hall of fame, next vote...

OK, Morris was the THIRD-losingest pitcher of the '80s. Clancy (126), Tanana (122), Morris (119).

Wins '77-'86: Guidry. '78-'87 through '83-'92: all Morris. '84-'93: Clemens/Viola

Morris never placed higher than fifth in AL ERA. Where he placed during qualifying seasons: 5th, 41st, 15th, 33rd, 10th, 20th, 9th, 6th, 5th, 26th, 37th, 34th, 16th, 27th. And of course his last two seasons, both non-qualifying, were flat-out terrible.

Morris never finished higher than third for the Cy Young.

Maybe if there had been something like a Hefty Cinch-Sak Durability Award during these years, Morris would've been considered recognized enough.

You never know with the Veteran's Committee, but I think he may be the last pitcher of his kind to go in. You'll need to have at least a reasonable sabermetric case from now on--"narrative" and all that will still factor in (Bumgarner), but you'll need both.

CC won a Cy Young and finished in the top five another four times. Outside of five (or maybe six) seasons, he wasn't a *great* pitcher and I could see that counting against his HOF candidacy. But he was/is a much better pitcher than Morris.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQ2QHcOX0AAY0Ha.jpg

LOL

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQ2QHcOX0AAY0Ha.jpg

I played in the Freehan and Kaline leagues when I was a teenager. The conference (or whatever) recently added Morris and Trammell leagues. I don’t know anything about baseball statistics but it makes sense from a little league perspective.

I realize that’s likely only interesting to Andy K.

Cliff Lee nearly equaled Morris' WAR in ~1700 fewer innings

do we have a roster of this year's Vets Committee?

Each year's Committee is different and is selected by the Hall Board of Directors. This year's panel includes six Hall of Fame players: George Brett, Rod Carew, Dennis Eckersley, Don Sutton, Dave Winfield and Robin Yount in addition to Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox and Hall of Fame executive John Schuerholz, both of the Braves.

Mets general manager Sandy Alderson, former Blue Jays president Paul Beeston, Reds president Bob Castellini, Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt, Royals chairman David Glass, veteran BBWAA members Bob Elliott and Jayson Stark and historian Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sport Bureau make up the remainder of the group.

https://www.mlb.com/news/modern-era-committee-prepares-for-hall-vote/c-263109628

I played in the Freehan and Kaline leagues when I was a teenager. The conference (or whatever) recently added Morris and Trammell leagues. I don’t know anything about baseball statistics but it makes sense from a little league perspective.

Kids born around 2025 will play in the Inge league.

Frick award to Costas

His stirring speech in that Space Ghost episode cemented it.

If you're appalled by Jack Morris, be happy they're not inducting the baseball equivalent of Bon Jovi, Dire Straits, or the Moody Blues. (If you count Morris as worse than any of those three, we either hear music or evaluate baseball players very differently.)

y'know, jack morris and dire straits isn't the woooorst baseball to music comp...

Bon Jovi is Trevor Hoffman, he comes into the game when the team is halfway there to a victory.

yeah sort of feel like those are pretty good morris/garvey analogs....

And you can throw the Cars in there too--didn't realize they were in.

On the HOF tracker it's interesting to see the net gain votes. Edgar and vlad are doing well enough that induction seems solid for both of them, but Walker has picked up 18 votes already from only small portion of ballots. Still only around 42% but that's huge.

Very surprised that Thome's holding at 97%. That's great, I'm all for it. I assumed he was going to be this year's Bagwell/Piazza, made to wait a couple of extra years because of suspicion. That gray area may have vanished permanently.

as Morbs said, no smoking needle (also no actual suspicion cast his way, iirc.)

My own recollection is that he was always mentioned on the list of suspected users, but when I do a search of "Jim Thome steroids," the first page of results are all about how he was clean. So I guess I'm misremembering.

Not helpful if you're of the belief he should be in:

http://www.12up.com/posts/5932863-curt-schilling-caught-praising-white-supremacist-during-radio-show?a_aid=36534

curt schilling should be elected into the hall of fame and then thrown into the bottom of the ocean

good plan imho

Edgar is currently at 80% on the HOF tracker. not sure how it'll play out the rest of the way but he seems like a safe bet for induction next year at least.

Larry Walker is at 40%, he's got two more years on the ballot, I could see a major push the next couple years. people seem to be coming around on him.

