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Thursday, December 27, 2012
The 2013 HOF Ballot Collecting Gizmo!
Updated 1:55 ~ 194 Full Ballots ~ (33.9% of vote ~ based on last year)
70.1 - Biggio
60.3 - Piazza
59.8 - Raines
59.3 - Bagwell
59.3 - J. Morris
45.4 - Bonds
44.3 - Clemens
39.2 - Schilling
38.1 - L. Smith
37.6 - Trammell
35.6 - E. Martinez
20.1 - McGriff
18.6 - D. Murphy
16.5 - L. Walker
14.4 - McGwire
13.4 - S. Sosa
12.9 - Raffy
8.8 - Mattingly ———————————
3.1 - Lofton
2.1 - Bernie Williams
1.7 - P. Rose (goofy write-in’s)
0.5 - D. Wells
0.5 - J. Franco
0.5 - S. Alomar Jr.
0.5 - S. Green
Repoz
Posted: December 27, 2012 at 12:08 PM | 832 comment(s)
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Of those players who have been truly rejected, Lou Whitaker at 71.4. Bonds is obviously on top, and Bagwell is also ahead, but the former hasn't been rejected at all yet and Bagwell is likely to get in sometime in the next few years. Neither seems like the answer to your question.
Well for those not on the ballot, it's Pete Rose, 76.7.
And I think of him as similar to Bagwell and Bonds in that he's not the answer to the question viva's asking.
So Lou Whitaker is the best player (by using WAR) not in the HOF among those who were eligible but no longer are? And he dropped off after 1 ballot? That's....something.
Edit: I know I'm late to the Whitaker party, but wow, that's really off. Whitaker is only getting about 8 wins from defense and 5 from baserunning, so his value shouldn't be that hard to see. Positional adjustments was likely part of it, but his raw numbers also don't look that great. How much of his value on offense came from park adjustments?
He was a great-hitting second baseman, who had a long career, and who drew a ton of walks. And he basically played his whole career immediately prior to the sillyball era.
He was an All-Star for five straight seasons from 83-87, and then basically played just as well for six or seven straight years after that - except that he stopped playing everyday. His WAR/per162 actually went UP after he stopped being an All-Star.
I think the last three points are probably a large part of it. He doesn't look like a great hitter, though, with a raw career line of .276/.363/.426. That's why I was asking about the park, which is probably part of it as well.
Just eyeballing PF's for the years of his career, doesn't look like it hurt him much. Detroit was right around average most of the time. Slightly under occasionally, but not really enough to make much difference.
.789 OPs doesn't lok hugely impressive, but when the average 2B can't sniff a .700, it is really damn good. It really depends what you are expecting though. 2B tend to get the shaft from the writers, as they don't get the defensive allowances they seem to make for SS/CF, and their offensive numbers can't compare with corner sluggers.
Also Whitaker really has no peak whatsoever. It's mostly just a really long string of 4 win seasons:
Black Ink Batting - 1 (743), Average HOFer ? 27
Gray Ink Batting - 31 (770), Average HOFer ? 144
I'm impressed with the BBWAA in spite of myself. I really thought they might screw the pooch when it came to Raines.
That's been answered, but one note about his performance in the last couple of years that's encouraging wrt Beltran's longevity is, despite the surgery, that he's held his own in RF. His arm plays there, and by my eye and by the numbers he's a perfectly cromulent fielder. Meaning that he's still got the corners and 1B to play in, which bodes well for his longevity.
I think he'd be stretched in CF, and with his injury history it's exactly the kind of move that could end his career. I understand why the Cards sent him out there for the equivalent of five games in 2012, but they should resist it if they can.
That it is. Guess it doesn't bode well for Beltran. Having made the case for him on the previous page, I suppose I should note the obverse here. He made only 7 All-Star games, not terrible but not all that impressive for a HOFer. The 3 GGs are consistent with my impression of him as a fine but not superb fielder, and while that may not hurt his case, it sure doesn't help him any.
Literally one point of black ink may not be a death knell, but is there a HOFer with less (I think there is, but can't recall whom)? Like Whitaker, Beltran gets his value all over the place. He picks up pieces here and there, without any signature accomplishment, AND he plays a position that historically been tougher to get in through.
It's heartening, how quickly Raines is moving towards 75%. You can play around with Beltran's case and see how he's comparable to Raines. Beltran being a fine CFer is presumably a plus for the voters over Raines being a better fielder at a less important position, but they don't distinguish as much as they should between CF and the corners. Raines has the higher number of SBs, but less power. Raines had the runs scored, but Beltran was as much an RBI guy as he was a run scorer...
