Nationals Arm Race

I write a baseball blog. Therefore, I am obligated to put in my 2 cents on Hall of Fame voting. And the new year is also the deadline for BBWAA voters to send in their real ballots for the Hall of Fame, so you see a glut of sportswriters publishing their ballots. Here’s more of the same from me.

How many years have I been doing this post?  Basically as long as we’ve had the blog.  Here’s (by class) 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011. 

I know lots of people have lost faith in the Hall of Fame, are tired of reading analysis like this, etc etc.  Fair enough; feel free to move on.

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

• Baseball-Reference.com’s 2021 ballot class link
• Ryan Thibodaux‘s online tracker of all HoF votes

So, the 2021 class is … well its weak. With all due respect to the newly eligible candidates on the 2021 ballot, there’s not a single one hall-worthy. Several “hall of very good” players, but none transcendent. There was just one “major award” won between any of the newly eligible players, that being Barry Zito’s Cy Young award in 2002.

Nonetheless, here’s some quick thoughts on those that are on this ballot, in rough order of descending career bWAR/likelihood of getting 5% votes to stick around on the ballot.

New to the 2021 Ballot Candidates:

• Tim Hudson; highest JAWS of any of the 2021 new candidates, nearly the highest total career WAR. He certainly had enough time in the sun, playing for multiple playoff teams in his career (7 seasons pitching in the playoffs). Was frequently in Cy Young talks, but never really came close to winning one. Probably the best of this year’s class.
• Mark Buehrle: the Andy Pettitte of the 00s. Their career stats are eerily similar; if you support Pettitte, you support Buehrle. I think both guys were career #3 starters with occasionally amazing stuff.
• Torii Hunter had a surprisingly solid, quiet career. Great defender, great teammate. Not enough to make the hall.
• Dan Haren: hey, he pitched for the Nats! And he threw 88mph (his twitter account is https://twitter.com/ithrow88).
• Barry Zito: great early part of his career, forming the trio of amazing starters that Michael Lewis never once mentioned in Moneyball. Then became one of the worst-ever free agent contracts signed. 7 years, $126M. For that $126M he contributed a COMBINED 3.0 bWAR. Over 7 years. That’s $42M per WAR. Not the best legacy. Did win a Cy Young though.
• Aramis Ramirez: a long-time middle of the order dangerous bat for Chicago. Multiple 30hr/100 rbi seasons. Surprised he never got more press.
• Shane Victorino; we saw a lot of Victorino during the Philly golden years of the late 2000s. Solid player, that’s about it.
• A.J. Burnett: pitched for years, .500 career record, just kind of always there as a #2 or #3 starter. He made one All Star team in his entire career and it was his farewell season.
• Nick Swisher; the golden-child of the book Moneyball. Nice career.
• LaTroy Hawkins: no disrespect, but I don’t want to ever hear about another reliever until Billy Wagner is inducted.
• Michael Cuddyer; From Virginia! Part of a great history of players coming out of Great Bridge HS in Chesapeake over the past 20 years (also including Justin Upton, John Curtice and Connor Jones).

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Returning Ballot Candidates
Here’s how I’d vote my imaginary ballot. Amazingly, i find myself struggling to get to 10 players.

• Yes on Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Curt Schilling, Manny Ramirez
• more tepid Yes on Scott Rolen, Andruw Jones
• Maybe it’s time to vote for Gary Sheffield, Billy Wagner, and Todd Helton
• Pass for now on Jeff Kent, Sammy Sosa, Andy Pettitte,
• No on Omar Vizquel, Bobby Abreu

Quick reasoning in order of the above:

• Clemens and Bonds are two of the best players ever to play, regardless of later-in-their-career PED transgressions (alleged or otherwise). You can cut both their careers off at the point where they both allegedly used and they’re still HoFamers. Vote them in and be done with it.
• Schilling may be abhorrent on social media, but he deserves the Hall based on his playing career. It does not go without saying though that it is completely reasonable for journalists to pass as a statement of protest at this point. If you want a full accounting of all the reprehensible stuff he’s spewed on social media lately, see Jay Jaffe‘s HoF post for a partial list. Its ridiculous. And frankly it makes me pause even putting his name here. Maybe its “putting your head in the sand” to support someone posting the vile crap he does … especially since he’s completely aware of what he posts and seemingly now does it for attention.
• Ramirez was perhaps the most feared RH hitter for a decade in this league and has career numbers that put him in the top 25 hitters ever to play. Again, less interested in PED transgressions at the end of his career than I am with the bulk of his accomplishments.
• Rolen is an interesting player whose value was much more about his defense than his offense. Interestingly the Hall has no problem electing top-end defensive short stops who couldn’t hit (see Ozzie Smith or Luis Aparicio) but seem to struggle when presented with an equally dominant defensive 3B who actually could hit. That’s Rolen to a t.
• Jones was, for the first 10 years of his career, discussed as perhaps being the second coming of Willie Mays before getting hurt and getting run out of the game by the time he was 35. Despite playing just 11 full seasons he had 434 career homers and 10 straight gold gloves in Center. I think voters have just forgotten how good he was. Keith Law had a great post at the Athletic this week about just why Jones is hall-worthy, an interesting analysis that was worth reading.
• Sheffield is a borderline candidate but was nearly as feared as Ramirez was at the plate. Has stronger PED usage allegations than others. He was, unfortunately, a “difficult” player to deal with both for club and media, which has probably led to his tepid support.
• Billy Wagner: has better numbers than nearly any other inducted reliever. If you have any relievers in the hall, you’d need to consider Wagner (and as long as we’re having that conversation, say hello to Tom Henke).
• Todd Helton was better than you remember. He had a season once where he hit .357 AND hit 42 homers. Just look past the fact that he was once arrested for DUI while buying lottery tickets. Lottery tickets! For a player who made $156M in his career.

Passing on and reasoning:

• Bobby Abreu: good but not transcendent. Frankly i;m amazed at the support he’s getting so far on the bbhof tracker.
• Jeff Kent is a polarizing figure, both while he played and on the ballot. He’s a borderline guy and his voting totals have indicated that.
• Sosa: too hard to make a case that he reinvented himself as a home run hitter completely thanks to artificial mechanisms. He was a 36–40 homer guy then he suddenly rips off seasons of 66, 63, 50 and 64. I will say though, i do “buy” his corked bat explanation once I read that the league confiscated all his other bats and found no other cork.
• Pettitte lead the league in wins in the 90s (much like Morris did in the 80s) but is recognized similarly to Mark Buehrle; a lefty 3rd or 4th starter for most of his career who stayed healthy and accumulated wins and strikeouts, but was rarely even the best hurler on his own team.
• Vizquel was a mediocre hitter who played forever and nearly got to 3,000 hits. He was a solid defender yes, but I’m kind of at a loss as to why voters are giving him so much credence while Rolon struggles.

Last year, minorleagueball.com’s John Sickels started a quick-hit review of every 2012 draft pick with snap judgements and quick stats.  I thought it was a great project, a nice little way to see how the draft picks were faring.  He petered out around the 17th round, and I took up his cause for just the Nationals picks and went through all 40 rounds at this link here.  Apparently 2012’s project was too much work for Sickels; he doesn’t seem to be doing it this year.  So I picked up the torch and did a Sickels-style analysis for all 40 of the Nats 2013 draft picks below.

