The "character clause" has really ever only been used to include until recently. Rarely, if ever, was it applied to exclude otherwise worthy players. Posnanski has written about this several times, and concludes that this was the very purpose of that clause - to merit additional consideration for the "good guys" with less of a case for enshrinement based on playing record and ability alone.

Not really, he disagreed enough to reinstate Mays and Mantle but to not get rid of the rule.

He disagreed with the application of the rule.

the question is more whether greatness over 7-8 seasons (think DICK ALLEN) should itself be enough as long as the person makes it to 10 years.

FTFY, Walt.

Should there not be some adjustment for age as well? Since we are clearly going to penalize DHs defensively (and at a level that is arguably on the overly harsh side of things), should they not get some kind of (at least theoretical) boost for having highly productive seasons at ages that are highly unlikely to happen otherwise? After all, there aren't THAT many of such seasons.

The argument against that is, of course, that it doesn't translate into anything actual, but we are talking Hall of Fame here, not a win-modeling system that supposed to encompass linear regression AND actuarial tables. If there are "war credits" that get translated into WAR (or its analogue) by the HOM folks, should there not be some (at least minimal) adjustment in this area as well?

Again, it's only a specific type of PED's that has the hypocrites up in a dander.

...which they will now gladly add to in order to maintain their hypocrisy, just like how we'll never get rid of the TSA . Ankle bone, hypocrisy bone...joined at the "hyp."

The "character clause" has really ever only been used to include until recently. Rarely, if ever, was it applied to exclude otherwise worty players. Posnanski has written about this several times, and concludes that this was the very purpose of that clause - to merit additional consideration for the "good guys" with less of a case for enshrinement based on playing record and ability alone.

You mean like all those folks that Frank Frisch and his folk put in via the Vets Committee? But who are the players that the BBWAA voted in during the initial eligibility process that support Pos's purported point??

First off, MLB doesn't run the HoF, nor do they make the HoF's rules.

This is a bit disingenous. Yes, it's true that MLB doesn't run the HoF - but MLB has substantial representation on the HoF's Board of Directors, and if MLB wanted the HoF to pass a new rule (as they did when Pete Rose's eligibility was discussed), the HoF would certainly pass it.

-- MWE

But who are the players that the BBWAA voted in during the initial eligibility process that support Pos's purported point??

Dizzy Dean?

JAWS and Baseball Reference treat him as a 3B. He played 574 games at 3B with a dWAR of -9.7.

I just think it's unfair to lump him together with someone like Nettles, and call them both 3B.

I mean, Nettles played 2300 games at 3B, and never seems to have been worse than slightly below average (after age 36) while being a sublime fielder in his prime. Edgar was a DH they stuck at 3B for a while.

And Edgar had a 147 OPS+ compared to 110 for Nettles. And 3B was the primary position for both of them. So they get lumped together, fair or not.

PS - DH is not a position.

And Edgar had a 147 OPS+ compared to 110 for Nettles. And 3B was the primary position for both of them. So they get lumped together, fair or not.

PS - DH is not a position.

DH is most certainly a position. Edgar didn't field in the majority of his games; he's a DH. That's what makes him borderline for the Hall. If he actually had been a 3B, he'd have been first ballot.

First off, MLB doesn't run the HoF, nor do they make the HoF's rules. Second, comparing a coach to an active player is absurd. Now if you want to speak to something like: Player A gets inducted into the HoF, 20 years later definitive evidence is found that Player A violated the cardinal rule (gambled on baseball - on games where he played) then YES, the HoF MUST pull down his plaque - period - just as if he was found to have done it before he'd been made eligible for the HoF.

They may not run the hof, but once Pete Rose became ineligible to be voted on, then it became clear that MLB standards are the benchmark that the hof goes by.

And I really doubt that anybody would ever be removed from the hof, regardless what is discovered later. I think that Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker is proof of that. (and I'm fairly certain guys like Radburn and others have more than anectdotal evidence that they gambled on games or took bribes)


Again, I'm bagging on the hypocriticalness of the writers claiming the character clause, but only claiming it for this one affront to their personal morality and not using it for other actions.

Known consorted of gamblers such as Mays and Mantle are still revered to this day, even though they at one point received a suspension from baseball for their actions.

"consorter" - a companion, associate, partner, or confidant....Pete Rose, Willie Mays, & Mickie Mantle.

Dizzy Dean?

Oh, yeah. Why, without Diz, the entire Southern Baptist tradition would have folded its tent...

Dizzy Dean?

I know he's not in the Hall of Merit, and his announcing may have helped some, but Dean also has a pretty obvious peak case based on traditional stats: he won 30, 28, and 24 games in consecutive seasons, won an MVP and followed that up with back-to-back 2nd-place finishes, led the NL in strikeouts for 4 consecutive seasons. It seems very similar - in shape, not necessarily in actual quality - to the cases that got Koufax and Catfish elected. (He's actually a guy that I think has probably been under-rated by the Hall of Merit, although I confess to not knowing nearly as much about that era of baseball as those guys)

I mean, I know it's going to be discussed a bit, but can we keep the PED arguments to a minimum in this thread? There are no shortage of threads where it can be discussed.

Steroid use does not implicate integrity, character, and sportsmanship, certainly not any more than amps use did.

There are many, many distinctions that can be seen between steroid and amphetamine use. Steroids are used to add strength (and may have other ancillary benefits) - they have a major effect on the body's shape and capacity; amphetamines were principally used to combat fatigue. Steroid use has a longer duration and its effects are far more physical than those of amphetamines. Furthermore, steroids were far more accepted as being a form of cheating in the '90s and early 2000s than amphetamine use was in the 60s and 70s, and as a result steroid use was far more furtive, hidden and denied than amphetamine use. The negative health consequences of steroid use are more serious than amphetamine use in the quantities taken for performance improvement; and the understanding of those risks were even more divergent.

There are more distinctions that could be offered, I am sure. To claim that amphetamine usage was absolutely morally equivalent to steroid usage is really to ignore all the differences that are (rightly, in my view) held to make steroid use worse.

"You mean like all those folks that Frank Frisch and his folk put in via the Vets Committee? But who are the players that the BBWAA voted in during the initial eligibility process that support Pos's purported point??"

I didn't say it had been used to include, only that - according to Pos anyway - that was the intention. IIRC, he wrote that it was Landis's idea. I'll see if I can find the article I'm thinking about. It came from one of his HOF posts in the last year or two....

There are more distinctions that could be offered, I am sure. To claim that amphetamine usage was absolutely morally equivalent to steroid usage is really to ignore all the differences that are (rightly, in my view) held to make steroid use worse.

