WTF?! You don’t need Mac Stipanovich’s knife to poke holes in this ballot (if it actually existed)!
Roberto Alomar: No, just barely. I don’t think he was as good as Sandberg and I always said Sandberg shouldn’t go in before Joe Gordon. I’m not judging Alomar on the spitting incident, I’m judging him on the fact that for whatever reason, at age 34 he not only turned from a superstar into a fringe major leaguer, but he also turned into a millstone around the neck of a franchise. The bad taste may fade with time, but right now I couldn’t vote for him.
Harold Baines: Yes, just barely. He’s hurt by the 2,866 hits - he’s in that Buckner zone. Everybody else who got to Buckner’s level of hits (2,763) has gotten in, or will, or is Pete Rose.
Barry Larkin: A great player and one of my favorites, but I don’t recall ever during his playing career having had even that Alomarian sense that this could be a Hall-of-Famer. If we’re looking to put a Reds shortstop in Cooperstown, it should be David Concepcion.
Mark McGwire: Hall of Fame? For what? For pretending to Congress that nothing happened before that steroid hearing? Fine. You got your wish. Nothing happened. Your lifetime numbers are 0-0-.000. And by the way, why is it ok for him to just waltz back in as batting coach of the Cardinals? Would we let Bonds come back in? This is unacceptable, and it gives credence to the very disturbing claim that race is at play when it comes to the punishment of steroid cheats. Mark McGwire is a steroid cheater.
Jack Morris: Another beneficiary of a little perspective. I used to flinch at that 3.90 ERA. There seems very little doubt that Tom Glavine will go in on the first ballot at 3.54. I’m looking more at the 254 wins and the clutch performances. Aye.
Tim Raines: No. It is very close. Maybe the steals should earn him a spot. The rest of the offensive production just doesn’t.
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I like the thought, but your hypothetical player is so far from reality that he's hard to conceive of in any reasonable sense.
I concur. The ballot is pretty much the opposite of how most of us here would have it. There is no way you leave out Alomar so easily, yet throw in Morris and ignore the ERA. He's baited us...or have I given him too much credit and he really is that stupid? My head is now going to explode.
Why would we assume he would not reach base in 700 at-bats where he ended up drawing a walk?
Those numbers were used to get Raines to .300 and 3000 while undeniably not improving his stats, so that he wouldn't have to face that criticism.
When the Hall of Merit was doing ranking exercises, I decided to lump LF and RF together and create a master list from which I would extract ballots for each position separately. Here are #11-25 on that list:
11. Carl Yastrzemski
12. Pete Rose
13. Joe Jackson
14. Harry Heilmann
15. Al Kaline
16. Paul Waner
17. Tony Gwynn
18. Tim Raines
19. Jesse Burkett
20. Fred Clarke
21. Roberto Clemente
22. Willie Stargell
23. Al Simmons
24. Billy Williams
25. Enos Slaughter
Now it's possible that I wasn't making enough of defensive value, and some of the better defenders (Clemente, Slaughter) should rank higher while some of the worse defenders (Heilmann, Stargell) should rank lower. But I am convinced that the overall values of Gwynn and Raines are so close that the slightest tweak in the assumptions you use could alter the order between them.
I concur. The ballot is pretty much the opposite of how most of us here would have it. There is no way you leave out Alomar so easily, yet throw in Morris and ignore the ERA. He's baited us...or have I given him too much credit and he really is that stupid? My head is now going to explode.
You're absolutely right that he's baited us, except that the "he" in question is (once again) the evil, moustachioed Repoz.
I would have to question anything he says about politics after this, and considering that I mostly agree with him, that is a big deal. (I have a rule, if you are 100% wrong about one subject, then I can't take your opinion on other subjects either, it's why anyone that debate evolution cannot enter into a political discussion. They clearly are massively wrong on a subject that they have even done a cursory research on. I have no problem with differing opinions of course, but someone who debates evolution has the educational equivalent of believing the U.S. has only 8 States--how can you take someone who believes something like that seriously) And of course Olberman has pretty much invalidated everything he has ever said with this ballot. He may be right on a political subject, but there is no way anyone could actually think he has the functioning brains to have researched it acceptably.
I don't know this one, but it sounds delightfully weird. Is this a Midnite Vultures B-side?
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