Best Position Players Not In the Hall of Fame: All-Time Team

“Tis the season, for Hall of Fame voting.

That means, of course, that today must be Cyber-Monday, the day in which I spend around six hours in my sweat-pants — pot of coffee at-the-ready — poring over statistics, analyzing the career records of various retired players…oh, wait, I do this all the time anyway.

Here are the ground-rules for my list of Best Retired Players Not Already in the Hall of Fame:

1)  No 19th century players.  In my opinion, the baseball writers / bloggers / historians, etc., have spent more than enough time picking over the skeletal remains of that century, regarding baseball.  As it says in a pretty famous book, “Let the dead bury the dead.”

2)  The player not only has to be retired; he also has to have appeared on the BBWAA HOF ballot at least once since he’s been retired.

3)  The player has to meet basic Hall of Fame requirements, such as having played at least ten seasons in the Majors, can’t have been deemed ineligible due to “legal” issues (do you hear me, Pete Rose?), etc.

And that’s basically it.  So let’s get started.

Jeff Bagwell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1B  Jeff Bagwell:  (1991-2005)  A no-brainer.  Baseball-Reference.com (I’ll  constantly be referring to this invaluable website throughout) has Bagwell listed as the sixth greatest first baseman of all-time.  Thirty-eight players have reached the 30 (homers) – 30 (steals) club in baseball history.  You know how many of them have been first basemen?  Just one.  Jeff Bagwell.  And he did it twice.

Bagwell’s career OPS+ of 149 is tied for 36th best in baseball history, at any position.  He was an outstanding base-runner, a very good fielder, could hit for both power and average, and was durable, leading the league in games played four times.

His 1,788 runs created is tied with HOF’er Al Simmons for 39th all-time, ahead of such immortals as Mike Schmidt, Cal Ripkin, Jr., Reggie Jackson and Eddie Mathews.

Bagwell was the N.L. Rookie of the Year in 1991, and the league’s MVP in 1994.

Last year, Bagwell was named on 56% of the ballots cast by members of the BBWAA.  Apparently, the other 44% were a bit scared off by “rumors” that Bagwell might somehow have been associated with the steroids scandal.

Yet the fact remains that no evidence has surfaced that Bagwell had anything to do with steroids at all.  Hopefully, another 20% of the BBWAA will come to their senses this year and vote Bagwell into The Hall where he clearly belongs.

2B  Bobby Grich:  (1970-86)  Baseball-Reference (from here on out, B-R), ranks Grich as the 8th best second baseman of all-time.  The seven listed immediately ahead of him, and three of the four directly behind him, are all in the Hall of Fame.  Grich’s 67.3 WAR is higher than the average of the 19 second basemen in The Hall.

A four-time Gold Glove winner, Grich was an excellent defensive second baseman.  He also had good power for a middle infielder, slugging 224 career homers, including a league-leading total of 22 in the strike year of 1981 (100 games played), and 30 homers in 1979.

Only six second basemen in history have a career OPS+ better than Grich’s mark of 125, and each of them is in the Hall of Fame.  Playing for both the Orioles and the Angels in his 17-year career (1970-86), Grich possessed one of the best combinations of offense and defense ever by a second baseman, and certainly belongs in the HOF.  (All apologies to Lou Whitaker, my second choice.)

SS Alan Trammell:  (1977-96)  Bill James ranked Trammell as the 9th best shortstop of all time.  B-R has him ranked in 11th place.  So let’s compromise and call him the 10th best shortstop ever.  Now, if you are among the top ten players in one of baseball’s most difficult defensive positions, it seems logical that you belong in The Hall, doesn’t it?

Alan Trammell’s career WAR of 67.1 is exactly the same as recent HOF inductee Barry Larkin.  It is also better than 13 other shortstops already in the HOF.  Trammell and his keystone mate Lou Whitaker were each always among the best defensive players at their respective positions in their era.

Trammell was the best player in the A.L. in 1987, batting .343, with 205 hits, 109 runs scored, 28 homers, 21 steals and 105 RBI (and his usual stellar defense), but finished second to George Bell in MVP voting due to Bell’s gaudier power numbers.

Trammell won several Gold Gloves, posted a solid .285 career batting average, slugged 185 homers and 412 doubles (shortstops were not yet necessarily expected to be dangerous hitters, as would become the norm a bit later), and played his entire 20-year career (1977-96) in Detroit.

This year will be Trammell’s 12th on the HOF ballot.  Last year, he was named on 36.8% of the ballots.  Perhaps the BBWAA will take a more serious look at Trammell’s career this time around and give him the boost he needs to make it into The Hall before his eligibility runs out in just a few more years.  He certainly belongs there.

English: St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Ken Boyer in a 1955 issue of Baseball Digest. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3B  Ken Boyer:  (1955-69)  As perhaps many of you already know, third base is the least represented position in the HOF.  Only eleven third basemen are in The Hall, and it took Ron Santo’s drawn-out induction last year to get the number that high.  Ken Boyer should be inducted to make it a dozen.

