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Sunday, December 04, 2022
McGriff elected unanimously to Hall on Contemporary Era ballot
The National Baseball Hall of Fame announced the results tonight for the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee’s voting, electing Fred McGriff to the Hall of Fame Class of 2023.
Albert Belle, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Don Mattingly, McGriff, Dale Murphy, Rafael Palmeiro and Curt Schilling made up the Contemporary Baseball Era ballot, which featured candidates whose primary contribution to the game came in 1980 or later.
Candidates needed to receive votes on 75% of the ballots cast by the committee to earn election.,
Results of the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Ballot (12 votes needed for election): Fred McGriff (16 votes, 100.0%); Don Mattingly (8 votes, 50%); Curt Schilling (7 votes, 43.8%); Dale Murphy (6 votes, 37.5%); Belle, Bonds, Clemens and Palmeiro each received fewer than 4
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 5, 2022
RoyalsRetro (AG#1F)
Posted: December 04, 2022 at 08:29 PM | 98 comment(s)
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1. The Duke Posted: December 04, 2022 at 08:32 PM (#6107910)Sadly, not surprised that Clemens and Bonds got very few votes. Pretty unfortunate that Mattingly placed second, as I don't think he's deserving at all, though he didn't get especially close. Wasn't sure how Schilling would fare, but looks like he didn't do all that great.
He goes in as back-to-back-to-back AAU champs.
Sad for Dale, though I realize his career probably isn't good enough for election.
Not going to shed any tears for Schilling.
Dale Murphy was a Hall of Fame "feels-liker" during his prime, and if he hadn't hit the cliff so suddenly and steeply in 1988 his counting stats probably would have gotten him in. That said, if we're going to give a plaque to a "well-respected and popular classy guy with borderline-at-best on-field credentials", Dale Murphy would have been a much better choice than Harold Baines.
Clemens, Bonds, and Schilling should be in.
"Fewer than 4 votes" sounds like a diplomatic way to say "zero".
A lot of voters ok with PEDs didn't vote for McGwire to get in. I think the voters thought they were both borderline
I still don't get why we would think one's merits as a player has any bearing on their ability to evaluate the worthiness of other players. Morris is a poor choice because he comes off as an idiot, not because he was a poor Hall selection.
Unless they voted strategically (recognizing the PED guys had no chance), Neal and Slasser likely voted for Bonds and Clemens.
McGwire without PED issues is not borderline.
Really good player and I'm happy to see him in. No Bonds, Clemens or Schilling is what I expected from these voters. Not how I'd have it, but it is what it is.
Frank Robinson?
I'm taking stabs in the dark here...
his league in any of those categories.
Edit: I also thought about Dick Allen, but both his HR titles came with the White Sox.
A) Deadballers we don't think of as power hitters
B) NeL players
Or
C) MLB TV was just plain wrong and no one else has done it
I kinda like the symmetry if McGwire and McGriff are the only ones; 2 first basemen whose names begin with McG, both born in Oct of 1963, both debuted with a cup of coffee in 1986 before surpassing rookie limits in 1987.
EDIT: Harry Stovey led the NL twice and the AA thrice. Hardy Richardson led the NL and the PL. Bug Holliday led the AA and the NL.
I think the issue with McGwire is that many people think his career probably would have been effectively over by age 30 had it not been for PEDs. That's what seems unfair about some of these cases - Murphy and Mattingly fell off a cliff in their 30s, while McGwire and Palmeiro put up some of their best numbers.
The first guy got 3.8% and fell off ballot in first year
The next guy got exactly one vote from the writers and fell off in first year
The next guy (tie with one above) got 1.1% and fell off in first year
My original assumption was that the roiders would serve c. 20 years or so in purgatory, but eventually a consensus would slowly form that it is time to finally let them in, bygones being bygones and all that, new perspectives from a younger voting body helping. [Toss Schill into that group if you want]
This election however raises the very real possibility that they'll all go to their final reward without ever getting in, and may not even in the next 50 or even 100 years. If the writers also voted on the various VC's they might still get in eventually but all bets may be off now.
