Tuesday, January 7, 2014

2014 Hall of Fame Ballot




So this is the first (and probably last) year that I was able to actually vote for the baseball Hall of Fame.  Deadspin.com has worked out a deal with an unnamed HOF voter who has agreed to vote for whoever the Deadspin readers want him to vote for.  So I filled out a ballot on their site and learned a thing or two about the process.  Here is who I voted for, and why.

I. Three First Time Candidates:
1.  Gregg Maddux. I had real hope that Maddux would become the first unanimous HOFer, but just heard that one blow hard is voting only for Jack Morris in protest of "the steroid era".  Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure Maddux and Glavine will both get very high percentages and go in with their heads held high.

2.  Tom Glavine.  See above.

3.   Frank Thomas  Being primarily a DH hurts him, but he has the numbers that matter most to traditionalists, a batting average in the 3s (.301) and over 500 home runs (521).

II.  The Previously Snubbed.

4.  Tim Raines.  One of the best lead off hitters and base stealers of all time.  He has been overlooked for too long.

5.  Mike Piazza.  The only reason he wasn't elected as a first-time candidate last year is some very murky suspicion of steroid use.  This makes no sense to me.  I remember Piazza as a prototypical line-drive hitter and I didn't notice any obvious changes in his body during the worst of the steroid years. Much more importantly, he never tested positive and has never been formally charged with anything related to use of steroids.  I really don't think it's the place of sports writers to keep someone out of the Hall based on such vague innuendo.

III.  The Steroid Users.
6.  Barry Bonds &
7.  Roger Clemens

These are the toughest calls for me.  Their statistics make them obviously qualified candidates.  But they did use steroids.  I would not have voted for them the first time up, because there should be some consequences for such blatant violation of the rules of the game.  But here is my personal standard for known Steroid Users: they don't get in on the first ballot, and they don't get in if their qualifications are on the margin.  But if they put up HOF worthy numbers before using steroids, they deserve consideration.  And in the case of these two men, I would vote for them.  Yes, they tarnished the game, but so did every owner and GM who signed any of these guys to a contract.  You can't just erase two decades of the game from the history books.  They both deserve to be in the HOF.

IV.  A Guilty Pleasure.
8.  Don Mattingly.  I have long said that although Donnie Baseball is my favorite athlete of all time, I know he is not deserving of being in the Hall of Fame.  He had a six year period that had him on pace for the hall, but most HOFers put up those kind of numbers for 10 or 12 years, not six.  But a funny thing happened when I was filling out my semi-sort of official ballot.  I voted for him.  Because I could.  I guess it's the only way I could thank him for the many joyful hours of my childhood.  It seemed only fair, even though I know he's not strictly deserving of the honor.  This has taught me much about this process.  Consider that most of the voters  have been up close and personal with these men for the length of their playing careers.  It must be an emotional process for them sometimes too.

Notable non-votes.
1.  Jack Morris.  I have said for several years that I would vote for him but the best defense of such a vote I can come up with is that he was better than Bert Blyleven.  (And he was.)  But one substandard player getting in should not be an invitation for others to get in.  So I'll pass.  But I think Blyleven should have to wash Jack Morris' car once a month or so until one of them dies.

2.  Craig Biggio.  A close call.   And there is a statistical argument in favor of him, but I think he just comes up short of the standard.

3.  Lee Smith.  Also a close call.  Maybe next year if my top four all get in, I'll give him more serious consideration.  This is a big year, with three deserving first-timers and a small backlog of oversights.

The Dreck of the Steroids Era.
1. Sammy Sosa.  I thrilled at watching him at Wrigley my first few years in Chicago.  He was a terrific player, but never really the full package.  And it's pretty obvious that his strength came from synthetic sources, and he might have been a very marginal player without steroids.

2.  Mark McGwire.  If he never did steroids, his career would have petered out in the mid to late 90s and he probably would have retired with 300-odd home runs, a share of the rookie Home Run record, one World Series ring, and ample good will as a human being.  One of my favorite things to look at on baseball-reference.com is the Similarity Scores.  For most of Mark's career, he was most similar to a variety of other power hitters who wound up well short of the HOF: Roger Maris, Cecil Fielder, and Ryan Howard.  Then his last four seasons, he was most similar to a pair of HOFers: Harmon Killebrew and Willie McCovey.  The difference in his career after the age of 34 is that he was using steroids.  Steroids gave him inflated numbers, and he doesn't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.

3.  Raphael Palmiero.  Another very good player whose numbers and reputation were greatly enhanced by chemicals.  Looking again at baseball-reference similiarity scores, we see a player most similar to such very good, but not great players as Will Clark, Al Oliver and John Olerud in his twenties.  Suddenly in his 30s, he was most similar to Billy Williams, Orlando Cepeda and Eddie Murray, in that order.  Three Hall of Famers, each of increasing quality and stature.  No dice, Raphael.


http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/palmera01.shtml



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