Edgar is at 70% and has one year left. So close.
I was encouraged to see Mussina at 63.5%.
The biggest surprise to me is Vizquel at 37%, apart from four idiots voting for Hideki Matsui…are they counting Japan league stats?
(Just from the eyeball test, I always thought Guerrero was better than Thome)
Surprised Johan Santana was one-and-done. He was one of the top pitchers in the game at his prime, however brief that was.
As evidenced by the upcoming induction of Trammell and Morris, you never really have one year left.
Edgar Martinez will be in the Hall of Fame someday. If the BBWAA doesn’t elect him next year, which I think it’s likely they will, some special committee will induct him in the future.
So am I.
The argument for Santana is similar to the argument for, say, Dale Murphy. But as you have said, pitchers are underrepresented in the Hall of Fame. There are lots of players basically as good as Dale Murphy. One could very easily name 100, 150 position players better than Dale Murphy - but I do not for a second believe one could name 100 pitchers better than Johan Santana.
Unless you’re a PED guy, because no way in hell is the veterans’ committee letting those guys in.
Speaking of PED guys, Bonds and Clemens are at 56% and 57%, respectively. They have four years left on the writers’ ballots. I think there’s a greater-than-zero chance they’ll make it.
Oh, yeah. Not a slam dunk by any means, but as older ballot voters die off or quit, the percentage will go up. I think there are also voters who just want to make them sweat until their last year of eligibility. I expect them both to get in their last year.
Yes, they absolutely will, in the case of clearly qualified candidates. Bonds and Clemens will get in even if they run out of BBWAA years, and David Ortiz will be voted in very quickly. Even Mark McGwire will get in eventually. Might take a long time, but he’ll get in.
Same here. Does defense mean nothing to some people?
I suspect some voters are just making a gesture toward a player they liked personally. The Hall vote is, after all, the closing ceremony for the career of a guy who was good enough to play in the majors for 10 years, which is no small thing. There’s no value other than some sense of purity in giving a guy who won’t make it anyway zero votes on what should be a proud day for him, and no harm in tossing him a vote or two to show he was remembered and appreciated.
Well, I don’t see anyone angling to put Mark Belanger or Jim Sundberg in the Hall of Fame.
Omar was a great glove man - he wasn’t as good as Ozzie or Mark Belanger were, but he was really great, and for a way longer time than most glove men - but no one seemed to think he was all that great a player when he was playing. Only once did he appear in MVP voting, and he didn’t make many All-Star teams, which granted was a tough position during his career, but still.
He wouldn’t be the worst guy in the Hall of Fame, but there are many more deserving. Andruw Jones was every bit the glove man Omar was and a way better hitter, but he got like ten percent. Devon White was just as good a player as Omar Vizquel.
Within their lifetimes? I don’t know. Do you think Rafael Palmeiro is a clearly qualified candidate? He’s a 3000/500 guy. Would he already be in if not for PEDs? Do you think he’ll eventually get in?
Rafi fell off the writers’ ballot 4 years ago, after being on it for 4 years. He never even got 12% of the writers’ votes and has not been nominated for consideration by the veterans’ committee.
Andruw Jones played a less demanding defensive position than Omar, and much more importantly, Omar didn’t become a parody of himself at the end of his career. I think Jones did a massive disservice continuing to come back those last few years where his knees were blown and he got wider than he was tall.
Was Vizquel good enough defensively to overcome a career .688 OPS? A .336 OBP? 82 OPS+
No.
If I had to place a bet either way, I’d say he will.
In the long run they get in. Lots and lots of players who really weren’t regarded as Hall of Famers for a long time got in eventually. Eventually emotion goes away and numbers matter. Palmiero has numbers. He’s legitimately a huge asshole, but that gets forgotten over the years.
As to the first point, center field is an immensely important position and a great center fielder can be just as valuable as a great shortstop. andruw Jones was an AWESOME center fielder.
As to the second, yes, Jones’s career ended earlier than Vizquel’s. He was still a better player.
Should Andruw Jones be in the Hall of Fame? I’m not saying that; he didn’t make my ballot. There are many players who should be inducted before he is. But that serves to illustrate how weak Vizquel’s case was. Let’s do a Keltner List. (Note: I always modify my way of doing the Keltner List, but that doesn’t matter.)
Of course not.
He was not, not in any one season and not over the course of a number of seasons.
No. This is a hard test, since he was a contemporary of Jeter, Garciaparra, and A-Rod, but it’s hard to imagine him being the best shortstop in baseball at any time. His best three-year run was probably 1997-1999, in which he amassed 12.8 WAR. I think the best shortstop in baseball will usually bear that pretty easily.
There wasn’t any season when Omar had a big impact on a pennant race. This is a hard standard.
