2014 MLB Hall of Fame Ballot

The Game Room
261

What’s the evidence that voters are taking PED use less seriously than they used to?

Mark McGwire’s gone downhill in the balloting three years in a row. Rafael Palmeiro has been spinning his wheels, or worse, despite 3000+ hits and 500+ homers. Sammy Sosa, according to Yookeroo’s link, is closer to falling off the ballot than Fred McGriff. What did Bonds and Clemens get last year–35-40%, something like that? I’d be shocked if either of them will be within spitting distance of half the votes this time around. I guess if they go up at all, that’s an indication that steroids as an issue may be losing their grip, at least a little.

I have read some articles saying that SOMEthing has to give, that the HOF CAN’T continue to leave out all the juicers and expected juicers, and my response to that is: sure it can. There seem to be plenty of voters right now who are perfectly happy leaving them out. Maybe as a new generation of voters begins to come in that will change, but that is a very slow process. Maybe the Hall will take some kind of a stand (“you must elect these players”), but I certainly don’t see any sign of it–the Hall is slow to do much of anything, and it’s a potentially huge minefield. My guess is we’re still having this debate seven-ten years down the road.

And it isn’t just voters. Look at our poll. Barry Bonds, one of the three or four greatest hitters in baseball history, is right now at 45%. Roger Clemens, one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history, is just above that. The ONLY reason to vote against them is steroids. A lot of people evidently don’t want to see PED users in the Hall of Fame. Right now, that’s extending to people whose link to steroids is a lot more tenuous than Ortiz’s, notably Piazza and Bagwell–you’ll notice that neither of them is getting in, in either our poll or Yokeroo’s.

Can something change in the next few years? Sure. I wouldn’t hold my breath, though. Responding to someone’s prediction above, I don’t think Andy Pettitte is going in quickly or easily, at all. I think if he were on the ballot now, having retired (with his complete career numbers) five years ago, he’d be lucky to get 30% of the vote. Ortiz, for the reasons that RickJay notes (popularity, playoffs, publicity, and some kind of pass from some folks, not all of them Red Sox fans, on the steroids thing), would probably do better. But in large part because of the PED issues I don’t believe he starts from anywhere near 50%.

262

Here’s last year’s ballot and vote totals. And yes, I think you can make a solid argument that the Hall is supposed to be a museum rather than a moral endorsement of some kind and that the HoF is not portraying the game’s history because it’s keeping out the best players. I don’t think that’s about to end, but after a certain point it may be totally ridiculous. A few years from now the Hall of Fame is probably going to be missing two of the top five homerun hitters of all time.

263

It was more like 25 years ago, and that’s the problem with it; it doesn’t work anymore. There are too many players who have achieved once-automatic-lock milestones for the James method to really give you a good idea of who has a chance and who doesn’t.

Which makes sense, because even leaving steroids out of it we are in an era of unprecedented home run totals. When Mel Ott retired with 509 home runs that was a huge number, I believe the third highest in the entire history of baseball to that point and it remained in the top ten for awhile. When Eddie Mathews got to 512 that, too, was a huge deal.

Gary Sheffield has basically the same number of home runs as those guys, 509, and people are already forgetting he even exists. The James method assigns 20 points just for getting to 500 home runs and previously anyone who hit that many would have also probably won home run titles and RBI titles (4 points each) and stuff like that. (It is worth noting Sheffield never led the league in either.)

But now hitting 500 home runs isn’t a 20-point thing. I can still remember when Reggie Jackson and Mike Schmidt hit their 500th home runs when I was a kid; they were treated as pretty major baseball news items. Jackson was the first player in awhile, IIRC, to get to 500, and it was three years before Schmidt did it. Today it’s not nearly as big a deal. Sheffield is 24th in home runs; ten of the 24 players who have done it have hit their 500th home runs in the last 17 years.

Realistically, the HOF Monitor isn’t going to work going forward without some adjustments.

264

Maybe not a false positive, but I agree, Palmiero can’t be chalked up to steroids alone. He was an above average home run hitter for 15 years. Even if he walked to home plate with an IV in his arm the entire time, that couldn’t be the only reason.

265

Some facts and background on Piazza and Bagwell. I forgot/hadn’t heard that Piazza acknowledged using creatine and andro and using amphetamines early in his career. Murray Chass appears to have accused Craig Biggio of PED use at random.

266

IMO, Murray Chass should be banned from baseball.

There should be no “taint” upon any player who, before 2004 used legally obtained performance enhancing substances. They weren’t breaking the law, nor were they violating any baseball rule. McGwire should not be judged poorly, IF his only involvement was using over-the-counter andro – (but I believe he admitted to using other stuff, as well.)

In the 2003 series of “survey” tests – the round of tests in which David Ortiz tested positive, andro was one of the substances that would have triggered a positive result, even though andro was not banned by MLB almost 2 years later, and even though legally-obtained, over-the-counter supplements containing andro would have given a positive test.

The fact that Ortiz might be “tainted” for NOT breaking the law and for NOT violating MLB rules and policy is the height of absurdity. Ortiz has called for the public release of that 2003 test, in the expectation, I presume, that might reveal that he did not test positive for a substance that was illegal or banned in 2003. But, MLB maintains that, per agreement with the Players’ Association, those test results remain sealed.

The are players who have continually broken the law and used massive amounts of drugs to maintain a competitive advantage, but there are many more who are just the subjects of an uninformed witch hunt.

267

Not to mention that Palmeiro won a GG in 1999, while playing 128 games as the Rangers DH! (it was awarded for his 28 games played at 1B, so he must have really flashed the leather in those 28 games.)