(Note: stats are pulled from milb.com and/or fangraphs.com; put the player name into the search bar to get his seasonal stats).  MILB has nice consolidated seasonal stats while fangraphs has better advanced stats.  They do not include any playoff stats for those still playing after 9/2/13).

Finally, at the end of each writeup i’ll put in a color coded trending line for the player: Green for Trending Up, Blue for Trending steady, red for Trending Down.   This is just my knee-jerk opinion of the prospect status of the player system-wide.  And yes I realize this is their first pro ball season, short-sample sizes, etc etc.

Without further ado:

Round 1: forfeited w/ Rafael Soriano signing, which as I noted in this June 2013 post cost the Nats a shot at one of several highly regarded pitchers drafted just behind our vacated spot.

Round 2: Jake Johansen, Coll Sr. RH Starting Pitcher.  1-3, 1.92 ERA with 51/23 K/BB in 51 2/3 innings between Auburn and Hagerstown, 34 hits.  After signing quickly for slot (very quickly, like in 24 hours or so), Johansen joined short-A Auburn and was essentially unhittable through 10 starts.  He was promoted up to low-A, got hit around in two starts and finishes the season with a 1.92 ERA, and a sub 1.00 WHIP.  Johansen outperformed his poor college numbers somewhat, still walks too many batters, and still flashes a dominant fastball.  Scouts continue to believe he’ll end up in the bullpen, but until that situation presents itself Johansen will stay as a starter.  He seems like he’s bound for the opening day start in Hagerstown in 2014.  Trending Up.

Round 3: Drew Ward, HS 3B.  .292/.402/.387 with one homer, 25 walks, 44 strikeouts in 168 at-bats for the GCL Nats in the rookie league.  A good average and a great OBP, but where’s the power?  Ward was reported to have a ton of power coming up but his slugging was lower than his OBP.  He produced at a 142 wRC+ for the season, which is great, but I think he needs to show more power going forward.  That won’t be easy in his next stop; the stadium in Hagerstown is old and cavernous with huge walls; you earn every homer up there.  Trending Up.

Round 4: Nick Pivetta, Juco RH Starting Pitcher.  1-1, 3.41 ERA with 18/12 K/BB in 29 innings between GCL and Short-A, 28 hits.  Pivetta started 8 games but averaged less than 4 innings a start.   For such a big guy (6’5″ 220) with such a reported fastball (upper 90s in short spurts) I would have hoped for more K’s (18 in 29 innings).   Outlook; bound for Hagerstown but seems like someone who may convert to short relief soon where he can maintain higher velocity in shorter outings.  Trending Steady.

Round 5: Austin Voth, Coll Jr RH Starting Pitcher: 3-0, 1.75 ERA with 55/6 K/BB in46 1/3 innings between three levels, 33 hits.  You read that correctly; 55 to 6 strike out to walk ratio for this U of Washington product.   He pushed his way through two promotions on the season, ending up in the Hagerstown rotation.  Another interesting stat: Zero home-runs in his 55 innings on the year.  And these stats were done with pretty normal looking BABIPs; his FIP values were lower than his ERAs in short- and low-A.  He seems like an exciting draft find and should be in the Hagerstown rotation in 2014.  Trending Up.

Round 6: Cody Gunter, Juco 3B.   .229/.294/.313 with 3 homers, 20 walks, 62 strikeouts in 214 at-bats for Auburn.   62 punchouts out of 214 at-bats; that’s more than 25%.  With so many Ks and so little power (.084 ISO), I’d be concerned about Gunter’s future at the corner.  Its possible he was just a bit young for Auburn as a 1st-year JuCo grad.  Trending down.

Round 7: Jimmy Yezzo, Coll Jr 1B.  .267/.282/.342 with 2 homers, 5 walks, 37 strikeouts in 243 at-bats for Auburn.   Five walks in 243 at-bats??  That shows a pretty significant plate discipline issue.  Yezzo came to the Nats with such a good hitting reputation in a decent baseball conference (the CAA); what has happened?  Drafted as a first baseman, Yezzo needs to show some serious power improvement to continue at a spot which normally is where lesser defenders “end up” to keep their bat in the lineup.  Trending down.

Round 8: David Napoli, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  1-0, 1.14 ERA with 28/10 K/BB in23 relief innings in Auburn, 16 hits.  He had a very wild reputation coming out of college, but seems to have toned it down at Auburn to become an excellent relief pitcher.   I’m a little disappointed to see him already get converted to relief, but his size and stuff seems to point towards situational lefty anyway.  I could see him in Potomac in 2014 quickly turning into the next Ian Krol.  Trending up.

Round 9: Jake Joyce, Coll Sr RH relief pitcher.  1-3, 5.22 ERA with 25/12 K/BB in 29 relief innings in Auburn, 37 hits.  Joyce was unlucky (.381 babip) and his FIP reflects that (3.03 versus 5.22 era), but he still gave up a ton of base-runners (1.67 whip) and a ton of air-outs (0.62 GO/AO on the year).   Given the fact that Joyce was a senior sign for very little money, he could seem rather expendible if he doesn’t start strong in 2014.  Trending down.

Round 10: Brennan Middleton, Coll Sr SS/2B.  Did not play an inning in 2013; I cannot find any details of the injury.  There are some reports that he injured his ankle towards the end of his senior season at Tulane; perhaps that injury carried over into the summer.  He signed for a pittance and was not highly regarded; he could struggle to make a team out of spring.  Trending down.

A quick note before continuing: you can see the effect very clearly of the new MLB draft rules by looking at the Nats draft picks here; our 8th,9th and 10th round guys signed for a combined $40,000 so the team could over-pay earlier in the draft.  We got mostly cheap guys, senior signs with zero leverage as we got closer to the 10th round and the production shows.   Then, starting at round 11 (where the slot per pick is a flat $100,000 and the signing bonus cap re-sets) we start to see more significant prospects get signed and coaxed out of remaining college eligibility.  Its almost as if we should treat the 8th-10th rounders as closer to 30th round picks, all things considered.

Round 11: John Simms, Coll jr RH relief pitcher.  0-4, 5.70 ERA with 34/7 K/BB in 30 relief innings mostly in Auburn, 41 hits.  His walks were low but hits were high.  His ERA looks ugly but look beyond the top layer and you discover that Simms actually didn’t pitch that badly this year.  A ridiculously high BABIP of .438 contributed to his inflated short-A ERA; his FIP was just 2.38.  Combine that with his 5/1 K/BB ratio and he has the makings of at least a good reliever in the system.   Look for him in Hagerstown or Potomac’s bullpen, where shorter stints should allow him to maintain velocity.  Trending steady.

Round 12: Andrew Cooper, Juco RH relief pitcher.  2-1, 3.86 ERA with 16/7 K/BB in 25 2/3 relief innings mostly in Auburn, 29 hits.  Drafted as a project, and so far he’s pitched like a project.  His numbers aren’t bad or great in any direction.  I’d suspect the team knew he needed some complex time so I could see him staying in Viera until next season’s short-A starts up and repeating the level.  Trending steady.

