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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, January 07, 2013
Ballot: Bonds, Clemens, Bagwell, Biggio, Schilling, Piazza, Trammell, Raines, E. Martinez, L. Walker.
and this surprise on Dale Murphy…
I have voted for Dale Murphy every year because I think, in his prime, he played at a Hall of Fame level and because I think the character clause should cut both ways. Dale Murphy will come off the ballot after this year – and, in some ways, I think that’s a good thing, because I think the Veterans Committee needs to stop messing around with the picked-over eras they keep searching and start looking at players from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. I intend to keep making Dale Murphy’s case for them … though this year, because the ballot is so overstuffed, I did not vote for the Murph.
My Hall of Fame vote: No.
Repoz
Posted: January 07, 2013 at 07:25 AM | 137 comment(s)
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1) There are candidates you feel are qualified that you are simply not going to be able to support, because you'll run out of ballot space.
2) You're going to have to be strategic in whom you select. He loves Murphy, and has voted for Murphy in the past - but he acknowledges that he's not getting in on his 15th and last ballot, so don't waste a slot on it.
But - it takes three of these types of ballots to counteract one crappy ballot.
I'd have liked to see Kenny Lofton and Bernie Williams acknowledged at this level, rather than in a separate post.
Pedro, Raines after that...? Maybe Smoltz too, or was he '10? Griffey pops in there too, of course.
Bonds and Clemens probably start to pick up steam in '17/'18 when this all starts to clear out.
I wonder how long it will take Mr. Wolf to show up and cry about cheaters.
And people say he wasn't durable?
That should read 8,030 PA.
[Edit to add: I never realized Walker had more PAs than Edgar Martinez, Mike Piazza, and Mark McGwire]
*EDIT: I have always argued that Murphy was "the cutoff line" and left him outside on my personal HOF ballots, but given the character clause and Pos' argument that it should cut both ways, and given the dearth of center fielders represented in the Hall, I've moved him above the cut off line, which shall now be Don Mattingly and Raffy Palimiero. (Also, Dale Murphy was a much better player than Jim Rice.)
So I'm saying you've got to have Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, Schilling.
I think Trammell's combination of peak/prime/career lifts him above the rest of the stars, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary to read the data that way. Same with Walker. And then past them, obviously Raines, McGwire, Palmeiro, Martinez and Sosa all have entirely reasonable Hall of Fame cases. With felicitous evaluations of their defense, and/or felicitous weightings of peak and career, Murphy and Lofton and the Crime Dog are defensible choices. I can almost squint to see the argument for including Bernie Williams in that group too. There are way too many good players on the ballot.
Both are under 6 feet tall and rather squarely built, though there was never a chance that Gwynn was going to get the nickname "Rock".
Durable may not be the right word, maybe dependable is a better one but I think it is a fair criticism. While 8,000 PA is nothing to sneeze at he played over 150 games just once in his career and over 140 just four times. He was not a player who you should have expected to be in the lineup everyday.
Jose, our little boy Ray was making his first joke. He's grown up so fast.
That's about as good a Hall of Merit ballot as you're likely to see, and lop off Bonds and it'll serve for Cooperstown as well.
So you'll support Clemens, but not Bonds? You're pinstripes are showing.
LOL, I love that.
No, but I did follow the trial and the many discussions of it here, which caused me to change my initial opinion that the evidence against Clemens was convincingly credible, a POV reflected in his acquittals on all counts. If it were merely a case of pinstripes worship, I'd be voting for A-Rod down the road, but I won't be doing that unless another known steroid user gets in between now and then.
A known steroids user other than Mantle?
But I don't know why it matters to you whether a "known" steroids user gets in between now and then, since you've proven that past standards of the Hall are irrelevant to you on this issue: the Hall let amps users in without hesitation, as it did the known cheater Gaylord Perry. The voters didn't stumble over the newfound character clause then.
and Mike Crudale.
McGwire was a better hitter and actually played the field.
Disconcur.