But there is NO penalty being applied to amp users or other cheaters, while there is a tremendous penalty being applied.

If roid cheating is a 50% penalty, amp a 40% penalty and corking/spitting a 30% cheating....Roids is getting represented as 70% cheating, while the rest are getting a 5% (if that much)penalty.

This isn't the particular article I remembered, but here is one:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/02/11/hall.steroids/

"It is possible that the clause was not written by baseball writers. Bill James, author of the authoritative Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame, believes the clause actually written by baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis. Landis did have a very strong view that the Hall of Fame should be all about character. In the early years, he lobbied hard for a player named Eddie Grant, who went to Harvard and was both respected and admired around the game. Grant enlisted to fight in World War I after he retired, and was killed on a battlefield in Lorraine, France. He was a true hero. Grant's only real drawback as a Hall of Famer was that he wasn't a very good baseball player. He never got more than three votes.

"But at least a couple of writers had their own view of the clause. Two voted for Marty Bergen in 1937. Marty Bergen was, by reputation, a good defensive catcher for Boston in the late 1890s. But he only played four years. Why? Because in 1900 he killed his wife and two children with an axe and then committed suicide. Yes, that will cut a career short. Not sure how high he scores in the integrity, sportsmanship or character categories, but he got one vote in 1938 and another in 1939.*

"*There was obviously at least one sportswriter voting who wasn't too happy with his family life.

"Since then, the clause has been something that voters have embraced and ignored, depending on the mood of the moment. Mark McGwire's alleged drug use has been a clause celebre: The guy hit 583 home runs, broke the single-season home run record, is the all-time leader in home runs per at bat, but almost 80 percent of the voters did not vote for him because they believe he cheated the game.

"Meanwhile, the Hall of Fame is filled with people who admitted to using drugs (Paul Molitor, Ferguson Jenkins, etc.), who willingly cheated (Gaylord Perry threw spitballs, Don Sutton and Whitey Ford cut baseballs, players undoubtedly corked bats), who enthusiastically used illegal performance-enhancers (that would be anyone who ever popped an amphetamine to get a boost, and it's likely that represents a high percentage of Hall of Famers) and so on. It's all a matter of degree. And it's all how you look at it."

----

Meanwhile, I'll keep looking.

And I really doubt that anybody would ever be removed from the hof, regardless what is discovered later. I think that Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker is proof of that. (and I'm fairly certain guys like Radburn and others have more than anectdotal evidence that they gambled on games or took bribes)

I wasn't aware that Cobb and Speaker cheated or gambled on baseball. If you're speaking to their racism, while it's abhorrent, it doesn't meet any kind of reasonable exclusion from the HoF on the basis of "integrity or character." Anecdotal evidence isn't enough. In my example, I used the word definitive for a reason: I don't think it's fair to use innuendo to exclude someone (i.e. Piazza/Bagwell), but I absolutely believe that it's ok to come back and yank down someone's plaque if it can be definitively demonstrated that player violated a cardinal rule, since proof in real time would have excluded them. IDK if Radbourn actually fixed MLB games and Joe Posnanski's article and the SABR piece are hardly evidence, and in any case involve a "club" game in Bloomington, IL BEFORE he joined a major league team.

"consorter" - a companion, associate, partner, or confidant....Pete Rose, Willie Mays, & Mickie Mantle.

How are M & M as casino greeters retired from MLB even comparable to Rose, who bet on baseball as a manager?

MAJOR LEAGUE RULES
Rule 21
MISCONDUCT [...]

(d) BETTING ON BALL GAMES. Any player, umpire, or club official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has no duty to perform shall be declared ineligible for one year.

Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible. [...]

(g) RULE TO BE KEPT POSTED. A printed copy of this Rule shall be kept posted in each clubhouse.

I wasn't aware that Cobb and Speaker cheated or gambled on baseball.

Really? They were suspended in 1926 for gambling and throwing games from 1919, the suspension and evidence was later lifted, but it's more than likely that Cobb and Speaker and Smokey Joe Wood all threw games.

I'm coming in in the middle here, but isn't it pretty obvious that Joe Jackson's candidacy was reviewed under the character clause from the founding of the Hall of Fame until the Rose situation led the Hall to declare permanently suspended players ineligible? Cicotte, too - worse pitchers were inducted.

Edit: my impression after reading Charles Alexander's book on Cobb was that it was pretty clear they gambled on games, but that the fixing allegation was just a bare assertion by Dutch Leonard.

I mean, I know it's going to be discussed a bit, but can we keep the PED arguments to a minimum in this thread? There are no shortage of threads where it can be discussed.

Seconded.

I'm coming in in the middle here, but isn't it pretty obvious that Joe Jackson's candidacy was reviewed under the character clause from the founding of the Hall of Fame until the Rose situation led the Hall to declare permanently suspended players ineligible?

No. I think it was pretty obvious that the vast majority of writers never even thought about voting for Joe Jackson.

They all did PEDs IN SECRET (with the possible exception of McGwire in 1998 - but he was injecting before then) which to my mind DOES tend to implicate their integrity/sportsmanship/character far more than anecdotal use of greenies (which apparently were right out there in the open).

Yeah, much of the league was on steroids and sharing dealers and discussing it openly with each other but they didn't do it IN SECRET.

Are you serious?

Really? They were suspended in 1926 for gambling and throwing games from 1919, the suspension and evidence was later lifted, but it's more than likely that Cobb and Speaker and Smokey Joe Wood all threw games.

Well, it would be impossible for all three of them to throw the same game since they were on opposing teams and Wood didn't even play.

But there is NO penalty being applied to amp users or other cheaters, while there is a tremendous penalty being applied [to steroid users]. If roid cheating is a 50% penalty, amp a 40% penalty and corking/spitting a 30% cheating....Roids is getting represented as 70% cheating, while the rest are getting a 5% (if that much)penalty.

I'd definitely put a more than 5:4:3 ratio of seriousness on steroid use vs. amphetamine use vs. corking. A big part of how you evaluate cheating is to look at the era it was going on. Throwing spitballs would definitely be looked on more seriously today than in 1953; similarly, amphetamine use was seen a lot less seriously in 1967 than today. So it's not just what was used, but when, and what the context was. Taking steroids after they were added to the banned list in 1991 is a graver offence than doing so before it was actually explicitly against league rules.

