Seemed like a natural given football poll. Includes anyone who already announced his retirement but was active in the majors this past season (so Manny Ramirez isn’t eligible even tho he spent some time in the minors)-must have 10 reasonably full seasons to qualify.
Poll is public.
For the sake of clarity (and suggesting omissions) this poll includes Active players (who’ve already played the minimum of ten years - Ortiz, Mauer) AND those that have announced retirement AND played last year - Rivera, Pettitte) What about those who’ve retired in the past 5 years, but not eligible for HOF voting – Randy Johnson, Smoltz Delgado, Griffey?
Also, Verlander has only played for 9 seasons… same as Felix Hernandez
Voted for Pujols, Jeter, Halladay, Helton, Suzuki, and Rivera.
Not to pick on Adrian Beltre–I’d love to have him on my team–but it’s interesting to me how unimpressive his career offensive totals actually are. I suspect that very few people know that he trails Luke Scott, Carlos Quentin, and Jason Bay, often by a lot, in both career slugging percentage and career on-base percentage. You need a mighty heap of defensive value, and a major uptick for playing a bunch of games in Dodger Stadium and Seattle, to make up for that. Evidently WAR gives it to him, as he ranks as the 4th-top position player; perhaps I should be more sold on his current HoF credentials than I am.
Cabrera might be there already, same with Beltran. They’ve obviously both been wonderful players, and Cabrera, in particular, will eventually go in easily.
I haven’t voted for Mark McGwire in any of these polls, partly but not exclusively because of the PED issue. However, he’s a good comp for both Giambi and Ortiz, and it’s not a favorable comparison to either of them. McGwire leads Giambi in HR and slugging percentage by quite a bit and trails him by only a small amount in OBP, and McGwire leads Ortiz in all three categories (by 40 points in slugging). Throwing in the difficulty of home parks gives McGwire a significant lead in WAR over Giambi and particularly over Ortiz, if WAR floats your boat. Obviously both Giambi and Ortiz have PED issues of their own, too. Bottom line: I can’t justify voting for either G or O if I’m not voting for McGwire; he has to go in first.
I love Chase Utley. Give him some more time. Same with Joe Mauer.
Interesting poll. Thanks.
I still can’t figure out how poorly Beltre did in Seatte, the OPS+ adusts for park factor, no? I know he played with injury, a lot, with the Mariners, in part to justify the big contract they gave him. Some consideration should be given to those players that play through injury, at the expense of their non-counting stats.
But Beltre should get in by sheer longevity. He’s under 600 hits from 3000, and 125 HRs from 500, which are possible if he keeps on going strong for a couple of more seasons, then hangs in there. But of course, he’s been playing in the majors since he was 19 (hit his 100th career homer 1 day before he turned 25), so there’s always a chance he just runs out of steam.
btw, voted for the three no-brainers (Rivera, Pujols, Jeter), one near-certain lock in Suzuki, and also Ortiz, who, while a little short on WAR, has the best narrative of any candidate. Others (Helton, Giambi, Utley are possibles.)
Surprised, as usual, by how deep runs the anti-PED current. I voted for only four players, the four I view as obvious Hall of Famers: Rivera, Pujols, Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez. Everyone seems to agree on the first three, but A-Rod isn’t even at 50% of the vote, in spite of the fact that he is the best player on the list, and produced the most value over the longest time.
I get it, I do… but I wonder if this approach is going to, eventually, lead to a Hall of Fame that has no relevance as a useful archive of baseball history. If the three greatest players of the last 25 years are all out of the Hall, as seems increasingly likely, what’s the use of having a Hall at all? What does it tell us?
I voted for A-Rod, Jeter, Ichiro, Mariano Rivera, Halladay, Beltre, Beltran and Miguel Cabrera. I’m a pretty big hall guy.
I’m surprised at the lack of support for Halladay. He’s done, so I guess people are saying he’s not hall-worthy?