Round 13: John Costa, Juco RH relief pitcher.  Did not pitch an inning in 2013; he had Tommy John surgery in March and won’t be healthy until mid 2014.   Likely stays in the complex league until short-season starts, then heads to the rookie league.  Trending down.

Round 14: David Masters, Juco SS.  .178/.246/.237 with 0 homers, 9 walks, 33 strikeouts in 152 at-bats for Auburn.  Masters showed little power, little hit tool in general.  He had a wRC+ of just 51 and slugged lower than his OBP.  He’s apparently a genius in the field though.  But, you’ve got to hit to advance.  If he’s the defensive whiz that the scouting reports say, then he may get another shot in 2014.  Note; as others have noted, Masters is a 2nd cousin to Mad Men star John Hamm.  I hope this wasn’t the reason we drafted him :-).  Trending down.

Round 15: Isaac Ballou, Coll Sr OF/CF.  .273/.381/.366 with 2 homers, 32 walks, 37 strikeouts in 238 at-bats mostly for Auburn.  Ballou was Auburn’s leading hitter by average and earned a promotion up to Hagerstown, where a 3/27 start dented his seasonal numbers.   No reason not to see him in low-A again starting in 2014.  Trending up.

Round 16: Willie Allen, Juco Corner OF from Oklahoma/Newtown, MA.  Did not sign; I cannot find any reason; there’s a link to his hometown paper that seemed to indicate that he was ready to sign and report.   Perhaps something came up in his medicals.  Allen also does not appear to have transferred to a 4-year school.  Interesting question; how did a kid from Boston end up in an Oklahoma junior college program?

Round 17: Geoff Perrott, Coll Sr C.  .308/.308/.308 in 12 at-bats for Hagerstown; Perrott was hurt most of the year and is providing late-season cover for the Suns’ playoff push.  A lost season for Perrott; hopefully he gets a chance to prove himself next season.  Trending down.

Round 18: Cory Bafidis, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  2-0, 2.73 ERA with 22/13 K/BB in 26 1/3 relief innings mostly in Auburn, 18 hits.  He got pushed to low-A too early, settled into short-A where he probably belonged to begin with, and pitched relatively well for 20 innings.   Too many walks for a relief pitcher, though, he’ll have to work on that.   He mostly worked in 2 inning stints and never got any looks at starting.  Trending steady.

Round 19: Niko Spezial, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  1-0, 3.32 ERA with 21/8 K/BB in 19 relief innings mostly in the GCL, 16 hits.  Spezial started the season with Auburn but got the quick demotion after just 3 1/3 relatively non-descript innings.  A college senior draftee, he did not belong in the rookie league.  Nonetheless he pitched effectively for the record-setting GCL Nats.  Spezial needs to show how he fares against someone his own age, which hopefully he’ll get a chance to do in 2014.  Trending steady.

Round 20: Brenton Allen, Coll Jr Corner OF.   .186/.319/.271 with 1 homer, 15 walks, 31 strikeouts in 113 at-bats mostly for Auburn.  A disappointing pro debut for Allen, a 9th rounder out of HS who chose UCLA at the time.   Which makes his signing all the more curious; if he was a 9th rounder at one point, why sign for 20th round money?  Why not go back for your senior season to try to build draft value?  Nonetheless, he seems like he’ll compete for a full season OF job in 2014 but will have to show a better hit tool.  Trending down.

Round 21: Justin Thomas, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  1-0, 3.13 ERA with 28/3 K/BB in 23 IP split between FOUR levels.  Thomas was well traveled this summer; he started in the GCL, got promoted to Auburn, then again to Potomac before settling back in Hagerstown for the bulk of the 2nd half.   All he did in Hagerstown was post a 21/1 K/BB ratio in 15 2/3 innings.  His ERA was a bit inflated versus his low-A FIP (2.56) and he remains the sole member of his draft class to broach high-A on the year (even if it was just for a game or two).  He’s clearly a leading situational lefty candidate with his control and should feature for Potomac in 2014.  Trending up.

Round 22: Cody Dent, Coll Sr SS.  .222/.310/.242 with 0 homers, 19 walks, 47 strikeouts in 153 ABs for Auburn.  A light hitting senior sign middle infielder who strikes out one out of every three times isn’t going to go far in this game unless he fields like Ozzie Smith.   What’s interesting is this: Dent is actually hitting BETTER than he did at Florida this year.  A blogger on fangraphs dug into the numbers and found that Dent had an amazingly low babip his senior year in college.  Trending down.

Round 23: Garrett Gordon, Juco Corner OF.  .257/.356/.317 with 0 homers, 12 walks, 27 strikeouts in 101 ABs for the GCL Nats.   We’d hope for some more power here for the undersized Gordon; he’s listed as an outfielder but he caught in high school.  Perhaps he’s considering going back to the position.  Trending down.

Round 24: Matt Derosier, Juco RH relief pitcher.  2-1, 2.43 ERA with 20/5 K/BB in 19 relief innings mostly in the GCL, 24 hits.   Derosier may have been a Juco guy but he’s young; he turned 19 in July of this year.  After a brief stint to start the season in Auburn he pitched in middle relief for the GCL Nats, getting at least 4 long enough stints to earn a “grade” in my monthly starter grades.   He posted good, solid numbers, nothing flashy, nothing bad.  A 4/1 K/BB ratio is great.  He’ll move up next year, looking to stick as a younger member of the bullpen in low-A.  One interesting point related to Derosier: despite his young age, he’ll achieve rule-5 eligibility as if he was a college draftee, so he could run out his eligibility when he’s in the very low-minors.   Trending up.

Round 25: Travis Ott, HS LH starting pitcher.  3-0, 4.03 ERA with 32/12 K/BB in 29 innings in the GCL, 24 hits.  The rare mid-20s round high schooler who signs, Ott was used as a starter in the GCL and was mostly good all year.  His seasonal numbers were skewed by one bad outing where he gave up 6 earned runs in 1 2/3 innings in mid-July.  This tall, lanky left-hander (6’4″ 170lbs) seemingly has room to grow and is very young; he turned 18 at the end of June.  Looks like the Nats might have a find here.  Trending up.

Round 26: Garrett Hampson, HS SS from Reno, NV.  Did not sign; honored committment to Long Beach State (as confirmed by a local media site as well as PerfectGame).  Hampson was a well regarded prospect  heading into the draft (BA had him #84) and may have been a typical casulty of the new MLB draft reality; unless you’re picked in the first couple rounds and will sign for slot, you’re dropping.

Round 27: Bryce Harmon, HS LH starting pitcher from Richmond, VA.  Did not sign; honored committment to East Carolina University.  A big lefty clocked 87-91 but recruited by lesser baseball schools (per PerfectGame).

Round 28: Joey Webb, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  2-0, 1.89 ERA with 25/6 K/BB in 19 innings in the GCL, 13 hits.   A college senior who turns 23 in a few weeks pitching in the rookie league?  The definition of “too old for the level.”  But, Webb comes from a very small baseball school (NAIA’s Menlo College in California) and may not have been ready to compete with a bunch of Division I guys in Short-A.   Webb has almost no baseball pedigree (PerfectGame doesn’t even have a profile of him) so he’ll have to earn it going forward.  Trending steady.

