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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, November 22, 2021
The ballot for the 2022 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame class was released Monday, and it’s headlined by some huge names in their 10th and final year on the ballot—- Curt Schilling, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens—as well as notable newcomers, like Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz….
The big-name newcomers would be A-Rod and Big Papi, trickling down to Jimmy Rollins and Mark Teixeira. Some other notable first-timers include Joe Nathan, Jonathan Papelbon, Tim Lincecum, Jake Peavy, Justin Morneau, Carl Crawford and Prince Fielder.
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1. DL from MN Posted: November 22, 2021 at 12:48 PM (#6053986)The only "what were they thinking" addition is Papelbon, though I suppose among relievers he is not too far behind Nathan or even Wagner, and if you're going to consider relievers at all
And I guess that Howard and Morneau are clearly not HOFers, and shouldn't even have been MVPs. But for a while both were fine ballplayers.
1) Is this the most players on HOF voting history to "age off" of a ballot at once?
2) That is a tremendous number of checkmarks, or ballot slots, about to open up after 10 years of stagnation. I'd have to look at Ryan's data to answer this question, but I wonder how many voters over the last nine years have voted for most/all of these PED candidates, and hit the 10-player maximum? And of those who have been voting for BB/RC and Schilling (and to a lesser extent, Sosa), who are the players most often getting left off because of them?
3) What is most likely to happen to Clemens and Bonds:
a) Nothing different - the people who vote for them still will; and the ones who never have, still won't.
b) A chunk of voters have been waiting until year 10 to vote for them, feeling like making them twist in the wind for a decade is their way of delivering a penalty for their past behavior.
c) They actually lose some votes, as a number of voters realize they are not going to get to 75% this year, so they'll open up those slots on their ballot for players who still have years remaining, have always been their 11th choice on a crowded ballot, etc.
I think it will be A. Although I have always supported both (as well as Schilling, his off-the-field stuff as awful as it is), it has taken something that I've always loved - the Hall of Fame voting discussion - and made it less fun. I am sick of it, and hope ARod and Ortiz will not turn into 10 more years of the same thing.
1. Has Curt Schilling kept his name out of the headlines and his big trap shut enough the past year to gain the 4% he needs to get in? (Yes, barely).
2. Do enough voters think Bonds and Clemens have spent enough years in the steroid penalty box to let them in on their last ballot? (I will say yes).
3. Do Ortiz and A-Rod replace Bonds and Clemens in the steroid sin bin? Does only A-Rod land there with Big Papi debuting over 50%? (A-Rod goes into the 10-year box, Papi escapes).
4. How much support does Omar Vizquel lose after his Neanderthal behavior? (Falls below 20%)
5. Who keeps building significantly on past gains? Rolen? Helton? Sheffield? Others? (Only Rolen, and the gain isn’t that big).
6. Who falls off the ballot this time round from last year aside from those who time out at ten years? (Hudson, Hunter, Buehrle).
7. Which newcomers besides Ortiz and A-Rod make it above the 5% mark? (Crawford, Teixeira, Rollins, Howard (that MVP gets him to 5%), Papelbon.)
8. Does either new closer nominee make it over 5%? (Papelbon does, Nathan does not.)
9. Does anyone get shut out? (Maybe AJ- everyone else gets at least one vote).
Call your early shots!
Schilling, idk, he seems kinda capped. I can't see people that aren't supporting him to flip.
I was just playing around with JAWS, changing the weighting of WAR/WAR7 from 50/50 to 40/60 and 30/70, and then looking to see how ordinal ranking might have changed.
In both cases the only difference in the top 14 guys was Manny and Helton flip flopping from 7-8 to 8-7.
Then you get down to #'s 15-16-17, which goes Kent, Ortiz, Teixera, and when you go to the 30/70 version Teixera goes up to 15th, then 16, Ortiz 17.
Anyway, this is just compared within this year's ballot, not all time, and not all that meaningful, but I found mild interesting that weighting Peak 7 years that much heavier than JAWS currently does produced almost no change in the ordinal ranking.
Oh, and my two cents on the PED class:
In for a penny, in for a pound.
Yes he does.
No but they get close.
