hall of fame, next vote...

Hall of Fame Ballot 2004

Bruce Sutter was the pitcher that brought back and popularized the split finger fastball, which considering how popular a pitch it has become in the past 25 years, it is something that he should get some credit.

"Boggs, for instance, is not a classic Hall of Famer, in my eyes, despite his 3,000 hits; he was a very, very good player, but not a dominant player."

Appearantly Buster forgets the mid 80s when Boggs career batting average was at .355 or so, he won 5 of 6 batting titles and his on base percentage was at a SABERMETRIC stoner high. He also won two of those batting titles by more than twenty points! After age 32, he only once hit over .330, but a bunch of players peak around that time in their career. Boggs average with runners on base and the bases loaded is also off the chart.

Oddly enough, I don't think Boggs was quite the same player after that whole scandal with Margo Adams broke. I think opposing teams quit putting chicken on the buffet when Boston was in town or something.

I think it would be interesting to know how many hits Boggs would have put up if he would have been brought up in 81, when he was 21 instead of 24. Boggs always claimed that he was just a good a hitter at 21, but since he played 1b was always behind Yaz in the depth chart and never got the chance to play in the bigs until he learned how to play 3b. He didn't get called up in 84 until they were wracked with injuries, then he hit over .400 for a month or so and stayed in the lineup from then on.

I grew up mostly watching NL baseball, but Boggs was one of my favorite players to follow and watch hit. Maybe not as fearful as some of the great power hitters of his day, but like Tony Gwynn, he was one of those hitters that seemed to dumbfound pitchers on how to get them out.

Earl OTM about Boggs, the guy was an offensive powerhouse.

It's the usual BS with guys like Sandberg -- 2B and 3B are underrepresented positions in the HoF because their offensive numbers aren't at the level of 1B or OF, they're not remembered for being "flashy" like SS, and they're not "on-the-field leaders" like C. Sandberg is a no-brainer.

Gossage should be in, I hear the arguments for Sutter that he wasn't great for as long as some other guys, but a) he was dominant for about the same length of time that Mo Rivera has been (and a lot of people consider him a future HoF player -- yeah, I know Mo's postseason performance is part of that, but still), and b) he INVENTED a pitch, which is a damned significant contribution to the game.

The Blyleven arguments boil down to the fact that he WAS great, but was pitching for bad teams. I think people are wising up to the idea that there are guys like Sutton who are in only because they pitched for good teams.

That season I remember seeing Jack Morris throw a no hitter on TV against the White Sox as it was the game of the week Saturday Afternoon on NBC. I can remember my dad was working in the garage and coming in every so often to check it out how the game was going, as he joked after the first inning or so wouldn't it be funny if he threw a no hitter.

But if that were the case, there'd be 80 or 90 members, except for what, 240 now?

By the established standard, Blyleven belongs. If you're "very good" for long enough (BB was in the top 10 in league Adjusted ERA 11 times from '71-89), that's worth 5-6 years of dominance (the peak vs career, Koufax vs Spahn argument). There was some research I read in the last year that showed Bert didn't suffer quite as much from his teammates' inadequacy as generally thought, but it wasn't enough for him to drop off my "ballot."

>The funny thing about Morris, as I recall, is that he always seemed to pitch just good enough to stay ahead.

"I know not seems..." I'll try to find a link for you, Thermo, but someone recently did a study of Morris's career in this regard, and it showed *no* special ability to pitch that way. He threw 1150 fewer innings than Blyleven and his career ERA was only 5% better than the league's (Bert 18%) -- that's not a negligible difference. Morris had a good career, but not a HOFer.

I'd vote for Gossage on greatness and longevity, Sutter on peak and pioneer role, close but unconvinced for Lee Smith. Rest of ballot: Boggs, Sandberg, and TRAMMELL, most deserving SS of that era below Ozzie. Dawson and Rice fall short.

It's sad that the Vets Committee process has obviously been fucked up to the point where they may never elect anyone, as I fear Ron Santo will die before his deserved induction.

I'm not sure that would be worst thing ever actually, but my problem with Blyleven is that during his time he was never really recognized as being one of the best in the game. He wasn't voted to All Star games, he didn't make Cy Young top 10s, he wasn't talked about as being a great pitcher. And I think that hurts him. NOW if the reason why none of those things occurred was that he toiled entirely in obscurity for shitty teams and if he'd been on the Dodgers, the Red Sox, the Yankees and the Reds for those years instead that there would be a complete about face and he'd be considered among the best pitchers of his era, well all I can say geez that's bad luck for Bert, but I think that's a hard argument to make conclusively.