Off to check.
EDIT: Canseco yes, he's higher than I recalled. The other two have totals similar to what I thought but are beaten by more recent players.
Soriano, Konerko, and Kingman are somewhere in that tier too (440's?)
I guess a previous poster was right, it's to elect marginally qualified candidates who had nice stories.
The guy with 424 will surprise you! Unless you were paying more attention than me which apparently wasn't hard.
McGriff wasn't in the Mattingly/Murphy tier by reputation, he obviously had more career bulk but I'm suprised he was unanimous while the other two were 50% or less.
- He hit 30 homers 10 times without ever reaching 40 (thanks, 1994!). The next most such seasons I could find was 7, by Paul Goldschmidt (several other players had 6).
- He topped 100 rbi 8 times but with a career high of just 107. All 8 of his 100 rbi seasons were between 101-107.
- He hit 30 homers with 5 different teams. Did anyone else do that other than the fellow Tampa native on his similarity list, Gary Sheffield?
Nelson Cruz, sort of. He hit 30+ with the Rangers, Orioles, Mariners, and Twins, and in 2021 he hit his 30th HR in a Rays uniform, but he hit his first 19 that year with the Twins.
Jose Canseco got close -- 30+ with the A's, Rangers, Blue Jays, and (Devil) Rays, and 28 with the Red Sox.
So I guess the magic number for HRs is 475. Above there and you are in. Below there you need more.
I do mind the Hall's passive aggressive attitude towards Bonds, Clemens, et. al. Either they are eligible or they are not.
If they are not eligible, have the integrity to simply ban them from possible induction, and stop wasting everybody's time.
The Era Committee is a club. They're figuring out who they want to invite to the yearly party. Nobody wants to spend time with Bonds, Clemens or Schilling.
This pretty much nails it.
McGriff being in is...fine. He neither raises nor lowers the bar for the HOF. Neither his absence, nor presence, in the Hall is a matter to outrage anybody. His top 10 comps include McCovey, Stargell, Bagwell, and Billy Williams. They also include Konerko, Delgado, Giambi, and Sheffield. He is somewhere in the middle of all that.
As for the BB/RC/Schilling stuff, I think they should all be in, and I was hoping this committee might bite the PR bullet all at once, do this, have them all give a speech at the same ceremony next summer (a summer when this committee's selections might be the only inductees). There would be fans from San Francisco, and Boston, and NY, and Pittsburgh, and Phily, etc., and there would be protestors. It would be loud, and messy, and kind of fascinating, and then...it would be over.
But now, and probably for the next 10-20 years, whenever this committee's turn comes up, we'll be dragging out this same debate, which doesn't help baseball a bit. And because McGriff is now in, the committee will feel compelled to induct somebody...probably either Dale Murphy or (apparently?) Don Mattingly.
Mattingly came close to getting in this year on the "combined accomplishments" resume, I guess. Well, Cito Gaston has more wins, a better W/L%, and two championships. Only 19 managers in history have a winning record and multiple titles - among those eligible, all but two are in the HOF. Mattingly has none of these things (I'm not advocating for Gaston - just sayin'.). And Dale Murphy? In the process of avoiding dealing with some of the greatest players in history in front of their noses, they are instead going to...well, Harold Baines is already in, so we are already there.
Just ban Bonds, Clemens, and/or Schilling from the ballot if you're going to disqualify them for their past behavior; otherwise, put them in. This is passive-aggressive, and this point, it is simply to rub their nose in it, rather than to actually evaluate candidacies.
He homered, and a gentleman sitting directly behind me said, to no one in particular but to everyone around him, "That's my boy!" And the way he said it sounded as if he meant it literally, and I began chatting with him, and it was Fred's dad, and told me that he was excited because the Jays had just traded Upshaw to open up 1B for McGriff full time. Turned out to be a great decision.
Can still see his face and hear the timbre of his voice---I remember almost nothing from 1984-1997, but there are a few things that I've retained, and that's one of them.