Papi gets enough that he gets in next year. A-Rod I think does a lot better than Clemens/Bonds did to start and eventually gets in.
Won't be shocked if he drops off.
I think everyone makes significant gains. The steroid anti-voters are going to see a ballot with no (or 1 depending on how they see Ortiz) viable new candidates.
Hunter, Nathan, Teixeira, Howard stay on the ballot, the rest of the new guys are one and done. wouldn't bet much on any of the returnees getting booted.
AJ and Peavy are the guys I'd expect to be most likely to miss out. Amusingly they seem to be two guys on the perception spectrum. No one liked AJ and everyone seemed to love Peavy.
As much as I think he clearly had a HOF career his is an induction speech I would pass on listening to.
It will be very very close. A handful of votes in either direction will likely make the difference.
I think you have this correct.
He wasn't getting in anyway, so not much of an issue here as far as ballot is concerned, other than maybe helping Rolen pick up a few votes.
I think Helton makes a surprising surge
Hunter
Rollins and Howard.......I know...I know...
Is anyone out there stumping for Nathan ? If someone is making a high profile case for him then maybe that influences enough voters to keep him over 5%, but I kinda doubt it. People just don't like Papelbon, and that will hurt him. So I say neither get over 5%
Peavy maybe
WILL get elected: maybe Ortíz, maybe maybe maybe Rolen. I just don't see anybody else making it (even Schilling).
On the January 6 riots:
After not being elected to the HOF:
You don't have to scroll back very far this year to find some really awful stuff on his Twitter feed. I don't think he's going to be winning over any new converts (although trashing Shaughnessy does make him slightly more sympathetic!)
That being said, 71% is really, really close. He does not need that many more votes. So I think he will make it, but not with any great degree of certainty.
Bonds and Clemens, I don't think will make it. They have barely moved the needle in recent years. I don't think they were experiencing a "make them wait" penalty. I think, for more than 25%, it was a "I'm never going to vote for them" penalty.
A-Rod is definitely in the same box, I think.
Ortiz is not. His name was never associated with steroids to the same degree, with the same amount of publicity, as Bonds and Clemens and A-Rod. Some will dig it up when commenting on his vote, but for most voters, I don't think there is that same degree of knee-jerk animosity. It also helps him that in his last, post-testing years, he continued to mash, and did not turn up in any new scandals, unlike A-Rod. He posted a 154 OPS+ his last four years, which included an historically great World Series in 2013, and a league-leading OPS in his last year.
The DH thing may hurt, of course, but that stigma has been lessened by Edgar's induction (and possibly Baines', although that was a VC pick).
I think he gets in, but not this year.
- Only Ortiz gets in (and barely)
- Bonds, Clemens, Schilling all stall out around 70%
- ARod debuts around 50%
- Rolen makes a big jump that puts him in line for election next year
- Helton also makes enough progress that he looks like a lock for future BBWAA election
- Andruw makes a jump that puts him into contention for future BBWAA election (but not a lock)
- Vizquel's support cuts in half
- Manny, Sheffield, Pettitte, and Kent make slight progress, but not nearly enough to give them any chance of future election (by the writers)
He's 10th in saves. Maybe it was the way his career ended, with such a quiet whimper; one day he's the closer for the Nats, next day he is released, couldn't even get a spring training invite the next year from anyone, and that was that. The Sox sites I frequent never had any sort of retrospective on his career, no what-if's, just pfft just another retired ballplayer, not a could-have-been HoFer if his fastball hadn't gone out to pasture so soon. Maybe his goofy persona was to blame there, shrug...
Therefore, I think enough writers that might have otherwise been hesitant about Ortiz decide to throw him a bone and he gets in.
If the Era Committees select some players then the writers can send in blank ballots. My least favorite scenario is only Schilling gets elected.
Gonna have some big crowds in Cooperstown to see a few dead guys get inducted.
I suspect schilling doesn’t get in and in fact loses quite a few votes on the theory that the old-timers committee will immediately put him in. However, inwoikd the be surprised to see him go in either.