Round 29: Mike Sylvestri, Coll Sr RH relief pitcher.  3-1, 5.40 ERA with 14/9 K/BB in 18 innings split between Short-A and the Rookie league.  Sylvestri started in Auburn, got shelled (12 runs in 8 2/3 innings) then threw a shutout in the rookie league (9 2/3 innings, 9 hits, zero runs).   He’s undersized (5’10”, 180) and could have trouble getting out of rookie ball (as evidenced by his short-A experience).  May not be long for the organization.  Trending down.

Round 30: Ryan Ullmann, Coll Sr RH Starting pitcher.  3-2, 4.74 ERA with 38/13 K/BB in 49 1/3 innings, 64 h its.  Ullman, like Webb, started in the rookie league being a senior coming from an NAIA (small).   By the end of the season, Ullmann was in the Auburn rotation.  He got 6 starts in Auburn with some up and down results (3 decent, one ok, two bad) that resulted in a 5.30 ERA all told.   You can’t teach size (he’s 6’6″, 230).  Ullmann closed in college and may return to the pen.  Trending down.

Round 31: Willie Medina, Coll Sr SS.  .228/.315/.237 with 0 homers, 9 walks, 24 strikeouts in 114 ABs for the GCL Nats.   A .552 OPS playing as a 22-yr old in the rookie league is disappointing.  Medina may struggle to make it out of Viera next spring.  Trending down.

Round 32: Pat Boling, Coll Jr LHP: Did not sign, chose to return to U. of Georgia for his senior season.  Bolling missed all of the 2012 season with an injury and redshirted, then had an uneven 2013 season (going from weekend starter to bullpen guy).   Probably looking to either complete his degree or try to compete for a full time starter job a year removed from injury in 2014.

Round 33: Andrew Dunlap, HS C/RHP from Houston.  Did not sign.  Honoring a committment to Rice University.  Research on Dunlap finds an interesting story; he apparently went to 3 different  high schools all told (he moved around b/c because at the time he was a catcher and was blocked at the varsity level), was committed to Texas Tech at one point but then de-committed when he decided to become a pitcher and discovered he could hit 95-96 on the mound, transferred again and tried to gain a 5th year of high school eligibility, apparently failed, and had no “team” to play for this past spring.  Nonetheless, he had multiple offers for scholarships (Rice, UNC and U San Diego) before going to Rice.  BA did a Q&A feature on him in Feb 2013, so I’m guessing he was supposed to go much higher than the 33rd round.

Round 34: Jake Walsh, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  0-0, 1.40 ERA with 17/5 K/BB in 19 1/3 innings closing in the Rookie League.  Promoted to Hagerstown on 9/3/13 to provide lefty bullpen coverage in the playoffs.    He was probably too old and too experienced for the rookie league but showed enough promise to get a two-level call-up for the post-season.  Lets see how he does in 2013, likely as a situational lefty/closer for Hagerstown.  Trending up.

Round 35: Lukas Schiraldi, Juco RHP from Texas.  Did not sign.  The son of Calvin Schiraldi, Lukas was a 2nd year All-American Juco pitcher ranked #162 by Baseball America who has decided to transfer to U Texas Austin (like his father) instead of signing.   Understandible; if Schiraldi succeeds for Texas next spring, he’ll come into the 2014 draft as a high-powered college junior with much better earning potential.

Round 36: Reid Humphreys, HS SS from Missouri.  Did not sign.  Honoring committment to Mississippi State.  Humphreys was the 2013 “Mr. Baseball” for the state of Missouri.  He is also the brother of the Nationals’ own Tyler Moore, who also was Mr. Baseball for Missouri and also attended Mississippi State.

Round 37: Karsten Whitson, RH starting pitcher from Florida.  Did not sign, returning to U Florida for his senior/4th year.   Whitson is an interesting story.  He was San Diego’s 1st round pick (9th overall) in 2010 and was drafted just behind Matt Harvey and just ahead of Chris Sale.  In a move that surprised the Padres, Whitson refused to sign for slightly above-slot money and chose to go to school, turning down a $2.1M offer.    After a great freshman year, Whitson struggled with arm pain his sophomore year and turned to Dr. James Andrews this past spring, performing a “cleanup” surgery on his shoulder to alleviate an “impingement” and costing him the whole season.  Clearly Whitson needs to return to school and complete a full healthy season to regain draft value, so I don’t entirely understand this pick.  Maybe the Nats wanted to see if Whitson wanted to sign and rehab with the team as opposed to on his own (they did something similar with Robert Orlan last year).  But that would have made no sense for Whitson; he’s already in college on scholarship; why would he possibly have signed for round 37 money at this point in his career?

For me Whitson confirms what Keith Law always says when it comes to significant bonus money; take the money; you can always go back to college if you wash out of the minors.  But you just never know what may happen; if Whitson suffers another injury or performs badly next spring, he’ll be lucky to be offered $10k and will really wish he’d have taken that life-changing $2M bonus.  When proposed with this scenario, my wife says “I want my kid to go to college” but the reality is this; that money may not ever be there again, and the kid can always go to college later.  You have to take it if it is there.

Round 38: Caleb Hamilton, HS SS from Washington State.  Did not sign; honoring committment to U of Washington.  Seems like Washington’s area scout liked Hamilton, so they made an impression on the kid and drafted him late.

Round 39: Robbie Tenerowicz, HS 2B/SS from California.  Did not sign; honoring committment to UC Berkeley.  He looks like an excellent Oakland-area product staying close to home.  Made the Area Code team and was on some all-american lists.  The Nats have drafted two middle infielders from Cal lately (Kobernus and Renda) so perhaps Tenerowicz will be a third in a few years.

Round 40: Shaun Anderson, HS RH starting pitcher from Florida.  Did not sign; honoring committment to U of Florida.  Baseball America had a nice little writeup on the 2013 draft’s Mr. Irrelevant.

First off: I’m not a “small hall” guy.  (How can you, when looking at the litany of obscure players the Veteran’s Committee has already enshrined while the current ballot has literally a dozen names that you can make an argument for?)  So naturally I want to see enshrinement for a larger number of the “marquee” names in baseball’s history.  I view the Hall of Fame as a museum dedicated to the game, and recognizing all the eras of the game for better or for worse.  I’m for expanding the current ballot and If I had a vote i’d be maxing out the 10 names with a desire to put a couple more guys on.

I’m also distinctly of the opinion that maybe the era of baseball just prior to today’s is underrepresented in Cooperstown.  Specifically, my theory is that the massive boom in offense that the game has seen in the last 20 years coupled with a distinct shift in the way pitching staffs are managed has led to voters and fans to discount and dismiss the accomplishments of players specifically from the 1980s.

MLB.com has a show called “Prime 9,” where they list the best 9 players/teams related to certain topics.  Recently they showed the “Best 9 players of the 1980s” by position, and it led me to use that list as a starting point for a discussion of marquee players from the 1980s and to decide whether or not the decade is under represented in Cooperstown.

Here’s Prime 9’s top player by position and their Hall of Fame status.  Throughout this entire article, Blue == Hall of Fame players while Red == non-Hall of Fame Players.