But I don't know why it matters to you whether a "known" steroids user gets in between now and then, since you've proven that past standards of the Hall are irrelevant to you on this issue: the Hall let amps users in without hesitation, as it did the known cheater Gaylord Perry. The voters didn't stumble over the newfound character clause then.
I sincerely hope that that wall you keep banging your head against is well-padded. We wouldn't want to lose such an illustrious contributor to something as preventable as a terminal concussion.
Edgar had a longer career - a little over 1000 more PA - and played a good 3B at the start of his career, 500+ games with a slightly above average TZ rating.
I'm not saying I put Edgar ahead of McGwire (undecided), but I can see how one could make a case for either. In the past I have supported both. If I had a vote, I would have to make a choice between them this year.
My disagreements are Piazza and Schilling, but I totally accept that this is a minority opinion.
I am with Poz on Murphy. He, along with McGriff and Bernie Williams, woudl be on my ballot if there were room. (And I, you know, HAD a ballot, which most of you are probably glad that I do not...)
````````````````
Seperate point: any Hall of Fame without Bonds and Clemens is a joke.
How do you have a hall of fame without any catchers?
If you have Piazza out, then you only have two catchers in your personal HoF.
If you don't you're likely to have a lot of passed balls.
Yeah I agree and I also want Lofton in there. But the ballot's simply too crowded. By by Kenny!
In his later years I always thought of Gwynn as a parker house roll
Tim Raines career OPS+ 123
Maybe a function a bit of the different shapes of their careers, but thought that was interesting.
Disconcur.
Concur with your disconcur.
And the reason for your opinion?
OPS doesn't include stolen bases. Hope this helps.
Tim Raines career OPS+ 123
Maybe a function a bit of the different shapes of their careers, but thought that was interesting.
Tony Gwynn career basestealing: 319/125.
Tim Raines career basestealing: 808/146.
Difference: 489/21.
That makes up a lot of OPS+ ground.
Tony Gwynn: "he seems so articulate"
Gwynn + 500 walks + 500 stolen bases - 500 singles = Raines
Tony Gwynn: "he seems so articulate"
Tim Raines: Rock, liked rock cocaine
Tony Gwynn: Liked Rock Candy
Yes, I know, and that's great and all, but I wasn't trying to claim that Gwynn was better than Raines. But Pos makes a big point in the article about how close their hitting stats are:
Raines: 10,359 plate appearances
Gwynn: 10,232 plate appearances
Raines: .294 batting average
Gwynn: .338 batting average
Raines: .385 on-base percentage
Gwynn: .388 on-base percentage
Raines: 4,076 times on base
Gwynn: 4,094 times on base
yet Gwynn comes out with 9 points of OPS+ advantage, which isn't a small number.
Poz says that he considers Schilling one of the 25 best starting pitchers ever. I don't think he's getting lopped off next year.
Right, that's the raw numbers, but OPS+ seems to indicate Raines needs the stolen bases to make up the batting ground.
9 points of OPS+ is the difference between Reggie Jackson and Dave Winfield, or between Wade Boggs and Scott Rolen.
I do think they are roughly equivalent players in terms of overall value, but my impression at the time was that Gwynn was clearly the superior hitter, and I don't see any reason to change that, despite similarities in their overall raw numbers.
TFA:Not sure what Joe is talking about here. I have always seen it as the first one.
Yes, Gwynn was the better hitter, because 500 singles are better than 500 walks; this difference also explains his OPS+ advantage, because the extra singles give him a higher SLG.
But Raines also has the extra 500 steals, which more or less make up the difference. Which you've already said. So I'm not even sure what we're talking about.
Wow, that's ridiculous. But good to know, thanks. It sure does pay to be a good quote. I would guess he'd drop Trammell then and that's just crazy.
