1. Greg Maddux-You don't need me to tell you why Greg Maddux belongs in the Hall of Fame. The most popular viewpoint on his candidacy may be, "Anyone who doesn't vote for Greg Maddux is an imbecile and should have his (or her) vote taken away."
So instead, let's try to imagine how someone could possibly justify leaving Maddux off of a ballot.
A theoretical but indefensible proposition would be that Greg just wasn't quite good enough. But hey, several of these bozos managed to conclude that Rickey Henderson didn't belong in the Hall, so I guess anything's possible.
And then there is the "Steroid Era" crowd, who maintain that Maddux (a guy who dominated pitching for 15 years with an 88 mph fastball) is somehow under an 'umbrella of suspicion', or complicit in the steroid use of others because he, I don't know, didn't start hurling wild and unsubstantiated allegations at his coworkers. Yeah, that seems like a failure of integrity, sportsmanship and character on his part. That's the ticket.
And of course there's the ever popular "If Joe DiMaggio wasn't a first ballot Hall of Famer (he wasn't) and Babe Ruth wasn't unanimous (he wasn't, although he was competing against every player in baseball history up to that point), then no one should be!" Which sounds fine, until you apply what is known as 'logic' and realize that if everyone adopted that viewpoint, Greg Maddux would fall off the ballot with 0.0% of the vote. Which doesn't quite seem fair.
So yes, I think that anyone using one of the above arguments is an imbecile and should have his or her vote taken away. And sadly, at least two of those arguments will be advanced by the handful of voters who won't vote for Maddux.
But there is also the argument of game theory, recognizing that in reality Greg Maddux is in no danger of receiving less than 75% of the vote, or even less 95% of the vote. So there may be those voters who will determine that someone else on this stacked ballot 'needs' their vote more than Maddux. As I've already stated, that doesn't fit with my concept of what Hall voting should be about. It's not about helping 'your guy', but a collective decision that is made by everyone participating fairly. Nevertheless, as long as the Hall restricts the number of votes a writer can cast, many will be left allocating votes among more than ten worthy candidates--and if you vote for ten legitimate Hall of Famers, I guess I might have to countenance a vote against Greg Maddux on such grounds.
Not mine, though.
2. Barry Bonds
3. Roger Clemens
4. Mike Piazza
5. Jeff Bagwell
There is something these four players have in common.
What I'm referring to is, of course, the fact that all exceed the Hall standard at their respective positions by a huge margin and there is no cogent statistical case to be made against any of them. I suppose that one could attempt a tortured argument against Piazza on the grounds that catchers shouldn't get any credit for playing a position that wreaks havoc on the knees, back and head, or that Piazza shouldn't get credit for being a catcher because he was bad at it. (Although he wasn't bad at it, not when you take plate coverage and calling games into account. He had a weak arm, but he played in an era where teams were looking to hit balls into the seats, not play small ball. A flaw, but a minor one in light of his other qualities.) But we all know that's not why more than a handful of writers aren't voting for Piazza.
Where they differ is that two of them are admitted users of an anabolic steroid that is banned by the Olympics, the NFL and Major League Baseball. The other two are suspected on the basis of overwhelming circumstantial evidence.
The users, as you might have guessed, are Bagwell and Piazza. Both admitted using androstenedione, a performance enhancing anabolic steroid, while playing. Somehow both are receiving close to twice as many votes as the suspected users (Bonds and Clemens), each of whom has a case as one of the ten best players EVER. Why, then are these two facing what amounts to a blacklist? The answer "they were using ILLEGAL steroids" is all well and good, but how then are you going to justify voting for Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Mickey Mantle, who were using performance enhancing amphetamines illegally? Or Tim Raines, who slid headfirst into second to keep from breaking the vials of cocaine in his pocket?
It seems that a bigger issue is the perception--the unproven perception--that the substances ingested by Bonds and Clemens (and almost certainly other players on this ballot, and very probably other players already in the Hall) gave them a competitive advantage that was above and beyond anything you could get from 'andro' or 'greenies' or corking a bat or scuffing a ball (here's looking at you, Gaylord Perry and Whitey Ford). The 'proof' of that is what happened in the late 90s and early 2000s. Players did things at a rate that had never been achieved before.
So in a way, Bonds and Clemens are being tarred with their own greatness.
There's also the disturbing fact that both were royal jerks in general and to writers in particular. And now those same writers are their judge and jury. You wonder how much of the pursuit of these guys was really about 'the integrity of the game' and how much was about 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall'...and payback.
For me, the whole exercise is hypocritical and pointless. The purpose of the Hall has never been, and never should be, to whitewash baseball history.
6. Tim Raines-Raines, much like Bert Blyleven, was hurt by the 'eye test'. He didn't look like one of the greatest hitters of his generation...and on top of that, he had a hard time getting looked at all since he played in Montreal.