Boyer is rated by B-R as the 14th best third baseman of all time.  Of the 13 players listed ahead of Boyer, three are either currently active or have recently retired, one — Edgar Martinez — wasn’t really a third baseman at all, and all but one of the rest of them are already in The Hall.  Only Graig Nettles is as qualified as Boyer to stake a claim on this list.

Ultimately, I chose Boyer because I believe his overall game was a hair better than Nettles’ was, and because Boyer was selected to play in eleven All Star games in 15 years, while Nettles was chosen six times in 22 seasons.

For a solid decade, 1955-64, Boyer was always one of the best players in the N.L.  In 1964, the year in which the Cardinals defeated the Yankees in the World Series, Boyer led the league with 119 RBI and was named N.L. MVP that season.

A five-time Gold Glove winner, Boyer ranks 20th all-time in assists as a third baseman.  Boyer also hit for solid power (282 homers), had very decent speed (68 triples), and finished his career with a respectable .287 batting average.

Boyer was dropped off of the BBWAA’s HOF list after receiving just 11.8% of the vote in his final year of eligibility in 1994.  Yet, as of this writing, Boyer remains the best third baseman not in the Hall of Fame.  Perhaps some day, a future Veteran’s Committee will endorse his induction into the HOF.

C  Ted Simmons:  (1968-88)  Simmons HOF candidacy was always hurt by the fact that his career largely occurred during what can now be considered a Golden Age of catchers.  In the 1970′s and into the ’80′s, there was no shortage of World Class catchers:  Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Thurman Munson, Gene Tenace, Bob Boone, Darrell Porter, Jim Sundberg and Gary Carter, among others, each donned the so-called tools of ignorance.  Ted Simmons had a fine career, but was overshadowed by some of these other catchers.

Still, B-R ranks Ted Simmons as the 10th best catcher of all-time.  Simmons was an underrated defensive catcher, though no match for several of the others I’ve listed above.  But more to the point, Simmons was a catcher who could really hit.  Here are his batting averages from 1971-80:  .304, .303, .310, .272, .332, .291, .318, .287, .283, and .303.

After switching leagues at age 31, leaving the Cardinals for the Brewers, Simmons caught fewer and fewer games every year, becoming increasingly a 1B / DH.

Despite the competition at his position and in his league, Simmons was named to eight All Star teams in his career.  Only one catcher, Pudge Rodriguez, has ever hit more career doubles than Simmons’ total of 483, and his 1,389 RBI is also the second highest total of all time by a player whose primary position was catcher, surpassed only by Yogi Berra.

Strangely, Ted Simmons was only on the BBWAA HOF ballot for just one year, 1994, in which he received just 3.7% of the vote.  Looking back nearly 20 years later, it’s difficult to understand how Simmons could garner such little support for such an excellent career.

Thus, Ted Simmons remains the best catcher not in the Hall of Fame.  (Apologies to Joe Torre, my second choice.)

LF  Tim Raines:  (1979-2002)  In my opinion, after Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines is the best player not in the Hall of Fame.  And other than Rickey Henderson, I believe that Tim Raines was the best top of the order, base-stealing, run-producing player of the past eighty years.

Tim “Rock” Raines stole 808 bases in his career, leading the league in steals four times.  He stole at least 70 bases in a season in each of his first six years in the Majors.  Significantly, he never led the league in times caught stealing.  By way of comparison, Lou Brock led the league in steals eight times, but also led in times caught stealing seven times.  Raines career stolen base success rate of nearly 85% is one of the best in MLB history.

But Raines was also an excellent all-around run producer.  He created exactly 1,636 runs in his career, the same total as Tony Gwynn, and more than Joe DiMaggio, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and former teammate Andre Dawson.

Of the seven left-fielders ranked ahead of Raines by B-R, five are in The Hall.  The other two are Barry Bonds and Pete Rose (see the link to an article about Pete Rose below.)  There are 13 left-fielders who rank behind Raines who are in The Hall. Clearly, Raines has more than a legitimate case to be enshrined in The Hall.  Until that day arrives, however, he will remain the best left-fielder not in the HOF.

CF  Jimmy Wynn:  (1963-77)  Frankly, although I’ve always been a fan of Jimmy Wynn, I didn’t expect him to be my center-fielder on this list.  But I am happy to say that he fits the bill.  B-R ranks Wynn as the 15th best center-fielder ever.  Each of the 14 listed ahead of him are either already in The Hall, are currently active, or have only recently retired.  Kenny Lofton (ranked 8th) appears on the HOF ballot for the first time this fall.

I’ve made this argument before, but let me briefly state it one more time.  If you took HOF’er Jim Rice and placed him in the Houston Astrodome for the majority of his home games, and you put Jimmy Wynn in Fenway Park for the majority of his, then Wynn would be in The Hall, and Rice would be remembered as a very solid player along the lines of say, Joe Carter.

