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Monday, December 12, 2022
Baseball Hall of Fame tracker 2023
Baldrick
Posted: December 12, 2022 at 09:22 AM | 748 comment(s)
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Who knows? Take a look at the ballot by Sadiel Lebron. He adds Buerhle, Kent, Vizquel and Wagner while dropping Ramirez, but keeping Abreu, Helton, Jones, Pettitte and Rolen. But that's only 9, you say, and he voted for 10, well he also voted for K-Rod, so apparently K-Rod > Manny Ramirez, as are Vizquel and Wagner. Maybe? Who the #### knows! There's simply no logic to some ballots, IMO.
So you're saying that LeBron should shut up and dribble? ;-)
As I like to point out, there is no rule you have to vote for the ten best candidates, if you have a 10 man ballot, then you put your choice of ten. It's when they don't use ten spots and vote for someone like Vizquel over a Rolen or Ramirez that I question their ballots.
Definitely :-)
The primary criteria for voting is the players record and playing ability. Then there's some mumbo jumbo about sportsmanship and character, and then it's back to contribution to their teams. In other words it starts and ends with their baseball skills and performance. That's pretty much a "rule you have to vote for the ten best candidates." You can choose to ignore that if you like, but it's clear to me what the intent is, and that is to elect the best baseball players. If you have a limit of 10 slots, you should vote for the 10 best. I would grant strategic voting could be in play during some recent years, but generally speaking it's vote for the best guys on the ballot.
If BBWAA members are going to apply "integrity" to HOF candidates, why won't those members do the same to their own colleagues who cast ballots like this?
No it isn't, it's a rule you have to vote for candidates you feel are hof worthy, if you think that there are 12 worthy candidates, then you can choose which 10 to vote for, regardless of your ranking of their hof worthiness. nothing implies in the rules you have to vote for the best candidates, just worthy candidates.
Also, K-Rod beat up his father-in-law at Citi Field.
Ok, so last year he thought Bonds and Vizquel were no longer worthy, but Abreu became worthy in year 3. Now this year Vizquel is worthy again, but Ramirez isn't and now Buerhle, Kent and Wagner are. But he voted for 10 so it doesn't matter, it's all good. Right? Got it. :-)
And then some new guys will join and the discussion will change back to the "obvious" guys. Beltre, mauer,ichiro, sabathia,utley, posey,Lester?, Molina and Pujols.
There's also a ton of guys who will get votes and siphon votes away from the current HOVG crop.
Not to worry, the next VC will undoubtedly elect Tim Salmon. After all, he never smoke, drank, or did drugs, never hit his wife or kids or had affairs, always went to church on time, and regularly volunteered to help starving orphans and abandoned puppy dogs. As far as the HoF is concerned anymore, that is all they need to know.
I could see Helton making a lot of gains. He picked up 7% to finish with 52% last year, his 4th, so he's at that sweet spot where voters will take a harder look and try to sift through the Coors numbers. He should benefit from more oxygen in the room with Bonds, Clemens and Schilling leaving the ballot.
Helton has a gain of 5 votes already (after a net 20 gain last year). Interesting that Helton has picked up 5 while Andruw has only gained 1.
I don't know; I think Buehrle (59 WAR) is being kept alive by the more SABR inclined voters. Lester (43 WAR) won't get the same support from them. Tim Hudson (58 WAR) was a better pitcher than Lester and barely missed being one and done, and then was gone after his second ballot.
Standards for starting pitchers will indeed need to drop, but I think it's jumping the gun a bit regarding Lester specifically. He debuted in 2006, just 5 years after Sabathia, 2 years after Greinke, 1 year after Verlander, and 2 years before Kershaw and Scherzer. IOW, at a time when it was still possible for starters to put up "traditional" HOF numbers. He's going to be compared to those 5 and found lacking (Lester is pretty similar to Adam Wainwright, actually). For the pitchers who came after the Sabathia/Greinke/Verlander/Kershaw/Scherzer group - the guys who debuted in the 2010's (Sale, deGrom, etc) - yes, they'll certainly need to be evaluated under a different lens.