Maybe it's silly to compare Beltran to Raines, but I'm having trouble finding a good comp in CF for Beltran. Maybe Edmonds? Jimmy was a comparative monster as a hitter, and by reputation a better fielder. As of the end of 2012 Beltran still had 100 games to go before catching Edmonds (but 400 more PAs). If Edmonds isn't considered a HOFer by the bulk of the MSM, I don't see how Beltran will be.
Another cause for concern for Beltran's case (unless he has another 500-600 productive PAs in him) is how far Larry Walker is from election. Take Walker completely out of Coors, throw away all his Coors numbers, and his OPS is still a hair better than Beltran's, with an overall career that's about as long. Granted, Walker's a RFer, but he has 7 GGs there and iirc was considered a better fielder than Beltran, for their positions. Walker also has the MVP, but isn't pulling as much as 15% of the vote this year.
Oof. I've been underestimating Walker for a long time, and found the arguments in his favor a little too contemptuous of concerns over how much Coors inflated his stats, but the comparison with Beltran really does put Walker in a good light.
I do think Beltran will go in (and go in pretty easily) if he gets his numbers up to 400 HRs and 1500 RBIs and runs scored (is that too obvious to bother noting? With the BBWAA conceivably voting in only Jack Morris this year I'm not sure what is and isn't obvious), but if he's much short of that, maybe even 70 WAR won't get him all that close. It's not difficult to imagine Beltran getting to, say 360 home runs, and 1375 RBIs and runs scored and never really getting the momentum in the voting that other worthy guys never got; guys like D. Evans, Walker, Edmonds, Jimmy Wynn, Whitaker...
edit: "Also Whitaker really has no peak whatsoever. It's mostly just a really long string of 4 win seasons:"
Beltran does have his 8 win season (which only got him to 4th in the MVP voting), but otherwise he's comparable to Lou, with four seasons of 5 or 6 wins, and those spread out, at that.
.
He's the Jim Rice of the National League! :)
The last few years of his career, Whitaker became a platoon player. That would artificially inflate his rate stats.
Rice: 29.8-35.3-37.6-42.9-29.4-51.5-57.9-55.1-52.2-54.5-59.5-64.8-63.5-72.2-76.4
Raines: 24.3-22.6-30.4-37.5-48.7-64.8 (as of 71 ballots)
Rice had a big drop in year 5, and a minor drop in each of 8/9 before his climb to the top. The big drop was the Ryan/Brett/Yount/Fisk ballot with Dale Murphy also (and for Jay fans, George Bell who got 6 votes). I was certain Raines would see the same this year as Rice in year 5 but it doesn't appear to be the case, in fact if early numbers hold he'll have a big jump this year instead.
FYI: Rice's other two drops were due to Ozzie Smith, Andre Dawson, and Alan Trammell (to a small degree) then the following year Eddie Murray, Ryan Sandberg & Lee Smith. Strong classes but nothing compared to this year. I wonder if Raines is a big winner of the PED ballot due to a (bizarre) view that fast players didn't use (despite the proven benefits in track and field) thus writers are voting for him as a 'screw PED users' vote.
Who took the biggest cocaine penalty (in terms of production) with respect to the Hall of Fame? It doesn't seem like Raines or Hernandez lost much career production. I'm guessing it would be one of Parker, Gooden, Strawberry or Blue -- is there someone else who would be a likely Hall of Famer but got badly disrupted by cocaine and hasn't made it?
Raines' Repoz count figures (particularly earlier in the count) outpoll his final numbers more than just about anyone else. He has been making progress (and last year's numbers were particularly encouraging), but he's not likely to hold all of the gains he shows here. Still, considering this year's ballot, if he makes any gains at all this year, or even just holds steady, that's a really good sign for his eventual induction.
There is a .05% margin of error in the name.
Any way to determine the Biggio-Bagwell distribution? Is it just three guys who didn't put Bags on with Biggio or is it a more complicated situation than that??
Mike Piazza: Zero. Led league in GIDP once. And never won an MVP award. A bazillion grey ink tho :)
Lou = Bpobby Grich, and at least Grich had more of a peak plus he was in the playoffs 5 times. Sweet Lou suffered like all other well-rounded players suffer; the agony of not having one Single Skill by which they become famous.