But Tim Raines was, it so happens, one of the greatest hitters of his generation. Again, much like Blyleven he was hurt because his greatness wasn't readily apparent from the 'traditional' counting stats or batting average ('only' a career .294 hitter, 'only' 2605 hits, 'only' 170 HRs and 980 RBI.
Thing is, though, you don't have to get into the intricacies of park adjustments or defensive fielding metrics to appreciate Raines. His on-base percentage was .385. He accumulated more total bases than Tony Gwynn. The goal in baseball is to run all around the bases and get back where you started, and Raines picked up more bases than a no doubt first ballot Hall of Famer. He belongs, and in light of the pharmacopeia ingested by many of the other players on this ballot, concerns about his history of cocaine use 30 years ago seem almost quaint.
Tim Raines should be in the Hall, and I hope that his case eventually picks up steam.
7. Frank Thomas
8. Edgar Martinez
Here we have two guys who played more games at DH than elsewhere. Neither was any good as a fielder; Martinez occasionally played a somewhat important defensive position (3B, poorly), whereas Thomas more frequently played a much easier position (1B, poorly). Both were not only good but absolutely great hitters for ten year periods (Thomas' 7 year peak WAR is 45.3, Martinez' 43.5, both exceeding the average Hall standard for hitters).
And look, I'm not trying to argue that Thomas doesn't deserve your vote a little more than Martinez does. His longer career certainly counts for something, and as great as Martinez was at his peak Thomas was slightly better.
But as I've said many times before, if the Mariners had trotted out Edgar Martinez to play a lousy 1B the same way the White Sox did with Thomas (largely at his own request in later years, fully cognizant of the Hall of Fame implications), he would probably be at 50% on the ballot by now.
How, exactly, is it right that Martinez should be punished for not hurting his team by being bad at fielding? Isn't the goal of baseball to help your team win?
9. Tom Glavine-I discussed Glavine vis a vis Schilling and Mussina earlier--as I alluded to in the initial post, I do regard the magic number of 300 wins as a worthy tiebreaker. Schilling can't match Glavine in terms of length of career as an effective pitcher, and Mussina's puzzling decision to walk away with 270 wins is probably going to cost him. I don't have much of a problem with those who prefer one (or even both) of those pitchers to Glavine, but of the three it is Glavine who got my vote.
10. Rafael Palmeiro-And so we come to the end.
I also discussed Palmeiro's case in comparison to Craig Biggio's in the last post, as well as the fact that Palmeiro's anemic vote total has little to do with his statistical merits. Even among those who can countenance steroid users, Palmeiro's positive test in the 'post-penalty' era is apparently too much to stomach, in many cases.
And I do get that. Palmeiro would have had an uphill climb in any case in a sabermetric era in which 3000 hits doesn't get you bonus points in comparison to 2950. But I do think that he is too easily dismissed as 'merely' very good for a long time--he had more accumulated career value than Craig Biggio, Mark McGwire, Edgar Martinez, Tim Raines and Alan Trammell. There's nothing 'mere' about that select company. I object--perhaps for the last time--to the reduction of Palmeiro's career to the stereotype of a plodder and I do wish more writers would admit that his actual statistical case is a lot stronger than they have heretofore admitted.
And since this may well be Raffy's final rodeo, I leave you with one final, discomfiting thought...what if he was telling the truth? He was not named in the Mitchell report. He apparently passed a polygraph examination as regards intentional steroid use. Is it possible that Palmeiro's inexplicable use of steroids during his last year was really a one-off stupid mistake? Or even that his claims of having ingested something given to him by another player is actually what happened? I'm not saying that I believe it--I don't--but I have to admit it's not a matter of certainty. No matter how much the writers would like to be.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
So close, yet so far (from my vote)
Only two days to go until the 2014 Baseball Hall of Fame class is announced!
If you haven't picked up on it yet, I LOVE the HOF voting process and the announcement is tantamount to my Christmas. (Oddly enough, I don't care about the induction at all. I think I've watched three of them since 1996.)
Anyway, tomorrow's post contains the players who were selected for my ballot. Tonight I'm discussing three players who I didn't vote for who nevertheless have a very strong HOF case, and another player that I would vote for if there were enough spots on the ballot. Without further ado:
1. Larry Walker-From a pure statistical perspective, Larry Walker has a good case for the Hall. Of the players on this stacked ballot, he is ninth in career WAR and 8th in 7 year peak WAR. That's an impressive set of achievements no matter how you look at it.
Two things have kept him off my ballot. One, his value as a player was damaged somewhat by his frequent struggles with injury. The WAR stat does a good job of comparing a player to a more or less objective reference, but it's not very useful for quantifying the damage to a team when a player actually gets replaced by a replacement level player. And that happened quite a bit with Larry Walker.
I have to admit, though, that the biggest thing that keeps me from voting for Walker is a fairly vague belief that he got a bigger boost from ballpark effects than statistics can show. Sure, there are advanced metrics like OPS+ that attempt to include corrections for playing in a 'hitters park' or a 'pitchers park'. But there's no statistically meaningful way to correct for the interaction between an individual player and a ballpark.