• RF: Dwight Evans: fell off HoF ballot on his 3rd attempt in 1999.  Max votes: 10.4% in 1998.
• CF: Dale Murphy: fell of HoF ballot on his 15th attempt this year in 2013.  Max votes: 23.2% in 2000.
• LF: Rickey Henderson: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2009 with 94.8% of the vote.
• SS: Cal Ripken Jr: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2007 with 98.5% of the vote.
• 3B: Mike Schmidt: 1st ballot HoFamer in 1995 with 96.5% of the vote.
• 2B: Ryne Sandberg: 3rd ballot HoFamer in 2005 with 76.2% of the vote.
• 1B: Don Mattingly: on current ballot, his 13th attempt.  Max votes: 28.2% in 2001, his first year on the ballot.
• C: Gary Carter: 6th ballot HoFamer in 2003 with 78% of the vote.
• SP: Jack Morris: on current ballot, his 14th attempt.  Max votes: 67.7% this year.

Four of the Nine players listed as “Best of the Decade” are not in the Hall of Fame.   I think there’s something wrong here.  I know Morris is incredibly polarizing and probably never gets in, while the other three guys (Evans, Murphy, Mattingly) each had knocks against them related to durability and peak that prevented them from being enshrined.  Perhaps these are future Veteran’s committee picks.

I know the above list is arguable; perhaps those players aren’t necessarily the “best” at their positions for the decade.  So lets talk about the leading candidates per position who didn’t make the Prime-9’s list, and their own HoF status.  The MLB show didn’t distinguish between SP and RPs so I’ve separated them out below, nor did they distinguish between the OF positions like they did for the team selected above.

I’ve included the guys in the above “Prime 9” list in the lists below for ease of analysis by position.

(Coincidentally; as you read the vote percentage totals, keep in mind that a voting percentage of less than 1% means that the player got only a handful of votes from the 500+ votes tallied each year, a woefully small number).

Outfielders:

• Dwight Evans: fell off HoF ballot on his 3rd attempt in 1999.  Max votes: 10.4% in 1998.
• Dale Murphy: fell of HoF ballot on his 15th attempt this year in 2013.  Max votes: 23.2% in 2000.
• Rickey Henderson: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2009 with 94.8% of the vote.
• Andre Dawson: 9th ballot HoFamer in 2010 with 77.9% of the vote.
• Tim Raines: on current ballot, his 6th attempt.  Max votes: 52.2% this year.
• Dave Parker: fell of HoF ballot on his 15th attempt this year in 2011.  Max votes: 24.5% in 1998.
• Fred Lynn: fell off HoF ballot on his 2nd attempt in 1997.  Max votes: 5.5% in 1996.
• Kirk Gibson: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2001 with only 2.5% of the voting.
• Dave Winfield: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2001 with 84.5% of the vote.
• Kirby Puckett: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2001 with 82.1% of the vote.
• Tony Gwynn: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2007 with 97.6% of the vote.
• Pedro Guerrero: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1998 with only 1.3% of the voting.
• Jim Rice: 15th ballot HoFamer in 2009 with 76.4% of the vote.
• Daryl Strawberry: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2005 with only 1.2% of the voting.
• Jack Clark: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1998 with only 1.5% of the voting.
• Andy Van Slyke: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2001 without receiving a single vote.

This makes for 16 total outfielders on the “Best of the decade” list.  Of those 16 outfielders, 10 are not in the Hall of Fame.  Would you say that the position is under-represented in the Hall if only 6 outfielders from an entire decade of the sport are enshrined?   Maybe, maybe not.   To say nothing of the fact that 2 of these 6 HoFame 80s outfielders (Rice and Dawson) were heavily criticized upon enshrinement for being voted in based on remnants of “old man” statistics.

Jack Clark you say?  50 Career WAR.  That’s nothing to shake a stick at.  Higher than a number of Hall of Fame hitters.  I remember him being more of a power hitter than he turned out to be.  He just couldn’t stay healthy; only 5 seasons where he played close to a “full season” in 18 years in the league.   I remember him fondly from my childhood; my family is from San Francisco and I always rooted for the Giants as a kid.

Middle Infielders:

• Cal Ripken Jr: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2007 with 98.5% of the vote.
• Ryne Sandberg: 3rd ballot HoFamer in 2005 with 76.2% of the vote.
• Garry Templeton: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1998 with only 0.4% of the voting.
• Ozzie Smith: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2002 with 91.7% of the vote.
• Alan Trammell: on current ballot, his 12th attempt.  Max votes: 36.8% last year.
• Robin Yount: 1st ballot HoFamer in 1999 with 77.5% of the vote.
• Lou Whitaker: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2001 with only 2.9% of the voting.
• Dave Conception: fell of HoF ballot on his 15th attempt this year in 2008.  Max votes: 16.9% in 1998.

Lots of baseball pundits have lamented Whitaker’s fate, while plenty others vociferiously argue for Trammell, who had the misfortune of being both the 2nd best offensive SS (to Ripken) and the 2nd best defensive SS (to Smith) of his era simultaneously, thus being overshadowed by both.   Conception was about an equal at the plate to Ozzie Smith but only about half the Gold Gloves, but still seems like he deserved a bit more credit than he got in the voting.

Third Basemen

• Mike Schmidt: 1st ballot HoFamer in 1995 with 96.5% of the vote.
• Wade Boggs: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2005 with 91.9% of the vote.
• George Brett: 1st ballot HoFamer in 1999 with 98.2% of the vote.
• Paul Molitor: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2004 with 85.2% of the vote.
• Terry Pendleton: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2004 with only 0.2% of the voting.
• Tim Wallach: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2002 with only 0.2% of the voting.
• Buddy Bell: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1995 with only 1.7% of the voting.

Four first ballot hall of fame 3rd Basemen played in the era (even if most consider Molitor primarly a DH later in his career) which is saying something considering there are only 12 full time 3rd baseman in the Hall from all of history.  The all-star game starters for the entire decade were almost entirely Schmidt, Boggs and Brett.  The others I fully acknowledge are “stretches” but did each have several all-star appearances during the decade.

First Basemen

• Don Mattingly: on current ballot, his 13th attempt.  Max votes: 28.2% in 2001, his first year on the ballot.
• Steve Garvey: fell of HoF ballot on his 15th attempt this year in 2007.  Max votes: 42.6% in 1995.
• Eddie Murray: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2003 with 85.3% of the vote.
• Keith Hernandez: fell off HoF ballot on his 9th attempt in 2004.  Max votes: 10.8% in 1998.
• Mark McGwire: on current ballot, his 7th attempt.  Max votes: 23.7% in 2010.

Not much to say here: There seemed to be a definite lack of quality first basemen for the decade; only one is enshrined in the Hall.  Many of the all-star 1B appearances early in the decade went to aging stars Rod Carew and Pete Rose, who by that point in their long careers had been moved to first base for defensive purposes. McGwire’s issues are obvious (and he’s clearly more well known for his exploits in the 1990s, so its arguable if he even belongs in this 1980’s centric discussion).