70.2 - Biggio n/a
67.6 - Bagwell n/a
63.5 - Raines - 4% = 59.5%
63.5 - Piazza n/a
62.2 - J. Morris + 8% = 70.2%
48.6 - Clemens n/a
47.3 - Bonds n/a
36.5 - Trammell n/a
35.1 - L. Smith + 6% = 41.1%
35.1 - Schilling n/a
31.1 - E. Martinez + 4% = 35.1%
18.9 - D. Murphy n/a
17.6 - McGriff n/a
17.6 - McGwire n/a
16.2 - Raffy n/a
13.5 - L. Walker + 5% = 18.5%
13.5 - S. Sosa n/a
6.8 - Mattingly + 7% = 13.8%
———————————
2.7 - D. Wells n/a
2.7 - Bernie Williams + 6% = 8.7%
2.7 - Lofton n/a
2.7 - P. Rose (goofy write-in)
I'd sub McGwire for Martinez but otherwise, this would be my ballot. If there were room for 11 names, I would add Palmeiro, but I would keep Martinez on the "just out" list.
Bagwell was almost flat from the final Repoz to the actual count.
As noted, these +/- figures have considerable variance from year to year. Jack was 8 percent better in the actual than the final Repoz figure, but that wasn't consistent with previous years.
Not sure if you got this, but Henry Schulman confirmed with me that he did end up voting for Biggio.
There's a guaranteed entry already - Deacon White. I'm not sure his grandkids are still alive but he's a good choice.
How astonishingly bad is that Howard vote? Schilling is pretty much the only good thing about it. I'm predicting the attendance at this year's ceremony will be a record breaking low thanks to guys like Howard.
You know what's wacky, though? Piazza for his career, as a hitter, is Mark Teixiera in Teixiera's prime; the prime that resulted in Teix getting his 8/175 deal from the Yankees.
That's how freaking good Piazza was.
Now that Dave Parker is off the ballot I guess he can take over that title.
Well, if I were a person who cared about steroids and not in a "keep all the bums out" kind of way, I could almost fathom voting for Clemens and not Bonds based on the idea that Bonds has at least sort of admitted that he took something but didn't know what it was and was convicted on the one count of obstructing justice while Clemens wasn't convicted of anything and has denied everything.
On the other hand, going the other way, the only thing I can think of is that someone might ding Clemens for throwing the bat at Piazza or getting himself thrown out of a playoff game, or some personal grudge.
Conversely, I could envision a writer giving Bonds credit for sort of confessing while Clemens gets dinged for lying in the face of "obvious proof."
I was kinda thinking the same thing. The steroid hysteria may actually help someone like Raines; for the hardliners who don't want to vote for any of the bulky 90's sluggers who even might have used PED's, a little guy who peaked in the 80's rather than the 90's and who accrued most of his value through speed rather than power seems like the perfect alternative.
I though Trammell might get a similar bump - especially since a very similar player in Larkin was elected just last year - but it hasn't happened. Ah, well. Still glad to see Rock getting some recognition.
If the voters look at this ballot and decide only jack morris belongs, it is officially time to dump them. Cooperstown should be embarrassed.
No chance that with all the overwhelmingly qualified candidates that anywhere near 8 could get 75%. If none get in this year then next year just gets tougher to get agreement.
Source
Glavine: Can't let him in, he wasn't even the best pitcher on his own team.
Thomas: Built like he used steroids.
Bagwell: See Thomas.
Biggio: Played with Bagwell. Guilt by association.
Piazza: Lousy WAR. And bacne is icky.
Raines: He wasn't Rickey Henderson.
Morris: Ok, you got me. Maddux and Morris.
Source
MLBRandomFandom.com
Nick Cesare Hall of fame Ballot (8):
Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, Raines, Martinez and Trammell.
Repoz nick cesare is member bbwaa?
Also, don't forget that last year, Larkin sampled at MORE than his actual total, and no one even samples at 75% yet.
I really, really hoped this would be Biggio's year. There's still a chance but it's not looking good.
I don't believe so...and that Jon Becker with him seems to be a different Becker from the west coast BBWAA voter as their ballots are not the same.
