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.