currently active players with a shot at the hall of fame

It's not that I doubt that--mathematically, it's seems highly probable that a guy with a lot of career wins gets most of them after 30, unless it's someone who's winning regularly out of the gate, like Seaver--it's just that "more about durability than talent" strikes me as tautological at first glance. Putting aside the Fidryches and Priors of the world, guys with a limited amount of talent never get the chance to be durable; they're out of the league before they're 30.

seaver's wins pivoted around his age 30 season

saying "more about durability than talent" doesn't mean "durability matters and talent doesn't"

"xp lol no way on ortiz? is that "should" or "would"? he'll be jim rice 2.0 except with 500 homers possibly"

I mean he's not even 2/3s as good as Edgar. I don't see how he gets more consideration in any kind of rational world.

have you watched espn at any point over the last 10 years

"rational"

i mean a couple years ago he seemed like a no-chancer but he's got a third ring now and a couple more ortiz-like years under his belt, and he could definitely get the "most feared hitter of his era" comment over and over again if it came down to it

meanwhile edgar has "fourth most famous mariner in the 90s", bbwaa doesn't give a shit

I think you're both right, you're just looking at it two different ways. Edgar was the better hitter and more deserving. But, for the reasons zach mentions, Ortiz seems far more likely to be inducted. Although, as I said on another thread, I think Edgar's non-induction will be a lingering obstacle for Ortiz; there will always be a block of voters who won't vote for Ortiz knowing that Edgar hasn't gone in first.

1) he's a dh so there'll always be voters who won't give him the time of day.
2) he's not even the best eligible dh so there'll always be a sabermetric voting block that's down on him.
3) his stats are really not that great.

i dunno about #3. HOF or no, he has some solid career stats. i certainly would not describe it as "not that great".

I think his stats are great, just not all-time great and the HOF is no lock nor necessary deserved at this stage. still he's a really impressive hitter and I think he will get bonus points for the postseason.

Ortiz's election is all but a certainty after last year.

#3 I meant to say he's not a historically great hitter. He's probably one of the best 100 hitters ever, but considering thats the only value he brings to the table I don't think that qualifies as "that great". Certainly there are plenty of even contemporary dudes with similar offensive #s who actually played a position who won't get much consideration.

With less groomed facial hair though...

The other thing you can't discount is the PED association. (I just read up on it again--Ortiz's association is cloudy, but it's there.) If Bagwell and Piazza are having a hard time merely because of suspected use--two guys who would otherwise be first-ballot automatic--will the voters choose a DH to break precedent?

You guys are somehow overlooking that he has three rings and a million big postseason hits.

A lot of voters think that Andy Pettitte is a HOF'er because of the rings and his postseason record. They're more than happy to overlook the PED's if the right narrative is there. And Pettitte wasn't even that good in the regular or postseason.

they're willing to overlook it if the player doesn't strike anyone as a typical bagwellesque roider, eg non-firethrowing SPs

and pettitte was worth 68 fWAR!

You guys say they're willing to overlook, but neither Ortiz nor Pettite has been on the ballot yet. Thus far, they're not overlooking anything if you've been tangibly connected to PEDs; they're not overlooking people who are strongly suspected to have been connected; they even seem to be slow on Biggio, who played with a guy who is suspected. I just don't know what precedent you're basing your optimistic outlook with regards to Ortiz on.

Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, I'm trying to figure out what will happen, not what I think should.

David Ortiz (no way)
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Sunday, March 30, 2014 7:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I see ortiz in a jim rice situation where mystique RINGS ECMB/CHBF gets him in ahead of more-betterer DHs like Edgar or DKHGHSDKGHSFLKJHSTEROTIDS??? Bagwell etc.

I've already said what I think should happen and I seriously doubt that Ortiz will make the HOF.

But I'm not watching enough Sports Center apparently.

You are a v smart person

tbh i think a good deal of the "not voting bagwell bc he might've used steroids" people are just saying that as a weird excuse to not vote for him for other reasons that don't hold up as well as they used to (ie slugging 1B with no trad career milestones/not exciting or 'storied or flashy enough), and ortiz won't have any of that. frank thomas didn't.

