Baseball HOF, whos on your ballot?

[KaiserUEO]

My argument against this is basically two-fold:

1) If you're going to make DH a position then why wouldn't the best DHs be eligible for the Hall -- especially if you're a guy who's only asked to hit and you do it so well that you're constantly putting up huge OBP/OPS numbers. You mean to suggest that Manny Ramirez being a complete butcher in LF somehow made him a more valuable player?

2) I've had the pleasure of watching David Ortiz and whatever awesome synthetic PED he found circa 2003 absolutely terrorize opponents from the 3- or 4-hole for the past 11 years. It's such a ridiculous luxury to be able to simply pencil that guy's name in the lineup every day and watch basically every single pitcher you face try and figure out some way to work around him. How he wouldn't get into the Hall is beyond me.

lets look at 2 cogs of the Yankee and sux dynasties...Bernie and your guy.

Bernie played CF, won 4 gold gloves, a batting title and hit cleanup on 4 WS winners & 2 losers.

papi has played longer yet only has a whopping 150 more rbis than Bernie, 4 less gold gloves and a career batting avg 20pts less.

i appreciate your DH and the Hall position, but Papi is not a candiate.

the DH its really a tough one in my eyes, Edgar is a good test case. but now the DH is not really a position on many teams, its where they 'rest' guys. so no Edgar, could mean no DH ever makes it.

intersting for sure.

 

[Alsacs]

Kaiser take your hatred of the Red Sox makes it hard for you to be objective. Ortiz has 1 WS MVP, 1 ALCS MVP(Bernie Williams has 1 ALCS MVP as well). Ortiz has 5 top 5 AL MVP seasons and another top 10 MVP voting season. Ortiz has 9 All-Star seasons. As well Ortiz has the 2005 AL Hank Aaron Award which is given to the best hitter in each league. 6 Silver sluggers for Ortiz as well.

Bernie Williams highest finish in the MVP was 7th. That is saying the best Bernie year was the 7th most valuable in the American League. Bernie has 6 finishes in the top 20 in the AL MVP voting, and 5 All-Star seasons. Bernie does have those 4 GG and 1 SS award.

Ortiz was more way more dominant as a hitter than Bernie Williams. Gold Gloves are given by reputation most of the time. Rafael Palmeiro won one at 1st base when he played 29 games there. Bernie Williams defense was good from 1998-2002 his arm wasn't that good, but once athleticism took a little hit in 2003 his reputation made him seem better than he was. Ortiz has a case for the HoF Bernie does not. I wouldn't vote for Ortiz just because if the other guys with steroids aren't getting in neither should he. However, if Bonds/Clemens/Piazza/Bagwell get in then Ortiz has a chance. Bernie Williams is not a HoFer.

 

[KaiserUEO]

Kaiser take your hatred of the Red Sox makes it hard for you to be objective. Ortiz has 1 WS MVP, 1 ALCS MVP(Bernie Williams has 1 ALCS MVP as well). Ortiz has 5 top 5 AL MVP seasons and another top 10 MVP voting season. Ortiz has 9 All-Star seasons. As well Ortiz has the 2005 AL Hank Aaron Award which is given to the best hitter in each league. 6 Silver sluggers for Ortiz as well.

Bernie Williams highest finish in the MVP was 7th. That is saying the best Bernie year was the 7th most valuable in the American League. Bernie has 6 finishes in the top 20 in the AL MVP voting, and 5 All-Star seasons. Bernie does have those 4 GG and 1 SS award.

Ortiz was more way more dominant as a hitter than Bernie Williams. Gold Gloves are given by reputation most of the time. Rafael Palmeiro won one at 1st base when he played 29 games there. Bernie Williams defense was good from 1998-2002 his arm wasn't that good, but once athleticism took a little hit in 2003 his reputation made him seem better than he was. Ortiz has a case for the HoF Bernie does not. I wouldn't vote for Ortiz just because if the other guys with steroids aren't getting in neither should he. However, if Bonds/Clemens/Piazza/Bagwell get in then Ortiz has a chance. Bernie Williams is not a HoFer.

yes, sadly Bernie is not a HOFer, but neither is david arias.

all star seasons are a little BS too, especially since as i said, there are not many pure DHs out there competing against him. i will agree that arias has put up the best #s of a sad lot. and WOW, they give a SS to the DH?? yep those would be his too i guess. too bad they didnt have an award for best 8th inning guy, because jeff nelson and david robertson would have a ton of them.

palmiero has Tino's gold glove for sure.

sitting on the bench for all but 4ABs a game, does not a HOFer make.