In 1967, for example, the entire Astros team hit just 93 home runs.  Jimmy Wynn hit 37 of those homers, representing an astounding 40% of all of the Astros homers that season.  The aging Eddie Mathews and a very young Rusty Staub each hit 10 homers that year, good for second place on that team.

Meanwhile, flashing ahead ten years, Jim Rice led the A.L. with 39 home runs.  But among his teammates, George Scott hit 33, Butch Hobson hit 30, Yaz hit 28, Fisk hit 26, and Fred Lynn hit 18. The BoSox as a team that year hit 213 home runs in ’77.  Therefore, Rice’s 39 represented just 18% of the team total.  Obviously, then, time and place matter a great deal when attempting to judge a given player’s value.

Aside from Jimmy “Toy Cannon” Wynn’s enormous power, Wynn was an on-base machine, reaching at least 90 walks in a season nine times, including a league-leading 148 walks in 149 games in 1969.

Wynn’s career lasted from 1963-77, spent almost entirely in the N.L.  His career OPS+ of 129 is, perhaps a bit ironically, one point better than Rice’s career mark of 128.

If Kenny Lofton fails to be voted into The Hall this year, his first year on the ballot, then he will become the best center-fielder not in The Hall.  But unless that happens,  Jimmy Wynn will remain the best one not in the HOF.

RF  Larry Walker:  (1989-2005)  I know what you’re going to say.  Two Words:  Coors Effect.  I’ve already written one entire blog-post about why Larry Walker belongs in the HOF.  But briefly, both before and after he played his home games at Coors Field, he was always an outstanding baseball player.

B-R ranks Walker as the 9th best right-fielder ever.  His career WAR of 69.7 almost perfectly matches the 69.5 average of the 24 players in The Hall at his position.

As a fielder, Larry Walker was credited with 150 outfield assists, good for 12th place among all outfielders in baseball history.  He won seven Gold Gloves for his fielding.  He won those Gold Gloves as both a member of the Expos and the Rockies.

Walker was an excellent base-runner.  Among those who saw him play, it was rare that anyone ever saw Walker make a base-running mistake.  He slugged 471 doubles and 62 triples in his career, always ready to take the extra base on an unsuspecting outfielder.  He also stole 230 bases in his career, posting a respectable 75% success rate in that category.

Walker could hit for both average and power.  His career line of .313 / .400 / .565 places him among the greatest right-fielders in history, as does his career OPS+ of 141 (which takes into consideration a player’s time and place.)  Although Walker clearly hit better at Coors Field (and why, precisely, should that be held against him?) he also hit very well pretty much everywhere else.

In the final 144 games of Walker’s career, which he spent with the Cardinals after leaving Colorado, the 38-year-old Walker posted a batting line of .286 / .387 / .520 with an OPS+ of 134, fine numbers for a player on the verge of retirement.

In some cases, a player is almost completely a product of his environment.  Dante Bichette comes to mind.  In other cases, though, an already great player uses his environment to his advantage.  Larry Walker belongs in the latter category.  One other place Larry Walker belongs is in the HOF.  Until that happens (and Walker will be on the ballot for the third time this year), Walker will remain the best right-fielder not in the HOF.

DH  Edgar Martinez:  (1987-2004)  I’m not a big fan of the Designated Hitter rule, but I am a fan of Edgar Martinez.  Quite simply, Edgar Martinez is one of the greatest right-handed hitters in baseball history.  Edgar appeared in just 564 games as a third baseman out of 2,055 games played, so he can be said to have been a player without a legitimate defensive position.  There was a time I would have held this against him, as, apparently, many BBWAA voters still do.

The fact remains, however, that Edgar Martinez was simply the best pure D.H. in baseball history.  Martinez hit .312 for his career, winning two batting titles along the way.  He hit 514 doubles, 309 home runs and drove in over a hundred runs six times.  His career OPS+ of 147 is the same as HOF’ers Mike Schmidt, Sam Thompson, Willie McCovey, Willie Stargell and future HOF’er Jim Thome.

Martinez played his entire 18-year MLB career with the Seattle Mariners.  Given the evolving way in which the D.H. position is being used these days — some teams have begun rotating their regular players through the D.H. to give them more rest — it is possible that Edgar Martinez will go down in history as the best Designated Hitter of all-time, regardless of whether or not he eventually makes it into the Hall of Fame.

So those are my choices for the nine best players not in the Hall of Fame.  Do you agree or disagree with my choices?  I’ll be interested to find out.

Next time, I’ll examine the best pitchers who are not in the Hall of Fame.