Repeating what I said in the other thread, I'm fine with McGriff getting elected, but even ignoring the PED guys, the vote totals for Mattingly, Murphy, and especially Schilling bother me. It tells me that likeability was the single most important criterion in this election.
This is a weird comment considering that Murphy seems like an great guy and very well-liked, while Schilling is the opposite.
And they both did just as poorly in the committee voting.
Can someone please put Keith Hernandez on a ballot? I'm ok if he never gets in but can he at least get one chance ?
How about Lou Whitaker? Maybe they can screen in the best players who are likely to get elected by this committee instead.
Mattingly and McGriff were right next to each other, both listed as first basemen. Even as a little kid, I knew they both couldn't be future Yankees stars, and as we know the Yankees picked Mattingly and flipped Crime Dog to the Jays.
For a few years it looked like the right choice, and I suppose the Yankees couldn't have predicted Mattingly would injure his back and never really hit well after 1989. But in hindsight, McGriff surely had the more valuable career, right? And just imagine if he'd played 15 to 20 years shooting at the short right field porch in Yankee Stadium.
Baseball what-ifs are fun.
Lou made a ballot. He came up short.
Now Grich, in contrast, has never even gotten the chance to get rejected by the Vets committee in favor of less-qualified players.
The Hall has never wanted to take a stand on the PED guys, for obvious reasons. For every three fans on sites like who are pissed off by the best players from Bonds-Clemens era not being inducted, there are five fans in the rest of the baseball world who would be outraged if they were included. The Hall would much rather leave it to the various voting bodies to hammer out.
He got more votes than Murphy or Mattingly.
I don't think so. 16 voters, 3 votes each is 48 votes. The top four got 37 votes, leaving 11 for the remaining four, so it has to be 3/3/3/2, assuming everyone voted for three.
It mentions "deliberations", so presumably some of the voters became convinced that there was enough opposition to Bonds and Clemens (and Palmeiro) that a vote for them would be wasted and so voted for three of the other five.
How could anyone vote for Palmeiro but not Bonds or Clemens? I'm having a hard time seeing that, so a ballot would have to list all three.
That's not true, though, because they constantly put their finger on the scale. Just this year, they decreased the number of possible candidates the committee could vote for from 4 to 3 (which as demostrated by Tango and Szymborski, decreased the chance to elect anyone) and in naming publicly anti-PED user committee members (e.g., Frank THomas).
It never was and it still isn't and now it's pretty clear it won't ever be. Significant efforts were made to explain this.
The mainstream ethical voice of the sport is still definitively, unapologetically anti-roid. And rightly so.
They've done that throughout the years, making it harder/easier for the committees to operate depending on how the committees are operating (say, electing no one vs. electing Harold Baines).
Who sits side-by-side with PED supporters Neal and Slasser on the committee.
* By the way, we didn't need Szym and Tango's help for that.
OK, but he got on a ballot, unlike the player in the post you were quoting or Grich, who has never had the privilege of being overlooked by an entirely different group of voters.
The 16-16 is very interesting because in years past I believed it was secret ballot. Maybe not anymore ? McGriff wins by acclamation and then a secret vote for the rest ? Hard to know. I will say that McGriff getting 16 is a more satisfying answer. Guys just sneaking in with 12 or just missing with 11 was less good. It would be nice if Dick Allen could go in with 16.
It still is, but they've always announced both the committee members and the number of votes each player gets. If it's unanimous, then everyone knows.
And in the past, at least, they didn't want voters revealing who they selected. They allowed Verducci to break protocol when ol' Marv, through his mouthpiece Murray, claimed Verducci spearheaded the anti-Miller campaign.
Oh, I don't know if they've ever been secret from one another, or they acted more like a committee that haggled over each candidate. Obviously, the Baines mistake was chalked up to TLR's lobbying, but I don't know how true that was* or, if true, whether it was done informally (leaning on each other in one-on-ones) or in a large group setting.
* As awful Baines' election was, the truth is he spent longer on the writer's ballot than anyone else save fellow inductee Smith, and the committee has historically taken its cues from the BBWAA.
