MLB: Hall of Fame ballot out. Vote you slackers!

In My Humble Opinion
41

Bert Blyleven - Yes. Just as good a pitcher as Nolan Ryan without the hype.

Joe Carter - Hell, no. Not even a really GOOD player.

Dave Concepcion - Better than people remember but not the best shortstop available, so no.

Danny Darwin - Yeah, right.

Andre Dawson - good player for a long time but not even reasonably close to being the best outfielder not yet enshrined, so, no.

Doug Drabek - No.

Dennis Eckersley - Borderline; I’m not sure I’d vote for him. If you add his two careers together he’s pretty good, better than some HoF pitchers, but not as good as a lot of guys who aren’t in.

Jim Eisenreich - Like the guy, but, uhh, n0.

Cecil Fielder - No.

Steve Garvey - Garvey was a hell of a player; his reputation has suffered from his marital indiscretions and the long-held but erroneous stathead belief that he was the worst defensive first baseman ever. But he wasn’t good enough, IMHO.

Rich Gossage - Yes. Best relief pitcher not yet in, IMHO.

Keith Hernandez - Maybe if he had a longer career, but as it stands it was a little short for his abilities to be HoF material.

Tommy John - Would be an okay choice, but I’d rather vote for Blyleven. Doesn’t get my vote.

Jimmy Key - Tommy John in a shorter career.

Dennis Martinez - No.

Don Mattingly - I have never understood why Don Mattingly gets so much attention and controversy over this question when Keith Hernandez doesn’t. Mattingly wasn’t any better a player than Keith Hernandez - in fact, I believe Hernandez was better. Mattingly had a bit more power, but Hernandez got on base more often, and it’s about a wash. Mattingly was a really good defensive first baseman, but Hernandez was WAY better. Hernandez played longer by about 300 games. Hernandez played for two World Champions, Mattingly only saw one ALDS. Both players won one MVP Award and finished second one other time. Why would anyone advocate Mattingly but not Hernandez?

Kevin Mitchell - Somewhere, Kevin Mitchell is super sizing that.

Paul Molitor - Yes.

Jack Morris - No. Really good pitcher, but not any better than a lot of other guys. He did have that one amazing game, but Lew Burdette did better than that.

Dale Murphy - With reservations, no. He was better than he is remembered, but there are a lot of guys with comparable numbers not yet in.

Randy Myers - He’s retired?

Dave Parker - No, see Dale Murphy.

Terry Pendleton - No.

Jim Rice - Overrated. Not as good a player as Murphy or Parker.

Juan Samuel - Ha ha ha ha!

Ryne Sandberg - Yes. The best second baseman in the major leagues at the time, which is a pretty good thing to be.

Lee Smith - Pitched only about 2/3 the innings of Goose Gossage, so I will stick with Gossage as my bullpen man for this ballot.

Dave Stieb - A truly great pitcher there for a few years but nobody noticed. So were a lot of other guys. No.

Bruce Sutter - I prefer Gossage.

Bob Tewksbury - Nope.

Alan Trammell - Yes. Perhaps one of the ten best shortstops ever.

Fernando Valenzuela - No.

42

Ya know, RickJay, you’re not prohibited from having more than one reliever… :wink:

43

That’s cold, man.

Discussion: Several times it’s been brought up that so-and-so is ‘the best at position X not in the HoF’.

But isn’t that sort of the (literal) beginning of the slippery slope? I mean…there will ALWAYS be someone who’s the best at position X not in the hall. Wouldn’t that lead to the much-maligned Jim Eisenreich making a speech at Cooperstown someday.

44

Molitor
Eckersly

Probably Sandberg

Possibly Blyleven

Sorry, I just flat out hate this argument! Why compound 1 (or 50) mistakes with another?

45

I get soooo tired of the argument that playing in New York is a huge advantage to guys who want to win awards. Fact is, it’s not true. Not by a long shot.

Quick- how many New York Mets have EVER won an MVP award? Answer: none.