Whatever chances vizquel had have been ruined but for him, he needs to claw his way back up as far as possible to give himself a shot at the Vets committee. He’s playing a different game than everyone else in that regard
I can’t see Ortiz going in this year - I know most people think he will but DH, PEDs - I just think there’s not 75% of the people who think anyone with this pedigree can be first ballot. And what was that shooting all about ?
Lot of interesting first timers - I wonder who will get any traction
Clemens, Ortiz, Rolen, Schilling, Sosa.
Ortiz will make it in within a few years. Maybe first-ballot.
A-Rod has no chance with the writers ever, IMO.
I doubt Schilling gets in with the writers. Didn't he ask to be removed from the ballot this year? Even though the HOF didn't honor that request, I think he'll lose enough votes from that to keep him out.
Basically his entire Hall-worthy career was post-testing. His only connection was the 2003 list, his first year in Boston (I can't find exactly when those tests were administered).
That said, I have no idea how he'll fare, and find the certainty of others perplexing.
If I had to bet, I'd put my money on another shutout. Schilling's got a chance, but I thought for sure he'd get in last year, and he went nowhere.
I think Rolen gets in with the 2023 class.
Unless I'm mistaken, the only evidence against Sammy Sosa was that he was one of 104 players to test positive during that same 2003 MLB "anonymous survey." USA Today
Yes, it's the same for Sammy. The point I was making is that it wasn't like Ortiz kept hitting after testing came in. He didn't become David Ortiz until after reportedly failing that 2003 test.
I think Shilling and Ortiz make it.
MLB started testing in 2003. Starting in 2004 players got two tests without prior notice. Starting in 2005 they were tested year-round. Here's Bonds from 2003-end of career
341/529/749
362/609/812
(effectively entire year on DL)
270/454/545
276/480/565
He led the league in OBP, five years after they started testing, and two years into the year-round testing, at age 42. His production did drop off between 2004 and 2006, but the man was also 41 years old and coming off an injury that cost him almost an entire season.
No one with anything more than rumors of steroid use has gotten elected yet. But it seems pretty clear that the electorate is going to find some excuse to vote for Ortiz. Unless Bonds also gets elected, it won't make any sense, but they'll come up with something.
As for the slate of candidates: very strong. A few of those guys would be the worst player at their position in the hall of fame, but they were all excellent baseball players for at least a while.
Yea, I can't imagine the political thorniness of a committee circumventing the baseball writers' vote for any of these guys. The committee seems more to serve as a "hey, this guy got overlooked" function, not to reverse a message from voters that a guy shouldn't be in for reasons other than what is on his BB-Ref page.
Maybe 20 years from now minds will have changed.
Mark McGwire made the first Today's Game ballot.
It's not like there's a broad consensus amongst the writers that Bonds and Clemens don't belong in the HOF -- both guys were above 60% last election and will likely increase their total this year. I don't see the VC electing them right away but it wouldn't surprise me if it happens at some point.
If you get a small enough sample it's pretty easy to randomly get a person with 60% support above 75%.
You're absolutely right, and can you blame them? What would be the point of alienating a large percentage of your potential visitors? Not to mention that it would probably feed into conspiracy theories about The Learned Elders of Cooperstown.
Not at all.
My only prediction about anyone mentioned in this thread is that Lincecum doesn't ever come close.
No argument there. I think you can make a distinction between the Ortiz/Bonds/Clemens/Sammy group of pre-policy juicers vs. Arod/Manny/Palmeiro, but not Ortiz over Clemens or Barry.
Exactly, and keeping them off of the VC ballot would certainly be "picking a side". The Hall should treat these guys just like anyone else who came very close to election -- put them on the VC ballot and let the committee vote as it wants to.
Hey, why not. The Orange Skinned Wonder might show up, or even be invited by his Schill. That could draw YUUUGE crowds to Cooperstown. And isn't that what the Hall of Fame is really all about -- financial gain for the village of Cooperstown?
5 at the most and if you don't get at least 50% of the vote you're off.
No, he'll drop below 70, IMO.
"2. Do enough voters think Bonds and Clemens have spent enough years in the steroid penalty box to let them in on their last ballot?"
No, they'll fall between 65% and 70%.
