hall of fame, next vote...

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

no go for edgar

Jones squeaked by:

Guerrero, 92.9
Jones, 92.2
Thome, 89.9
Hoffman, 79.9
---
Edgar Martinez, 70.4
Mike Mussina, 63.5
Roger Clemens, 57.3
Barry Bonds, 56.4
Curt Schilling, 51.2
Omar Vizquel, 37
Larry Walker, 34.1
Fred McGriff, 23.2
Manny Ramirez, 22
Jeff Kent, 14.5
Gary Sheffield, 11.1
Billy Wagner, 11.1
Scott Rolen, 10.2
Sammy Sosa, 7.8
Andruw Jones, 7.2
---
Jamie Moyer, 2.4
Johan Santana, 2.4
Johnny Damon, 1.9
Hideki Matsui, 0.9
Chris Carpenter, 0.5
Kerry Wood, 0.5
Livan Hernandez, 0.2
Carlos Lee, 0.2

Martinez a cinch for next year, looks good for Mussina; Schilling gained about 6%, still has four years left...

(Meaning Andruw, obviously.)

Next year: Rivera, Halladay, and Edgar in; I doubt they'll put in four players two years in a row, so Mussina falls a bit short. Bonds and Clemens...pick up a few points? (They only picked up 2-3 this year, thought there'd be a bigger jump.)

Roger Clemens, 57.3
Barry Bonds, 56.4

O_o wonder who voted for clemens and not bonds?

Curious to see how Helton fares. Not anticipating him coming close. Walker seems like the better Rockies bet but he'd need to make an unprecedented move to get in via the BBWAA.

I bet Mussina gets to the low 70s next year and in the year after.

Would not be surprised to see Schilling hold steady for a couple more years with little movement.

still bizarre to me that vlad is somehow 21% more worthy this year than last

combo of there being more room now and him not being a "first ballot guy"

hoffman's election is a joke but whatever

sorry, but you can't be talking about the two-time Rolaids Relief Pitcher of the Year. A guy whose WAR puts him in Joe Nathan territory and 4 pts ahead of the likes of Bob Stanley and John Franco.

lol omar

he pitched 1087 innings in his career, with a 2.87 ERA (127th all-time among pitchers with >1000 IP) and 3.08 FIP (175th), and 71 ERA- (14th) and 73 FIP- (8th)

the rest of the FIP- all-time top ten (>1000 IP):

1 Rivera (62)
2 Kershaw (66)
3 Pedro Martinez (68)
4 Sale (71)
5 Clemens (71)
6 Kluber (72)
7 Rube Waddell (72)
8 Hoffman (73)
9 Strasburg (73)
10 Randy Johnson (73)

kind of surprised to see Strasburg in the top ten! 11 (Doug Jones) and 12 (Lee Smith!!) are kinda interesting too

rube was my man

so yeah, obviously dominating when he was on the mound. but he wasn't on the mound nearly so much as a lot of other pitchers who accumulated much more value as a result. i don't think i'd vote for him (i'm not sure what reliever i'd ever vote for other than rivera) but i don't think he's a ridiculous choice either

what is the average IP for hall of fame pitchers

hmmm...looks like 3802 (https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hof_pitching.shtml)

there are only two pitchers in the HOF with fewer IP than hoffman, and one of them is Satchel Paige. (the other is bruce sutter with 1042. Babe Ruth is next with 1221, Hank 'Donkey Dick' O'Day at 1651, and Rollie Fingers at 1701)

Babe Ruth is next with 1221

pretty rough when you can't top that

Hoffman is 21st all time here:

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

tbf babe only fanned 3.6 per nine innings while walking 3.2. but still

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7eZCXFHZTg

Eh. Get Hoffman out of the way do it’s not some BS in2020 or whatever

Hey maybe 4 per year should be the new norm in the expansion era.