This is a new question of my own devise; if you ain’t looking at the postseason performance of guys like Mariano Rivera or Manny Ramirez you’re missing a big part of the story.
Anyway, no. Omar didn’t play especially well in the playoffs. He never won a playoff series MVP Award, and never won a World Series.
Obviously he did. Vizquel had almost his entire career value after the age of 27 and played a really long time.
Yes. There actually aren’t a lot of players WITH comparable numbers, just because he played in a lot of games for a shortstop. The top three comparable players - Aparicio, Maranville, and Ozzie - are all Hall of Famers. #4 is Bill Dahlen but he played in the 19th century so who cares. #5 is Davey Concepcion, who isn’t in, and after that the comparisons are pretty vague. Aparicio and Maranville are legitimately similar; Smith, for reasons I’ll go into later, isn’t a great comparison.
Omar was a very poor hitter for a Hall of Famer, but that said he was as good as Aparicio and Maranville, more or less. I guess the question is how good their choices were. That said, far more players - even shortstops - in the Hall of Fame are way better hitters. Those guys are outliers.
Omar Vizquel is often compared to Ozzie Smith, who is in the Hall of Fame, because they’re similar players and I think it helps both their names start with O. It’s often argued Omar is as good as Ozzie so he should get in.
Omar Vizquel was NOT as good a player as Ozzie Smith. He just wasn’t. Ozzie Smith was a better player on both sides of the ball. Omar was a great fielder, but Ozzie was the GREATEST fielder; in my opinion Ozzie Smith was actually the best fielder in the history of baseball, at any position. That’s no insult to Omar, just as it would be no insult to a really great quarterback to say he wasn’t as great as Tom Brady.
Where stats will throw you is in offensive numbers. Superficially Omar looks like a decent hitter, better than Ozzie. He was not; he was measurably less valuable. The offensive context of Ozzie’s career is WAY different than Omar’s. Teams in the AL in the 90s scored a shitload more runs than teams in the NL in the 80s.
In 1985, when Ozzie had a really good year and the Cardinals won the pennant, the BEST offensive team in the NL, the Cardinals, scored 747 runs. During Omar’s day, 747 runs would have been a pathetic offense.
There aren’t a whole lot of particular strong shortstop candidates, actually, now that Trammell is in, unless you count guys yet to come, like Jeter, A-Rod, and the like.
In my opinion, once you discount guys not eligible yet, the best shortstop ever who isn’t in the Hall is Bert Campaneris, who was a hell of a player. There are lots of other guys at least as good as Omar and some probably better.
Omar was mentioned in MVP voting only once, in 1999, when he got all of 3 points. If elected to the Hall he would absolutely be the least-MVP-mentioned player of modern times in the Hall.
Three All Star games, which is below HOF standards but it’s not a clinch; Robin Yount only went to three. It’s not a point in his favor.
No. He wasn’t that good. Maybe is a really weak division? Omar’s career high in WAR was 6 even, and I can’t think of any pennant winners who didn’t have a player at least a little better than that, and that was far and away his best year. He was a really good player but you need better ones to win a pennant.
No.
Sure he was.
That’s not a great list.
And the Miami fire sale, Part 3, continues. Christian Yelich to the Brewers.
This trade makes sense though, they finally got a bunch of real prospects back. Yelich is less about saving money and more about, they aren’t going to compete while he’s a Marlin anyway, so for a good prospect group, well worth moving him. For the Brewers, a very good young player only due $7M,$9.75M,$12.5M,$14M,$1.25M/15M.
The Brewers also picked up **Lorenzo Cain **for 5 years, $80m total. Nice to add 2 CF within hours. Should really help their outfield.
That’s cheaper than I would have figured Cain to go. Either the market is down or teams were down on him specifically; my guess is the former by the way so many of the bigger names are still out there.
Probably a combination of both. The market is indeed slow, but Cain’s a speed guy who’s already in his 30’s so was probably not going to get both big money and lots of years. He probably could have gotten more per year for a shorter contract, but I guess he wanted more years.
Some of these guys might be good ballplayers in time for the next Marlins fire sale.
Speaking of the Marlins, I *finally *got around to watching Dan LeBatard interview Rob Manfred from last month. That was even better than I thought it would be. If you haven’t seen it, check it out on youtube. It was brutal. I have no idea what Manfred was thinking when he accepted that interview.
Manfred’s best answer turned out to be a lie; he claimed to not know the Marlins were going to do this, and that was a lie.
And it’s gotten worse since. The Marlins are a joke, and this fire sale is a joke, and after fleecing the taxpayer for billions, to empty the team of affordable talent is a travesty. They’re making money by ripping off the taxpayer, pure and simple.
Milwaukee has a pretty crowded outfield - wonder if they try to move Ryan Braun or Domingo Santana; Santana would fetch a lot more because I’m sure a lot of teams would be leery of taking on Braun’s contract.