2020 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

[FreakTalksAboutSU]

Jeter, Kent, Vizquel.

That's all.

Signed,

A Red Sox Fan

 

[Alsacs]

Jeter, Kent, Vizquel.

That's all.

Signed,

A Red Sox Fan

Schilling spent 4 years with the Red Sox and isn’t going into the HOF as a Sox player.
Curt Schilling’s career is a HOF career and his postseason numbers put him over the top.

Signed
A current Red Sox fan who hates the ownership and while technically a Red Sox fan don’t like the team because of them.

 

[FreakTalksAboutSU]

Schilling spent 4 years with the Red Sox and isn’t going into the HOF as a Sox player.
Curt Schilling’s career is a HOF career and his postseason numbers put him over the top.

Signed
A current Red Sox fan who hates the ownership and while technically a Red Sox fan don’t like the team because of them.

Schilling is so borderline for me. I'm not quite there. If he hadn't been such an absolute PR train wreck since he retired I may have gotten there by now...maybe the voters are ahead of me in that sense. I dont think he gets in this year, but if he can get to the high 60s I think he officially gets to that place where he is too close not to next year. TO his credit he has been a bit quieter over the past year so that may help him.

 

[KaiserUEO]

My Ballot.

Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Derek Jeter
Jeff Kent
Andy Pettitte
Manny Ramirez
Curt Schilling
Gary Sheffield
Billy Wagner
Larry Walker

Thurman Munson
Don Mattingly

 

[CA Monk]

Anyone who cheated by taking performance enhancing drugs is out. Period. We know who they are. Why reward them padding their stats by cheating.

Justify it, finesse it, equivocate it or mitigate it any way you want, but willfully partaking of known illegal substances (as per MLB) to prolong or enhance careers is cause for ineligibility and is a gross disservice to those who didn't take them (and yes, in some cases these PEDs didn't exist and would have been a temptation for players in an earlier era).
One ex: Barry Bonds never hit more than 60 or even 50 home runs his entire career except when he hit 73 at age 36.

I'm not going to respond to counter arguements I'm all to familiar with. You may have them, but nothing will obviate the fact that these guys cheated - knowingly and some even twice. Therefore they should be barred. I'm usually more considerate about issues, but to me this issue is so egregious and so binary that the HoF should just say no to cheaters - especially the ones who deny it.

 

[FreakTalksAboutSU]

Anyone who cheated by taking performance enhancing drugs is out. Period. We know who they are. Why reward them padding their stats by cheating.

I am generally on board with one caveat...im talking about known, proven cheaters. Clemens, Bonds, Manny, Sosa, McGwire...that group is out. I am softer on the "suspected" cheaters, like Piazza (who is in obviously) and Ortiz (who it is rumored failed a test that was never supposed to be public but MLB has never confirmed)...those guys i'm a yes on.

Regarding the Clemens, Bonds, Manny group...I also am 100% ok with the veterans committee, down the road, letting them in. Its THEIR Hall. If they decide to let them in someday, Im fine with it. I just think it should be a hard stop in the voting phase.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

Anyone who cheated by taking performance enhancing drugs is out. Period. We know who they are. Why reward them padding their stats by cheating.

Justify it, finesse it, equivocate it or mitigate it any way you want, but willfully partaking of known illegal substances (as per MLB) to prolong or enhance careers is cause for ineligibility and is a gross disservice to those who didn't take them (and yes, in some cases these PEDs didn't exist and would have been a temptation for players in an earlier era).
One ex: Barry Bonds never hit more than 60 or even 50 home runs his entire career except when he hit 73 at age 36.

I'm not going to respond to counter arguements I'm all to familiar with. You may have them, but nothing will obviate the fact that these guys cheated - knowingly and some even twice. Therefore they should be barred. I'm usually more considerate about issues, but to me this issue is so egregious and so binary that the HoF should just say no to cheaters - especially the ones who deny it.

Baseball HoF has always embraced "cheaters". Guys who took amphetamines in the 60's and beyond. Those are performance enhancing. Also, Gaylord Perry is in. What about him. It's a hall of rule breakers, not saints.
The steroid using hitters had to hit against the steroid using pitchers.

 

[Newhouser]

Anyone who cheated by taking performance enhancing drugs is out. Period. We know who they are. Why reward them padding their stats by cheating.

