Nationals Arm Race

Rivera’s last Yankee Apperance. Photo Jim McIsaac/Long Island Newsday.

Its that time of the year, so that means Hall of Fame Ballot time.  BBWAA Writers should have mailed in their ballots by 12/31/18, and we should start seeing a glut of “this is who I voted for and why” posts come out this week.

Nearly 25% of the voters got a jump on things and published early; as of Christmas more than 90 ballots were in Ryan Thibodaux‘s tracker and as of the new year he’s got more than 130 of the total 412 ballots available.

If you’re still “in” on the hall after the inexplicable Harold Baines election, then read on.

Here’s two key links for you, if you’re still reading:

• Baseball-Reference.com’s 2019 ballot with stats
• Ryan Thibodaux‘s online tracker of all HoF votes

And, here’s a link to one of the best “imaginary hall of fame” ballot stories i’ve ever read, from Jay Jaffe, he of JAWS fame, breaking down the ballot in a great way.

My consideration of candidates for the Hall, unlike my consideration of a lot of stuff in baseball, comes down more to “feel” than it does to stats.  I know Jay Jaffe  has his great JAWS thing that tries to do both peak and longevity.  I know b-r.com has a bunch of metrics per player.  That’s all great.  But it isn’t the hall of stats, it isn’t the hall of WAR.  Its the Hall of Fame.  Its the hall of marquee players from their day.  I look at the players I’d vote for and … they’re the guys you paid money to see.  They’re the arms that were on the mound and you gave the opposing team little chance.  They’re the sluggers who you wanted up in the 9th inning of a tie game.  That’s what makes the game exciting and that’s the lens I like to use when judging players.  Yeah its subjective and partisan; so is every person voting in the BBWAA.  Even Jaffe admits there’s stats and then there’s consideration in his excellent article linked above.

With my imaginary ballot, here’s how i’d vote.  Since there’s a (ridiculous) limit of 10 players per ballot, I’ll list these players in rough order of voting priority to start:

New to the 2019 Ballot Candidates:

• Absolute Yes on Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay.
  • Rivera may be the closest we ever get to a unanimous player; a dominant closer who impacted the post-season for two decades and was a great guy with no enemies in the press.
  • Halladay was the best or among the best pitchers in baseball for nearly a decade, winning Cy Youngs in both leagues and throwing a post-season no-hitter.  He unfortunately also gets posthumous votes thanks to his ill timed death early in 2018.  Yes, his inclusion technically “lowers” the SP bar .. but I think its just about time people started realizing we have to re-think the way we evaluate SPs in our game.
• Slight pause to consider Todd Helton, Lance Berkman, Andy Pettitte and Roy Oswalt, but then still vote no.  For each, here’s a couple of thoughts:
  • Helton had a 5 year stretch where he was once of the most feared  hitters in the game, and accumulated a ton of WAR … but was kind of a lack-of-power 1B who got a boost playing in Colorado and probably wasn’t anywhere close to the player that Fred McGriff was, who couldn’t sniff the hall.
  • Berkman was an even better, more dangerous hitter … he retired with a career OPS+ of 144, but aged badly and was done by 37.  His intolerant political views can’t be helping him either (in the same vein they’re affecting Schilling)
  • If you didn’t like Jack Morris, you probably don’t like Pettitte either, as they profile very similarly.  Pettitte has the distinction of having the most Wins in the first decade of the new year … and with Morris’ inclusion every “decade leading” wins getter is in the Hall.  But something tells me that streak ends here.  He also has a bona-fide PED testing result that, for some reason or another, isn’t viewed with nearly the vitriol as other PED-associated players (Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, etc).  Amazing how the media narrative changes based on the player (Pettitte == “good guy” while Bonds == “bad guy.”)
  • Oswalt burst onto the scene and was one of the best pitchers in the NL for the first half of his career … then disappeared and was done as an effective pitcher by the age of 33.  He’s like the Orel Hershiser of his generation, but only half as accomplished.
• No on everyone else, and there’s nobody really close.

Returning Ballot Candidates; i’m not re-litigating these candidates, since i’ve written many times on them in the past.   Plus, most of these guys have been on the ballot so long that, frankly, nobody wants to hear your justification any more.  Its like politics; reading my blog post isn’t going to change your opinion on the Border Wall.