Related articles

• Pete Rose: ‘Baseball Is A Better Game If I’m In It’ (newyork.cbslocal.com)
• Astros’ Craig Biggio discusses 2013 Hall of Fame, reflects on 2005 World Series (chron.com)
• 2013 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot: Don Mattingly, Superstar or Nice Player? (bleacherreport.com)
• Should Mark McGwire, Other Admitted PED Users Ever Get into the Hall of Fame? (bleacherreport.com)

Baseball Bloggers Alliance Hall of Fame Voting: 2012 Edition

January 3, 2012
	BBA RECOMMENDS LARKIN, BAGWELL FOR HALL OF FAME In the annual polling of members of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, former Cincinnati Reds shortstop Barry Larkin and former Houston Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell were recommended for induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  This is the third year the organization has conducted this survey of the membership. Larkin, a 12-time All-Star who fashioned an .815 OPS over 19 seasons, received the largest percentage of votes, being named on 84.25% of the 148 ballots cast.  This is the highest percentage garnered by any player in the three years of BBA voting. Bagwell, who hit 449 HR and had a .948 OPS in his 15 seasons in Houston, was selected on 115 ballots for a 78.77% rate.  As with the official voting done by the Baseball Writers of America, a player must be named on 75% of the ballots to be recommended by the alliance. Last year, the BBA recommended second baseman Roberto Alomar and pitcher Bert Blyleven, both of whom were inducted into Cooperstown during the summer.  In 2010, no player reached the 75% mark in BBA balloting, the year that outfielder Andre Dawson was selected for the Hall by the baseball writers. The Baseball Bloggers Alliance’s vote has no impact on the official vote taken by the Baseball Writers of America.  However, the BBA has often been a predictor of major awards granted by the writers. The final voting results are as follows: Barry Larkin 84.25% Jeff Bagwell 78.77% Edgar Martinez 60.27% Tim Raines 57.53% Alan Trammell 44.52% Mark McGwire 41.10% Larry Walker 35.62% Lee Smith 33.56% Jack Morris 32.19% Don Mattingly 29.45% Rafael Palmerio 28.77% Fred McGriff 28.08% Dale Murphy 16.44% Bernie Williams 11.64% Juan Gonzalez 6.16% Javy Lopez 2.74% Brad Radke 2.05% Tim Salmon 1.37% Bill Mueller 0.68% Phil Nevin 0.68% Ruben Sierra 0.68% Tony Womack 0.68% Jeromy Burnitz 0.00% Vinny Castilla 0.00% Brian Jordan 0.00% Terry Mulholland 0.00% Eric Young 0.00% The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was established in the fall of 2009 for the purpose of fostering collaboration and communication among bloggers from across baseball.  The BBA has quickly grown to its current membership of 347 blogs, including some of the most prominent blogs on the Internet, spanning all major league teams and various other general aspects of the game. More information about the BBA can be found at their website, baseballbloggersalliance.wordpress.com, or by contacting the founder and administrator of the organization, Daniel Shoptaw, at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com. Image via Wikipedia

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2011 Hall of Fame Vote: The Good, the Bad, and the Utterly Perplexing

Image via Wikipedia

The results are in, and there weren’t any major surprises.  Bert (we suddenly loved you all along) Blyleven (79.7%), and Robbie (sorry we messed up last year) Alomar (90%), were the only two players on this year’s ballot elected into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.

Looking over the percentage of votes each player received from the BBWAA revealed interesting results, some unexpected, some utterly perplexing.

THE GOOD:

1)  Roberto Alomar will now be enshrined in The Hall.  Alomar was a stunning offensive player, and although his defense was a bit overrated (see my last bl0g-post), he certainly belongs in The Hall.  Some bloggers / writers have Alomar rated as among the top three 2nd basemen of all-time.  I think that overstates his legacy a bit much.  I am comfortable rating Alomar in the top 5-10 second basemen ever.

2)  Bert Blyleven, the Bearded Dutchman, joins Alomar.   Personally, I don’t think I would have voted for Blyleven.  I know that some people will think it’s outrageous to hold this opinion, but if he was such an obvious HOF candidate, then why has he been passed over 13 previous times?  Some people point to his 3,701 career strikeouts (5th all-time) as one bit of evidence that he should be enshrined.  But he averaged 6.7 K’s / 9 innings in his career, good, but not great.

Voting for Blyleven isn’t voting for greatness; it voting for remarkable durability (he averaged 245 innings pitched per season in his career.)

So why file his election under THE GOOD?

First, because I have nothing against Blyleven personally, and there’s no reason to rain on his parade.  Obviously, this vote means a lot to Blyleven and his supporters.

Second, because now that his enshrinement is a done deal, we can start to focus a little more seriously on some of the other players who also deserve enshrinement.  Which brings us to…

3)  Barry Larkin: Larkin received a promising 62% of votes cast, an improvement over the 51% he received last year, his first on the ballot.  Larkin is one of the ten best shortstops of all-time, and the best N.L. shortstop of his era.  It will be interesting to see if his relatively strong showing this year represents his high-water mark, or if it is a stepping-stone to future Hall induction.

Next year’s relatively weak class of first-time HOF candidates, however, could work in his favor.  Let’s hope it does.