Justify it, finesse it, equivocate it or mitigate it any way you want, but willfully partaking of known illegal substances (as per MLB) to prolong or enhance careers is cause for ineligibility and is a gross disservice to those who didn't take them (and yes, in some cases these PEDs didn't exist and would have been a temptation for players in an earlier era).
One ex: Barry Bonds never hit more than 60 or even 50 home runs his entire career except when he hit 73 at age 36.

I'm not going to respond to counter arguements I'm all to familiar with. You may have them, but nothing will obviate the fact that these guys cheated - knowingly and some even twice. Therefore they should be barred. I'm usually more considerate about issues, but to me this issue is so egregious and so binary that the HoF should just say no to cheaters - especially the ones who deny it.

Yet the overlords of the game during the steroid era are all in - Torre and Larussa who's teams were the poster children for steroids are in, and the biggest fraud of all Bud Selig is also in. MLB, the media and the fans all knew what was going on and loved it when McGwire and Sosa did their schtick but when surly Barry Bonds turned the sport into wiffleball it became a problem. The Mitchell report didn't catch everyone including Bonds, and there is no way the only juiced up players were in that report. The acceptance of the cheating existed at every level, but only the players are being kept out of the Hall.

 

[Newhouser]

Baseball HoF has always embraced "cheaters". Guys who took amphetamines in the 60's and beyond. Those are performance enhancing. Also, Gaylord Perry is in. What about him. It's a hall of rule breakers, not saints.
The steroid using hitters had to hit against the steroid using pitchers.

Exactly - the whole sport was tainted - the holier than thou voters think it diminishes the tarnish if the play hard ball against the steroid era.

 

[KaiserUEO]

Exactly - the whole sport was tainted - the holier than thou voters think it diminishes the tarnish if the play hard ball against the steroid era.

holier than thou posters who dont understand and realize that everyone did some kind of PED are even worse.

 

[Knicks411]

Schilling is so borderline for me. I'm not quite there. If he hadn't been such an absolute PR train wreck since he retired I may have gotten there by now...maybe the voters are ahead of me in that sense. I dont think he gets in this year, but if he can get to the high 60s I think he officially gets to that place where he is too close not to next year. TO his credit he has been a bit quieter over the past year so that may help him.

Schilling's career is really something, up through his age 29 season, he was 52-52 with a 3.49 ERA (113 ERA+). Solid numbers, but nothing particularly special. Of course, from then, he was 164-94 with a 134 ERA+ over 2,227 IP.

I would put him in. Don't particularly like him, but he was a hell of a pitcher for about a decade.

 

[OrangeDW]

Jeter, Kent, Vizquel.

That's all.

Signed,

A Red Sox Fan

Kent was such a horrific fielder, he should be treated like a DH.

Vizquel was an amazing fielder, but a pedestrian offensive player. I’m “eh” on both of them as hall of famers.

Put in the true superstars(Roids or not) or don’t bother.

 

[OrangeDW]

My Ballot.

Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Derek Jeter
Jeff Kent
Andy Pettitte
Manny Ramirez
Curt Schilling
Omar Vizquel
Billy Wagner
Larry Walker

Thurman Munson
Don Mattingly

Are you down on Sheffield because he was on those Yankee teams that always fell short, while he had some poor playoff series’s?

And I was too caught up in my Sheffield promo earlier to even really notice Manny. But thats another STICK.

Larry Walker was a fun player in Montreal. Those Colorado stats were just stupid in those years though. What a stupid place to put a baseball team. Move them to Montreal.

 

[OrangeDW]

Yet the overlords of the game during the steroid era are all in - Torre and Larussa who's teams were the poster children for steroids are in, and the biggest fraud of all Bud Selig is also in. MLB, the media and the fans all knew what was going on and loved it when McGwire and Sosa did their schtick but when surly Barry Bonds turned the sport into wiffleball it became a problem. The Mitchell report didn't catch everyone including Bonds, and there is no way the only juiced up players were in that report. The acceptance of the cheating existed at every level, but only the players are being kept out of the Hall.

Yup. I say this as a Dodgers fan who never rooted for Barry Bonds to succeed in one at bat in his career post 1992...

He’s the best player I’ve ever seen. Did steroids make his eyes better? Because you flat out couldn’t pitch to him for years largely because of his pitch selection. Amazing discipline. He’d take walks all day, and then jack one as soon as you finally threw a pitch near his wheelhouse.

 

[orangenauburn]

Id say just Jeter this year.