The best example I can think of is the Minnesota Twins' erstwhile catcher, Joe Mauer. Mauer was and is a classic hitting for average guy who is fairly bereft of power, in the mold of Tony Gwynn. In the hitters' graveyard of Target Field, a Mauer home run has become an event notable for its rarity (33 HR in 4 years). Now, it's not too surprising that Mauer hit more home runs in the Metrodome, which was a hitter's playground. Thing was, though, in Mauer's last year inside he started hitting home runs at a rate that made him--well, not look like a power hitter but like a better power hitter than Paul LoDuca, at least. Mauer hit 28 out in his last year in the Dome, and (true or not) there was a perception that he might have picked up on some vagary of playing in that environment...perhaps the legendary current that supposedly carried balls to the outfield when the Twins were at bat, or maybe it was just that he found a giant Hefty bag to be a great batter's eye. Who knows? Point was, Mauer hit more home runs in the last season at the Dome than in the next three seasons outside of it. And while OPS+ dings Mauer for that year for playing in the Dome, the question is whether an adjustment standardized across all players accurately quantified the amount of his personal advantage.
Anyway, I digress, but the point is Larry Walker's whole career in Coors Field was like that. He was a better hitter in Coors Field, of course he was, just like Jim Rice and Wade Boggs were better hitters at Fenway and Kirby Puckett was a better hitter at the Metrodome. But does that really account for the one hundred points in batting average Walker gained for his career at Coors?
Honestly, I'm not sure. And if someone can provide me a convincing statistical argument proving that Walker's dominance at altitude was NOT an outlier from the normal boost players got from that environment, I may well support him in the future. But for now, he's a no.
2. Mike Mussina
3. Curt Schilling
Schilling came really close to making my ballot. If the writers put in four or five players like they should, he probably will make my ballot next year. Mussina--ah heck, I'll admit it. I'm biased against the guy because of his habit of coming up just small enough to lose in the postseason in the last several years he played for the Yankees. But no doubt both have a good case for the Hall of Fame.
By Jay Jaffe's 'seven year peak WAR' measurement, Mussina, Schilling, and Tom Glavine are each short of the HOF average for peak. All of them, on the other hand, exceed the average career WAR for HOF starting pitchers. So what we have here is the case of three 'accumulators'. A case can be made for any of the three over the other two. Schilling was the most dominant during his peak, as reflected by his 7 year peak WAR (49.0 vs. 44.5 for Mussina and 44.3 for Glavine). Mussina was (or so say the numbers) actually the most valuable in terms of total career WAR (83 vs. 81.4 for Glavine and 79.9 for Schilling). Glavine--well, Glavine hit a very nice round number that tends to make good things happen for pitchers who want to go to the Hall of Fame, which is why he is probably going to get a plaque this year, and if not this year then the next.
The two factors that still make me vote "no" on these two are:
A) Perhaps a bit unfair, but if I'm limited to ten votes it seems a bit odd to give 40 or 50% of those votes to pitchers. Both in terms of total roster and core playoff starters, starting pitchers are about 25% of a baseball team. Giving half of my votes to starters seems to overvalue them, given that consideration.
B) But most of all, there's this. There's no question that on statistics alone, the best four pitchers of the turn of the century were: 1) Roger Clemens; 2-3) Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson; 4) Pedro Martinez. So, whichever one of Mussina, Schilling and Glavine you like best is at most the fifth best pitcher of the era. And that makes the others 6 and 7, and that's before you even think about Mariano Rivera and conceivably even John Smoltz. Is being the 7th best starter of the late 90s and 2000s enough to be in the Hall? For now, my answer is no.
Lastly...I really can't believe I'm not voting for this guy. I had no intention of not voting for this guy until the week before I cast my ballot...
4. Craig Biggio
Craig Biggio was a great player, and he was a unique player. Only player ever to make All-Star at catcher and second baseman. The willingness to let a 95 mph fastball blast him in the elbow without flinching (OK, the armor helped, but still). And he hit the ball...three...thousand...times. Even more so than 300 wins, it's a golden number. After all, you can make or not make 300 wins on the basis of your teammates. Three thousand hits are yours alone. Even if, like Craig Biggio, to get there you had to hang around so long that you were visibly hurting your team by continuing to play.
This was supposed to be the spot for a valedictory for Rafael Palmeiro, who may well fall off the ballot this year.
But I looked at my own criteria. Was Biggio one of the best middle infielders in baseball for ten years? No, he just wasn't. His career overlapped Ripken and Sandberg on one end and Jeter and Alex Rodriguez on the other. He might have been the best second baseman in MLB for 3-4 years, but that's about it. Is he clearly better than some other recent middle infielder? No, he's in fact substantially below Barry Larkin's standard. So what we're left with is Biggio's case as an accumulator. 3000 hits. That was easy.