Also surprised by how low Cabrera ranked. If he (god forbid) suffered a career-ending injury over the winter, does anyone really think he wouldn’t get in to the hall on the first ballot? An eight time All-Star, a three time batting champ and a two time MVP would appear to the traditionalists, and while the sabermetric crowd will penalize him a bit for below average defense, his OBP and SLG are off the charts.
For me Halladay doesn’t quite get there. Very close though, and I could perhaps be persuaded. JAWS has his peak about right, but his career number a bit low (which matches with my gut feeling).
I voted for Cabrera, but now I think he probably needs a few more years as well to go from “possible” to "certain. Carlos Beltran, for example, has basically the same 7-year peak but over 13 more career WAR than Cabrera.
Agreed entirely. A Hall of Fame without Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens makes no sense.
ARod is a wait-and-see what comes out for me. I’m not a moralist, and thus have a very low standard when interpreting the “character clause” in the instructions to HOF voters. But it has been alleged that ARod, interfered with MLB’s investigation of the Florida lab. I think that qualifies as extreme damage to the game, that, to me, exceeds the sins of Pete Rose. Now these are just allegations, and they may never be proven or even pursued, and if it ends up that way then ARod gets my support. But I want to give it a while. Same logic applies to Bonds and Clemens. Let them wait. These ass-clowns were already at the top of the heap vs. their peers, but they used PEDs to be at the top of all-time players.
One last comment about ARod’s candidacy for the HOF.
Below is one of the instructions given to HOF voters:
“Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”
ARod rated on a scale from 1 to 10:
Now you don’t have to give equal weight to each of those categories, but not that the Hall put in THREE categories that are non-performance related – Integrity, Sportmanship and Character.
So, although I may disagree with those writers who absolutely won’t consider admitted/caught PED users, I can certainly understand their logic.
The “5” you’ve assigned Rodriguez under “contributions to his team” is a massive under-rate; he’s a three-time MVP (and a two-time runner up) who had “good post-seasons” in 2000 and 2004 (and decent post-seasons in 1997 and 2007) well before 2009. He carried teams to the playoffs that would have been .500 teams without him; replace Rodriguez with Derek Jeter - Hall of Famer Derek Jeter - and the 2000 Seattle Mariners miss the playoffs by four games. And I would imagine that the Mariners, Yankees, and Rangers have all been happy with the millions of dollars worth of merchandise they’ve sold (and indeed, tickets they’ve sold) because Alex Rodriguez was contributing his name, likeness, and (once upon a time) popularity to their franchise.
As for the rest, I guess I’d disagree that usage of performance enhancing drugs inherently gives a player scores of 1 or 2 in the categories of integrity, sportsmanship, and character, unless you define those three terms to be identical.
“Character” encompasses a wide variety of things, for example, and while Rodriguez is certainly not a perfect or even a particularly good man, he doesn’t appear to have done any of the things that really register on my “poor character” meter. He’s not known for trying to hurt people or being a racist or misogynist, he’s not a psychotic bully, he’s not a deadbeat dad, he doesn’t appear to be violent in real life, he’s not associated with meaningful financial fraud. He cheated at baseball, and that’s bad, but if we’re assigning a score of 1-10 for character, where 1 is the most low-down, awful human being you can imagine (let’s say Ty Cobb, just for kicks) and 10 is an actual living saint, I don’t think cheating at baseball gets you anywhere near so far down the list as a “2.”
Aaron Hernandez/Rae Carruth. Partly because murder is worse than the stuff Cobb did, and partly because I think Cobb would be angry he’s losing his position to minority guys.
Who voted against Rivera, Jeter, and Suzuki?
So far Mean Mr. Mustard is the only person who didn’t vote for Mo. He voted for Cabrera and Verlander and nobody else.