The relative seriousness of various infractions isn't particularly important - I actually think the current debate is less a result of an unsupportable variance between moral judgements than it is simply that steroids are the thing before us. No one is getting angry about amphetamine use because the vast majority of (exposed) cheating in the last twenty years has been the use of steroids, and its those guys who are now before the BBWAA voters. It's too late to do much of anything about the amphetamine users, even if it would have been a good idea to do so.

One can certainly abjure responsibility to officiate the ethics of cheating, whether by steroids, hgh, amphetamines or corked bats; but others will reasonably say that previous dereliction of duty doesn't justify avoiding the issues now, and that a line needs to be drawn somewhere.

Well, it would be impossible for all three of them to throw the same game since they were on opposing teams and Wood didn't even play.

What do you mean, in 1919 Smoky Wood was on the Indians along with Speaker.



the story.

I found the JoePos post I was thinking about, though it really doesn't add much to the SI article I already posted and quoted from. Here it is:

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/hall-of-fame-the-borderline-five/

Pos was writing in support of Dale Murphy, and making the point that the character clause, if it can be used to exclude, should also be able to be properly used as part of a player's case for inclusion. He wrote:

"...I wrote yesterday that I loathe the Hall of Fame character clause and I do. But if it is going to be there — and I have no illusions that it will ever go away — shouldn’t it be there to REWARD class and dignity as much as to PUNISH players who don’t quite live up to standards? Bill James suggests — and I concur — that the clause may have been a direct effort to reward a player like Eddie Grant, a light hitting infielder from the early part of the 20th Century who hit .249/.300/.295 over 10 seasons for four teams from 1905 to 1915. But he went to Harvard, was widely respected in baseball, and he gave the last full measure of devotion when he died in battle in France during World War I. Our guess is that Kenesaw Mountain Landis may have written the Hall of Fame character clause to encourage people to vote for Eddie Grant. Few actually bought the argument — Grant never received more than three votes. But it seems likely the clause was not put in to exclude as much as INCLUDE.

"Murphy tried to be a role model … he took that seriously. He was a class act, and he promoted the best of the game with the way he played and the way he carried himself. Like Musial, I would say you probably can’t find anyone who dealt with Dale Murphy — teammates, fans, media, anyone — who did not love and admire the guy. I’m not saying this alone should get him into the Hall of fame. But I do think it can be part of his case."

Mays and Mantle were prohibited from being employed by major league teams -- they were not placed on MLB's ineligible list like Rose or Jackson or Steinbrenner. Mantle and Mays were free to do every kind of MLB event or celebration, throw out first balls, even get in uniform at spring training. The only prohibition was that they could not draw a paycheck while being employed by a casino.

Dean also has a pretty obvious peak case based on traditional stats: he won 30, 28, and 24 games in consecutive seasons, won an MVP and followed that up with back-to-back 2nd-place finishes, led the NL in strikeouts for 4 consecutive seasons.

Yeah, but if Carl Mays or Kevin Brown had the exact same career, would they get elected?

Dick Allen is out. In fact, he failed to get 5% his first try. Willie Stargell sailed in on his first ballot. Give Stargell Allen's career and he still gets in easily.

Dick Allen is one guy who I think the character clause has probably been applied too. (I wouldn't be surprised if Blyleven is another, although he's in now, his character and reputation was pretty bad when he played and probably hurt him on the initial ballots.)

Taking steroids after they were added to the banned list in 1991 is a graver offence than doing so before it was actually explicitly against league rules.

Except no such thing happened in 1991. Yes, Vincent wrote a memo "banning" steroids (as part of his made-up drug policy). I can write a memo "banning" the federal government from collecting income taxes from Dan Szymborski. They have equal legal force. Even Vincent didn't think this had any force - neither he nor anyone in baseball ever tried to enforce it in any way, because a long series of arbitration cases had already ruled that the commissioner could not simply make up drug policy and that they had to be negotiated into the Basic Agreement.

MIKE VACCARO

http://nypost.com/2014/01/04/vacs-whacks-this-week-in-football/

Bagwell-Bonds-Clemens-Glavine-Maddux.Morris-Mussina-Piazza-Schilling-Thomas.

Taking steroids after they were added to the banned list in 1991 is a graver offence than doing so before it was actually explicitly against league rules.

Except no such thing happened in 1991. Yes, Vincent wrote a memo "banning" steroids (as part of his made-up drug policy). I can write a memo "banning" the federal government from collecting income taxes from Dan Szymborski. They have equal legal force. Even Vincent didn't think this had any force - he never once tried to enforce it in any way, because a long series of arbitration cases had already ruled that the commissioner could not simply make up drug rules and that they had to be negotiated into the Basic Agreement.

Hi Dan, glad to see that you're still out here fighting the good fight (going all the way back to the rsb days). While it is true that steroids weren't banned in 1991 via the basic agreement, they WERE a controlled substance under federal law. This would explain the furtive nature of their use by MLB players. One of my favorite quotes from the hearings was Sosa saying that he never violated US or DR laws... What he didn't say was, "I never used a controlled substance (i.e. steroids)..."

One of my favorite quotes from the hearings was Sosa saying that he never violated US or DR laws... What he didn't say was, "I never used a controlled substance (i.e. steroids)..."

Your memory is inaccurate.

"Everything I have heard about steroids and human growth hormones is that they are very bad for you, even lethal," Sosa said in his prepared testimony that day. "I would never put anything dangerous like that in my body."

"To be clear," he added, "I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything. "

(source)

932: Wrong ####### Tiger again!

With Trammell I'm just hoping we get him and Whitaker in together via the vet committee. Yeah, it means a longer wait for Whitaker but Trammell is viewed as the stronger player so a bit longer wait for Whitaker isn't a bad thing in that respect although by rWAR Whitaker is the better player by a tiny bit. A shame Whitaker didn't keep going another year like Trammell did as he was actually the superior player at that point (129 OPS+ in his final year, Tram's last 3 years were 82-82-34).

Funny...forgot just how good Whitaker was. 100+ OPS+ from age 25 to the end of his career. His highest salary was in his final season where he played his fewest games since he played just 11 in his first ML season. 100+ games otherwise in all but his final two seasons with 1994 being one of those (92 games in that shortened season).

Your memory is inaccurate.

I think I may have confused his statements after he retired with his hearing testimony. thanks for setting me straight.

Yeah, but if Carl Mays or Kevin Brown had the exact same career, would they get elected?

Dick Allen is out.

But aren't Mays (killed a guy), Brown (named in Mitchell Report), and Allen (quit on team mid-season) examples of the character clause being used as a NEGATIVE? I don't see who it's helped as a positive. Dale Murphy has a borderline HOF case on the merits, won 2 MVP awards, it didn't help him (compare Rice to Murphy on both merit and "character"). Fred McGriff is the "clean" counterpart to Palmeiro and McGwire: hasn't helped him. As others have noted, if it was put there to get Eddie Grant elected, it was a hilariously bad failure.

