currently active players with a shot at the hall of fame

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.

I think that after pitchers, middle infielders who pile up a lot of hits at a young age might be the next hardest group to predict. The Gary Templeton/Carlos Baerga/Jose Reyes group...Starlin Castro is only two months older than Altuve; he's going to finish the season with 850+ hits. That's a very fast start towards 3,000, but right now, that's pretty much the only thing he's got going for him, besides his position. Elvis Andrus will have around 950 at the age of 25, along with good defense. Who knows with these guys?

I like Kershaw and Felix a lot but it's hard for me to see characterizing them as close to a sure thing when they're still in their 20s and most of the HOF pitchers pitched well into their 30s.

Beltre OTOH I think has a very very strong case now.

adrian beltre has 74 career WAR which surprised me a bit - he probably won't ever be seriously considered though because a lot of that is in defense and he didn't hit that well in his 20s other than that one fluke year

interesting that aramis Ramirez has #s p similar to Beltre and is he ever talked abt as a legit candidate? nb i didn't read the linked story above

Beltre is pretty high in all-time counting stats for 3Bs, as well as the sabermetric ones.

That Utley isn't a lock at this point is an insult on top of the two MVPs he lost to lesser teammates.

"adrian beltre has 74 career WAR which surprised me a bit - he probably won't ever be seriously considered though because a lot of that is in defense and he didn't hit that well in his 20s other than that one fluke year"

He didn't hit well in his 20s because he played for the most part in pitchers parks. His oWAR is still very impressive and he has decent counting stats and still a couple more years to add both.

"interesting that aramis Ramirez has #s p similar to Beltre and is he ever talked abt as a legit candidate?"

Because he's terrible defender that plays for the Cubs.

aramis has less than half of beltre's career WAR

defense is valuable

Beltre definitely gets in, I hope on his way to the podium for his HOF speech everyone tries to rub his head

remember that dinosaur W-L/RBI writers won't be dominating the BBWAA in 20 years

Even if they were beltre is gonna likely have 3009 hits at has a slim chance at 500 hr. Not that it should count, he should go in if he retired after this season.

I'm calling it, 3009 hits

yea i didn't realize aramises war was so much worse, only glanced @ counting stats

I hedged a bit on Beltre because everybody else does, but honestly, I think he'll go in easily--maybe not first ballot, but first two or three.

There are the reasons cited above--his high (and getting higher) WAR rank, the possibility of 500/3,000 (should get the latter)--and I also get the feeling from what I've been reading the past couple of years, since Santo's induction, that there's a growing awareness of how badly 3B has been treated in the voting. (How badly Santo specifically was treated, going in posthumously, is part of that.) Too late to help Graig Nettles or Buddy Bell or Ron Cey, but I think it will help third basemen going forward. We'll see when Rolen comes around, although his path is tougher--he'll be plunked down in the middle of what will still be a glut, his case is more dependent on sabermetrics than Beltre's will be, and his career is more fragmented than Beltre's.

Rolen will also have the good luck to come onto the ballot the same year as Chipper.

I think C.C Sabathia will be the stick the next generation of pitchers will be compared to. Lesser stats than him is a sure out of the HOF, better is a sure in.

omfg @ you guys mentioning jose altuve and billy hamilton in a HOF thread

we've done this before, but

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_3B.shtml

Which reminds me that I like Longoria's chances.

completely forgot that i made this thread. wright's gone completely unmentioned since, was gonna say "funny what three terrible months can do" but apparently he's been good after the first month

altuve and hamilton were brought up to make a point

how about xander bogaerts, he could totally be a league average player someday