hall of fame, next vote...

Mauer's only the third first-ballot catcher after Bench and I-Rod.

poor billy

obviously there are arguments to be made about the true value of relievers, but he was lights-out when it was asked of him

Anyone else listen to Grimes’ “We Appreciate Power” and always hear “power” as “Mauer” and then start re-framing the lyrics to be about him?
No one? Ok.

Next five ballots: https://www.mlb.com/news/future-baseball-hall-of-fame-ballots-preview

Ichiro, Posey, Pujols, and Cabrera are first ballot inductees i bet. Molina, hard to tell. Sabathia? I'm maybe slightly agnostic on him; as far as lefty starters go he's probably closer to David Wells than he is Clayton Kershaw, but might have to dig in deeper considering the era he pitched in.

guys like Lester and Wainwright had nice careers, not dissimilar at all, but they should be in their team HOFs, not the MLB one.

really kinda curious to see where Granderson, Hernández, Kinsler, and Pedroia wind up in the voting next year. they were all great players to varying levels, though i don't think they would or necessarily should get voted in.

Jimmy Key (among my favourite Jays ever) and Russell Martin into the Canadian Baseball HOF.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/article/martin-key-among-six-inductees-to-enter-canadian-baseball-hall-of-fame/

Paul Godfrey, I should mention, was instrumental in getting Toronto a franchise. He engineered the deal that almost landed us the Giants in '76, before George Moscone rescued them and kept them in San Francisco.

Comparison graphics frequently turn up on my FB wall. Some of them are far-fetched special pleading--someone trying to make a case that Dale Murphy was better than Reggie Jackson, stuff like that. One caught my eye today: John Smoltz vs. Kevin Brown. The graphic provided overall stats, i.e. including Smoltz's years as a closer, and their career lines were very similar. Just as starters:

Smoltz: 209-149, 3.40, 7.90 K/9, 2.92 K/BB, 1.192 WHIP, 3211.2 IP
Brown: 210-143, 3.26, 6.60 K/9, 2.67 K/BB, 1.219 WHIP, 3237.2 IP

Again, very close. I thought Brown might actually come out looking better, but I think there's a small but clear edge there to Smoltz. When you add 1) Smoltz's three seasons as a first-rate closer (a role that, if I remember correctly, he volunteered to step into), 2) Smoltz's stellar post-season record (overall, Brown was mediocre in the post-season in a much smaller sample), and 3) Brown's PED associations, it's more clear-cut why Smoltz in the HOF and Brown isn't than I thought it would be.