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Ten names will be considered. Committee members can vote for four maximum:
Steve Garvey
Tommy John
Don Mattingly
Marvin Miller
Jack Morris
Dale Murphy
Dave Parker
Ted Simmons
Luis Tiant
Alan Trammell
If I had a vote, I'd go for Simmons, Tiant, Trammell, and Miller. Would be fine with any of these or John getting in. No idea who's on the voting committee.
Results will be announced during the Winter Meetings in December.
Significant omissions from the list include Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich, Dwight Evans, and Keith Hernandez.
Is there an individual who had a greater impact on altering the entire structure of MLB than Marvin Miller? The only person I can think of is Bill James.
Yet Miller never got the votes and James has never even been nominated. There are plenty of executives and sports writers in the HoF, just not the two most influential and important ones.
Is there an individual who had a greater impact on altering the entire structure of MLB than Marvin Miller? The only person I can think of is Bill James.
Yet Miller never got the votes and James has never even been nominated. There are plenty of executives and sports writers in the HoF, just not the two most influential and important ones.
Agreed 100%. There’s something radically wrong with a HoF that inducts Bowie Kuhn and Tom Yawkey as executive/contributor types and ignores Miller and James. My guess is that there are usually a number of executives among these electorates, and they hold a grudge against Miller and routinely vote against him — and it’s probably enough to keep him out repeatedly.
Ted Simmons lasted one year on the HoF ballot, and most of them failed to garner even 50% of the vote in their 15 years on the ballot. Jack Morris came the closest and maybe you could make a case for him getting a 16th chance to make it, but then, why have regular balloting at all?
It makes sense to use this committee to lift up behind the scenes people, but I'm only in my 50's and I saw every one of these players play. Ridiculous.
Ted Simmons lasted one year on the HoF ballot, and most of them failed to garner even 50% of the vote in their 15 years on the ballot. Jack Morris came the closest and maybe you could make a case for him getting a 16th chance to make it, but then, why have regular balloting at all?
It makes sense to use this committee to lift up behind the scenes people, but I'm only in my 50's and I saw every one of these players play. Ridiculous.
Sometimes the regular ballot voters get it wrong, and other times they get it right. I think this exercise is for those players for whom they got it wrong.
Ted Simmons is a good example of where the voters screwed up. He is 11th all time in BBReF WAR for catchers, and you've got to be awfully small hall to think he's not deserving. Every eligible catcher with a higher number is in, and there are folks with less who are in as well. Here's the top 12:
I don't see any reasonable argument against any of them. After that the HoF catchers get more scattered. By BBReF WAR:
*Lombardi (15th)
*Bresnahan (20th)
*Campanella (28th, Negro League credit)
*Ferrell (35th)
*Schalk (41nd)
*A. Lopez (97th, in as a manager)
*W. Robinson (124th, in as a manager)
*C. Mack (275th, in as a manager)
Lombardi and Bresnahan are borderline. Campanella is a special case because of his late start due to the color barrier. Ferrell and Schalk are bad choices, while the rest are in as managers.
Simmons certainly deserved a far better fate than one-and-done, and unless one wants to exclude Hartnett, Cochrane, and Ewing, he should be enshrined as well. Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker were other one-and-done folks who should have been elected.
The whole Jack Morris issue is a mistake in the opposite direction. He ranks 150th among starting pitchers in BBReF WAR. The only HoF pitchers anywhere near him are short career high peak guys like Dizzy Dean (141st) and Addie Joss (152nd) and major mistakes like Herb Pennock (142nd), Jack Chesboro (167th), and Catfish Hunter (168th). Controlling approximately for IP among starters, here are similar starters, with numbers for innings, BBReF WAR, and OPS+, descending best to worst WAR. HoFers with an asterisk:
Dennis Martinez. 3999.2/49.3/106
Mickey Lolich. 3638.1/49.1/104
Bobo Newsome. 3759.1/48.1/107
George Mullin. 3686.2/47.6.102
*Herb Pennock. 3571.2/44.9/106
Jack Morris. 3842.0/44.1/105
Mel Harder. 3426.1/43.8/113
Sad Sam Jones. 3883.0/43.7/104
Curt Simmons. 3348.1/43.4/111
Claude Osteen. 3460.2/41.6/104
*Catfish Hunter. 3449.1/41.4/104
Bob Friend. 3611.0/41.0/107
If Morris is a HoF, so are Martinez, Lolich, Newsome, Mullin, Harder, and Jones. I don't see a case for any of them.
