Barry Bonds

The Best Offensive Runs Ending A Career

About a year ago, maybe two, or hell, it could be five, the Play Index over at Baseball Reference changed its name to Stathead. Like a lot of things with a name change, this seemed nothing but cosmetic. Don’t get me wrong, a cosmetic change to something that’s awesome means that thing remains awesome. At some point after the change to Stathead, Baseball Reference hired Adam Darowski, who you may know from the Hall of Stats. Recently, he’s been Tweeting videos about how to use Stathead in a bunch of ways that were new and different to me. Certainly more than just cosmetic. (Oh, and if you don’t subscribe to Stathead, please do. It’ll change your baseball loving life). One video he shared showed how to find home run leaders home run hitters in the last 162 games of their careers. It included Larry Hisle, so that’s cool!

It also got me thinking about those who had the most impressive ends to their careers. Checking out seasonal WAR is fun. But inspired by the list of home run greats in their final 162 games, I wanted more than the last season. I’m looking at the best last 162 games of a player’s career. Unfortunately, that’s not how WAR works. But WPA can work like that. Win Probability Added looks at win expectancy by plate appearance, crediting or debiting a player based on how much his performance helped his team’s odds of winning.

All-time leaders in WPA include the usual suspects – Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, and Hank Aaron top the list. As for single-season greats, Bonds holds three of the top four spots. Both Ruth and Lou Gehrig appear four times in the top 20. It’s not a perfect stat. No stat is. But it’s a lot of fun.

So without further ado, here are the best 17 stretches of 162 games by WPA to end a career. Why 17? Because that’s how many reached 4.0. For reference, 5.07 would get you into a tie for 498^th on the single season list.

#17 Del Bissonette, 4.0

You’re to be forgiven if you’re unfamiliar with Bissonette’s career, as it lasted just from 1928-1931 with 35 games in 1933 thrown in. Trivia fans might know him as the first player with a grand slam and a bases loaded triple in the same game. For a spell, Bissonette was a decent enough first baseman for the Brooklyn Robins and Dodgers. So how did his career end? Volleyball, of course. According to his SABR bio by Will Anderson, Dazzy Vance landed on Bissonette’s left ankle, rupturing his Achilles tendon. Not a problem, Del thought. He’ll just have an operation. Unfortunately for Bissonette, he decided to have that operation in the 1930s, and he developed blood poisoning. According to Anderson, “He hovered on the brink of death for days; did not gain strength back for months.” Yikes!

#16 Ted Savage, 4.0

Unlike Bissonette, Ted Savage wasn’t such a good player, managing just 1.8 WAR for his nine-year career. The outfielder played for eight teams, getting into 100 games in a season just twice. One of those times was 1970 for the Milwaukee Brewers. That year, he managed 2.8 oWAR. In tie games, he hit .300/.429/.600, and late and close he managed .300/.488/.500. All of this was out of character for a guy with six seasonal stints hitting below .200 for a team, and slashing just .233/.334/.361 for his career, but it happened.

#15 Dave Nilsson, 4.0

#15 Dave Nilsson, 4.0

Just as I’m contractually obligated to mention Coors Field whenever I talk about Todd Helton, I must mention Dave Nilsson’s home country whenever discussing the Brisbanian (Please tell me that’s the right word!) backstop. In 1999, his final season in the majors, Nilsson might have produced his best numbers, making his only All-Star team and totaling 3.4 oWAR. Kind of famously, at the time, Nilsson retired after his age-29 campaign, choosing not to better his 1999 salary of $5.6 million by hitting the free agent market. Instead, he chose to go home to Australia and represent his country in the Olympics where he hit a mere .565 and slugged .957. Sadly, Australia went 2-5.

#14 Tommy Henrich, 4.1

Seems like “Old Reliable” was quite reliable when he was old. Actually, he was a terrific player throughout his career, 11^th in history among retired players with 5,500 or fewer plate appearances. He also hit the first walk-off home run in World Series history. And in his final full season, covered on this list, he hit .316/.412/.551 in high leverage situations and .316/.445/.658 in medium leverage situations compared to only .245/.393/.395 in low leverage spots. Unfortunately, he also broke a toe and fractured his transverse vertebrae that year. That off-season, he learned that he needed knee surgery but didn’t get it. He remained quite good in 1950, making his fifth All-Star team, but he was forced to retire after playing only 73 games that year.

#13 Ted Williams, 4.1

Perhaps you’ve heard of him. He finished 13^th in the MVP voting in his final season, put up an impressive 190 OPS+, and homered against Jack Fisher in the final plate appearance of his career.

#12 Larry Hisle, 4.1

#12 Larry Hisle, 4.1

Hisle was a wonderful player and kind of the inspiration for this post. In 1978, he produced his second consecutive year of 5+ WAR. Off to another outstanding start in 1979, on April 20, he tore his rotator cuff during a game in Baltimore. It was all downhill from there. Rotator cuff surgery was followed by the removal of a bone spur from the same shoulder. In all, he played just 79 games from 1979 through 1982. In what was essentially a half year of play over his last four years, he hit 15 homers and posted a 120 OPS+.

#11 Darren Daulton, 4.3

As I write these blurbs, I sometimes check out Wikipedia for some fun facts. For Daulton, I was reminded that Bill James called him the 25^th best catcher ever in the 2001 update to his Historical Baseball Abstract. Not to give Bill too hard a time, but that seems, um, nuts. Daulton was not great defensively, played in 100+ games only four times in his career, and in his best five-year run, he averaged only 3.6 WAR (a total he reached just three times in his career). Though I don’t mind admitting that James has forgotten more about baseball than I’ll ever know, Daulton is almost unquestionably not the 25^th best catcher ever. MAPES+ has him 91^st. Anyway, the guy who totaled just 4.4 WAR in his 20s and 22.9 in his career played infrequently in his early days because he wasn’t that good and later in his career because of nagging knee issues. The long-time Phillie was traded to the Marlins for the 1997 stretch drive, even homering for the Fish in Game 3. It’s nice that he went out on top. That doesn’t make him one of the 25 best ever at the position.

#10 Joe DiMaggio, 4.4

Three players finished their careers with 78-80 WAR and fewer than 8,000 plate appearances, Dan Brouthers, Arky Vaughan, and DiMaggio. I share this because I looked it up thinking DiMaggio would lead this list by a little, maybe by more than a little. Nope. By the way, by the end of 2021, Mike Trout will have more career WAR than all of them in over 1,500 fewer trips to the plate.

#9 David Ortiz, 4.4

The Red Sox great led the AL in doubles, runs batted in, and slugging percentage in his final year of 2016. He said that he was in pain daily, but he played in 137+ games in each of his final four seasons, topping out at 151 as he exited the game. I love David Ortiz, so that’s all I’m going to say here.

#8 Mickey Mantle, 4.6

I remember hearing sad stories about Mickey Mantle tragically falling under a .300 batting average in his final season. The truth is that Mantle was still a good player until he hung ‘em up, but he wasn’t a great player for a while. In his last four years, he hit only .254. And in his last six years, those after his age-30 season, he averaged only 3.3 WAR. Still very good, but not great.

#7 Billy Herman, 4.7

#7 Billy Herman, 4.7

Herman is a Hall of Famer and a HoMEr (at least he was), and in his age-36 season, he was quite good, totaling 4.1 WAR for the Dodgers and Braves. His final partial year with the Braves was a clunker, but let’s not get into that here. The reason he makes this list has to be the clutch numbers he put up in 1946. In high leverage situations, he hit .413/.495/.511, and late and close it was .349/.474/.492.

#6 Babe Ruth, 4.8

In his last year with the Yankees, Ruth was worth 5.0 WAR. Three years earlier, when he was 36, he had his final 10-win season. I’ve always loved the trivia nugget that Ruth hit his first and last homers for a team in Boston, Hank Aaron did so for a team in Milwaukee, and Willie Mays did the same for a team in New York. Of course, as they’re now third, second, and sixth in career home runs, respectively, the question doesn’t have the same panache it once did. Anyway, as his career was winding down, Ruth wanted to become a manager, and things started going poorly in New York. By 1935, according to his SABR bio written by Allan Wood, Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert didn’t want Ruth on the team any longer. By the time Spring Training began, Ruth’s #3 had been given to George Twinkletoes Selkirk, and his locker was used to store firewood. Really? Firewood?  A deal was worked out between Ruppert and Braves owner Emil Fuchs to bestow the titles of “assistant manager” and “vice president” upon Ruth, as he would continue playing and presumably help Boston’s gate. In his first game with the Braves, Ruth homered against Carl Hubbell. After his second homer five games later, Ruth slumped awfully, hitting just .068/.281/.136 over his next seventeen contests. Then he homered three times in a losing effort against the Pirates. Ruth’s spot in the batting order came up in the ninth, but it was Joe Mowry who batted against Waite Hoyt rather than Ruth. That’s because Ruth had, according to Jack Zerby’s SABR article, “excused himself from the game” after hitting what’s called the longest home run in the history of Forbes Field in the seventh. The Bambino would have only five games and zero hits left in his career.

Do you know why Ruth exited the game in the seventh? Was it to go out on top? If so, why’d he play again, especially considering all of those games were on the road? Please share in the comments!

#5 Will Clark, 4.9

Will Clark may or may not be the racist former teammate Jeffrey Leonard claimed he was. But his one-time defense of John Rocker certainly suggests something less than positive about Clark. I’m not sure he’s the “cackling douche” Deadspin calls him, but now I’ve used the words “cackling douche” in a post, so my writing career is complete. And it’s clear that writer Jeff Pearlman isn’t a fan. I admit that I have no idea how Clark actually felt or feels. I share only because it’s one of the main things I remember about him.

A quality racists and non-racists tend to share is love of family. And Clark showed his upon retiring after a very successful 2000 season to help his wife care for his two-year-old autistic son. Slashing .301/.413/.473 in Baltimore, Clark was shipped to the Cardinals at the trade deadline, and he improved on that line to the tune of .345/.426/.655. All told, it was his best season by WAR since the end of his peak in 1991.

#4 Ellis Burks, 5.2

Ellis Burks, like so many others, saw his game decline and come to an end rather quickly. At age 37, he remained a healthy star in 2002. By the next year, he was hurt a good bit but remained a pretty decent hitter when healthy. And by 2004, he was broken down and not very good. Everything considered, it’s quite surprising to see him this high on the list. No, it’s not as surprising as Jack Savage making an appearance, but surprising nonetheless.

In his 99 high leverage plate appearances in 2002, Burks hit .398/.459/.705. His late and close line was .327/.431/.655. In 2003, Burks was even better, despite his limited time in the lineup: .400/.478/.953 in high leverage situations and /393/.433/.429 late and close.

#3 Mickey Cochrane, 5.5

After being sold/traded by the A’s to the to the Tigers in the winter after the 1933 season, Cochrane was named player-manager, certainly not an unusual role in the 1930s. He was MVP his first year in Detroit, though with his weakest WAR in five years. He also led the team to the World Series that year, losing to St. Louis. A year later, however, Detroit got its revenge against the Cubs. As a sort of reward, he was given the job of general manager after that victory, something far less common than serving as player-manager.

According to his SABR bio, written by Charlie Bevis, the pressure of these multiple responsibilities led to some sort of a breakdown in 1936. Recovered to start the 1937 season, Cochrane was off to another excellent start, until a Bump Hadley pitch that nearly killed him ended his career. Unlike Burks, it’s no surprise to see Cochrane here, as he remained a very good player when his career was cut short.

#2 Roberto Clemente, 6.0

And speaking of careers cut short, we all know the story of the Puerto Rican Pirate great who died in a plane crash while delivering aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. In his final season, Clemente made his 15^th All-Star team, won his 12^th Gold Glove, finished 13^th in the MVP race, and totaled 4.8 WAR in only 102 games.

#1 Barry Bonds, 6.0

We hear the term “cancel culture” bandied about a great deal these days. To be honest, I don’t think I know precisely what it means. I know, however, that when political figures remain in their roles and continue to be invited onto television shows, they have absolutely, positively not been cancelled. It may be 14 years ago now, but I’m certain this term could have been used to describe the end of the career of the great Barry Bonds. At age 42, the guy let the National League with a .480 on base percentage. The very next year, 2008, the Minnesota Twins finished one game behind the White Sox in the battle for the AL Central. That year, they played Denard Span in right field although center was his main position. And they played Carlos Gomez in center, he of the .258/.296/.360 line. Are you telling me that Bonds at DH or in the outfield, with Jason Kubel taking the other position wouldn’t have resulted in a couple of wins? Benching Delmon Young would have been a nice option as well. Yeah, I say Bonds was cancelled.

Concluding Thoughts

Well, that’s it for this week. Oh, you’re wondering when are those 1950s elections coming? I don’t know. All I can guarantee is that we want them to occur as much as you do and that we’re doing everything we can to make that happen.

Miller

Previewing the 2021 Hall of Fame Announcement

As most everyone reading this post knows, MLB Network will announce the results of the 2021 Hall of Fame election tomorrow at 3:00 Eastern. And anyone who’s been following Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall Tracker understands that things aren’t looking good for Curt Schilling, or anyone else, as far as participation in this summer’s ceremony. While Schilling sits right around the 75 percent needed for induction as I write this, he routinely loses votes among those who reveal after the Hall’s announcement and those who don’t reveal at all. I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to let you know he’s very unlikely to receive the call tomorrow.

So what else is happening with the ballots? Read on!

Curt Schilling

Yeah, we have to lead off with him. If you read my ballot this year, you’ll likely remember Schilling wasn’t on it. Still, I want him to gain election this year for two main reasons. First, if he’s elected, we at the HoME won’t have to discuss him any longer. And I have to tell ya, having Curt Schilling completely out of my life would be nice. Second, I’m a big fan of justice. Think what you want about the man, but the pitcher was one of the two or three dozen best ever, and he was one of a handful of the best post-season performers we’ve ever seen. He deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Oh, and I don’t want to have to consider whether I’m going to put him on my ballot a year from now.

Omar Vizquel

You’ve probably read the accusations of spousal abuse made by Blanca Vizquel against her husband, Omar. Let me cut to the chase here. I find her accusations credible. I believe her. However, what I don’t find credible is when people opine that a vote for Vizquel but not for Bonds or Clemens means that you find PED use to be worse than hitting women. Some who suggest that probably genuinely mean it, but others show some intellectual dishonesty. Those who choose to vote for Vizquel do so because his are off-field infractions, while PED use is an on-field infraction.

With that said, as of this writing, Vizquel has added votes from nine writers and lost votes from eleven this year. I think the nine are simply following the wave that seemed it would get the mediocre major leaguer into the Hall. I think the eleven are likely reacting because they believe Blanca’s allegations. Or maybe one or two realize how mediocre Vizquel was? Whatever the case, his momentum, at least for a while, seems to have stopped. I can get behind that, whatever the reason.

If it doesn’t seem I’m coming out strongly enough against spousal abuse, let me be clear. I favor jail time if convicted of hitting another person. Hitting someone is never acceptable.

The Gainers

As I write this, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Scott Rolen, Gary Sheffield, and Billy Wagner have gained a net 17-28 votes this cycle. On just their fourth and third ballots respectively, Rolen and Helton look to be setting themselves for future election. Even if the writers elect nobody this year, getting those two set up for the future offers some hope.

Jones moves in the correct direction as well. Though he is progressing, one thing I can’t quite understand is voters can support Vizquel without supporting Jones, something 37 had done at the time of writing. Maybe Vizquel was great defensively, but Jones certainly was. And Jones was the far superior hitter. The Vizquel, no Jones, ballots average 7.0 names, compared to 6.5 overall. And, for what it’s worth, those voters are 86.5% to support Schilling and less likely than voters as a whole to support Bonds and Clemens.

Gary Sheffield also gains, separating himself from Sammy Sosa for whatever reason. Right now there are 47 voters who support Sheffield and not Sosa, 7 who support Sosa and not Sheffield, and 28 who support both. It’s those 47 who are most interesting to me. They include a full name more per ballot than voters overall, 7.5. They’re 81% to support Schilling and 85% to support Bonds and Clemens. Actually, they’re more likely than the whole BBWAA to support all of the clearly deserving players. But why aren’t they 100% to support Bonds and Clemens?

Worst Argument of the Year

People who submit blank ballots simply shouldn’t submit one. I’ve read this a bunch on Twitter. Listen, I agree that a blank ballot is foolish. However, those who submit blanks do so because they don’t think anyone is worthy of a vote, I presume. If they don’t submit a ballot, they lose their ability to make that argument count. It’s their intention for the denominator to grow, making it harder for all players on the ballot to reach 75%. I don’t like a blank ballot, but it makes complete sense.