Nah, it'll be Eckstein and his Grit factor. Actually, if you had to pick a 2002 Angel, Appier would actually make a better candidate than Salmon, Glaus or Lackey.
Mauer will get votes easily. He's exactly the sort of case the writers will want to vote for and will find reasons to. Likeable single-team guy with standout peak stats that made for easy stories, that's about as gift-wrapped for the writers as you can get (minus a title.) They won't care about the short-ish career or that half of it wasn't at catcher. First-ballot is a stretch, but I'd put the over-under at his 4th ballot year.
The best candidate from the 2002 Angels is probably their manager.
For me the most surprising recent championship team without a likely HOFer is the 2016 Cubs. At the time they felt stacked with great young talent, and it seemed inevitable that at least one of them would go on to have a HOF career. 6 years later, there's no one who looks like they have much of a chance anymore, right? Is Aroldis Chapman and his 26 IP for the Cubs that season their best shot?
Edit: Noting that we already covered Jon Lester earlier
Agree with most of this, but he was actually a catcher for 10 seasons, then 1B/DH for 5, which means even more love should be due him from voters. I guess you could say the last two seasons were more split between C/1B/DH, but all of his peak, the batting titles and the MVP were when his position was primarily catcher. Not saying JAWS is the be all, end all, but he's the only catcher above the average line who is not yet in, and with Simmons finally going in the next four behind him are also in. I would think, especially given the more open/less competitive ballot he'll debut on as well as being the first of these three catchers, that it would be under 4.
Well Buerhle is nearly 60 WAR and has a lot of great narrative. The perfect game, another no-no, great fielder, that holding the running game to like 1 steal a year thing, lead a team to WS, etc.
And for old school voters, the dude pitched 200+ innings every single year(except 198 in his last year). He was very good and very effective for a long time. No negative WAR seasons.
I have no issue with him being elected to the HOF. Lester is no where near a HOFer. Not enough bulk, not good enough peak
Mauer, Posey and Molina will all be elected sometime between years 3 and 7.
I'm not claiming to remember for sure, but look at that roster and the only ones I would have rated as having a decent shot were Bryant, Rizzo, and Hendricks. Bryant's the only one whose subsequent career would have surprised me. There's still a chance he can Paul Molitor his way to the Hall, too, so it could happen.
Heyward was a legit WAR darling before joining the Cubs though (30 WAR after his age 25 season).
That it is.
Here's something I'm 90% I actually do remember from back then: Heyward was kind of a case study in why I did not trust defensive WAR in those days.
Rizzo, Bryant, and Baez are all still decent players. The thing I wouldn't have predicted is that Bryant & Rizzo had already had their best seasons (which, caveat, caveat, they're still youngish and might surprise us) and Baez would never completely sort himself out as a hitter.
It depends on what you mean by extreme, but Jose Reyes comes to mind. He went from about a 3:1 K:BB in his first few years to get around K:BB parity in several later seasons.
Of course Baez is more extreme - I didn't realize how much so, but in the WS year he had a 7:1. He did get that down some but still, yikes.
Addison Russell was a top-5 prospect in baseball going into 2015, and was an All-Star in 2016 at age 22. I don't think anyone would haven predicted his on- and off-field issues effectively ending his career a few years later.
He is really interesting in this regard. I know what you're implying, of course, but I don't see how AAS usage helped in this way. He set a career high in K's at 28 by a pretty wide margin, but he also had set a career high in BB two years earlier. He then maintains that high K level, but simultaneously hits a new high in BB in each of the next four seasons, and tops 100 again in season five. This seems to me like he wasn't necessarily being pitched around given the still very high number of K's, but he does seem to have developed some better plate discipline, and he was clearly making much better/harder contact.