But which is, it so happens, Palmeiro's case as well.
And the thing is, Palmeiro was just better. It wasn't even all that close in terms of career value (71.8 WAR vs. 64.9). If you like JAWS, Palmeiro is over the standard by 1.3 and Biggio under it by 3.7. About the only argument that favors Biggio--apart from, well, you know--is that his peak was a little better, but neither one is really in the discussion (or out of it) on the basis of peak.
I realize that the reality is that the tribe has spoken: Biggio got 3000 hits and never tested positive for steroids. Palmeiro got 3000 hits and did test positive for steroids. And Biggio well get in the Hall soon, perhaps even this year, and Palmeiro almost certainly never will.
Nevertheless, Palmeiro was still better. And so the spot that was supposed to be his send-off...goes to Craig.
If you haven't picked up on it yet, I LOVE the HOF voting process and the announcement is tantamount to my Christmas. (Oddly enough, I don't care about the induction at all. I think I've watched three of them since 1996.)
Anyway, tomorrow's post contains the players who were selected for my ballot. Tonight I'm discussing three players who I didn't vote for who nevertheless have a very strong HOF case, and another player that I would vote for if there were enough spots on the ballot. Without further ado:
1. Larry Walker-From a pure statistical perspective, Larry Walker has a good case for the Hall. Of the players on this stacked ballot, he is ninth in career WAR and 8th in 7 year peak WAR. That's an impressive set of achievements no matter how you look at it.
Two things have kept him off my ballot. One, his value as a player was damaged somewhat by his frequent struggles with injury. The WAR stat does a good job of comparing a player to a more or less objective reference, but it's not very useful for quantifying the damage to a team when a player actually gets replaced by a replacement level player. And that happened quite a bit with Larry Walker.
I have to admit, though, that the biggest thing that keeps me from voting for Walker is a fairly vague belief that he got a bigger boost from ballpark effects than statistics can show. Sure, there are advanced metrics like OPS+ that attempt to include corrections for playing in a 'hitters park' or a 'pitchers park'. But there's no statistically meaningful way to correct for the interaction between an individual player and a ballpark.
The best example I can think of is the Minnesota Twins' erstwhile catcher, Joe Mauer. Mauer was and is a classic hitting for average guy who is fairly bereft of power, in the mold of Tony Gwynn. In the hitters' graveyard of Target Field, a Mauer home run has become an event notable for its rarity (33 HR in 4 years). Now, it's not too surprising that Mauer hit more home runs in the Metrodome, which was a hitter's playground. Thing was, though, in Mauer's last year inside he started hitting home runs at a rate that made him--well, not look like a power hitter but like a better power hitter than Paul LoDuca, at least. Mauer hit 28 out in his last year in the Dome, and (true or not) there was a perception that he might have picked up on some vagary of playing in that environment...perhaps the legendary current that supposedly carried balls to the outfield when the Twins were at bat, or maybe it was just that he found a giant Hefty bag to be a great batter's eye. Who knows? Point was, Mauer hit more home runs in the last season at the Dome than in the next three seasons outside of it. And while OPS+ dings Mauer for that year for playing in the Dome, the question is whether an adjustment standardized across all players accurately quantified the amount of his personal advantage.
Anyway, I digress, but the point is Larry Walker's whole career in Coors Field was like that. He was a better hitter in Coors Field, of course he was, just like Jim Rice and Wade Boggs were better hitters at Fenway and Kirby Puckett was a better hitter at the Metrodome. But does that really account for the one hundred points in batting average Walker gained for his career at Coors?
Honestly, I'm not sure. And if someone can provide me a convincing statistical argument proving that Walker's dominance at altitude was NOT an outlier from the normal boost players got from that environment, I may well support him in the future. But for now, he's a no.
2. Mike Mussina
3. Curt Schilling
Schilling came really close to making my ballot. If the writers put in four or five players like they should, he probably will make my ballot next year. Mussina--ah heck, I'll admit it. I'm biased against the guy because of his habit of coming up just small enough to lose in the postseason in the last several years he played for the Yankees. But no doubt both have a good case for the Hall of Fame.
By Jay Jaffe's 'seven year peak WAR' measurement, Mussina, Schilling, and Tom Glavine are each short of the HOF average for peak. All of them, on the other hand, exceed the average career WAR for HOF starting pitchers. So what we have here is the case of three 'accumulators'. A case can be made for any of the three over the other two. Schilling was the most dominant during his peak, as reflected by his 7 year peak WAR (49.0 vs. 44.5 for Mussina and 44.3 for Glavine). Mussina was (or so say the numbers) actually the most valuable in terms of total career WAR (83 vs. 81.4 for Glavine and 79.9 for Schilling). Glavine--well, Glavine hit a very nice round number that tends to make good things happen for pitchers who want to go to the Hall of Fame, which is why he is probably going to get a plaque this year, and if not this year then the next.