Emphatic Yes for both of them.

andruw jones is at 5.7%. hope he doesn't get jim edmonds'd

I'm laughing at that URL: "caught praising white supremacist during radio show." I picture Schilling furtively looking around to see if anyone's watching. It's a radio show--chances are, this won't remain a secret.

meanwhile chipper jones is at 98.6%

just checked to see which jones put up higher fWARs during their years together:

1997: tie (3.7 to 3.7)
1998: chipper (7.1 to 7.0)
1999: chipper (7.3 to 6.9)
2000: andruw (7.7 to 6.0)
2001:chipper (6.1 to 4.9)
2002: andruw (6.3 to 5.9)
2003: andruw (5.2 to 3.9)
2004: andruw (5.3 to 3.3)
2005: andruw (7.9 to 4.9) *chipper injured
2006: andruw (6.0 to 3.9) *chipper injured
2007: chipper (3.3 to 6.9)

There's a decent chance we'll get five inductees from this batch which would be a good deck-clearing.

def

Neat comparison unearthed by Posnanski in an SI column:

Player 1: 254-186, 105 ERA+, 3,824 innings, 2,478 Ks, 1,390 Walks, 1.296 WHIP, 49.8 combo WAR

Player 2: 258-195, 105 ERA+, 3,908 innings, 2,342 Ks, 1,117 Walks, 1.323 WHIP, 49.0 combo WAR

Pretty darned similar, yes? Player 1 is newest Hall of Famer Jack Morris. Player 2 is Jamie Moyer, obviously, but discounting his final two seasons so we could get the innings to roughly match up. Moyer added 11 more wins, 14 more losses and various other things to his totals in those two seasons, when he was 47 and 49.

http://www.mlb.com/news/jamie-moyer-was-a-talented-underrated-pitcher/c-264135260

Jamie Moyer also got lost in Chicago and really did not get it together as a starter until he was about 30. Dave Stewart had a similar career arc, though he was a good reliever when he first came up with the Dodgers then lost it and came kinda out of nowhere to have good decade as a starter.

this seems more like an argument that jack morris shouldn't be in the hall of fame

makes sense to me

i still maintain that Jack Morris' best career move w/r/t getting into the HOF was choosing to grow a bushy mustache.

tbf i kinda like him as a broadcaster -- he's just as full of shit as the rest of them, but he's very quiet about it

the 50 best players left off of the HOF ballot entirely:

http://www.hallofstats.com/articles/willie-davis-left-off-bbwaa-ballot

Great list. I wonder if a) you could fill out a lineup card, filling every position, and b) with an average pitching staff, could that lineup win a divisional title?

1b Bob Allison
2b Bill Doran
SS Scott Fletcher
3b Jim Gilliam
LF Von Hayes
CF Willie Davis
RF Jesse Barfield
C Mike Scoscia

Rotation
Brandon Webb
Mark Gubicza
Teddy Higuera
Javier Vazquez

bullpen
Keith Foulke
Joe Nuxhall
Mike Morgan

Pretty good team.

If the stars were aligned right, definitely--looks like all the position players and starters had, at a minimum, career years of ~5.0 WAR, sometimes much higher (Higuera was over 9.0 one year).

vlad was one of my favorite players as a kid, so I'm glad he's going in, but the strength of his support is strange to me: he doesn't really have any of the usual counting stats, no real postseason success... does have that MVP tho, and being cool as hell to watch

Guerrero was better, but his candidacy looks very much like Puckett's to me. They're almost identical in WAR/650 PA--4.8 Vlad, 4.7 Kirby--and, 1) short careers, 2) retired when they were still playing well, 3) high average, low walks, 4) (most important) colourful players most fans loved (before we knew the whole story about about Puckett). This is where I'm okay with not treating the HOF as just your career box--I'm okay with letting narrative or whatever you want to call it creep in. In the Keith Law book, he identifies Puckett as a bad HOF choice. (Don't have the book on hand--I think he was more negative than that.) Putting the post-career revelations aside, I'm glad Puckett's in the HOF--I want him in there.

i agree on Puckett, i have no problem w/his inclusion.

HOF Tracker has 45.8% of the ballots tallied. Jones, Guerrero, and Thome are easily over 90% (in that order), while Hoffman remains around 78% but since he added enough votes from last year he's in. Edgar is at 80.9%!

Larry Walker has been eliminated but still remains around 40%, he's picked up a ton.

Bonds/Clemens both exactly at 64.9%. Mussina is at 73.2% but i don't think he's gonna do it this year. Schilling is at 65.5% and i wonder if next season he'll drop a few points...

Announcement at 6pm. I guess it's thought there could be the 5 inductees mentioned above by omar, and I'm not sold on Vlad and Hoffman.
Fortunately the joint is a joke til Bonds and Clemens are in.

Edgar is trending down a bit w/the tracker now, i suspect not enough of the voters whose ballots have yet to be revealed will vote for him. that's just my guess. Schilling has dropped even further behind Mussina. i think him being a bigot comprised of literal shit vs Moose being a seemingly likable low-key crossword puzzle expert is the difference there, despite their relatively equal bonafides.

Yeah, looks ominous for Edgar--77.5%, about 60% of the ballots public, no margin of error. He and Hoffman (79.1%) are close, but I bet Edgar voters are much more inclined to reveal their ballots ahead of time than Hoffman voters. Andruw Jones (5.7%) may well fall off. (While I don't think he belongs, I don't want him off, either, not while defensive starts are a work-in-progress.)

MLBN
Hall of Fame Election Announcement
03:00-08:00

hoffman's in, edgar's out