Well, James is an employee of the Boston Red Sox, and I wouldn’t be surprised if team-affiliated people aren’t allowed to have votes.
That’s not the case, I don’t believe, but even if it is, the point surely stands?
Giving the vote to the BBWAA just doesn’t seem terribly logical to me; it was kind of a convenient choice at the time, but we’re long past the point where they could strike a balanced committee of experts from many fields and types of involvement with baseball.
64 ballots currently (Yookeroo’s link is much better than mine, unless you want to see individual votes):
100 - Maddux
98.4 - Glavine
87.5 - F. Thomas
81.3 - Biggio
———————————
70.3 - Piazza
65.6 - Jack (The Jack) Morris
62.5 - Bagwell
53.1 - Raines
43.8 - Schilling
43.8 - Bonds
43.8 - Clemens
31.3 - Mussina
25.0 - L. Smith
21.9 - Trammell
18.8 - McGriff
15.6 - E. Martinez
14.0 - Kent
10.9 - McGwire
9.4 - R. Palmeiro
7.8 - L. Walker
6.3 - S. Sosa
———————————
3.1 - Mattingly
It is a travesty that Mike Piazza might not make it in AGAIN!
I agree, but if the released ballots are representative, and he’s over 70%, at least he’s likely a lock for next year.
For the sake of discussion, here’s next year’s ballot, along with the number of years they’ll have been on (assuming that everyone this year hits 5%, which is unlikely). Wow - I guess I didn’t realize McGwire’s been on so long!
Don Mattingly 15th
Alan Trammell 14th
Lee Smith 13th
Mark McGwire 9th
Tim Raines 8th
Edgar Martinez 6th
Fred McGriff 6th
Jeff Bagwell 5th
Larry Walker 5th
Rafael Palmeiro 5th
Craig Biggio 3rd
Mike Piazza 3rd
Curt Schilling 3rd
Roger Clemens 3rd
Barry Bonds 3rd
Sammy Sosa 3rd
Greg Maddux 2nd
Frank Thomas 2nd
Mike Mussina 2nd
Tom Glavine 2nd
Jeff Kent 2nd
Kenny Rogers 2nd
Luis Gonzalez 2nd
Moises Alou 2nd
Ray Durham 2nd
Shannon Stewart 2nd
Esteban Loaiza 2nd
Jon Lieber 2nd
Hideo Nomo 2nd
Geoff Jenkins 2nd
Keith Foulke 2nd
Matt Morris 2nd
Jose Vidro 2nd
Richie Sexson 2nd
Paul Lo Duca 2nd
Armando Benitez 2nd
Mike Timlin 2nd
Sean Casey 2nd
Dmitri Young 2nd
Eric Gagne 2nd
Shawn Estes 2nd
J.T. Snow 2nd
Todd Jones 2nd
Joe Borowski 2nd
Randy Johnson 1st
Pedro Martinez 1st
John Smoltz 1st
Gary Sheffield 1st
Brian Giles 1st
Nomar Garciaparra 1st
Carlos Delgado 1st
Darin Erstad 1st
Tom Gordon 1st
Jason Schmidt 1st
Jarrod Washburn 1st
Cliff Floyd 1st
Kelvim Escobar 1st
Jermaine Dye 1st
Mark Loretta 1st
Rich Aurilia 1st
Troy Percival 1st
Paul Byrd 1st
Joe Crede 1st
Tony Clark 1st
B.J. Ryan 1st
Eddie Guardado 1st
David Weathers 1st
Braden Looper 1st
Julian Tavarez 1st
Alan Embree 1st
Ron Villone 1st
Ton of interesting names on there - Randy, Pedro and Smoltz are shoe-ins, IMO. So’s Sheffield. But what about guys like Nomar, Delgado and Giles?
Sheffield has steroid taint. He’s not getting in on the 1st ballot.
And holy crap, Mike Piazza retired two whole years before Gary Sheffield? I completely forget he played that long.
Piazza is so close in our poll. I wonder if you get rid of some of the head-scratcher votes, whether that bumps him over 75%?
The list of 2015 potential inductees is interesting. Martinez is one of the easiest “He’s in” votes I can think of, and Johnson’s not too far behind. I think Nomahhhhh! Brian Giles, and Carlos Delgado are members of the Hall of the Very Good. But what do we think of Sheffield and Smoltz? .292/.393/.514, with a 140 OPS+ and 509 HR make me say, HoFer, but I think there are some people on our ballot who should get in ahead of him.
Aren’t Smoltz’s WHIP and ERA+ numbers helped out a bit by his four years closing? He does have 66.5 WAR, ahead of guys like Bob Feller, but then again, that’s behind Kevin Brown (already dropped off the HoF ballot) and Rick Reuschel (ditto). So I’m a bit lost.
I’d have to say that Smoltz’ ability to dominate in either role works *for *him, like it did for Eckersley. Smoltz is in even without his closing years, and Eck would be in without his starting years, sure.
Dan Shaughnessy, one of the biggest jerks ever to have a long-time reporting gig, shows some of the perversity behind some ballots:
Thomas had a roid-looking body. So did Piazza. Palmeiro didn’t. So, if you’re going to use that standard, at least pretend to be consistent about it. :rolleyes:
I suspect he’s more typical than not.