MIR, here's a 4-year-old Neyer column on Blyleven... Alex, I think it's conclusive:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/s/2000/1213/943398.html

And he later wrote:

"Blyleven was, over the course of his career, a better pitcher than Ted Lyons or Early Wynn or Bob Lemon or Red Ruffing or Rube Waddell or Red Faber or Catfish Hunter or Lefty Gomez, all of whom are in the Hall of Fame... It's not Blyleven's fault that he generally pitched for unspectacular teams that played in hitter's parks. In fact, Blyleven pitched for 22 seasons, and in only four of those 22 seasons did Blyleven's home ballpark favor the pitcher, statistically..."

And to appeal to the butch old-timers: 242 complete games!

Four of 'em (third twice).

http://baseball-reference.com/b/blylebe01.shtml

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1815

It concludes that there is no evidence to suggest that he could.

That's the article I meant, MIR, thanks.

I think he's written a couple of other columns on Blyleven, maybe I can find them ...

Those are some mind-numbing stats!

This, and many other articles stating his HoF case are collected -- where else? -- on Blyleven's web page:

http://www.bertblyleven.com/hall_of_fame.shtml

xpost -- yeah, the Morris article is a bit of a numbers slog, but it's well done.

Enough, believe me. And I saw him compare him to two HOF pitchers, one of whom is IMO a mistake and the other who is basically in the Hall because he had a zillion strikeouts and a slew of no hitters. Compare him to Carlton or Seaver or Hunter or any of the really great pitchers from his era, if you want to make your point (that this guy is getting job) don't just claim he was "better than Don Sutton" cuz my response to that is so the fuck what.

That second ESPN article is much better btw and makes a pretty good case.

No, Bert is not Seaver or Carlton.

He played for fifteen years, and he had about four great years, four good years, and the rest were downright BAD. If he'd pitched for anyone other than the 70's A's and Yankees dynasties, there's no way he'd be anywhere near a serious HoF discussion.

See this is where I get the impression that cold-dispassionate analysis of the stats lies a little. For 5 years (71-75), Hunter was probably hands down the most feared pitcher in baseball. No he might not have been Koufax, but he was still by all accounts pretty amazing. Those five years count for more to me than 20 some odd years of just pretty good workmanlike pitching (I will admit that these breakdowns of Blyleven's stats are making a pretty case that he was better than that.) (I do have to wonder WHY if Bert was so great, he um didn't get snatched up by better teams? I mean that can't all be bad luck, right?)

Postseason Pitching

Year Round Tm Opp WLser G GS ERA W-L SV CG SHO IP H ER BB SO
+------------------+-----+--+--+------+-----+--+--+---+-----+---+---+---+---+
1970 ALCS MIN BAL L 1 0 0.00 0-0 0 0 0 2.0 2 0 0 2
1979 NLCS PIT CIN W 1 1 1.00 1-0 0 1 0 9.0 8 1 0 9
WS PIT BAL W 2 1 1.80 1-0 0 0 0 10.0 8 2 3 4
1987 ALCS MIN DET W 2 2 4.05 2-0 0 0 0 13.3 12 6 3 9
WS MIN STL W 2 2 2.77 1-1 0 0 0 13.0 13 4 2 12
+------------------+-----+--+--+------+-----+--+--+---+-----+---+---+---+---+
3 Lg Champ Series 2-1 4 3 2.59 3-0 0 1 0 24.3 22 7 3 20
2 World Series 2-0 4 3 2.35 2-1 0 0 0 23.0 21 6 5 16
5 Postseason Ser 4-1 8 6 2.47 5-1 0 1 0 47.3 43 13 8 36
+------------------+-----+--+--+------+-----+--+--+---+-----+---+---+---+---+

He didn't get many chances, but Blyleven pitched well in the playoffs and was a part of two World Series Champions.

Many of his best years came before free agency, so he didn't have much choice in the matter.

Even with free agency, it's only during the last ten years or so that all the best players end up on big-market winning teams at some point, since eventually those are the only teams that can afford them. If Jaret Wright can bounce around for a while, have one good season after a slew of crappy ones, and end up with a multi-year deal from a perennial contender, then Blyleven would have ended up playing for more winning teams too, if he was playing today.

Even so, every era has a few great players who toil away in relative obscurity. Look at Bobby Abreu, or even Carlos Delgado. If Delgado goes to the Mets, maybe in 20 years people will be saying "if he was so good, why did his teams always finish in third place?"

