currently active players with a shot at the hall of fame

My first thought was "That's terrible" too, but after compiling a list of all the guys who were elected by the writers past their 10th year of eligibility, I'm not so sure (career WAR in brackets):

1952 – Harry Heilmann (72.1)
1954 – Rabbit Maranville (42.8)
1954 – Bill Terry (54.2)
1955 – Dazzy Vance (59.9)
1955 – Gabby Hartnett (53.4)
1975 – Ralph Kiner (49.3)
1976 – Bob Lemon (48.8)
1980 – Duke Snider (66.5)
2006 – Bruce Sutter (24.6)
2009 – Jim Rice (47.4)
2011 – Bert Blyleven (95.3)

Past Blyleven, Snider, and Heilmann, a lot of dubious names on that list. (And don't forget, Morris just missed in his 15th year.) I guess you could look at it as a variation on the capital punishment cliché: it's better to let 10 guys go in who don't deserve it than lose one over-qualified guy like Blyleven. I still think the much bigger concern is at the front-end of eligibility--set some reasonable benchmarks for staying on the ballot regardless of support, and get rid of the stupid 5% rule that has dropped many players before they had a real chance to build support.

I should exempt Kiner from the dubious list: he was pretty dominant in a shortened career.

add raines

Yes--and Trammell.

well he wouldn't have had a shot unless they extended it to 25 years

man Blyleven is so classic just for RBI baseball alone

players who are already on the ballot will still get the full 15 years

No, I think it's just the guys who are in years 11-15 (Trammell, Mattingly, Smith) who stay eligible for 15 years. So McGwire has only two years left, for instance.

McGwire wasn't going to get in by writer vote even if he had seven years.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_48ks5s0AV6M/TSSCk-hthpI/AAAAAAAAEQM/VPwfEriUrkc/s400/blylevenfarting.jpg

McGwire, sure, but others could get completely hosed by this -- Raines and Edgar Martinez especially.

Raines def. the big loser in all this.

Jay Jaffe on the BP podcast, saying this is the HOF's attempt to shorten the Steroid Era candidate discussion.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=24261

Yeah, that makes sense. Does this mean it's their backhanded way of dealing with the cluttered ballot? IOW, people who have voted for McGwire will give up and vote for someone else?

They don't have to give up (or Bonds and Clemens voters either), they will be unable to vote for them 5 years sooner.

I meant there are people voting for McGwire for example who just want to keep him in the discussion and hope that other voters eventually come around, but now they might not bother voting for him again.

all these changes without extending the ballot past 10 is indefensible

I usually just shrug my shoulders at this stuff, but this is truly nuts: Smotz ahead of Pedro.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article/mlb/how-will-hall-of-fames-class-of-2015-shape-up?ymd=20140728&content_id=86232740&vkey=news_mlb

There was a lot of lobbying for Smoltz from the podium yesterday, no surprise, and I do think he should go in eventually--maybe four or five years down the road. But Pedro deserves almost as high a percentage as next year as Johnson (slightly less, accounting for career value).

Only 40 people were surveyed, I know--small sample. But I'm still surprised that any sample larger than one person would put Smoltz ahead of Martinez.

Pedro deserves 100%, as does any no-brainer HOFer

In an ideal world, yes. Obviously that's just not going to happen, for reasons that become less and less understandable all the time. The only one that makes the least bit of sense today, with the 10-spot limit, is strategic voting, something I'm not a fan of--go for the 10 best picks--but I at least get that. When Mays and Aaron came up, I'm sure there was a lingering racist component to the electorate--you'd like to believe that's long gone. The Babe-Ruth-didn't-get-100%-so-no-one-should theory, I can't believe that's still at work.

BP podcast above includes speculation that Pedro types will lose votes to candidates who 'need them' under the new system, like Raines.

pedro squeaking by on his first ballot is a lot less despicable than schilling and mussina still hanging out in the 20s.

for reference

fWAR
Pedro: 87.1
Schilling: 83.2
Mussina: 82.5

bWAR
Pedro: 86.0
Schilling: 80.7
Mussina: 82.7

ofc pedro has the "best peak ever maybe" thing going but schilling had probably the second greatest peak of the strds era and mussina is right there with them as a steady producer. schilling will possibly get in eventually but i'm not sure about moose now that he doesn't have the full 15 years.

they'll avoid strds hitters like the plague but still not accept that the era was harder to pitch through

Yes but Cy Youngs!