Frank Thomas about twice as good a player as Ortiz is.

yes but a huge chunk of voters are not going to agree with that, which is the whole point, why do you keep ignoring the point

even if the majority of voters know ortiz was worse, thomas got in first ballot and ortiz (like jim rice, also a much worse player than frank) has 15 years

was just trying to say that not every slugger in the strd era is going to get bagwelled when sluggers worse than bags are still getting in

Rice got in with 76.4% in his 15th year of eligibility, and I have to believe that a decent percentage of his vote came from old-school writers who believed they were making a point about PEDs (McGwire was already on the ballot, many were about to come on). I'm just not sure Rice is a good precedent for anyone, least of all Ortiz. At least not in the immediate future--15 years down the road, if the writers take a more benign view of PEDs, you might be right.

(I don't see that great post-season player + three titles supersedes PED association at the moment. Neither even MVPs nor seven Cy Youngs does.)

"seven MVPs"

(Morbius aghast: "DON'T YOU REALIZE THEY'RE PLAYING BASEBALL TODAY.")

Ortiz has all the intangibles that the voters love (championships, clutch performer, great teammate), Rice and Thomas got in despite not having those intangibles (they never won anything unless you count Thomas with the '05 Sox when he was injured for nearly the whole year, both had reputations for being prima donna a-holes). I think Ortiz is closer than Thomas to being the kind of player that the writers love to elect.

wasn't bringing up rice to make a point about PEDs but about the length of time ortiz has to make it to 75% -- like ok, so the voters know frank was better than ortiz (probably) but frank only needed a year to get in, there's a huge cushion

when i said "worse sluggers than bagwell" i was talking about frank

has ortiz ever actually been linked to PEDs?

As I mentioned above, I went back and tried to refresh my memory on the details. I searched high and low (i.e., I went to Wikipedia):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ortiz#Alleged_positive_performance-enhancing-drug_test_in_2003

So it's murky. But the voters thus far haven't seemed to be big on nuance when it comes to PEDs.

cliff lee inched that much closer to the hall with his 140th career win today: 5 IP, 8 R, 11 H, 1 BB, 1 K, 14.40 ERA, 13 game score

kinda makes up for his 2012 season

Thomas won two MVP awards (including one unanimously). That's a pretty big intangible. Thomas was also a monster ballplayer. Despite probably being as nearly big a minus (or nothing) defensively as Ortiz he's top ten in career WAR/JAWS (just outside it for seven year peak) for 1B (plus he hit 500 home runs). Ortiz is by contrast outside the top 30 for all three (and he won't likely get to 500 home runs). In 7-10 years time when Ortiz is coming up for election everyone minus a few card super Sox fans is going to bring these facts up IN ADDITION to the fact that the dude was a DH (which will be enough for some folks to dismiss him right off the back even without the steroid whispers). Unless I'm totally misjudging the electorate I don't see Ortiz getting a final ballot reprieve a la Rice or even really getting close that.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/AL_MVP_award.JPG

that's totally tangible you can pick it up

Look at im hoisting this shit:

http://blog.sidelinesapp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/David-Ortiz-MVP.jpg

linda cardellini otm

https://twitter.com/davidortiz/status/451032513679749120/photo/1

Nothing to do with Ortiz, just follow-up to Alex's post. I'm just not sure if anyone who only saw Thomas during the second half of his career appreciates how he was viewed for his first eight years (up to and including '97): almost exactly as Pujols was viewed, which is as arguably the greatest pure hitter since Williams/Foxx/Ruth. At the end of '97, his slash line was .330/.452/.600--and while home runs were definitely flying out, the records hadn't yet started to fall.

Some handicapping from David Schoenfield, based on the ASG rosters:

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/49826/how-many-all-stars-will-be-hall-of-famers

My own guesses (without checking to see what I posted upthread--I change my mind a lot):

Sure thing: Jeter, Cabrera
Close to a sure thing: Cano, Beltre, Felix, Kershaw
Three good-to-great seasons will do it: Tulowitzki, McCutchen, Utley
Best too-early bets: Puig, Kimbrel, Stanton
Category unto himself: Trout (I want to put him into the close-to-a-sure-thing category already...)

