2018 HoME Election Results

After only being able to induct three players last year, the Modern Era Committee and the BBWAA did us a solid, though not necessarily with the right players, by allowing us to add six players to the HoME in 2018. Our ballot a year ago was far less crowded than that of the BBWAA because we had previously elected pretty much the entire backlog. But for us, we chose Sam Rice by a hair over Vlad Guerrero. So either Vlad was the entire backlog, or there wasn’t one.

Like the Hall, we stock our ballot with a list of new candidates each year. Unlike them, however, our ballot basically includes all other players in baseball history who have previously been eligible. That’s how we were able to elect Rice a year ago. We’ll write obituaries for those candidates we’ll almost certainly never elect a week from today. But for now, today’s six inductees mean we have now equaled the Hall by electing 226 players to the Hall of Miller and Eric.

Here’s how we voted in 2018.

   Miller           Eric
==================================
1  Chipper Jones    Chipper Jones
2  Jim Thome        Scott Rolen
3  Scott Rolen      Jim Thome
4  Andruw Jones     Andruw Jones
5  Johan Santana    Johan Santana
6  Minnie Minoso    Minnie Minoso
7                   Vladimir Guerrero

The Class of 2018

Chipper Jones was an incredibly easy vote. Perhaps he’s as high as the seventh best third basemen ever. Maybe it’s a few notches below that, but the vote remains an easy one. Despite how he looks by the Black Ink measure. With only 4 points out of an approximate 27 for an expected Hall of Famer, he appears far off. And he looks poor by Gray Ink too. But Chipper compiled some great numbers, especially for his position. He could hit and hit for power. When he was young, he had some speed, and he was a plus runner and a plus at double play avoidance over his career. He wasn’t a very good defender, and the Braves tried to move him to left field at one point, but it didn’t take. The 1999 NL MVP added some nice value in the playoffs, right around his career numbers in BA and OBP, if a bit short in SLG. To reiterate, he was an easy call, though a year ago at this time, I told Eric I wasn’t so sure he’d get in on the first try. After all, he’s no better than Ron Santo, a guy who the BBWAA never supported. Hell, he wasn’t really better than Ken Boyer, a guy who still isn’t in. And though he’s totally deserving, it’s not like he was a lot better than another third baseman on this ballot. I’m hapy to have been wrong.

Do I remember correctly that I expected Jim Thome to be the leading vote-getter of 2018? I believe I did. Clearly nobody saw Vlad beating him, and I just thought the BBWAA would find his greatness easier to understand than Chipper’s. Depending on how you see things, Thome could rank as high as about #11 or as low as #25 in a very tight clump at first base. Either way, he was a pretty easy vote. And given that almost all of his value comes with the bat, something we feel more confident than defensive value, we are certain that the man who is eighth all-time in home runs and seventh in walks is well deserving of a spot in the HoME

It’s simple enough to miss Scott Rolen if you’re not looking closely. The 1997 NL Rookie of the Year and eight-time Gold Glove winner literally has zero Black Ink. He never finished in the top-10 in homers and only twice did so in runs batted in. But for us, it wasn’t hard at all to find a vote for Rolen. He was a very good hitter, a fine baserunner, and an excellent fielder. He was sometimes accused of having injury problems, yet he’s 12^th in history in games at third base. He didn’t seem to have a lot of power, yet only five 3B ever had more homers and WAR. Rolen is one of those guys who needs close inspection. Some BBWAA voters may not pay him that respect, but those at the HoME certainly do.

No matter the measure you use, Andruw Jones is one of the greatest defensive players in history. By defensive WAR, he’s 20^th, with nobody higher on the all-time list posting a higher slugging percentage than the former Brave great. And if you prefer Defensive Regression Analysis, which I do, you like him almost as much. I suppose Andruw is a controversial choice to some who devalue defensive metrics, but we can’t forget he could hit a little too, as 434 homers show. Were it not for Albert Pujols, there’s a shot he and his 2/3 of a triple crown would have won the 2005 NL MVP to go with his ten Gold Gloves. Jones could be seen as high as the 9^th best center fielder ever. Assuming you value defense at 100%, it’s hard to get him much below 15^th.

Many writers look at the paltry 139 wins that Johan Santana amassed in his dozen years in the majors, and they don’t think they need to look at anything else. Well, they do. Whether he is the modern version of Sandy Koufax or a better version of Dizzy Dean, take your pick. Santana won two Cy Youngs and finished in the top-5 three other times. For the first decade of the 21^st century, only Roy Halladay compiled more WAR among pitchers. And from 2002-2009, a period of eight years, Johan was the best. That’s a pretty impressive period of dominance. No, Santana isn’t the most obvious call, and I can’t blame the writers for finding ten better players on their ballots, but the HoME doesn’t have the backlog they do. Santana belongs.

When I was a kid, Minnie Minoso made me angry. I thought he and Bill Veeck made a mockery of the game with his appearances in 1976 and 1980. But the Minnie Minoso I knew as a kid wasn’t the real Minnie Minoso, at least not so far as the HoME is concerned. The Cuban Comet is a really tough candidate to understand. Eric and I agree that he falls just short based only on his major league career. I rank him 25^th in left, while Eric sees him as 26^th best. We agree that he’s in a battle with Joe Kelley, Joe Medwick, and Ralph Kiner if we’re only considering his contributions as a major leaguer. But Minoso didn’t only play in the majors. He also played in the Negro Leagues, and it’s very probable that he spent extra time in the minors because of the color barrier (even though his Indians were the first in the AL to integrate). So what do we do? We can consider Minoso a major leaguer and look only at his games in the majors, which is what we do with most players. We could view him as a Negro League player, but that would be quite odd since he spent just three seasons in the Negro National League (NNL). We could consider him a combo candidate, but we’ve only done that for combinations that include non-playing contributions. Frankly, not one of those solutions is satisfactory. The right thing to do is use Eric’s conversions for Minoso’s time in the NNL and in the minors. Why the minors? It’s because he was excellent in AAA at ages 23 and 24, and we believe it’s highly likely that he was kept out of the majors because of the color of his skin, not because of his ability. With those adjustments, we believe Saturnino Orestes Armas (Arrieta) Minoso is a fully qualified HoMEr, just a shade above the once-again-rebuffed Vladimir Guerrero. Welcome HoME, Minnie.

Solo Votes

Eric: Minoso is over the line. Not way over, but far enough over to make a reasoned and informed decision to take him over Vladimir Guerrero.

Miller: I see things a little differently than Eric does, not about the players, but about how to vote. Given that we must elect exactly six players in this election to keep in step with the Hall of Fame, I don’t believe we should vote for any more or any fewer. Eric and I disagree, but whatever. It’s basically just a matter of taste, especially since we agree on the six players. To me, there’s nothing wrong with putting Vlad in, but there’s nothing wrong with keeping him out either. There’s always next year.

Another surprising election, at least based on what I expected as recently as six weeks ago. There are now 226 members of the player wing of the Hall of Fame and the Hall of Miller and Eric. In about a year, we’re going to do this all over again as Roy Halladay, Todd Helton, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, and others join Vladimir Guerrero on what looks like another very crowded ballot. We hope you’ll check out the Honorees page to see all of the HoME members, whether players, managers, or pioneers/executives. Enjoy.