The two factors that still make me vote "no" on these two are:
A) Perhaps a bit unfair, but if I'm limited to ten votes it seems a bit odd to give 40 or 50% of those votes to pitchers. Both in terms of total roster and core playoff starters, starting pitchers are about 25% of a baseball team. Giving half of my votes to starters seems to overvalue them, given that consideration.
B) But most of all, there's this. There's no question that on statistics alone, the best four pitchers of the turn of the century were: 1) Roger Clemens; 2-3) Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson; 4) Pedro Martinez. So, whichever one of Mussina, Schilling and Glavine you like best is at most the fifth best pitcher of the era. And that makes the others 6 and 7, and that's before you even think about Mariano Rivera and conceivably even John Smoltz. Is being the 7th best starter of the late 90s and 2000s enough to be in the Hall? For now, my answer is no.
Lastly...I really can't believe I'm not voting for this guy. I had no intention of not voting for this guy until the week before I cast my ballot...
4. Craig Biggio
Craig Biggio was a great player, and he was a unique player. Only player ever to make All-Star at catcher and second baseman. The willingness to let a 95 mph fastball blast him in the elbow without flinching (OK, the armor helped, but still). And he hit the ball...three...thousand...times. Even more so than 300 wins, it's a golden number. After all, you can make or not make 300 wins on the basis of your teammates. Three thousand hits are yours alone. Even if, like Craig Biggio, to get there you had to hang around so long that you were visibly hurting your team by continuing to play.
This was supposed to be the spot for a valedictory for Rafael Palmeiro, who may well fall off the ballot this year.
But I looked at my own criteria. Was Biggio one of the best middle infielders in baseball for ten years? No, he just wasn't. His career overlapped Ripken and Sandberg on one end and Jeter and Alex Rodriguez on the other. He might have been the best second baseman in MLB for 3-4 years, but that's about it. Is he clearly better than some other recent middle infielder? No, he's in fact substantially below Barry Larkin's standard. So what we're left with is Biggio's case as an accumulator. 3000 hits. That was easy.
But which is, it so happens, Palmeiro's case as well.
And the thing is, Palmeiro was just better. It wasn't even all that close in terms of career value (71.8 WAR vs. 64.9). If you like JAWS, Palmeiro is over the standard by 1.3 and Biggio under it by 3.7. About the only argument that favors Biggio--apart from, well, you know--is that his peak was a little better, but neither one is really in the discussion (or out of it) on the basis of peak.
I realize that the reality is that the tribe has spoken: Biggio got 3000 hits and never tested positive for steroids. Palmeiro got 3000 hits and did test positive for steroids. And Biggio well get in the Hall soon, perhaps even this year, and Palmeiro almost certainly never will.
Nevertheless, Palmeiro was still better. And so the spot that was supposed to be his send-off...goes to Craig.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Sorry, but no...
This is not a space where I will be discussing average players (e.g., Jacque Jones) who made it on to the Hall of Fame ballot, or players who had a few good seasons under what could charitably be described as 'questionable circumstances'. (Here's looking at you, Paul LoDuca and Eric Gagne.)
Nor am I going to talk about good players (Hideo Nomo, Richie Sexson) or even very good players (Luis Gonzalez). These are clearly not Hall of Famers, and in all likelihood none of them will reach the requisite 5% of the vote to be on the 2015 ballot. Even if you are solidly in the "Big Hall" camp AND committed to striking everyone with even a tenuous connection to steroids, you can't justify any of the preceding as one of the ten best (remaining) players on the ballot.
The players below, on the other hand, have either drawn enough Hall of Fame support to stay on a previous ballot or (in the case of Jeff Kent) appear reasonably likely to do so. In my mind, however, they are not Hall of Famers and I will not support their case now or in the future.
Here's why, in roughly ascending order of merit...
1. Don Mattingly-I'm honestly unsure what has kept Donnie Baseball on the ballot...much like Dale Murphy, he seems likely to keep buzzing around 10-15% support until he exhausts his eligibility. Although he was probably never the best player in the game, per se, he was a very good player who performed at a HOF level for about four years. If he hadn't hurt his back, maybe...but he did, and never played at a level close to the standard again. Even his 7 year peak doesn't measure up to the 'peak' of slow and steady Rafael Palmeiro.
2. Lee Smith-Lee Smith, on the other hand, is the beneficiary of what sounds like a reasonable argument. There is no meaningful Hall of Fame standard for relievers, you want to make one up, and it's going to include Lee Smith--who was awfully good at the very prominent (if perhaps not very important) position of closer. If you look at career WAR, for example, Lee Smith ranks fifth among 'pure' relievers (I arbitrarily define this as less than three seasons of starts). #1 is Mo Rivera, #2 Hoyt Wilhelm, #3 Goose Gossage. So far so good, Hall of Famers all. And if you look behind Smith, you see #6 Trevor Hoffman, #8 Billy Wagner, #11 Rollie Fingers (Hall of Fame), #12 Dan Quisenberry (not a HOF player in my book, but every bit as good as #13, Bruce Sutter).
