Some Thoughts on the Hall of Fame Vote

In no particular order, a few comments on the recently concluded Hall of Fame voting.

1. Congratulations to both Barry Larkin and Ron Santo. I have no problem with either making it to Cooperstown. I just wish Santo had still been alive to appreciate the moment.

2. It seems conventional wisdom was right. Of the new guys on the list, only Bernie Williams managed to hang on until next year with a whopping 10% of the vote. That doesn’t bode well for him next year when a bunch of heavy hitters show up on the ballot.

3. Doomsday for Jack Morris. I know he has 2 years left on the ballot, but next year is the first of the big guns from the late 1990s and early 2000s and he’s going to get lost in the shuffle. And in 2014 Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine are on the ballot. Morris has no chance of getting in over them and the writers almost never elect 3 or more candidates.

4. No love for Edgar Martinez again. I don’t think the DH is the best idea since canned beer or the worst since Disco either, so we have to live with the fact it exists. The idea that a one-dimensional player has no place in the Hall of Fame begs the question what are Ted Williams, Ozzie Smith, Bill Mazeroski, and almost every pitcher who ever made it doing there? They all did one thing really well. If Maz doesn’t turn the double play better than anyone ever, does he get it? If Smith isn’t a great fielder is he getting in on his hitting? If Williams doesn’t hit a ton, is he getting in?  Martinez also did one thing well.

5. As more and more relievers pile up more and more saves, Lee Smith’s chances for the Hall dim.

6. I still wonder what will happen to Don Mattingly’s chances if the Dodgers start doing well. Will a successful stint as a manager help his chances for Cooperstown? I think failure in the dugout has hurt Alan Trammel.

7. Saw that Juan Gonzalez fell off the ballot. That does not bode well for big hitters with steroid allegations. Although Gonzalez was the weakest of the crew in question, once you start dropping one of the off, it becomes easier to drop the others. It will be interesting to see how that translates to the next few years.

And now a couple of questions about the next couple of years.

1. Will the revulsion about steroids lead to a backlash that puts in non-steroid users (or at least people who have no current taint of use) who might otherwise have to wait a while before election? I’m wondering here about Curt Shilling specifically.

2. Will Nomo be afforded Jackie Robinson-like status in 2014?  He didn’t have nearly the career Robinson had, but his impact for Asian players is as great.

3. Will Mike Stanton survive the 2013 ballot? Set up men get no glory and little press. Stanton is one of the best ever. How will that translate to votes for the Hall? Frankly, I don’t think he’ll do very well.

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Tall at Short

In my last post I answered Bill Miller’s question concerning my evaluation of Derek Jeter as an all-time Yank. Bill actually asked two questions. The second asked my opinion as to Jeter’s position in the shortstop pantheon. So, as I said earlier, I’m not immune from putting my foot solidly in my mouth, so here’s a reply to that query.

First the evaluations of shortstops are more difficult than a lot of positions. By general consensus Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Rickey Henderson, and Barry Bonds (done in the order they arrived in the big leagues) are the top four left fielders. There record as left “fielders”, as opposed to hitters is a mixed bag. Let me ask this, do you seriously care? Probably not. All are in the lineup to hit and it they can catch and throw then you have gravy. But it doesn’t work that way with a shortstop. You can’t just concentrate on his hitting. Fielding matters and fielding stats are most nebulous and imprecise of baseball stats. So you can’t just look at Jeter and say, “Well, sure, he’s better than Ozzie Smith because Smith didn’t hit nearly as well” (Using Smith purely as an example). That may be true, but Smith was twice the fielder that Jeter is (and that’s true of Smith versus almost anyone at short) and so that must be taken into serious consideration. If you decide that Williams and Bonds are a dead tie as hitters, you can use fielding as a way of picking one over the other, but with shortstops you have to consider this stat from the start. So looking at shortstops requires going into the fielding stats minefield.