"3. Do Ortiz and A-Rod replace Bonds and Clemens in the steroid sin bin? Does only A-Rod land there with Big Papi debuting over 50%?"
A-Rod, yes. Papi debuts over 60% and makes it either in '23 or '24.
"4. How much support does Omar Vizquel lose after his Neanderthal behavior?"
He drops to the low 40s and perhaps just below 40.
"5. Who keeps building significantly on past gains? Rolen? Helton? Sheffield? Others?"
Rolen, Helton, and Wagner gain significantly. Sheffield, Jones, and Kent make more modest gains.
"6. Who falls off the ballot this time round from last year aside from those who time out at ten years?"
Hudson. Hunter, Abreu, and Buehrle have a cushion.
"7. Which newcomers besides Ortiz and A-Rod make it above the 5% mark?"
Rollins and Nathan. Teixeira comes close, but is short. Papelbon gets some scattered votes, same w/ Lincecum, Howard, Fielder, Peavy, Crawford.
"8. Does either new closer nominee make it over 5%?"
Yes, Nathan does.
"9. Does anyone get shut out?"
Pierzynski only.
There are a bunch of folks OK with his previous garbage who draw the line at supporting insurrection against the United States. Coups ain’t cool.
Some people get "cancelled" for a tweet or a photo from 20 or 40 years ago, and now some people want to cancel what Schilling did on the field because of something he says 14 years after he retired.
I never rooted for that motherfucker from the day the Orioles stupidly traded him, but he never trashed the game he was playing, and he put up a solid Hall of Fame career. AFAIC that overrides all the political garbage he spews.
Ortiz gets dinged for each of those items, especially the first and last, but I think the bigger-than-life narrative eventually trumps all 4. '22 or '23.
I think no, but it was about needing to clear the ballot and the PED guys were the ones soaking up lots of votes. I think the Hall wants a steady stream of whoever, but the living Hall of Famers - who were headed by Joe Morgan - have been quite an obstacle.
However, y'know, the whole being a "scumbag traitor" sorta "trumps" the stats.
BBWAA Candidate bWAR WAR Rk BBF Rk
Barry Bonds 162.7 4 3
Roger Clemens 139.2 8 10
Alex Rodriguez 117.5 16 14
Manny Ramirez 69.3 108 81
Curt Schilling 79.5 65 85
Scott Rolen 70.1 101 156
Gary Sheffield 60.5 181 158
Andruw Jones 62.7 161 177
Todd Helton 61.8 170 231
Sammy Sosa 58.6 206 236
Jeff Kent 55.5 241 241
David Ortiz 55.3 244 260
Bobby Abreu 60.2 187 262
Andy Pettitte 60.2 187 274
Tim Hudson 57.9 212 278
==== HOF Line ====
Mark Buehrle 59.1 200 343
Billy Wagner 27.7 974 346
Mark Teixeira 50.6 298 373
Jimmy Rollins 47.6 353 488
Torii Hunter 50.7 296 557
Jake Peavy 39.2 560 589
Joe Nathan 26.7 594
Jon. Papelbon 23.3 687
Carl Crawford 39.1 561 691
Omar Vizquel 45.6 392 740
Justin Morneau 27.0
Prince Fielder 23.8
AJ. Pierzynski 23.8
Tim Lincecum 19.5
Ryan Howard 14.7
The Hall of Fame line is at #297 in the BBF ranking project. That's the point where the number of hall of famers not listed yet is equal to the number of eligible non-hall-of-famers listed ahead of them. So far 850 players have been ranked.
1. No. I think he falls short again.
2. No, I think they fall just short again.
3. Ortiz falls JUST short of getting elected this year. ARod got busted for PEDs TWICE, and was suspended for it. His case is SO much worse than anyone else's (other than Manny Ramirez), I can't see him getting in if they don't let Bonds/Clemens in.