Also I just discovered Eric Gagné got the 2003 CYA. I'm stunned.

I thought you were a Giants fan, VHS! That was the year Jason Schmidt got robbed.

That was such a joke

I have been into baseball for 2 years. Still lots of awful and great things to discover.

Oh god that was over 10 years ago. D:

The second best peak of the steroid era was Randy Johnson from '99-02--really, he's almost even with Pedro. (Smoltz also overlooked Johnson yesterday, saying that Maddux's four year run of Cy Youngs was only equaled by Koufax; Johnson's right in there with them and Martinez.)

I like checking these things, so I tried to identify the best post-war peak for starters.

Depends what you mean by peak, obviously. I'd have to go back to James's HOF book to find out how he defined it--I think he was the first to write about peak value vs. career value, or at least the first to name it as such. For me, peak means a solid block of four or five seasons. For someone else, it might be three or seven seasons, or it might not require that the seasons be consecutive. Not everyone will agree on that.

Anyway, here are all the four-season blocks of 30+ WAR. I don't think I missed anybody, but I don't know.

1. Johnson – 38.2
2. Pedro – 37.6
3. Koufax – 36.5
4. Wilbur Wood – 35.5
5. Robin Roberts – 35.1
6. Gibson – 35.4
7. Marichal – 33.5
8. Maddux – 33.1
9. Niekro – 33.1
10. Clemens – 33.0
11. Seaver – 31.7
12. Schilling – 31.4
13. Jenkins – 30.7
14. Halladay – 30.3
15. Bunning – 30.2

I should have jotted down the years...Wilbur Wood sticks out on that list so much--everyone else is either in the HOF, or is or should be on his way. (Unless you want to create a separate category for Clemens.) Kevin Brown and Dave Stieb just missed; Carlton's best seasons were spread out (ditto Seaver, whose '69 season falls outside his best four-year block, even though he made the list anyway).

I still think that Gagne's Cy Young was defensible. It looks less special now because strikeouts have gone way up relievers who throw 95 and strikes out 12/9IP aren't rare anymore, but at the time he was doing what no other reliever had done before.

On the premise that there's someone out there who never gets talked about as a candidate right now but will emerge as one in his 30s--and that it's more likely to be a pitcher who turns out to be surprisingly durable (non-pitcher possibilities are usually easy to identify by 30, no?)--I wonder if either Cole Hamels or Jered Weaver might qualify. They're pretty close right now:

Hamels (30) -- 105-79, 124 ERA+, 1.140 WHIP, 3.79 K/BB, 37.7 WAR, 3 Cy Young top-10s
Weaver (31) -- 124-66, 125 ERA+, 1.145 WHIP, 3.13 K/BB, 35.3 WAR, 3 Cy Young top-10s

Close enough that I couldn't say which one's better positioned. I think Weaver's been a little more fragile thus far. They've both had two or three mediocre years, but neither has ever had a flat-out bad season. Long way to go, but I could see one of them ending up with 250 wins and 70 WAR. Which maybe wouldn't be enough even if it happened--don't know where the bar will be for pitcher 15 years from now.

JAWs does not like either of those dudes. I'd think that they'd have to pull a Cliff Lee type switch (turn suddenly into a 7-8 win pitcher) to really get much consideration.

i'm not sure they're much more impressive than a guy like buehrle tbqf

you know what i hate more than the HOF? using awards standings -- esp for nonwinners -- as a factor in their standing for the HOF.

Someone on ESPN, not sure who it was, just proposed that the HOF should waive the 5 years rule for Jeter. It was during the Red Sox Yankees game, of course.

xpost

Awards standings do matter somewhat, but especially for nonwinners. Anyone can have a fluky great year and win, but e.g. six top five finishes in the Cy Young voting recognizes consistent excellence (i.e. high peak value)

It's not automatic (Juan Gonzalez had five top 10 MVP finishes and two ugh wins) but I think you can generally identify the best players of the era this way. Of course there will always be the Chase Utley and Scott Rolen types who get overlooked no matter what.

