Hall of Fame Ballot 2005

Jim Rice
Bruce Sutter
mmmmaybe Margo Chicken Boggs

Chili Davis, yes!

The most intriguing name on that list Darryl Strawberry. Yeah, he put up some monster years, but the general consensus is that the guy came far from reaching his potential and that is almost fully his fault. I think he eventually gets in, but certainly not on the first ballot. That's his punishment for being such a dope.

oh Willie McGee, has it already been four years?!?

I can see it going either way and neither way would surprise me.

I guess I have too many memories as a young baseball fan of him being one of the top two or three most dangerous guys in the NL, and had forgotten just how bad-to-mediocre the second half of his career was.

Like Dave Parker and Dale Murphy, Straw and Rice just weren't good enough for long enough. Dawson and Mattingly are oversold by their fans.

so what % is required to stay on the ballot, then¿

dude! worse hitters = less guys on base = less Runners to Bat In.

Batting Average
Home Runs
Runs Batted In

aka the three elements of the triple crown.

I think that "modern" baseball analysis has shown RBIs are largely incidental and that Batting Average might mask a player's true objective (ie, to get on base = score runs).

Don Mattingly was one of the best players in the game until he hurt his back and then he just wasn't the same guy. It is a shame, as he was a class player.

Dale Murphy had a couple of great seasons, a few good ones and played for a long time. He didn't really produce much after turning 32, which seems to be the difference in good players and HOF players.

I don't think Alan Trammell or Lou Whitaker came up in our past HOF discussions, but really, those guys deserve some props. Both were as good as it gets as SS and 2b during their time period. Checking out their stats, I was suprised by how many HRs that Whitaker hit and that he was still a solid player up until the strike year of 94 (age 37). Trammell was hurt a bunch the last few years of his career, which probably took his numbers down a bit.

well, this is getting into stathead territory beginning with a quick jaunt up the OBPS foothills, a brief stayover at the VORP/EqA basecamp culminating with the trek up the steep slopes of RARP/AdjRunsCreated.

I don't mean to "punish" Carter, but when you isolate his abilities, he had a number of big-RBI years which weren't as great as they "looked." ...he never placed in the top 5 in the league in slugging. Tony Perez, also a fine hitter with a longer career than Carter, is also an undeserved HOFer to me because he got credit (via his run of 90+ RBI seasons) for luckily batting when Rose Morgan et al were always on base.

More middle infielders should be in the Hall.

It's a hitter's job to get on base and get total bases. Runs and RBI are contextual, ie not "his." The Baseball Prospectus annual doesn't even include R and RBI in the player's stat line -- that's what we have OBP and SLG for.

http://www.baseballreference.com/c/cartejo01.shtml

His Adjusted OPS was 104% of the league average for his career, and his raw stats were .259/.306/.464? He shouldn't even be in the HOF discussion. Top comparable hitters: non-HOFers Murphy, Galarraga, Baylor.

Jim Abbott thrilled that University of Michigan will retire his baseball number

The first time Michigan baseball coach Rich Maloney ever spoke with pitcher Jim Abbott, Maloney was a college shortstop and team captain at Western Michigan. He called Abbott, then a promising high schooler from Flint, hoping to woo him to Kalamazoo.

Abbott instead opted for Michigan.

When the two spoke again in recent weeks, nearly a quarter-century after that first conversation in 1985, Maloney made Abbott another enticing offer. Would Abbott be interested in returning to Ann Arbor to have his uniform number retired?

This time, the pitcher eagerly agreed.

"I thought back immediately to my freshman year and showing up there, and how far off anything like this would have seemed at that point," Abbott said of learning the news. "I'm incredibly honored."

The university announced Wednesday that Abbott's No. 31 would be retired in a ceremony April 18 prior to the Wolverines' home game against Michigan State.

Abbott, who pitched for U-M from 1986 to 1988 before embarking on a 10-year professional career, will become the fifth person in program history to have his number retired.

Coaches hatched the idea of retiring his number during the building of the Wilpon Baseball and Softball Complex (LOL -- ed.) as a way to share the program's history. Maloney said Abbott's addition to the group was a "no brainer."

"You have to be very selective and it's a difficult decision, but to me, this one was not very hard," Maloney said. "Not only with the success he had at Michigan, but more importantly on top of all that, his humility and how he's represented the university."

Abbott retired from baseball in 1999. He currently lives in Orange County, Calif., and does motivational speaking around the country. He also recently worked on a disability awareness project for the federal government.

He counts his years at Michigan as one of his most cherished achievements.

"I take a lot of pride in having played at Michigan," Abbott said. "Pretty much everywhere I go, people know I went there. I wear it on my sleeve."

A look at some of the key statistics Jim Abbott compiled while pitching for Michigan from 1986 to 1988:

Stat Rank
26 career wins Fourth
13 complete games Eighth
3.04 career ERA Sixth

- 1987 Golden Spikes winner, given to college baseball's top player.
- 1987 Big Ten Male Athlete of the Year

Other Wolverines with retired baseball numbers: Don Lund (1943-45), Moby Benedict (1954-56), Bill Freehan (1961) and coach Ray Fisher (1921-58).

The first time Michigan baseball coach Rich Maloney ever spoke with pitcher Jim Abbott, Maloney was a college shortstop and team captain at Western Michigan.

WAHT

o nevermind. I've been drinking.