hall of fame, next vote...

yeah when these committees are going to let just anyone in, it does make the BBWAA debates seem pointless

it's interesting to read some of the discussion on blyleven at the top of this thread -- obviously this was before WAR even was around. (I'd bet that alex in SF has changed his mind these days.) he did have a lot of passionate supporters at the time, and the arguments about 300 wins, particularly since he was so close to it anyway and given that he pitched for some pretty mediocre teams, seem especially dated now

Baines' best season as a composite--his career bests in every category:

2B - 39
3B - 10
HR - 29
R - 89 (never scored 90 runs in a season)
RBI - 113
BB - 73
BA - .311
OBP - .399
SLG - .541
OPS+ - .903
WAR - 4.3

(rate stats for seasons of 140+ games)

Even allowing that his prime years were in a pitcher's decade (the second half of his career was in a hitter's decade), that's gotta be about as ordinary as it gets for that kind of exercise.

this is so dumb, i suppose the best thing i can say about it is it'll maybe bring about some changes bc of how absurd it is. though i'm not gonna hold my breath.

worst selection since Jim Rice

not sure about Lee Smith either

start designing a plaque for Brett Gardner, he has played half as many seasons and has about the same bWAR, plus seven seasons of 3+ bWAR to Baines' two. And four seasons of 4+ bWAR to Baines' one.

i *like* Harold Baines but there should be a recall vote.

haha trout will pass baines + smith's combined WAR next year

jaffe: This is not to begrudge the man’s happiness upon being granted entry to the Hall. But Baines’ election is simply not a great day for the institution, or for anyone bringing an analytical, merit-based approach to it while reckoning with its objective standards. The precedent it sets is nearly unmanageable, if future committees are to take seriously candidates of his level. Why battle over Dale Murphy or Fred McGriff if Harold Baines is the standard?

Why battle over Dale Murphy or Fred McGriff if Harold Baines is the standard?

this is very true. also if you use it as a mantra you come to learn a fundamental truth about the universe

Lee Smith is really getting off easy today.

Al Oliver for HOF

here for your consideration, the 16 members of the angry democrats Today’s Game Era Committee:

Hall of Famers: Roberto Alomar, Bert Blyleven, Pat Gillick, Tony La Russa, Greg Maddux, Joe Morgan, John Schuerholz, Ozzie Smith, Joe Torre

Executives: Al Avila (Tigers), Paul Beeston (Blue Jays), Andy MacPhail (Phillies), Jerry Reinsdorf (White Sox)

Media: Steve Hirdt (Elias Sports Bureau), Tim Kurkjian (ESPN), Claire Smith (ESPN)

Lee Smith is really getting off easy today.

True! He's suddenly the George W. Bush of HOF'ers.

A sampling of headlines:

Harold Baines' Hall of Fame selection sparks controversy and criticism
Harold Baines – and many others – ‘shocked’ by his Hall of Fame selection
Harold Baines: MLB hall of fame selection an embarrassment
Harold Baines is the most inexplicable Hall of Fame pick ever

I think publications should be a little careful with things like the last two (both Sports Illustrated). Harold Baines is a human being, and you don't need to take what is supposed to be a joyous day and outright humiliate the guy (from all accounts, a quiet, respected player) because 16 other people made a terrible choice. I think the first headline is sufficient.

lee smith isn't ideal, but unless you believe relievers are inherently unworthy, he's at least defensible

otoh it leads us down a very slippery slope toward Hall of Famer Joe Nathan

or John Franco

Jason Isringhausen for HOF

I'd say the guy who will benefit most from Smith's choice is Billy Wagner.

Smith, i disagree with – but i understand it's based in a different/older understanding of the game... but Baines?! BAINES?!?!? Even Baines thinks it's fucked up!

i am not against billy wagner's induction tbh

my memory of Harold Baines will always be how the ChiSox traded him to the Rangers, and he returned to play against them early in the season, and they retired his number before a game, and everyone was confused because a) the ceremony was pretty haphazard, and b) it was Harold Baines.

i've never seen this kind of reaction to a HOF selection, Morris and Rice and others sort of felt inevitable, this one was out of left field (unlike Harold Baines, who didn't take the field for the last twenty years of his career iirc!)

looks like a Big Hall

ex-players should not be voting; the trees don't understand the forest

Posnanski has a good thing on Baines today that uses a front-door/back-door metaphor for the HOF, and he says back-door picks like Baines and Smith have no bearing on anyone else (i.e., Mazeroski didn't help Frank White). By which logic, Smith doesn't help Wagner at all.