THE BAD:

1)  Jeff Bagwell, an obvious Hall of Famer if there ever was one (unless you really weren’t paying attention), received a lower percentage of votes (41.7%)  than I thought he would, and I had low expectations for him going into this election.  His (hopefully temporary) rejection does not, however, come as a surprise because, and there is no way to sugarcoat this, many of the BBWAA voters are cowards.

What are they afraid of?  They are afraid to induct a player that they know, statistically speaking, should be a first-ballot HOF’er because they believe he just MIGHT have used steroids.

Even though Bagwell’s name has never appeared on any list of users, and even though no former teammates of his have ever accused him of being a user,  somehow an internet driven whiff of scandal has created a false cloud of controversy over his name and reputation.

And the voters are deathly, and unreasonably, afraid that if they were to induct Bagwell into The Hall, and then it was later revealed that he was, after all, a steroid user, then they would look foolish.

But they are wrong.  If (as unlikely as it is) that Bagwell was elected and then, at some later date, it turns out he was a user, then the shame of his tainted induction would be on him, not on the voters.

In other words, placing the onus of responsibility on a particular player to prove that he didn’t use steroids is unreasonable and unjust.  Guilty until proven innocent is the fallback position favored by cowards in an irrationally fearful society, and history is seldom kind to those who accuse others of some perceived crime, who then later turn out to have been innocent.

Prediction:  Bagwell is eventually elected into The Hall, but it could take a while.

2)  Larry Walker: Much of what I have just written about Bagwell can be applied to the case of Larry Walker as well.  And, as an added obstacle to The Hall, Walker is penalized for having played in the best hitter’s park ever constructed in one of the better era for hitter’s in modern history.

Only one in five voters (20%) believe Walker had a HOF career.

Setting aside the steroid issue, on which you have probably already formed an opinion, yes, Walker benefited from playing at Coor’s Field.  But I can’t think of any other player in baseball history who was penalized for having similar good fortune.  For example, if you had put Jim Rice in the Astrodome for his entire career, he certainly would not have ended up in The Hall.  Conversely, if you had put Jimmy Wynn in Fenway Park for his career, he would have put up HOF numbers.

As another example, Mel Ott hit 323 (63%) of his 511 career home runs at the Polo Grounds, the highest total any player ever hit in their home ballpark.

Walker was already an outstanding player before he signed with the Rockies.  He was a great defensive player, an excellent base-runner, and could hit for power and average.

Yet his relatively poor showing in this year’s Hall of Fame vote does not portend, I fear, an eventual Hall induction.  More likely, he will continue to languish in the Dale Murphy/ Ted Simmons limbo, never taken quite seriously enough by the BBWAA that the full weight of his career will ever receive anything other than token appreciation.

3) Tim Raines: Raines was named on 37% of the ballots cast.  It is clear that Raine’s cocaine use, as well as the Conventional Wisdom that other lead-off hitters such as Rickey Henderson and Lou Brock outshone him, will probably keep Raines out of the Hall.  I can’t think of any other reason why someone would not vote for him.  The Conventional Wisdom in this case is, as it often proves to be,  just plain wrong.

The Utterly Perplexing:

1)  Edgar Martinez: (33% support) – What to do with Edgar Martinez, one of the greatest pure hitters in baseball history?  The crux of the issue is, there is no consensus on what constitutes a legitimate baseball player.  And don’t wait for the Baseball Hall of Fame to clarify the issue of what to do with the virtual life-time DH anymore than they will the issue of players linked to steroids.

The Hall of Fame, an institution that should be jealously guarding its reputation, has been cryptically, irresponsibly silent on the salient issues of the day regarding baseball, and the players it accepts for enshrinement.

2)  Lee Smith: Smith, 3rd on the all-time Saves list, was snubbed, appearing on 45% of the  ballots  cast.  What is a closer to do?  Either Saves, as a statistic, impress you, or they do not.

Smith emerged from the single-inning “clean” Save era, where 9th inning specialists usually entered the game with no one on base, and three outs to work with.  Sounds simple enough, and Smith did his job well.  But is this task, however well-performed, impressive enough to merit HOF recognition?

I believe, despite the large number of closers who compiled over 300 saves, that the voters will ultimately reward only a small handful of these specialists.  Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman come to mind as probable future inductees.  But I don’t believe that the BBWAA membership is all that impressed by raw Save totals.  Nor do I believe that they should be.

3)  Fred McGriff: (18% support) – Why the lack of love for the Crime Dog?  If I told you that a player who hit just under 500 home runs, registered eight 100+ RBI seasons, who had the same OPS+ as Al Kaline, and who has never been linked to steroids, appeared to be on the road to nowhere regarding Hall of Fame enshrinement, what would you think?  Frankly, I don’t know what to think, either.