 

[Alsacs]

yes, sadly Bernie is not a HOFer, but neither is david arias.

all star seasons are a little BS too, especially since as i said, there are not many pure DHs out there competing against him. i will agree that arias has put up the best #s of a sad lot. and WOW, they give a SS to the DH?? yep those would be his too i guess. too bad they didnt have an award for best 8th inning guy, because jeff nelson and david robertson would have a ton of them.

palmiero has Tino's gold glove for sure.

sitting on the bench for all but 4ABs a game, does not a HOFer make.

I agree Ortiz isn't getting into the HoF just because of the steroid cloud and other guys aren't getting in. However, Ortiz is the greatest DH ever surpassing Edgar Martinez IMO. I can respect the no DHs in the HOF view you have because the HoF voting truly is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. I mean how else is Tim Raines who is the 2nd best leadoff hitter of his era, but one of the all-time great leadoff hitters by the numbers being completely ignored in the 40% range. Just because Raines wasn't Rickey Henderson is keeping him out of HoF that and he spent a majority of his prime in Montreal. Pettitte is the borderline Yankee case to watch because Jeter/Rivera are locks, Posada/Bernie don't have the numbers, but Pettitte is in Jack Morris land.

 

[KaiserUEO]

I agree Ortiz isn't getting into the HoF just because of the steroid cloud and other guys aren't getting in. However, Ortiz is the greatest DH ever surpassing Edgar Martinez IMO. I can respect the no DHs in the HOF view you have because the HoF voting truly is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. I mean how else is Tim Raines who is the 2nd best leadoff hitter of his era, but one of the all-time great leadoff hitters by the numbers being completely ignored in the 40% range. Just because Raines wasn't Rickey Henderson is keeping him out of HoF that and he spent a majority of his prime in Montreal. Pettitte is the borderline Yankee case to watch because Jeter/Rivera are locks, Posada/Bernie don't have the numbers, but Pettitte is in Jack Morris land.

Posada may be closer than you think.

Raines should be in.

speaking of Rickey, did anyone ever notice how is power #s went up when he played with Canseco??

i never read the books, but im guessing jose never mentioned him.

right??

 

[Marsh01]

Posada may be closer than you think.

Raines should be in.

speaking of Rickey, did anyone ever notice how is power #s went up when he played with Canseco??

i never read the books, but im guessing jose never mentioned him.

right??

Posada is absolutely closer than most think. I also think Raines should be in.

I wouldnt have a problem if Ortiz got in. Guy has proven to be a great hitter.

And Pettitte should be in. He was one of the best pitchers of his generation and regardless of win numbers or any of that crap he deserves to be in he hall.

 

[Alsacs]

Ca

Posada may be closer than you think.

Raines should be in.

speaking of Rickey, did anyone ever notice how is power #s went up when he played with Canseco??

i never read the books, but im guessing jose never mentioned him.

right??

Canseco never mentioned Rickey Henderson. He mentioned McGuire, Sosa, Brett Boone, Juan Gonzalez, and said the only teammate I knew who was clean was Roger Clemens who never even cheated on his wife while we were teammates on the Red Sox(I think Clemens paid Canseco to keep him out of his book as they were friends). Canseco also said Tony LaRussa knew they were cheating but didn't ask any questions and kept a blind eye to all the crap the A's did. Rickey likely dabbled in something as his body should have wore down with all the pounding he put on it.

Posada was the 2nd best AL catcher of his ERA behind Pudge Rodriguez I will have to study his numbers to see if he is closer than I thought off hand. I just thought off hand Posada would be like Jeff Kent and be stuck in no-man's land on the ballot.

 

[Marsh01]

Ca

Canseco never mentioned Rickey Henderson. He mentioned McGuire, Sosa, Brett Boone, Juan Gonzalez, and said the only teammate I knew who was clean was Roger Clemens who never even cheated on his wife while we were teammates on the Red Sox(I think Clemens paid Canseco to keep him out of his book as they were friends). Canseco also said Tony LaRussa knew they were cheating but didn't ask any questions and kept a blind eye to all the crap the A's did. Rickey likely dabbled in something as his body should have wore down with all the pounding he put on it.

