hall of fame, next vote...

Not that I disagree with the premise of this piece--I think Posey will go into the HOF too--but I don't know how the writer manages not to mention Joe Mauer anywhere; their careers are similar in so many ways up to the age of 30.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/buster-posey-has-quietly-become-a-lock-for-cooperstown/

yeah not sure he's reached the "lock" stage yet. let's see him be productive for a few years into his thirties

Finished Jay Jaffe's HOF book today. It's good--because he's a good writer, and because of the way it's formatted, not because the arguments are necessarily eye-opening (advocacy for Grich, Edgar, Mussina, Ted Simmons, etc.). I think it gets harder and harder to surprise on that front, as such reevaluations pass more and more into conventional wisdom. Which is good; I'm just contrasting that with the early Abstracts, when the field was wide open and suggesting that Gene Tenace was a better hitter than Steve Garvey was like, I don't know, hearing the Ramones for the first time. After a few introductory chapters Jaffe goes position by position, leading off with a close case study of one or two players he'd like to see go in, and then breaking down a bunch more into "The Elite" (a word that really ought to banished at this point), "The Rank and File" (sounds pejorative but it's not--basically a deserving, mid-level Hall of Famer), "The Basement" (HOF'ers who shouldn't be), and "Further Consideration" (neglected old guys, PED casualties, etc.--big Andrew Sarris fan). I wouldn't say it's as good as James's HOF book, The Politics of Glory, but it's probably more comprehensive (been a while since I read the James book). He pointedly takes James to task a couple of times, over things he wrote about Dick Allen and Simmons. Some strange and funny 19th-century stuff, as always. I think the only under-30 players who sneak into the book are Trout and Kershaw; I might have included two or three more (Altuve or Kimbrel, maybe, who are both doing well on the needs-to-be-updated HOF Monitor).

Garvey, John, Mattingly, Miller, Morris, Murphy, Parker, Simmons, Tiant & Trammell comprise Modern Baseball ballot: https://t.co/tIEYqB7pnn pic.twitter.com/WnF0pnPfpd

— Baseball Hall ⚾ (@baseballhall) November 6, 2017

main complaints i see are 'whittaker was better than most of these guys'

marvin miller had better get in tho

CHRIST

Whitaker not being on the ballot isn't a mistake, it's a blunder so bad that it eviscerates any claim to expertise of the people who made it

— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) November 6, 2017

yeah, Steve Garvey in particular looks emptier than ever

i just went down a rabbit hole of MVP voting, looking at A-Tram's second place finish to George Bell in 1987. Did you guys know that Jeff Reardon finished 11th in the MVP voting that year thanks to a sparkling 4.48 ERA and 31 clutch saves?

Whitaker & Garvey had remarkably similar hitting careers. Problem is, one was a 1B, one was a good-fielding 2B. Why isn't Lou on ballot? pic.twitter.com/CfVGD4gcEf

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) November 6, 2017

Steve is just a Hollywood version of Michael Young, my only knowledge of him beyond that was as an attempted bigamist or whatever.

If you measure Garvey today against how he was viewed during the '70s--sure HOF'er, 200-hit machine, I think even clutch because he'd knock in 100 runs--his limitations are painfully obvious. The list of underappreciated players who were clearly more valuable than him--Reggie Smith, the two Evans, Grich, Tenace, etc.--is long.

But if you measure him against the way James wrote about him in the first few Abstracts--he was basically became a piñata for the first wave of sabermetricians--he's a little better than the caricature. He played in a pitchers' park in a mostly low-offense decade. His career OPS+ is 117, 130 for his '74-80 prime. The career mark puts him in the company of Rose, Beltre, Fisk, and Alomar (more defense-oriented positions, obviously; Garvey wasn't even much of a first baseman, winning a few Gold Gloves that look quite undeserved). 130 during his prime is better than I would have guessed.

Not at all saying he should be in the HOF--no way. (As a Reds fan before the Jays came along, I especially disliked him.) But from '74 to '80, at least, he was pretty solid, and not as bad as the caricature that took hold. (James himself had something of a mea culpa in the second Historical Abstract--too much so, as I remember it.) A Hollywood Michael Young is fair, although Young's OPS+ prime is 20 points lower.

"The first wave of sabermetricians..." James, Palmer, and, uh, I don't know who else. Not much of a wave.

Steve Garvey was one of the most popular and most loathed players of the 70s and early 80s. I think the greasy fall from grace of the All American wonder boy is a part of the reason he fell out of flavor. The guy definitely had the 'fame' part of the equation much more than many of those players, the guy played in 5 World Series in a decade.

I grew up hating the Dodgers and that popeye armed fake, but the guy was an iconic player of that time period of baseball.