4)  Marquis Grissom received four votes.  Tino Martinez received six votes.  B.J. Surhoff nailed down two, and Brett Boone and Charles Johnson received HOF support from one voter each.  How is it that each of these decent but unspectacular players received votes for The Hall, yet so many writers do not see Bagwell, Raines, Larkin or Walker as Hall material?  It’s a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, without the inevitable “now it all makes sense” ending.

So what are your thoughts on today’s BBWAA Hall of Fame voting results?  I’d like to know.

The complete results from the BBWAA:

Name	Votes	Pct.
Roberto Alomar	523	90.0%
Bert Blyleven	463	79.7%
Barry Larkin	361	62.1%
Jack Morris	311	53.5%
Lee Smith	263	45.3%
Jeff Bagwell	242	41.7%
Tim Raines	218	37.5%
Edgar Martinez	191	32.9%
Alan Trammell	141	24.3%
Larry Walker	118	20.3%
Mark McGwire	115	19.8%
Fred McGriff	104	17.9%
Dave Parker	89	15.3%
Don Mattingly	79	13.6%
Dale Murphy	73	12.6%
Rafael Palmeiro	64	11.0%
Juan Gonzalez	30	5.2%
Harold Baines	28	4.8%
John Franco	27	4.6%
Kevin Brown	12	2.1%
Tino Martinez	6	1.0%
Marquis Grissom	4	0.7%
Al Leiter	4	0.7%
John Olerud	4	0.7%
B.J. Surhoff	2	0.3%
Bret Boone	1	0.2%
Benito Santiago	1	0.2%
Carlos Baerga	0	0.0%
Lenny Harris	0	0.0%
Bobby Higginson	0	0.0%
Charles Johnson	0	0.0%
Raul Mondesi	0	0.0%
Kirk Rueter	0	0.0%

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My Hall of Fame Ballot

Well, the Hall of Fame ballots have been tabulated, and the winners are…Andre Dawson?

So, of the 26 retired players who were on the ballot this time ’round, only Andre Dawson is a Hall of Famer.  Hmmm.  Interesting.

Most reasonable people were shocked to find out that Roberto Alomar fell just eight votes short of Hall induction.  He was perhaps the most obvious HOF- worthy candidate on the ballot.

Dawson, on the other hand, could have ended up as a perennially oh-so-close candidate, a career to be retrieved, dusted off, and sneezed upon by the strange little people who live in the dark bowels of the HOF, and who call themselves, The Veterans Committee.

These Terry Gilliamesque creatures are never allowed to see daylight, are forced to read ancient copies of Baseball Digest by candlelight, and are startled by the strange, mechanical noises of modern technologies such as electric pencil sharpeners.

It appears that the Veterans Committee will have plenty of work to do for years to come, considering the results of Wednesday’s HOF balloting.

If I had a HOF ballot, here’s how I would have voted, and why.

1)  Roberto Alomar -  What does a ballplayer have to do to gain admittance into the HOF?  Alomar was a complete ballplayer.  He was a career .300 hitter who could hit with reasonable power (210 career homers.)  He was a run producer, scoring just over 1,500 runs, and driving in over 1,100.

Baserunning?  Check.  He stole 474 bases with a career success rate of 80%.  He also legged out 504 doubles and 80 triples.

Fielding?  Check.  He was one of the most graceful, acrobatic fielders of his time at any position, and he has ten gold gloves to prove it.

Intangibles?  Check.  He played on two World Champion Blue Jays teams, batting .313 in post-season play.  He also finished in the top ten in MVP voting five times, and he made 12 All-Star teams.  Add 2,724 hits and four Silver Slugger awards, and you have an obvious HOF career.

So why wasn’t he enshrined this time around?  Well, it can only be due to the “spitting incident,” when he once spat on an umpire who called him out on a third strike pitch.  It was a stupid, disgusting this to do.  MLB handed him a suspension, he apologized, the umpire apologized, and that was the end of that.

Or apparently not.  It seems obvious that at least a few baseball writers refused to vote for him based on this one isolated incident.  Some have tried to connect this incident with the immoral behavior of those who have been accused of steroid use.

Here’s a reality check.  Babe Ruth once punched out an umpire.  Juan Marichal once tried to bash in the skull of Johnny Roseboro with a baseball bat.  Tris Speaker was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.  Ty Cobb was, well, Ty Cobb.  All of these men are enshrined in the HOF as Baseball Immortals.  It is the height of hypocrisy to hold Alomar to a higher standard.

Roberto Alomar would have received my vote for the HOF.

2)  Barry Larkin – Name a better overall N.L. shortstop who has played the position since 1970.  You can’t because there hasn’t been one.

Larkin was the first shortstop of all time to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases in the same season.  He hit over .300 in nine seasons.  He stole 379 bases with a success rate of 83%.  He was awarded nine Silver Slugger awards.

Larkin won three gold gloves while playing in the same era and in the same league as Ozzie Smith.  Larkin was N.L. MVP in 1995.  His career OPS (On Base + Slugging Percentage) was .815, nearly identical to both Robbie Alomar and Joe Morgan. He played in twelve All-Star games.

