This Year's HOF Ballot, Part 2

Tom Glavine (1st):  305 wins, 10 All-Star games, 2 Cy Young (with 4 other top 3 finishes), 118 ERA+...let's face it, the guy's a Hall of Famer.

Question:  How many Hall of Fame pitchers ever led the league in losses?  At age 22, Glavine went 7-17 with a 4.56 ERA...not a great start to a great career.  But the following the "worst-to-first" Braves improved across the board, with Glavine himself going 14-8 with an ERA almost a run lower.

Answer:  16 pitchers, including Phil Niekro who led the league in losses 4 straight years!

But will Glavine get in on the first ballot?  For that matter, how did the 300 game winners wind up in the Hall of Fame?

• Cy Young (2nd)
• Walter Johnson (1st)
• Pete Alexander (2nd)
• Christy Mathewson (1st)
• Pud Galvin (Old Timers' Committee)
• Warren Spahn (1st)
• Kid Nichols (OTC)
• Pud Galvin (OTC)
• Steve Carlton (1st)
• John Clarkson (OTC)
• Eddie Plank (on the ballot 5 times, in through OTC)
• Nolan Ryan (1st)
• Don Sutton (5th)
• Phil Niekro (5th)
• Gaylord Perry (3rd)
• Tom Seaver (1st)
• Old Hoss Radbourne (OTC)
• Mickey Welch (OTC)
• Lefty Grove (4th)
• Early Wynn (4th)

We can eliminate the 19th century pitchers, because the Hall of Fame wasn't around - those that received votes (i.e., Plank) were well behind the more recent players.  Since the previous generation's pitchers weren't going to get votes, a separate committee was set up to usher them into the Hall of Fame.  There was a lot of arguments that Sutton was a decent #3 starter who happened to stick around for a very long time, and Niekro was a knuckleball pitcher - the kind of pitcher who rarely gets recognition for their true value.  Grove was subjected to a different voting criteria, and there were so many players on the ballot they had to change the rules.

Sound familiar?

Prediction:   Glavine misses the cut.  Barely.

Luis Gonzalez (1st):  5-time All-Star, one 3rd place MVP finish, 2591 hits, .283 BA, 354 HR, 1439 RBIs.

Luis Gonzalez had one of the greatest "peculiar" seasons of all time.  In 1997 he went .325-57-142, career highs for all of them (26 HRs, 28 RBIs higher)...and it was done at age 33.  I loved the guy when he first came up with the Astros - I had him on my fantasy team, and I could count on him for double digit HRs and steals, and I won two championships with him.  But 57-142?  Never.

Prediction:  Under 10 votes.

Jacque Jones (1st):   11.5 WAR (career), .277 165-630  (OPS+ 98, which means he was 2% worse than the average player)  I wonder how some of these players wind up on the ballot - actually, someone on the Hall of Fame Committee has to nominate them, and they player has to be seconded.  I'd like to meet the two men who felt the necessity to include Mr. Jones.

Prediction:  No votes

Todd Jones (1st):  319 Saves, 1 All-Star Game, 1 5th place - Cy Young.  Started one game in his career, on June 7th, 2003 Jones started the second game of a doubleheader against the Royals.  He wasn't good:  he made it 4 1/3 innings, but gave up 9 hits and 5 runs and took the loss.  As if this wasn't a useless stat, Jones threw 67 pitches:  51 were strikes.

 Probably best remembered for his great facial hair.

Prediction:  No votes.

Jeff Kent (1st):  .290 377-1518, 5 All-Star games, 2000 MVP, three other top 10 finishes.  123 OPS+, 55.2 WAR

One of the best hitting second basemen in the history of the game (Hornsby comes to mind), Kent was also one of the more difficult personalities.  It is no surprise that he and Barry Bonds didn't get along, nor was it a surprise that he left the Giants and went to the Dodgers.  I know in this day and age more players move between the two teams, but I'm still shocked when a player moves between the Yankees and Red Sox (I'm looking at you, Jacob Ellsbury and Johnny Damon) and the Giants and Dodgers.  I can't think of any other two teams with that same level of intensity and dislike for each other (maybe if the Cubs were better it would be with the Cardinals), but they're the top 2.

In a perfect world for Jeff Kent's bid to join Cooperstown, he would appear on the ballot, earn between 40-50%, then wait a few years until a weak class come along and the writers were looking for somebody, ANYBODY to vote for.  Unfortunately, the next week class won't come along until next decade.  By then, Kent's numbers will look even better and I think he'll get in around the 10th or 12th year on the ballot.  Over the next three years, however, Kent will be much closer to being left off the ballot than 50%, let alone 75%.