Catchers

• Gary Carter: 6th ballot HoFamer in 2003 with 78% of the vote.
• Carlton Fisk: 2nd ballot HoFamer in 2000 with 79.6% of the vote.
• Lance Parrish: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2001 with 1.7% of the voting.
• Benito Santiago: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2011 with 0.2% of the voting.
• Darrell Porter: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1993 with zero (0) votes.
• Tony Pena: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2003 with0.4% of the voting.
• Bob Boone: fell off HoF ballot on his 5th attempt in 2000. Max votes: 7.7% in 1996.
• Terry Kennedy: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1997 with exactly one (1) vote.

Yes, I’m really stretching for 1980s catchers.  Basically Carter made the all-star team every year for the NL while Fisk made half the All Star Starts for the AL during the same time.  The backups were generally catchers having a decent first half, many of whom never made an other all-star team.  Boone was better than you remember, hence his hanging around the bottom of the ballot for a few years.

Closers/Relievers

• Lee Smith: on current ballot, his 11th attempt.  Max votes: 50.6% in 2012.
• Bruce Sutter: 13th ballot HoFamer in 2006 with 76.9% of the vote.
• Dennis Eckersley:  1st ballot HoFamer in 2004 with 83.2% of the vote.
• Rich Gossage: 9th ballot HoFamer in 2008 with 85.8% of the vote.
• Jeff Reardon: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2000 with 4.8% of the voting.
• Tom Henke: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2004 with 0.6% of the voting.
• Dan Quisenberry: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1996 with 3.8% of the voting.
• Kent Tekulve: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1995 with 1.3% of the voting.
• Willie Hernandez: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1995 with 0.4% of the voting.

I’m not going to vociferously argue for Relievers/Closers to be inducted, since I think they’re mostly overrated in terms of their contributions to wins.  But I will say that a couple of these guys were far better than you remember.  Take Tom Henke: career 157 ERA+, which was better than either Sutter or Gossage PLUS he had more career saves (311 for Henke compared to 310 for Gossage and 300 for Sutter).   How exactly are two of these three guys Hall of Famers while Henke got exactly 6 votes out of 515 his first time on the ballot?   These voting patterns just seem drastically inconsistent.

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All the above though pales in comparison to what we’re about to see.

Starters

• Jack Morris: on current ballot, his 14th attempt.  Max votes: 67.7% this year.
• Steve Carlton: 1st ballot HoFamer in 1994 with 95.6% of the vote.
• Dave Stewart: fell off HoF ballot on his 2nd attempt in 2002.  Max votes: 7.4% in 2001.
• Frank Viola: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2002 with 0.4% of the voting.
• Rick Sutcliffe: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2000 with 1.8% of the voting.
• Dave Steib: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2004 with 1.4% of the voting.
• Bob Welch: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2000 with 0.2% of the voting.
• Brett Saberhagen: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2007 with 1.3% of the voting.
• Orel Hershiser: fell off HoF ballot on his 2nd attempt in 2007.  Max votes: 11.2% in 2006.
• Dwight Gooden: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2006 with 3.3% of the voting.
• Mike Scott:  fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1997 with 0.4% of the voting.
• Rick Reuschel: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1997 with 0.4% of the voting.
• Fernando Valenzuela: fell off HoF ballot on his 2nd attempt in 2004.  Max votes: 6.2% in 2003.
• Nolan Ryan: 1st ballot HoFamer in 1999 with 98.8% of the vote.
• Denny Martinez: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2004 with 3.2% of the voting.
• Bert Blyleven: 14th ballot HoFamer in 2011 with 79.7% of the vote.
• Jimmy Key: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2004 with 0.6% of the voting.
• Ron Guidry: fell off HoF ballot on his 9th attempt in 2002.  Max votes: 8.8% in 2000.
• John Tudor: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1996 with 0.4% of the voting.
• Roger Clemens: on current ballot, his 1st attempt.  Max votes: 37.6% in 2013.

Here is where I think I really have a problem with the Hall of Fame treatment players in the 1980s; I think the entire generation of Starting Pitchers has been generally underrated and overlooked.  Look at this list of pitchers and look at the number of guys who failed to even stay on the ballot for more than one season.  Meanwhile, you can argue that the three guys who ARE on this list who are in the Hall of Fame (Carlton, Ryan and Blyleven) all actually “belong” to the 1970s; they just happened to have longer careers that bled into the 1980s.  Clemens appears here because his late 80s debut was so strong but clearly he’s a player of the 90s, and his reasons for non-inclusion thus far are obvious.

Do you mean to tell me that NONE of these other 1980’s starters merits inclusion to the Hall of Fame?  That an entire decade of starting pitchers doesn’t historically merit inclusion?  I’m not going to argue that all (or most) of these players belong, but it is kind of shocking that so many of the leading pitchers of that era were given so little consideration.

My biggest beef may be with Saberhagen.  Here’s the side-by-side stats of Saberhagen and a Mystery pitcher we’ll identify in a moment:

	Wins	Losses	IP	K’s	ERA	ERA+	bWAR
Saberhagen	167	117	2562 2/3	1715	3.34	126	56
Mystery Player	165	87	2324 1/3	2396	2.76	131	50.3

Pretty close, no?  Saberhagen contributed more WAR and was nearly this player’s equal in ERA+, which adjusts to the eras.  Mystery player’s W/L record is better … but then again, havn’t we learned that wins and losses are meaningless stats now?   A couple more facts here: Saberhagen won two Cy Young awards while the Mystery player won Three.  Saberhagen led the league in ERA just once while Mystery player did it 5 years in a row.

The Mystery player here (if you havn’t already guessed) is none other than Sandy Koufax.  Now, I’m certainly not saying that Saberhagen is the equal of Koufax, certainly not when you look at Koufax’s last 5 seasons or his 4 no-hitters.  My point is this: Koufax was a first ballot hall of famer … and Saberhagen got 7 votes out of 545 ballots.   Saberhagen may not be a Hall of Famer but he deserved to be in the discussion longer than he was.

Others have mentioned the lack of support for Dave Steib, who had a relatively similar statistical case to Saberhagen.  Similar career bWAR (53.5), similar ERA+ (122), and similar injury issues that curtailed his career.  Steib’s award resume isn’t as impressive (zero Cy Youngs but 7 All-Star appearances in his first 11 seasons), and he was basically done as an effective player by the time he was 33.

There are some other surprises on this list too.  Jimmy Key you say?  Go look at his career stats and you’ll be surprised just how good he was.  186-117, a 3.51 ERA (which sounds mediocre) but a career 122 ERA+.  A couple of stellar seasons (two 2nd place Cy Young votes).   I’m not saying he’s a hall of famer, but I am saying that he was better than you remember.  There’s absolutely pitchers in the Hall with worse ERA+ than Key’s.

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Coincidentally, you can make the argument that many of these players really “belonged” to a different decade, if you wanted to really just focus this discussion on the 1980 decade.

• Fisk, Boone, Conception, Parker, Lynn, Rice, Garvey, Carlton, Ryan, Reuschel and to a certain extent Winfield were really players who mostly “belong” in the 1970s.
• Blyleven and Brett’s careers equally spanned both the 70s and 80s.
• Gooden, Van Slyke, Puckett, McGwire, Clemens and Pendleton had careers that started the late 80s but who flourished mostly in the 1990s.

But, I think the point is made, especially when it comes to pitchers.  So I left all these players in.

