensive catcher. Plus, if you do any stat-siphoning, Piazza’s case gets very questionable. So I took a pass this year.
As I said last year, you might dislike the process, but it’s safer to pass on a borderline candidate with PED questions to let more info come in than to just elect a guy with large questions pending.
Repoz
Posted: December 26, 2012 at 04:32 PM |
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1. Walt Davis Posted: December 26, 2012 at 05:16 PM (#4332617)I can understand originally not thinking a guy was an HoFer and then, upon further reflection or as your fellow voters put in Jim Rice, changing your mind. I suppose there may even be rare cases where I can see changing your mind the other way -- maybe if a bunch of great SS had entered the game in the last few years to make Trammell look less special. But "mixed against this field" -- that only comes into play if you've filled your ballot and the guy falls off.
As to "stat-siphoning" ... so, based on raw stats, he's the greatest hitting C of all time ... so, if we siphon off stats just 'cuz he falls to the ... 3rd best hitting C of all-time? 4th best?
If some of the stuff coming out about catcher defense is accurate, that a catcher's receiving alone can be as valuable or detrimental as his offensive production, then that's not true.
The problem is that we don't (and probably never will) be able to properly evaluate Piazza's receiving, game calling, etc. All we can really do is say that he was an embarrassingly poor throwing catcher, and, as you say, it's a demerit that mars his case without negating it.
Wasn't he also very good at PB/WP?
It's always been the default. The internet just lets everybody share their stupid with the world.
But God, that guy is dumb.
Well, whore and pimp are presumably the oldest professions and they're usually pretty up on things. The third profession was probably the priesthood and so it almost certainly started there. Professional stupidity took a giant leap forward with the creation of the profession of "sportswriter." It entered the stratosphere with the creation of the life coaching profession.
Please don't take this as a complaint about professional stupidity, I find it pays quite well.
And may God have mercy on his soul.
Am I crazy, or is Murphy going to top 40% on this vote? It would position him for the VC.
What I love more about this is that available estimates of Piazza's game calling runs have him as one of the better catchers historically with regards to game calling.
Murphy is running about 20% right now...which looks to be a slight final whining year bump.
Can we get an updated ballot collecting gizmo count?
He's a borderline candidate and if these writers are going to slap down the PED users on integrity etc...then giving Murphy a little goose in the other direction seems pretty reasonable.
Rizzuto-- +6.1%
Reese-- +2.0%
Vernon-- +4.5%
Dark-- -7.3%
Newcombe-- +3.3%
Kluszewski-- +1.0%
Ashburn-- -5.0%
Schoendiest-- +6.5%
Hodges-- +14.0%
N.Fox-- +13.7%
Burdette-- +0.6%
Maris-- +0.5%
Larsen-- +0.0%
E.Howard-- +1.7%
Face-- +0.8%
Kuenn-- -1.5%
Bunning-- +5.8%
Mazeroksi-- +10.2%
Wills-- +11.8%
Cepeda-- +13.9%
K.Boyer-- -4.5%
Oliva-- +3.8%
Flood-- +2.3%
Torre-- +11.6%
Allen-- -2.2%
Minoso-- -1.4%
Lolich-- -3.0%
Tiant-- +5.8%
Kaat-- +3.1%
Garvey-- -4.9%
Concepcion-- +4.9%
Rice-- +4.2%
John-- +2.6%
Parker-- +0.1%
Seriously, he can't have been a disaster as a receiver because he's spotting the field a fair number of runs (because of his issues against the running game) and the staff he caught were generally successful.
EDIT: Study is linked in #12. Coke.
?????? That's kind of like having The Abraham Lincoln Hall of Bad Presidents.
You don't need a Grima Wormtongue anymore once the King is dead.
This is one of the things that drives me crazy about the writers and their voting process for awards, the HOF, etc. They go on and on about the mysteries and vagaries of catching in articles or on the air anecdotally (calling games, framing pitches, blocking balls, "leadership", etc.) ... but when it comes time actually voting for anything, i.e. putting their money where their mouth is, catcher defense comes down to one, and one only, simple thing: throwing.
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