[soapbox]

I might sound like more of a judge than the anti-Bonds/Clemens crowd (of which I am a part), but...are we sure [writer mentioned in 844] is ok with his/her ballot being disclosed, with his/her name attached? I notice the tweets are now gone from his/her account. Maybe permission was granted and I didn't hear about it, but I just want to encourage proper respect (and admin editing if necessary).

And I admit my bias, this particular writer is right up there with Pos as one of my all-time favorites...so I'll stick up for 'em.

[/soapbox]

I have a larger point, one I tried to make in the 1984 HoM election thread...people here and elsewhere simply put too much weight on the exact numbers that a player has from year to year...before a brick gets lobbed my way, what I mean is, on the one hand you have a player's true talent level in a given season (or over a career), and on the other what his stats actually say over that period of time.

The former the player has total control over. The latter he does not, influenced as they are by all sorts of other factors and external circumstances-most notably his teammates and opponents of course, but also luck/SSS's, umps, etc. etc. What I mean to say is that the error bars I believe are quite a bit larger than popularly supposed (even here or elsewhere on the saber circuit). Switch two players and their stats could be wildly different from what they actually were. I guess I am a Platonist in that sense, in that intrinsic ability is all I really care about, not value per se, since the former is more fundamental and the latter is dependent on the former.

Thus I feel like Smitty, put into identical circumstances as that of Goose, would have had a slightly more valuable career-but again the error bars are probably too close to call (and thus I do backtrack from my statement above which was more rhetorical in response to an equally absolutist and unprovable conclusion).

Likewise I thought the 1.4 WAR edge that Cal Ripken had over Ryne Sandberg in the 1984 HoM election was also an artifact (mainly because of wild seasonal variations in defensive value which greatly favored Cal that year, which either means that the sample size for one season is too small, or that our ability to quantify defense is flawed in some way), and that the error bars in that case were also overlapping significantly (same for baserunning) and that a good case could be made for Ryno over Cal as the more talented player that year. For my temerity I got flamed to pieces, and said the hell with any more votes in yonder old boy's club.

Anyway, someone wanted evidence that Goose's defenses were better, so here are the differences per team (points of batting average) from the league average DER for each player's 10 year peaks (Goose's stint as a starter excluded):

Goose
-------
-12
+13
+17
+1
+1
+10
-14
-3
+23
+8

Avg: +4.4

Smith
--------
-6
-12
-8
-9
-12
-19
-9
-10
-2
+5

Avg: -8.2

Yes DER has its own issues, but that's pretty conclusive: ~10 points of batting average difference (note I didn't check errors). Goose had the likes of Craig Nettles and Willie Randolph behind him. Smitty had Ryno, and...Ron Cey's bellyflops and Keith Moreland's pratfalls.

I still can't believe I have people, on this website, in the year 2014, telling me that this evidence is not conclusive, or useful, or at least worthy of comment. Maybe not for the current HoF voting bloc (tho you could try to point out Smitty's edge in K rates and the arguably crappy Cubs' defenses, if you wanted to), but it might be convincing for some future bloc. There still is an overall 40 point edge in BABIP for Goose, but most of the rest of that is probably the ballparks. Rivera still kills them both of course.

We can probably assume the Deadspin ballot won't include Morris, right?

While it is true that steroids weren't banned in 1991 via the basic agreement, they WERE a controlled substance under federal law.

As were pot and amps.

(And I agree with others that it's too bad this turned into another steroids thread and I apologize for my part in it above)

Anyway, someone wanted evidence that Goose's defenses were better, so here are the differences per team (points of batting average) from the league average DER for each player's 10 year peaks (Goose's stint as a starter excluded)

Thing is, there are park effects in DER. Smith's peak was in Wrigley and Fenway (at least I assume those years are his peak); neither park has any foul territory to speak of, and Fenway has the Monster - it's one of the two highest-BABIP parks in baseball (along with Coors), if I remember correctly. This has a substantial effect on raw DER, but it's also built into park adjustments.

As a quick check, Smith's career BABIP allowed was 28 points higher at home than on the road. (Gossage's splits were within a point of each other.)

Really? They were suspended in 1926 for gambling and throwing games from 1919, the suspension and evidence was later lifted, but it's more than likely that Cobb and Speaker and Smokey Joe Wood all threw games.

I actually think of pre-1920 baseball and gambling the way I do MLB 1980-2005 and steroids. I assume a whole hell of a lot more players are guilty than we know about. I wouldn't actually be all that harsh in judgement (I wouldn't NOT judge). It was the business. Owners held tremendous power over the players and they had few opportunities to make real money. And no one was really getting in trouble about it.

So is Morris toast at this point? Nearly 25% is a pretty damned good sample size...

(At least until the VC undoubtedly has its say in a few years)

I don't think so. At 61% with (a best guess of) 22% of the ballots, I think he needs about 79% of the remaining 78% of the ballots. So I think it's unlikely, but, as has been reported ad nauseum, he has always done better with the unreported ballots than the Gizmo's count.

I mean, I know it's going to be discussed a bit, but can we keep the PED arguments to a minimum in this thread? There are no shortage of threads where it can be discussed.

Seconded.

I'm sorry, but Bonds and Clemens are at 40%. McGwire, Sosa, and Palmeiro are at 5-10%. Steroids is not only completely relevant to HOF voting, it has basically swamped the voting.

The very fact that people have to plea for these threads to keep the steroids discussion to a minimum shows that the HOF is broken. Because you can no longer discuss the HOF and voting without discussing steroids.

Paul Hoynes: Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Edgar Martinez, Jack Morris, Alan Trammell, Lee Smith, Frank Thomas and Tim Raines.

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2014/01/heres_my_cooperstown_hall_of_f.html

He gives no explanation for his choices beyond that he usually votes for 10.

you can no longer discuss the HOF and voting without discussing steroids.

No, you can't discuss the HOF and voting without discussing steroids

For most of the rest of us, there are plenty of other issues without dragging steroids into every damn thread.

The very fact that people have to plea for these threads to keep the steroids discussion to a minimum shows that the HOF is broken. Because you can no longer discuss the HOF and voting without discussing steroids.

Steroids is an omnipresent issue, but that doesn't mean that this is the right place for the 1,000th BTF debate on the legality or morality of greenies vs steroids.