Best Ballots of the Year

This is a more difficult year than usual to share with you what the best ballot of the year is, at least according to my thinking. Let me explain.

The best ballot of the year, in my mind, needs to have three characteristics. It must include ten players, it must omit Omar Vizquel, and it must omit Billy Wagner. I should include ten players because I feel there are more than ten who deserve it. It needs to omit two I mention because their value was considerably less than any of the top-10.

Believe it or not, there are only three ballots that fit my criteria.

• Sean Forman: Abreu, Bonds, Buehrle, Clemens, Helton, Hudson, Jones, Pettitte, Ramirez, Rolen
• Evan Grant: Abreu, Bonds, Buehrle, Clemens, Helton, Jones, Rolen, Schilling, Sheffield, Sosa
• Christina Kahrl: Bonds, Buehrle, Helton, Hudson, Jones, Pettitte, Ramirez, Rolen, Sheffield, Sosa

And there’s a problem with all three of them. To begin, these three voters share only five players, which is strange. Barry Bonds, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, and Scott Rolen all make sense to me. Mark Buehrle makes less sense. I don’t see him in a big clump with Tim Hudson and Andy Pettitte, as a lot of people do. I see him as just a shade lesser. I actually don’t support his candidacy at this time. So all three of what I’m calling the “best” ballots include someone who I don’t support. Can any of them really be best? Let’s explore.

Kahrl’s ballot omits Roger Clemens. I understand her position regarding Clemens and Mindy McCready. I appreciate it too. But I can’t say that a ballot without Clemens’ name on it is this year’s best. That leaves Forman and Grant. Forman voted for Hudson, Pettitte, and Ramirez while Grant preferred Schilling, Sheffield, and Sosa. Hmm, I can’t decide.

So my next step is to consider the exact ten best players on the ballot. With apologies to Abreu, Buehrle, Kent, and Pettitte, here we go. My rankings show the best ten players on the ballot, alphabetically, to have been Bonds, Clemens, Helton, Hudson, Jones, M.Ramirez, Rolen, Schilling, Sheffield, and Sosa.

There were two writers who voted for nine of those ten players. Both Josh Dubow and Patrick Graham supported all but Hudson. Since Dubow stopped at nine and Graham replaced Hudson with Vizquel, you know I prefer Dubow’s ballot.

This was a more difficult year to vote than any in recent memory. It’s down to Dubow, Forman, and Grant. Without further comment, I’m going to dub Evan Grant’s the best ballot of 2021.

Worst Ballots of the Year

Sadly, there are always more of these than the above. Here’s what’s sure to be an incomplete list.

• Jim Caple: Bonds, Clemens, Hunter, Schilling, Vizquel. In and of itself, this is pretty bad. Dropping Todd Helton and Scott Rolen from a year ago makes it even worse.

• Mark Faller: Helton, Rolen, Sheffield, Vizquel. I don’t understand his moral compass. How do you vote for Sheffield but not Bonds and Clemens? Vizquel and not Schilling?
• Rick Morrissey: Buehrle, Helton, Schilling, Sheffield, Wagner. Do some writers believe Sheffield used PEDs but didn’t know he was using them?
• Bill Plunkett: Helton, Sheffield, Wagner. Yeah, maybe they do.
• Paul White: Helton, Schilling, Sheffield, Wagner. I guess they do.

• Rob Parent: Buehrle, Kent, Schilling, Vizquel. He was given ten darts, threw them all, and is bad at darts.

• Mark Purdy: Kent, Schilling, Wagner (all adds). I’m sorry, but he’s just making things up as he goes along. Last year it was just Jeter and Vizquel.

• Dan Shaughnessy: Kent. Hey everyone, look at me!
• Clark Spencer: Schilling. No, don’t. Look at me!

• Anonymous #1: Abreu, Hunter, Jones, Pettitte, Aramis, Manny, Rolen, Vizquel, Wagner. Sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought the fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

I hope your favorites gain ground or open well this year!

Miller

Our 2021 Hall of Fame Ballots

As you know, we don’t have Hall of Fame votes. We have studied the ballot and the players’ credentials more than almost any of the voters. We have systems in place that inform how we vote. We also care a whole lot more than much of the BBWAA membership. But excellence at something doesn’t necessarily get you asked to the dance. There are certainly people out there who are better than we are at our jobs, and we’re oh so thankful that the jobs are ours, not theirs. For better and for worse, life isn’t a meritocracy. You know what is? Our ballots. Well, at least Eric’s.

Our General Approaches

• We see more than ten viable Hall of Famers on this ballot, and, therefore, feel free to vote strategically, if necessary, to support a player staying on the ballot.
• We use our own CHEWS+ and MAPES+ rankings with any necessary manual adjustments. We don’t feel beholden to our rankings because WAR, after all, is an estimate, and we layer estimates upon estimates to create our rankings.
• We account for positional balance, especially for borderline players and sometimes when trying to decide the final names on the ballot.
• Eric seeks internal consistency and avoids story-time selections (we all know which 2021 candidate I’m talking about here). Miller, well, last year he didn’t vote for Derek Jeter. And this year, there are some issues with his internal consistency as well.
• We do not penalize for anything PED related prior to testing and consider it part of the state of play of that time. Rumors and unsubstantiated “taint” have no truck with us. We don’t currently penalize those busted after testing began who have served their MLB-mandated penalties. We’re not closed to the idea of penalizing them, depending on what level of information is available, and if it came down to two evenly qualified candidates on the borderline, we would take it into consideration.
• For pitchers, postseason play is already baked into our numbers. It is not for hitters, but if two borderline candidates were tied and one had an extensive and successful postseason resume, we would likely use it as a tiebreaker.
• Eric has outlined his feelings about Curt Schilling previously. It’s not an easy decision, and he feels a pull in both directions that he hasn’t felt so much in the past. Context is everything. As for Miller, keep reading.
• Eric attempts to be objective, but still feels ooky voting for Yankees. (Joke!)

Our Ballot Overlap

Barry Bonds: Arguably the greatest hitter of all time, depending on how you feel about the timeline and Balco.

Roger Clemens: Arguably the greatest pitcher of all time, depending on how you feel about the timeline and Brian McNamee.

Todd Helton: The illusions created by Coors Field overinflate his counting and rate numbers. An all too common reaction is to then hand wave him away by saying he’s a “Coors creation” or something similar. WAR and other similar stats help a lot here because they both remove the Coors context and place him into a neutral context. Whereupon we find out that Helton belongs in the Hall and is somewhere between the tenth and twentieth best first baseman ever.

Andruw Jones: Perhaps the best fielding center fielder ever, and, in his prime, a strong offensive contributor. He has a Cesar Cedeno-shaped career, which the BBWAA doesn’t seem to like very much, but he was a much better player than Cedeno. Despite the relative brevity of his career, he’s something like the twelfth best centerfielder in history.

Andy Pettitte: He’s down near the in/out line, around sixty-fifth to seventy-fifth among all eligible pitchers in history. That might not sound like much, but it’s equivalent to being the eighteenth to twenty-first best player at a hitting position. If that doesn’t sound like a Hall of Famer, consider it this way. The Hall includes 235 designated players. Figure an ideal balance would work out to seventy percent hitters and thirty percent pitchers. 235 x .7 = 164 divided by the eight positions = 20.6 players per position. This is the realpolitik of the Hall. You may not think the nineteenth best first baseman or the sixty-seventh best pitcher merits induction, but he does based on the number of players who have been elected. Can’t argue with the numbers.

Manny Ramirez: Probably the best right-handed hitter of his time. Based on that, it’s not difficult to say yes.

Scott Rolen: Rolen slides in somewhere around number ten or fifteen all-time at third base. He’s in a big old clump with Brooks Robinson, Paul Molitor, Buddy Bell, Graig Nettles, and Edgar Martinez. All of them have a place in the Hall of Miller and Eric and the Hall of Stats. All but Bell in the Hall of Merit (where he’s a high-ranking backlog candidate). But only three of these seven (including Rolen) have reached Cooperstown. The Hall is missing out. Rolen’s path is pretty clear until Adrian Beltre comes along, so he has 2021, 2022, and 2023 to build support as the only third baseman candidate worth looking at.

Gary Sheffield: We each see Sheffield similarly. We each voted for him. But our rationales are probably a little different. You’ll find Eric’s in his Jeff Kent comment below. As for Miller, he thinks Sheffield was good enough. That’s about it.

Our Ballot Differences

Eric: Votes for Jeff Kent and Curt Schilling

I have to make a pair of Sophie’s-Lite choices, and I’m not at all comfortable with my selections. I support Tim Hudson and Mark Buehrle’s cases. I think they’ve got little chance to reach five percent, On the other hand, Kent and Sheffield finally got traction in 2020 and roughly doubled their support, Sheff busting the thirty percent barrier and Kent reaching the high twenties. My strategic play here is to hope that their support increases without no-brainers on the ballot either putting them in the Larry Walker Zone where they might squeak by on the last ballot or the Alan Trammell/Lee Smith Zone where their support gets high enough that the Veterans Committee feels the love and eventually elects them. It feels like a better play than the Hudson and Buehrle parlay which is the shame of a ten-man ballot and of the writers taking way too long to elect players in past elections who had blindingly obvious credentials, leaving little room for lower ranked candidates to make their moves.

As for Schilling, enough about him already.

Miller: Votes for Sammy Sosa and Tim Hudson

I have Gary Sheffield at 100.1 MAPES+ points, barely trailing Sammy Sosa’s 101.8. If I’m taking Sheffield, I’m certainly taking Sosa. With both ahead of eight HoME right fielders, the choice is really pretty easy.

I have Andy Pettitte at 99.5 MAPES+ points, barely ahead of Tim Hudson’s 98.9. If I’m taking Pettitte, I kind of have to take Hudson. With Hudson ahead of five HoME starters, the choice is easy enough to defend.

We Agree They Don’t Belong

Omar Vizquel and Billy Wagner: These two should not even be on the ballot any longer. One is one of the best closers in history, roughly similar in value to Trevor Hoffman. Of course, with only 903 innings, that value is far from Hall worthy. The other is one of the best sacrifice bunters of the last century. He might also be one of the best defensive shortstops ever. Or not. It depends what defensive ratings and whose eyes you trust. Oh, and he was an awful hitter. Just awful. Sadly, these two are likely taking votes away from well qualified candidates.

Apologies (from Eric)

Bobby Abreu and Sammy Sosa: More players I wouldn’t mind seeing stick around a while. Abreu doesn’t rank as highly as Vlad Guerrero. Vlad doesn’t rank as high as Sammy. Sammy ranks dead even with Sheffield. But Sosa has virtually no support. I’d like to push good candidates toward election and clear the backlog of electable candidates, so it’s Sheffield for me.

Mark Buehrle and Tim Hudson: Tim and Mark, I give you my sincerest regrets.

Apologies (from Miller)

Bobby Abreu: I don’t know that Abreu will ever see my ballot because he might get five-percented before I have the chance to vote for him. If I had space, I believe I’d put him there. After all, I rank him above Harry Hooper and Sam Rice, both HoMErs.

Jeff Kent: Though it might seem like I’m opposed to voting for Kent, what with eight ballots gone by and zero votes from me, I’m not against it at all. In fact, he’s in the HoME. The difference between the HoME and the Hall, at least the one that applies here, is that we elect over-qualified players when they’re first eligible. Thus, we don’t have the backlog of great candidates that the Hall does.

No Apologies (from Miller)

Mark Buehrle: I hate to include Buehrle here, particularly because of what I write below. Anyone totaling 60 WAR on the mound was one heck of a pitcher. But I don’t like him as much as Eric does. I see him as Don Sutton but with five or six fewer seasons where he contributed something. Maybe a better comparison is Tommy John, again with fewer seasons. Or maybe, just maybe the best comparison is Whitey Ford. Take a look at the seasonal WAR for each all of my adjustments.

Ford     6.7  5.9  5.4  5.1  4.7  4.5  4.3  4.1  3.8  3.5  3.4  2.6  2.5  1.9  1.3  0.2
Buehrle  6.1  6.1  5.6  5.4  5.2  4.7  4.2  4.0  3.8  3.6  3.6  2.7  2.3  2.3  1.5  0.9

Yeah, I’ve been having some buyer’s remorse about Ford. RIP, Whitey.

Curt Schilling: Schilling is in the HoME. We’ve discussed removing players who we think have been mistakes, but he wouldn’t be among the first 100 to go. Not even close. Also, I’ve voted for Schilling on every Hall ballot since we started this thing. It’s never been remotely difficult. Last year I even went so far to write a post in theoretical defense of Schilling. Of course, I’ve since deleted that post because I’m embarrassed by it. It was a logical exercise that needn’t have happened.

During his career, Schilling won the Lou Gehrig Award as the player who best exemplifies Gehrig’s spirit and character on and off the field. He won the Branch Rickey Award in recognition of exceptional community service. And he won the Roberto Clemente Award by combining good play with strong work in the community. So why am I not voting for him?

I admit that I don’t have a logical reason. I admit that it goes against so much of what I believe in to withhold a vote without good reason. Still, I’m not voting for Schilling – just because I don’t want to. To be blunt. I think Curt Schilling is a jerk. Worse than that. No, I don’t know him. I’ve never met him. But I believe what I believe. It’s not his politics. My support of and adoration for Mariano Rivera, a very public Trump devotee, is the reason I celebrated so much last year when Derek Jeter failed to be inducted unanimously (yeah, and my dislike of Jeter). It’s the person.

There’s this guy who I work with who I can’t stand. He’s tried to get me fired, I believe on multiple occasions. But he has some really good ideas too, and I’m always there to support him when he has one. People who know of our history don’t understand how I can do that. But it’s easy. I care about the quality of the idea, not the person who has it. I like to think I’m a good guy like that. It makes me proud to act the way I do.

Clearly, I’m not perfect though. The truth is, I have so little power in the world. I don’t mind that at all. My experience has taught me that power is all too often used to hold people down rather than lift them up. So while I don’t have much power, I did start a blog a number of years back. I’ve given myself a fake Hall of Fame vote too. And I think Curt Schilling is scum. A large part of me is ashamed that I feel that way, but I do. And it’s my freakin’ vote in my tiny little corner of the Interwebs, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to use it to support Curt Schilling. I hope he gets into the Hall of Fame without my support and that he contract an awful case of laryngitis right before he’s set to give his speech.

Now you have a story for the smallest amount of power you’ve ever seen go to someone’s head.

Our Ballots

Miller: Bonds, Clemens, Helton, Jones, Pettitte, Ramirez, Rolen, Sheffield, Hudson, Sosa

Eric: Bonds, Clemens, Helton, Jones, Pettitte, Ramirez, Rolen, Sheffield, Kent, Schilling

Reviewing the 2021 Hall of Fame Ballot

The ballots have gone in the mail. Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall Tracker is up and running. So now it’s that time of year again, the time when your pals Miller and Eric review the 2021 ballot and share our picks. Today you’ll get a write-up of all 25 players the BBWAA gets to choose from (or not choose from as has already been the case for a number of voters), and next week we’ll reveal our 2021 ballots.

Bobby Abreu

YOB: 2^nd
BBREF WAR: 60.2
CHEWS+: 29^th in RF
MAPES+: 27^th in RF

Bobby Abreu has nearly an identical case to Vlad Guerrero from a value perspective. These are my own WAR calculations for both lined up from best to worst seasons:

Guerrero 7.2  6.4  6.4  6.2  5.2  4.7  4.7  4.6  4.3  3.6  2.3  1.8  1.7  0.7  0.2 -0.1
Abreu    6.5  6.5  5.7  5.3  5.2  5.2  4.9  4.3  4.1  3.3  3.2  2.7  2.1  1.8  0.4 -0.1 -0.2 -0.3

I’ve got Vlad at 40.9 WAR over his best seven seasons and Abreu at 39.3 over his. I’ve got Vlad at 60.1 career and Abreu at 60.5 career. I’ve got both of them just under the in/out line but close enough that I’m wiling to elect them. Vlad has 99.8 CHEWS+ and Abreu 98.2 CHEWS+. Yes, Guerrero looks like a slightly better candidate, and it’s helpful to remember that WAR doesn’t represent a perfect estimate, just a very good one. No, they are not far enough apart that one deserves enshrinement and the other barely scrounges enough support to stay on the ballot. Narrative and hardware help Guerrero, and Abreu doesn’t receive those benefits. I wouldn’t full-throatedly advocate either of them for enshrinement, but with one of them in the door, voters should check to make sure they haven’t overlooked the other. -Eric

Barry Bonds

YOB: 9^th
BBREF WAR: 162.8
CHEWS+: 1^st in LF
MAPES+: 1^st in LF

We’ve gone through this enough. Bonds deserves to be in the Hall, so I’ll add just one new argument. If we disregard Bonds’ last fifteen seasons, I’d still have him over my line. -Miller

Mark Buehrle

YOB: 1^st
BBREF WAR: 59.1
CHEWS+: 68^th
MAPES+: 85^th

Tim Hudson

YOB: 1^st
BBREF WAR: 57.9
CHEWS+: 65^th
MAPES+: 72^nd

Andy Pettitte

YOB: 3^rd
BBREF WAR: 60.2
CHEWS+: 61^st
MAPES+: 70^th

Little separates these three in my rankings, and together they form a knot just above my in/out line, so it makes sense to think through them in one entry. Pettitte has two primary differentiators from Hudson and Buehrle. First, he pitched for the Yankees during a dynasty in which they made the playoffs every year whether you liked it or not. For me, this adds about two and a half wins to his career. Not so helpfully endowed with outstanding teammates, Hudson and Buehrle get scant credit for their relative paucity of October innings. Second, Pettitte wisely entered the world a few years earlier than Hudson and Buehrle and, therefore, spent more of his career in an era when starting pitchers still occasionally went 260 innings and when the league leaders in innings routinely got to 250. Hudson and Buehrle got in on some of that, but watching pitch counts and general starter workload reductions became a trend just a couple years after their rookie seasons. By the time of their denouement, top workloads had already dropped by thirty innings compared to when they started. It might helpful to see this in a chart.

