Your 2014 Hall Of Fame Ballot

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Eckstein 4 Prez

Sort of seems like you'd put in the "minus #38" stuff to avoid just that discussion.

Still, though, the case is pretty obvious IMO. As you know, I hate the Red Sox Nation and give near-zero weight to any bloody sock-related arguments for the Hall of Fame. It's still not a close call - he (and Mussina) will be in easily as soon as the writers let go of the ridiculous notion that 300 wins is the appropriate standard of excellence for a modern starter.

He has 3000 K which overrides the lack of 300 wins.

[attackemu]

Originally Posted by The Game

He has 3000 K which overrides the lack of 300 wins.

Agreed, except that I don't think the lack of 300 wins needs to be "overridden." The only pitchers of his era who are clearly better are all-time greats: Clemens, Maddux, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez. I put him about even with Mussina, Glavine, Smoltz, and Kevin Brown in the next tier. For me, all those guys are Hall of Famers.

[gehrig38]

Originally Posted by Up here in Canada

Johnson's short stint with the Stros was as dominant as he's ever been, too.

His only loss that year was to us, Paul Byrd beat him and Paul Byrd drove in the game winning run if I remember right

[Jason]

OK, here would be my ballot:

Maddux
Glavine
Mussina
Bagwell
Biggio
Morris
Piazza
Schilling
Smith

And I'd hope to see the vets let in Billy Martin.

OK, I'm biased a bit toward Schilling because of he was part of God's Baseball Team in Philadelphia...but I can be impartial enough to vote here if I'm throwing votes to those damn Atlanta Braves pitchers.

Biggio and Bagwell should go in and they should go in together. It just feels right.

[Up here in Canada]

Originally Posted by gehrig38

His only loss that year was to us, Paul Byrd beat him and Paul Byrd drove in the game winning run if I remember right

Wow, good memory. I thought he went 14-2 or something like that but he was 10-1, 1.28 ERA!

Wow again! Just checked out the boxscore; Byrd was the man, a 4 zip final! On the play by play, it specifies a line drive single for the first run of the game....I bet that was one of his proudest moments in the MLB!


That must have been a sad day in Astroland when they realized he wasn't going to be around especially after the way he threw for them. That was the beginning of the most dominant stretch of his career....but of course you realize that.

[Astros33Resurrected]

Originally Posted by Up here in Canada

Wow, good memory. I thought he went 14-2 or something like that but he was 10-1, 1.28 ERA!

Wow again! Just checked out the boxscore; Byrd was the man, a 4 zip final! On the play by play, it specifies a line drive single for the first run of the game....I bet that was one of his proudest moments in the MLB!


That must have been a sad day in Astroland when they realized he wasn't going to be around especially after the way he threw for them. That was the beginning of the most dominant stretch of his career....but of course you realize that.

Not to mention we get booted in the 1st round of the playoffs. The guys we shipped to Seattle went on to be pretty productive.

[klonewarrior]

My Ballot

1. Maddux - Probably the smart guy ever to pitch
2. Glavine
3. Thomas
4. Biggio
5. Raines
6. Trammell
7. Schilling
8. Morris - Probably the 2nd best big game pitcher on the ballot.
9. Larry Walker
10. Ray Durham - Why? Because every year some schmuck that has no business in Cooperstown with out buying admission gets a vote...

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

Originally Posted by attackemu

Agreed, except that I don't think the lack of 300 wins needs to be "overridden." The only pitchers of his era who are clearly better are all-time greats: Clemens, Maddux, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez. I put him about even with Mussina, Glavine, Smoltz, and Kevin Brown in the next tier. For me, all those guys are Hall of Famers.

They are most definitely all Hall of Famers. According to this random dude who is making the HoF case for Schilling, the top four pitchers of all time on a WAR/IP basis are Clemens, Pedro, Randy Johnson and Schilling. This seemed wrong to me at first, but made sense once I thought about it: in the 1990s and 2000s strikeouts are so much higher than they've been in past eras, which renders pitchers more valuable on a relative than they were in the past. (This is because they get through more of the game with fielding-independent events.)

Obviously, the game has changed - we could spend all day arguing about how Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, Cy Young, etc., would fare in a modern rotation and not get anywhere. But without question the role of the starting pitcher is more important on a relative basis than it's ever been before.

Once the current generation of writers leaves the scene, it's likely that the next generation will realize that the relative importance of the starting pitcher today easily compensates for the fact that guys don't pitch as many innings now as they used to. (For what it's worth, I still don't think closers pitch enough innings to be legit Hall of Famers with the exception of Rivera, who's so much better than everyone else that he basically forces his way in.)