No, you can't discuss the HOF and voting without discussing steroids

For most of the rest of us, there are plenty of other issues without dragging steroids into every damn thread.

No, I'm not the one denying entry to clear HOFers and thus turning the HOF into a joke.

Most of those "plenty of other issues" need the accompanying statement "steroids aside." For example, "Here is a list of Player X's similar players. 8 of his 10 comps would be in, steroids aside."

How 'bout them Eagles, Ray?

I'm watching the Eagles game now on delay, on DVR. I'm almost to the half. It's 7-6 Eagles but I assume from your post that they lost. So thanks for ruining the rest of the game for me, jackass.

Seriously, go find someone else to obsess over instead of prowling this site for my posts.

I'm watching the Eagles game now on delay, on DVR. I'm almost to the half. It's 7-6 Eagles but I assume from your post that they lost. So thanks for ruining the rest of the game for me, jackass.

Wow, name calling. I'm disappointed.

I know this isn't the NFL thread so you can expect to be somewhat safer, but if you really don't want to find out the results of sporting events you're watching on delay, you probably shouldn't be conversing with sports fans online. It's not as if Srul knew you didn't know about them Eagles.

Wait, the Eagles made the playoffs? I'm still on the week 17 Dallas/Eagles game. Thanks guys!

With Trammell I'm just hoping we get him and Whitaker in together via the vet committee.

Completely agree with John here. Trammell and Whitaker were both HOF-worthy on their own; they formed the greatest ever double play combination, debuting together and playing together for 18 years for the same team. Inducting Trammell and Whitaker will help me forget the appalling Tinker/Evers/Chance inductions, for which we have a mediocre rhyme to thank.

For my temerity I got flamed to pieces, and said the hell with any more votes in yonder old boy's club.

Here's an actual quote from you being "flamed to pieces".

You might want to take a longer look at the numbers before dismissing them out of hand.

It's a fun "old boy's club" of people who wouldn't recognize each other if we were walking down the street and can't even figure out how to e-mail each other. That's some pretty exaggerated hyperbole in your statement.

Wow, name calling. I'm disappointed.

He has dozens of posts over the years insulting me.

He has dozens of posts over the years insulting me.

I expect it from him. He's probably insulted just about everyone here at one time or another.

The very fact that people have to plea for these threads to keep the steroids discussion to a minimum shows that the HOF is broken.

The very fact that this sentiment keeps repeating shows that the record is broken.

Gene Myers' ballot (10): Morris, Biggio, Glavine, Maddux, Mussina, Thomas, Alan Trammell, Jeff Bagwell, Edgar Martinez, and Tim Raines.

http://www.freep.com/article/20140105/SPORTS02/301050070/detroit-tigers-baseball-hall-of-fame-jack-morris

He has dozens of posts over the years insulting me.

Hundreds

Thousands

He's probably insulted just about everyone here at one time or another.

Hey, I never insulted you, jerkwad.

Oops

If so, Repoz must be busy 24 hours a day! How does he get any sleep?

Repoz hasn't slept since the opening night of CBGB's.

They all did PEDs IN SECRET (with the possible exception of McGwire in 1998 - but he was injecting before then) which to my mind DOES tend to implicate their integrity/sportsmanship/character far more than anecdotal use of greenies (which apparently were right out there in the open). I am by no means excusing the use of illicit substances circa 1960, but pointing to that as an excuse to overlook the use of PEDs circa 2000 is a copout.

The Mitchell report, Canseco, Radomski, Grimsley, McNamee, etc. all make it clear that this was an open secret among the players. "Everybody" was asking "everybody" what they were using and, if that player had improved, could they have some. Players were rather openly joking about it.

Neither PEDs nor greenies were against the rules of baseball. Both PEDs and greenies were against the law, greenies being on a tougher schedule until PEDs were re-classified. Both PEDs and greenies were considered PEDs and ruled illegal for decades by other sports governing bodies with no distinction made for their use. Both PEDs and greenies were used openly among players although greenies were used more openly. The press wrote about neither. (Bouton is not the press.) There is zero difference between the two in terms of the morality, integrity, character, sportsmanship of their use in baseball prior to testing.

Note, amps weren't illegal until ... the early 70s I think it was. Banned in the Olympics in 68, tested for in 72 ... you can arguably give a mulligan to amp users prior to 70 but not those after that. Their legality in the 60s is the main reason the use was so open -- i.e. because by the time they were illegal their use was already widespread. The use of amps in the 60s is roughly equivalent to the use of andro or ephedrin prior to them being placed on the naughty list.

FTFY, Walt.

As you know Don, Allen is considered by many to have "character" issues and his exclusion is possibly a question of whether his outstanding peak is enough to overcome a short career AND the character issues. He's therefore a more difficult example to work with. The better "outstanding peak, didn't make it" example is probably Murphy.

Should there not be some adjustment for age as well? Since we are clearly going to penalize DHs defensively (and at a level that is arguably on the overly harsh side of things), should they not get some kind of (at least theoretical) boost for having highly productive seasons at ages that are highly unlikely to happen otherwise?

I'm of the opinion that, especially for HoF purposes, the DH penalty probably isn't enough. See my speculation that Edgar in the field has a decline phase closer to Norm Cash.

Should we credit them with being productive at ages others aren't? No. We certainly count it as part of their career production but what age you are when you produce matters not one whit to me. So sure, young Frank Thomas the 1B plus 5300 PA of Frank Thomas the productive DH is greater than young Frank Thomas the 1B who got hit by a bus. Whether he's better than young Frank Thomas the 1B plus 4500 PA of Frank Thomas the productive 1B is the question. (Perhaps you're going for a "greatness" argument similar to my C argument -- that it is very difficult to be great in your 30s so this is a sign of "greatness." In Edgar's case though, he was clearly not great in his 20s so that would balance out. The "he kept producing when others couldn't" argument probably works better for Palmeiro.)

As to Edgar, he made it to 8700 PA. That about 6600 of those PA were in his 30s doesn't matter anymore than the fact that only 2100 of them were in his 20s. That about 6300 of them were as a DH is relevant but some may feel this is already adequately accounted for in WAR.

Edgar pre-30: 2100 PA, 138 OPS+, 19 WAR, 5.9 WAR per 650 PA, 1.9 dWAR
Cash pre-30: 3000 PA, 146 OPS+, 23 WAR, 5 WAR per 650 PA, -2.1 dWAR

The difference in WAR per 650 (and dWAR) is basically all positional adjustment (4 wins difference).