Alex, nobody's saying Hunter wasn't GOOD, just that Blyleven was better for MUCH longer, and that "good press" shouldn't be a measure of excellence. And I don't see Hunter '71-75 being "amazing" ... His most "impressive statistics" are wins (ie, having good teammates) and innings pitched (which blew out his arm, as MIR says). I think he got extra credit for the pennants and the sexy nicknames. And it's cute how you use high Cy Young finishes as relevant to Hunter, not relevant for Blyleven. (Also, I don't see Hunter's status as the first Big Splash free agent being relevant; see Marvin Miller's book for how clownishly Catfish handled that situation.)

The "cold-dispassionate analysis of the stats" is the most reliable evidence there is. Not "what you heard" (from Joe Morgan?). And it isn't so much that Blyleven toiled for bad teams (they were more often mediocre), but pitched in hitters' parks.

I hope it happens soon so that he lives to attend his own induction.

It's not lookin' good for Marv, MIR -- when the Vets voted last in '03, no one came close to getting 75% ... and of the 60 votes required for election, Miller got 35. He got three FEWER votes than Walter O'Malley -- or as we call him in Brooklyn, Satan.

Miller and other non-players are on the "composite" ballot. Here's this year's players' ballot:

http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/veterans/2005/2005_vc_candidates.htm

The only one I'm sold on is Santo, but Dick Allen and Tony Oliva have decent cases -- as does Curt Flood for courage and legal pioneering.

Mickey Lolich won't get in the Hall, but his pitching in the 68 World Series may be the best performance ever in the fall classic by a starter. The guy out pitched Bob Gibson in Game Seven on TWO days rest. ESPN Classic was showed that game a few months back and it was great. Harry Caray was doing the play by play.

While I don't know if he is good enough player to make the hall, Al Oliver had a pretty good career and never gets put on these kind of lists.

My general point is that "b...b...but he was a bit of an asshole" is a criticism that's used far too often despite being irrelevant most of the time. As long as the guy didn't compromise the game of baseball (Pete Rose being the most obvious example) then I couldn't care less if he was moody and didn't get along with everybody. If he could bring it on the field, then that's the most important thing.

(xpost)

Haha I need to learn to check baseballreference.com before I say stuff sometimes.

Example #2: replace "Reggie Jackson" with "Barry Bonds" in the above paragraph.

Or consider the Yankees and Red Sox of the last few years. When the Yankees were winning, they were "professional" and "disciplined". Their lack of comaraderie was viewed as an asset, i.e. "they're all business when they take the field". OTOH, the Sox were drama queens who didn't know how to win when it counts.

Fast forward to this past year. The Yanks are up 3-0 and they're winning because they're the professionals who respect the game and know how to win. Five days later, the exact same guys are described as "cold" and "unemotional" and that's why they lost. In the meantime, Manny and Pedro's weird quirks and selfishness are ignored, and suddenly all the drama becomes an asset because the Sox are "loose", "having fun", and "relaxed", and that's why they won.

i met up with a friend before she headed to the Justice show nearby and was right outside Leftfield - place was packed solid.

I'll post later, but finally made it to Induction Day (a 10-minute walk from my house--thanks for the nudge, mookieproof). Some photos and video:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kPhQb6PUbHG2dxSn7

nice!

Some of the people in attendance today: Fergie Jenkins, Larry Walker, Lloyd Moseby, Ernie Whitt, Pat Gillick, Paul Beeston, Gord Ash.

Sounds really cool, clem!

Induction Day. I think Dave Parker's son will be handling the speech.

lmaoooooooooo, absolute must watch (20 mins!)

https://www.mlb.com/video/ichiro-suzuki-s-full-hall-of-fame-induction-speech?t=hall-of-fame

does anyone else see it?

https://i.imgur.com/9aaM8Or.png
https://i.imgur.com/P0uKNnN.jpeg

Ichiro's got that gene that Koufax and Marichal have: he's going to look as distinguished at 85 as Cary Grant did.

Ichiro's speech was brilliant, and not just for the funny bits.

Ichiro hung on for years after his prime, partly because he wanted those 3000 MLB hits. If he had come to MLB a few years earlier, would he have still played until age 45? Maybe he would have called it a career at 40, or maybe he would have still hung on for as long as possible, like Pete Rose did?

Ichiro looks great now and still keeps fit by warming up with the current Mariners. He could probably have kept playing!

https://www.mlb.com/amp/news/mariners-players-discuss-ichiro-s-induction-to-hall-of-fame.html

amazing that even in the midst of all the epstein stuff, the two players trump has demanded be inducted into the hall were *both* credibly accused of statutory rape

i'll bet curt schilling thought that being a nazi sympathizer would earn him some support, but apparently that's not enough

Who's the other besides Rose?

Clemens

Sounds about white.