Over the past 30 years, no team has won more championships than the Yankees- but in that time, only twice has the MVP award gone to a Yankee (Munson in '76, Mattingly in '85), and only twice has a Yankee won a Cy Young award (Lyle in '77 and Guidry in '78).

As for Phil Rizzuto, well, remember that we was kept OUT of the Hall of Fame by the allegedly “New York-dominated” media, and was elected by the cronyistic Veterans’ Committee.

Now, am I saying that numerous worthy New York players have been ripped off? Not at all. Only a few times have New York players with the right numbers been shunned- and in those cases, the guys who DID win were alkso worthy candidates (I’d have given the '78 MVP award to Ron Guidry, but I can’t get outraged over Jim Rice winning instead- he had a great year, too).

I merely note that the sportswriters have NOT gone out of their way to bestow undeserved honors on New York players. Heck, more Texas Rangers have won major awards than Yankees! When are we going to hear about the Arlington media conspiracy?

New York players have NOT been favored in awards voting, and New York teams are NOT overrepresented in the Hall of Fame. If anything, the Yankees are UNDER-represented, because their greatest teams were built around platoons and role-players, not around superstars.

46

Well, that would be why I mentioned the ‘Veteran’s Committee’ there, astorian.

The fact is the BBWAA is sort of like the Senate…only two votes for the seasonal awards per team per league per year.

But the Veteran’s Committee (as it used to be convened) was stocked with what Bill James called (in The Politics of Glory) Yogi’s pals.

I like the new system better where the Veteran’s Committee is largely comprised of all the living players in the HoF. At a minimum it makes for a larger cohort that one has to persuade.

47

I don’t think the argument was that New York players have an unfair advantage when it comes to awards. You make the contrary case pretty well, and the “1 city 2 votes” mechanism the BBWA uses for awards does seem to prevent excessive influence by NY writers. But there’s a difference between who gets selected for the MVP, Cy Young, ROY, etc., and who gets selected for the HOF. For one thing, the HOF balloting tends to reflect the overall reputation of players, and I think it’s indisputable that players for NY teams generally get more media exposure than players with small-market teams. Just because they don’t win awards disproportionately doesn’t meant that they aren’t on national broadcasts more often or that they don’t get more press outside their home market. This is important in particular because of the membership criteria for the BBWAA, which is open only to writers for print media outlets (no broadcasters or Internet-only pundits), but which allows writers who no longer cover baseball as their primary responsibility (or at all) to retain their membership and HOF voting rights. There’re a lot of living fossils in the BBWAA who haven’t been to a game in years, who may never watch a whole game on the tube, and who only know what they hear on the local news or on Sports Center before they nod off at night – yet they continue to make up part of the electorate for the HOF. That’s where the extra media exposure for New York (and to a degree, L.A.) players comes into play.

Hmm. Not favored in awards voting, I’ll grant. Not overrepresented in the HOF, I’ll argue. In particular, John McGraw’s Giants clubs and the Yankees of the 1920s-1950s have each provided questionable HOFers: Dave Bancroft, Travis Jackson, Roger Bresnahan, Fred Lindstrom, Earle Combs, Phil Rizzuto, etc.

48

Let’s see, how many small-market players were elected to the HOF on the first ballot?

Robin Yount
Kirby Puckett
Ozzy Smith
Willie Stargell

On the other hand, guys like Joe Dimaggio, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford all had to wait a few years.

Sorry, I do NOT see any indication that writers go out of their way to reward New York players.

49

Your examples of small-market first ballot HOFers are all from the last 10-15 years, while your examples of Yankee superstars who had to wait are somewhat older. (DiMaggio was elected in his first year of eligibility, BTW; retired after 1951 season, elected 1955). IIRC, there was a period around mid-century (late 40s to at least the mid/late 60s) when the structure of the HOF balloting made it incredibly difficult for the BBWAA to elect anyone to the Hall. In many of those years, no one was elected at all. Indeed, for a while the BBWAA and Veteran’s Committee alternated years, making it impossible for many players to be elected the first year they were eligible. Because there was no provision for dropping players from the BBWAA ballot as there is now, the writers were continually selecting from a steadily increasing number of eligible players, which made it extremely unlikely that any one player would be named on at least 75% of the ballots. The balloting is handled very differently now, making first-ballot selections much more common. Don’t have the details at hand, but I believe Bill James covers this in depth in his book The Politics of Glory, aka Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame.