Now if one believes the Ms moved Edgar to DH because they believed it was the only way to keep him healthy then, in the non-DH universe, he gets moved to 1B but presumably stays less healthy than he did at DH. Cash remained a good-fielding 1B through his mid-30s and never became terrible so there's no obvious reason to expect Edgar to be better defensively. The question is one of durability and age-related decline due to durability issues.

From age 30 on, Cash had a very respectable 134 OPS+ in 4900 PA. Edgar of course went nuts and had a 150 OPS+ in 6600 PA. The PA difference is primarily because Edgar was able to hang on substantially longer -- from 30-37 they have about the same number of PA. Edgar of course held on longer cuz he was still killing the ball (not that Cash ever sucked with the bat either.)

How much might Edgar's playing time have suffered if he'd had to play the field every day? I'll admit that Cash looks more like a victim of platooning and day games off after night games than injury per se -- in 68, 70 and 72 he was clearly being platooned; in 69 and 71 not so much. So his OPS+ is surely inflated relative to Edgar who was not platooned (I assume).

Edgar from 30 on continues to out-produce Cash by 1 WAR per 650 PA which is consistent with the pre-30s so it's more than reasonable to consider Edgar better than Cash. But what's the cost in either playing time or offensive ability if he has to play the field the whole time (Cash basically never left the field).

Edgar had 6600 PA while Cash had 4900 -- that would seem a harsh penalty for Edgar the 1B but, keeping his WAR/650 the same, he'd produce another 36 WAR from age 30 on, added to his 19 before and he's at 55 WAR and nobody supports him for the HoF. At 5550, he'd be at about 60 WAR and probably not a lot of support.

Alternatively maybe Edgar stays healthy but loses some oomph with the bat -- e.g. Brett had 6300 PA from 30 on -- some at 3B, some at 1B, the final bits at DH -- and produced "only" 34 WAR. Kinda like Cash, Brett too was fairly close to Edgar from 30-37 (but still nearly 1 WAR per year behind) but falls well back after that. That 34 WAR would be a worst-case scenario for Edgar but even 42 WAR only gets him to about 60 overall (he actually had 49).

McCovey had 5700 PA and 32 WAR. Bagwell slightly out-produced Edgar from 30-36, then got hurt. Edgar's post-30 WAR isn't super outrageous -- Rickey, Boggs, Chipper and Molitor are recent players who roughly matched it -- but he also easily outpaces Palmeiro, Kent, Edmonds, Fisk, Stargell and Sheffield. Now he hit better than all those guys except maybe Stargell but they (except Molitor) all stayed in the field, some at defensively-challenging positions. I do tend to think that moving to DH helped him a lot.

My final bit -- WAR7. Edgar's WAR7 is 43.5 a mere 1.8 WAR behind Thomas's WAR7 (best 7 WAR years). Thomas's WAR7 are his age 23-29 seasons when he was primarily a 1B. He loses 120 runs to Rpos and Rfield. Edgar's WAR7 includes 2 3B years and 5 DH years. He loses only 69 runs to Rpos and Rfield. Thomas loses 17 runs a year being a poor-fielding 1B while Edgar loses only 14 runs a year for being a DH (and breaking even in those two 3B years). Over those 7 years, Edgar had 368 Rbat while Thomas had 437. Do we really think the DH penalty is too harsh here? Was peak Edgar really peak Thomas's near-equal? Should Edgar gain ground by not taking the field? Aren't both their HoF cases built on their bats and wasn't Thomas the MUCH better hitter at his peak? The career comps to Sheffield and Manny are similar -- Sheff is ahead in career runs by about 50 but loses 180 more runs on Rpos + Rfield; Manny is over 100 runs ahead but loses about 130 more to Rpos + Rfield.

It largely just does come down to how you feel about the DH positional adjustment -- soft, about right or too much. If it's about right or too much then Edgar is deserving, especially in years without a ballot like this. If it's soft, then he quickly slips into pretty borderline territory where you have to start thinking about how easy it was to produce good offensive numbers in his era and where he ranks among 1B/LF/RF/DH of his era and all-time. I treat him more like a 62 WAR player with maybe a 40 WAR7 to pull numbers out of my butt -- Mac with a worse peak, McGriff with a real peak.

And it raises greatness vs. value again. Edgar ... and Thome and Thomas and ... are lucky that they played in an era when the DH existed. We can't ignore its existence but its existence allowed them to produce more value than those in earlier eras or NL-stuck players (if such a thing really exists), it didn't make them "greater" or "better" than those players. I'd like to be able to adjust for that although I realize I really can't.

Anyway, I concede that Edgar was better than Cash and probably better than Abreu and Vlad but I don't concede that he was better than Raines, Thome, Dawson, Biggio, Sheffield, Dw Evans, McGwire and you'll have to catch me after I get Alzheimer's if you want me to consider him better than Walker. Plenty nice company to keep.

You might want to take a longer look at the numbers before dismissing them out of hand.

Which you (if that was you in that thread) resolutely refused to do, while worshipping at the almighty Altar of WAR. I did take a second look at the numbers, and came out convinced that the hugely significant difference that you seemed to think existed between the two players in question was not truly significant at all. If a player's defensive numbers are doing this, from year to year:

6
11
23
0
16

I'm not going to put that much weight on them, and certainly not on the "23". It was YOU who was subjectively challenged, not me.

Just like if I see a huge 40 point gap in BABIP, I'm not going to put that much weight on that either, and conclude that they ability of the players in question had little to do with it.

Where does everyone think Smoltz lands next year? Will their be Atlanta momentum or will there be Atlanta fatigue? I'm thinking Smoltz lands in the high 40's/low 50's

Klapisch: Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Tim Raines, Mike Mussina.

As for Mussina, his spot on the ballot could’ve easily been taken by Curt Schilling, or as some believe, Jack Morris. But I was worried that the former Yankee right-hander wouldn’t collect the necessary five percent of the votes to remain on next year’s ballot. Hence, I picked him over Schilling, who I believe deserves to be in Cooperstown and Morris, who after much deliberation, does not.

Mussina never captured a Cy Young, true, but he did win 270 games in an era when American League hitters were artificially pumped up by pharmaceuticals. Only 11 pitchers in the Hall of Fame have a higher winning percentage (.638).

Ultimately, I couldn’t make peace with Morris’ 3.90 ERA in a pitching-dominant era. The right-hander was big and tough and anyone’s definition of a warrior, no doubt, but he simply fell a notch below what I considered Cooperstown’s threshold.