But what about #4, John Hiller (2.6% of the vote in his 1st and last appearance on the ballot, 1986)? And #7, Lindy McDaniel (0.2% of the vote, 1981)? Anyone want to put them in the Hall? If you want to champion the Hall of Fame cases of the Billy Wagners and John Hillers of the game, then it makes sense to include Lee Smith. But I think it makes more sense to look at the chasm between the career WAR values of Rivera, Wilhelm, and Gossage (57.1, 47.3, and 42.1) and the next closest (Hiller, 30.9) and conclude...very few relievers belong in the Hall.
3. Jeff Kent
4. Fred McGriff
Kent (career WAR 55.2) and McGriff (48.2) were below average fielders--everyone seems to recognize this when it comes to McGriff, although Kent somehow seems to draw support for having played the tough position of second base, even though he was consistently bad at it. So you're left with their Hall of Fame cases as hitters. McGriff has drawn support from a number of writers who look back with nostalgia at years when he led the league with less than 40 home runs, and see him as the antidote to "the cheaters". And Kent, the foil of Barry Bonds, may get some support from the same quarters. Here's the thing, though. Just as for the "not even close" players above, even striking the so-called steroid guys from the ballot you still have: Maddux, Glavine, Schilling, Mussina, Raines, Martinez, Trammell, Biggio, Walker, Thomas. That's ten, and all are better than McGriff and Kent by a wide margin. Not voting for known or suspected users may make voting a lot easier, but it shouldn't make you vote for Jeff Kent.
5. Jack Morris-Black Jack's legion of supporters are resorting to increasingly silly arguments to justify voting for a guy whose career WAR is almost 40 wins behind Mike Mussina. Most seem to have given up on the "he pitched to the score!" canard, which has been conclusively demonstrated to be false. The straws for which the Morris fans are now grasping include the befuddling, "The youngest pitcher in the Hall is Dennis Eckersley!" (Morris was born all of seven months later in 1955, and I think that Maddux whippersnapper from '66 has a pretty good chance this year.) Then there's the ever-popular "most wins of any pitcher of the 1980s." It's trivia based on a random elevation to significance because the first year was divisible by ten, and it happens to overlap the peak years of Jack's career. If Jack had been born in 1951 and was "the winningest pitcher of 1976-1985", no one would care.
There is one good argument for Morris' HOF case, which you rarely hear. With the sole exception of Gil Hodges, every player who hit 50% on the BBWAA ballot has eventually--one way or the other--made it into the Hall, or is still on the ballot. So, or so the thinking would go, it is very likely that Black Jack will eventually get his Plaque. And Jack Morris was a good guy, so let's just let him in the Hall while he's still young enough to enjoy it already. Just vote for the first ballot guys, and whoever you think needs your vote to stay on the ballot, and Jack Morris.
That's not what the voting is supposed to be about, though. It's not about strategically voting for 'your guy', but the writers determining collectively who the very best players were...and Jack Morris wasn't one of them. The Veterans Committee may (and probably will) induct Morris in the near future--and I'll be happy for him--but the writers got this one right.
6. Sammy Sosa
7. Mark McGwire
Remembering McGwire's first few years as one of the Bash Brothers in Oakland and his spectacular 1996-99, you wonder how he only made it to a career WAR value of 62. What you could be forgiven for forgetting is that from 1990-95 (particularly the last three) McGwire struggled mightily to stay off the DL. Maybe because of rust...or maybe because he needed a better pharmacist, who's to say...he wasn't very good when he was playing during those years, either. His Hall of Fame case rests on that brief prelude when he and his fellow "future Hall of Famer" Jose Canseco were driving balls over the fence at the Oakland Coliseum and the spectacular heights of the late 1990s. And indeed, those heights WERE spectacular. As Joe Posnanski and others have pointed out, McGwire hit more home runs per plate appearance than anyone. Ever. And it's not even all that close.
So is he in the Hall of Fame under the "Sandy Koufax rule"? If he had played WITH Sandy Koufax and had those numbers I would say yes. It wouldn't even be particularly close--and his WAR value would be much, much higher. This is a case where the sabermetric stats come in really handy, and tell you what you already kind of suspected. Home runs in the late 1990s were easier to come by than at any time in baseball history--and without getting into the reason(s) why--it has to affect how you interpret the numbers. Seventy is always going to be an amazing number, but when you see Luis Gonzalez with 57...and Richie Sexson with 45 (twice)...and even Paul LoDuca with 25...you have to reconsider its value. No one knows or is ever going to know how many homers McGwire "should" have hit without a little help from his friend Mr. Winstrol (and tight baseballs, and the end of cavernous cookie cutter stadiums, etc.) but in comparison I don't think his 70 is too different than Roger Maris' 61.