Secondly, an inordinate number of truly fine shortstops have spent a lot (and I mean a LOT) of time at other positions. Honus Wagner was up for several years before settling at short, Robin Yount and Ernie Banks were both hurt and transfered to other positions (Yount to the outfield and Banks to first base) for significant parts of their career. In fact Banks ended up with more games at first than short, and Yount ended up with more total games in the outfield (but not at any single position in the outfield) than at short. And to give you a contemporary player, Alex Rodriguez has now spent more time at thrid than at short. All this makes it difficult to view a player as a shortstop rather than as an overall players (although doing so year by year instead of via career numbers makes it easier). Besides what do you call Yount, a shortstop of an outfielder? To solve that I went to the Hall of Fame site and looked how they defined a player. They say Yount and Banks are both shortstops (and Willie Stargell a left fielder as opposed to a first baseman–just to give you some idea of what they do). So I decided to add both to my list. I left ARod off (which I know isn’t great for consistency) because he’s still playing and it is possible he will shift back to short and solve the question or will end up spending twice as many games at third and solve the problem that way. As I don’t know what will happen there (“It is always easier to prophesy after the event.”–Winston Churchill) I left him off.

So here’s my thought on the matter. I’ll list my one and two players, then the next three in alphabetical order. I’m certain who I think is first and who is second. Three through five tend to shift around depending on the day, the stats I’m looking at, the latest book I’ve read (the phases of the moon), but I’m reasonably confident which three go there.

1. Honus Wagner. There are a lot of really good shortstops, but Wagner is still head  and shoulders above the rest. Personally, I think the drop from number one to number two is greater at shortstop than at any other position (no offense to number two, below).

2. Cal Ripken. He set the standard for a new kind of shortstop. He was mobile and he had power. He didn’t have the flash of Smith, but he was very adept at playing the hitter in such a way that he very seldom had to make a spectacular play.

3-5. Ernie Banks, Arky Vaughan, Robin Yount. Banks was the prototype for Ripken. It just didn’t take. All three of these are much alike. They are good enough shortstops (I’d rate Yount as the best) with a glove, but all hit very well; Banks for good power, Yount for occasional power. Both Yount and Banks win double MVPs and Vaughan could well have won one.

So where is Jeter? He’s in the next bunch. There are an entire pack of really good quality shortstops that can be rated 6-10. There’s Ozzie Smith, the underrated Alan Trammel, Barry Larkin, Joe Cronin, both Lu Ap’s (Luis Aparicio, Luke Appling), Reese, Rizzuto, Omar Vizquel, and old-timer George Davis who could take the next five slots (and I’m sure I left off at least one deserving candidate). Jeter is one of those that fit right in with this group. Right now I’d certainly put him in the mix, probably very high in that mix. I’m reasonably sure he’s going to move up my food chain. I expect him to end up a top five, possibly as high as third or fourth. But I’m going to wait until the career ends to drop him into a definite hole.

Having said that, he ought to get at least an extra point or two for standing along the first base line, grabbing a badly thrown ball, and flipping to Posada to nail Jeremy Giambi at the plate during the playoffs. Arguably the greatest play I ever saw. For all the overhyping of Derek Jeter (and I’ve been critical of it) he is the closest we’ve had to a baseball icon since the steroid scandal broke. Baseball could surely use one and Jeter has done a good job of filling that role.

The January 2011 Hall Vote

I promised before I left that I’d comment on the writer’s vote for the Hall of Fame. That’s the vote that will be announced in January (not the one that’s coming this week). I commented that because they let you vote for ten, I’d vote for ten. Here they are in alphabetical order, holdovers first:

Roberto Alomar: Probably the finest second baseman of his era. Missed out by a handful of votes last time.

Bert Blyleven: I think this is the most important person who can be voted in. The writer’s haven’t elected a starting pitcher with less than 300 wins since Fergie Jenkins (the Vets Committee put in Jim Bunning). With all the excellent pitchers coming available with less than 300 wins (Pedro Martinez, Mike Mussina, Curt Schilling, etc) someone has to break through or we’re going to see a lot of worthy candidates dismissed. Hopefully Blyleven will be the player that opens the door.

Barry Larkin: If Alomar is the finest second baseman of his era, Larkin is the finest shortstop. He has an MVP and a World Series ring. Both should eventually help his cause. I’m not sure either should.

Edgar Martinez: One of the best hitters I ever saw. I don’t want to hear “Well, he was mainly a DH and not much of a fielder.” Putting Paul Molitor into the Hall of Fame should end the DH issue and besides there are a lot of Hall members who were lousy fielders.

Don Mattingly: The argument against him is that his career is short. So was Ralph Kiner’s (and Dizzy Dean’s and Sandy Koufax’s). For a handful of years he was one of the best players in the game and possibly the best. He was a good enough first baseman and a wonderful hitter.