The aforementioned PA advantage to Edgar should be some of it. I don't think you need to provide for an AAS discount, but I do think you should consider a Sillyball discount. As to McGwire being a better hitter, here are their 10 best seasons by Rbat with McGwire first:
83, 63, 60, 51, 47, 46, 39, 31, 31, 22 totalling 477
68, 62, 57, 52, 52, 48, 45, 43, 31, 30 totalling 488
So McGwire does have the one big year where he clearly stands out, but other than that they're pretty even over the remaining four seasons of their top five years. In the following five years Edgar has a big edge in three of them and a slight edge over the 10 year span. For career it's 545 for McGwire to 532 for Martinez. I don't see McGwire as a significantly better hitter and perhaps not a better hitter at all. I also do not believe being a poor 1B is a particularly strong argument in his favor.
Wow, that's ridiculous. But good to know, thanks. It sure does pay to be a good quote. I would guess he'd drop Trammell then and that's just crazy.
He's 26th all-time in bWAR, without crediting him for postseason performance. He's a debatable choice for the top 25, obviously, but ridiculous is a bit strong.
Why is that ridiculous?
Mac was clearly the superior *slugger.* He was not the superior *hitter.* 'Gar was a better all around hitter. And I don't discount him for being a DH any more than I discount him for not getting called up until he was 27. That was a condition of his game, but a condition of his environment. If Edgar Martinez had been called up as a 24 year old in the National League he would have put up even better numbers than McGwire while playing a moderately useful 3B, until switching to 1B (where he would have been better defensively than Mac.)
Success then! We can all declare victory.
That is my thinking more or less, I'm more positive on Trammell and Biggio being in the "required" grouping than you are, but more or less the same thought process.
I don't see how either of these are disagreements. There is a reason it's a minority opinion. I don't get how anyone keeps Piazza out of the hof. Even assuming the unfounded reasoning that his defense was below average or even historically bad, he easily clears the mark. (and of course the simple fact of the matter is his defense wasn't historically bad, in fact by all measures other than his arm, there is significant evidence his defense was good)
Because Schilling isn't even close to being "one of the 25 best starting pitchers ever".
McGwire career rBat 545 in 7660 pa (42.7 per 600 pa)
Edgar career rBat 532 in 8674 pa. (36.8 per 600 pa)
I don't think it's a close comparison, McGwire was clearly the better hitter, his inability to play 150 games a year when he was good was his problem.
Minor nitpick.. the second 31 you have was a partial season and it should be combined with the 20 he posted in his first year in St Louis so Mcgwire's numbers should have read
87, 63, 60, 51, 51, 47, 46, 39, 36, 31, totalling 511.
68, 62, 57, 52, 52, 48, 45, 43, 31, 30 totalling 488
With the proper numbers in there, you have Mac with the one big year and then they more or less trade off on the remaining years.
I find it hard to think of Schilling as a top 25 pitcher myself, but even a top 40 pitcher isn't going to get lopped off next year, so have to agree with this question. If Schilling isn't a top 25(or 40)pitcher, what are the guys ahead of him?
I have (not in order)
1. Maddux
2. Clemens
3. Randy
4. Pedro
5. Walter Johnson
6. Pete Alexander
7. Cy Young
8. Lefty Grove
9. Christy Mathewson
10. Niekro
11. Spahn
12. Perry
13. Blyleven
14. Ryan
15. Gibson
16. Carlton
17. Seaver
18. Nichols
On the list of obvious better pitchers... beyond that you get into territory of debate. I might be missing a few from this list, but it seems to be pretty comprehensive.
This is a point in his favor?
The Edgar supporters have created this belief that he was hurt by not being allowed to play when he would have been putting up monster numbers at 24-25 years old, even though the evidence says he would have put up poor numbers, it doesn't prevent them from rattling off their belief that he was unfairly held back. At best he posts a season as a third baseman with a 100 ops+ when he was 26... but in their alternate universe, he's an all star hitter already.
That too.
That's what I love about the Bill James rankings. It seems at first blush that its ridiculous that Curt Schilling is one of the top 25 pitchers of all time or that there aren't more than 100 catchers better than Mike MacFarlane. But once you start listing them all, its hard to find that many players that were better.
1) There are candidates you feel are qualified that you are simply not going to be able to support, because you'll run out of ballot space.