Not as big on Molina's chances as Schoenfield, and I think Darvish and Tanaka will just run out of time in the end.

(Even if they were to keep pitching well, I mean--any discussion of Tanaka's chances is obviously ludicrous at this point.)

love mccutchen, obviously, but it will take more than that

and if cano's power continues to fade, he and utley are about level

don't think yadi will ever get in, even if he ended up with numbers that deserve it. the HOF isn't fair to catchers. and by the time hudson is eligible he'll get quickly shut out by all the current candidates still knocking on the door.

instead of ASG i like to go back to old WAR leaderboards and see how many in the top 30 are HOFers now. there's usually quite a bit. seems to be more of a draught these days but there are always gonna be a few surprises/late bloomers who take a step forward and stay there. i mean if what jose altuve is showing this year is for real then why the hell not? he's only 24!

pitching is probably going to have more of those wild cards tho

cutch has maybe more star power than anyone else in the game rn after jeter, he doesn't even have to be that good from now on to be seen as a sort of 'classic' HOF guy. a CF who hits .300 20/20 every year is immediately on the fast track.

top 30 fWAR hitters who i think have could end up having a shot: trout tulo cutch stanton goldschmidt(?) jones(?) puig kinsler(??) rendon cano abreu b.hamilton(????) mcab utley freeman beltre altuve

daily reminder that billy hamilton currently has more WAR than miguel cabrera

i'd do pitchers but they're harder, a lot of HOF pitching picks have a lot to do with how well and how long they perform after age 30. tim hudson and mark buerhle being in the discussion over johan santana says a lot.

I thought about listing Altuve as a decent longshot bet, seeing as he'll have 600 hits before he turns 25 and took a step forward this year. Even if everything worked out perfectly and he ended up with 3,000 hits, though, that probably won't mean as much in the future without other things to supplement that--defense, walks, etc. I know a lot of people consider Brock one of the more questionable choices in there, and even he had the SB besides the hits. (Hard to know whether he got in more for the 3,000 of the SB.) But if he continues to improve like he has this year, sure.

Pitchers are a real guessing game, yes. I would have called Verlander close to a sure thing a year ago, with Sabathia not far behind.

"3,000 or the SB"

Actually, having just finished Summer of '68, Brock's three World Series figured into the equation too, where he retired with a few WS records.

you know altuve has 116 SBs already right. big difference btwn him and brock is he's a 2B and brock was a LF. if brock put up those numbers as even a bad 2B he'd deserve his spot no doubt

altuve had pretty-looking numbers last year as a 23 year old and then he cut his Ks in half and turned into the best baserunner in the AL. i don't think he and brock are comparable. but this is of course assuming altuve's year isn't a flash in the pan

also he's so tiny and cute

yes! knowing how the HOF is that's actually a good point

He's definitely improved in the SB department this season--his percentages the last two years were just okay--and maybe that'll figure in too. Again, I'm not sure SB will ever be given the same weight they were when Brock was up for induction (they're not helping Raines a lot thus far, and he's got a very strong all-around case), and Brock retired with the two major SB records.

Anyway, I'd love to see Altuve keep moving forward.

Chase Utley is above a good bunch of 2B HOF in JAWS: Alomar, Biggio, Doerr, Gordon, Lazzeri. Still slighty under the HOF average.

I think he was on track for a protracted Blyleven/Raines debate before this year, but unless he comes back, I'd say no chance now (i.e., in terms of how the vote will actually go).

he's actively diminishing his case with every game played

he still has those two deserved MVPs he didn't win.

He had the peak part of his resume taken care of by 2009; except for Hornsby, Morgan, and Robinson, I doubt there's a second baseman who can match his 2005-09 run. (I guess the two ancient guys too, Lajoie and Collins.) The problem is, there's not much else. If he were to not play past this year, he'd finish with 1,600 hits, and that's a non-starter.

he still has those two deserved MVPs he didn't win.

let no one say a morbs is not magnanimous

not when ppl suggest Jimmy fucking Rollins is worthier

aw