Jack Morris: He was the winningest pitcher of the 1980s (which alone isn’t enough to get him into the Hall). His ERA is big for a Hall of Famer, but the latest statistics show us how much ERA can be overrated. He has multiple rings and his game 7 of the 1991 World Series was masterful. A dominant pitcher who may be helped by the explosion of new stats.

Tim Raines: One of the great base stealers ever. He has a batting title to go with all those stolen bases. I think his nomad phase toward the end of his career hurts him a lot.

Alan Trammell: Great, great shortstop. If Ozzie Smith was the premier shortstop of  his era in the NL, Trammell was, with the possible exception of Cal Ripken, the premier shortstop of the AL. Trammell hit better  than Smith and was a heck of a shortstop (if not quite so acrobatic as Smith). I think Trammell gets hurt because of the comparison to Ripken, rather than to Smith. He also has a ring. I’d be interested to know how much his disastrous stint as Tigers manager hurts his chances.

Jeff Bagwell: An MVP, a heck of a hitter, a team leader. He got hurt and missed out on 500 home runs but is still a Hall of Famer. To me, the only sure-fire Hall of Famer on the new list.

Larry Walker: I could say a lot about him, but I’ll simply suggest you go to Bill Miller’s site at The On Deck Circle (link to the right) for a fine overview of Walker’s career and qualifications. Sorry, Bill, but you didn’t convince me to vote for him. I’d already decided that.

So there’s my ten. Feel free to disagree.

There’s one player on the list I’m sorry to leave off, Tino Martinez. I think he may be shorted on the ballot, but hope he stays on so he gets more chances. I’m not sure he really belongs in the Hall, but I’d like to see him get a chance. I think a closer look at his stats is in order (and I want to do a later post on him and this so-called “Core Four” nonsense).

Throw the Bums Out

So Andre Dawson is now a Hall of Famer. Good. I wonder what took so long. My guess is that his numbers suddenly look better with the steroid era numbers being tainted. I see that Bert Blyleven missed by five votes, Roberto Alomar by a handful more, and that Barry Larkin barely managed 50%. Well, there’s no accounting for taste.

What’s really awful is that 5 blank ballots were sent in this time. Five blank ballots. Forget whether the 5 would have voted for Belyleven and put him in. Concentrate on “blank ballot”. That means 5 supposedly intelligent, knowing writers didn’t think anyone on this years list was worthy of Hall of Fame induction. Amazing. Stupid, but amazing. Somebody ought to revoke their voting privileges. Yuck!!!!!!!!!

Actually a fairly good idea would be to simply throw out any blank ballots and reduce the number necessary to achieve 75% by that total. So if there were 1000 votes and 5 blank ballots, then the number necessary to elect is 75% of 995. In this case an inductee would need 746 votes, not 750.  Whether it would have put Blyleven in or not I don’t know and don’t care. What I want is to stop this blank ballot nonsense.

The January Vote

In January the Hall of Fame will announce it’s newest members as voted on by the baseball writers. There are 26 names on the ballot. Writers are allowed to vote for up to 10, but may leave the ballot blank.

This is one of the more interesting ballots in a long while. There is no clear-cut sure-fire gotta-go-in player on the ballot, but there are a lot of really nice players that show up on this one. On the theory that I would get 10 votes if I was a baseball writer, here’s the 10 men I’d support, in alphabetical order:

Roberto Alomar-arguably the finest 2nd baseman of his era.

Bert Blyleven-why the heck hasn’t he gotten in already?

Andre Dawson-the revelations of the steroid era make his numbers look even better than they did when he retired.

Barry Larkin-heck of a shortstop, good hitter, pretty fair team leader, and an MVP.

Edgar Martinez-the epitome of a DH. They even named the award after him. Great, great hitter.

Don Mattingly-the personification of grit and determination on the ballfield. Short career, but great numbers in the career.

Fred McGriff-OK, he didn’t make it to 500 homers, but there’s no taint of steroids on him. Led league in home runs twice, key component on the Braves winning teams of the 1990s. He gets dispensation from those horrid baseball drills commercials he made. As a spokesman, Fred made a great 1st baseman.

Dale Murphy-2 time MVP, great hitter, good center fielder, just short of 400 home runs.

Tim Raines-has a batting title and was a great baserunner. His nomad phase will probably hurt his chances.

Alan Trammell-OK, ignore the managing and look at the player. He was  great shortstop and a fine hitter, losing the MVP vote to George Bell once.

There are a couple of others I’d like to see there (Morris, Ventura, Lee Smith), but I only get 10 votes.