Barry Roger Curt next year

 

[OrangeDW]

Anyone who cheated by taking performance enhancing drugs is out. Period. We know who they are. Why reward them padding their stats by cheating.

Justify it, finesse it, equivocate it or mitigate it any way you want, but willfully partaking of known illegal substances (as per MLB) to prolong or enhance careers is cause for ineligibility and is a gross disservice to those who didn't take them (and yes, in some cases these PEDs didn't exist and would have been a temptation for players in an earlier era).
One ex: Barry Bonds never hit more than 60 or even 50 home runs his entire career except when he hit 73 at age 36.

I'm not going to respond to counter arguements I'm all to familiar with. You may have them, but nothing will obviate the fact that these guys cheated - knowingly and some even twice. Therefore they should be barred. I'm usually more considerate about issues, but to me this issue is so egregious and so binary that the HoF should just say no to cheaters - especially the ones who deny it.

Subtract Bonds’ “roid years” and he was still a 3 time MVP and the best player of the 90s.

 

[Knicks411]

Subtract Bonds’ “roid years” and he was still a 3 time MVP and the best player of the 90s.

I spent one year as a kid living in San Francisco, it was basically from August of 2000 to July 2001. So the year Bonds hit 73 (2001) I watched so many of those games. It was pretty amazing.

 

[OrangeDW]

I spent one year as a kid living in San Francisco, it was basically from August of 2000 to July 2001. So the year Bonds hit 73 (2001) I watched so many of those games. It was pretty amazing.

It was almost like walk him or he’s probably hitting it out. Even 3 years after that season, he hit .362 and walked 232 times...and hit like 45 homers. Insane.

Meanwhile young Bonds was a perennial 40-40 candidate, .300 hitter, and gold glover. I can’t speak for the guys like Mays, Mantle, Ruth, etc. that were before my time, but Bonds is the best player I’ve ever seen.

 

[Knicks411]

It was almost like walk him or he’s probably hitting it out. Even 3 years after that season, he hit .362 and walked 232 times...and hit like 45 homers. Insane.

Meanwhile young Bonds was a perennial 40-40 candidate, .300 hitter, and gold glover. I can’t speak for the guys like Mays, Mantle, Ruth, etc. that were before my time, but Bonds is the best player I’ve ever seen.

Yes, I would say it's either him or Trout for guys I've seen. Maybe the craziest Bonds stat is that the year he walked 232 times (which itself is just off the charts) he struck out 41 times. Just complete control of the strike zone

 

[OrangeDW]

Yes, I would say it's either him or Trout for guys I've seen. Maybe the craziest Bonds stat is that the year he walked 232 times (which itself is just off the charts) he struck out 41 times. Just complete control of the strike zone

Yeah! I meant to point out in my posts how little he struck out for a guy who hit so many homers and for how often he walked. Incredible.

 

[KaiserUEO]

Are you down on Sheffield because he was on those Yankee teams that always fell short, while he had some poor playoff series’s?

And I was too caught up in my Sheffield promo earlier to even really notice Manny. But thats another STICK.

Larry Walker was a fun player in Montreal. Those Colorado stats were just stupid in those years though. What a stupid place to put a baseball team. Move them to Montreal.

Shlit, knew I forgot someone.

Did that quick, didn’t edit it.

Sheffield over Vizquel.

I will have edit.

I sometimes sat down the 3rd base line, his at bat was a ‘time to get a beer guys, be right back’ event.

I was scared for my life to sit there.

Even in the Upperdeck...

 

[KaiserUEO]

Subtract Bonds’ “roid years” and he was still a 3 time MVP and the best player of the 90s.

I gave you a like, but the best player in the 90s was Junior.

 

[OrangeDW]

I gave you a like, but the best player in the 90s was Junior.

My favorite player in the 90s was Junior. And I wanted him to be the best because he was cool and didn’t seem like a . But the best was Bonds. Junior was second. Just how I see it.

 

[KaiserUEO]

My favorite player in the 90s was Junior. And I wanted him to be the best because he was cool and didn’t seem like a . But the best was Bonds. Junior was second. Just how I see it.

It’s a Peyton v Brady argument without rings.

 

[OrangeDW]

It’s a Peyton v Brady argument without rings.

Sorry to say this, but as a kid I was jumping up and down and landing as lightly as possibly while swinging my fists and silently screaming when Junior scored from first in the ‘95 playoffs while my parents were sound asleep. Junior hit a big homer in that game too. Still blows my mind that the Mariners never fully put it together even once from 96-99.