YEAR  MLB LDR  >=200 IP
=======================
1996   265.2     49
1997   264.0     43
1998   268.2     56
1999   271.2     44
2000   251.0     37
2001   256.2     45
2002   260.0     42
2003   266.0     44
2004   255.0     42
2005   246.1     50
2006   240.2     45
2007   241.0     38
2008   253.0     34
2009   240.0     36
2010   250.2     45
2011   251.0     39
2012   238.1     31
2013   241.2     36
2014   248.1     34
2015   232.2     28
2016   230.0     15

Notice the big drop in 2000 and in 2012 and 2014. That means that Pettitte played five full seasons before innings reductions really kicked in, and he ended his career before the second big drop. Hudson and Buehrle had to contend with somewhat different workload conditions than Pettitte. With less than 200 innings separating all three, it’s possible that Buehrle and Hudson’s durability matches or slightly exceeds Pettitte’s. In fact, Buehrle is the only one of the three who led his league in innings (twice).

Those extra innings gave Pettitte more decisions and, therefore, more victories. His teammates had a lot to do with those victories, of course. A subtlety that will break right for Pettitte and wrong for Hudson and Buehrle.

Among the three, my way of seeing things shows five seasons for Buehrle of All-Star-level play, four for Hudson, and three for Pettitte. In fact Pettitte, for me, has zero shoulder seasons between 3.9 WAR and 6.1 but a near infinite string of two- and three-WAR seasons. Hudson has three four-win years and Buerhle one. But this is hair-splitting to the folks in the BBWAA. Pettitte has more wins and rings so he’ll sally forth into the 2022 vote despite admitting to HGH use while Hudson and Buehrle will struggle to find support. In reality they are all basically the same guy just in different circumstances, and with no holdover candidates receiving substantial support and whose vote share will increase this year without a no-brainer newcomer, it’ll be hard for these two to make it past the 2021 vote. -Eric

Perhaps you notice above that Eric ranks each of these three pitchers higher than I do. That’s no accident. It’s a function of how we rank modern starting pitchers. Basically, Eric adjusts workloads of today’s pitchers so that they look like pitchers of an earlier vintage. It helps him compare apples to apples. I don’t see things the same way. Basically, I see today’s starting pitchers as less valuable than those who pitched more innings. It’s the same way that starters are more valuable than closers – the innings. This isn’t a very big deal with guys like Hudson, but I think we’re going to see pitchers pretty differently 20ish years from now. Shane Bieber, for example, won’t post the innings pitched totals of his predecessors. Eric will adjust Bieber’s innings up so they look familiar. I won’t. Thus, guys like Bieber, or whoever today’s new stars are, will rank higher by CHEWS+ than MAPES+. That’s okay though. Eric and I agree that there should be relatively equal HoME representation by era and position, so we’ll still likely choose to elect the same players even if our rankings may look quite different. -Miller

A.J. Burnett

YOB: 1^st
BBREF WAR: 28.8
CHEWS+: 320^th
MAPES+: 350^th

Burnett had a solid career, no doubt about that. For those who care about such things, he did reach double figures in wins every year from 2005-2013. He won a strikeout title and a couple of K/9 crowns, and he made an All-Star team in the final year of his career, though he did not pitch in the game. Even in his best three-year run, however, he wasn’t too impressive, ranking just 35^th in pitching WAR from 2007-2009. The biggest game of his career had to be Game Two of the 2009 World Series where he outdueled Pedro Martinez and the Phillies to help his Yankees draw even in the series. -Miller

Roger Clemens

YOB: 9^th
BBREF WAR: 139.2
CHEWS+: 3^rd
MAPES+: 3^rd

I might as well do the same thing with Clemens as I did with Bonds. If we eliminate the final sixteen years of his career, he’s still well over my line. In fact, eliminating those seasons drops him only to 44^th on my modern pitcher list. Eliminating a seventeenth season still puts him ahead of Whitey Ford. -Miller

Michael Cuddyer

YOB: 1^st
BBREF WAR: 17.8
CHEWS+: 138^th in RF
MAPES+: 140^th in RF

Cuddyer’s best season in terms of BBREF WAR was his 3.1 wins for the 2007 Twins. He was only above 2.0 four other times, including his All-Star campaigns of 2011 and 2013. He did win the 2013 batting title for the Rockies, so there’s that. Picking out a career highlight for Cuddyer seems like it should be easy enough; it is for most players. But the righty swinging corner guy only won three of his ten post-season series, and he only scored or drove in a run in one of those, his first ever playoff opportunity in 2002. Maybe his best game in the playoffs was his first, the 2002 ALDS opener against the A’s. Facing Tim Hudson, Cuddyer had two hits and a walk, drove in a run, and scored a run before being replaced defensively in the seventh. He shouldn’t receive any votes. -Miller

Dan Haren

YOB: 1^st
BBREF WAR: 35.1
CHEWS+: 159^th
MAPES+: 222^nd

I think of Haren with the Oakland A’s, which I suppose makes sense because that’s where he pitched the most innings. But the guy played for eight teams overall, including six in his last six seasons. He was named to three consecutive All-Star squads, the first in his last year in Oakland and then his first two full seasons in Arizona. And he pitched in one World Series, in his second year for the Cardinals, throwing two games in relief and totaling the second-most innings for the Cards. He held the Red Sox scoreless over 4.2 frames as they were swept in four. For fans of a certain window, Haren was a star, the fifth best pitcher WAR from 2005-2009, trailing only Johan Santana, Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia, and Roy Oswalt. I wouldn’t mind seeing him receive a couple of votes, maybe one from an Arizona local who remembers him at his best, 12.6 pitching WAR in his two full seasons there. -Miller

LaTroy Hawkins

YOB: 1^st
BBREF WAR: 17.8
CHEWS+: not ranked
MAPES+: not ranked

There’s always a guy on the ballot who doesn’t really belong there, and it’s usually a relief pitcher. Hawkins, to his credit, didn’t finish so far from earning a ranking from us. Just 2.2 more WAR would have done it. For what’s it’s worth, he’s 72^nd among relief pitchers by JAWS, equidistant between Joakim Soria in 69^th and Armando Benitez in 75^th. The only Black Ink he “boasts” is an earned run “title” in 1999 when he had an evil 6.66 mark in 174.1 innings. He didn’t make an All-Star team and only pitched two World Series innings, both for the 2007 Rockies as they were swept away in four by the Red Sox. He pitched a clean inning of mop-up duty in a Game One 13-1 drubbing, and he got the last outs and gave up the final run in a 10-5 loss in the finale. I’m thinking zero votes. -Miller

Todd Helton

YOB: 3^rd
BBREF WAR: 61.8
CHEWS+: 16^th at 1B
MAPES+: 13^th at 1B

I want to talk a little here about suffixes. They’re morphemes added to the ends of words to form a derivative. (Yeah, I don’t really know what that means either). Here’s an example. It is easier to hit in Coors Field than it is other ballparks. I didn’t say that it’s easy. Hitting remains hard, even in Coors. Lemme give you another example. Coors Field’s hitting environment when Todd Helton played was easier than it is today. There’s a meaningful difference between “easy” and “easier” that is lost on fans and voters alike.

Lesson number two: park factors. As you’ve just learned, Coors Field is easy-er than other places for hitters. So there are these things called “park factors” that help to show which parks favors hitters , which favor pitchers, and by how much. WAR incorporates these park factors in its calculations. It does so well enough that we can compare Helton’s 2000 campaign to, say, Willie McCovey’s work in 1968.

McCovey and Eddie Murray are good comps for Helton in terms of career value. As for peak value, we’re looking at Jeff Bagwell or Johnny Mize. All told, he looks a lot like Rafael Palmeiro with a far superior peak, about 2,600 fewer trips to the plate, and no finger-wagging PED taint.

Don’t look at the counting numbers for Helton, or anyone else, really. Don’t look at silly seasonal RBI totals. Don’t become overly focused on era or ballpark. Just look at value. If you do, Helton is over-qualified. Larry Walker getting in gives some hope. Jumping from 16.5% to 29.2% in his two times on the ballot gives more. A similar jump in 2021 puts Helton in good shape to get the BBWAA’s approval before his time on the ballot is all said and done. Let’s hope so.

Apologies for the snark.-Miller

Torii Hunter

YOB: 1^st
BBREF WAR: 50.7
CHEWS+: 53^rd in CF
MAPES+: 53^rd in CF

Torii Hunter was a fine player and a great guy, you know, if you’re into homophobes. A steady hand for many seasons, Hunter produced between 3.0 and 5.4 WAR twelve times. My conversions aren’t quite as kind, though I still give him ten such seasons, something matched by only 27 center fielders on my list. We think of Hunter as a wonderful defender because of his highlight reel catches, like this one from 2002 All-Star, one of the most memorable plays in the game’s history. However, the nine-time Gold Glover wasn’t really that great in the field, as 33 Rfield and -1.6 DRA show. He received down-ballot MVP consideration five times, though he only once finished inside the top-15.

He was decent in the playoffs, posting BAs and OBPs similar to his regular season numbers and lagging just a little in terms of slugging, though we can’t really draw meaningful conclusions from 208 trips to the plate. His two three-hit playoff games were both in losing efforts. Perhaps his best playoff game came in the opener of the 2009 ALDS against the Red Sox, during which he hit a three-run home run to break a scoreless tie in the fifth inning, also adding a single and a walk. He drove in multiple runs in only four of his other 47 playoff games though.

He made five All-Star teams for three different organizations, but he didn’t get on base in seven trips to the plate while he was there. Also, he’s completely without Black Ink. I suspect that’s rare for a player with almost 10,000 trips to the plate. Eric’s Contemporary Sim Score Calculator shows Dom DiMaggio as the most similar player to Hunter. He’s both right next to Hunter on my all-time list, and Eric shows that he built his value in very much the same way. Perhaps if David Halberstam ever writes a book about the friendship between Hunter, Jacques Jones, Corey Koskie, and Brad Radke, maybe he too will receive some overly romantic Hall support. Until then, he won’t. Still, it wouldn’t be awful if a couple of Minnesota writers threw him a bone. -Miller

Andruw Jones

YOB: 4^th
BBREF WAR: 62.7
CHEWS+: 10^th in CF
MAPES+: 11^th in CF

After two years of disappointment – 7.3% of the vote in 2018 and 7.5% in 2019 – Andruw Jones fans began to find some hope a year ago when their favorite center fielder rose to 19.4%. Derek Jeter and Larry Walker are now out of the way. Curt Schilling will be gone this year or next. And after the 2022 voting, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa will be gone too. Then again, a lot of the 2022 freed votes will be sucked up by Alex Rodriguez David Ortiz.

Or maybe not.

Assuming Bonds and Clemens used PEDS, which I do, it’s clear they used them prior to the ban in MLB. There must be some voters who see things as I do and give such players a pass. Both A-Rod and Ortiz saw their names leaked after 2003 testing, which was used to determine whether or not a mandatory testing program was needed. Since using PEDs wasn’t really against the rules then, I give players a pass for 2003 as well. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do. So why am I suggesting votes might be freed up for Jones?

First, Ortiz is borderline worthy, at best. Some voters will ignore him just based on the merits of his case, or lack thereof. And second, A-Rod was suspended for the entirety of the 2014 season, both because Bud Selig is an a-hole and because Rodriguez, apparently, was using PEDs for years. In other words, reasonable voters can withhold votes from Rodriguez and Ortiz that had gone to Bonds and Clemens. But I digress…

I don’t know what it is about voters who can’t see past four or eight names per ballot when there are ten players on it who will eventually get their votes, but it’s a thing. Folks like me just have to understand that such thinking exists and move on. Otherwise, that imaginary head-sized hole in my wall might just become reality. As for his case, well, Jones swims in some murky waters. Some voters think he’s overly qualified, others see him as qualified, and still others don’t understand the baseball analytical fascination with him. The argument that he falls short starts with the fact we understand offensive value much more than defensive value, and a ton of Jones’ value is tied up in his glove. In fact, comparing his hitting to the combination of his defense plus BBREF’s positional adjustment, the only years of his career that he added more to his team with his bat than his glove were 2000, 2005, and 2006. Even someone like Scott Rolen nearly doubles Jones in Rbat, 234 to 119.

There are only ten players in baseball history with at least 100 Rbat whose Rfield exceeds their batting prowess.

                  Rbat    Rfield     Diff
Andruw Jones     118.7     234.7    116.0
Buddy Bell       110.0     173.8     63.8
Jesse Barfield   104.4     161.4     57.0
Bid McPhee       103.7     154.0     50.3
Graig Nettles    102.2     139.8     37.6
Robin Ventura    130.7     155.2     24.5
Joe Gordon       140.8     150.0      9.2
Nolan Arenado    114.5     120.0      5.5
Bill Dahlen      136.3     139.0      2.7
Jimmy Collins    118.9     121.0      2.1

As you can see, Jones is in a world of his own. Only Buddy Bell in all of baseball history shows even half of the difference Jones does. In other words, you have to put a good deal of faith into defensive numbers to give Jones your vote. I’ll admit that things being equal, I prefer someone who derives his value from his bat than his glove, but I don’t think Jones’ case is that of a borderliner. Eric and I both see Jones about 20% above the in/out line in center field. Even if we were to penalize the glove some, it would take a lot of skepticism about defensive statistics to keep Jones out of the HoME. As or the Hall, well, that’s another story. I don’t think writers look into his case quite as much as we do. Jones has a Sisyphus-ian climb ahead of him. Fortunately, or not, his punishment ends in six years. -Miller

Jeff Kent

YOB: 8^th
BBREF WAR: 55.4
CHEWS+: 21^st at 2B
MAPES+: 23^rd at 2B

This is the eighth time that Kent has appeared on the BBWAA ballot, meaning I’ve had seven chances to vote for him before this year. And though I think he’s a borderline, yet qualified, Hall of Famer, he’s never once received my vote. That’s how crowded the ballot has been. And Kent, as you know, is a strange candidate, in that he’s not really like any second baseman ever. There are some similarities to Ernie Banks in how he created his value. Of course, Banks was a stud almost from jump street and faded when he hit 30. Kent, on the other hand, didn’t have his first 4-win season until he was 29 and had his best years when he was 32 and 34. Second base is a strange position in the Hall. They’re glad to induct great defenders who couldn’t hit a lick, guys like Bill Mazeroski and Nellie Fox. However, they shy away from a great hitter like Kent who had a pretty average glove, until he hit his late 30s and began stinking up the joint. In a way, I can’t really fault Hall voters for not choosing Kent since I haven’t. However, I’ve had full ballots each year Kent has been eligible. They don’t have the same excuse.