Most importantly, Larkin broke the mold of what a shortstop could be.  Like Alomar, he was a complete player.  He was not the proto-typically good field, light-hitting shortstop with some speed that was the norm around baseball for at least a generation.

Ozzie Smith was a great fielder who made himself into a respectable hitter that could steal a base, but he did not wield a game-changing bat like Larkin.  Ernie Banks was a slugger, but not a great fielder or a great base runner.

Larkin comprised a skill-set unlike most shortstops of his time, but one that soon became more common later on in the ’90′s with the arrival of A-Rod and Nomar Garciappara.  Even Cal Ripkin, although a fine fielder, a team leader and a slugger, did not combine a skill-set as complete as Larkin’s.

It may take Larkin several years to make it into the HOF, but he would certainly receive my vote.

3) Bert Blyleven- If Bert Blyleven eventually makes it into the HOF, it will not be a travesty of justice.  He won 287 games playing on lots of mediocre or poor teams.  He struck out an impressive 3,701 hitters, 5th all-time.  He tossed 60 shutouts.  All excellent statistics.

But, he never won a Cy Young award in 22 seasons.  He appeared in only two All-Star games.  He is one of only ten pitchers in history to lose 250 games.  And in 22 seasons, he won 17 or fewer games 20 times.  He had one 20 win season, one 19 win season, and no 18 win seasons.

Guys that win about 16 games a season nearly every season, no matter how many years they pitch, are hard to describe as dominant.

Nor is his career ERA of3.31, mediocre in the era in which he pitched, an argument for enshrinement into the HOF.  Even his huge career strikeout total looks somewhat less impressive when you see that he averaged only 6.7 K’s per nine innings, good for 115th all-time.

Most of all, when I was a kid growing up in the ’70′s, none of the kids I knew ever considered Blyleven a great pitcher.  He was more of an oddity.  Seaver, Carlton, Palmer, Nolan Ryan, Catfish Hunter, and a couple of others were the pitchers whose baseball cards we collected, and who we tried to emulate while playing in the streets and parking lots of Bridgeport, CT.

Bert Blyleven would not get my vote for the HOF.

4)  Andre Dawson – I will simply say that I will not rain on his parade by judging his career now that he is in The Hall, although  I believe a legitimate argument could be made one way or the other about his candidacy.  The voters have spoken.  Congratulations, Mr. Dawson.

5)  Edgar Martinez – I love Edgar.  Mariners fans love Edgar.  They believe he is a HOF’er.  I don’t.

I know about his career OPS.  It is outstanding.  But although OPS is a valuable statistic that helps us understand a player’s real value to a team, it is not a statistic that makes all other stats obsolete.

Runs scored, RBI’s, Home Runs, Batting Average, all have their inherent flaws.  But each of these stats also provides us with a set of data we can use to make a relevant historical comparison to other players.

If we overrate the value of OPS, then we can make the case that, for example, Tim Salmon and David Justice were better players than Honus Wagner because each of them had a higher career OPS than he did.

Edgar was a hell of a hitter who never won an MVP award, never played on a championship baseball team, drove in fewer runs than Ruben Sierra or Paul O’Neill, scored fewer runs than Willie Randolph or Julio Franco, and hit fewer homers than Jeromy Burnitz or Ron Cey.

He also didn’t provide much in the way of base running skills as his 49 career steals in 79 attempts shows, and obviously, he never won a Gold Glove.

He did play in seven All-Star games, and he did win five Silver Slugger awards.  As I said, he was a hell of a hitter.

But not Ted Williams great.  Or Stan Musial great.  Or Rogers Hornsby great.  Or even Frank Thomas great.

And if a player brings nothing else to the table except his prowess as a hitter, he better be one dominant hitter as judged by both the sabermetric as well as the traditional counting statistics.

Edgar Martinez just doesn’t have enough on his resume to justify his induction into the HOF.

Finally,

6)  Jack Morris – Supporters use the argument that Morris won more games than any other pitcher in the ’80′s.  That’s a little like saying that the Bee-Gees were the best Disco Band of the ’70′s.  Disco sucked.  So, apparently, did ’80′s pitchers.

Morris won 254 games in his career, good for 42nd all-time.  He won fewer games than Tommy John, Jim Kaat, and Jamie Moyer.  His career .577 win-loss percentage is not very impressive, either.  He never won a Cy Young award, although he finished in the top ten 7 times, which is impressive.

Arguably, Jack Morris’ career ERA of 3.90 would have been even higher if he had pitched during the past fifteen years.

Finally, many of his supporters have stated that Jack Morris pitched the greatest game in World Series history, shutting out the Braves in a ten inning marathon in Game 7 in 1991.

Certainly, it was one of the greatest post-season performances we have ever seen, although lets not forget that Don Larsen once threw a perfect game against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series.

But one fantastic post-season performance is not generally considered a convincing argument to elect someone to the HOF.  Just ask Joe Carter how his HOF chances are looking lately.