My judgement on Palmeiro is that between the investigations and his failed test that he was a regular user of PEDS. And although I suspect he would have been a very good player without them, they probably extended his career and that enabled him to reach the 3000 hit/500 HR milestones, which constitute much of his case for the HOF. So, for that reason, I don’t support his candidacy. I think most of the HOF voters will come up with similar types of reasoning, however arbitrary they might be. Clemens gets in, ARod gets in, and Bonds probably does, as well.

I’m less concerned that a player gets into the HOF because of PEDS, than I am that a deserving player is excluded because he’s a victim of a witch hunt. This is a America, where we are presumed to be innocent until the guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet Murray Chass won’t vote for Mike Piazza because he has too many zits on his back.

268

Unless Palmeiro slept with Canseco’s wife or committed some other horrible deed, I find it credible he was part of the steroid club down in Texas. Canseco claimed he personally injected Palmeiro, and that Ivan Rodriquez and Juan Gonzalez also used. Canseco also said that he knew for a fact that Jason Giambi and Mark McGwire were using P.E.D.'s, and we all know how that turned out.

A lot of players who made their debut in the 80’s and 90’s most likely used P.E.D.'s from the beginning. It wouldn’t surprise me if Alex Rodriquez started juicing in high school.

Rather than deciding by witch-hunt, it probably only makes sense to induct the best of the best from that era. Bonds and Clemens definitely. But it would really, really suck if a player, Fred McGriff for example, played completely clean during that span and should have one of the best of his generation, instead of completely forgotten.

269

If Mike Trout had been born a dozen years earlier, and entered the Majors in 2000, I’m sure there would have been suspicion that his all time record WAR for a 20 and 21 year old was achieved through PEDs. I’ve even heard rumors about the 2012-2013 version of Trout.

Lets just hope he doesn’t grow zits on his back, or else Murray Chass will never give Trout his HOF vote.

270

With 101 ballots publicly available, here’s our standings. Piazza is gained 2% since the last time I looked, and Mattingly is back on next year’s ballot:

100 - Maddux
97.0 - Glavine
90.0 - F. Thomas
80.2 - Biggio
———————————
72.3 - Piazza
65.3 - Bagwell
62.4 - Jack (The Jack) Morris
56.4 - Raines
44.6 - Bonds
43.6 - Clemens
38.6 - Schilling
34.7 - Mussina
23.8 - Trammell
19.8 - L. Smith
19.8 - E. Martinez
15.8 - McGriff
12.9 - Kent
11.9 - L. Walker
10.9 - McGwire
8.9 - S. Sosa
7.9 - R. Palmeiro
5.0 - Mattingly

271

Don Mattingly is one of my favorite players but this will probably be the year he falls off the ballot. His peak was too short to make the Hall, but I guess staying on the ballot for so many years is a way to honor players who belong in the Hall of Very Good.

272

Adding up all the votes, real quickly, I see over 900 accumulated player votes for the 101 ballots cast, so far, which means than most of the reported voters are voting for the maximum of 10 players. Which is a good sign. Over the past 25 years, voters have been way too conservative in their votes for players born after 1950. At least according to this article from fangraphs.com

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-hall-of-fames-standard-and-its-biggest-problem/

It seems that too many writers have seen themselves as guardians of the HOF, thinking that the old-timers were more deserving, you know, those guys that played in a White-Only league and played for a few thousand dollars per year.

273

Mattingly deserved to get voted in way before this current logjam of qualified candidates. He was more than qualified to get the “abbreviated-career-due-to-injury exemption” that went to Koufax and Puckett.

I’d say he’d have a shot on some Veterans’ Committee down the line, but I’m afraid they’ll be dealing with a slew of PED-users and those unfairly tainted by that time, and he’ll never get his due.

274

Considering the similarity of their stats and career totals, I’ve always found it a bit strange that Puckett was elected on the first ballot, while Mattingly’s support has never topped 29%. Now Kirby may be just over the line in deserving to get in the Hall, and Donny just under, but I don’t understand why their vote totals were so dramatically different.

275

In Puckett vs Mattingly, it was definitely the post-season. 2 rings for Puckett and a near .900 OPS in October.

But both were worthy. Mattingly was the pure, perfect hitter and worthy of every one of his 8 GG.

276

I dislike that rationale, as it opens up a huge can of worms. Who is to decide what, exactly, is an illness, injury or syndrome which gives them that free pass, and which ones do not (and presumably derive from on-field causes)? Puckett aside, I can’t think of any other electee (on the borderline, to be specific) where an early end to a career was waved off with this kind of rationale. Koufax had an inner-circle quality peak, so he doesn’t really compare.

277

Well, there’s also the nature of the way their careers ended. Puckett suffered from a sudden, frightening blindness that just struck out of the blue and ended his career after a season in which he’d had yet another excellent year; there was a perception his greatness had been unfairly interrupted. Mattingly just wore down because he could not stay healthy.

IMHO, Puckett was also a better player.

278

A big part of it was the widespread but erroneous perception that Puckett was the nicest guy and best role model in baseball.

279

And Mattingly wasn’t? Even Yankees haters loved him.

Puckett’s election was solely down to the fact that he would have reached the magic number of 3,000 hits if the blindness hadn’t hit him a year after he hit .314 with 169 hits and 23 home runs.

280

I definitely remember Puckett having a tremendous amount of discussion around him as being one of the nicest guys in baseball, and don’t remember anything similar about Mattingly (not that he was considered a jerk or anything). Plus, you have the fact that Puckett played very good centerfield, which is viewed as far more valuable than an elite first baseman.