Posada was the 2nd best AL catcher of his ERA behind Pudge Rodriguez I will have to study his numbers to see if he is closer than I thought off hand. I just thought off hand Posada would be like Jeff Kent and be stuck in no-man's land on the ballot.

Posada

Batting Average: .273
Home Runs : 225
RBI: 1065
Hits: 1664
4X World Series Champ
5X All Star
5X Silver Slugger Award

Rodriguez

Batting Average: .296
Home Runs : 311
RBI: 1332
Hits: 2844
1X World Series Champ
14X All Star
7X Silver Slugger Award
13x Gold Glove

Piazza

Batting Average: .308
Home Runs : 427
RBI: 1335
Hits: 2127
12X All Star
10X Silver Slugger Award

 

[Alsacs]

Posada

Batting Average: .273
Home Runs : 225
RBI: 1065
Hits: 1664
4X World Series Champ
5X All Star
5X Silver Slugger Award

Rodriguez

Batting Average: .296
Home Runs : 311
RBI: 1332
Hits: 2844
1X World Series Champ
14X All Star
7X Silver Slugger Award
13x Gold Glove

Piazza

Batting Average: .308
Home Runs : 427
RBI: 1335
Hits: 2127
12X All Star
10X Silver Slugger Award

I would add Posada has 2 top 6 AL MVP voting finshes, including a top 3 in 2003 which for a C is impressive.

and

Also, Pudge has Pedro Martinez's 1999 AL MVP because Murray Chass(and some dumb Minnesota writer BOTH ) left Pedro off their AL MVP ballot, but when Verlander was eligible in 2011 Chass voted for him. That was Pudge's only top 5 AL MVP season he had 3 other top 10 MVP finishes. Pudge also has the Texas taint of steroid usage. Canseco in his book talked about educating Pudge, Palmeiro, and Juan Gonzalez on the cycles when to use the stuff.

Posada will be interesting I just don't see him getting in.

 

[KaiserUEO]

Ca

Canseco never mentioned Rickey Henderson. He mentioned McGuire, Sosa, Brett Boone, Juan Gonzalez, and said the only teammate I knew who was clean was Roger Clemens who never even cheated on his wife while we were teammates on the Red Sox(I think Clemens paid Canseco to keep him out of his book as they were friends). Canseco also said Tony LaRussa knew they were cheating but didn't ask any questions and kept a blind eye to all the crap the A's did. Rickey likely dabbled in something as his body should have wore down with all the pounding he put on it.

Posada was the 2nd best AL catcher of his ERA behind Pudge Rodriguez I will have to study his numbers to see if he is closer than I thought off hand. I just thought off hand Posada would be like Jeff Kent and be stuck in no-man's land on the ballot.

IRod is another steroid guy.

his body went from small to huge to small once he was outted and stopped.

Posada & kent is a good comparison. i think Kent should get in, but it certainly wont be easy.

same with posada.

 

[billsin01]

lets look at 2 cogs of the Yankee and sux dynasties...Bernie and your guy.

Bernie played CF, won 4 gold gloves, a batting title and hit cleanup on 4 WS winners & 2 losers.

papi has played longer yet only has a whopping 150 more rbis than Bernie, 4 less gold gloves and a career batting avg 20pts less.

i appreciate your DH and the Hall position, but Papi is not a candiate.

the DH its really a tough one in my eyes, Edgar is a good test case. but now the DH is not really a position on many teams, its where they 'rest' guys. so no Edgar, could mean no DH ever makes it.

intersting for sure.

So you're going to comp these two on RBIs, Gold Gloves and batting average? I still value RBIs to a degree but gold gloves are about reputation 85% of the time (though I would agree BW was an excellent CFer, and deserves plenty of credit for this) and batting average is OK but hardly a core offensive stat, IMO.