Indeed it is, but yours may not be that far off. He had call ups in both of the two seasons preceding 2016, a number 1 and top 10 pick by the Cubs, and he was a top 5 prospect in 2014 for both Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus, number 7 for MLB. He definitely had a lot of hype going in 2016 even if he hadn't yet had a big season, and in many ways he was still a rookie in 2016 although technically having exceeded rookie status in 2014.
I don't know that follows. I'm sure he was being pitched around more than he was earlier, but he was no doubt a little better (though not perfect) at laying off the crap than he previously had been.
Wagner has NO narrative, he was terrible in the playoffs. Postseason WPA of -0.87. In 8 playoff series his team won once. Buehrle wasn't dominant in the postseason but he has a ring and a net positive WPA.
In a testament to both how few innings he pitched AND how bad he was in the playoffs, if you roll his postseason numbers into his regular season ones, his career ERA jumps from 2.31 to 2.41.
"Following the World Series, Wagner criticized the Astros front office for not building a playoff worthy team. On November 3, Billy Wagner was informed that he had been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies"
"In a May 7, 2006 interview, Wagner stated that he was confronted by all of his former Phillies teammates in September 2005 after he had criticized their performance in the media by repeatedly saying that the Phillies had "no chance" of making the playoffs (which proved accurate, as the Phillies lost out on the playoffs by one game); Phillies left fielder Pat Burrell reported called Wagner a "rat.""
"On May 15, 2008, Wagner issued a tirade full of profanity against his teammates and coaches following the Mets' 1–0 loss in a game against the Washington Nationals."
The help Sammy got in sorting it out was Jeff Pentland arriving as the Cubs hitting coach in mid-97 and convincing Sammy after the season to rework his hitting approach and reconstruct his swing. Interesting to note that the increases in Sosa's walks through season five mentioned above also coincide with the years Pentland served as the hitting coach (from mid-97 through 2002).
I am not certain either. One possible interpretation. I like what Esteban Rivera shared in 146. Sometimes hitting coaches do make a big difference if they connect with the right player.
Well, it's early, but since these 22 voters haven't even figured out Buehrle is clearly better than K-Rod, I'm going to say never.
All of Rolens "fails" are coming from the "small hall" guys who have five or less on their ballot. So, it's still early for Scott.
He got 63% last year and has 5 more years on the ballot. I'd say if not now, he still has a good shot in the next four years.
That being said, Morris sat in the 60s for a few years but ultimately had to wait for the VC. And we all know about Schilling. So it's not a guarantee.
Rolen needs to pick up basically 1/3 of the people who didn't vote for him last year. We have a sample size of 6 such people so far and he has missed that mark by... one vote. It is WAY too early for doom and gloom in that regard.
Beltran is interesting so far - his percentage would be respectable for a first-time candidate if it holds up, but his voters have tremendous overlap with Manny and A-Rod (13 of his 15 voters include all 3). My suspicion based on early results is that he might be lumped into the general "cheater" category by the writers.
Morris absolutely would have gone in if he hadn't gotten walloped by the ballot crunch; his last two years saw Clemens/Schilling/Maddux/Glavine/Mussina all added to the ballot just among SP. No similar wave of players is inbound currently (though if Rolen misses this year he may have to wait until Beltre goes in).
If Rolen pulls a Schilling, of course, all bets are off.
Morris didn't hit 60 percent until his 13th year on the ballot, then, as Eric notes, he was hammered by the loaded class of newcomers in 2013/14. Ordinarily, he would have had a good chance of continuing his climb.
However, I will say Rolen's slow start this year is the first time The Duke's chronic pessimism on his candidacy doesn't feel completely nuts.
Bonds' numbers went up from 60.7% to 61.8% from 2020 to 2021 despite a net gain of zero returning voters.
Rolen got 86.7% of first-time voters last year and 84.6% in 2021. If that trend continues, it's going to help him. You also have to remember that anonymous votes don't count as flipped, even though they might be.
47 votes in 5 years is...not a lot of votes to flip
And the latter is more important than the former.
Yes, he's still very well positioned. But it would have been nice to see him convert more than 1 in 6 so far in the effort to make the podium this year (which helps those below him trying to climb the ranks).