There’s no real hope for Kent at this stage other than some panel of 16 the Hall puts together down the road. He’s got only two ballots after this one, and last year was the first time he even reached 20%. Should he somehow leap over 40% this year, maybe things will get a bit interesting, but I’m not holding my breath. -Miller

Aramis Ramírez

YOB: 1^st
BBREF WAR: 32.4
CHEWS+: 69^th at 3B
MAPES+: 69^th at 3B

The Cubbie, Pirate, and Brewer vet of eighteen seasons was a legitimate star, not a superstar, for a spell. Though his best season per BBREF was a 5.6 WAR campaign for the 2012 Brewers, his best run came with the 2004-2008 Cubs. With 19.7 WAR, he was the ninth best player in the National League over those seasons. Among those who bettered him, six are in the HoME, going to the HoME, or have a real great shot. The other two are Jimmy Rollins and Lance Berkman. Not bad. Hitting 50 doubles in 2012 seems like a nice feather in his cap, as are three All-Star teams and three top-10 MVP finishes (the highest being 9^th in 2012). As an All-Star, he went 3-5 with two walks, posting a .600/.714/.800 line that included hits against Mark Buehrle, Jon Lester, and Scott Kazmir. He never got to a World Series, though he certainly helped the 2003 Cubs by homering against Mike Hampton to pad the Chicago lead in the final NLDS game. In the NLCS, he took Brad Penney deep in Game 2 blowout by his Cubs. Then he had the best game of his playoff career, carrying the Cubs to a 3-1 lead and the brink of the Fall Classic by homering against Dontrelle Willis and Nate Bump on his way to six ribbies in Chicago’s 8-3 win. Maybe a guy quite similar in value to George Kell gets a vote or two? I wouldn’t object much, so long as he doesn’t ever get the Kell treatment. -Miller

Manny Ramírez

YOB: 5^th
BBREF WAR: 69.3
CHEWS+: 15^th in LF
MAPES+: 14^th in LF

On his merits, what he did on the field, Manny Ramirez is a no-brainer Hall of Famer. Though they found different ways to the numbers, Manny’s seasonal value looks a good deal like that of Tony Gwynn or Willie Keeler. Of course, very reasonable people question Manny’s numbers in ways they don’t question Gwynn’s or Keeler’s. Those folks fall into three camps:

• • He cheated, so he doesn’t get my vote.
  • His cheating put him over the line, so he doesn’t get my vote.
  • He would have been over the line without cheating, so he still gets my vote.

This is where I have some trouble, as I can see the merit in each of these positions. For me, Manny is almost 10% above the left field in/out line. Was it his talent or PEDs that vaulted him ahead of Ralph Kiner, Joe Medwick, and Charlie Keller? I just don’t know. I don’t know when Manny began using. I don’t know how much PEDs help in general. I don’t know how much PEDs helped him. Yes, I think cheating is wrong, but I’m not one to buy the argument that a particular type of cheating is worse than any other, not from a moral standpoint anyway. What I mean is that unless we’re going penalize Whitey Ford for his gunk ball, Gaylord Perry for his spitter, or Sammy Sosa for corking his bat, we cannot dismiss Manny simply for cheating. We have to quantify how much that cheating helped him. Is it about 10% while he was cheating? Maybe so. But did Manny cheat throughout his career? I don’t think we know.

Anyway, there’s a lot. Manny will still get my vote this year, though I don’t necessarily promise it to him moving forward.

So many writers do a terrible job with the issue of PEDs. With that in mind, I’m going to offer them a little help with logical consistency via a chart. If you vote for the guy in the first column, you must support all of those with an XX in their column.

  
                BB  RC  AP  MR  CS  GS  SS
Barry Bonds         XX
Roger Clemens   XX
Andy Pettitte   XX  XX
Manny Ramirez   XX  XX
Curt Schilling
Gary Sheffield  XX  XX
Sammy Sosa      XX  XX

There’s not much to the chart, you say? Well, there is. If you vote for Barry Bonds, you must vote for Roger Clemens and vise versa. They both used PEDs. If you judge either on his merits, you must judge the other in the same way. And they’re both miles over the line. If you vote for Pettitte, Ramirez, Sheffield, or Sosa, you must vote for Bonds and Clemens. They all used, we believe, but Bonds and Clemens were far superior. However, a vote for Pettitte, Ramirez, Sheffield, or Sosa doesn’t necessitate a vote for any of the others since none separate themselves from the group by so much that it’s a no-brainer.

And a vote for Curt Schilling has nothing to do with any of this. Being an ass clown has nothing to do with using PEDs. You can vote for Schilling and none of the others because they were PED users. And you can vote for all of the others and not Schilling because, you know, the ass clown thing.

I’m just talking about logical consistency here. -Miller

Scott Rolen

YOB: 4^th
BBREF WAR: 70.1
CHEWS+: 11^th at 3B
MAPES+: 15^th at 3B

Want to feel badly for Scott Rolen? Fine, I get it. He belongs in the Hall, and he’s not there. Of course, he’s been treated better than many great third basemen. Sal Bando received just three votes in 1987. Buddy Bell and Darrell Evans each received eight in 1995. Graig Nettles saw four ballots but never reached 10%. In Ken Boyer’s 15 chances, he topped out at 25.5% in 1988. Ron Santo was honored in 2012. Unfortunately, he died in 2010. Some honor. And don’t get me started on Tommy Leach or Heinie Groh. Compared to other greats at the position, Rolen is actually doing pretty well, climbing from 10.2%, to 17.2%, to 35.3% last year. As some writers age out and other, more forward-thinking folks earn ballots, Rolen’s percentages should continue to climb. I’m betting he gets in via the BBWAA. -Miller

Curt Schilling

YOB: 9^th
BBREF WAR: 79.5
CHEWS+: 20^th
MAPES+: 23^rd

The fracas over Curt Schilling’s likely election to the Hall of Fame could have been avoided, many times over. Mostly, Schilling, himself, might have prevented it by keeping his childish, bigoted thoughts to himself. Especially the babyish t-shirt conceit that the members of the free press who disagree with him merited execution. We can give a little blame to his supposed quote-unquote antagonists in the BBWAA too. Had they simply elected him (and several others before him) with the rapidity his case merits, that is, before he fully revealed the depths of his diseased thinking, we wouldn’t be in this position. Altough we would probably instead have a conversation as his various offending statements rolled out about the continuing outrage of his plaque hanging in the same room as Jackie Robinson’s and Larry Doby’s and across from that of Roberto Clemente, a real humanitarian.

I might rather be having that debate.

Let me be abundantly clear about two things. First, that Curt Schilling is a fully qualified Hall of Fame pitcher. No one need make some neuron-twisting excuse for not voting him up because he was borderline anyway. We can safely ignore that outmoded, victories-based perspective.

Second, although the United States feels as disunited as probably any time since the Civil War, much of the substance of Schilling’s offending opinions is not political, it’s just hate. Bigotry is not a line of political opinion. Disrespect for others, ignorant hatred, and the fundamental dishonesty that all people are not created equal transcends the political and exists in opposition to the greater good. Politics only comes into play once the powerful attempt to or succeed in creating policies and traditions that codify and legalize these strange and self-serving ideas. Curt Schilling’s political opinions may be racist in the systematic sense of the word, but they are extensions of his a-political bigotry.

The actual issues at hand: Does giving this troll a plaque damage the Hall of Fame? Is giving him a microphone on induction day an invitation for him to spread his hateful message in a national setting?

I don’t honestly know the answer to the first question, but my intuition says, ultimately, yes and no.  Let’s take the no first and loop back to the yes in a sec. The no: At some point in a few years or a couple decades, Schilling will shuffle off the public stage and tomorrow’s fans won’t even know there was a ruckus about the guy because the changing times will transform this debate into a you-had-to-be-there moment.

Now about giving Schilling a microphone. Whose Hall of Fame speech have you watched lately? I haven’t heard a complete speech since I went to induction day in 1993. And I didn’t really listen then. The only one I’ve ever looked up is Ted Williams’ from 1966—so that I could correctly quote him regarding the Negro Leagues. These speeches get little exposure mostly because they don’t have much substance, so I don’t know how much damage Schilling could really do to the world. The Hall could and should take preventive measures such as reviewing Schilling’s speech or having another Hall member ready to follow Schilling with a brief talk that makes clear the importance of diversity and social justice to the institution. (I’m not sure they could do something like have his mic equipped with the mute button used at this year’s second presidential debate because the Hall receives funding from the federal government. Censoring his remarks might, therfore, be a violation of his first amendent rights. I’d invite any lawyers to give their opinions on that in the comments.) The real quandary for the Hall, the real potential for damage to Cooperstown, is letting a Nazi memerobilia collector make a speech in front of the Hall of Fame’s members of color and its Jews. The Hall would immediately repúdiate any extremist bile that erupts from Schilling’s pie hole, of course, but what if that’s not good enough for living Hall members? What if, say, Ozzie Smith demands further action and threatens to withhold his presence from future events if Schilling is invited to them? What if Sandy Koufax will never again take part in Hall programming? What if Rod Carew, a person of color and, though he didn’t convert officially, was a longtime member of his first-wife’s temple, suddenly decides not to be on the Veterans Committee anymore?

Well, that’s the Hall’s problem, I guess. It’s track record on race matters, specifically regarding its treatment of the Negro Leagues, doesn’t inspire confidence. But would any public facing institution in today’s world be foolish enough to enter a situation like this without a well developed PR plan that includes damage-control contingencies for all key constituencies?

Here’s the nut of it. I have made the case in the past that the Hall of Fame might have a greater-good argument for #NeverSchilling. I still think that could be a reasonable position if the Hall wants to position itself as an important thread in the diverse and inclusive tapestry of American culture. On the other hand, since 2017, hate speech disguised as “jokes” or politcal speech has been normalized by contemporary rightist political figures to such a degree that unless Schilling trotted out the n-word and a few other choice chestnuts from the bigotry playbook, I wonder whether dog-whistle phrases would rise to the headline level. It probably wouldn’t rate as page one material. So as I look today at the matter, I believe I would check the box beside Curt Schilling’s name. Not because I’ve changed my mind about his base and baseless opinions and about his sad, third-grader’s inability to control his motormouth, but rather because I believe in getting the best players into the Hall of Fame.

Yes, I would vote for Schilling, but I’d wouldn’t do so holding my nose. I’d be wearing a military-grade gas mask. -Eric

Gary Sheffield

YOB: 7^th
BBREF WAR: 60.5
CHEWS+: 18^th in RF
MAPES+: 19^th in RF

Sammy Sosa has more bells and whistles for Hall voters than Gary Sheffield does. About 100 more homers for example. Sammy Sosa was a nice guy, while they treaded carefully around Gary Sheffield. Yet, Sheffield receives roughly the same support as Sosa. Sheff never failed a test and when met with Balco allegations claimed he didn’t knowingly use PEDs. Sosa allegedly flunked a pee test per the New York Times but still claims he’s never failed a US screening. Their relative Hall of Fame support confuses me. Does it indicate that the writers think Sosa betrayed the public more than Sheffield, which evens both the round numbers gap and the pleasant-person gap? I dunno. Just another of the mysteries of steroid-era voting. -Eric

Sammy Sosa

YOB: 9^th
BBREF WAR: 58.6
CHEWS+: 17^th in RF
MAPES+: 18^th in RF

I can’t tell whether people are more angry at Sammy Sosa for possible steroid usage or for his performance in front of congress. Slammin’ Sammy has averaged about half of the support that Mark “I’m Not Here to Talk About the Past” McGwire used to get. Then again, he didn’t wag his finger then get busted, so he’s about doubled up Rafael Palmeiro’s support. Less credible evidence exists about Sosa’s possible usage than about Andy Pettitte’s, but Sosa has averaged a little less of the vote share than has Dandy Andy thus far. Steroid logic can be very difficult to follow for us uninitiated outsiders. Roughly the same amount of evidence exists for Sosa’s usage as exists for David Ortiz’s (the New York Times included both of them in its 2003 story about leaked testing results), and both have denied using. Ortiz doesn’t have the bad congressional optics that Sosa did, and it will be interesting to see how differently they are treated. -Eric

Nick Swisher

YOB: 1^st
BBREF WAR: 21.4
CHEWS+: 91^st in RF
MAPES+: 96^th in RF

While he was playing, it seemed like one thing Swisher had going for him was a winning personality. I picture him smiling more than I do most other players, and a smile’s always nice. Swisher was probably most well-known for his batting eye, drawing more walks than anyone in the American League, and third most in baseball, from 2006-2013. He was a fine player for a few years, five times posting 3.5-4.4 BBREF WAR. He made one All-Star team, whiffing against Adam Wainwright in 2010. And he won a World Series ring with the 2009 Yankees. Perhaps the highlight of that series for Swisher was a 6^th inning long ball in Game Three against J.A. Happ that padded the Yankee lead in a game that saw them go up 2-1 in the series. Two of the more comparable recent players to Swisher are Jermaine Dye and Pat Burrell. Neither received a vote in their shots on the ballot, so I’m guessing Swisher won’t either -Miller

Shane Victorino

YOB: 1^st
BBREF WAR: 31.5
CHEWS+: 87^th in CF
MAPES+: 88^th in CF

Victorino’s first games were with the Padres and his last were with the Angels, which I suspect only the biggest Victorino fans could rattle off. The Phillies acquired the Flyin’ Hawaiian in the 2004 Rule 5 Draft, and the next year he managed a .294 batting average to go with just a .273 OBP. He won four Gold Gloves and made two All-Star squads, singling against Roy Halladay in 2009 for his only hit in two times up.

As for Black Ink, it’s a pair of triples titles and one HBP crown. The speedy center fielder was fourth in the National League in stolen bases from 2007-2012. We remember Victorino with the Phillies, of course, but we might forget that he won his second ring and had his best season by WAR with the 2013 Red Sox. Similar players in terms of value, though quite different in terms of how they’re remembered, include Jacoby Ellsbury and Curt Flood. -Miller

Omar Vizquel

YOB: 4^th
BBREF WAR: 45.6
CHEWS+: 73^rd at SS
MAPES+: 78^th at SS

Over the last three years, Miller has spent the equivalent of seventy-weeks of person hours writing highly convincing posts around here about the utter silliness of Omar Vizquel’s vote share. As you probably guess, I share his position. So that’s that, right? As far as Omar goes, yes, but there is a larger picture here that Miller and I have discussed off camera that I find curious in a group dynamics or sociological sort of way.

Let’s turn the clock back to December of 1999. Sabrmetrics still mostly existed in books and chat groups. BBREF didn’t yet exist. You needed Total Baseball to look up stats, literally by hand. Way back before the Hall of Fame voting became the cauldron of contention it is today, the BBWAA had just finished a simple election, selecting Robin Yount, Nolan Ryan, and George Brett for the class of 1999. Heading into the 2000 vote, everyone paying attention knew that Carlton Fisk would get his due. Tony Perez finished fifth, six points behind Fisk in the previous year’s balloting and was an odds-on favorite for election. He squeaked by with seventy-seven percent of the vote. At the time, I remember a few voices, perhaps Baseball Prospectus, lodging the complaint that Perez didn’t particularly merit the honor and was being chosen for the narrative surrounding his RBI total, a figure that Joe Morgan and other Reds’ hitters deserved as much or more credit for thanks to their on-base abilities. Voices in the woods, really.

In 2001, the grumblings got a little louder when first-year candidate Kirby Puckett got the call. The Greek chorus intoned that Puckett’s career and peak value fell short of the Hall’s standards. They wondered if by making good copy Puckett made good with the voters. The next five elections went along predictably with high-class first-year candidates getting the nod, but bubbling below the surface lay five cases that brought the stats versus stories battle to a boil. Without a high profile newcomer in 2006, Bruce Sutter took home a bronze. The actively mobilizing sabrist crowd made a lot of noise about Sutter being among the least qualified candidates in a long time and that the writers overlooked that fact in deference to the twin narratives of the closer myth and Sutter-as-splitter-popularizer. In 2009, Jim Rice broke the tape, and the non-voting critics went ape, venting that the only qualification that differentiated Rice from plenty of other corner outfielders was “The Fear,” a popular piece of narrative used to buoy his cause by an increasingly defensive BBWAA.

Meanwhile, Bert Blyleven’s case presented like a festering wound. The stats community, led by the late Rich Lederer, rallied to the uber-qualified Blyleven’s cause and turned enough BBWAA heads to finally push the bearded righty over the line in what must be considered the first Hall of Fame win for the seamheaded community. Things got hotter as Jack Morris’ time on the ballot dwindled. A large contingent of traditionalist voters trotted out storylines like “pitcher of the 80s” (he wasn’t), big-game pitcher (only sometimes), and Game 7, 1991. The prominence they gave to one great day in Jack Morris’ career in the face of boat loads of information to the effect that Morris was a good-not-great pitcher the rest of the time brought the stories versus stats struggle into high contrast. It felt to me at the time and in retrospect that the BBWAA were attempting a sort of quid pro quo: We give you Blyleven, we’re taking Morris. They didn’t get Morris. He waited for the Veterans Committee, but he wouldn’t have been elected in the VC without the high support the BBWAA gave him.