• Absolute Yes on Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina
• More tepid Yes on Curt Schilling, Manny Ramirez, Fred McGriff
• Almost ready to say Yes on Gary Sheffield, Billy Wagner, Scott Rolen
• Pass for now on Jeff Kent, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa, Omar Vizquel, Andruw Jones.

So i’ve got absolute Yes’s on 6 guys, tepid Yes on another three, then would probably throw on Sheffield as my 10th.

I vote Yes on Mariano, Halladay, Clemens, Bonds, Edgar, Mussina, Schilling, Manny, McGriff and Sheffield.

I get the arguments for Walker, for Wagner, for Sosa, for Jones.  That’s why lots of people say there’s 14 worth candidates on this year’s ballot but only 10 spots.  Maybe next year.

Baines comes from out of nowhere to get elected to the Hall. Photo via BroBible.

Last week, we heard that Lee Smith and Harold Baines were selected by this 16-person “Today’s Game Era Committee” to be in the Hall of Fame.

Honestly, I’m not sure why we pay so much attention to this institution at this point; literally every decision they make seems to be in direct conflict with what the general consensus of the sport’s fandom thinks makes sense.

• Too many players on the ballot?  By all means, don’t expand the ballot.
• Too many players on the ballot needing more years to get elected?  Oh, lets shorten the amount of time players can stay on the ballot.  Of course!
• Tired of seeing illogical votes?  The writers themselves voted to make their votes public … but the Hall of Fame said no.
• Old-timey players found out to be relatively unworthy due to new knowledge of the game?  Oh, lets ignore years/decades of writer voting and just hand them a spot in the hall.

Lets talk about them one at a time

Smith aged off the ballot after 15 years in 2017, getting 34.2% of the electorate vote his final year, peaking just above 50% in one of his years on the ballot.   He was a journeyman closer (8 teams in 18 years) with a gazillion saves (478) and a 3.00+ ERA with a middling bWAR figure (29.4), 16% of which came in his best season.  We talked about him for years; he was a mediocre to good closer, nothing special, and came into the ballot at a time where there was a huge glut of candidates as well as better/more famous closers in the discussion.   He made 7 all-star teams and had three Cy Young leading seasons back when people thought that saves were actually worthy of voting for (to wit, he finished 2nd in Cy Young voting in 1991 b/c he led the league in saves with 47 saves … and had a 2.3 bWAR season.  Meanwhile, last year Tanner Roark, you know the guy who a lot of Nats fans were convinced we should non-tender due to his crummy performance … he posted a 3.0 bWAR for 2018.  Yeah; even a replacement level starter right now is more valuable than an all-star closer).

That is a hall of famer?

Meanwhile Baines was even more of a journey-man; playing 22 seasons across 5 franchises and hanging around as a lefty DH type with a solid bat but not highlight power.  He accumulated 38.7 bWAR in his long career, his career apex being a 4.3 bWAR season in 1984.  He made 6 all-star teams and never sniffed even a top5 MVP vote.   He hung on the ballot getting just north of the 5% threshold for several years, then was dropped off when the glut of candidates started in 2011.  That’s right; people lost their minds because Jack Morris got in despite his 3.90 ERA and peaking at 61.5% of the HoF vote … yet Baines is now in despite never getting more than 7% (!) in any year and having a career BA of .289.  His best argument for getting into the Hall seems to his high career hit total (2,866), which will now also be the eventual argument for the likes of Omar Vizquel (career hits: 2,877) and Johnny Damon (career hits: 2,769) to also get added by a chummy veterans committee filled with current employees and former managers.

That’s a hall of famer??

.289 will not be the lowest batting average for any Hall of Famer (not like Morris’ 3.90 being the highest ERA).   Not by a long shot; there’s plenty of guys in the .250-.270 range or lower.  But many of those who have these lower averages also have 500 homers, or are 10x gold glove winners.  Or have some other redeeming qualities.  Baines was often not even the best player on his own team, let alone the league.

I mean, good for him.  He gets to make a speech and join a pretty exclusive club.  He’ll also basically serve as a low-end benchmark going forward for comparison purposes.