75.7 Biggio
76.1 Bagwell
76.7 Raines
76.7 Piazza
77.1 J. Morris
79.4 Clemens
79.4 Bonds
81 Schilling
81.2 Trammell
81.2 L. Smith
82 E. Martinez
84.2 D. Murphy
84.2 McGwire
84.4 McGriff
84.6 Raffy
84.6 S. Sosa
84.8 L. Walker
86 Mattingly
86.4 Lofton
86.6 D. Wells
86.6 Bernie Williams
86.6 Pete Rose
So all have a shot still, but obviously some need a lot more help than others.
Can't tell. I assume his ballot is blank...just not sure if he handed it in or not.
Hell, only shortstops & catchers get any sort of that kind of adjustment. CFers and 3B get the shaft too.
Only if they allow more names per ballot (which if nobody is elected they very well might consider).
I'm also interested in seeing Clemens fares as compared to Bonds- Clemens was not just acquitted, and if you were paying attention, you can't blame the jury, the Government's evidence was shockingly weak...
Looks like about 30%
That said, Lou Whitaker would be a fine induction into the HOF, and I have no doubt the Expansion Era VC will put him in as soon as he is nominated.
Have 82 Full Ballots...another 30 Partial Ballots that hopefully will be finalized...and about 10-20 Weak Partials (just writers going off on Bonds/Clemens) that I doubt will be filled.
And there is still the ultra-baggy International Dockers Block Vote of USA Today, Star-Trib. Chicago Trib, Milwaukee JS, ESPN, MLB and Backstreets.com, yet to come!
Part of that is overlapping with Sandberg -- 10 AS games (9 starts), MVP with another 2 top 5 finishes, 9 GG. Even by fancy stats, Sandberg has a WARpos first, 2 seconds and a third and 3 oWAR firsts. Whitaker has only 3 top 10 WARpos finishes, none higher than 4th.
In essence Whitaker was the Palmeiro of 2B only being the Palmeiro of 2B doesn't get you to any exciting counting stats. I see now (and for some time) that he deserved the HoF but, man, unless you were from Detroit, he was one boring candidate.
How did having Sandberg in the NL impact Whitaker's chances at AS Games, MVPs and GG in the AL?
I'm also interested in seeing Clemens fares as compared to Bonds- Clemens was not just acquitted, and if you were paying attention, you can't blame the jury, the Government's evidence was shockingly weak...
You and me both, on both of those points.
Seriously? Clemens and Bonds will both get around 50% of the vote. This isn't hard. For every honest and reasonable person, there is an irrational idiot dishonest boyhood idol worshiper.
Which segment is voting for Clemens and Bonds? ;-)
Pretty much this - beyond being thought of as a HOFer, Whitaker wasn't really even thought of as a flat-out star (probably because his career was so flat) - a good/very good player yes, but not a STAR. He was in an era when there weren't a bunch of great 2Bs (there never are) but there was a star in Sandberg, so he suffered in comparison. (In an interesting note, missing the 1988 All Star Game snapped his string of appearances. The starter at 2B was Paul Molitor, who played a grand total of ... one, yes one game at 2B that year.)
Whitaker went one and done in 2001, when I doubt a single member of the BBWAA had ever even heard of WAR, or for that matter if it had even been invented yet. If he debuted today he would get a lot more attention.
Yeah but he is stealing to the win!
Honestly, if he gets in next year with the exact number of votes he needs, it would be kinda hilarious...
Fans of Bernie Williams have a slim hope - he 'just' needs 87.5% of the remaining votes (assuming last years total) to get in :)
Raines, on the other hand, has generally performed better in the published vote. Even so, he looks set to make an impressive leap against a stacked ballot.
8.0, 7.0, 7.0, 5.7, 5.7, 5.6, 5.3, 4.1, 3.9, 3.4, 3.1, 2.7 - Grich (67.3 career)
6.6, 6.5, 5.2, 5.0, 4.5, 4.4, 4.3, 4.3, 4.1, 3.8, 3.6, 3.6, 3.5, 3.5, 3.4, 2.4 - Whitaker (71.4 career)
The "didn't feel like a HoFer" thing can often be re-phrased as "lacks a Hall of Fame peak". I think Whitaker has too much career to keep him out in general, and I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt to players from the 1981-1992 period, during which it may have been particularly difficult to put up dominant seasons in MLB. (It may just be that there were fewer dominant players, of course, but all I'm talking about is giving a little boost at the borderline.) Whitaker deserves to go in, but there are a reasonable number of greater players ahead of him in line, and career WAR obfuscates that a little bit.