Then it was the steroids hostilities which overlay Jonah Keri’s championing of Tim Raines’ sabr-oriented case. The writers giveth Raines in 2017, and in 2018 they taketh the narrative-laden cases of Vlad Guerrero (baseball savant; he could hit out pitches that bounced!—whose numbers were borderline and didn’t distinguish him effectively from several other players on the ballot) and Trevor Hoffman (saves, saves, saves!). In 2019, they giveth Edgar Martinez and Mike Mussina, both stathead favorites but made Mariano Rivera, a relief pitcher, the first unanimous Hall of Fame honoree, something that fellow Yankees Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig had not achieved. I suppose if someone is worthy of the Hall, they are worthy of a unanimous vote, but breaking the seal with a relief pitcher—even the best reliever of all time—and not with Randy Johnson or Greg Maddux seems very strange. Until you ladle on the narrative around the closer myth. Finally in 2020, despite not granting the beloved and clutchy Derek Jeter unanimity like his teammate Rivera, the writers giveth Larry Walker in his final year on the slate, which brings us now to Omar Vizquel whom they wish to taketh.

Whether I’m just connecting dots into a pattern of my own making, it feels like Vizquel is the latest in a long, turbulent conversation among the BBWAA’s old guard, its newer more hip voters, and outsiders like me and Miller (not that the BBWAA listens to us, just using us as an example from the stats community). It’s a ping-ponging, whiplash-inducing debate on the merits of what a newspaper guy can see with his eyes and believe in his mind versus what fundamental baseball truths say about how players and teams win baseball games. Perhaps in five or ten years, the war will end as the BBWAA’s traditionalists age out and yield to voters who more readily combine narrative with the black-and-white facts of a ballplayer’s record. For now, the BBWAA will get its candy in the form of a wholly unqualified shortstop who looked good on the field, and the outsiders will get the battlewagons ready to pound away for Scott Rolen or whoever needs their support next. -Eric

Billy Wagner

YOB: 6^th
BBREF WAR: 27.7
CHEWS+: 206^th
MAPES+: 228^th

Miller and I have many times mentioned the BBWAA’s fascination with saves. Did you know that fourteen men to have held the career saves record, nine of them are in the Hall of Fame? To be fair, since the save became an official stat, the writers’ jurisdiction over the cases of Harry Wright, Kid Nichols, Joe McGinnity, and Mordecai Brown have long since expired. Likewise one-time career leaders Tony Mullane, Firpo Marberry, and Johnny Murphy. The Hall has passed on only two men who have captured the record in the official saves era, Roy Face and Jeff Reardon who held the mark for a combined three years. The writers also negged Lee Smith, whom the vets promptly elected.

The same logic does not hold for the seasonal saves record. It has been held by the several Hall of Famers: Wright, Al Spalding, Joe McGinnity, Brown, Chief Bender, and Bruce Sutter. None of their cases seemed to hinge on once owning the season saves mark. Even with Sutter, whose candidacy revolved around the combination of his short-time dominance and the narrative that he popularized the splitter, the single-season saves mark didn’t play a deciding role. Here’s all the other guys that have held the season saves record: Jack Manning, Mullane, Claude Elliott, Cecil Ferguson, Frank Arellanes, Marberry, Joe Page, Ellis “Old Folks” Kinder, Lindy McDaniel, Luis Arroyo, Dick Radatz, Ted Abernathy, Jack Aker, Wayne Granger, John Hiller, Dan Quisenberry, Dave Righetti, Bobby Thigpen, and Franciso Rodriguez. The Quis is probably the only one to receive even semiserious consideration thanks to his appearance on a couple VC ballots.

Now, Dennis Eckersley and Goose Gossage received the big honor despite not owning any record-setting credentials. I think we all can understand that since their careers en toto, unlike any other relief pitchers not named Mariano Rivera, do merit induction. Still I think the writers primarily elected Eck because of his relief work and said, “Oh, he was a decent starter too.” In fact, Eckersley’s starting pitching makes up the vast majority of his value, and his relief work puts him over. Though Gossage didn’t own either record, he was the dominant reliever in his league for most of his career (if not in the saves category, in the others), and he played for a lot of contending teams, which helped his profile.

It’s worth further noting one other thing. The BBWAA really likes relievers who kick ass in October. Rivera is acclaimed as not only the greatest reliever in postseason history but by some as the greatest pitcher period in the postseason. Rollie Fingers’ reputation and Hall get a big old boost from his October play with the Charles O. Finley Athletics. But they will overlook a mixed October resume like Goose Gossage’s or Dennis Eckersley’s.

Which brings us to Billy Wagner. How does the BBWAA decision tree look for him? Career saves mark? No, he’s 200 behind Mariano. Season saves mark? No, but who cares? Great postseasons? No, actually, terrible postseasons (10.03 ERA). Did he have look-at-me seasons like Eckersley? Not really. He several outstanding seasons with ERAs under 2.00, but nothing like Eck’s 0.61 ERA. He only saved forty games twice and never led his league. The case for Wagner comes down to two things: a 2.31 ERA/187 ERA+ and 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings. That ERA+ is genuinely impressive, and that K-rate is impressive for his time. The problem with both those figures boils down to another number: 903 innings pitched.

How does 903 innings compare with Hall closers? Let’s assume the closer era begins in 1987 when Dennis Eckersley converted to relief. Eckersley threw 790 innings (includes two 1987 starts) from 1987 to 1998. But he tossed 2,500 as a starter. Lee smith threw 692 innings from 1987 to 1997 but had seven additional seasons prior to that. Hoffman threw 1089 innings, or about two to three seasons more innings than Wagner. Rivera threw 1284 innings’ worth of regular season cutters, another five to six seasons of innings on top of Wagner’s total. Billy the Kid’s innings are fewer than non-Hall-closers Francisco Rodriguez (976), John Franco from 1987—2005 (966), Fernando Rodney (933), Robert Hernandez (1071), Jose Mesa (relief only, 978), and Todd Jones (1072). The trick for Wagner has to be that his dominance per inning outweighs his relative lack of innings and separates him from guys with more innings but less production. Take Rodriguez. He sports a nice 2.86 career ERA. To get Wagner up to a 2.86 ERA in K-Rod’s innings would require giving up another 90 runs in the extra 73 innings Rodriguez has on Wagner. I’d give the advantage to Wagner. What about Hoffman and his 2.87 ERA? One hundred and forty-six runs in 186.33 innings, a well below replacement rate. I could get behind the idea that Wagner is at least Hoffman’s equal.

But what I can’t get behind is the idea that Hoffman or Wagner belong in the Hall. Look, when I create my pitching rankings, I include bonuses for relief pitchers that credit them for their work in leveraged situations. I use an adjustment involving Win Probability Added. I rank Mariano Rivera as the forty-first best pitcher ever, and that’s giving him credit as an average pitcher in October. I rank Goose Gossage as the seventy-first best ever. The in/out line is one or two ranks below Gossage. The next reliever, Wilhelm, comes in at 131st. Hoffman ranks 174th, Wagner 206th.

BBWAA voters consistently overrate the value of closers because they give more value, more leverage, to save situations than warranted. Their narrative about the importance of the ninth inning leads them to pump up the value of those who pitch in it for a living. Often half of closers lose their job from year to year, the replacement level must be pretty low. That’s not good copy, though, and attributing success in the ultimate frame to greatness and character feels like a better story. The voters had shown some restraint with Wagner through 2019 then jumped him to more than thirty percent in 2020. They ought to transfer that support elsewhere to more deserving candidates. Or they could simply look at newcomers Tim Hudson and Mark Buehrle. Better pitchers who could go more than one inning and more than once through a lineup. -Eric

Barry Zito

YOB: 1^st
BBREF WAR: 31.9
CHEWS+: 194^th
MAPES+: 218^th

When I went to write-up Zito, the first player I considered using as a comparison was Tim Lincecum. Oh, how quickly we forget. Lincecum did win two Cys, and he had two 7 WAR seasons. But he only topped 2.3 WAR four times. Zito won a Cy and topped that level eight times. He was just a better pitcher, but we may forget how great he was because for the 1139.1 innings he spent in San Francisco, he performed only at an 87 ERA+ clip. That’s compared to 125 in his 1430.1 innings in Oakland before his 2015 spell there. Zito was perfect in 1.1 innings in two All-Star games, and he got a ring in San Fran in 2012. Though he was a pretty stinky starter by that point in his career, Bruce Bochy handed him the ball in the opener. Zito rewarded him with 5.2 innings where he gave up just one run on six hits and a walk. In relief of Zito’s final, and perhaps most important post-season start, it was Tim Lincecum. Symmetry. Sort of. -Miller

Please join us again a week from today when we reveal our Hall of Fame ballots.

HoME Rankings 2020, Left Field

When looking through our left field lists, I had a revelation. Even people with our dispositions, those who evaluate players based on their records, without any regard for PED use, actually do judge PED users somewhat differently. We both rank Manny Ramirez as the 15^th best left fielder ever, the exact same place we both rank Lou Whitaker. Yet, I don’t think we’ve ever devoted a single column inch to Manny’s Hall snub. At the same time, we and all other members of the analytically woke baseball world, dedicate an astounding amount of time and thought to Whitaker and his ilk.

You might note that left field is also home to one of the players with a legitimate claim as the best player ever to take the field, Barry Bonds. The nine time OPS champion and a guy who drew 43 intentional walks during his age-42 season wastes away on the ballot. Two BBWAA votes from now, Bonds will have his fate decided by the likes of Tony La Russa, a guy who would never use substances illegally.

Anyway, it’s just strange that with our hand wringing about someone like Lou Whitaker, we don’t get all that upset about Manny, or even Bonds. Yes, even PED apologists like us aren’t complete PED apologists, it seems.

As always, we’ll share past positions here. [First Base], [Second Base], [Third Base], [Shortstop]

Onto our LF lists!

Anything jump out?

What seems like forever ago, Joe Posnanski began his series of baseball’s 100 best players over at The Athletic. As someone who doesn’t subscribe, I would occasionally see a Twitter teaser, but that was all. From the start, I think we all knew that the “answer” would be one of Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, and Willie Mays. I’m not saying they’re the three best players ever, but it was fairly clear to me that those were the only three who might occupy the top spot. Once Poz got to post #97, naming Hank Aaron baseball’s fourth best player ever, we had his top three.

To my disappointment, #3 was Bonds. And to my horror, honestly, #2 was Ruth.

I don’t hate Mays. I just think he’s overrated. Not by a lot, but overrated nonetheless. If you just go by the numbers, it’s Ruth. And if you timeline because Ruth played in a game without black or Latino players, basically, it’s Bonds. Or Mike Trout? What people don’t think about is that Mays didn’t play in a fully integrated game. White guys didn’t make up less than 80% of the game until Mays was playing his age-34 season. For Bonds, it was 10-20% lower than that.

The Mays article in Posnanski’s series began with romance and quickly moved to an admission that he doesn’t know the identity of best player ever to grace the diamond. But that he does, of course he does. A few thousand words later, Poz offered his first stat, about Mays and doubles. Finishing that thought, he cites Mays as the only member of the 400 double, 100 triple, 330 home run, and 250 stolen base club. By the way, if you drop the homer total to a round 300, Mays is joined by Steve Finley in a club of two.

For Posnanski, it’s about romance and baseball prose near as beautiful as Mays must have been in center field. If it were about numbers, I don’t think it could be Mays. Here’s what MAPES+ has to say.

   Bonds   Mays   Ruth
========================
1  12.25  11.32
2  11.73  11.27
3  11.28  11.08
4  10.15  10.83
5   9.78  10.47
6   9.54  10.42
7   9.05   9.70
8   9.02   9.56
9   8.49   9.38
10  8.23   9.03
11  8.19   8.90
12  8.19   8.72
13  8.04   8.53
14  7.70   6.43
15  7.19   5.95
16  6.99   5.09
17  5.79   5.06
18  4.66   4.89
19  4.07   3.05
20  3.78   2.21
21  3.48   1.43
22  0.52  -0.07

And don’t forget, Mays was done when he was done. Barry Bonds won an OBP title in his final season and posted a 169 OPS+, a mark that easily tops Mays’s career mark of 156.

Let me be clear here. Posnanski spent something like half a million words saying he wasn’t really sure. I spent a few dozen saying I am. Let me also say that I’d trust the person wise enough to express doubt far more than I’d trust the person who thinks he has all the answers. Dunning, meet Kruger.

Still.

What active players are on their way?

Ryan Braun at #29 is the highest ranked active player on either of our lists, but it can hardly be said that he’s on the way. He won’t be worth three wins from now until the end of his career, right? There are only five players we both rank in the top-100. Four are Alex Gordon, Brett Gardner, Yoenis Cespedes, and Starling Marte. There’s no HoME threat among that bunch. The other player is Christian Yelich, who ranks 49^th on both of our lists. When last we watched baseball, Yellich was one of the best players in the game and only 27 years old. Missing 2020 certainly isn’t going to help, but if he can put together a couple of additional elite-level campaigns, he might have a shot.

Who are the best remaining candidates?

Charlie Keller, Ralph Kiner, and Joe Medwick are all over 95 CHEWS+ and MAPES+ points. From 1939-1943, Keller was baseball’s fourth most valuable position player by WAR, trailing only Ted Williams and teammates Joe Gordon and Joe DiMaggio. Of course, Williams and DiMaggio didn’t play in 1943, but let’s leave that alone for now. Fourth most valuable over a four-year span is impressive regardless of the circumstances. Keller turned 27 in 1944, but he was on his way to the US Maritime Service. Upon returning at the end of 1945, he was a star once again, at least for a couple hundred games. At that point, a slipped disc in his back effectively ended his career. Kiner and Medwick have their supporters, of course, but should the Hall elect a backlogger we’ve already elected in the next couple of years, I suspect we’re going to take a very long look at Keller.

Any big changes this year?

Eric sees Brian Giles up a couple of spots. Kip Selbach fell five spots to #34, but it’s just a loss of two CHEWS+ points. No biggie. For Miller, Jim O’Rourke and Augie Galan are up two spots each. Ralph Kiner and Bob Johnson fall two spots each. And the biggest mover is Charlie Keller, up three spots, though just one MAPES+ point. Again, no big deal.

How about the guys only listed by one of you?

There are four at different positions and two on Miller’s but not Eric’s.

• Eric has Pete Rose #7 in left field, while Miller puts him #12 at first base.
• Eric has Joe Jackson #9 in left field. You’ll have to wait two weeks before Miller’s right field reveal.
• You’ll also have to wait until then for Miller’s Brian Giles ranking; Eric puts him #22 in left.
• Miller lists Jim O’Rourke #17 in left field. A week from now, you’ll see where Eric ranks him in center.
• Charley Jones is #39 for Miller. He’s #45 for Eric.
• Brian Downing is #40 for Miller. He’s #42 for Eric.

Next week, it’s center field. Hope to see you then!

Miller and Eric

Who will get into the Hall of Fame from 2021 through 2025?

In case you haven’t heard, the several BBWAA elections are kinda wide open. We don’t have a glut of outstanding newcomers hitting the ballot every year. Instead we have a weird mishmash of flawed and obvious candidates interspersed with years of near desolation. Today, we’re going to use math to pretend we know what’s going to happen.

To start with, we’re going to use the last twenty or so years of BBWAA balloting as our guide. Our prediction will be sensitive to data on how a few factors affect year-over-year percentage increases for candidates:

• The number of major new candidates that join the ballot.
• Whether a given candidate is over 50% the year before.
• Whether a given candidate was under 20% the year before.
• Whether the player is considered PED tainted by the electorate.

I’ll explain more as we go along about how we figured this stuff. Let’s get the fun part.

2021

Major new candidates: 0

The only other two elections in the last twenty years to feature no new eligibles that became Hall members were 2006 and 2012. It’s a rather small sample, and here’s the average backlog performance:

• Median YOY gain by entire ballot: 130%
• Median YOY gain by players with 50%+: 132%
• Median YOY gain by players with <20%: 115%

We aren’t applying these gains to PED candidates. Instead they are going to receive increases of two percentage points every year.

2021 ELECTION
BOLD = ELECTED 
X = FINAL YEAR ON BALLOT
* = PED CANDIDATE
NAME        PCT 
=================
SCHILLING   87%
VIZQUEL     74%
CLEMENS     63%*
BONDS       63%*
ROLEN       43%
WAGNER      39%
SHEFFIELD   38%
HELTON      36%
KENT        34%
RAMIREZ     30%*
JONES       22%
SOSA        16%*
PETTITTE    13%*
ABREU        6%   

Curt Schilling’s percentage is a little too high, and that’s because the math doesn’t recognize ropegate’s effect on him. I feel pretty good, however, predicting that Schilling will be elected.