Utley seems like someone who illustrates your exact point: never won, but five years placing and three Top-10s. Too low, but still, some recognition.

I understand Morbius's point--you're giving weight to something that may have been wrong in the first place--but, as always, I was acknowledging (with Hamels and Weaver) that award voting does matter, whether it should or not. James gave a little weight to award voting in the first Historical Abstract, the idea being that he was ranking many players he never actually saw play, and that the opinions of those who did ought to be worth something. When dealing with players like Hamels and Weaver, I'll grant that that becomes a less compelling argument. (I also realize I'm grasping at straws a bit with those two guys. But there's gotta be someone out there right now mid-career who's flying under the radar.)

"But there's gotta be someone out there right now mid-career who's flying under the radar."

Really? Why? Looking at most recent HOFers I'd say that most of them were pretty clearly 6-8 win players by their late 20s or at least very clearly guys who would be at that level barring injuries or control issues. Guys who get there just on accumulation alone are pretty rare.

the only guy i see as possibly under the radar might be someone like zack greinke, who seems like the kind of pitcher who could put up some huge seasons in L.A. over the next few years and he's already got a WAR around 40. of course he is pitching in the shadow of clayton kershaw and i think is regarded as a bit of a disappointment in some ways and looks just like michael shannon, which isn't a strike against him necessarily but you never know with these HOF voters.

veterans committee eventually voted michael shannon in iirc

Alex is probably right, but I'd want to look at it over the years before saying.

Comment From zurzles
any under-the-radar players who might end up with hall of fame careers?
12:47
Dan Szymborski: Does Buehrle count, assuming he keeps putting off his threat to retire?
12:47
Dan Szymborski: Last I checked, ZiPS actually has Buehrle nearing top 50 of all pitchers in career bWAR bys eason’s end.
12:48
Dan Szymborski: He’s likely to get win 200 before the end of the year at 35.
12:49
Dan Szymborski: Every modern pitcher with 200 wins through age 35 is either a Hall of Fame or got significant support
12:50
Dan Szymborski: The worst pitchers in that category were Lolich (who got a little support and Hunter (who got in) and Buehrle’s actually better than both
12:51
Dan Szymborski: (and he has a better ERA+ than all the 190s through age 135 excepct Perry who did get in)

I informally looked at all the post-war starters chosen by the writers, and no, no one really emerged after 30. About the closest analogy is Sutton, who was comparable to both Hamels and Weaver at the same age in some ways, but he'd already accumulated 176 wins when that was still the #1 factor. Sutton through age 31:

176-136, 110 ERA+, 1.115 WHIP, 2.82 K/BB, 36.6 WAR, 5 Cy Young top-10s

And you could find a number of guys who were better than Sutton in rate stats and WAR at that point--but his win total, in the context of when he pitched, negates all that in terms of the HOF.

Buehrle had such a great start this year (albeit precarious when you looked beyond his ERA), but he's been very shaky the last month-and-a-half. I don't know if it's a blip or more ominous.

i guess randy johnson will be the next guy to be elected who really emerged after his age-30 season.

through age 30:

1245.1 IP/81-62/3.70 ERA/113 ERA+/1330 K/5.0 BB per 9 IP

31+

2890 IP/220-104/3.12 ERA/147 ERA+/3545 K/2.5 BB per 9 IP

Johnson's fascinating because he's actually a pretty awful pitcher or at very best league average until he's 29 and then suddenly he's amazing (bar one injured season and one mediocrity) for the next 11 years (followed by some padding).

I thought of Johnson--he definitely acquires his HOF credentials after 30--but didn't bring him up only because he's not very useful as an analogy for Weaver or Hamels or really anybody. He's about as sui generis as it gets. I do remember James making an early call on him, probably after that age-29 season--something like, pay attention, you'll never see anything like him again.

He is, but Schilling's another dude who was kinda okay trying to get healthy, get it together an then he's 30 and suddenly he's one of the best pitchers in the game. Sorta of arguing against myself here. I mean there's nothing that actually says that Hamels or Weavers can't pull a Schilling or a Johnson it's just more that they kinda need to. Their current performance even extended another ten years feels too slight to merit much consideration.