I think as this backlog of Raineses and Bondses and Schillings grows we’re starting to see what the Hall of Fame is going to be going forward. The only guys who will get in without hiccups are the ones who match some magical Venn diagram at the intersection of incredibly great performance and vaguely clean and/or unobjectionable character. Everybody else goes into the queue and just has to hope for some kind of inexplicable winning coalition to form, and success or failure will depend entirely on weird conversational inertia based on something other than how good they did on baseball fields. At some point the taint will be gone - I don’t think people will say “Bryce Harper never tested positive for anything, but…” - and we’ll be left with a donut hole generation of guys who you had to be there to really accurately fail to understand why they aren’t in. So there’s that to look forward to.
Bonds and Clemens, great but permanently dirty: out. Piazza and Bagwell, great but apparently vaguely dirty, probably because they had beards: out, but only for a probationary period, or maybe not? Biggio and Thomas, great and no beards: in. A Rod, permanently dirty; Jeter, no beard: in. Ryan Braun - permanently dirty? Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera - under suspicion? Andrew McCutchen: right in?
Wait, you’re asking if Smoltz’s numbers are helped by years he had good numbers?
It’s relevant if we’re treating him as a starting pitcher, yet including a bunch of innings where all he had to do for that game was throw gas at (hopefully) only three guys.
Removing the four years that I can easily see in BBRef that he closed (2001-2004), it changes his career stats to:
IP: 3473 to 3187.2
H: 3074 to 2839
BB: 1010 to 955
Which changes his career WHIP from 1.176 to 1.190, and career ERA from 3.33 to 3.39. Greater minds than mine can figure out what that did to his ERA+. The sum of WAR for those year was 7.5, removing them lowers his career WAR to 59.0
After looking at the changes, I don’t think it makes that much of a difference.
But Smoltz is being evaluated as a baseball player, not as a starting pitcher. If he was a crappy closer the numbers would have negatively affected him. But he wasn’t.
I don’t understand why the changes should be considered at all. He actually pitched those four years as a relief pitcher, and pitched well, and helped his team win. Those innings count.
Because it’s easier to pitch well as a closer than it is as a starting pitcher. If we evaluate pitchers by stats such as ERA, WHIP, H/9, K/9, etc… a closer is going to have much better numbers than a starting pitcher would. Go compare the above stats for a list of closers vs. starters. The closers are going be heads and tails better than the starters.
Much fewer innings pitched, of course, and that shows up in their respective WARs. Which is why the thought of Gagne going to the Hall is such a howler. Despite Gagne being essentially unhittable by anybody for about a year and a half.
This would matter if Smoltz had more than the ~6.5% of his career innings pitching relief that he has. Since he doesn’t, I think I’ve shown that the stat inflation he had from pitching relief is essentially negligible. Really, the problem is that guys like Kevin Brown and Rick Reuschel aren’t in the Hall, not that Smoltz is going to get in. But that’s what we have a Veterans’ Committee for.
I agree that that may be true, but it is also true that in those four years Smoltz legitimately helped his team win ballgames and so he must be given due credit for that.
But in your last sentence you explain why Gagne REALLY isn’t going to the Hall of Fame. It has nothing at all to do with it being “easier” to be a relief pitcher. He’s not going to the Hall of Fame because he was only a great pitcher for two years. Eric Gagne isn’t going to the Hall of Fame for exactly the same reason Lefty O’Doul isn’t in the Hall of Fame.
Isn’t it just as hard to be one of the best relievers in the game as it is to be one of the best starters?
Another reason Gagne isn’t going in is that he was simply horrible after his surgery, and his post-Dodgers teams gave him too much opportunity for a comeback. A player’s last few years do tend to affect memories of him disproportionately, so guys who hung on too long seem to get penalized for it come voting time.
No. Just like it isn’t as easy to be the best defensive shortstop than it is to be the best defensive first baseman. Cause if you are good at both, you are going to play short. It is easier to throw one inning at a time than it is to throw seven. And since 7 innings is so much more valuable than one, the people who can do both are almost always going to be a starter. A dominant closer is maybe equivilant to a midrotation starter. Move a guy to the bullpen and his era will instantly improve. I forget the numbers, but I think it about half a run on average. Of course there is a large degree of variance in this.
Overall, I find the early ballot returns promising. Maddux should approach record vote totals. Glavine should sail in with ease as well, which is a little surprising given the strength of the ballot. If Thomas and Biggio get in too, we might be able to start dealing with this lockjam. I’m also happy to see that Kent and Mussina are at least getting enough support to stay comfortably on the ballot.
Willhelm, Gossage, Sutter, Fingers and, in part, Eckersly are the only relievers in the Hall of Fame, and they’re lucky they preceded the era of Mariano Rivera. Five years from now, Rivera has a good chance to beat Tom Seaver’s record of highest percentage of the BBWA voters.
Rivera’s career numbers (205 ERA+, 56.6 WAR) exceed any other closer by such a huge margin, that it will set the bar so high, I doubt if any closer will make the HOF for another 50 years. (Trevor Hoffman is up in a couple of years, and I’ll doubt he’ll ever get about 30% of the vote, but pre Mariano, his career saves would have made him a viable candidate.)
I do believe, however, that a great closer gets undervalued by WAR. Even Rivera’s career WAR puts him just ahead of Johnny Damon and just behind of Dave Stieb. I understand the sabermetric argument that the ninth inning is just 3 outs of slightly higher leverage, but almost every manager seems to disagree. 15 years ago, I thought we’d see the concept of bullpen-by-committee by now, but it seems like we’re further away from that then ever. I’m assuming that there is something to the fact that a dominant closer helps stabilize the rest of the roles in a bullpen.
Really, 30%? I think Hoffman walks in. I think even Billy Wagner might approach that number.