Well combined, (4.3 percentage points in 2011, a whopping 7.9 in 2012) but I don't see any reason to expect that number will continue to grow with this year's election. It might, obviously, but if Jack simply outpolls this year's numbers at last year's difference, he's well short (for the moment).
I don't think people realize how good they were defensively. Not flashy like Ozzie, but the team record shows they did the job. From 1981-88, Tigers usually finished first in the league in defensive efficiency, I think they were at least top 3 every year, and were generally about .020 better than league average. Don't have the exact numbers in front of me, something I looked up last week. Chet Lemon in center deserves plenty of credit too. Tigers had kind of a rotating cast in the corners during that time, it was the up the middle defenders who were the defensive anchors.
Source
-- MWE
Just as an extra point of reference, Morris was at 58.8% via the ballot collecting after 148 full ballots. Final tally was 66.7% which means he had 87 known votes and 295 via others which works out to 295/425 = 69.4% of unknown voters voting for Morris. If he gets that again he'll be well shy of 75% of course. Now, the percentage spread between known and unknown was 10.6% so given he is at 61.9% right now that means a similar split would give him 71.9% of the unknown vote which is still well shy of the 75% to get in, let alone the 77.3% he'd need to make it with the hole he's in now.
In other words, the only way Morris is getting in is if the unknown voters go for him in a much bigger way than they did last year - 16.0% more than the known vote total so far and that seems to be too much to ask imo.
That is correct.
Mike, I haven't added that yet to my total...so unless somebody comes up with something better, I'll be adding it in. Which will crush all concerned.
Just out of curiosity, how did Clemens get in there?
EDIT: First time I've ever responded to a post and then discovered that the post was deleted.
20% Steroid ignorers. People who will vote for Mark McGwire (current Mark % held a bit lower by crowded ballot).
25% Steroid adjusters. They won't vote for McGwire, who maybe only hits 450 homers clean, with too low of a hit total, no defensive value to warrant induction. But they will vote for Bonds and Clemens, who had HOF resumes before the year they are commonly thought to have started juicing.
20% Steroid convicters. They won't vote for McGwire, Bonds or Clemens, but will vote for guys like Piazza and Bagwell. Guys for whom there is no reasonable case to convict them as steroid users, but suspicions (however flimsy) remain.
5% Steroid witch hunters. Cannot vote for Piazza or Bagwell. If it looks like a witch, burn it! Biggio OK though.
10% Scorched earth anti-steroid zealots. They won't vote for Biggio or Schilling, even if there's not even flimsy suspicion against them. They played with steroid users, dammit, and deserve to suffer for that sin. Murray's kin will only vote for Jack Morris, because it will rile up those filthy, unwashed mother's basement types.
5% confused voters. All those qualified names, only so much dexterity in my writing pen. If I vote for Bonds, Clemens, and Morris, not sure if I have the inclination left to scribble out B-I-G-G-I-O.
If all these groups voted Biggio, btw, he'd be at 85%, same as Paul Molitor the year he came on the ballot. Those two seem to have reasonably similar cases.
14% - won't vote for anyone first ballot unless they are both 100% clean and also have pure, no doubt, inner circle stats.
1% Would not vote for anyone on the first ballot. No exceptions.
OK. Now my groups add up to 100%.
According to Repoz's latest update, Clemens and Bonds are tied at 45.9%. Personally I'd vote for both. I know YOU make a distinction in their legal cases. But the voters clearly do not recognize that distinction.
It's back now. As I looked it over I found I missed a category.
I guess we'll find out more about that when it comes to A-Rod, who can't make the "timing" argument but can make the "discount" argument.
Agreed that, rightly or wrongly, the writers basically view Clemens/Bonds/McGwire/Sosa/Palmeiro as the "for-sure" group and Piazza/Bagwell as the "rumor" group, and that is the big distinction. But there is still some thought being given to classifying players within the two groups, IMO. I think failing an actual test is really working against Palmeiro. It's hard to say that for sure, because Palmeiro is also the worst player of the group and could be withheld votes on that basis, but I bet it's correct -- that some voters are willing to vote for McGwire/Sosa but not for Palmeiro because Palmeiro failed a test. I suppose Manny is the guy who will provide evidence on that point.
¹ That said, I don't think I've seen all that many writers use the "timing" argument... so maybe it isn't that popular... but it does make sense to me ;-)
I think Williams really needs more of a look than he's gotten... I'd have no room on my nonexistent ballot this year and more than likely, the next couple -- but I hope he can muster 5%
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