ARod gets a “5” in Team Contribution because for the past 12 years he’s been paid $25-$30 million per year, but, until 2009, he didn’t deliver in the post-season. And, all too often, he’s been a distraction to his team, for his antics on and off the field. I gave him 10/10 in performance and ability, so there’s no need to double count. The Yankees would have been in better shape if they’d spread that money around.
ARod gets a “2” in character, because I’m more concerned with ARod’s character in regards to his baseball career, rather than his private life. In 2007, he got a 10 year deal from the Yankees, based, primarily on the fact that he was seen, then, as MLB’s “clean” superstar who’d regain the all time Homer record that Bonds had “stolen” from Hank Aaron. A year later, ARod goes on 60 Minutes and lies to Katie Couric, that he’d ONLY used PEDS in Texas – no one made him do that, it was just ARod trying to spin revelations. Then when he’s caught by MLB in connection with the Florida Lab, he a) Gives money to the Lab for their legal fees and b) Tries to implicate other players so as to not be the only leading player caught in the NET.
Sure, some of this is allegation, which is why I need time to see it play out, but this is beyond integrity and sportsmanship. ARod is a complete P.O.S.
This again?
Can you quantify this in some way? I think you should since you’re assigning it a great deal of importance. How many games do you think his “being a distraction” cost them?
In some seasons that’s been true. But that’s also not his fault; that’s the way the system works.
Not at all. He got a 10-year deal from the Yankees because they needed him.
I voted for Jeter, Ichiro, Rivera, and Cabrera.
I agree with the sentiment, but I can’t bring myself to vote for A-Rod. Not because of the PEDs, or even the other “character issues”, but because I think he’s been a huge bust considering the obscene amount of money he was given.
I freely admit that ‘size of contract’ should have nothing to do with HOF voting, and it’s not his ‘fault’ that two different teams were willing to grossly overpay for his services, but I just can’t stand the guy. I didn’t like him when he went to Texas, and my opinion only soured more when he donned the pinstripes…but that’s entirely a personal issue 
ARod as distraction:
Going into this offseason, the Yankees don’t know what their payroll number will be for 2014, because of ARod’s appeal of his suspension. Even if ARod’s suspension is cut down to 100 games, that 1/3rd of a season will but them over the $189 mil figure which they were trying to stay under, but if they can’t then they’ll just go over and sign everything in sight. It’s interesting to note that MLB was willing to compromise with ARod last summer, and lower their original suspension, because they wanted it all done with. Every player took the penalty or cut a deal, except ARod… to the detriment of the Yankees.
And remember ARod in the 2004 ALCS when he slapped the ball out of Arroyo’s glove in game 6? The Yankees are trying to pull out of a death spiral that led to the biggest choke in sports history, and the last thing they should have had to deal with was Ole Slappy McBluelips.
Plenty of others, but the day grows short.
And as far as your assertion that ARod’s 10 year deal had nothing to do with his being the ‘savior’ from the PED era, recall that his contract had 3 massive bonuses for reaching milestones 660, 716 and 763 homers. I think they totalled over $30 million.
As storyteller0910 showed (or a quick look at his stats will tell you), he played extremely well under that first contract. He was juicing, of course, but if we’re just talking about what he did on the field he was not a bust at all.
I’m not sure I can buy this as a “distraction;” it’s a real thing with a major financial impact.
Yes, I remember. It made him look like an asshole. They were losing that game at the time. In what way did it contribute to the outcome of the series? With this kind of reasoning you can call anything a distraction. Granted: with this guy it’s always something. But I think people tend to forget that most of this crap is of no import and affects nobody except the RO public.
It does. That turned out to be a great thing because the Yankees won’t have to pay that money.
The size of a player’s contract should not affect evaluation of his performance or ability, but it is fair play when evaluating his contribution to his team. Top players that give home-town discounts, (Pedroia for example) is going to be evaluated higher than, say Cano, if they end up with comparable WAR.
Again, I’m just rating according to the 6 categories that the HOF includes in their instructions to the voters. How much weight a voter gives to each category is an individual matter.