Hoffman's election is lame but i agree about getting him in ASAP just to get it over with. ridiculous though how much better Billy Wagner was over her career, w/almost the same WAR in almost 200 fewer innings (903 vs 1089.1)

next year's returning and new candidates, most of them at least enough to probably stick around for 2020, w/bWAR:

Bonds (162.4)
Clemens (140.3)
Mussina (83.0)
Schilling (79.9)
Walker (72.6)
Rolen (70.0)
Ramirez (69.2)
Martinez (68.3)
Halladay (64.7)
Jones (62.8)
Helton (61.2)
Pettitte (60.8)
Sheffield (60.3)
Sosa (58.4)
Rivera (57.1)
Kent (55.2)
McGriff (52.4)
Berkman (51.7)
Oswalt (50.2)
Tejada (46.9)
Vizquel (45.3)
Wagner (28.1)

Edgar is a shoo-in to get elected next year with a fairly weak list of first-time candidates. Vizquel did surprisingly well!

Johnny Damon's lack of votes is a bit like Kenny Lofton. He was definitely hall of very good, career war is 56 on Baseball Reference.

Only 3 war less than Guerrero...

yea not sold on Trevor Hoffmann but he seems like a good dude and he was pretty great for Milwaukee so I say, let him in

Johan Santana dropped from the ballot

Santana: 51.4 bWAR, 2026 IP
Koufax: 49.0 bWAR, 2324 IP

(I know there's black ink and World Series in SK's favor)

SK also had more no-hitters

(ducks)

low blow imho

Johan Santana getting dropped like that is as much a joke as Trevor Hoffman getting in. i'm not going to suggest he deserved enshrinement but 2004-2008 he was Kershaw-level great.

One quick Thome story.
We were in Chicago, underground by their cage, just talking. After Chicago, we were headed to NY and Mussina was throwing game 1. Asked him what he had on him. He says, “Look hook, adjust heater” in the classic Thome voice. I just laughed. Who can do that?!

— Michael Young (@MikeyY626) January 24, 2018

i'm still a bit surprised McGriff hasn't received more support, whatever one thinks of his career he seems like the kind of player a lot of guys would throw their weight behind in opposition to alleged PED users. I imagine he'll get a decent increase in the 2019 voting for his final year on the ballot, since the decks have--if not cleared--slightly thinned out.

so the upcoming viable candidates who seem likely to make it -- we've got Halladay and Rivera in 2019. Jeter shows up for the 2020 results, then in 2022 it's A-Rod and Ortiz. We can assume that we'll have some tiresome PED grandstanding about A-Rod, and a bit about Ortiz perhaps (though I think he seems likely to get in before A-Rod at this point in time, I'm just going to assume the latter will be in purgatory for 7-8 years if not more.) Beyond that there will be a lot of debate about holdovers til the next wave retires.

Looked up Kenny Lofton's War on Baseball Reference and it is like 68.2. Dang...Tim Raines is 69.1.

Lmao!!! Pure gold right here. Love the Big Apple! pic.twitter.com/bNGySqTzEQ

— Chipper Jones (@RealCJ10) January 25, 2018

Vladimir Guerrero says he will wear an #Angels cap on his Hall of Fame plaque. He'll be the first player to do so. The Angels were founded in 1961.

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) January 25, 2018

boo

One entire country not happy at all about that.

I'm actually surprised McGriff has hung around on the ballot so long, in view of the fact Delgado didn't last for a second vote. I know you have to make a clear adjustment for era, but speaking as a Jays fan (who liked McGriff a lot), I just don't think he was as scary a hitter as Delgado, and Delgado retired early, before a clear decline phase, while McGriff declined for close to a decade.

Count me as someone who thinks Hoffman's selection, while shaky, isn't a joke. My guess is that, conservatively, he's one of the 10 greatest closers ever. So it comes down to how many closers you think should be in there: only one, or Rivera plus two or three more, or a few more than that. I'm okay with the latter.

I don’t think the depth of the talent pool for relief pitchers is such that ten inductees are warranted.

I want Rivera in there, Eckersley, Wilhelm, probably Gossage, probably Hoffman; Fingers very shaky, although having been there during his post-season heyday, I understand the pull he had on pre-sabermetric voters. Sutter not a chance, and Smoltz I think of as a starter. One day, I expect Kimbrel and/or Jansen to at least be a reasonable candidate.

So in a sense, I agree with you--fewer than 10. But I think Hoffman's one of them. (I know, Wagner. I'm giving Hoffman the antiquated bulk counting-stat bonus.)