It’s not necessarily the writers, BTW, despite my earlier comments. A lot of the marginal HOFers from NY teams are there because of cronyism on the part of the Veteran’s Committee, as Jonathan Chance pointed out. Nevertheless, the reason the VC was able to make a case for some of these guys is that they tend to be better known and better remembered than equivalent players who didn’t spend their careers in NYC.

50

The HOF should be for players who at some point in their careers were at least legitimate candidates for the best player in MLB.

Sandberg could have been nominated for several years as the best player in the game and the selection would have had to been taken seriously, even if you didn’t buy it ultimately.

Then the question becomes “For how long might this player have been the best in the game?”

Andre Dawson: yes, for a year or two
Dennis Eckersley maybe, for a few years
Steve Garvey: maybe, for a few years
Don Mattingly: yes, but very briefly
Dale Murphy: yes
Jim Rice: yes
Ryne Sandberg: yes, for quite a while

Everyone else, no.

So my vote is for Sandberg.

51

What part of the phrase ‘Veteran’s Committee’ am I not communicating here?

52

And, lest we not be willing to put our votes where our mouths are…

Please vote for the STATLG-L Hall of Fame

They’ll announce the winners (if any) the day before the writers list is announced.

And here’s some history of the Internet HoF balloting.

Enjoy!

53

That’s not correct; DiMaggio was rejected his first time on the ballot. At that time there was no five-year waiting period.

Jon, I have to admit the case for New York bias is not strongly made. You have made half the case for a FRANKIE FRISCH bias for the Giants of the 1920s, and yes, those were terrible selections. But those selections were made thirty years ago, and you know as well as I do the story there isn’t New York, it’s Frisch.

Earle Combs and Phil Rizzuto are outliers, but so are Harry Hooper, Rabbit Maranville, Tinkers, Evers and Chance, and a bunch of other guys. Every city has some weird, stupid Hall of Fame selections. Today’s voting patterns do not suggest a bias to me, and the VC is overhauled.

54

I don’t want to hear anybody knockin’ Jim Eisenreich. He is my hero, and if I had it my way he’d be a first-ballot selection. He is proof to anyone that skinny white guys everywhere can stil lmake the league minimum in exchange for average fielding and a .270 average! Ok, so maybe this is a little sarcastic, but seriously, being a Phillies fan for life, he is one of my favorite players of all time. Without him, we’d have never been there to lose to Molitor’s Jays in '93. I still hate everything related to Toronto to this day…

55

Eisenreich should at least have a place in the Physically Challenged wing of the Hall. Lessee, we got him with his Tourette’s, Jim “Lefty” Abbott, one-armed Pete Gray, Three-Finger Brown … c’mon, help a brother out here.

56

… the 2003 Detroit Tigers …

57

Eckersley, not Smith and Gossage was the one who started the practice of being brought in for simply the last out of the game, whereas Gossage would be brought in as early as the 7th inning in some games, so you’re wrong on that one.

What unsportsmanlike behavior did Jim Rice exhibit? This is news to me and I don’t recall articles screaming about such behavior coming from him during his playing days either. Unless you are trying to say that his relationship with the press constitutes unsportsmanlike behavior, in which case you really have no ground to stand on.

Rob Neyer in his excellent book Rob Neyers Big Book Of Baseball Lineups has an excellent essay about Lou Whittaker and Alan Trammel. During their playing days they were considered the best 2nd baseman/shortstop combo and were locks for the Hall of Fame.

Unfortunately, just as they retired the current offensive explosion started in MLB and they were forgotten about, with the result that Whittaker now has no chance of getting into the Hall of Fame, unless the rules for eligibility are changed.

Which is sad because “Sweet Lou” and Alan deserve to go in.