As for Martinez and his career .993 OPS and Trammel, who had a much better career than anyone gave him credit for (overshadowed by Cal Ripken), they were unfortunate casualties of this restricted ballot. Same goes for Jeff Kent, a terrific, power-hitting second baseman who merits another look. Maybe next year.

I looked plenty at the numbers, I just drew a different conclusion than you did. No, it wasn't me who responded to you. The thread is still available if you care to look it up.

It is hard to see how you were insulted in any way unless you see any disagreement as insult. Your ballot was counted just like everyone else. If you don't want to participate any more that's your loss as far as I'm concerned. The discussion and opportunity for feedback is the whole point of the exercise.

Steve Buckley, Boston Herald:

Last year, I voted for eight players: Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Edgar Martinez, McGriff, Jack Morris, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines and Curt Schilling. Since the BBWAA failed to elect anybody to Cooperstown last year, and since all eight of my choices are still eligible for induction, I planned to vote for them again this year .?.?. except that first-timers on the ballot include Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas.

Now before I explain why I’m voting for Maddux, Glavine and Thomas, and why I’m dropping McGriff — hopefully just for this year — let me get the obligatory PEDs thing out of the way: No, I am not voting for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire. And, yes, I am voting for Bagwell, Biggio and Piazza, because: a) they’ve never been linked to PEDs; and b) I don’t care about your stupid “eyeball test.” My system is just as flawed as everybody else’s, but I can live with it....

But by adding these three Hall of Fame locks, I had to take out a player. I eventually whittled my exclusion list to Martinez, Raines and McGriff. And I decided to keep Martinez and Raines for no other reason than because, as of now, they have a better chance of getting the requisite 75 percent of the vote. Raines, who is in his seventh year on the ballot, was named on 52.2 percent of votes cast last year. Martinez, who is on the ballot for the fifth time, was named on 35 percent last year.

McGriff, who is on the ballot for the fifth time, hasn’t received much support. His best showing was 2012, when he was named on 23.9 percent of the ballots, but he fell to just 20.7 percent last year. And this for a man with 493 career home runs, eight seasons of 100 or more RBI, and a .377 on-base percentage. He was also an outstanding performer on the October stage, with a .303 average, .385 OBP and 10 home runs in 218 postseason plate appearances.

My hope is that I’ll be able to vote for Fred McGriff again. I also hope to vote for Mike Mussina, who is on the ballot for the first time. Maybe I should have voted for Mussina over Morris, but Morris is on the ballot for the 15th and last time. Last year, he came within shouting distance of Cooperstown, being named on 67.7 percent of votes cast.

Hundreds

Thousands

Srul, go find someone else to stalk.

What do you mean, in 1919 Smoky Wood was on the Indians along with Speaker.

What do you mean "what do you mean"? Cobb was on the opposing team and Wood didn't play in the game. The only person who could have possibly threw the game was Tris Speaker and he went 3 for 5 with 2 triples. So maybe he did it by putting in a scrub of a pitcher to start the game? Well, he had Elmer Myers start and it is hard to say he used him to throw the game since it looks like Elmer very well could have been the normal starter. Maybe Speaker sat his starters? Nope. Every single regular starter played except for Chapman and for him Speaker used his regular back up. Who was admittedly godawful on offense but about the same with the glove as compared to Chapman. Supposedly Speaker gave Chapman off so he could return back to Cleveland and prepare for his wedding.

In neither letter used as evidence that a game was fixed was Tris Speaker mentioned nor was a specific game mentioned. For all we know Cobb and Wood could have been talking about betting on the World Series or any other game from that season.

Owners held tremendous power over the players and they had few opportunities to make real money.

Except major league ballplayers made great money. Compared to the rest of America they were well paid employees and they got that salary while not even having to work the full year.

The Eddie Grant story is fun, but if you seriously do want to establish original intent, there are steps that need to be filled in between "Landis supported Eddie Grant for the HOF" and "the character clause was established for the purpose of electing people like Eddie Grant." (Not that I expect Poz to do that work, he isn't a historian, but still.)

I don't care about original intent, so I don't think it really matters.

Anyway, Srul is a great man.

Mattingly's been vacillating above and below the 5% cutoff threshold. This makes me wonder if there's ever been anyone who has been knocked out of eligibility in their next-to-last theoretically eligible year.

Mattingly's been vacillating above and below the 5% cutoff threshold. This makes me wonder if there's ever been anyone who has been knocked out of eligibility in their next-to-last theoretically eligible year.

I asked that earlier. No, no one's had it happened under the 5 percent system. The latest, I believe, was Bobby Bonds after his 11th ballot.

But, per Dag, Mattingly typically gets a boost when the oversized New York contingent weighs in, so he's probably safe.

I'm sorry, but Bonds and Clemens are at 40%. McGwire, Sosa, and Palmeiro are at 5-10%. Steroids is not only completely relevant to HOF voting, it has basically swamped the voting.

The very fact that people have to plea for these threads to keep the steroids discussion to a minimum shows that the HOF is broken. Because you can no longer discuss the HOF and voting without discussing steroids.

Funny, I seem to recall someone around here saying that the issue of steroids was "jumping the shark" almost five years ago.

Mattingly wouldn't ever get VC admittance, would he?

[974] see http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/newsstand/discussion/the_2013_hof_ballot_collecting_gizmo/#4623975 regarding Bobby Thomson

I think Mattingly is 50/50. Note that Lee Smith's formerly very consistent support has been instantly cut in half. We may be underestimating these guys to think that they're such goombahs that they don't understand that Mattingly is a marginal choice, and are determined to vote for him regardless of the strength of the ballot.

I think Mattingly is 50/50. Note that Lee Smith's formerly very consistent support has been instantly cut in half. We may be underestimating these guys to think that they're such goombahs that they don't understand that Mattingly is a marginal choice, and are determined to vote for him no matter what.

I generally agree with the premise, but he's over the line at the moment and his historically stronger base hasn't reported in (and he gained almost 5 percent from last year's Gizmo to the actual). He's unlikely to maintain all of his former backers, but it's probably a safe bet that he'll hang on. If he, like Lee, sees half his support vanish, he'll still clear 5 percent.

I'm having a brain fart -- how long has Lee Smith been on the ballot?

Klapisch: Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Tim Raines, Mike Mussina.

Woo Hoo! Somebody submitted the same ballot that I did in the BBTF mock election.

I'm having a brain fart -- how long has Lee Smith been on the ballot?

This is his 12th year on the ballot.

If MLB was really serious about the character clause, they would use it to ban Bonds and Clemens from the HOF like they did with Rose, and stop all this nonsense with making the voters guess what weight to give it.