When 1B was a premium offensive position in the so-called "steroid era", Garvey's stats looked pedestrian in comparison and he wasn't mentioned in HOF discussions anymore. Now 1B is a fairly ordinary position and suddenly people are high on Garvey again.

i bet Don Sutton isn't.

Heh. Didn't know about this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1978/08/26/dodger-incident-smacks-of-schoolyard-scuffle/bbadb544-6b9c-44bd-bfa1-7103f001a95a/?utm_term=.085b10ecda4b

A team that was boisterously confident until its two most famous players - Steve Garvey and Don Sutton - wrestled and punched each other on the locker room floor last Sunday, is now houned by petty humiliations.

The free-spirited Sutton has had to stand in the public pillory and pray for forgiveness. Sutton, long on the record as a born-again, has called the entire incident a message from God for him to reexamine his life.

What was Sutton's sin? He told the truth in a judicious and rather carefully worded way.

Garvey, an exemplary player with a sly, needling sense of humor, has appeared on national televison - his eye blood-red, his face scratched, his pride tattered - to explain that he felt pushed past the point of endurance and that he had to answer with this fists.

Sutton and Garvey, once neighbors as well as teammates, may never look each other in the eye again - unless their bronze busts are on opposite walls of the Hall of Fame.

I encourage the "Modern Era Committee" to put Marvin Miller in the Hall of Fame. His importance to the game ranks with Ruth and Robinson.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) November 6, 2017

beltran: will he get into the HOF/should he get into the HOF?

i'm thinking: eventually/probably, but i think he was definitely a bit of a compiler vs a dominant peak type. it also reminds me how Jim Edmonds definitely didn't deserve a one-and-done ballot fate.

neither did kenny lofton

meanwhile bernie "i'm actually not as good as them" williams managed to stick around for a couple years.

bernie hated that nickname at first but grew to love it

https://deadspin.com/carlos-beltran-did-it-all-1820401309

Beltran is 8th among CFs by JAWS

ie everybody ahead of him is in, several behind are too

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_CF.shtml

beltran's goodbye is worth reading: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/carlos-beltran-astros-retirement/

That's a really moving piece by Beltran -- the best thing I've ever read on TPT!

Beltran was still a very good player after his prime, and was productive across many different "eras" of baseball (offense-happy era c. 2000, the post-steroid slowdown era c. 2006, the pitching dominated years earlier in this decade, whatever the current three true outcomes era will be called). I know it doesn't show up in the statistics, but for me, that kind of adaptability strengthens his HOF case (which is important for a borderline candidate).

Considering his all-around game, Beltran should probably end up in the HOF. Beltran had a very well traveled career kinda like Sheffield in that category without the other baggage. Got to think Beltran would be a no doubter if he would have been a 'one club' career type player. Guy probably missed a couple hundred games to injuries over his career which is probably the only thing that kept him from 3000 hits.

injuries also cost him his speed and fielding earlier than they would have otherwise, turning them into negatives

Looks like his dWAR fell off after about age 32. I was thinking though he seemed to be still pretty good in right when he played for the Cardinals or at least he still had a good arm. It isn't too unusual for guys to move out of CF by that point in their career.

I thought it was pretty funny earlier this year when the Astros players had a ceremony for burying Beltran's glove earlier this year.

Odd enough, I saw a rumor story that Beltran has thrown his hat in the ring interested in managing the Yanks, which seems like a long shot, but you never know.

the veteran's committee ballot is out for the "Modern Baseball" era (1970-1987)

Steve Garvey
Tommy John
Don Mattingly
Marvin Miller
Jack Morris
Dale Murphy
Dave Parker
Ted Simmons
Luis Tiant
Alan Trammell

Miller, Trammell, and Simmons imo

jay jaffe is doing a rundown here: https://www.si.com/mlb/2017/11/10/hall-fame-modern-baseball-era-committee

i'm only vaguely familiar with simmons beyond his stats, having never seen him play, but this just strengthens his case

Simmons got just 3.7% of the vote in 1994, his only year on the BBWAA ballot. That may have had something to do with lingering resentment over the fact that in 1972, in the wake of former teammate Curt Flood's challenge to the Reserve Clause, he became the first playing holdout in baseball history, playing well into the season without a signed contract before the Cardinals gave in to his demands. College educated at the University of Michigan, he simply wasn't cut from the same cloth as the average major leaguer of his time. A 1978 Sports Illustrated profile by Ron Fimrite introduced him as the St. Louis Art Museum’s newest trustee, described his and wife Maryanne’s collection of early-eighteenth-century furniture, and summarized his early-career rebelliousness:

He was unyielding even when it became evident that his views did not sit well in a community as conservative as St. Louis. He denounced the Vietnam War and was outspoken in his contempt for the Nixon Administration. He allowed his hair to grow to his shoulders; that gave him a leonine look and earned him the nickname Simba ... At that time, he was a lion roaring his defiance.

i forgot that last week happened, sorry

Jaffe makes a strong case for Simmons in his HOF book. My recollection of how Simmons was treated while playing is "Good hitter, no defense." Jaffe says that just wasn't true--and indeed Simmons has nothing but +dWARs through his prime on Baseball Reference. He had the disadvantage of being contemporaneous with Bench, Carter, Fisk, and Munson.