You likely noticed that we didn’t classify Gary Sheffield as a PED candidate. That’s because of his big upswing in support in 2020. It’s hard to say whether he is really a PED guy or whether he’s someone people didn’t have room for. We can always change it later.

2022

Major new candidates: 2 (Rodriguez and Ortiz)

Nine elections in the last twenty years have featured two major newcomers. Here’s how the backlog did in those years:

• Median YOY gain by entire ballot: 114%
• Median YOY gain by players with 50%+: 120%
• Median YOY gain by players with <20%: 117%

Our two newcomers are a little tough to figure. Rodriguez seems destined to us to follow the Bonds/Clemens pathway through the BBWAA. We disagree a bit about Ortiz. I think he’ll brush right past most steroid objections and debut at about 60%. Miller thinks there’s enough taint to drop him to about 50%. We’ll compromise at 50% but with normal-candidate increases in the ensuing years.

2022 ELECTION
BOLD = ELECTED 
X = FINAL YEAR ON BALLOT
* = PED CANDIDATE
NAME        PCT 
=================
VIZQUEL     76%
X-CLEMENS   65%*
X-BONDS     65%*
ORTIZ       50%
RODRIGUEZ   50%*
ROLEN       49%
WAGNER      44%
SHEFFIELD   43%
HELTON      41%
KENT        38%
RAMIREZ     32%*
JONES       25%
X-SOSA      18%*
PETTITTE    15%*
ABREU        7%  

Yes, the numbers are saying that the writers will elect Omar Vizquel. But evidently it’s going to be close enough that he will want to watch the Tracker very, very closely. Meanwhile Bonds and Clemens come up short and maybe someday the VC will vote them. I’ll hold my breath until then. Ortiz queues up as the frontlogger with Rolen right behind him.

2023

Major new candidates: 1 (Beltran)

Four elections in the last twenty years have featured a single major newcomer. Here’s how the backlog did in those years:

• Median YOY gain by entire ballot: 128%
• Median YOY gain by players with 50%+: 114%
• Median YOY gain by players with <20%: 137%

The whole Astros sign-stealing scandal not only cost Carlos Beltran his job managing the Mets, we think it could cost him a lot of votes with the BBWAA. And we won’t know for sure until late 2022, so for now, we’re treating him like a PED candidate.

2023 ELECTION
BOLD = ELECTED 
X = FINAL YEAR ON BALLOT
* = PED CANDIDATE
NAME        PCT 
=================
ORTIZ       57%
ROLEN       56%
RODRIGUEZ   52%*
WAGNER      51%
SHEFFIELD   49%
HELTON      47%
X-KENT      44%
RAMIREZ     34%*
JONES       28%
BELTRAN     20%*
PETTITTE    17%*
ABREU        8%

It’s a shutout! Jeff Kent departs the BBWAA portion of our game with about three points more than what Alan Trammell got in his final year on the ballot. Kent fans can feel pretty good about that.

2024

Major new candidates: 2 (Beltre and Mauer)

With Beltre and Mauer arrive Chase Utley and David Wright. The former is a likely Hall of Miller and Eric and Hall of Merit and Hall of Stats honoree, but he’s the Bobby Grich of his generation, and his support is highly likely to come predominantly from the newest voters. I don’t think Paul Daugherty will think much of him. Wright is right on the border for us, but he’s unlikely to reach the 5% minimum threshold to see a second ballot thanks to a career shortened by injury.

2024 ELECTION
BOLD = ELECTED 
X = FINAL YEAR ON BALLOT
* = PED CANDIDATE
NAME        PCT 
=================
Beltre      90%
ORTIZ       66%
ROLEN       65%
WAGNER      59%
X-SHEFFIELD 55%
RODRIGUEZ   54%*
HELTON      53%
MAUER       40%
RAMIREZ     36%*
JONES       32%
BELTRAN     22%*
PETTITTE    19%*
UTLEY       10%
ABREU        9%

I compromised with Miller on Mauer as well. I had him at 50%, Miller nearer 30%. We’ll call it 40%. The last four serious catcher candidates to debut were Ivan Rodriguez (76%), Carlton Fisk (66%), Mike Piazza (58%), and Gary Carter (42%). Mauer is not as strong a candidate as those guys, but he is a highly respected player. Doing a little worse than Carter with a savvier electorate feels about right.

Gary Sheffield leaves the party having made big gains to position himself well for the VC. This is assuming, of course, that 2020 represents a turn of the tide for him. That remains to be seen.

2025

Major new candidates: 2 (Sabathia and Suzuki)

Ichiro is easy. He’s going to get a very high percentage of the vote, and he probably deserves it. It’s Sabathia who puzzles us. I initially put him as getting around 75% of the vote. Miller thinks it’s more likely to be less than half that figure. Let’s say 30%. Let’s look at some comps.

              W-L     PCT   GS   IP   ERA+   WAR ASG CYA CY5
=============================================================
SABATHIA    251-161  .609  560  3577  116   62.5  6   1   4
BROWN       211-144  .594  476  3256  127   68.2  6   0   5
BUEHRLE     214-160  .572  493  3283  117   60.1  5   0   1 
HALLADAY    203-105  .659  390  2749  131   65.4  8   2   5
HUDSON      222-133  .625  479  3127  120   56.8  4   0   3
MUSSINA     270-153  .638  563  3562  123   82.8  5   0   9   
PETTITTE    256-153  .626  521  3316  117   60.6  3   0   5    
SCHILLING   216-146  .597  436  3261  127   80.5  6   0   4

Sabathia is clearly a more attractive candidate than Buehrle and Hudson, though that’s not saying much. He’s kind of a superior version of Andy Pettitte and outclassed by Mussina and Schilling. On the other hand, he’s also a generation after them when starting pitchers got fewer and fewer decisions. Those two hundred fifty wins lead all active pitchers at the time of Sabathia’s retirement, however, Justin Verlander is just 25 away, and by the time of the 2025 election, the stout-armed Verlander might well have breezed by CC. Anyway, Brown got booted after one ballot for bad behavior. Buehrle won’t make a second ballot and neither will Hudson. Halladay, sadly, got the death-benefit vote. Mussina had 270 wins, and Pettitte is stuck in the teens in part due to PED taint. Sabathia isn’t a bad citizen, doesn’t have taint, has a mixed postseason record, and won a lot of games. I think Miller is more accurate in his assessment than I am, and I’m going to go with a 30% debut. The savvier part of the electorate will give him his due, but he’ll face skepticism from other quarters. That said he’ll be the only pitcher besides Pettitte on the ballot, which should also prop him up a little and help him start higher than a few other recent Hall-level pitchers have.

2024 ELECTION
BOLD = ELECTED 
X = FINAL YEAR ON BALLOT
* = PED CANDIDATE
NAME        PCT 
=================
SUZUKI      97%
ORTIZ       76%
ROLEN       75%
X-WAGNER    68%
HELTON      61%
RODRIGUEZ   56%*
MAUER       46%
RAMIREZ     39%*
JONES       36%
SABATHIA    30%
BELTRAN     24%*
PETTITTE    21%*
UTLEY       11%
ABREU       10%

I’m a little skeptical that Scott Rolen will win election in 2025. Only because this model does not take into account that Beltre’s presence on the 2024 ballot will suppress Rolen’s vote in 2024. In which case, Rolen may have to wait until 2026 or even 2027, the latter being his final year of eligibility.

That said, Billy Wagner will be voted up by the Vets pretty shortly after 2025. Beyond that the line of succession seems pretty clear. What’s less clear going forward is whether the constant inflow of new voters and the constant outflow of old voters will materially change either the anti-PED slant of the electorate or the pro-reliever bias.

TO INIFINITY AND BEYOND!
What newbies might we see in 2026 and 2027? We predicted that too recently. Of course, those predictions are already looking wrong…. Anyway, our simple-minded predictatron says that nobody of consequence will be newly eligible in 2026. That’s a massive benefit to the field, and if our current calculations held true, it would give Helton enough of a boost to scrape past 75% that year or at least put him into tap-in range. Mauer would cross the 55% threshold making him a forgone conclusion.

The 2027 ballot appears likely to bring Pujols only (who seems like a 99%er to me), an end to Jones’ run with more than fifty percent of the vote, and 65% for Mauer, setting up his final ascendance to Hall of Fame glory.

This has been a fun exercise in what-if. But like the financial people would tell you, past performance is no guarantee of future results. For now, though, it’s as good a roadmap as we’ve got.

Miller and Eric react to the 2020 Hall of Fame Results

Here we join our heroes in the midst of the action as the results come through on a shaky (for Eric) internet feed.

ERIC (approximately 6:15 PM ET): WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!!!

MILLER: I know, I know. The sixth best player on the ballot is in the Hall of Fame!

ERIC: Well, Walker and Jeter might be a tossup in my eyes. Generally, I’d call this another victory for the stats crowd, but last-year herding has a lot to do with it too. Maybe the ten-year limit isn’t such a bad thing?

MILLER: I was referring to Jeter…

Oh no, the ten year limit is awful. That it didn’t hurt this time means nothing. I’ll talk to you in 2020 when Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are forever out of the Hall of Fame.

ERIC: Ian O’Connor at ESPN has already penned a column called “Why baseball needs Derek Jeter as Much as Ever.”

1. Tell it to sad sack Marlins fans, Ian.
2. This may be the worst year for baseball coverage ever. All we’re going to hear from now until August is “Derek Jeter turns water into wine,” “Miracle baby born with birthmark in the shape of Derek Jeter’s uniform number,” “Derek Jeter saved my marriage, cured my cancer, and showed my wife how to lose ten pounds.” I may need to carry an airsickness bag with me at all times.

MILLER: I heart Jeter. Rhode Island style, minus the “r”. And then flip the letters around.

ERIC: I am grateful to the lone Jeter holdout, and I hope it was either a Marlins writer or someone who’d received a gift basket from him.

MILLER: I will forget Larry Walker’s name before my happiness at Mariano being the only unanimous selection wears off.

ERIC: You’ll have your whole life to enjoy this deliciousness.

Now then, looking down the rest of the results, we all would have wagered Curtis Montague “Lincoln Rockwell” Schilling to show, and he came through at 70 percent, a gain of 9.1 points. He’s picked up the pace after his cleat-in-mouth issues. I’m not saying he’s automatic for next year, but he’s got two years to pick up five points. He’s going in via the writers.

MILLER: Yes, he is.

ERIC: So Schill going in. A couple other guys might not be so lucky. Barry Bonds (60.7 percent) and Roger Clemens (61 percent) picked up just a point and a half. At least they didn’t go retrograde. I don’t think there’s any realistic chance they will suddenly surge. And I’m not so sure that I see the vets voting for them either.

MILLER: No, you’re right. They’re done forever…at least until there’s another change to the VC.

ERIC: There’s bound to be one. We’re probably due for another right around the time they get before whatever “Era Committee” they are relegated to.

Other than Walker, the real action on the ballot came further down in the pecking order. Omar Vizquel pushed past 50%, and he’s almost certainly going in via the BBWAA point. Deservingly or not. Meanwhile, the big gainer this year was Miller and Eric favorite, Scott Rolen who added 67 votes, and more than doubled his percentage of the vote. I bring them up in tandem because for much of the last month, they’d dueled for sixth place. Vizquel won out as Rolen faded badly among the private voters. Still, in his third year, Rolen’s a little better off now than Walker was at any point prior to 2019. But it will not be easy. Rolen will make strong gains next year. In 2022, A-Rod comes along to clog up votes while he’s stuck in the same no-man’s land as Bonds and Clemens. David Ortiz hits the ballot that year too. He may require a year or two since he’s a DH and has some alleged taint. Rolen will probably lose ground in 2022. In 2023, another problematic candidate comes due: Carlos Beltran. He’s not a slam-dunk either, especially not with the Astros’ cheating scandal on his record as a player. Then the big problem comes in 2024 when Adrian Beltre and Joe Mauer join the fray. Beltre will, himself, suppress Rolen’s vote since he’s a better candidate at the same defensive position. Mauer’s problematic because catchers take a little longer than the other positions to line up their supporters. So now, we likely have some combo of Ortiz, A-Rod, Beltre, and Mauer getting in the way, and potentially Omar Vizquel as well (though I think he’ll be a Hall member by 2023). Then in 2025 it’s Ichiro and CC Sabathia, the former of whom could be unanimous, and the latter of whom seems likely to eat a lot of votes whether he’s elected or not. There’s a gauntlet here. Rolen needs really strong growth in 2021 to get noticed and start flipping some curmudgeonly private voters. The public voters will further come round on him in due time. I suspect, he’ll linger until 2026 or 2027.

MILLER: So Rolen and Vizquel are interesting. Well, not interesting in the sense of the word we’d ordinarily use, but interesting in their tandem rise. And what I suspect could be their tandem fall. I imagine a push back among stats folks who see Vizquel for who he is. Similarly, I imagine push back among awful voters who won’t support Rolen until the clearly defensively superior Vizquel is elected, offense be damned.

Regarding those coming to the ballot, I’m not interested in talking about A-Rod or Ortiz now. Beltre is going to get in very quickly, probably in his first year. And he’ll hurt Rolen, as you point out. As for Mauer, again, as you point out, he was a catcher, which means he’s going to take a few years at best.

My prayer is for a wall of 25 percent of strong voters who see Vizquel for who he is, the Venezuelan, shortstop, Bob Boone.

ERIC: It does seem like we have this tit-for-tat thing going between old school and new. So I went to look something up. In the past five years, the BBWAA has grated 58 new members the Hall of Fame voting franchise. In this year’s election, they represented about 15 percent of the total vote. It’s commonly held that these newer voters tend to vote for candidates using more modern analyses. Do they? We could label some recent candidates as old school or new school. Let’s call Walker, Tim Raines, Edgar Martinez, Rolen, and Alan Trammell new school candidates. We’ll call Lee smith, Fred McGriff, Billy Wagner, Trevor Hoffman, and Vizquel old school. Looking annually at new voters, they beat the final percentage both times on Tim Raines, beat it four out of five times for Walker, beat it four out of four times for Martinez, missed its lone chance on Trammell, and have beaten the final percentage for Rolen all three times he’s appeared. That’s 12 out of 14 tries. On the other side of the ledger, the newbies were under the final tally for Smith both times they faced him, three of four times on McGriff, two of five chances on Wagner, two of three on Hoffman, and three out of three times on Vizquel. That’s 12 out of 17 times they stayed away from the old-school dudes at a better rate than the rest of the electorate. While fifteen percent of the electorate doesn’t represent a sea change in voting patterns, these thoroughly modern voters gain traction each year. Walker went nine for nine with these folks. He exceeded election by seven votes. New voters make a big difference. Which is great news for Rolen, of course.

MILLER: I’m not certain I’d agree with your placement of Smith or Wagner, but your point is well taken. And your analysis suggests that what we believe is accurate—the newer voters do a better job than the older voters. That supports an argument I’ve been making for 5–7 years at least. The electorate is getting better at its collective job.

Change in baseball happens slowly, as it does everywhere. The movement of the BBWAA to embrace value isn’t so much different form the country’s move to the left socially. It’s happening, slowly. But it continues to move in the direction of more understanding.

ERIC: I so want to go political, but. I. MUST. RESIST. (I see what I did there….)

MILLER: Yeah, and we should pretend I didn’t either.

ERIC: More interesting movement among the remainders. Billy Wagner doubles up his percentage (gack!) while Gary Sheffield of all people comes out of absolutely nowhere to increase his vote share by a cool 224 percent. A good day’s work by the charming corner man. I admit to being shocked by that one, especially because Sheff has taint yet fellow taintees Manny Ramirez picked up only 24 percent more of the share and Sammy Sosa 59 percent. Where’s Sheffield been hiding all that support?

MILLER: I’m guessing what we’re seeing is a lot of people think Manny cheated more than Sheffield and Sosa was inferior and/or cheated more. There can’t be anything more to it than that, can there?

ERIC: I guess they believe Sheffield’s “Well, gee!” explanation about his taintery. Good for him, I guess.

MILLER: I don’t know. I haven’t read a lot of that about Sheff.

ERIC: OK, lightning round: Andruw makes a big move (more than doubles up) but still hasn’t reached 20 percent. Kent and Helton made gains but still haven’t reached 30 percent. Andy Pettitte is stuck, which means it’s bad to Roger Clemens’ workout buddy. Bobby Abreu lives to die another day. Brad Penny gets a courtesy vote but Josh Beckett doesn’t. The electorate was smaller than any time since 1985, and I think that’s just fine. And we have to wait another year before we do it all again.

Closing thoughts?