2) You're going to have to be strategic in whom you select. He loves Murphy, and has voted for Murphy in the past - but he acknowledges that he's not getting in on his 15th and last ballot, so don't waste a slot on it.
But - it takes three of these types of ballots to counteract one crappy ballot.
Jayson Stark's ballot column is well worth a read. He focuses on the same conditions for this year's ballot and goes even further on Murphy.
He also comes up with a similar final ballot to Posnanski's (and mine, and all the others here who agree with me/us).
Paige and Williams are missing if you want to count them.
As with the whole Ichiro/Matsui question, his value in context isn't great, but there are reasons to think he'd have lost less than most players moving from a hitter's park in the PCL.
There's no reason to think he'd have put up monster seasons, but add a couple of Dave Magadan years to the front end of his career and he starts to look a lot better to pure career voters.
This is all incorrect.
We believe that Edgar had demonstrated his capacity to hit big league pitching - and would very likely have turned out some solid seasons. Solid meaning: average or somewhat above average. His ACTUAL MLB numbers during 87-89 place him as average. His MLEs suggest he was better. There's no reason to think his 'best case' is a 100 OPS+. That's approximately what I would expect. And it's quite possible he would have started to churn out seasons closer to his 1990 earlier. Maybe not likely, but possible.
Since the two big knocks on Edgar are 1) short career and 2) DHs produce zero defensive value, this helps on both counts.
Those seasons would have included him playing third base in MLB - and thus eroding the notion that he was 'nothing but a DH.' Add the 250 games he played as a minor leaguer in 87-89 to his career totals and he becomes a guy who played over a third of his (normal length) career at third base, with decent defensive numbers during that time.
Obviously I don't think that you can simply add those numbers in and treat them as REAL. I just think it's a useful experiment to ask how much his HOF narrative changes based on better usage by the M's.
I'm probably on Joe's side overall, but I find this to be a bad argument. Why would PEDs make everyone equally good? Aren't they just a tool like anything else, and thus, some will use that tool to great success, while others will use it crappily? You could give me PEDs too, and I would suck at baseball, but that doesn't mean they don't help some baseball players.
Yep, I would count them. I just looked at bb-ref war and of course it was going to be missing negro leaguers and there is no reason to ignore those who were obviously among the best.
He doesn't say they would make everyone equally good; he says that the evidence isn't being considered as a whole, and as a whole you have Bonds and McGwire and then you have the Adam Piatts.
The point is that the anti-steroid crusaders such as Andy only want to look at the Bonds's and McGwires. Andy literally has based his entire argument on Bonds's late-career surge.
He did stay healthy for those years. More or less.
I mean, I get that the minor leagues aren't MLB. But they still play baseball. On grass. With cleats and a ball and bats and everything. He played a bunch of minor league games during that time. If he had been a regular on the M's instead, there's no reason to think he would have gotten injured more than he did with Calgary.
Not really, several arguments have been given to give players credit for war time service, Negro leagues and yes, for not playing in the majors when they were already ready. Ichiro is the only player who people are arguing to include those credits to the Japanese league, and most people who do that, are using it as an argument to augment Ichiro's hof case, not as an argument in and of itself(which is why Matsui or Sadaharu Oh isn't included in those arguments, they don't have a legitimate ML case to use as a baseline)
The problem is that his MLE's aren't really impressive at all, and of course the fact that Edgar couldn't stay healthy when he was in the majors playing third base. What makes anyone think that would have changed when he was younger?
I have Edgar equal to Larry Walker, I don't think a couple of average seasons is going to make any difference, and that is assuming a couple of average seasons, when it looks to me like that is a very optimistic take on his ML performance. To say he had shown the ability to hit big league pitching, is a stretch. A 93 ops+ in 280 pa is more indicative of a guy who needed a little more seasoning.
edgar is a borderline hall of fame candidate and is being treated as such.
on a persona level my opinion is 'no' but if he were voted in i wouldn't be outraged. edgar is by all accounts a swell guy
and he was a heckuva hitter
now if dick allen were inducted...................................