But I think they can easily avoid the slippery-slope problem by putting Wagner in. Smith is not the least deserving closer in there; that's gotta be Sutter. If you put in anyone incontrovertibly more deserving than Smith, that closes the circle. And I think that points to Wagner. There are a few others--Franco, Nathan, Rodriguez--where I think you can finesse the logic of having Smith in and not them (the decade-long saves record, more innings, etc.). Put Wagner in, and 15-20 years from now, you can maybe take a look at Kimbrel/Jensen/Chapman, or maybe someone else will come along who rises to the Rivera level (or to Hoffman's--I'd set the bar at Hoffman, though I know most if not all of you disagree). But Wagner would be it for non-active closers forever.

Baines...is a whole other problem.

I mean, if Baines is a hall of famer, so is... *lists off literally two hundred players*

(I am kind of tempted to do this)

i dunno if this year's voting has already been done, but i'd think this would really concentrate minds on edgar and larry walker

The results are announced Jan. 22, so they can't have voted already, right? I don't recall the tracker going online or anything.

Larry Walker has one year left after this, I imagine that Baines might actually help him as a comparison point, an actual peak HOF five-tool OF talent vs Baines' career of plodding around out there with his one-and-a-half tools. Baines has him beat in, what, health and a single home run and those skills that just don't translate into a single bWAR season that would knock out one of Larry's top ten seasons.

After this upcoming year's possible four-player enshrinement, Walker seems like the guy a lot of people will rally behind.

the HOF tracker is up and running, 32 ballots counted

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!11134&ithint=file,xlsx&app=Excel&authkey=!ACeqm-knNxexBw8

in that very small sample size:

Walker and Martinez have both gained 6 votes from returning voters. McGriff and Mussina have gained 5. Vizquel has gained 4.

i support an expansive hall in general and don't necessarily go by 'okay you hit 65 WAR and you're in'. bill mazeroski doesn't belong in the hall, but he did at least hit one of the two most famous homers in baseball history. orel hershiser at least had an incredible 1988, and a shutout streak, and ALCS/NLCS/WS MVPs. dave parker won an MVP and had that throw in the all-star game. david ortiz had a bunch of top-five MVP finishes, a WS MVP, and was a famous jolly papi

pretty sure baines' biggest moment was the number-retirement omar mentioned? like i don't want to poop on the guy -- he was a good hitter! had a nice career! -- but there's really nothing to point to at all. was there ever a period -- even of a couple months -- where people claimed harold baines was one of the top X hitters in the game?

Thanks, didn't know the tracker was up.

Edgar's at 100% through 32 ballots--even allowing for drop-off, he's in, finally. Halladay also looks very good.

Mussina's at 84%, which I expect means he'll come in close--if not this year, next year for sure. Schilling's at 75%; he won't make it, but I think that's a bounce-back, no? Walker's at 66%; the sabermetric picks almost always drop off, so I think he's going to miss again, unfortunately. Bonds and Clemens...getting closer, still in limbo. (I'll never understand the voter who says yes to Clemens but no to Bonds--it must be the same guy every year.)

i think the net gains in votes are pretty instructive, Walker gaining six out of 32 is pretty impressive though i tend to agree on the sabermetric picks and he missed by 173 votes last year, he'll need a major groundswell of fresh support, no way he's in this year obv. just hoping it sets him up to go in next time around. Mussina gaining five and needing to pick up 49 overall is a pretty good trend.

There's no end to the ways you can frame how indefensible the Baines pick is. The subject will wear itself out, but for now, scroll down to the "Hall of Baines" chart--"composed of all players who rate at least as well compared to the Hall of Fame averages at their respective positions as Baines does to his."

http://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/12/10/18135296/harold-baines-hall-of-fame-todays-game-era-committee

Chris Hoiles is catching, Ray Durham's at second.