I guess I just feel like...it's going to happen, it just might happen later than we'd hope. It's pretty much how I felt about Mussina heading into 2019.
I don't really see how it impacts the guys below him. Helton and Wagner were the only other guys at even 50% last year and are flipping votes at a fantastic rate regardless of Rolen's performance. Helton's got a pretty good chance at getting elected this year, honestly. So does Wagner.
Does it maybe impact Andruw Jones? I guess, though he's still got so long to go, it's possible there's just a ceiling with him and he'll have several years without Rolen on the ballot anyway
In addition to simply clearing votes, guys become more of a focal point when they hit the top. The Jack would have had a much better chance of making it if Bert had made it instead of falling just short in 2010.
But yeah, in his case, it's still about which year he goes in, not whether.
I saw that. Only 62....RIP
Lead the league in starts 4 times, nearly 20 WAR, threw the perfecto and ended his career with exactly 1000 K's; which is kind of cool.
Seems like we've gotten about 10 ballots in the last couple days. I assume the pace will pick up from here
Wagner did better on private ballots than public last year. He is such a bad choice for the Hall of Fame.
Does Juan Vent still vote? His were always good for a laugh. On this ballot he would probably vote for only Omar Vizquel and Torri Hunter.
I mean, who are we supposed to comprehend the mind of a man who wrote "El P(j)oder - A cocktail of sex, politics, and humor with a touch of baseball" at the age of 85. (Do not look up this book while at work)
Incredibly he does still vote. The man is 93, how has he not been cut? Anyway, he has not been tracked yet this year, but his ballot last year was Pettitte, Wagner, drop Helton and add Rolen. Solid!
He's also published two books in the past year.
Helton - 81.1%
Rolen - 81.1%
---
Wagner - 73.0%
Jones - 62.2%
Sheffield - 56.8%
Beltrán - 51.4%
Kent - 51.4%
A-Rod - 51.4%
Ramírez - 48.6%
Pettitte - 24.3%
Abreu - 18.9%
Buehrle - 16.2%
K-Rod - 13.5%
Rollins - 8.1%
Vizquel - 8.1%
I have a couple of friends who are voters, on the younger side (early 40s), definitely stat-friendly. Yet both keep voting for Billy Wagner. I have never been able to understand it.
Not that this makes him a worthy HOFer by any means - he's not even close, IMO - but Wagner IS one of just 3 relievers* in my 35-ish years of baseball fandom that actually felt like a major star to me at his peak. Apparently too many actual voters had the same impression. :-/
* Eck and Mo were the others. Hoffman and Lee Smith never did.
Well Mo is the GOAT of part time pitchers and of course Eck was a really good starter with a no-hitter to his resume before proving to everyone that becoming a great relief pitcher is not that hard if you're just generally pretty good at pitching. See Smoltz for another reference here.
I will refrain from my annual rant about part time pitchers being elected to the HOF over far more deserving SP like Buehrle, Pettitte, Hudson, Stieb...and the list goes on.(sorry, mini rant there)
High standard there. Hoffman created the closer walk in show, or had it created for him with Hells Bells. The Bugs Bunny changeup. Still, I guess it's hard to be a star in San Diego.
It's hard to feel like a star when you're pitching 70 innings a year. Same as it would be if a position player was only getting 250 PA's a year. No middle reliever/set up men ever felt like stars either. They're all role players.
Gagne didn't have much outside of those three years, but he was a massive star during that time, bigger than Wagner was at any point.
Wagner - 2.31 ERA, 187 ERA+
Hoffman - 2.87 ERA, 141 ERA+
KRod - 2.86 ERA, 148 ERA+
Nen - 2.98 ERA, 139 ERA+
Nathan - 2.87 ERA, 151 ERA+
Wagner had 4 full (for a closer) seasons with a sub 2.00 ERA. Hoffman had 2, Rodriguez only 1. Hoffman never seemed more dominant to me than a bunch of other closers; he just lasted longer.