The list as described in the article works as a PED discounter's ballot. Posnanski doesn't actually say he's a discounter, but reading between the lines...
His MLEs weren't that good. He's moving from an offensive context of about 5.5 runs per game to something around 4.5. Takes away almost all of his power. As I said before, his most likely comp is Dave Magadan, but he wouldn't be the first walk heavy guy to struggle at the major league level. Walks are the least consistent part of the transition from minors to majors.
Oh he should have been playing on merit. He really was likely to have given the Mariners more than Jim Presly
Okay, if you consider them as a whole, you still have to consider them though, right? I get what you're saying, there isn't a conclusive correlation, but I don't see Adam Piatt as conclusive evidence a correlation either. I guess maybe Joe is saying the onus is on the anti-steroids crusaders, but since the evidence you would need to arrive at such a conclusive is super-secret, I don't think we should totally dismiss it as he seems to be doing.
I don't think PED suspicion should disqualify anyone from the Hall, but it certainly does raise my eyebrows at some of their achievements.
Of course that is a factually in correct statement(the first part)
Walker 8030 pa
Edgar 8674 pa.
The problem here is that you're using the vagueness of correlation to argue correlation.
A. Barry Bonds was rumored to use PEDs.
B. Adam Piatt was rumored/tested positive to use PEDs.
C. Manny Alexander was arrested with PEDs in his possession.
D. Jordan Schafer was arrested with PEDs in his possession.
There is no conclusion to draw from this set of data, about the use of PEDs on performance. Any conclusion is neither cogent nor valid.
Sure. But Magadan was a perfectly cromulent hitter. I think most 'Edgar deserved better' folks would be perfectly willing to posit a Magadan year as a decent guess for 87-89.
I don't know of anyone who thinks it was LIKELY that Edgar would have raked starting in 1987 - just that it was pretty clear he was roughly league average and exhibited potential to be better (which was, of course, realized a few years later).
Getting back to Pos, his ballot is exactly my ballot. And it's a copy of Larry Stone's as well.
--molitor only moved to dh because he kept getting hurt playing defense
--when not hurt molitor wasn't just an ok defender, he was good.
--molitor was one of the best baserunners of his era
basically, molitor had a breadth of things he brought to the table save for resistance to injury. edgard only brought a great bat.
i know as a brewer fan i am deemed biased but based on the above which are all factually accurate points i think there is a real difference between the two players
Based on?
Couldn't run to save his life, though.
a. dismiss it
b. take it into account subjectively
c. defer voting for them until later, in case super-secret info becomes available
If you do (b) on the basis of on-field performance, you're adjusting for the context of the individual player relative to history. That's fine, but you also need to adjust his competition - non-HOF-level hitters, defense, pitchers - relative to history. It's one thing to argue that Barry Bonds wouldn't have been in the top 3 in history without PEDs, but it's another to suggest, had there been no PED use by anyone during his career, Barry Bonds wouldn't have been far better than the rest of the league by leaps and bounds. You can go down the list all the way to Todd Walker, and it's hard to say one player is out of the HOF after adjustment but was in before adjustment. I don't think it changes the vote, at least not materially.
If you do (b) based on character, I find it incredibly hard to exclude someone based on suspicion of character, instead of actual evidence of character.
If you do (c), realistically that train ain't coming. I don't see a need to wait for it, but I don't object to waiting. Then again, why vote for anyone until their 15th year of eligibility? You never know what you'll learn, nor about whom you'll learn it. Maybe Derek Jeter killed JonBenet, and it would be a shame if he made it in despite that.
(a) is both a viable option, as well as roughly equivalent to (b) based on on-field performance, based on what little we know.
If he's not on the field, he's doing no one any good. I don't see how him not playing and not being productive makes him better than Martinez.
Thanks for catching that. I'd missed it when I put together the spreadsheet. Another nitpick, it's actually now:
87, 63, 60, 51, 51, 47, 46, 39, 31, 22 totalling 497 for McGwire. Not sure where you're getting the season of 36 from.