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Here’s a couple other ways to look at the best players of the 1980s.  Here’s a list of the top 20 positional players by “Win Shares” for the decade (data cut and pasted from an online forum).  As with above, blue=hall of famer while red indicates not.

1. Rickey Henderson 289
2. Robin Yount 274
3. Mike Schmidt 265
4. Eddie Murray 250
5. Tim Raines 246
6. Dale Murphy 244
7. Wade Boggs 237
8. Dwight Evans 230
9. George Brett 229
10. Keith Hernandez 221
11. Pedro Guerrero 221
12. Cal Ripken 219
13. Alan Trammell 219
14. Gary Carter 215
15. Jack Clark 213
16. Lou Whitaker 205
17. Andre Dawson 204
18. Ozzie Smith 204
19. Paul Molitor 198
20. Dave Winfield 193

Most HoFame pundits lament the lack of support for Raines specifically, but it is interesting to see how high up both Murphy and Evans fall on this list.

Now, here’s Pitcher WAR accumulated in the 1980s.  I took this data from a posting on BeyondtheBoxScore blog back in 2010, who was arguing (of course) why Jack Morris didn’t deserve to be in the hall of fame.  However, the table here also illustrates nicely who were really the best pitchers of the decade, and most of these guys are in the list above.

Rank	Name	bWAR	From	To	Age	Wins	Losses
1	Dave Stieb	45.2	1980	1989	22-31	140	109
2	Bob Welch	35.1	1980	1989	23-32	137	93
3	Fernando Valenzuela	34.8	1980	1989	19-28	128	103
4	Bert Blyleven	34	1980	1989	29-38	123	103
5	Orel Hershiser	32.8	1983	1989	24-30	98	64
6	Roger Clemens	32.3	1984	1989	21-26	95	45
7	Nolan Ryan	30.8	1980	1989	33-42	122	104
8	Dwight Gooden	30.2	1984	1989	19-24	100	39
9	John Tudor	29.7	1980	1989	26-35	104	66
10	Bret Saberhagen	29	1984	1989	20-25	92	61
11	Charlie Hough	28.7	1980	1989	32-41	128	114
12	Jack Morris	27.9	1980	1989	25-34	162	119
13	Mario Soto	27.3	1980	1988	23-31	94	84
14	Teddy Higuera	27.3	1985	1989	26-30	78	44
15	Rick Sutcliffe	26.7	1980	1989	24-33	116	93
16	Rick Reuschel	25.7	1980	1989	31-40	97	82
17	Steve Carlton	25.6	1980	1988	35-43	104	84
18	Ron Guidry	25.5	1980	1988	29-37	111	72
19	Frank Viola	25.1	1982	1989	22-29	117	98
20	Dan Quisenberry	24.6	1980	1989	27-36	53	43
21	Mark Gubicza	24.6	1984	1989	21-26	84	67

I’m not sure why he ran this list to 21 players; perhaps he really likes Mark Gubicza.

Notice the same 3 names appear here as appeared above for Hall of Fame starters.  Also notice the surprisingly high appearances of players like Soto and Higuera; I didn’t even include them in the above analysis, perhaps providing my own bias because certainly I wouldn’t have included these two in any conversation about the best pitchers of the 80s.  But the point is now made statistically; of the 20 best pitchers by WAR for the entire decade, only 3 are enshrined in the Hall.

I havn’t done this analysis for other decades but I’d be surprised if other decades were so underrepresented.  Think about how many obvious hall of famers pitched in the 1990s;  Just off the top of my head: Clemens, Mussina, Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Johnson, Pedro, Schilling and perhaps eventually Hoffman and Rivera.   Maybe guys like Cone and Pettitte deserve more thought.  Lee Smith is still on the ballot.  That’s a lot of names for one decade as compared to what’s happened to the 1980s guys.

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So, after all this, do we think the 1980s players are underrepresented in the Hall?  I count 17 positional players, 3 relievers and 3 starters from the era.  Perhaps the answer is, “there’s plenty of positional representation but the Starters are not fairly represented.”

Why are there so few starters from this era enshrined?  Did we just see a relatively mediocre time period in baseball with respect to starting pitchers?  Did we just get unlucky with the longevity and injury issues related to the best pitchers of the era (Hershiser, Saberhagen, Steib)?  Did changes in bullpen management that came about in the 90s (lefty-lefty matchups and more specialized relievers) combined with increasing awareness/sensitivety to pitch counts (100 pitches and you’re out) contribute to this fact?   If you’re a starter and the assumption is that you’re pitching 9 innings no matter what your pitch count is, you’re going to approach the game differently and pitch with a different level of effort than if you knew you were getting the hook after 100 pitches and/or in roughly the 6th or 7th inning.  Did this contribute to more mediocre-appearing ERAs for starters of this era?  Is that a good argument to use, as compared to 90s’ and modern pitchers who go all-out for 7 innings and then sit (versus starters of the 90s, who would often face the 3-4-5 of the opposing team a FOURTH time in the late innings while sitting on 140 pitches)?

What do you guys think?

On November 30th, the BBWAA announced the 2012 official Hall of Fame ballot.  Let the cavalcade of Hall of Fame opinion pieces begin! (just a few early examples here, here, and here).

We all knew who was eligible for this ballot, thanks to the excellent work at baseball-reference.com.  All the anticipated ballots are available for perusal along with statistical summaries of each player’s career and a few Bill James-inspired metrics created to give simple statistical measures of Hall-worthiness.

2012’s ballot is the last year before the Steroid accused superstars start becoming eligible (Bonds, Sosa, Piazza, and Clemens are all on the 2013 ballot for the first time, in addition to Schilling and Biggio) and the narrative about Hall of Fame voting turns to morality voting for the next decade or so.  Gee, I can’t wait.  All these players played in an era where there was no testing against PEDs and no MLB-specified rules against PEDs, but voters continue to penalize these players as if testing WERE being done, as if there WERE rules at the time they played.  Meanwhile nobody talks about the PEDs that were prevalent for the last 30 years or so (amphetamines, or “greenies” in baseball parlance), and many players from the latter part of this decade freely talk of playing on speed.  Frankly, it isn’t fair.  We didn’t penalize Bob Gibson and put an asterick next to his accomplishments for pitching in a pro-pitcher, massive ballpark era did we?  No; that was the game at the time.  We don’t talk about how baseball fields used to be caverns with 480 foot distances and 30 foot walls, making triples far more common than homers.  No; that was the game at the time.  And frankly. the steroid era will eventually be remembered for what it was.  Sometimes I think the anti-PED crowd is just a bunch of middle-aged white guys who are really peeved that an arrogant black ballplayer in Barry Bonds broke the cherished home run records of storied players from their youth (Babe Ruth and the far more likeable Henry Aaron).  But I digress.

That being said, I like doing these Hall of Fame blog posts, if only because I usually disagree with the rest of the baseball blog-o-sphere on what really constitutes a Hall of Famer.  I’ve been watching baseball long enough to form my own independent opinions on players and not depend on revisionist historians turning mediocre players into other-worldy hall-of-fame electees (see Blyleven, Bert and my stated opinions on his Hall-worthiness ahead of the 2011 ballot, and especially read the comment section where people refuse to address any aspect of Blyleven’s playing career and only use statistics to canonize him).