Take SLG (a huge stat for a guy who's doing nothing but hitting), OPS and OPS+:

BW
SLG: .477; OPS: .858; OPS+: 125

DO
SLG: .549; OPS: .930; OPS+: 139

Those are HUGE gaps in career numbers. Now, if you ask me, I think you could make a very strong case for Williams in the HOF -- if you're a voter who refuses to vote for guys linked to PEDs then, by extension, you should be voting for a guy like Bernie who 'did it the right way', still put up impressive numbers and did so against a league flooded with PED guys.

But suggesting that the differences between Papi and BW as offensives players are negligible is old school baseball thinking, IMO. It also dismisses his career .962 OPS in the postseason (more than 100 points better than BW, who was a great postseason player in his own right).

 

[billsin01]

yes, sadly Bernie is not a HOFer, but neither is david arias.

all star seasons are a little BS too, especially since as i said, there are not many pure DHs out there competing against him. i will agree that arias has put up the best #s of a sad lot. and WOW, they give a SS to the DH?? yep those would be his too i guess. too bad they didnt have an award for best 8th inning guy, because jeff nelson and david robertson would have a ton of them.

palmiero has Tino's gold glove for sure.

sitting on the bench for all but 4ABs a game, does not a HOFer make.

All-Star seasons are more than 'a little BS.' But how does sitting on the bench for all but 4 PAs make you less a hall of famer than the guys who were stuck in LF or played crappy defense at a corner for years? How about closers who make ~65 appearances for three outs a game every year? How is that any different? You're great at getting the last three guys out and that's a very valuable thing, but you're talking about, in most cases, an inning every three games (maybe 2.5 games). A really good DH is not only playing every day and hitting 4-5 times a game but he's also making teams pitch everyone around him differently. To be stumping for the best closers but arguing that DH is pointless makes no sense to me.

 

[KaiserUEO]

All-Star seasons are more than 'a little BS.'

ill buy your slugging and ops, but not all star.

1st of all its a 3 month award, or popularity contest voted on by the fans & every team must put a player in. then u get the politics ofwho gets the remaining spots too. papi is a popular guy and hes good i get it. i actually like him as a person unlike arod. him not at the all star game would be wrong imo, but its BS.

 

[billsin01]

Clemens is clearly a guy who used steroids. That said, who cares? Also, he was a clear Hall of Famer even before the steroid allegations. Same with Bonds. They were both all time greats even before the steroid stuff came into play. They should be in. You can't just pretend an entire era didn't happen.

That said, if Ken Griffey isn't a unanimous first ballot guy then anyone who doesn't vote for him should never be allowed near baseball again.

I have two major issues with people not voting for players based on PEDs:

1) It's incredibly naive to think that a HUGE portion of this league wasn't on some form of PEDs. When guys like Pettitte get dinged for it, you know it's all over the place. And, even if it's not all over the place by some sort of miracle, we have zero clue who actually used and who didn't in almost every player's case.

2) Everyone who complains about how PEDs skew numbers somehow seems to have conveninetly forgotten about all the things now and throughout history that have skewed numbers: Playing against only white players is a huge one, but video in clubhouses between each at-bat? Huge difference. How about the fact that no one has an off-season job, most have personal trainers, access to state of the art facilities, air travel and personal chefs? What about all the legal supplements? The height of the mound? The fully developed minor league system pioneered by Branch Rickey? Youth leagues/coaching? Military service ... the list goes on, and on, and on ...

I suppose I understand the moral argument to some degree, but even that seems absurd. People are really going to look at Melky Carbrera's life and career and argue that taking PEDs wasn't a pretty good decision on his part? It's crazy.

 

[billsin01]

ill buy your slugging and ops, but not all star.

1st of all its a 3 month award, or popularity contest voted on by the fans & every team must put a player in. then u get the politics ofwho gets the remaining spots too. papi is a popular guy and hes good i get it. i actually like him as a person unlike arod. him not at the all star game would be wrong imo, but its BS.

No, I meant it's an insane amount of BS rather than 'a little BS.' I meant to agree with you but simply take your point even further.

 

[jekelish]

I have two major issues with people not voting for players based on PEDs:

1) It's incredibly naive to think that a HUGE portion of this league wasn't on some form of PEDs. When guys like Pettitte get dinged for it, you know it's all over the place. And, even if it's not all over the place by some sort of miracle, we have zero clue who actually used and who didn't in almost every player's case.