Prediction:  11%

Paul Lo Duca (1st):  .286 80-481, OPS+ 97, 4 All-Star games, 17.9 WAR

Lo Duca had one solid year - at age 29, he hit .320 25-90.  Most batters peak around age 27, but catcher develop late and the Dodgers had Todd Hundley.  By the time Lo Duca got his chance, he was on the downward side.  He never hit more than 13 HRs again.

Prediction:  No votes

 Greg Maddux (1st):  355-227 3.16 ERA 8 All-Star games, 4 Cy Youngs (5 Top 5 finishes), 18 Gold Gloves.  ERA+ 132

Maddux should get in for this commercial alone:



My favorite story about Maddux is from the end of his career, when he was warming up in the Padres bullpen and threw to the bullpen catcher (Ben Risinger) while he had his eyes closed.  The bullpen coach would yell to Risinger to snap his glove closed.

Maddux hit the glove a few times before they got their timing right...and caught the ball.

In a perfect world, Maddux would sail into the Hall unanimously.  There's no way in hell the bespectacled professor did PEDs, and his career had a very normal arc of progression.  But some won't want him to be unanimous, some writers don't think anyone should be a first ballot HOFer, and others don't want to vote anyone in from this era anyway.  I still think he cracks 90%.

Prediction:  Over 90%, elected.

Edgar Martinez (5th, 35.9%):   I've written at length about Martinez in the past, so I won't go into detail here.  Just keep in mind - I'm a "small Hall" person.  I wouldn't have put Blyleven in, I wouldn't have voted for Rice, and even Don Sutton (the ultimate compiler) wouldn't crack my personal Hall of Fame.

Prediction:  20%

Don Mattingly (14th, 13.2%):  Like Morris, this is Mattingly's last go around on the ballot.  Unlike Morris, Donnie Baseball has never gotten close to making the Hall.  His best two years on the ballot were his first two (28%, then 20%), and then his numbers got swallowed up on the Steroid Era (am I allowed to capitalize it, like the "Deadball Era" and "The Year of the Pitcher"?).  His back did him in, and while inclusive voters might add him to their ballot, a friend of mine once said it best - "The Hall of Fame is best defined not by who is in the Hall, but by who is not.  It's what makes a person think, 'THAT person didn't make it?"

Mattingly is not the best of the rest, but he was a hell of a ballplayer...just not good enough for the Hall.

Prediction:  Since it's his last year, and this year's ballot is loaded, I think those who have supported him in the past are likely to skip past his name this year and hope he gets elected down the road by the Veterans Committee.  Under 5%, maybe under 3.

This year's HOF ballot

For many of the BBWAA voters, this year's ballot for the baseball Hall of Fame will be the most difficult ever.  There are many reasons for it, which has numerous BBWAA voters and outsiders clamoring for a change.  Before plunging into the ballot itself (36 players this year, many of which are qualified), let's take a closer look at those who are voters, what the guidelines are, and where most of the complaints about the current system lay.

Current Guidelines

1. The voters are current or former members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, who were active for at least 10 years.  
2. For a player to be elected to the HOF, they must receive 75% of the submitted votes.
3. Electors may vote for as few as 0, or as many as 10 players.
4. There is no specific criteria for the players, other than they played at least 10 seasons, had been retired for 5, and were nominated by a selection committee (i.e., no write-in allowed).

So...what are the complaints?

1.  Who gets to vote?

• The biggest cry I've heard about this is that there are a significant amount of voters who are retired, or no longer follow baseball closely, and therefore how can they be an educated voter? To that point, some have recommended the number of voters be reduced; others suggest the voting should be expanded to include baseball fans.  Others offer that only current baseball writers should be involved in the election process.
• As for expanding the voting rights to more people, it has been pointed out that it might be even more difficult for a consensus to be reached.  This is probably NOT the answer, unless changes are made to what percentage was needed for a player to get elected.
• Others have suggested to reduce the number of voters.  The only problem with that is...well, it's been done before.  
• Jonah Keri has been a bit more specific about his complaints as to who qualifies as a voter - to be specific, he mentions three retired who work for Golferswest.com and no longer cover baseball.  He says:
• "The most jarring example of this surfaced last year, when three former baseball writers publicized their Hall of Fame votes at their current place of employment … GolfersWest.com. If the BBWAA truly cares about the voting process, it'll stop allowing people who haven't covered the sport since acid-washed jeans were popular to retain voting rights."
• Let's have a closer look at these three men who are out of date with baseball:
• Bob Sherwin covered the Mariners for 20 years, and retired from newspaper writing in 2004.
• Jim Street covered baseball for the better part of forty years before retiring in 2010.
• Kirby Arnold covered baseball from 1984-2011.  
• These are the men who Keri wants to revoke their voting rights?  Men who actually covered the baseball players who are on the ballot currently?  What makes a current voter for the Hall of Fame (maybe, a Bob Ryan?) better equipped to evaluate these players than these three?  If we look at the basis of the argument against the current method of voting, the issue is two things:  

1. Keri (and others) don't like who they've voted for, and:
2. They are upset that too many qualified candidates aren't getting 75%.