My own sentimental choice for induction would be Tiant.

(And also, strictly in terms of defense, you had Sundberg and Boone, two of the greatest defensive catchers ever.)

https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hof_2018.shtml

playing w/ the sorting columns. it's interesting how high JPos is for pitchers relative to the rest of positions.

I remember it feeling that Raines going in this year was some sort of watershed moment for the electability of guys like mussina but I can totally imagine just vlad and hoffman going in this year and chipper being... "forgotten" isn't the right word, and he's 100% going in, but it doesn't feel like there's a clamor to celebrate his career like there was for raines or 1st ballot guys like pedro etc

also ballot of 2021 is going to be straight trash

https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hof_2021.shtml

You mean the guys who debut in 2021? Yeah, first ballot in a while with no viable candidates. Hudson, Buehrle, and Torii Hunter are the best of them, and they have zero chance between them. If there's still backlog, that would be the year for someone deserving who's been made to wait. Larry Walker's window, unfortunately, closes the year before. Mussina, Schilling, and Kent will still be on the ballot.

(I mean, Mussina and Schilling may already be in by then.)

I could totally see schilling falling off the ballot this year

I think that'd be terrible if he does. PEDs are one thing--you can argue about that all day, and I think there's room for a difference of opinion there (subsiding now anyway)--but I don't think anyone was ever kept out for being a jerk. Dick Allen, maybe, and the more you know about him, the more you realize his alleged jerkiness had a lot to do with racism.

uh, we can probably say the same about schilling tbh

Possibly--I don't know. The thing he said about sportswriters was creepy, and had some really stupid imagery.

Schilling Is a racist let’s not worry about the asshole part

I will say that I'm totally contradicting something I posted on the greatest-filmmaker thread the other day:

I won't think for a second about what kind of person I'm voting for. I don't know if Polanski (who may or may not be on my list--the old peak value vs. career value question) would be the only one where that's even an issue; most of the people I won't know anything anyway, and I hadn't planned on a James Toback vote. I could see grappling with that if it involved flying someone in to receive a state honour, like the Legion of France, but not with a message-board poll.

The Baseball HOF isn't an abstract thing--you get flown into Cooperstown and you make a speech. To be consistent, then, I'll amend my comment above: it won't be terrible if Schilling drops off, and any voter who objects to him on non-baseball grounds is justified in doing so (although I'd personally grit my teeth and vote for him).

One thing I always tried to make clear is that my fence-sitting on PED isn't a moral issue; it's uncertainty over how much they influenced a player's performance. I've never argued that PED players should be kept out for some perceived moral deficiency.

(Polanski, not to be confused with Posnanski.)

Will Scott Rolen and Andruw Jones be one and done this year? Do we even know for sure what happened to Jones after the age of 30 (besides "he got fat and stopped caring")?

Without any slam dunk candidates this year (besides Bonds and Clemens of course) I don't expect many unfair one and dones, but Rolen was always underrated and wouldn't expect that to change on the HOF ballot.

I'm not even sure that Thome will be elected this year. If Bagwell and Piazza didn't go in on the first ballot ...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPF2hiVVQAAfo7-.jpg:small

more than 10 worthy options, there.

Do we even know for sure what happened to Jones after the age of 30 (besides "he got fat and stopped caring")?

i didn't follow baseball much when this was happening. he only played more than 100 games once after he turned 30. was he just injured?

Heartfelt open letter from HOFer Joe Morgan to BBWA voters, imploring us not to put steroid users in the Hall. First, they're already in. Second, so is Selig, elected by HOFers' veterans committee. If mgrs. & commish benefited from the era and are now HOFers, why not the serfs?

— Claire Smith (@MzCSmith) November 21, 2017

has this ever been posted?

https://baseballpastandpresent.com/2012/07/19/hall-fame-circle/

it's a fun read, trying to identify the top 50 inner-circle HOFers via a vote back in 2012. it was apparently organized by graham womack, who somehow managed to not include his own name anywhere on his own website