I'm here with some of that HOF chatter that ILB loves so much...Skubal's probably going to win his second consecutive unanimous Cy Young--maybe he'll lose a vote or two. (In another universe, I suspect he'd be competing with Chapman; this is not that universe.) That'll put him in that Santana/Kluber/deGrom group that couldn't (thus far) get that third Cy that is probably still a sure path to the HOF. Skubal's big advantage will be that he's still under 30 and healthy; Santana was too when he won his second, but he got injured for the first time the following season (his first with the Mets).

HOF chatter that ILB loves so much

honestly i love HOF chatter :)

My fanbase! It got a few mentions on the things-you-don't-care-about thread.

Alex Speier says on bluesky:

Hall of Fame announces the 8 players up for consideration by the Contemporaries Baseball Era Committee this year. Dwight Evans is not among them. They are: Bonds, Clemens, Delgado, Kent, Mattingly, Murphy, Sheffield, Valenzuela

that's a stacked list.
if i had to pick one, I'd actually go with Sheffield (obv Bonds is better but that selection is tied up with other issues)

Interesting. My personal rooting interest is Delgado--who I think they have to put in at some point after McGriff, even if not this year. (Doesn't Sheffield have the same barrier as Bonds?) Fernando will obviously have sentiment on his side, but there are more deserving pitchers from that '80s cohort.

I started typing ‘it’s 2050 and they’re still trying to mattingly happen’ but it’s surely going to happen before that

this feels like a Murphy ballot to me, he's the most likely guy. i'm not 100% opposed to some of these short-lived '80s peak guys, since so many stars of the era flamed out early and i'm willing the admit maybe there's an argument for the Tracy McGrady-type star, a guy who has a peak of less than ten seasons. i'm not quite sure about some of these guys, though.

obv it's shameful that they didn't bother with Evans or Whitaker.

absence of Whitaker is outrageous

I don't get that at all (or Evans).

I'm also a bit of a Reuschel guy, as a sort of low-key Blyleven type of pitcher. surely a guy with 4.3 bWAR per 162 should get at least shortlisted one of these days, considering Morris and his 2.8 got voted in.

Morris isn't going to comp out well vs a lot of players, because he got in for wins, strikeouts and being on some very good teams

also, wow. Reuschel's '77 season was wild

I would vote for barry bonds, the best baseball player to ever live

Mays still gets my vote there, although I guess the full Shoehei's in the running now.

Important to note none of these candidates will have as cute a comic advocating for them as Dale Murphy

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Xvwfq1hu4ylhpcPaiTG9Q0cuPdNWOpXfGSHum8TDmxXw8EfuuRloyp9CcGWZCwcROvmzW-od7xHsPLNj9yEjTxRxLhPH6SBmEKMxJjtfvDroZ9CogUibjOEiA1R7dFnqohr2VA/s1600/dadcomic.jpg

Part of Posnanski's column today (mostly about Murphy):

The thing that’s most shocking about Valenzuela being on here — and, for that matter, Delgado, and probably even Mattingly and Murphy as much as I love those guys — is that Dwight Evans and Lou Whitaker are not. I mean, we know the objections to Schilling. But what are the objections to Dewey and Lou?

I literally don’t understand. Dwight Evans appeared on the veteran’s ballot in 2020 and got FIFTY PERCENT OF THE VOTE. I mean, that’s a STATEMENT.

There are have been two Contemporary Era ballots since … and Dewey hasn’t been on either of them.

Like I say, I don’t understand it at all.

Whitaker, if possible, makes even less sense. Sweet Lou has 75 career bWAR. I mean, that’s DOUBLE Fernando’s total. It’s 30 more wins than Mattingly or Delgado, 15 more than Sheffield. He also appeared on the 2020 ballot, made a reasonable showing (37.5%), and they haven’t put him back on the ballot either. I can’t make any sense of it at all.

Color me baffled.The thing that’s most shocking about Valenzuela being on here — and, for that matter, Delgado, and probably even Mattingly and Murphy as much as I love those guys — is that Dwight Evans and Lou Whitaker are not. I mean, we know the objections to Schilling. But what are the objections to Dewey and Lou?

I literally don’t understand. Dwight Evans appeared on the veteran’s ballot in 2020 and got FIFTY PERCENT OF THE VOTE. I mean, that’s a STATEMENT.

There are have been two Contemporary Era ballots since … and Dewey hasn’t been on either of them.

Like I say, I don’t understand it at all.

Whitaker, if possible, makes even less sense. Sweet Lou has 75 career bWAR. I mean, that’s DOUBLE Fernando’s total. It’s 30 more wins than Mattingly or Delgado, 15 more than Sheffield. He also appeared on the 2020 ballot, made a reasonable showing (37.5%), and they haven’t put him back on the ballot either. I can’t make any sense of it at all.