4. Vizquel disappears from view and drops to about 31% of the vote.
5. Rolen is the only one with a significant gain. I think he breaks 60%.
6. Hunter and Hudson drop off, but Buehrle hangs on.
7. ARod, Ortiz, Teixeira, and Rollins are the only ones that survive the 5% minimum.
8. None of the new closers make it over 5%.
9. A.J. and Crawford get shut out.
Most writers who vote for PED guys have said one of the following:
1. They were hall of famers before they cheated
2. Some guys accused of PEDs used them before MLB said you couldn’t so I’m giving them a pass up to that day
3. The original tests are flawed /not publicly known (The new Ortiz rule)
4. There’s a lot of evidence but we don’t have a positive test (the bonds rule )
5. They used them only to accelerate rehab (the Petitte rule) - btw, this is one I am ok with
What is the standard that allows you to vote for A-Rod ? He lost Jennifer Lopez, don’t take this too?
Insurrection, defined: a violent uprising against an authority or government (Oxford Languages)
That is 100%, exactly what it was, and if you're too self-righteous or deluded to see it, that's your problem. But don't act like you're right and smart and everybody else is talking "nonsense."
- The top 9 and #11 Jeff Kent are (or will be, re: A-Rod) inducted.
- Sosa, Abreu, Ortiz, Pettite, Hudson, Buehrle, and Wagner are all being hotly debated this year. (Abreu, Sosa, and Pettite are the three highest returning players from the 2020 ballot.)
- No one below Billy Wagner is a serious candidate.
Fair question. I would vote for A-Rod just like I would for the rest of the PED crew. I used to be as anti-PED induction as anyone until the Hall inducted Selig (the commish who could have taken a tough stand but didn’t), managers like LaRussa, Cox and Torre who benefited by using players who they should have known were juicing (it is impossible to have your head stuck so far up your butt that you didn’t know when we mere fans did), and tolerate the BBWAA honoring colleagues who had to have known players were roiding but did not report it. That convinced me that it was unfair to make the players the only ones who should suffer a HOF penalty.
Baseball did not abrogate any records nor did they void any world titles. If baseball is willing to accept the outcomes of players using, then that is enough for me to now support their HOF induction. Baseball now has a punishment system that includes escalating suspensions leading to possible banishment. If baseball were to banish someone, then I would not vote for that player. Since they haven’t, I would vote for them.
Just my opinion, and I won’t argue that anyone who disagrees with it is wrong. Just how I see it…
November 23rd -- the day you didn't actually read the comment.
It's also not an unreasonable position to think the penalties for PED use should be exactly what MLB rules say it is, and nothing more. Baseball can and should police itself, ARod served his time, voters don't need to get their pound of flesh too, etc, etc.
Schilling - 76%
Ortiz - 71%
Bonds - 67%
Clemens - 67%
Rolen - 59%
Wagner - 51%
Helton - 50%
Vizquel - 46%
Sheffield -45%
A-Rod -42%
Jones - 40%
Kent - 34%
Ramirez - 31%
Sosa -20%
Pettitte -16%
Buehrle - 10%
Abreu -9%
Hunter - 8%
Hudson - 4.5%
Teixeira - 3%
Rollins - 3%
Papelbon, Nathan, Fielder, Howard, Lincecum - a sprinkling of votes
Rest - Less than 3 votes total.
2023 -Beltran makes an appearance, but doesn't get in first ballot; the lack of other new viable candidates means Rolen makes a run (probably falls a bit short, but gets in for 2024) and Helton, nicely set up for election in 2024/2025. Ortiz gets in with 80-82%.
2024- Beltre's a lock and will be 90%+, Mauer should get in as well, but could see him in the 80's. Rolen creeps over with like 77% and Helton's around 68-70%. Sheffield winds up with about 53%. Utley will struggle, but won't get buried. Wright's got a shot at 5%.
2025 - Helton creeps over with 75%. Ichiro! is 95%+. CC Sabathia debuts over 50% (possibly much higher). Beltran may get in around now as well. Wagner has stalled at about 60-65% and A-Rod is stuck around 50-55%. Kinsler and Pedroia could see a second ballot.
1. Has Curt Schilling kept his name out of the headlines and his big trap shut enough the past year to gain the 4% he needs to get in? NO, BUT GETS IN WITH YEAR 10 BOOST.
2. Do enough voters think Bonds and Clemens have spent enough years in the steroid penalty box to let them in on their last ballot? NO, THEY GET A BOOST BUT WIND UP AROUND 67%.