Notwithstanding that comment, I believe we’re being too parsimonious with Hall of Fame elections.  Nate Silver from the NY Times wrote on this same topic in January of 2011, pointing out another interesting fact about the Hall of Fame (namely that roughly 13% of active major leaguers at various points in the 1930s and 1940s are now in the Hall).  I’m not advocating that we need to be looking at 10% of current active major leaguers for the hall, but I am advocating that we be less “parsimonious” with the voting.  This may seem contradictory to my opposing the candidacy of Blyleven; not so.  There are a number of very deserving candidates who are not getting the votes they need.  There seems to be several reasons for this:

• Players whose accomplishments in the pre-Steroid era are being discounted for the lack of “big numbers” (Larkin, Raines, Trammel, McGriff to certain extents).
• Players who toiled in the Steroid era are either users/suspected users (McGwire, Palmeiro), or are being caught in the steroid web (Bagwell).
• Players who are suffering from a conflict of opinion in the voter base for various reasons (Smith, Morris, Martinez).

I’m not sure how to resolve any of these situations frankly.  But I’d hate to have these players languish on the ballot and age off of it and have to wait for some nebulous Veterans committee to enshrine them after they’re dead (see Santo, Ron).  Some people advocate modifying the voting methodology, but in reality there’s no easy fix.

Back to the 2012 ballot: the only candidate eligible for the first time this year worth any discussion is Bernie Williams.   For me, Williams was a nice player who retired early instead of facing the inevitable end of his Yankee career.  He was part of a great core group of home-grown Yankees that formed the core of the late 90s dynasty team and will certainly be remembered as a great franchise player.  That’s not enough; he was never the best player on his own team, he never sniffed an MVP vote and he never accumulated enough production to warrant being a focal point in the opposition.  He had a great 5-year run … but if we were electing people on 5-year runs then Juan Gonzalez would already be in.

For the rest of the remaining candidates, I’ll borrow some from last year’s version of this post.  I’m not going to go into major statistical analysis for each candidate (that analysis is freely available on most every major baseball blog site out there), but will state my opinion with a few choice links.  On my hypothetical ballot I’d vote for:

• Jeff Bagwell: a career 149 OPS+.   That’s a career averaging nearly 50% better hitting than the average MLBer.  That he’s being lumped in with actual PED users without a shred of proof has become the latest hall of fame “cause” on the internet, starting with this excellent article accusing BBWAA writers of “plagiarism” (when I think he really means laziness, frankly).  At least I support this one.  Here’s an excellent case for Bagwell.  You won’t find anyone penning a “case against” him that doesn’t claim that he’s a PED user without the proof.
• Jack Morris.  The “anti” sabrematrician selection.  Here’s a link to the most canonical case against Morris, as well as Joe Posnanski‘s anti Morris (and anti-other) rant.  And here’s a case for Morris from former Washington Post writer Richard Justice, now with MLB, which goes a lot towards my way of thinking about the guy.  Lots of people seem to be spending as much time arguing AGAINST him as they did arguing FOR Blyleven.  I wonder why that is?  Maybe there really just is a kind of pitcher who you had to see in context versus looking at his stats after the fact.  Nolan Ryan “only” had a 112 ERA+ for his career and was barely a .500 pitcher, yet was a first ballot overwhelming hall-of-famer.  There’s some disconnect here.  For me, the vote for Morris is about the “feeling” of a dominant pitcher, just as Blyleven was about the “feel” of a mediocre pitcher, no matter what his eventual career stats looked like.  For people who say this is fallacy, I say this: judgement of a player can not ONLY be done by looking at his stats.  Morris had a reputation for “pitching to score,” though sabrematricians have attempted to debunk that pitching-to-score exists for some time (see this link on baseball prospectus, then note at the bottom that despite 3500 words he says “none of this proves it doesn’t exist.”) but he also had a reputation for being the “Best pitcher of the decade.”  Bill James published a list of factors to consider, when evaluating a player’s candidacy, and the one takeaway I got from that list was (paraphrased) whether or not a player was the best on his team, the best in his league, a guy that the other team was afraid of.  Morris was that, for a period of more than 10 years.  His last two seasons took him from a 3.70 era to a 3.90 career era, and may have pushed him over the edge to his current stat-nerd polarizing stance.  For me, he was THE pitcher of the 80s, led one of the most dominant teams ever (the 1984 Tigers) and pitched a 10-inning complete game win in one of the best games ever played.  Those things stand for something, and should add up to more than a clinical analysis of his era+.
• Barry Larkin: lost in the shadow of Ozzie Smith for so long, that people forget that he was an excellent defender AND a great hitter.  Long overdue for enshrinement.  Here’s a pretty stat-heavy analysis FOR him.
• Tim Raines.  Case for.  Its hard to find cases against.  Raines, like guys like Trammell and Larkin, played in the shadow of Rickey Henderson for so long and was always judged to be 2nd best.   But his accomplishments, especially during the earlier part of his career, should be enough to get him into the Hall.
• Mark McGwire: He was a lock before the PED ensnarement.  I say “ensnared” despite him using a completely legitimate supplement at the time.   He didn’t try to hide it either.
• Edgar Martinez: I recently watched one of the games from the great series “MLB’s greatest games” of the last 50 years, and one of the games was the great game 5 playoff in 1995 between the Mariners and the Yankees.  David Cone in that broadcast said that Martinez was “the best right handed hitter he ever faced.”  And it struck me; Martinez indeed was one of the most feared hitters of his day.  Look at his career: he didn’t play a full season til he was 27 and he played a ton of DH.  He also retired with a career slash line above the mythical .300/.400/.500 targets.  For those that discount his heavy use at DH I ask one simple question: if you think Martinez didn’t contribute that much by just being a DH, then how can you possibly support the inclusion of a one-inning relief pitcher/closer?  Who do you really think contributes more, a DH with his 650 PAs or a relief pitcher with 60-some innings in a season?   In reality, you can’t.  It just takes an uber-DH like Martinez to press the issue.

Specific Names i’d leave off and why:

• Alan Trammell: I just don’t think he was a dominant enough player to warrant inclusion.  I’d place him well behind his peers at shortstop for the ERA.  There’s plenty of support for him in various forums though, with good arguments for him.
• Lee Smith: My tried and true argument; closers are incredibly overvalued, and especially closers with lifetime ERAs in the 3.00 range and with a career whip that’s closer to a league average than it is to dominant.  Sorry; Smith isn’t a HoFamer for me.
• Larry Walker: the whole “he played in Colorado” angle probably isn’t as true as we think, but he still enjoyed a bump in his stats because of it.  Otherwise he’s in the hall of Good, not the Hall of Fame.
• Rafael Palmeiro: its less about his idiotic stance in front of congress as it is about his method of “accumulating” his way to historic numbers.  Much like the discussion we’ll eventually have about Johnny Damon (who is only a few hundred hits away from 3000 but clearly isn’t a transcending player), Palmeiro was always a good, solid guy but never that much of a game changer.
• Don Mattingly: I would love to vote for Donny Baseball, but being the Captain of the Yankees just isn’t enough (well, unless you’re a NY writer).  Retired too early, not enough power for a first baseman, peaked at 25 and struggled into his 30s.

Let the comments calling me an idiot for supporting Jack Morris begin.