Gagne was big for a while, yeah. Ended up just being a flash in the pan though.
My own riff on this idea is that, sure, I don't think Wagner was a Star in the broad sense. But he is one of the only guys who I would watch (or, even more often, look at his stats) and think how is that POSSIBLE? Most of these other closers it was very easy to understand. yeah, good pitchers only going one inning, of course they'll be good.
That is a feature of a great reliever/closer. The reason I think Wagner is probably top three closer of all time is he had longevity that others didn't have (except Hoffman and Rivera) I wouldn't even consider a closer for the hof who doesn't have at least 7 excellent to great seasons. (Eckersley is the exception, he gets a bit of a bonus for his starting career, and as we have talked on this board before, Smoltz really doesn't qualify as a reliever, it's just a few tacked on seasons)
It's also hard to justify putting in Wagner but not Joe Nathan. Nathan is just above Wagner in innings and JAWS and beats him in WAR7. Neither ever led their league in Saves and both have poor postseason resumes. Four relievers from that era would be too many.
Wagner pitched 16 seasons. Gossage pitched 22 seasons. Franco 21, Smith 18, Fingers 17. Jesse Orosco pitched 24 seasons. Dan Plesac pitched 18 seasons. Wagner's longevity is nothing special.
I'm comfortable having just one.
I think we have different perspectives on this. McGriff was barely here 2.5 years, Sheff less than that. Granted Sheffield won a batting title in his only full season, but I don't think either one of them was a star in San Diego. Gwynn of course, Machado as well, but that's because he was an established star who signed a massive, long term contract to come to town. Tatis was the Golden Child, but we'll see if it's just plate or solid in the next few years. For me at least, his star faded dramatically just with the broken wrist, but dimmed even further with the PED suspension. Hoffman was a huge star, but that could simply be a local bias. Maybe it doesn't play outside the local area.
Definitely
Sure, but those numbers don't have anything, or not much, to do with perceived stardom. That's more to do with popularity and fame than more esoteric measures of performance. The latter is what's important, of course, but the former is what is being discussed in this tangent we're off onto :-)
Eight?
This is what I used to argue, essentially, when Hoffman was coming up for consideration. If you look reasonable at measures of pitcher performance, the difference between many of these closers is too fine to distinguish one as being in and the other as being out. They're so similar that too many of them would qualify. But that is not how the BBWAA operate in their elections. They clearly do not look at reasonable measures or vote logically in the vast majority of cases. So they'll likely put Wagner in while Nathan is one and done despite them being virtually indistinguishable based on actual pitching performance.
How comfortable are you with Lee Smith being in? :-)
Okay. Quality longevity.
Wagner 4 seasons over 200 era+, 12 over 150.
Gossage 2 and 8.
Franco (who is underrated in these discussions) 2.5 7-10 depending on what you use as an innings cutoff.
Smith 1 and 4
Fingers 2 and 3.
Orosco 1 and 4.
Plesac 0 and 3.5
The way I look at it, the equivalent of 150 era+ is borderline all star level, and means that the pitcher is a "starting" reliever. Less than that, and you are the second or third guy that a team might rely on.
There are all type of arguments for many different relievers over a certain other reliever etc, my feeling is that if we are to include relievers, then you need the guys who separate themselves from the established norm for their time in a superior way. The norm for the better relievers during Wagner's era is guys pitching 4-6 good seasons then struggling to continue to do the job. Only Wagner and Rivera really exceeded that standard, with Nathan and Hoffman getting other type of credit (Nathan because of the sheer number of great seasons, and Hoffman because of the continued high quality for longer than normal)
And I'm not really arguing for Wagner to go in, just saying if we are putting relievers in, and considering it a separate position from starting pitching, then in my opinion, Wagner is the answer to the question "who is the best player at the reliever position that is not in the hof?" , also I feel by adding reliever as a separate position that he qualifies as a yes to the other question "does his performance exceed hof standards at his position."
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