The mainstream ethical voice of the sport is still definitively, unapologetically anti-roid. And rightly so.
Bonds and Clemens got 65-66% of the vote in their final year on the ballot. I think it's more accurate to say that the "voice of the sport" is split on this topic. It's only a small minority that doesn't care about PEDs at all, and I don't think anyone here would claim differently. But a sizeable portion of the electorate was willing to look past the issue from a HOF standpoint for the top candidates.
The character clause is listed in the rules as just one criteria to consider amongst many. But for many voters it seems to have morphed into THE MOST IMPORTANT CRITERION THAT OUTWEIGHS ALL OTHERS COMBINED!!! And I personally think the credibility of the Hall is suffering for that, especially considering the character clause was virtually ignored entirely for the first 70 years of the Hall's existence.
Good.
If you assume McGriff had to compete against a bunch of roided up guys who ended up with inflated stats does that necessarily mean by the math that if you could correct for roids that his stats like WAR and OPS+ would, by definition, be better ?
Yes.
How much impact would that have ? Is there any way to spitball the number ?
I don't think there's any way to do so. But I think purportedly "clean" guys on the borderline like McGriff should get a bit of extra credit if you're penalizing the suspected PED users. Otherwise that era will wind up underrepresented in the Hall.
Plus 10 more in the postseason. He's not a terrible choice, he's just not first in line, or 10th in line, or even 50th in line. McGriff is a better choice than Belle, Murphy, or Mattingly so at least the committee picked the best non-controversial player.
Picture the reaction of someone in the '90s being told that Albert Belle would someday be in the "non-controversial" category on a Hall of Fame ballot.
I guess, but I'm not sure what your point was then it relation to my original comment. They haven't, at least effectively, done that here. They haven't taken a position. They've given no guidance. And while they did appoint anti-roid guy Thomas to the committee, they also appointed two writers who did vote for Clemens and Bonds.
If they're trying to influence things, they could be doing a much better job of it.
Up to age 30... (1986-1994)
McGriff: 285/389/541 153 OPS+ 262 HR 710 RBI - 2 time All-Star, 7 times got MVP votes
McGwire: 250/362/507 143 OPPS+ 238 HR 657 RBI - 6 time All-Star, 5 times got MVP votes
Age 31 to end... (1995 until end)
McGriff: 284/367/482 119 OPS+ 231 HR 840 RBI - 3 time All-Star, 1 time got MVP votes
McGwire: 278/430/683 183 OPS+ 345 HR 757 RBI - 6 time All-Star, 5 times got MVP votes
Interesting to look at - clearly McGwire got off to great starts vs McGriff but couldn't hold it, which helps explain his PED use as well since those are supposed to help you get through a season. But clearly in the early part of their careers McGriff was the better player despite the big ASG spread, and clearly McGwire was insane with PEDs in the later part (when decline is supposed to happen post 30). McGriff declined a bit more than he should've it seems post 30 while his most visible comparable did the opposite. I'm guessing if McGriff had played for Tony LaRussa and roided up like his players did then he'd have cleared 600 HR.
The job of the committee is likely multi-purpose, but a big part of it is to make sure there is someone to induct so that the HOF and Cooperstown get a big influx of cash next summer.
Should be a Jay on performance.
A) Mattingly is not gaining any traction. He received more votes on this ballot than he did on the prior Modern Era ballot, but it's not even a given he'll be on the next one.
B) No, there's no "lifer" category. Torre was elected as a manager. The Modern Era Committee even differentiates between committees for players and for managers on the HOF's website.
Oh bullshit! A guy with 583 HR, led the league 4 times, set the MLB single season record and was the first person ever to hit 70 HR, has above average black ink, and is a dead on average HOF 1B by JAWS (McGriff falls well short on both career and peak) is not "borderline" by any possible definition. McGwire's failure to be elected was entirely related to PED issues amongst the electorate.