But most of the rest of the baseball world is pretty troubled by this.  I’ve always thought that a committee would do a better job of electing players to the Hall, in the same vein that the NFL selection committee seems to do a pretty good job.  But clearly not THIS committee, that includes the arrogant and patently-anti-analytical Joe Morgan (whose letter to the electorate literally led some respected writers to quit the process), and the equally arrogant Tony la Russa, who failed so spectacularly in management with Arizona recently and literally used game winning RBI during an on-screen interview to defend the selection of Baines while claiming anyone who argues against Baines are using “weak *ss superficial bullsh*t.”

Wow.

Whatever.  I’m sure we’ll get some good candidates elected and can argue for or against them during the slow period in early January like always.  But the inclusion of Smith and Baines while the likes of Edgar Martinez and Mike Mussina (in particular) is yet another nail in the coffin of believe-ability for the Hall of Fame as an institution.

Droopy passed along a great trivia question; what four players have hit 400+ homers and have 10 gold gloves.  (the question was spurred on by one of the four answers, one Andruw Jones, having just hit his 400th homer this season and joining this exclusive club).  (The other three answers are at the bottom of the post).

But, it got me to thinking.  Andruw Jones is only 33, has 400 homers, 10 gold gloves and should be towards the end of his prime as a ballplayer.  Instead he seems to have basically forgotten  how to hit at age 30 and is bouncing from team to team to try to regain his swing.  Certainly Andruw is not a HoFamer at this point in his career, but if he was able to turn it around and become relevant again, even for a couple of seasons, and achieve some milestone numbers he very well may be.   I think the epitaph of Jones’ career will read something like, incredibly accomplished early in his career but inexplicably washed up by age 30.  Steroids?  Falsified age? Anything is possible.

Here’s a couple other test cases for HoF worthiness:
1. Johnny Damon.  Currently sits at 2527 career hits at age 36 and still hits well enough that you’d have to think he has an ouside shot at 3000.  Is he a hall of famer

if he gets to 3000?  The only guys who have 3000 that are NOT in the hall are:

• Rose (ineligible)
• Biggio (will be soon)
• Palmeiro (Roids).

Bonds retired with2935 (roids).  Jeter will get 3000 but i think he’s HoF material no doubt.  Harold Baines another test case; 2866 hits but isn’t getting close to induction on the votes.

My vote: nope.  Not an impact player, also an accumulator of stats over a long career.  He’s actually a worse fielder and hitter than Baines.

2. Jim Thome.  Currently sitting at 578 homers career and almost a lock to get 600 at age 39 and producing pretty well this year.  A number of years getting

MVP consideration but never finishing top 3.  5-time all star.  Some fo the hall of fame standards stat measurements have him just over the cusp.  My “standard” is always the stardom or fear factor test.  When Thome comes up, are you scared?  Are you on the edge of your seat?  Would you (as a visiting fan) see his team coming to town and think about buying tickets so you could see him (like Pujols with St. Louis for example).

My vote: borderline yes.

3. Adam Dunn.  (for the sake of argument you have to project his career to what it probably ends up at).  I’ll project him, sitting at 346 now but on pace to end
this year at 360 , to end up with right around 600 homers for his career. Analysis: give him 40-40-38-35-30-30 for the next six seasons, taking him to age 36 and sitting at around 575 homers.  Even if you trend those numbers down a bit, he’s still sitting in the mid 500s at age 36, and Thome has hit hearly 100 homers after that age.  Hell, if Dunn stays healthy and doesn’t precipitously decline in power (like Ortiz), he has an outside shot at 700 homers.  Unbelievable.

But you look at his career “accomplishments” and there’s NOTHING there.  To date he has made ONE all star team, finished 4th in ROY voting and in only two seasons
has even had an MVP vote, let alone come close to winning.  If Dunn reaches 600 homers is he a hall of famer?

My vote: nope.

There’s other great test cases out there (David Ortiz, Carlos Delgado, Jim Edmonds or Paul Konerko) with it comes to looking at “home run accumulations” for a career.  Perhaps another time.

ps: Trivia Answer: Andruw Jones, Ken Griffey Jr, Willie Mays and Mike Schmidt.  Al Kaline had 10 gold gloves but exactly 399 career homers.  Barry Bonds only managed 8 gold gloves before turning into a hulking left fielder on or about the same time he found steroids in 1999.