I think we discount the argument against who votes and who doesn't - expanding the voting membership won't improve the "intellect" of the voters, and reducing it might cause a person to have undue influence over the voting.  From Wikipedia:

The Hall of Fame suffered in the 1970s, when Frankie Frisch was a major voice on the committee. The old Hall of Famer, backed by former teammate Bill Terry and sportswriters J. Roy Stockton and Fred Lieb, who covered Frisch's teams, managed to get five of his teammates elected to the Hall by the committee. Additionally, in the three years after his death, two more teammates were elected.

After Frisch died and Terry left the Committee, elections were normalized. In 1978, membership increased to fifteen members, five Hall of Famers, five owners and executives, and five sportswriters. The members would meet in Florida during spring training to elect a player or two every year.

Do we need this?  With a body of 500+ voters, the best are going to get voted in...and some might not, which leads us to the second argument.  This year, we have legitimately 19 players who will garner significant support for their Hall of Fame candidacy.  With the voting limited to a maximum of 10 players, some writers are arguing that some qualified players won't get in, and some might not even garner the 5% needed to stay on the ballot.  The players, in no particular order:

• Craig Biggio
• Jack Morris
• Jeff Bagwell
• Tom Glavine
• Greg Maddux
• Barry Bonds
• Roger Clemens
• Mark McGwire
• Alan Trammell
• Tim Raines
• Lee Smith
• Curt Schilling
• Edgar Martinez
• Frank Thomas
• Fred McGriff
• Rafael Palmeiro
• Mike Mussina
• Jeff Kent
• Mike Piazza

I haven't included Sosa, Mattingly or Larry Walker, but they do have their supporters as well.

This leads us to:

2.  How many players can a person vote for, and what percentage is needed to be elected to the Hall of Fame?

Again, let's listen to Jonah Keri's stance on the subject:

1. Lift the limit of 10 votes per ballot. Some voters' inflexibility on players linked to PEDs (or even players accused of being muscular) has created a backlog of viable candidates. What's more, the split on those players has caused a negative trickle-down effect for other deserving holdover candidates.
Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, Mike Mussina, and Jeff Kent join this year's ballot, meaning writers who want to vote for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and the like have to exclude candidates they might find worthy in order to whittle down to 10. Hell, even writers who definitively refuse to vote for PED guys are running into this problem. But the 10-player ballot limit remains in place because … well, there's actually no reason, other than that's how it's always been. The good news is that some BBWAA members are speaking out. New York Times writer Tyler Kepner broached this at the winter meetings, arguing that the 10-candidate limit does more harm than good. While the idea met with some resistance at the higher levels, many rank-and-file BBWAA members supported Kepner's proposal, and the group voted overwhelmingly to form a committee to discuss this issue and other potential voting reforms.
Others have tried, unsuccessfully, to challenge the ballot limit in the past. But with Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz set to hit the ballot next year, and with no end in sight for the backlog, expect a growing chorus of support for reform.
2. Until no. 1 happens, abolish the 5 percent minimum threshold. With so many deserving candidates, some players who merit consideration are instead ignored, putting them at risk of not earning 5 percent of the overall vote and getting knocked off the ballot for good. We saw this last year, when first-time candidates Kevin Brown and Kenny Lofton were one-and-done; neither Brown nor Lofton was a slam dunk Hall of Famer by any stretch, and the fact that both are criminally underrated played a big role in them missing the cut, but some voters might have given Brown and Lofton the nod if they'd been allowed to go deeper than 10.
This year, players like Sammy Sosa (12.5 percent of the vote last time), Rafael Palmeiro (8.8 percent), and maybe Kent (the all-time leader in home runs by a second baseman) run the risk of suffering the same fate as Brown and Lofton. Again, I'm not saying Sosa and Palmeiro have perfect track records, especially to voters who won't back players suspected of PED use; nor am I denying that Kent's home runs came in an era rife with offense, or that he delivered only two truly elite seasons. But if lesser candidates like Jim Rice and Lee Smith can hang around for years and build support, it seems unfair to deny others that right simply because they became eligible when so many great candidates were also on the ballot.
As long as the 10-player limit exists, the 5 percent rule needs to go.