Mike Schmidt, Cal Ripken, Robin Yount, George Brett, Wade Boggs, and Rickey! would like to have a word with you. And that's just position players, Clemens is a little pissed off, too ;-)
Maybe that's when McGriff stopped taking 'roids...
If he's now considered to be part of the measure on where to place the bar, he certainly helps to lower it. His election brings into consideration guys like Teixeira and Norm Cash, his two closest by JAWS, with Will Clark, Olerud and Hernandez above him. If we consider McGriff to be clearing the bar, then does further consideration need to be given to Mattingly and Delgado, who are just behind him but ahead of Hodges, who just went in. I don't think the Era Committees work like this, but his election does make him part of the consideration of where to place the bar if a voter considers the composition of the actual HOF in how they vote.
As to his comps, James himself said that a similarity score of less than 900 is essentially meaningless, and McGriff has no comps at 900 or above so that's a pretty worthless list.
A). He did better on a tougher ballot to accumulate votes. He got 8 of the final 32 final available votes some of which might not have been cast. He beat Bonds, Clemens. And schilling which is far better competition than he had ever had on prior ballots. It's almost indisputable that he did "better". He's been left for dead on prior ballots.
B) there is no lifer category but the Hall does not preclude looking at their playing contributions. I doubt anyone would agree with your position. Kaat also got in under the informal lifer category. Even he thinks so. But it is true there is no formal category
79. It's not bullshit. The list of modern players in the Hall with less than 2000 hits that aren't catchers, vets selections or some other special category is vanishingly small. The writers are very stingy. Scores of writers who voted for PED guys did not vote for McGwire so it must be that he wasn't deemed qualified - what else could it be? How else do Bonds and Clemens get in the 60s, manny at 29, a-rod in the 30s, Ortiz gets in and McGwire get in the low 20s? It's not my opinion - just my explanation for the facts. Him not getting in was partially PEDs and his stats and the rest was being viewed as borderlines. I'm open to another explanation
I don't think that's clear at all. McGriff had a very linear career/peak. His first full season through 1994 were his best seasons, and he then had a decline with only one really good season, 1999, after that. McGwire was a bit more up and down, for whatever reason. Great rookie year, two good seasons, another great season, an inexplicably bad season, and then his best season to date in 1992 followed by two injury plagued seasons. It all depends on where you put the cutoff or measuring performance. McGwire, for example, had 3 WAR in only 279 PA's in 1993-94 with an OPS+ of 171. McGriff had 1118 PA's in those two seasons. On a per PA basis, McGwire would have put up 12 WAR in equal playing time to McGriff in that span, a big chunk of the OPS+ difference goes away, and McGwire moves in front on HR and at least closes the gap on RBI. Keep in mind there's a difference of 708 PA's between the two at age 30.
We statheads know to look at that, but a committee of geriatric baseball-talkers won't ever notice or care.
Several things. There's the "Hall of Famer before using steroids" option, which applies to Bonds/Clemens but not McGwire. There's the "PED discount" option, which could easily push McGwire below the line while keeping Bonds and Clemens above it. And there's also the BBWAA purge of voters who were no longer active baseball writers, which didn't hit until 2015 (McGwire's second-to-last year on the ballot), at which point the ballot was so crowded and he had so little time that there was no point in voting for him. Manny and A-Rod are being voted on by a very different electorate and are on a much less crowded ballot (and still aren't making much progress beyond McGwire's highest total).
As far as Ortiz goes, the PED issues did not stick to him for whatever reason. If they had, he wouldn't have gotten in either.
Several things.
Also, there's the possibility of known without a doubt (McGwire) and suspected but not proven (Bonds/Clemens). There's also probably some guys voting for the two best PED guys and then spreading the rest of the ballot to people with a chance of getting elected. Then, if and when Bonds/Clemens got in, they'd move down the roid list.
There are a whole lot of reasons why someone would vote BB/RC and not MM or SS or RP.
But a MGwire in a world that didn't give a rat's ass about steroids at all would have been in the Hall before Barry and company hit the ballot, sub-2,000 hits be damned.