Morris isn't a HoF, and neither is Simmons. If one stat is to be used as a metric, why bother voting at all? Maybe there needs to be something separate, like the Bill James Hall of Fame, for people that don't want a human element in selection. It could be all based on sabermetrics.
Morris isn't a HoF, and neither is Simmons. If one stat is to be used as a metric, why bother voting at all? Maybe there needs to be something separate, like the Bill James Hall of Fame, for people that don't want a human element in selection. It could be all based on sabermetrics.
To a large degree it is already based on metrics. Whenever someone is going to advance a case for anyone belonging in the Hall, they always begin by presenting favorable statistics, do they not?
What is your proposal? Hey, this guy "feels" like a Hall of Famer, that guy doesn't?"
Among all position players who have been enshrined, the weakest offensive player is Ray Schalk, the White Sox catcher from 1913 to 1928. Schalk's career slashline is .253/.340/.316, not impressive even for the dead ball era which the first half of his career spanned.
So Schalk must have been a real defensive whiz, honored for his outstanding glovework despite the feeble bat, right? Well, he compiled 13.7 defensive WAR in his career. Bob Boone compiled 25.3 defensive WAR in his career and batted .254/.315/.346...and no one ever seemed to think that he belonged in the Hall.
So why is Schalk enshrined? It was that great human element you support. Schalk was one of the 1919 White Sox who stayed white rather than joining the conspiracy to throw the series. Schalk was also the leading denouncer of his crooked teammates and the writers of the day made him into a symbol of sorts, representing virtue and honesty while those around him gave in to greed and venal considerations. Those same writers were the voters when it came time to evaluate Schalk for the Hall, so.......
Great reply from Grandstander. Couldn't have put in better myself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by maf763
If one stat is to be used as a metric, why bother voting at all? Maybe there needs to be something separate, like the Bill James Hall of Fame, for people that don't want a human element in selection. It could be all based on sabermetrics.
I don't see anything wrong with that. The Baseball Think Factory website actually has something called the Hall of Merit, which is far superior to the real HoF in terms of deserving members.
The real HoF has a notable number of bizarre and often crony-based selections (the worst was when Frankie Frisch ran the Veterans Committee with an iron fist and pushed a bunch of his drinking buddies in -- think George Kelly, Chick Hafey, Dave Bancroft, Ross Youngs, and Jesse Haines, among the most undeserving of HoFers). But they're far from the only bad choices.
Stats in good context are available for baseball and work really well if you control for things like career IPs for pitchers and plate appearances/position for position players. I see no reason not to use this information as the most important factor for HoF consideration.
There’s something radically wrong with a HoF that inducts Bowie Kuhn and Tom Yawkey as executive/contributor types and ignores Miller and James.
My favorite line about Bowie Kuhn was written by Red Smith in 1981. Referring to the strike that was taking place as he wrote, Smith speculated...“This strike would never have happened if Bowie Kuhn was still alive.”
Smith is also the one who wrote "An empty cab pulled up to the building and Bowie Kuhn got out."
Of course metrics are used, they always have been. But there are dozens that come into play, not one single one which was the basis of bachslunch's post. Even a single one that is more cumulative than others. I think considering the combination of the many different ways players can impact the game and the many different values we assign to those ways is preferable.
Take Orel Hershiser for example. Somebody might vote for him based on a period of time when he was one of the most dominant pitchers in the league (four top 5 Cy Young finishes in five years), his shutout innings streak, and his postseason success. Someone else might look at the productivity gap in the middle of his career and a number of pedestrian seasons and say he's out (which he is). But his career WAR is higher than Sandy Koufax, and maybe a dozen other Hall of Famers - I don't think that should give him an automatic pass into the hall.
Clearly, there are guys who are in who are less deserving than guys who are out, but I don't like the idea of using one mistake to justify another, especially when comparing players from different eras. One of the things that Baseball-Reference includes that I like is the Black Ink/Gray Ink stat, which compares a player's performance against the people he played against.
I wasn't aware of the Hall of Merit and agree it's a good idea. I wasn't being sarcastic when I suggested something similar.
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