hall of fame, next vote...

One guy whose HOF chances I like is Simmons. Narratives count for a lot in how journalists see a hall of famer and as we all know Simmons is putting ridiculous defensive numbers through his first 1000 games. Those numbers have already been confirmed by junk awards so it's not like he is some sort of secretly great defensive player, even the dinosaurs are aware of him. I know the current shortstop crop is ripe with potential hall of famers but if Simmons end up being the one with the best defensive stats and has hit enough to have an average bat I think he is in.

Three years ago, I might've put McCutchen in the good-bet category--at the very least, building-a-case. He seems to have fallen so far since then, although his last few seasons haven't been disastrous or anything--he's remained steady in the .800 OPS range. Yet I never thought to include him this time. He seems like a blueprint of the old-fashioned, peak-at-27 kind of player, followed by a slow slide where he moves around a bit. I'd call him a probably-not at the moment.

I think Garciaparra was a much better player than Tulowitzki. I'm heavily biased by his stellar career as a Blue Jay (where, last I heard, he was still engaged in "baseball-related activities"--tabletop baseball, card collecting, etc.).

I can't see any kind of HOF path for the Zobrist/Kinsler type of player. Their value, which is obvious, is just too tied in with their versatility, and statistically with all the sabermetric stuff that doesn't translate to black ink. Every team wants them, and they won't be forgotten (like we haven't forgotten Gene Tenace or Amos Otis...what do you mean, "Who's Gene Tenace"?).

Simmons has hit well the past two or three years, so maybe, but the only defense-first people I can think of post-war are Ozzie, Brooks Robinson, Aparacio, and, the most obvious, Mazeroski. The first three at least had "counting-stats" (god, I hate that term) in their offensive lines, and they were better than that. Andruw Jones may not last past a second ballot.

simmons is probably the best defensive SS since...vizquel at least? if he’s an average-to-20%-above average hitter for the next 5 years I think he makes a really strong case

Simmons' defensive WAR rating on baseball reference is already 25.3 after 7 seasons, Vizquel reached 29.5 in 24(!) seasons, holy crap i didn't realize he played for that long.

Simmons total bWAR: 34.9
Vizquel total bWAR: 45.6

Simmons is still only 29, won't turn 30 til September. he's making a really good case so far, yeah, and i hope his defense keeps up as he ages.

one thing I notice is that Simmons has never played in an allstar game. Smith played in 15, Robinson 18, Maz 8... even Omar made it three times. I know it really has little to do with how good he is – but if a guy can't stand out enough from his peers to earn a single all star appearance (so far), i'm not sure i like his odds (as it stands now) at getting the votes he'd need (and again before someone tears into me - this isn't meant to denigrate his talent).
another outside factor is that Simmons hasn't had the chance to really show off his stuff in a world series. Smith won a WS five years into his career and got the NLCS MVP a few years after that. all of which, again, is little to do with talent, but a lot to do with fame/name recognition etc.

the all-star thing is a good point, seems weird that he hasn’t made one yet given how good he’s been, but for some reason it doesn’t seem like he’s known by non-saber types as an all-time defender like smith or jones...I guess he doesn’t have the flashiness that would make that necessary. he also plays in the AL now and there is a surfeit of great young SSs, but I bet he’ll make a couple at least

By the time Simmons gets on the ballot--15 years from now, let's say--defense will be much better understood, and that'll be a big thing in his favour. But Thermo has a basic point right--to make the Hall of Fame, with few exceptions I can think of, you have to make some kind of a dent on the public consciousness (the All-Star Game is one example of that). Brooks Robinson did that, especially after the 1970 World Series. Ozzie Smith did that: there was back-flip video and "Go crazy, folks" (not defense-related, but part of his legend). Mazeroski had the walk-off HR (ditto). Aparicio I don't know that well...I'm not saying that's right, or that Simmons won't be deserving. It's just the way it is. He still has lots of time to become better known, but one way or another, that'll have to happen.

I think you're at a point where WAR can rule someone out of the HOF, but it's not an automatic pass in. I very much doubt, after Morris, whether any non-reliever with a career WAR under 60 will make the HOF. Anyone under, it's a red flag for voters to take a closer look and flaws will be exposed. Morris was the last guy where a certain mindset had taken hold of enough older voters--"Jack Morris, future HOF'er"--that he eked in, barely. That won't happen again.