Anyway, that's my long way of saying that at some point people will wise up and start using strikeouts, or better yet K/9 and K/BB ratios to determine pitcher value. Schilling had a career K/BB ratio of 4.38:1, which is absolutely insane. That's the highest total of all time unless you count Tommy Bond, who threw his last major league pitch around the time Grover Cleveland was being elected president for the first time. For modern players whose careers are over, the only two players over 3.7:1 are Schilling and Pedro Martinez.

Those aren't just Hall of Fame numbers - they are inner circle numbers.

[Orcin]

As of this morning, we have 28 ballots received. The voting so far:

Maddux 100%
Biggio 86%
Glavine 82%
Thomas 79%

**********

Bagwell 71%
Raines 71%
Piazza 54%
Mussina 46%
Schilling 46%
Bonds 39%
Clemens 36%
Morris 32%
Trammell 32%
Smith 25%
Walker 21%
Martinez 14%
Kent 11%
Mattingly 7%
Durham 4%
Gonzalez 4%
Palmeiro 4%
Sosa 4%

Thanks to everyone that has participated so far. Voting is still open. I remind newcomers to the thread that there is a link to the official ballot in the first post.

Westheim mentioned his lack of familiarity with some of these players. People often ask for new league ideas. One good idea would be to start a historical league in the early 1980's, and then you would see all of these players come in and develop.

It occurred to me that we have spent a lot of time discussing the steroid era impact on the voting, but I wonder if the strike (1994) has hurt some of these players. For example, Bagwell was having a monster year that was cut short.

Someone might have to come in and make a case for Bagwell and Raines to put them over the top.

[klavier]

In no particular order:

Maddux
Thomas
Walker
Raines
Piazza
Bagwell
Glavine
Biggio
Trammell
McGriff

[shawa666]

Aw come on Raines has to go in.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by shawa666

Aw come on Raines has to go in.

That's a good start, but maybe you should be a bit more convincing - like with stats and stuff.

[Westheim]

Raines is one of those guys I never ever had heard about until I somewhat half-heartedly followed last year's (or rather this year's?) voting. He never seems to be talked about in current days' broadcasts.

Oops. That was not exactly making a case for somebody.

[Jason Moyer]

He's the second greatest leadoff hitter of all time, of course he should be there. I would have put him in a long time ago. Unfortunately the ballot is just too crowded now and he'd be 12th on my list.

My ballot:

Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Greg Maddux
Curt Schilling
Mike Mussina
Jeff Bagwell
Tom Glavine
Frank Thomas
Larry Walker
Alan Trammell

There are 16 guys I'd vote for this year if the ballot was big enough, though.

[Tram2Whitaker]

voting for:
Maddux
Glavine
Mussina
Morris
*Clemens (Roided up pitcher, pitched against roided up batters, so it cancels each other out)
Walker
Trammell
Bagwell
Biggio

[Tram2Whitaker]

Looking over past ballots, I didn't realize that Kirk Gibson didn't garner enough votes to even stay on the ballot after his first year; and Lou Whitaker. Perhaps the veteran's committee should pick them up.

[Jason Moyer]

If you're going to put in Kirk Gibson you might as well put in Don Larsen while you're at it. Or put in the massive pile of 1984 Tigers who had better careers than he did (Trammell, Evans, Whitaker, Lemon, Parrish, *holding nose* even Morris).

[hfield007]

My ballot:

Barry Bonds
Curt Schilling
Edgar Martinez
Frank Thomas
Greg Maddux
Jeff Bagwell
Larry Walker
Mike Mussina
Mike Piazza
Roger Clemens

special shout out to rpriske, attackemu and Jason_Moyer for the Bonds / Walker votes.Shame neither will probably make it.

Players that I think are HoF caliber but not enough room on my ballot for:
Alan Trammell
Craig Biggio
Sammy Sosa

Tim Raines i'm back and forth on.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by hfield007

Tim Raines i'm back and forth on.

Why? How is Raines NOT a HOFer?

I'm not meaning to single you out personally or attack you or anything. I just don't get how he hasn't been elected irl, or even in this thread yet. To me he's a no doubt HOFer, no questions asked.

I really think it must be the cocaine, since the HOF elections have seemingly become the purview of the "morality" police (most of whom who know nothing about morality nor have any claim to being particularly moral themselves) rather than being based on players actual ability to play baseball extraordinarily well...

That being said, glad you have Trammell somewhere on your list He's another guy that for whom I just don't understand how he could be so darn underrated by so many people.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Orcin

That's a good start, but maybe you should be a bit more convincing - like with stats and stuff.

A bajillon people have already made this argument far more convincingly than I or his other partisans on this board could do. Just google Tim Raines Hall of Fame or something like that...

Bill James once said of Rickey Henderson "If you could split [Henderson] in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers". Raines is one of those Hall of Famers that would come from splitting Henderson in two.