2) Everyone who complains about how PEDs skew numbers somehow seems to have conveninetly forgotten about all the things now and throughout history that have skewed numbers: Playing against only white players is a huge one, but video in clubhouses between each at-bat? Huge difference. How about the fact that no one has an off-season job, most have personal trainers, access to state of the art facilities, air travel and personal chefs? What about all the legal supplements? The height of the mound? The fully developed minor league system pioneered by Branch Rickey? Youth leagues/coaching? Military service ... the list goes on, and on, and on ...

I suppose I understand the moral argument to some degree, but even that seems absurd. People are really going to look at Melky Carbrera's life and career and argue that taking PEDs wasn't a pretty good decision on his part? It's crazy.

With the PED thing, one of the afternoon guys on ESPN Radio down here in Dallas was talking about that during the HOF stuff, and he mentioned that he has a friend who is a former big leaguer who he was out having drinks with once and he asked him point blank how many guys juice. The guy told him he would guess around 70%, because especially with fringe players, these guys see their direct competition for roster spots and start thinking that if they don't try for all of the same competitive advantages as the guys at their position they're competing with, they'll be out of the league that much faster.

He didn't say who his friend was but did mention he was in the trade between the Rangers and Mariners that brought ARod to Texas.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

The guy told him he would guess around 70%, because especially with fringe players, these guys see their direct competition for roster spots and start thinking that if they don't try for all of the same competitive advantages as the guys at their position they're competing with, they'll be out of the league that much faster.

I used to hang out with Triple A players for the Phillies and Yankees quite a bit. It depends on what you mean by PED's but if you count greenies (adderall) then I think that estimate is on the low end. My guess in the 90% range. Heck they said the coaches used greenies more than the players (think Torre and Zim sleeping in the dugout during games -it's tough on coaches too). Most of the players I hung out with were fringe players but three are regular, active players currently in the big leagues and one with a notable 50 game ban already under his belt.

They used to joke that to get caught you would have to be an absolute idiot. Under the previous collecting bargaining agreement they would announce, typically a month in advance, when your drug test was scheduled. That clearly left ample time to get rid of those drugs.

I would elect Clemens, Bonds, ARod, Manny, Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose in a heart beat even with the known cheating.

 

[Trueblue25]

delgado

 

[Knicks411]

My argument against this is basically two-fold:

1) If you're going to make DH a position then why wouldn't the best DHs be eligible for the Hall -- especially if you're a guy who's only asked to hit and you do it so well that you're constantly putting up huge OBP/OPS numbers. You mean to suggest that Manny Ramirez being a complete butcher in LF somehow made him a more valuable player?

2) I've had the pleasure of watching David Ortiz and whatever awesome synthetic PED he found circa 2003 absolutely terrorize opponents from the 3- or 4-hole for the past 11 years. It's such a ridiculous luxury to be able to simply pencil that guy's name in the lineup every day and watch basically every single pitcher you face try and figure out some way to work around him. How he wouldn't get into the Hall is beyond me.

I may be a little late to this thread, but I wanted to comment on these 2 points, because they kinda stand out to me, coming back to back.

I do get your point on Manny; dude was a bad LF'r (though Fenway probably made him look worse than he was, but I doubt he was ever even close to average). But the fact that Manny was at least able to come close to faking it in LF meant the Sox had the luxury of just sticking Ortiz at DH every day and not having to worry about playing him in the field and getting hurt. So the fact that the Sox felt Manny could play the field every day and Ortiz couldn't should give Manny a slight boost in value, at least relative to the guys like Edgar and Papi who really are strictly DH's (And to be fair there aren't too many of those guys)

Craig Biggio is a good ballplayer but he isn't a HOFer. If he makes then Dustin Pedroia could make it if he gets the numbers. I think Pedroia is a better player than Biggio was at his peak, and I wouldn't put Pedroia near the HOF. Palmiero, McGuire, Sosa would never get on my ballots. Edgar Martinez is the guy I left off in favor of Mussina.

Setting aside Biggio for a second (who is an easy HOF for me); Pedroia seems like a guy to me who is clearly on a HOF path. He's basically been an elite player in the game since 2007 or 2008. Since 2007, his rookie year, he's 7th in the majors in WAR. He needs to keep playing and putting the numbers up, but what else does the guy have to do?