Mac was a historically great HR hitter, and without PED issues he would've gone first ballot (even debuting with Ripken and Gwynn).
[49] salvo...very cool story, thanks for sharing.
Look on the HOF website and you'll see there is a Modern Era Player's Committe and a separate one for other categories such as Manager, Umpire, etc. Look at B-R and you'll see they say Torre was elected as a manager. If the HOF itself and B-R agree with me, I don't care who else doesn't.
It's complete bullshit. With no PED controversy there's is no way McGwire doesn't get elected easily. With 583 career HR, 4 times leading the league, an iconic 1998 followed by an epic 1999. He's 5th in career HR when he retires, now at 11th the only eligible players not to be elected with more HR than him are Bonds, A-Rod, and Sosa. He was hugely popular with both fans and writers (12 AS selections, 7 down ballot MVP finishes plus 3 top 5 finishes, and a ROY). He was considered a good guy prior to PED disclosures/discoveries! He won the Lou Gehrig award for crying out loud. There is literally nothing him other than PED taint keeping him out of the HOF.
Bonds and Clemens are widely considered the greatest position player and greatest pitcher of all time if you don't have a PED issue. That's quite clearly a huge difference between them and McGwire, which readily explains the difference in support. You can look at it as the difference between a slam dunk, 1st ballot HOF and a guy who is going to be elected but may have to spend a year or three on the ballot.
Manny debuted the year after McGwire fell off. McGwire debuted at 23.5%, Many at 23.8%, no difference. The voting rolls were purged in 2015 of a lot of older writers who were not willing to vote for PED guys, too late to help McGwire, but in plenty of time to help Manny's voting pattern look better superficially. McGwire actually received 18 more raw votes than Ramirez in year one. McGwire's percentage went down over time, but the ballot also became much more crowded as well. That's what drove his voting results down. Ramirez has moved up slightly by percentage over time, but he still hasn't received as many raw votes as McGwire did in his first year. Basically he's facing a more open electorate, and a more open ballot, than McGwire. Ortiz does not have any sort of PED issue that I'm aware of. The commissioner himself went to the trouble to publicly state Ortiz did not deserve to be looked at as a PED user.
86. Sure, those are all valid but we aren't talking about a guy who got 50% and his buddy got 55%. McGwire got a full 40% less. Now all those reasons could explain a certain percentage of that - seems perfectly reasonable. But that something like 150-200 voters who were ok with Bonds and Clemens but not McGwire. Even manny is passing him comfortably as will Arod.
I could see 20-25% for those issues plus tight ballots. So maybe that gets him into the high 40s, low 50s.
He's never going in now, that's for sure
That's an entirely different argument.
You can't read that much into those trends. McGwire got no traction, then he slipped as voters abandoned his hopeless cause in the flood of crowded ballots. Then there was the purge (ongoing), which helped CLemens and Bonds move from lower support up to where they peaked (and correspondingly helped Manny and Sheff and other lesser figures).
The gap when Bonds/Clemens debuted, the most relevant relationship was only 20 percentage points, not 40.
McGwire in a world where no one cares about PEDs sails into the Hall, as most everyone here believes. McGwire in a world without PEDs? Well, that's unknowable. It's certainly possible he doesn't put up Hall-worthy numbers without them, for one reason or another.
He didn't admit it until he was on the ballot for several years. The silent treatment didn't work either.
Other than being David Ortiz, whose tenuous association was forgiven* while Sammy Sosa's identical ties were proof, there has been no real path to election for those convicted in the court of public opinion.
* It no doubt also helped that his brush with roids came at the very beginning of his career, allowing him time to change the narrative in a way that wasn't available to Bonds, Clemens, etc.
For McGwire's statistical case: a giant amount of his value came from walks. 1317 walks to 1626 hits! And that doesn't have anything to do with PEDs.
He always had good plate discipline, but I doubt Mac walks as much if he's a less prodigious a HR hitter. He had by far the most walks of his career during his 70 HR season.
is this it, really?
now, someone can take issue with that line of thought - but that's what many writers think. we know this, because they have said so in their columns.
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