That said, MLB never would do that, because it would be facially absurd. That should tell the voters all they need to know about the weight that they should give it. If you couldn't imagine the body in charge banning the guy from the Hall, why should you?

Also, Piazza is really the only interesting one left, I think.

Piazza was -2.5 from the Gizmo to the actual last year, but he was a first-timer with vague roid connections, so he should get a boost this year on both counts (those who wanted to keep him out as a first balloter will be switching their votes this year). Between that and the purportedly large NY contingent I keep hearing about, and he may have a shot to be +2.5 or so this time.

Where does everyone think Smoltz lands next year? Will their be Atlanta momentum or will there be Atlanta fatigue? I'm thinking Smoltz lands in the high 40's/low 50's

Can anyone construct an argument that Smoltz is more deserving than Schilling or Mussina? I think he's pretty clearly third among the three, though pretty close.

If Maddux winds up with 100%, I wonder if that will be the real end of the dumb "no 100%" stuff, or if it will just metamorphose from "He can't get 100%, not even Babe Ruth got 100%!" to "He can't get 100%, he's no Maddux!"

Well, it isn't MLB that has to be serious about the character clause. It is the HoF that would have to be and the "character clause" is a piece of information that the voter is supposed to judge the player on. The Hall is asking its voters to vote based on the voter's views and opinions of the players in selected criterias.

There is no way Maddux is going to get 100%. Something like 10 to 20 ballots will leave him off.

The recent dude who's in the HoF due to the character clause is (ironically) Kirby Puckett, right?

Can anyone construct an argument that Smoltz is more deserving than Schilling or Mussina?

Smoltz won a Cy Young, Schilling and Mussina didn't.

There is no way Maddux is going to get 100%. Something like 10 to 20 ballots will leave him off.

That looks like too many. I think he has to be seen as a serious threat to Seaver at this point.

Can anyone construct an argument that Smoltz is more deserving than Schilling or Mussina? I think he's pretty clearly third among the three, though pretty close.

If Smoltz is viewed in the Eck mode (a favorable comparison) rather than as a straight SP.

My gut impression of the three when they were all playing would have told me that Smoltz was the best. I mean, just not looking up numbers or anything. That would have been my assumption.

Turns out not to be true. But "turns out" is not something in a lot of these guys' thought processes. Many will just think, "John Smoltz. Gamer. Beard. Playoffs and starter and closer. Greatest rotation of all time. Pyramid of greatness, falls between Glavine and masonry. Hall of Fame. John Smoltz."

They better show this when Maddux and Glavine go in.

Can anyone construct an argument that Smoltz is more deserving than Schilling or Mussina? I think he's pretty clearly third among the three, though pretty close.

From baseball reference: Smoltz was huge in the post-season. Over 25 playoff series, he went 15-4. Those 15 wins are good enough for 2nd-most all-time and are more than Tom Glavine (14) and Greg Maddux (11). He had a few bad games here and there, but overall he was great, with a 2.59 ERA in 11 NLDSs, 2.83 ERA in 9 NLCSs, and 2.47 ERA in 5 WSs.

@Weird_Meat, Ryan: I track Edgar votes, and have been periodically checking what I have versus what you have. I was consistently one "yes" more than you have, so I went through and checked. The difference is Ross Newhan: you have him a "no" and I have him a "yes." He is a "yes" - check his 12/30/2013 tweet @RossNewhan1.

Can anyone construct an argument that Smoltz is more deserving than Schilling or Mussina? I think he's pretty clearly third among the three, though pretty close.

I can't, but there will be BBWAA voters who try, and here are the points I see them making:

1. The Cy Young Award.
2. Going to the bullpen "for the good of the team."
3. We can make a group, since Smoltz was as good as Glavine and almost as good as Maddux.
4. Smoltz won a Silver Slugger.
5. The Game 7 start against Morris- "Smoltz matched Morris pitch for pitch in the greatest game ever played!"

Yup, really looking forward to seeing these reasons cited in HOF articles next year...

The Chicago Tribune's five voters all released their votes today:

Mark Gonzalez: Jeff Bagwell, Tom Glavine, Jeff Kent, Greg Maddux, Edgar Martinez, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, and Frank Thomas. (8 in all)

Teddy Greenstein: Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Don Mattingly, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, Curt Schilling, Lee Smith, Frank Thomas (10)

Philip Hersh: Craig Biggio, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Edgar Martinez, Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, Tim Raines, Lee Smith, Frank Thomas, and Larry Walker (10).

Fred Mitchell: Tom Glavine, Jeff Kent, Greg Maddux, Jack Morris, Tim Raines, Lee Smith, and Frank Thomas (7)

Paul Sullivan: Craig Biggio, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Tim Raines, Lee Smith, and Frank Thomas (6)

EDITED: because I can't count to seven apparently on Mitchell's ballot.

Inducting Trammell and Whitaker will help me forget the appalling Tinker/Evers/Chance inductions, for which we have a mediocre rhyme to thank.

Had the BBWAA been voting every year in the 40s, instead of every three years, it's very likely that Evers and Chance would have been voted in (Tinker, maybe not). Both players were consistent top-10 finishers in the votes that were conducted (Chance led the ballot in 1945) but the problem was that there were so many qualified players that the cream couldn't be skimmed from the top. The FPA poem came out in 1910, after the Cub trio had been prominent for a while.

-- MWE

Where does everyone think Smoltz lands next year? Will their be Atlanta momentum or will there be Atlanta fatigue? I'm thinking Smoltz lands in the high 40's/low 50's

Schilling - Rank 27 - JAWS 64.4 - ERA+ 127 - IP 3,261 W-L (216-146)
Mussina - Rank 28 - JAWS 63.8 - ERA+ 123 - IP 3,562 W-L (270-153)

Glavine - Rank 30 - JAWS 62.9 - ERA+ 118 - IP 4,413 W-L (305-203)

Smoltz - Rank 58 - JAWS 54.1 - ERA+ 125 - IP 3,473 W-L (213-155)

and just for kicks

Morris - Rank 159 - JAWS 38.4 - ERA+ 105 - IP 3,824 W-L (254-186)

Because of his association with Maddux and the TBS Braves, he will get the same benefits that Glavine did, and probably do very well relatively speaking. I'd suspect that he will get more than 50% of the voters' support and be ahead of Mussina and Schilling. Of course I would rather have Schilling or Mussina starting a crtical game seven for me than either Glavine or Smoltz, but that's just me.

His ERA+ was helped by his seasons as a closer, and that will also help him.

As many votes for Piazza among the Tribbers as for Mattingly. I can't say that I expected to see that.