But if you're a 60+ player, maybe even a 70+ player who, for whatever reason, has played in the shadows, I don't think you're automatic, not yet.

going by bWAR here -- Ichiro is a tiny bit below 60 but he's a first ballot guy. Ortiz is in the mid-50s and seems like a reasonably safe bet to eventually make it, i do think the caveats about his PED issue are actually caveats *against* the alleged result that lean more in his favor towards "innocent until proven guilty," vs someone like Sosa, who is not going to be getting in anytime soon.

Simmons might be a guy like Beltre, who built his case slowly over time until the tail end of his career when people talked about him as a future HOFer. I'm talking about him like he's retired, i hope not...

I should have checked that--Ichiro and Ortiz are going in. (As a 27-year-old rookie and a career DH, they're both kind of special cases.) So let me say that that 60-WAR threshold will go into effect sometime soon...in the next 5-10 years. It'll just happen; there won't be an announcement.

I don't think it'll be that simple because you'll always have Big Hall voters who will stump for candidates below whatever the threshold is.

Just making an estimate of what the unspoken threshold will be...Even that's not the right wording. Individual voters won't even be thinking about a threshold; I just don't think that, voting as a group, any player under 60 is going to inducted at a rapidly approaching point. (If WAR hangs around, that is--that could also be discarded at some point for something else.)

Gonzalez was supposed to become a perennial 40+ homer guy once he escaped San Diego, but he just continued to be a very good hitter.

Meant to respond to Gonzalez. I've posted about this before: among active players (not sure if he'll be back next year), I can't think of anyone who's been hurt more by his home parks, his one year in Fenway aside. (Reminiscent of Piazza's L.A./N.Y. career. They both have an identical 91/108 tOPS+ split on Baseball Reference, which proportionally quantifies their overall home/road split.) For his career, almost all of which has been spent in San Diego and L.A.:

Home: 972 games, .277/.351/.451, 129 HR
Away: 957 games, .296/.364/.517, 188 HR

His full season in Fenway was huge, and he finished 7th in MVP voting. He's basically the opposite of a Coors field hitter. If you simply doubled his away totals, he'd still be short of the HOF. But if you took his away totals and added them to career totals for a favorable home park (or parks), who knows--you might be looking at 400 HR and a career slash line of .300/.370/.530. For a post-PED first baseman, he'd at least have a shot.

Wanted to give that a try...I thought Carlos Gonzalez might be a decent match for Adrian--take Carlos's home stats, pro-rate them to match Adrian's games-played, add them to Adrian's actual road stats, and you might get a rough idea of what Adrian's career would look like if he'd been a career Rockie. As it turns out, Adrian is the much better hitter in neutral parks:

Adrian - .296/.364/.517 (957 games)
Carlos - .251/.307/.420 (664 games)

So if anything, this probably shortchanges Adrian.

Carlos at home, pro-rated to 972 games (matching Adrian's career total at home):

AB-3562/H-1150/2B-256/3B-42/HR-207/BB-338/R-706/RBI-723

If you take all that (plus peripheral categories I haven't listed) and add them to Adrian's road totals, here's where he'd be at for his career:

AB - 7205
H - 2230
2B - 487
3B - 47
HR - 395
BB - 726
R - 1259
RBI - 1392
BA - .310
OBP - .373
SLG - .555
OPS - .928

Would that be enough for the HOF? Probably not. His career OPS, unadjusted, would be just outside the top 40, but he'd still be light on HR and RBI for a first baseman. If you factor in that he's a better hitter than Carlos, and his home totals would likely be even better, possibly.

How does this half-hypothetical career compare to Helton's actual career?

Helton: .316/.414/.539, 369 HR, 1406 RBI (2247 games)
Adrian: .310/.373/.555, 395 HR, 1392 RBI (1929 games)

Pretty close. Helton was better at getting on base, a little more power from Adrian. Helton's prime, though, was during the height of the PED-boom; Adrian doesn't start playing full-time until 2006, by which time things were starting to settle down.