At this point, there are no other players on the ballot that I think have a realistic chance to make it into the HOF, and, with the exception of Tim Raines, there are no others I would consider voting for at this point.

I am sure Roberto Alomar will one day make it into the HOF.  I am less sure Barry Larkin will.

But the BBWA has spoken, and, for another year, they can ponder the wisdom of their choices.

Meanwhile, the little people of the Veteran’s Committee remain busy scurrying around, abacus and fountain pens in hand, weighing the relative merits of 19th century umpires and managers whose bones have long since turned to dust.

And Little Leaguers dream of being the next Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols or Roy Halladay.  On such dreams are future Hall of Fame careers launched, yesterday, today, and on into the future.

Creating a Hall of Fame Mythology

On Wednesday of this week, the results of this year’s Hall of Fame balloting by the Baseball Writers of America (BBWA) will be announced.  No matter what the results turn out to be, lots of people will complain loudly about who did or did not make it into baseball’s Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2010.

And they will all be right.

The problem, of course, is that there are no objective standards by which any player can be evaluated as to whether or not they are a true HOF’er.  The bigger problem, though, is that there can NEVER BE any objective standards to determine baseball’s most fundamental question.

Here’s why.

You want to argue that a player should have 3,000 hits to be a HOF’er?  Fine, then we need to remove Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx from The Hall.

How about 500 home runs?  Obviously, you can eliminate the majority of hitters in The Hall, especially all those pesky middle infielders.  How about 400 homers? Well, now you have added Dave Kingman to the Hall of Fame, but you have eliminated Rickey Henderson, Yogi Berra, George Brett and Charlie Gehringer.

How about a .3oo career batting average?  Oooh, don’t go there.  Not only will you eliminate many fan favorites (Cal Ripkin, Ernie Banks, Willie McCovey), but don’t you know that batting average is no longer a cool stat?  These days, it’s all about On-Base Percentage.  Batting average is so 1977.

Well, how about the currently most-cool stat, OPS (On-Base plus Slugging Percentage)?  Let’s set the base-line at, say, .875.  Now you’ve eliminated Wade Boggs, Roy Campanella and, uhm, Honus Wagner.  But, hey, you’ve added Tim Salmon, David Justice and Kevin Mitchell.

O.K., let’s forget about hitters for a second and focus on pitchers.  Can’t we agree that 300 wins is the magic number?  Well, yes, if you combine Sandy Koufax with Addie Joss, you get 320 wins.

Uhm, how about 3,000 strike-outs? But if strike-outs are an extremely important counting stat, then Nolan Ryan was twice as good as Christy Mathewson, right? (2,502  K’s to 5, 715  K’s).  Except that, of course, he wasn’t.  Actually, you would have to eliminate all but nine pitchers from The Hall, including Cy Young.

Then, dammit, let’s use a cold, hard stat like Batting Average Against, because if a guy was extremely hard to hit, then he was probably a HOF’er.

Except that now you have just inducted former Mets pitcher Sid Fernandez into The Hall, since El Sid had the 3rd best BA Against in MLB history, behind only Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax.

Sure, if you try hard enough, you might be able to come up with some kind of Gordian Knot of a statistical system, perhaps even a matrix of purely objective data, tabulated by a computer hidden deep in a bunker under Cooperstown, that could identify HOF’ers in under a minute.

The problem is, however, that identifying who is or is not a HOF’er is, at its root, an emotional question that revolves around the subjective memories of people who grew up cheering for, even worshiping, their hometown hero.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

Anyone who has spent time arguing with a Mariners fan about whether or not Edgar Martinez is truly worthy of induction into the HOF will come to understand that these arguments are not primarily based on objective data analysis, although that will appear to be the primary mode of argument.

As I stated in my first blog post, baseball is all about memory.  And baseball’s two essential questions are: 1) Who deserves to be remembered and 2) How do they deserve to be remembered.

The magic of baseball is that this is where history and mythology intertwine, creating memories cherished from one generation to another.

And the Hall of Fame is the one place in baseball where everyone comes together to pay their dutiful respect to America’s greatest game.

The induction of Alan Trammel will not undermine the integrity of this institution.  Nor will The Hall be tarnished if Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Edgar Martinez or Bert Blyleven are called up to the podium to make the speech of a lifetime.

The Hall of Fame has long since evolved into an institution somewhat like the Union Army during the Civil War;  designate enough men to be generals, and some of them are bound to work out.

The Hall of Fame voting process is, then, a kind of archaic caucus system, an irrationally democratic institution uniquely American in its vulgar imperfections, even as it strives to create an air of nobility.

Thus the Hall of Fame itself, and the electoral process currently in use to designate future HOF’ers, is a satisfactory representation of America at this time and place in our history.

So, once the final ballots are announced for the Class of 2010 this Wednesday, let the arguments begin.  Because through baseball, we are adding to the rich tradition of creating our own unique American mythology.