And so McGwire is, and will remain a no. I'm not judging him for using steroids--I'm just stating that even with them, he doesn't measure up to the heights of the HOF standard.
Having disposed of McGwire's case, you have to make pretty short work of Sosa's. Even with a few more productive years under his belt, his career WAR is short of McGwire's. I have repeatedly made the crack that "Dave Kingman + steroids equals Mark McGwire", but it's closer to the truth for Sosa. He really was about home runs and not much else. True, he could run a bit as a young man but once he, uh, bulked up that tailed away. And even when he was hitting 60 bombs a year his plate discipline was never even average. The year before his unforgettable 1997 campaign he led the league in strikeouts, averaging more than one a game. That just doesn't scream Hall of Fame.
8. Alan Trammell-Alan Trammell probably belongs on the next list (oh so close) instead of this one--his career 70.4 WAR pushes right up against Rafael Palmeiro's total. And as mentioned in the previous post, he has the uncanny similarity between his career and that of Barry Larkin. The one thing often cited in Larkin's favor (an MVP) is pretty bogus as well, since Trammell's 1987 season was certainly better than MVP winner George Bell's.
What keeps him in the "I'm sorry, but I'm never voting for this guy" category is the competition at middle infielder and particularly at shortstop at his peak. As good as Trammell was, Cal Ripken, Robin Yount and Ozzie Smith were better. Barry Larkin was probably just a tiny bit better as well, although it's really close. And I don't think that being the 5th best shortstop of an era is quite enough make you a Hall of Famer, even given the tremendous quality of the competitors.
Nor am I going to talk about good players (Hideo Nomo, Richie Sexson) or even very good players (Luis Gonzalez). These are clearly not Hall of Famers, and in all likelihood none of them will reach the requisite 5% of the vote to be on the 2015 ballot. Even if you are solidly in the "Big Hall" camp AND committed to striking everyone with even a tenuous connection to steroids, you can't justify any of the preceding as one of the ten best (remaining) players on the ballot.
The players below, on the other hand, have either drawn enough Hall of Fame support to stay on a previous ballot or (in the case of Jeff Kent) appear reasonably likely to do so. In my mind, however, they are not Hall of Famers and I will not support their case now or in the future.
Here's why, in roughly ascending order of merit...
1. Don Mattingly-I'm honestly unsure what has kept Donnie Baseball on the ballot...much like Dale Murphy, he seems likely to keep buzzing around 10-15% support until he exhausts his eligibility. Although he was probably never the best player in the game, per se, he was a very good player who performed at a HOF level for about four years. If he hadn't hurt his back, maybe...but he did, and never played at a level close to the standard again. Even his 7 year peak doesn't measure up to the 'peak' of slow and steady Rafael Palmeiro.
2. Lee Smith-Lee Smith, on the other hand, is the beneficiary of what sounds like a reasonable argument. There is no meaningful Hall of Fame standard for relievers, you want to make one up, and it's going to include Lee Smith--who was awfully good at the very prominent (if perhaps not very important) position of closer. If you look at career WAR, for example, Lee Smith ranks fifth among 'pure' relievers (I arbitrarily define this as less than three seasons of starts). #1 is Mo Rivera, #2 Hoyt Wilhelm, #3 Goose Gossage. So far so good, Hall of Famers all. And if you look behind Smith, you see #6 Trevor Hoffman, #8 Billy Wagner, #11 Rollie Fingers (Hall of Fame), #12 Dan Quisenberry (not a HOF player in my book, but every bit as good as #13, Bruce Sutter).
But what about #4, John Hiller (2.6% of the vote in his 1st and last appearance on the ballot, 1986)? And #7, Lindy McDaniel (0.2% of the vote, 1981)? Anyone want to put them in the Hall? If you want to champion the Hall of Fame cases of the Billy Wagners and John Hillers of the game, then it makes sense to include Lee Smith. But I think it makes more sense to look at the chasm between the career WAR values of Rivera, Wilhelm, and Gossage (57.1, 47.3, and 42.1) and the next closest (Hiller, 30.9) and conclude...very few relievers belong in the Hall.
3. Jeff Kent
4. Fred McGriff
Kent (career WAR 55.2) and McGriff (48.2) were below average fielders--everyone seems to recognize this when it comes to McGriff, although Kent somehow seems to draw support for having played the tough position of second base, even though he was consistently bad at it. So you're left with their Hall of Fame cases as hitters. McGriff has drawn support from a number of writers who look back with nostalgia at years when he led the league with less than 40 home runs, and see him as the antidote to "the cheaters". And Kent, the foil of Barry Bonds, may get some support from the same quarters. Here's the thing, though. Just as for the "not even close" players above, even striking the so-called steroid guys from the ballot you still have: Maddux, Glavine, Schilling, Mussina, Raines, Martinez, Trammell, Biggio, Walker, Thomas. That's ten, and all are better than McGriff and Kent by a wide margin. Not voting for known or suspected users may make voting a lot easier, but it shouldn't make you vote for Jeff Kent.