So if you think Helton belongs in the HOF, I'd say that Gonzalez, playing in more favorable parks, would have been right there with him. And if you don't think Gonzalez belongs in the HOF, I think you'd have conclude that Helton doesn't belong there either, after adjusting for park and era.

Rizzo seems to be a similar hitter as Gonzales for someone playing now.

Helton's numbers in his 20s are lunacy by any measure.

I still think the best comparable to Helton is Donnie Baseball, both had these eye-popping and very brief peaks after which their power evaporated and they became Mark Grace types. I don’t think their peaks quite get them in the HOF, unless you’re making the peak era argument, in which case they both have the numbers to bolster your defense.

WAR and OPS+ for Mattingly-prime and Helton-prime are pretty close (slight edge to Helton).

Paul Goldschmidt is another player that is similar to Adrian Gonzalez to age 29-30.

sure, let's put a guy who received a lifetime ban from baseball into the hall before marvin miller

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DrQt9yHX4AECuCP.jpg:small

none of those dudes should go in, except maybe will clark for being a hall of fame asshole

davey johnson was a good manager, but i suppose you have to win more than one pennant

Will Clark was pretty great in the late '80s in a low-offense environment; like McGriff, he kind of got overtaken by circumstances through the '90s. Belle's probably the best player on that list, but he comes with a caveat or twelve.

clark was one of my favorite players when i started collecting baseball cards ('88, '89). he almost led the league in average in 1989, behind only tony gwynn, and he had much more power.

since i'm talking 1989 - howard johnson threatened 40/40!!

Joe Carter makes Jim Rice look like Joe DiMaggio and he was pretty terrible for about half his career, i mean he is absurdly underqualified for the HOF.

Harold Baines was a really good hitter but i mean not that good. he just stuck around for a million years and almost got to 3000 hits.

If Albert Belle didn't have a shortened career he'd have an extremely good case. As it is, I figure a lot of sportswriters will be happy they don't have to dig too deep for a reason to not vote for the guy. As it stands, he had a terrifyingly fearsome peak. But it was only 5 or 6 seasons.

Will Clark was an amazing douchebag, but for several years he looked like a definite HOFer. He seemed to arrive as this fully formed power hitter with the best swing in MLB, but by the time he was 25 he'd already peaked. He didn't really become a poor hitter, he just put up Mark Grace numbers instead of what he'd done before. Some of that was due to injury, though. He had a couple of seasons at the end of his career that were in line with what he accomplished in SF, but by that time he was ready to retire. I think the '90s offensive explosion really diminished his legacy but he was great.

Hershiser is another lost pitcher of the '80s, arguably another arm lost to Lasorda, and obviously a guy talented enough during his best seasons to make a strong case that he's better than a lot of pitchers already in the HOF but I don't think he deserves it. I figure Morris may be lowering that bar enough for someone like him to slip in, I guess. Hershiser was better than him, at least. An actual example of a pitcher everyone thought was a HOFer when they witnessed him, as opposed to the possibly apocryphal stories about Jack.

Without checking (I might be forgetting somebody obvious), my recollection is that Clark was the consensus choice as the game's best first baseman between peak-Mattingly and the emergence of Thomas/Bagwell. McGriff was there with him as a hitter, but Clark was viewed as the more complete player.

another lost pitcher of the '80s

There are so many of them, starting with Stieb. The Stieb/Fernando/Gooden/Viola/Hershiser/Soto/Saberhagen generation. Plus a few more.

orel looks pretty good next to morris and catfish hunter, but yeah

will clark's numbers are not a great deal better than jack clark's, and no one ever accused the latter of being a hall of famer (except for when he played against the pirates)

Not a Hall of Famer, but he was pretty damn good. He was one of a group of players I associate with the early Abstracts, players of whom James was always saying that fans have no idea how good this guy is--Bobby Grich, Gene Tenace, Darrell Evans, Brian Downing, Jack Clark. His 1987 season was huge (helped along by a league-wide offensive blip).

Am I an idiot? I don’t remember a Soto.

mario soto, cincinnati reds

did he succumb to injuries? he had 4 straight years of ~250 innings, then poof, out of the majors at age 32

Mario Soto was incredible, he had a couple of massive years.

I also remember Steve Rogers and John Candelaria.