68, 62, 57, 52, 52, 48, 45, 43, 31, 30 totalling 488. Still extraordinarily close and no clear advantage for McGwire (beyond the per PA argument you like to make but which I'm just not buying :-)
--Molitor had nearly 7000(6833) plate appearances as a position player. (at roughly .304/.363/.445/.808 while playing primarily 2b/3b--over 1200 games at 3b/2b/ss)
Molitor should never be compared to a guy who is more or less a pure Dh, yes he had 5334 plate appearances as a DH, but that is out over 12,000 in his career.
Me neither... was looking or cutting and pasting must have looked at it wrong.
I think that it's pretty clear that McGwire was the better hitter, quality of hitting is a rate stat, value is a cumulative stat. Mcgwire is clearly the better quality hitter, Edgar only makes it close because of health.
To get him there requires you to rely heavily on WAR. The problem with judging pitchers across eras is that modern pitchers get a lot more strikeouts, while older pitchers threw a lot more innings. So you have issues with how you account for that.
If you do some form of a "defense adjustment" then you end up with large penalties for some pitchers. Alternately, since WAR is a career stat based on the modern era of baseball, you end up with statements like Tim Hudson (51.1 career WAR) being better than Sandy Koufax (50.3 WAR). This is how you end up with Mike Mussina (who most people view as borderline) being considered the 20th best starter in the history of the game.
The other problem that you have is that your list of greatest pitchers of all time ends up being really recent. Is Curt Schilling better than Whitey Ford? WAR says that he is, fairly easily. Whitey had a higher ERA+ in almost an identical number of innings. Carl Hubbell's another example, as is Hal Newhouser. Despite Bob Gibson pitching 700 more innings than Schilling at around the same rate, WAR says Schilling is within a win of him.
I think that WAR is really difficult to use to compare between eras for pitchers.
I don't. I think he's electable as a DH based on what he did at the ML level, but I recognzie I'm in the minority there. He is clearly the greatest DH in the 40 year history of the position/role and an all time great hitter. It seems some people think being a DH is easy, but my impression is there are more players who express a dislike of the position/role and find it difficult to only hit without taking the field in the other half of the inning. I also believe if it truly were so easy, we would have more great ones by now. Instead, after Edgar, we have Ortiz, a distant second, and Travis Hafner, a distant third to Ortiz's distant second.
If you correct for unearned runs allowed, this advantage goes away. If I'm reading the WAR tables correctly, at least, I get Schilling's RA+ as 134, and Ford's as 128. Ford also spent the vast majority of his career pitching in front of excellent defenses.
There is an adjustment in WAR that accounts for the differing ERAs of starters and relievers after 1960. If you don't buy that, it'll make Schilling look worse compared to Ford or Hubbell, but probably not enough to let Ford catch him; this adjustment isn't factored into the above RA+ calculation.
I agree about the conclusion of war, but you can get Schilling there without using war at all. Use era+ and recognize that Schilling is hurt in era+ comparisons. Among pitchers with over 2500 ip Schilling is 20th all time.
Heck is Schilling better than Whitey Ford? It's a legitimate debate, which only accents how good Schilling is, not hurts his case. Whitey Ford was a no doubt hofer, went in on the second ballot, scored in the high 60's on his first ballot. (same ballot that Warren Spahn only got 83% of the votes) Could I make a case for Schilling over Ford? Yes, the other way around? Yes. I gave a list earlier of 18 no doubters in my mind better than Schilling, I personally said I don't see him as a top 25(even though the more I look into it, the less confident I am in that assumption) is a top 30 all time pitcher a hofer? top 40? Where is the cutoff for no doubters?
I absolutely agree with this. Schilling is the poster boy for both 1. Don't just look at ERA 2. War also has flaws when comparing eras. Even with the flaws, I just don't see how you can keep Schilling off of your ballot.
Ah, I see what you're saying now. OK, from that perspective McGwire would get a slight edge as the better hitter, but I still wouldn't say it's a big edge. Thanks for clarifying!
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