5. Jack Morris-Black Jack's legion of supporters are resorting to increasingly silly arguments to justify voting for a guy whose career WAR is almost 40 wins behind Mike Mussina. Most seem to have given up on the "he pitched to the score!" canard, which has been conclusively demonstrated to be false. The straws for which the Morris fans are now grasping include the befuddling, "The youngest pitcher in the Hall is Dennis Eckersley!" (Morris was born all of seven months later in 1955, and I think that Maddux whippersnapper from '66 has a pretty good chance this year.) Then there's the ever-popular "most wins of any pitcher of the 1980s." It's trivia based on a random elevation to significance because the first year was divisible by ten, and it happens to overlap the peak years of Jack's career. If Jack had been born in 1951 and was "the winningest pitcher of 1976-1985", no one would care.
There is one good argument for Morris' HOF case, which you rarely hear. With the sole exception of Gil Hodges, every player who hit 50% on the BBWAA ballot has eventually--one way or the other--made it into the Hall, or is still on the ballot. So, or so the thinking would go, it is very likely that Black Jack will eventually get his Plaque. And Jack Morris was a good guy, so let's just let him in the Hall while he's still young enough to enjoy it already. Just vote for the first ballot guys, and whoever you think needs your vote to stay on the ballot, and Jack Morris.
That's not what the voting is supposed to be about, though. It's not about strategically voting for 'your guy', but the writers determining collectively who the very best players were...and Jack Morris wasn't one of them. The Veterans Committee may (and probably will) induct Morris in the near future--and I'll be happy for him--but the writers got this one right.
6. Sammy Sosa
7. Mark McGwire
Remembering McGwire's first few years as one of the Bash Brothers in Oakland and his spectacular 1996-99, you wonder how he only made it to a career WAR value of 62. What you could be forgiven for forgetting is that from 1990-95 (particularly the last three) McGwire struggled mightily to stay off the DL. Maybe because of rust...or maybe because he needed a better pharmacist, who's to say...he wasn't very good when he was playing during those years, either. His Hall of Fame case rests on that brief prelude when he and his fellow "future Hall of Famer" Jose Canseco were driving balls over the fence at the Oakland Coliseum and the spectacular heights of the late 1990s. And indeed, those heights WERE spectacular. As Joe Posnanski and others have pointed out, McGwire hit more home runs per plate appearance than anyone. Ever. And it's not even all that close.
So is he in the Hall of Fame under the "Sandy Koufax rule"? If he had played WITH Sandy Koufax and had those numbers I would say yes. It wouldn't even be particularly close--and his WAR value would be much, much higher. This is a case where the sabermetric stats come in really handy, and tell you what you already kind of suspected. Home runs in the late 1990s were easier to come by than at any time in baseball history--and without getting into the reason(s) why--it has to affect how you interpret the numbers. Seventy is always going to be an amazing number, but when you see Luis Gonzalez with 57...and Richie Sexson with 45 (twice)...and even Paul LoDuca with 25...you have to reconsider its value. No one knows or is ever going to know how many homers McGwire "should" have hit without a little help from his friend Mr. Winstrol (and tight baseballs, and the end of cavernous cookie cutter stadiums, etc.) but in comparison I don't think his 70 is too different than Roger Maris' 61.
And so McGwire is, and will remain a no. I'm not judging him for using steroids--I'm just stating that even with them, he doesn't measure up to the heights of the HOF standard.
Having disposed of McGwire's case, you have to make pretty short work of Sosa's. Even with a few more productive years under his belt, his career WAR is short of McGwire's. I have repeatedly made the crack that "Dave Kingman + steroids equals Mark McGwire", but it's closer to the truth for Sosa. He really was about home runs and not much else. True, he could run a bit as a young man but once he, uh, bulked up that tailed away. And even when he was hitting 60 bombs a year his plate discipline was never even average. The year before his unforgettable 1997 campaign he led the league in strikeouts, averaging more than one a game. That just doesn't scream Hall of Fame.
8. Alan Trammell-Alan Trammell probably belongs on the next list (oh so close) instead of this one--his career 70.4 WAR pushes right up against Rafael Palmeiro's total. And as mentioned in the previous post, he has the uncanny similarity between his career and that of Barry Larkin. The one thing often cited in Larkin's favor (an MVP) is pretty bogus as well, since Trammell's 1987 season was certainly better than MVP winner George Bell's.
What keeps him in the "I'm sorry, but I'm never voting for this guy" category is the competition at middle infielder and particularly at shortstop at his peak. As good as Trammell was, Cal Ripken, Robin Yount and Ozzie Smith were better. Barry Larkin was probably just a tiny bit better as well, although it's really close. And I don't think that being the 5th best shortstop of an era is quite enough make you a Hall of Famer, even given the tremendous quality of the competitors.
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