MILLER: I’m happy, obviously, about Jones, Helton, and Kent. I don’t mind that Pettitte is stuck.

As for next year, given the Era Committees that are convening and the progress of candidates in 2020, I’m thinking it’s Curt Schilling on the podium by himself in 2021.

But until then, enjoy Larry Walker getting in and Derek Jeter getting all but one vote.

ERIC: Last licks! The really weird thing about this year’s Hall Call Day was that you and I switched places. Long-time readers will note that I’m usually the in the snarky-responder position. Feels OK, maybe I’ll try it again sometime.

 

 

 

My Fictional Hall of Fame Ballot

As I’m sure you know, I don’t have a Hall of Fame ballot. But you know what, I’m at the point, at least as I write this, that I kind of think I should. I have studied the Hall more than most voters. I have studied the candidates more than most voters. I have a logical framework from which I work. I’m open to feedback and criticism. I think I’d be a far above average voter.

To be fair though, I only think I deserve a ballot when compared with the current crop of voters. In the universe of all possible voters, I suspect I’m not in the top-500 or so in terms of knowledge, effort, and passion. I’d like to think I am, but there are tons of people out there who do great work. Odds aren’t high.

Alas, it’s silly to speculate where I rank in imaginary Hall knowledge. I don’t have a ballot, and I never will. But I do have a blog! And the Hall and BBWAA can’t stop me from sharing my thoughts, so let’s have at it!

What you’ll see below is how my thought process would unfold if I did have a vote. I’m sure you’ll agree with some of it and disagree with other parts. Whatever the case, I think it’ll all make sense from a baseball perspective. Well, at least most of it.

The Easiest Vote

Before doing anything else, I’d check Larry Walker’s name. There are so many unfair ways that Walker has been thus far rejected by the BBWAA and the Hall. To start, because the Hall doesn’t want to deal with Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, they decreased the number of years of ballot eligibility from fifteen to ten. While I don’t think Walker will get in this year, he absolutely would if he had five more tries at it. Some folks who don’t understand the game will lose ballots, and they’ll be replaced by those who do. At a minimum, the new folks will know more than their predecessors. Walker has also been hurt by writers who ignore 69% of his plate appearances and choose to focus on the 31% that occurred in Colorado. Finally, he’s also been hurt by writers who focus on injuries, or time he missed, rather than the time he played.

All of that aside, Walker is an easy vote because he’s somewhere between the eighth and fourteenth best right fielder who ever played. I guess maybe some folks who have done the work could drop him all of the way down to sixteenth, but no further than that. He’s tenth by my rankings and tenth by JAWS as well. There are at least ten right fielders in the Hall of Fame who were clearly inferior players.

There’s no strategic reason to leave him off. There’s no character faux-reason to leave him off. There’s nothing. Simply, if you don’t vote for Larry Walker, you’re showing that you don’t understand greatness in baseball.

The 5% Vote

I dislike the rule that drops players from the ballot who don’t reach 5% of the vote in their first year of eligibility. A system of 1%, 2%, 4%, 8%, and 16% for the first five years; then 20% for each of a candidate’s last ten years on the ballot (yes, not last five) seems preferable to me. Anyway, while Bobby Abreu is the tiniest smidgen below my in/out line right now, I’m not 100% sure I’m right. Vladimir Guerrero, Mike Tiernan, Brian Giles, and Enos Slaughter are ahead of him but outside the HoME. Sam Rice trails him, but he’s been enshrined. My rankings today see him at #30 right, but a reasonable person could see him anywhere from 23^rd to 33^rd, I think. It would be a real shame if writers had only one chance to review Abreu’s candidacy. He would get my vote, and I’d take pride in that decision.

Let’s Not Overcomplicate Things

Unless it’s Mike Trout or you’re older than 60, I’m quite confident Barry Bonds is the best position player you’ve ever seen in his prime. And to be honest, I don’t think your age even matters. Unless you’re older than 110, Roger Clemens is the best pitcher you’ve ever seen. Yes, it’s fairly evident that both used performance-enhancing drugs, but neither did so during the time that they were banned by the agreement between MLB and the MLBPA. Enough said.

I feel awful admitting this, but Curt Schilling has become a somewhat sympathetic figure for me. There are only two reasons one would not vote for Schilling. One is an inability to evaluate his record correctly – paying far too much attention to wins and Cy Young trophies – and not enough to actual value. The other is imposing your political sensibilities and applying the so-called “character clause” when it absolutely shouldn’t matter. Schilling was great at baseball. Whether or not you think he’s awful today (and for the record, I think he is) cannot have any bearing on his Hall case, even if you say it does.

I’m up to five. Five check marks to go.

They’re Far Better Than Some Think

Scott Rolen ranks between Paul Molitor and Edgar Martinez at third base. That’s fourteenth in history. I think reasonable people could place him anywhere from about 11-20. He ranks tenth by JAWS, though I think it’s pretty clear Home Run Baker was better. He’s a pretty easy call for my sixth vote.

Todd Helton is my seventh. He ranks between Hank Greenberg and Frank Thomas for me, fifteenth overall by MAPES+. That’s ahead of nine HoMErs and eleven Hall of Famers. I’m quite confident Helton should place in the 12-24 range. JAWS says 15^th. To be honest, I’m not 100% sure I believe my ranking for Helton, but there’s no shot he’s outside of the top two dozen, so he’s an easy call.

Andruw Jones is the twelfth best center fielder ever according to my rankings, in between Carols Beltran and Jim Edmonds. Center field is such a strange position. Cobb, Mays, Speaker, Mantle, DiMaggio, and Griffey are among the recognized greats in history, but after those six, the position is a bit of a wasteland. Sure, you have Mike Trout, and lots of people forget Billy Hamilton. I like Richie Ashburn and Paul Hines more than Jones. Very reasonable people may like Duke Snider too. But that’s just about it. Who else is there? JAWS recognizes his greatness, ranking him 11^th ever in center.

That’s eight guys on my fictional ballot.

Guys I’m Not Supporting Right Now

Jason Giambi had a wonderful peak of about four to six years, but there wasn’t much at all after that. You might say that Andruw Jones is little different, but that’s not true. We’re talking eight five-win seasons for Jones compared to half that for Giambi, at least by my numbers.

While I’m not satisfied with how my pitching rankings look quite yet, I’m pretty confident that I can’t support Cliff Lee. He looks a considerable amount like Frank Viola to me, and he currently ranks 113^th among pitchers. He was wonderful in 2008 and 2013, better than that in 2011 when he could have easily won a second Cy Young Award and gotten more attention from voters. Sorry, Cliff Lee supporters.

Billy Wagner was great at what he did. There are two problems though. First, at least three relievers – Mariano Rivera, Goose Gossage, and Hoyt Wilhelm – were clearly better. And there are others such as Stu Miller, Tug McGraw, Trevor Hoffman, Joe Nathan, to name just four, who might have been as well. Second – and this is the bigger problem – what Wagner did just didn’t have a ton of value. I don’t buy that because the Hall has made mistakes with guys like Bruce Sutter and Lee Smith that we need to induct anyone who happened to be better.

Omar Vizquel might be about the 800^th best player in baseball history. There’s no way in hell he’s in the top 500. Voting for Vizquel is ridiculous. If you’re new to the HoME, just put Omar’s name into our search engine to see the many posts I’ve written about the man with a career 84 OPS+.

The Final Two Choices

If you’re following along, and don’t think I need to discuss the likes of Paul Konerko and Eric Chavez, I have six players I’m still considering for my final two spots. Alphabetically, they are Derek Jeter, Jeff Kent, Andy Pettitte, Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield, and Sammy Sosa.

Since it’s easier for me to choose guys not to support from this list, that’ll be my direction next.

Andy Pettitte might be the pitching version of Bobby Abreu on this ballot. There are two small differences for me. Unlike Abreu, Pettitte’s just above my in/out line. But more importantly, I don’t think he’s at any risk of falling off the ballot. Jeter and Manny were better players, and Kent, Sheffield, and Sosa have fewer years for writers to consider their cases, so Pettitte is gone. This isn’t a particularly hard call.

Manny Ramirez is fifteenth by MAPES+ among left fielders, just a smidge behind Billy Williams. A reasonable person could rank him as high as tenth. And I like to consider myself a reasonable person. But I have too many guys who I think deserve a vote. I have to dump someone, and Manny did fail two PED tests after PEDs were banned by agreement between MBL and the MLBPA. Manny is in the HoME. He absolutely belongs there. I like him for the Hall of Fame too. But when given the choice between Manny and other deserving candidates, I don’t mind supporting others, even if they were lesser players, given Manny’s failed PED tests. If there were only ten worthy players on the ballot, Manny would get my vote.

Four guys left for two spots.

This is the first time on my fake ballot that I’m not 100% sure I’d do what I’m about to claim. I won’t include Derek Jeter on this ballot. Jeter was great, obviously. But he’s also insanely overrated. I place him 21^st among shortstops, between Joe Sewell and Miguel Tejada. He is one of the worst defensive players in baseball history in terms of value. He has actual character problems for me too. Rather than doing what would have been best for the Yankees in 2004, he did what was best for his ego. A great teammate would have moved to third base when a superior defensive shortstop, Alex Rodriguez, arrived. Jeter didn’t.

However, those are my excuses, not my honest reasoning. I’m not so proud of my honest reasoning, but when I put Bobby Abreu on and leave Manny Ramirez off, I’m already not taking the exact ten best players.I can say both that Derek Jeter belongs in the Hall of Fame and that he wouldn’t make my ballot.

Derek Jeter has been one of my most hated players of all time since about 1997 or 1998, whenever his deification began. Maybe that was 2000 or 2001, to be honest. Whatever. It only seems like he’s been put on a pedestal forever. Anyway, the reason I’m beginning to feel sympathy for Curt Schilling is because he’s being treated unfairly by the voters. The reason I didn’t like Jeter is because he was treated unfairly by fans and writers alike. Yes, he was great. But he was no Robin Yount or Barry Larkin or Alan Trammell. The guy’s treated like he was the best shortstop in baseball history. Maybe the unthinking would put him behind Honus Wagner and/or Cal Ripken, but that’s about it. Luke Appling or Jeter? Jeter would get about 95% of the vote in a poll. He’d get near the same against Lou Boudreau or Joe Cronin or Bobby Wallace. And don’t even get me started on Bill Dahlen and Jack Glasscock, guys who aren’t even in the Hall. Jeter was unfairly adored, and that doesn’t sit well with me.

There’s another reason too. Mariano Rivera was the single best player in baseball history at the thing he did. There’s essentially no dispute about that. I love the fact that Rivera was the first person to be elected unanimously. To me, Derek Jeter was no Mariano Rivera. Yes, I’m being hypocritical here. There’s no such thing as a first-ballot Hall of Famer. That “honor” is made up. It’s silly. Similarly, we shouldn’t be concerned about who’s unanimous and who isn’t. Still, I’d love for Adrian Beltre to be the second. Or Albert Pujols. Or Mike Trout. Just not the insanely overrated Derek Jeter.

The reason I didn’t save Jeter until the end is because he was an easier call for me than Kent, Sheffield, and Sosa are. I won’t belabor this though. While I have serious reservations about all three, all three are over my line, and all three are in the HoME. Kent is ahead of three HoME-level second basemen by my rankings. Sheffield is ahead of six right fielders, and Sosa is two players ahead of him. Still someone who had them all on the wrong side of the in/out line could possibly put together an argument that I’d find reasonable.

Really, I could justify any combination of these three. Still, I have to choose. And I’ll give my ninth check to Sosa. Since I rank him above Sheffield, it would be really hard to take Sheffield and Kent.

For my final pick, I’ll take the other right fielder. Sheffield’s defense was so awful that it knocks his ranking down a great deal. His bat was likely the best of the three though, and when things are close among position players, I’ll always take the bat.

Grading My Ballot

Miller: 90

• Abreu, Bonds, Clemens, Helton, Jones, Rolen, Schilling, Sheffield, Sosa, Walker
• I lose five points in two places for my vote against Jeter. If I just wanted a 100 by my own standard, I could have justified leaving Jeter off just a bit differently, but I wanted to be honest here. I’m being hypocritical. I know that.

What’s your 2020 ballot? Would you vote strategically, or would you just select the ten best players. Please share in the comments below.

Miller

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2020 BBWAA Ballot Review and Predictions, Outfield

Welcome to the second installment of our BBWAA ballot preview (plus extra guys who didn’t make the ballot). The infielders were last week, and the pitchers are next week. Hopefully, before the BBWAA rejects Larry Walker again, the Era Committee sees fit to elect one or two of its deserving nominees. Yeah, I hope for a lot

Bobby Abreu

Career BBREF WAR: 60.0

Year on ballot: 1^st

CHEWS+ Rank: 26
Ahead of Sam Rice, King Kelly, and Bill Nicholson
Trailing Reggie Smith, Enos Slaughter, and Harry Hooper

MAPES+ Rank: 31
Ahead of Sam Rice, Sam Thompson, and Bill Nicholson
Trailing Enos Slaughter, Reggie Smith, and Brian Giles

Synopsis:
Abreu would probably be an OK Hall of Famer in that he would raise the standards a bit in right field. He had a better career than Hall right fielders Ross Youngs, Chuck Klein, Tommy McCarthy, KiKi Cuyler, and Sam Thompson—also Harold Baines, if you choose to place the DH at a fielding position for purposes such as this. I have him just a shade below the Hall of Miller and Eric’s in/out line. To be sure, he’s in a place where we could elect him, and it wouldn’t be a big deal. He’s very, very close, but the players who on paper surround him and who are already members of the HoME have additional factors to consider that nudge them ahead. Sam Rice and Harry Hooper, as we’ve noted in the past, have baserunning, double-play avoidance, and outfield-throwing value that BBREF WAR doesn’t currently capture and that helps them surge over the line. There’s also Enos Slaughter who looks essentially identical to Abreu on paper, but for whom we may choose to take his missing time due to the war into account. But that’s us not the BBWAA, and Abreu has the broad set of skills and the lack of milestones and singular accomplishments that all but guarantee his candidacy will be short-lived. Tack onto that the fact that there are several other outfielders on the ballot with better cases, including three right fielders (Walker, Sosa, and Sheffield) plus a leftfielder (Bonds), and it’s easy to see why the BBWAA will pass on him. -Eric

Miller’s 2020 prediction: He won’t stay on the ballot (he should), but if the right writers reveal early, things might get exciting among Abreu fans. Michael Young received nine votes a year ago. I say Abreu tops that, though not by enough for him to see 2021.

Eric’s 2020 prediction: A handful of votes, maybe.

Barry Bonds

Career BBREF WAR: 162.8

Year on ballot: 8^th

2019 percentage of the vote: 59.1%

CHEWS+ Rank: 1
Ahead of Ted Williams, Rickey Henderson, and Carl Yastrzemski

MAPES+ Rank: 1
Ahead of Ted Williams, Rickey Henderson, and Carl Yastrzemski
Trailing not a soul.

Synopsis:
Bonds and Clemens have one hope right now. The 2020–2022 ballots, their final three, are light on hot new candidates. The huge onslaughts of the aughts have subsided, and these three elections will, with any luck, clean up a lot of the mess that remains behind. Few high-class newbies means more opportunity to pick up a few points here and there. And that’s all Bonds and Clemens have managed the last two years. Three points each year to get them to just under 60%. But think it through a second: Few strong new candidates coming along to draw votes away, Larry Walker leaving the ballot one way or the other this year, and Curt Schilling poised to follow him this year or next. Those are helpful trend points. Cop another 3–5 percent the next two years and get just close enough that, through some twists of logic, just enough fence sitters buy the last-year narrative and check off their names in 2020. That’s the only path they have. From today’s vantage point it seems highly unlikely, but each year new voters come on board and some oldsters drop off, and slowly, glacially, things can change enough to make the impossible merely improbable. But I wouldn’t bet on it. An intriguing subplot: Bonds and Clemens’ final year on the ballot will be A-Rod’s first year. The former should tell us interesting things about the latter. -Eric

If you vote for Clemens but not Bonds or Bonds but not Clemens, I request that you donate your brain to science after you pass. You need to be studied. -Miller

Miller’s 2020 prediction: Maybe a bit over 61%.

Eric’s 2020 prediction: Bonds and Clemens pick up 3–5 percent this year.