Along with Stieb, probably the best pitcher in baseball from '80 to '84. He went 5/-/9/2/6 in Cy Young voting, and the year he didn't place, the strike year, he was 12-9 (which I mention out of habit), 3.29, with very good peripheral stats. He must have blown his arm out, but I don't remember.

let us also reflect on dewey evans

*leans back in a creaky chair*

aw yes, dwight "the dewster" evans. i think he should be in the hall! he was good at pretty much everything (except running), played almost his whole career with the red sox (more games than any other player except for yaz), played in a big market, hit a bunch of home runs, won a bunch of gold gloves (a wonderful, fair award that means a lot)

would he qualify for this modern era ballot, though?

or sorry, the "today's game" ballot

Dwight Evans--who peaked at 10% and didn't make it to a fourth ballot--would be one of the first guys I'd put in among players who didn't get a fair hearing. The biggest obstacle he faced, I think, is that he peaked so late; a certain idea took hold early in his career, that he was the other guy behind Yastrzemski, Lynn, and Rice, great glove and not much offense, and then from '81-89 (with one off year), he just got better and better. He was one of the best players in his 30s from the past few decades.

And still the greatest play I've ever seen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeLpoYvA-MU

would he qualify for this modern era ballot, though?

How do you qualify? Is it just playing within a certain time frame, or do you have to fill out a form or something?

The Modern Baseball Era Committee chooses the candidates. they're supposed to choose players, umpires or executives who made a significant "contribution" during a certain era. in the case of the modern era, that's 1970-87, so maybe he'll get another shot next time the modern era vote comes up.

if Steinbush III gets in, it's time to waive in Bonds, Clemens, Shoeless Joe, Cicotte, Carl Mays, Rose, Sauron...

I think he's the only one on the VC ballot who *will* get in eventually ...

From 2009:
https://sports.theonion.com/derek-jeter-honored-for-having-fewer-hits-than-harold-b-1819571015

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/6d/ef/4a6defdd14174cf67ba64040014e5667.jpg

Baines, Luzinski, ?

Steve Kemp!

That's weird. I figured it had to do with RBI, checked and found out that Baines and Luzinski had 100+ in 1982, but Kemp ended up with 98. I guess the photo was taken sometime in September.

that's some pretty optimistic thinking on their part.

i thought it might have had to do with the 1983 White Sox reaching 100 wins, but not only did they only win 99 but Steve Kemp was on the Yankees that year.

also i always forget what a beast Luzinski was; i tended to file him in with guys like Gorman Thomas and Tony Armas, but he was a step above. immense power, hit for a decent average at his peak, walked a lot. finished second in the MVP race twice.

I'll cut-and-paste a bit of Posnanski's rundown:

Harold Baines (38.7 WAR) -- Professional hitter, almost 2,900 hits, 384 homers, professional hitter.

Albert Belle (40.1 WAR) -- Slugger, controversial, had a 50-homer, 50-double season, should have won an MVP but didn't, hip injury ended his career prematurely.

Joe Carter (19.6 WAR) -- RBI man, good guy, hit one of only two World Series walk-off homers, touch 'em all Joe.

Will Clark (56.5 WAR) -- Clayton Kershaw copied his swing, .300 hitter, six-me all-star, underappreciated.

Orel Hershiser (51.6 WAR) -- Bulldog, absurd 1988 season, won 200 games in his career, set consecutive scoreless inning record.

Davey Johnson -- Won everywhere as manager. Got fired everywhere as manager. His 42 homers in 1973 still a record for second basemen.

Charlie Manuel -- Ol Charlie, hitting genius, led Phillies to World Series crown and five consecutive division titles, made Jim Thome great.

Lou Piniella -- Sweet Lou, managed 1990 Reds to title, managed 2001 Mariners to 116 wins, feisty as hitter and skipper.

Lee Smith (29.4 WAR) -- Lee Arthur, in the first class of one-inning closers, set all-time saves record, intimidating nice guy.

I like the Freudian slip of "six-me all-star," so I left it in. Concur about Belle's non-MVP--one of the more mystifying picks of my lifetime. (Or worst...it's not like I'm actually mystified as to why Vaughn won.)

1995, never forget: Vaughn had 12 first-place votes, Belle had 11, Edgar had 4, and Jose Mesa had 1.