Was Baines a Clemente type humanitarian ? or like the coolest dude to have around? I don’t know him at all beyond the statsheet; from that perspective, his number retirement always felt weird. All of this is cool if he deserves as a great person.

LaRussa: "But if you look at his record, it can’t be denied. The 3,000 hits are right there. In the 80s and 90s, in just about every offensive category, (Baines is) in the top four or five guys.”

He's probably right about hits. (Even there, though, I'm not sure.) Is that even close to being true about any other category, big or small?

Jeff Sullivan says it's now the Hall of Sometimes Good

from 1980-2000 -- which covers baines' entire career apart from 32 very poor games in 2001 -- he ranks fifth in hits, 11th in homers, third in RBI, third in plate appearances and second in GIDP

his 384 homers are two fewer than sammy sosa and three more than albert belle, both of whom did it in nine fewer seasons. he's well behind fred mcgriff (417), who did it in six fewer seasons. the 90s were a different offensive era from the 80s, but only twice in each decade did he rank in the top 10 in his league in OPS+

of the 145 players who debuted in 1980, baines ranks second in career WAR behind fernando valenzuela and just ahead of tim wallach. (no. 145 is ned yost at -3.7 in 219 games, yikes)

baines from 1980 to 1999:

101st in wRC+
29th in fangraphs offensive runs above average
76th in batting average
139th in OBP
99th in slugging
5th in hits
2nd in RBI
9th in HR
12th in runs scored

haha mookie beat me to it

i apologize to Jim Rice; Harold is the worst pick since Fred Lindstrom.

rom 1980-2000 -- which covers baines' entire career apart from 32 very poor games in 2001 -- he ranks fifth in hits, 11th in homers, third in RBI, third in plate appearances and second in GIDP

Third in PA’s is the key. Baines batted a lot (while barely playing the field), which led to a lot of hits. Kind of like future hall of famer nick markakis

Hall of Played a Lot

poor dead Rusty Staub

imo Jim Rice is inarguably a better HOFer than Harold Baines, which isn't to say he's a particularly good HOFer.

agree

i kind of feel bad for Baines, because for the next year all he's going to hear about is how he's not really *that* good and he will forever be a benchmark for undeserving hall of famers.

i kind of hope (but doubt) he calls out the vet committee for their stupidity.

is there any chance this causes MLB (or whoever is in charge of these things) to re-examine how the vet's committee works?

If anyone should protest, it's the BBWAA. They get raked over the coals every year for their choices and individual writers get put under tremendous pressure to justify and defend their choices. Everyone debates and researches and argues over candidates for ten (formerly fifteen) years and the whole process has the illusion of carrying some serious weight -- reputations of players are on the line, and legacies are at stake! Then the next year a bunch of Jack Morris' old drinking buddies get together one afternoon and put him in the HOF anyway. It's ridiculous.

And the Baines case is obv. 10000X worse because the BBWAA (rightly) dismissed him as a serious candidate early on, only to have the New Vets Committee come around 20 years later and say "fuck it, we don't care what you guys think, he's a HOFer".

The writers have made a bunch of one and done screw ups (e.g. Kevin Brown, Lou Whitaker) but surely there's a way of dealing with this. You could have the BBWAA vote on a supplementary ballot for reconsidering players who have fallen off the regular ballot. If you get, say, 40-50% of the vote, *then* you get your name added to a Vets Committee list, and can be reconsidered once every five years. Anything is better than a system where Harold Baines gets elected out of the blue.

I know nobody cares about RBI, but I'm actually surprised and impressed to learn that Baines was second for that time frame. (And no, that doesn't change anything--longevity + fluke of the calendar.)

i kind of feel bad for Baines, because for the next year all he's going to hear about is how he's not really *that* good and he will forever be a benchmark for undeserving hall of famers.

He was much better on the outside--people always spoke highly of him, looked at him as one example of the good player who falls short of the HOF. Now, as TT says, he'll be vilified and held up as a joke.

And for longer than the next year, I'd say.

Nice clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnF08SLklKc