3. Do Ortiz and A-Rod replace Bonds and Clemens in the steroid sin bin? Does only A-Rod land there with Big Papi debuting over 50%? A-ROD STARTS IN the 40% RANGE, HE'S LUMPED IN WITH RAMIREZ, BUT IS FAR SUPERIOR PLAYER. BIG PAPI HAS A FEW DOUBTERS BUT DEBUTS CLOSE TO 70% AND IS SECOND YEAR ELECTEE.
4. How much support does Omar Vizquel lose after his Neanderthal behavior? CONTINUES TO DROP SOME, LIKELY IN THE LOW 40'S.
5. Who keeps building significantly on past gains? Rolen? Helton? Sheffield? Others? ROLEN AND HELTON AND MAYBE JONES, HOWEVER THEY WERE ADDS TO MANY FULL BALLOTS, IN THE PRESENCE OF A-ROD and ORTIZ, THEY WILL INCREASE LESS AS THEY ARE CANDIDATES TO BE REMOVED TO MAKE ROOM FOR A-ROD AND ORTIZ WHO MAY BE MORE QUALIFIED IN THE EYES OF SOME OF THESE VOTERS.
6. Who falls off the ballot this time round from last year aside from those who time out at ten years? HUDSON AS HE LIMPED ACROSS THE LINE LAST TIME.
7. Which newcomers besides Ortiz and A-Rod make it above the 5% mark? NONE, ROLLINS AND TEIXEIRA ARE CLOSEST.
8. Does either new closer nominee make it over 5%? NO.
9. Does anyone get shut out? PEAVY, CRAWFORD AND PIERZYNSKI.
If anyone can explain, would appreciate it?
76 has it, but to clarify a bit more war includes a positional adjustment if you look at b-ref it's roughly rpos divided by 10, so he gets 12 war simply because he was a catcher for a long time.
dWar is basically positional adjustment added to rfield (in this case -43) which results in a total of 77 which based upon context comes out to 8.4 dWar.
oWar is rpos + rbat + rdp + rbaser + rRep (notice the addition of rRep, batters are compared to replacement level, while fielders are compared to average players, this is a necessary component of war) in this case you have 290 runs which based upon context comes out to 28.4 oWar.
War takes all these components adds them up, but doesn't double count rpos.
That is sort of my thought. The penalty (for fighting, throwing a spitball, corked bat, whatever) is whatever the league decides at that time. If I bump an umpire and get suspended 30 games, the only harm to my future HOF case is fewer hits, HRs, RBI, Ws, Ks, etc due to the missed playing time. If I (or A-Rod) miss an entire year due to a suspension and still manage to have career stats that overwhelmingly merit election, then the suspension and the reason for it shouldn't invalidate my accomplishments.
As a fan of the former team in Cleveland, it is weird to think that of those Tribe players of the 1990s, only the skinny third baseman will get in the HOF. I'm not counting Eddie Murray, Dave Winfield, or Jack Morris since none of them are in the HOF for their accomplishments in Cleveland. Loftin, Ramirez, Belle, Baerga, Sandy Alomar (two time Minor League Player of the Year and ROY) and even Vizquel had better odds of a HOF career in 1995.
If MLB doesn't think PED use is automatically disqualifying, and the HOF itself doesn't, then I don't see it as my job as a (fake) voter to overrule them.
(YMMV, of course)
Mark Buehrle 59.1 200 343
Billy Wagner 27.7 974 346
Mark Teixeira 50.6 298 373
Jimmy Rollins 47.6 353 488
Torii Hunter 50.7 296 557
ANY system that ranks Wagner as having similar, more value or some other arbitrary ranking within the vicinity of the other 4 guys on this list is stuffed.
I fully get that, but Wagner is not going to be compared to starting pitchers, he's going to be compared to relieves in the hall already. The leverage of a reliever in todays game (meaning post 80's or 90's) is a real thing. Closers actually have real value to a team during the actual season and are important to them.