Raul Ibanez

Career BBREF WAR: 20.4

Year on ballot: 1^st

CHEWS+ Rank: 126
Ahead of George Bell, Melky Cabrera, and Dale Mitchell
Trailing Bob Bescher, Duffy Lewis, and Bibb Falk

MAPES+ Rank: 121
Ahead of Melky Cabrera, Dale Mitchell, and Pat Burrell
Trailing George Bell, Duffy Lewis, and Bibb Falk

Synopsis:
A worse candidate than Adam Dunn, Ibanez couldn’t field or run either, and he didn’t hit as well. But for some reason he was seen as providing veteran leadership or something and hung around a while. He was never more than a contributor and could never have pushed a team toward contention. Also this. -Eric

Miller’s 2020 prediction: No votes.

Eric’s 2020 prediction: A one-way ticket to bye-bye.

Andruw Jones

Career BBREF WAR: 62.8

Year on ballot: 3^rd

2019 percentage of the vote: 7.5%

CHEWS+ Rank: 12
Ahead of Duke Snider, Paul Hines, and Jimmy Wynn
Trailing Rich Ashburn, Jim Edmonds, and Carlos Beltran

MAPES+ Rank: 12
Ahead of Jim Edmonds, Duke Snider, and George Gore
Trailing Carlos Beltran, Paul Hines, and Richie Ashburn

Synopsis:
I’ve been pleasantly surprised that Andruw has beaten down the 5 percent demon twice now. Especially when Jim Edmonds and Kenny Lofton couldn’t drum up enough support to stay on the ballot just once. On the bright side, there are no centerfielders above him on the ballot to block him, and the next important one he’ll encounter isn’t coming until 2023 (Carlos Beltran). On the dim side, there’s no there here, no forward motion to his candidacy, and he doesn’t seem to have anyone lobbying for him or any reason for them to do so when several other candidates have more compelling narrative and some chance of turning the narrative into a plaque. -Eric

Andruw Jones is to center field what Omar Vizquel’s supporters say he is to shortstop. Only better. Oh, and Omar’s supporters are wrong. -Miller

Miller’s 2020 prediction: He’ll nudge to 8%.

Eric’s 2020 prediction: Hangin’ around.

Ryan Ludwick

Career BBREF WAR: 11.2

Year on ballot: didn’t make it

CHEWS+ and MAPES+ Ranks: not ranked

Synopsis:
The two things I remembered about his career are that he played for the Cardinals and the A’s. I was wrong about one of them. -Miller

Nate McLouth

Career BBREF WAR: 6.4

Year on ballot: didn’t make it

CHEWS+ and MAPES+ Ranks: not ranked

Synopsis:
McLouth led the NL in doubles, made an All-Star Team, and won a Gold Glove in 2008. Nice year! At 2.4 WAR, it was the best of his career. -Eric

Manny Ramirez

Career BBREF WAR: 69.4

Year on ballot: 4^th

2019 percentage of the vote: 22.8%

CHEWS+ Rank: 15
Ahead of Billy Williams, Jimmy Sheckard, and Roy White
Trailing Tim Raines, Bobby Veach, and Sherry Magee

MAPES+ Rank:
Ahead of Roy White, Zach Wheat, and Joe Kelley
Trailing Billy Williams, Sherry Magee, and Jimmy Sheckard

Synopsis:
Manny is stalled at about 23 percent. It’s easy to see why: He’s got those steroid busts. More subtly, Barry Bonds sits way above him with a less cut-and-dried steroid case. If Bonds’ candidacy were to progress to election, Manny might be the prime beneficiary. Absent Bonds and Walker, he’s the best outfield candidate on the ballot. Then again, he could be the prime beneficiary and those busts might keep him stuck around 23 percent forever. -Eric

Manny is one of my favorite players ever, yet I don’t mind that he’s not yet in the Hall. See, there’s a lot more egregious mistakes of omission and commission, and I only have so much outrage to go around. -Miller

Miller’s 2020 prediction: He won’t move up unless and until Bonds and Clemens get into the Hall. Stuck at about 23%.

Eric’s 2020 prediction: 23%

Gary Sheffield

Career BBREF WAR: 60.5

Year on ballot: 6^th

2019 percentage of the vote: 13.6%

CHEWS+ Rank: 15
Ahead of Wee Willie Keeler, Andre Dawson, and Dwight Evans
Trailing Harry Heilmann, Tony Gwynn, and Sammy Sosa

MAPES+ Rank: 19
Ahead of Bobby Bonds, Dwight Evans, and Dave Winfield
Trailing Andre Dawson, Sammy Sosa, and Tony Gwynn

Synopsis:
He’d have a better chance if his name were Gary Shandling. Look I don’t really truck in the whole sports drugs thing, so I’d gladly put him on my ballot if I had room. But Larry Walker was a better player, and he’s got higher electoral priority now. Which is only to say that Sheffield’s not gaining much now and probably won’t reach 30 percent ever. -Eric

Unlike Manny, Sheffield is absolutely not one of my favorites. I can’t get worked up about his lack of progress until we get through some others. -Miller

Miller’s 2020 prediction: About 13–14%

Eric’s 2020 prediction: 15%

Alfonso Soriano

Career BBREF WAR: 28.2

Year on ballot: 1^st

CHEWS+ Rank: 61
Ahead of Riggs Stephenson, Alex Gordon, and Jason Bay
Trailing Ron Gant, Brett Gardner, and Tip O’Neil (and also Jim Wright, Newt Gingrich, and Tom Delay)

MAPES+ Rank: 62
Ahead of Tip O’Neill, Jason Bay, and Brett Gardner
Trailing Ron Gant, Lefty O’Doul, and Alex Gordon

Synopsis:
One of my wife’s favorites. Why? Because he was so seemingly spastic that she never knew what he might do. To be honest, his defense at second totally validates her opinion. I remember him leaping upward for a line drive aimed directly at his chest. Heckuva athlete, and he could really put a charge in the ball. If he’d double his walk rate, he’d have been a much better player. Then again his walk rate was so low that he might have needed to triple it or more. -Eric

Miller’s 2020 prediction; No votes.

Eric’s 2020 prediction: One or two courtesy votes

Sammy Sosa

Career BBREF WAR: 58.6

Year on ballot: 8^th

2019 percentage of the vote: 8.5%

CHEWS+ Rank: 14
Ahead of Gary Sheffield, Willie Keeler, and Andre Dawson
Trailing Sam Crawford, Harry Heilmann, and Tony Gwynn

MAPES+ Rank: 17
Ahead of Andre Dawson, Gary Sheffield, and Bobby Bonds
Trailing Tony Gwynn, Willie Keeler, and King Kelly

Synopsis:
Slammin’ Sammy isn’t going into the Hall of Fame anytime soon. Not by the writers, of course. In the VC his lack of BBWAA support combined with the steroid stuff will not play well in those smoke-filled horse-trading rooms. He and Palmeiro and Sheffield face this same fate. -Eric

I like him a lot more than Sheff and a lot less than Manny. No, I can’t get worked up. -Miller

Miller’s 2020 prediction: He has a solid 8% of the vote.

Eric’s 2020 prediction: 8.75 percent

Larry Walker

Career BBREF WAR: 72.7

Year on ballot: 10^th

2019 percentage of the vote: 54.6%

CHEWS+ Rank: 8
Ahead of Reggie Jackson, Elmer Flick, and Sam Crawford
Trailing Roberto Clemente, Al Kaline, and Paul Waner

MAPES+ Rank: 10
Ahead of Sam Crawford, Harry Heilmann, and Elmer Flick
Trailing Joe Jackson, Reggie Jackson, and Paul Waner

Synopsis:
The biggest unknown on this ballot: Will Larry Walker’s multiyear surge end with a Hall of Fame selection? It’s his tenth, and final, year on the ballot, and his progress in recent years warms the cold cockles of even this cynical observer. Let’s say this first: Either he’ll go in this year, or he’ll be elected the next time the Today’s Game committee meets. He’s over the 50% threshold from which only Gil Hodges has failed to make the cut (and rightfully so). Lee Smith was the latest to do it just this year (wrongfully so). That’ll be a point in his favor with the VC. In addition, he’ll have the Trammell effect working for him. He’s going to depart the ballot having made big gains into electable territory. But will he gain election this year? Well, he’s got some things in his favor for making the jump to lightspeed and getting that final 21% he needs. First of all, the only major newcomer on the ballot is Derek Jeter so newbies won’t suck up all the electoral oxygen and votes. Second, his nearest competitor in the outfield is Barry Bonds whose support doesn’t appear to be increasing. Even though Bonds has a few percentage points on Walker, he’s not likely to gain a ballot spot that Walker might otherwise take. Bonds’ theoretical zone of potential new support is actually Walker’s to run with. But also, because Bonds isn’t moving, anyone who isn’t voting for Walker, is filling their ballot, and votes for Bonds could find it easy to give Walker Bonds’ vote since Barry has two more years of eligibility and has no chance of being elected in 2020. Lastly, Walker is the biggest non-Jeter story. Curt Schilling is a little closer to election, but Schill’s got a couple years left, leaving Walker as the lead backlog story. There’s narrative there, and where there’s narrative, there’s votes. Walker has a lot of stars aligned in his favor. -Eric

Miller’s 2020 prediction: Larry Walker will complete the journey from 10.2% in 2014 to 11.8% to 15.5% to 21.9% to 34.1% to 56.6% to 75.0% in 2020. Hey, it’s our last prediction. I want to go out on a limb, and I want to be optimistic. Plus, I want the always amazing exercise of watching the Tracker to be even more exciting.

Eric’s 2020 prediction: I’d say he’s 80/20 against winning election, but I think he’s going to end up near 70% of the vote and be a shoe-in for the Today’s Game committee.

Miller and Eric

Grading the BBWAA Ballots, 2020

It’s that time of year again! Time to open Ryan Thibodaux’s awesome Hall of Fame Ballot Tracker and refresh for the next six weeks. That means it’s also time for me to begin my ballot grading absurdity. I’ve been doing this for three or four years now, and I always do so with a bit of trepidation. On one hand, I really have no business judging someone else’s opinion. On the other, I care about the Hall of Fame far more than many people who have a vote. It also really bugs me when writers use faulty logic to justify the unjustifiable. So I grade.

I’m not sure how these posts will roll out, whether I grade once each week, more, or less. I expect that it’ll be a combination of whim, free time, and anger. I’d love to review every single ballot, as I did a few years ago. I’d also love a million dollars. And for anyone who makes the second one happen, I can promise the first one will too.

Today we’ll answer some questions, discuss the grading system this year, and review the first batch of ballots.

How can you vote for Bonds and Clemens and not Sosa?

I am stunned by how frequently I’ve seen this question in comments sections just about everywhere. The answer is as simple as Bonds and Clemens were better. Of course, the question presumes that if you vote for one PED user, you must vote for them all. However, that assumption is ridiculously flawed. Bonds and Clemens were all-time greats with or without PED use. However, a reasonable person could suggest that Sosa’s use of PEDs put him over the in/our line. Voting for Bonds and Clemens but not checking Sosa’s name is completely reasonable.

How can you vote for Sosa but not Manny?

Like in the question above, there are presumptions implicit in this question. First, Manny was a better player. Second, both Manny and Sosa used PEDs. Third, players who used PEDs should be judged on the same level. However, I disagree. There is clear evidence that Manny Ramirez broke the sport’s rules – those suspensions. Sosa, on the other hand, was not caught using during the time PEDs were legitimately banned by MLB. So yes, if you believe Manny cheated but that Sosa didn’t, which is entirely reasonable to me, you can vote for Sosa but not Manny.

How can you vote for Omar Vizquel but not Scott Rolen (or Andruw Jones)?

[Editor’s note: As I’m not a meat eater, please forgive me if the detail of the following analogy falls flat, and just try to follow what I mean.]

If you grow up being told that Salisbury steak is a great cut of beef, like a rib eye or a New York strip, then maybe you don’t ever know any better. Vizquel is the Salisbury steak in this analogy. Rolen and Jones are the rib eye and the strip, respectfully. Salisbury steak will get the job done. If there’s nothing else to eat and you need nourishment (a shortstop), you’d eat it. But if you could make the choice, you’d choose one of the other options. Because they’re better.

The presumptions in this question are that Vizquel voters are in his corner because of his defense and that Rolen and Jones were equal (or superior) to him on defense and far superior on offense. In other words, even if you mistakenly believe Vizquel is the rib eye, adding a wonderful glass of Bordeaux or an incredible Cuban cigar would still make it that much better.

Here’s where the analogy falls flat – assuming you’ve been following it so far. If you want your steak to be Salisbury, if you think the best movie ever made is The Sandlot, or if you want your engagement ring to be made out of amethyst, that’s completely fine! It’s your choice. There’s no objectively correct answer. However, we have objective data to say that Rolen and Jones were superior to Vizquel. So, basically, it’s a good question. You can’t vote for Vizquel without voting for the other two.

Should Jeter be on the Cooperstown stage alone?

Was he that great? That important? Well, Babe Ruth wasn’t. Willie Mays wasn’t. And writers who suggest Jeter was ignore the fact that there’s an Era Committee that will likely elect someone to join Jeter, and perhaps others, on the New York dais. If you truly believe Jeter should be there alone, hold off your vote and your column until after the Era Committee votes. If they elect nobody, bring out your garbage column. If you bring it out before that even happens, you’re nothing but clickbait and awfulness.

The Grading System

• Voters will earn 10 points for each of the following players: Bobby Abreu, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Todd Helton, Derek Jeter, Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, Andy Pettitte, Manny Ramirez, Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa, and Larry Walker.
• Voters will earn 0 points for the following: Cliff Lee, Jason Giambi, and Billy Wagner.
• Voters will earn -10 points for the following: Josh Beckett, Heath Bell, Eric Chavez, Adam Dunn, Chone Figgins, Rafael Furcal, Raul Ibanez, Paul Konerko, Carlos Pena, Brad Penny, J.J. Putz, Brian Roberts, Alfonso Soriano, Jose Valverde, and Omar Vizuel.
• Voters will earn -10 for every spot on their ballot left open below 9 since there are 13 players on the ballot who would receive my vote.
• Voters lose 5 points for not explaining their ballots.
• Voters lose 10 points for choosing Bonds and not Clemens, or vice versa.
• Voters lose 10 points for talking about character in any way.
• Voters lose 10 points for taking PED users but not Clemens or Bonds.
• Voters lose 5 points for mentioning Coors Field as an argument against Larry Walker or Todd Helton, even if they support those guys.
• Voters lose 5 points for any comparison between Omar Vizquel and Ozzie Smith.
• Voters lose 5 points for each judgment of the morality of specific players.
• Voters lose 5 points for any other case of ridiculous logic.
• Scores max out at 100.
• Scores can dip as low as they dip.
• I sometimes add or subtract points just because I feel like it.

The Ballots

Bill Center: 25

• Bonds, Clemens, Jeter, Schilling, Sheffield, Vizquel, Wagner, Walker
• Center admits to making a stupid argument by dropping Helton to focus on Walker this year. It’s particularly stupid because he has room on his ballot.

Lynn Henning: 50

• Bonds, Clemens, Jeter, Rolen, Schilling, Walker
• I love Henning. Thoughtful guy, great on Twitter.
• If you’re going to vote for exactly six, I think he got it right.
• Even though his grade is pretty low, he wrote, “Ozzie Smith was at least five Cooperstown kilometers ahead of Vizquel, who didn’t come within 110 career Defensive Runs Saved of Smith, to cite one tell-all metric.” I’ve arbitrarily assigned 20 points for writing that.

Sadiel Lebron: 65

• Bonds, Clemens, Jeter, Jones, Pettitte, Ramirez, Schilling, Sosa, Vizquel, Walker
• One thing that remains true about Lebron is that he remains consistently inconsistent. He added four names this year and subtracted one. Last year, he added two and subtracted two. The guy’s just making stuff up.

Steven Marcus: -85

• Jeter
• Keith Law put it very well when he tweeted to Marcus, “Here’s the attention you ordered.” This is just a pathetic ballot.
• He hashtags a desire to keep the Hall small. However, a small Hall guy probably shouldn’t vote for Jeter.

Tony Massarotti: -10

• Bonds, Clemens, Jeter, Ramirez
• He shared on his radio show. Since I lived in Boston for so many years, I’m familiar with the show he and Michael Felger host. That’s why I didn’t listen.

Aurelio Moreno: 70

• Abreu, Bonds, Clemens, Helton, Jeter, Schilling, Sosa, Vizquel, Walker
• He wrote about 600 words about the ballot, but he said very little.

Anthony Rieber: -80

• Derek Jeter
• This is our idiot of the week. He dropped six guys he supported a year ago because Jeter “deserves to stand alone at the podium as the entire Hall of Fame Class of 2020 on July 26 in Cooperstown.” Asinine.
• And he really explains nothing. This vote is all about clicks. I clicked, but I won’t link here.

I’ll come back with another one of these soon enough. Hope to see you back then.

Miller