Color me baffled.

He makes an interesting point about Murphy: the nine position players who had more WAR than him in the '80s are all in, as are a couple who didn't. What hurts him is that ALL his value is in that one decade. He had a negative WAR for his '70s years, and was just barely above 0.0 as he hung on a little into the '90s.

he must feel strongly about that, as he said everything twice!

Color me embarrassed.

i *try* to avoid this stuff -- i find the whole process capricious and hateful in the way it implicitly shits on great players who didn't quite make it

but also posnanski otm

I totally understand the 1,001 things wrong about the selection process, and how maddening it can be, and am quite aware of the many players who should be in (and some who shouldn't), but they have to do that, no--elect some players and not elect the rest? And many of the rest are going to be very good players, no matter how you go about it. (The worst guy in the league last year is a very good player when you take a step back.) What should the process be instead? The World Series consigns a lot of really good teams to the dustbin of history, but I don't want to do away with it.

If you don't think there should be a HOF period, sure, that's valid. I don't want that, but as the one way to absolutely get rid of all the politicization and arbitrariness, that would work. (I'm not being facetious--suspect the great majority of fans wouldn't care a bit.)

What should the process be instead?

*i* -- or perhaps we as ILB -- should choose

(barring that, maybe jay jaffe should choose)

i don't have a solution! i just have a hard time taking seriously a process that excludes the players posnanski mentioned yet admits harold baines

so i would prefer to ignore this process that i find lacking in credibility, yet here i am bitching about it once again : /

(that said, it *is* kind of weird how football/hoops/hockey rarely seem to generate this sort of angst about their HoFs)

the NHL is at least *finally* inducting alex mogilny

wait. he *wasn't* in the hockey hall of fame?!

yeah it's absurd

Mookie: whatever you feel about him now, I really recommend James's The Politics of Glory, his HOF book. (For one thing, it was written long before he started tweeting his opinions about politics and movies.) He was exasperated at the time too. The book looks at a whole bunch of things, including how to make the selection process better. Putting PEDs aside--which is a whole separate issue to me, even though it's become attached at the hip with the HOF--I do think the writers have gotten better over the years. And one day Whitaker and Evans will go in, I'm positive (hopefully soon, before they're dead--an awareness of that responsibility seems to be finally sinking in), and Omar Vizquel and Aroldis Chapman will never go in, because they crossed uncrossable lines, and all in all, injustices are corrected over time.

(barring that, maybe jay jaffe should choose)...If you go that route, though, cries of "IT'S NOT THE HALL OF STATISTICS (or WAR)" immediately ring out.

jay jaffe should NOT choose because it would take him 5 trillion words / 500 billion paragraphs for him to get to the goddamn point

oh god i’m sorry, i goofed.

jay jaffe’s the JAWS guy - i enjoy reading him!

i’m terribly sorry that i was thinking of jayson stark

I agree with mookie's point about the post-BBWAA process being influenced by cronyism and impossible to decipher, high-school clique-like political alliances. Why does Whitaker keep getting snubbed? I can only assume that he doesn't have the "right" friends, whereas someone like Harold Baines did.

However, righting some of the wrongs of past BBWAA elections is better than righting none of them. The selection/election process is flawed, but most of these players do deserve a closer look.

I have never really understood why the standards and arguments are completely different in other HOF's. Take someone like Jack Morris, I don't know who his NFL equivalent is, but whoever it is would be a slam dunk football HOFer. He was a "winner", was a star on three championship teams, he was a "gamer" with a good work ethic who always wanted the ball, was respected everywhere he played, and had a longer career than most of his contemporaries. There would be no disagreement.

i find the whole process capricious and hateful in the way it implicitly shits on great players who didn't quite make it

I'm sure it does feel like a slight (but short of an insult, I would think) to a lot of players who fall just short. As a fan, I know I've never, not even once, adjusted my view of a player based on HOF status. I don't elevate players who get in, and I don't downgrade anyone who doesn't--my views on near-misses such as Dave Stieb, or John Olerud, or Thurman Munson are the same as they ever were (and won't change should they one day get in). I agree that the near-misses tend to fade from the conversation over time.

It's like the Academy Awards. Most of my favourite films were never even nominated, much less won one, and I couldn't care less. When one does win something, I enjoy that without attaching any significance whatsoever.

Jack Morris is probably the equivalent of a running back who sticks around forever and never gets injured and averages 3.4 yards per carry.

i always thought Rich Gannon was the Dave Stewart of the NFL.