Assuming that was directed at post 85, and I hate this stat, but look at the pitching WPA on pretty much any team and the closer is going to be the guy that is top three regardless of number of innings pitched. The Dodgers, one of the best staffs in baseball, their wpa number two and three guys are their trusted relievers. (that wasn't the case prior to the 80's for the most part)
And yes I understand the flaw with wpa as much as anyone on this site, which also means I understand it's strengths, and the narrative it's telling, and relievers and closers are so much more important in todays game than in the past, and wpa does reflect this. In the past those wpa moments were going to starters, they are now going to relievers, and the ones that can do the job, are doing the job. (Wpa is honestly only a useful stat for relief pitching and pinch hitting....It's borderline useless outside of those contexts)
In his 2018 book “Baseball Cop,” Eddie Dominguez, a former member of MLB’s Department of Investigations, details Ortiz’s close relationship with a convicted Dominican drug dealer nicknamed “Monga.” According to Dominguez, “Monga” had been a constant companion of Ortiz in 2005 and 2006, with access to the Red Sox clubhouse, and among other things was alleged to have placed large bets on baseball, even on the Red Sox, at a Dominican barbershop in Boston, before being arrested by ICE and deported. Despite all this, baseball has looked the other way on Ortiz’s “integrity/character” issues.
Is this widely known? I’ve never heard this come up before in the Ortiz candidacy discussions or is this just a writer spinning things to the worst possible effect for Ortiz?
"Widely known"? Nope, it seems some of the people who hyperventilate over any suspicion of PEDs are holding their tongue over Ortiz rumors. Don't know if it because he is more likeable than other targets, or what. Personally, I don't think PEDs should be a HOF consideration. Just as with throwing a spitball or fighting, if you get caught doing it, you get punished with a suspension and lose the ability to accumulate stats for duration of the punishment. If someone is able to put up HOF numbers despite missing playing time, for whatever reason, then base your vote on what is accomplished on the playing field.
Jack McCaffery- here’s the article with his choices. I will leave it to others to comment… https://www.delcotimes.com/2021/11/28/mccaffery-jimmy-rollins-ryan-howard-passed-hall-of-fame-eye-test/
Lynn Henning- Holdovers Bonds, Clemens, Helton, Rolen and schilling to go with newcomer A-Rod. (Henning’s ae5icle is behind a paywall…)
10 player ballot, but why you drop Bonds but keep Sosa is beyond me…
I'm not trying to pick an internet fight, and you don't have to respond, Jolly Old.
And maybe you've explained this before (believe me, I don't keep a diary on everyone who visits this site) but why would your ballot not include Bonds?
McCaffrey's is just odd- voted for Rollins and Howard (because they're Phillies) but didn't vote Rolen or Schilling or Wagner. Keeps Vizquel, Kent, Abreu, Jones and Helton. I mean if you're anti PED and anti-stuff that Schilling stands for I get it other than Rolen, but it's still odd.
I like Henning's - I think he makes demerits for suspected PED use, but Bonds, Clemens and A-Rod are so far over the line that even if you cut them in half they have hall of fame stats. Then you've got Schilling, Helton and Rolen as the otherwise three most qualified guys by some metrics. The otehr PED guys get some demerits and its enough to drop them below his HOF line.
Steven Marcus' I've posted about on another thread - he's consistent (ly bad), but consistent with very small hall, no PED's
Joe Cowley's is good, full ballot dropped his most borderline but would vote for them in a less crowded year. (Voted Bonds, Clemens, Helton, Jones, Ortiz, A-Rod, Rolen, Schilling, Sheffield, Vizquel)
Filip Bondy's is also good, appears to do the same as Cowley (Voted Bonds, Clemens, Helton, Ortiz, Ramirez, A-Rod, Rolen, Schilling, Sosa, Wagner)
Jon Heyman has Bonds (but no Clemens), Jones, Kent, Rolen and Schilling. If he had Clemens, that's not a terrible 6 (He is consistent with A-ROd and Manny)
Sadi Lebron - I can't figure out. He's got Manny but no A-Rod, Clemens but no Bonds, Added Abreu, but dropped Vizquel and Bonds and found room for Ortiz. Non-US players have done well with him when there is a case and he's also been someone who's joined on the bandwagon once a player starts to get close to election (Mussina, Edgar Martinez, Walker, Rolen and Schilling in recent years). He does have a full ballot every year too.
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