I think Keri misses an important point here:  change the criteria, and the way voters vote will change as well - how does the saying go?  "Water will always find its level."  To suggest that "all players who achieve 50% of the votes eventually make the Hall of Fame, so we should just reduce the percentage need to 50%" is oblivious to the attitudes voters would have.  Would they be more selective with whom they put on their ballot?  I would suggest it would.

So, where does this leave the candidates on this year's ballot?

I think four players will get elected this year, whom I'll write about in my next post.  This will "relieve" some of the pressure facing the BBWAA, but not all:  2015 is a stocked class as well.  But, should the 19 viable candidates split the voting in such a way that no one is elected again this year, I predict there will be major changes made to the voting process, starting with the ten player maximum (which in turn will allow Tim Kurkjian to vote for all the players on the ballot).  If no one is elected, I think they should institute the following:

1. The top vote getter each year gets in.  The Hall of Fame has lost money 8 of the last 10 years, and not surprisingly, most of their money is earned during HOF weekend.  When Deacon Jones made it last year, not a lot of people came out to see his great-grandson accept it on his behalf.  By letting the top vote getter in, it would guarantee some type of crowd every year.
2. I don't think the Veterans Committee is doing a great job.  We can talk about how the three managers elected this year overlooked the use of steroids on their team, and how players are penalized during this era when managers aren't...or not.   Personally, I think the Veterans Committee should be set up as a debate on players who have been off the ballot for a number of years...and the top vote getter gets in.  

But that's just me.  Besides those minor tweaks, I don't have a problem with the criteria for who gets to vote...or who gets in.  

Now if we could just deal with the PED issue...

2013 Hall of Fame Ballot

I'm wondering how each of you would vote, if you had one on this year's HOF ballot. Here's mine, but I should mention I prefer a higher standard for election:
1. Jeff Bagwell - although there are suspicions that he used steroids, he was never tainted with the Mitchell Report, there is nothing that proves otherwise. Innocent until proven guilty, right? That's why I'd vote Mike Piazza in as well, though his back acne brings more questions.
2. Tim Raines - possibly the 2nd best leadoff hitter in the history of the game, he unfortunately played in the shadow of the best (Henderson), and plied his skills in Montreal before 24 hr sports channels and anyone recognized him as a great player. By the time he came south, injuries from playing on turf took away much of his speed, though he still wound up on base more than Tony Gwynn.
3. Barry Bonds - don't know if I'd vote him in on the first ballot because of his steroid use, but if I voided out the steroid-tainted yrs, he's still worthy.
4. Schilling - had a discussion with Joe about him...I think he's one of the six best starters of that era, along with P. Martinez, Maddux, Glavine, R. Johnson, and Clemens. Add in the fact that he may have been the best post-season pitcher in the history of the game (and an apology to Bob Gibson before he brushes me back with a pitch), I think he should get in.
5. Craig Biggio - 3000 hits, and Bill James viewed him as the second best 2nd basemen in the history of the game (behind J. Morgan).
Players I wouldn't vote in:
1. Roger Clemens: something happened to him when he went to Toronto. When he signed, he was widely considered washed up, yet suddenly he was reborn. He's his stats after his final season in Boston: 192-111, 3.06 ERA, 100 CGs, 2590 K's, an ERA 44% better than the league he played in. 5 All-star games, 3 Cy Youngs, 2 more top 3 finishes, an MVP. Okay, maybe he deserves to be in, but he's a dick.
2. Jack Morris - No way. His 3.90 ERA would be the highest in the HOF, and over a tenth higher than the next highest. He was a workman, and performed fantastically on the big stage...and may have pitched the greatest World Series game ever. I just don't think he's deserves it.
3. Lee Smith - No.
4. Alan Trammell - there's a lot of reasons to vote him in...but I just don't know. Please convince me.
5. Fred McGriff - didn't pass the eye ball test to me. Maybe his number just get overshadowed by the stats of the 90s.
6. Edgar Martinez - not a long enough career. I think a player needs to have career stats, as well as peak seasons.
7. Mark McGwire - without the steroids, he's a rich man's Dave Kingman.
8. Sammy Sosa - before steroids, he was a 30-30 guy who hit .257. So was Ron Gant.
9. Dale Murphy - short on career stats
10. Palmeiro - the "B12" shot did him in.
11. Larry Walker - his home/road splits are too great for me.
Any others?