Hall of Fame 2019

People who hate on Edgar Martinez are dumb

Bonus content...

My "guys that absolutely should be in the HOF because BBWAA members have always been stupid" list 

Dick Allen (Dude. 292/378/534/912 slash line. 156 OPS+ 19th all time! Wasn't nice to the press, a moody guy that dealt with tons of racism, and then gets saddled with the "Well, he shoulda been better" crap. No one bitched that Mantle's drinking and carousing prevented him from being better...)

Mark McGwire (As a ton of the newer crop of writers start voting more for Bonds and Clemens, it's a shame that McGwire got booted off ballot. OPS+ of 163 good for 11th all time. As good a power hitter that has ever played the game.)

Johan Santana (8 year period where he was as good as anyone in the game. Length of career hurts. I guess? Last year in NY left a bad taste? The fact that he was booted off the ballot in 1 year is a shame. I think his resume is better than Mussina and at least equal to Halladay)

Of Bonds and Clemens, Bonds would be the one I'd like to see get in.  They both of course should have been slam dunks but were such arrogant a-holes that the steroid era will be synonymous with them.   I read an article about Bonds a couple years back that makes me think he's been humbled at least a little bit and reinvented himself as a long distance biker (pedal bike not motorbike).  I even got a ride with a Taxi driver once that told me that Bonds treated him well and was respectful when he rode in his cab.

Clemens still strikes me as a Jag.  I don't really think much of him even though he certainly deserves the HOF despite dabbling with banned substances.

I'm a big hall guy, yes to all of the above mentioned, even bloody sock (80 WAR, 3000+ Ks). Well, no  Johan (139 wins, needed more seasons) and no Vizquel (Ozzie Smith was only 87 OPS+, but much higher WAR, and put FAME into the HOF). McGriff, no PEDs, great numbers, he's in. Walker and Helton, absolutely. Bonds and Clemens had it made before their heads grew, but the other PED guys are probably still out in the cold. Mussina and Halladay, yes. Edgar, yes. Rolen, borderline yes. And for God's sake, stick Dick in the hall. Totally deserving. Others to consider: Dave Parker, Dwight Evans, Darrell Evans, Dale Murphy, Jack the Ripper Clark, Fred Lynn, Ron Guidry. All flawed candidates, but hell, it's already supposedly the "hall of very good". These guys helped drive the sport when HRs were down (minus Guidry, of course) in the mid 70s- mid 80s.

If it was my HOF I'd have 3 wings.   1, real  HOF'ers, Mays, Musial, Aaron, Ruth etc.  Guys whose names are in the American vernacular.    2, what I would call the Craig Biggio wing, guys that were borderline great but outside of baseball are not well known,  I bet even Craig Biggio thinks he does not belong with Ted Williams. 3, the drug wing, we know who belongs there.

Seems to me most of the guys listed above would be in wings 2 and 3.  Mariano makes wing one.

Good stuff guys.

It's appearing that the results will end with Rivera, Halladay, and Martinez making it in, with Mussina being a nail biter right near the threshold, but I'd guess probably falling just short.

The more I look at Halladay, the more confused I get about this process and where voters heads are.

I can't be more clear - He's a Hall of Famer. I don't have any issue whatsoever with his being voted in.

In fact, I'm thrilled he's getting voted in and we're not hearing "only 203 wins!" nonsense. However, I'm still not getting how Halladay is getting 90+% of the vote while Johan Santana and his nearly identical peripherals - Win Pct, ERA, ERA+ FIP, WHIP - gets bounced from ballot on his first year. Santana had 9 solid seasons as a starting pitcher. Halladay had 11. Halladay won more games over career, in no small part because Santana was used out of the pen for the majority of his first 4 seasons, the last 2 he was dominant, but other than that? Pretty similar pitchers with about 10 years of domination on the mound. Halladay had the one big moment with the no-no in NLDS. And, I do think that his tragic death at a young age plays a part... 

Who's a Hall of Famer of these 3? 

Win Pct
A .625
B .659
C .641

ERA
A 3.49
B 3.38
C 3.20

ERA+
A 120
B 131
C 136

FIP
A 3.78
B 3.39
C 3.44

WHIP
A 1.239
B 1.178
C 1.132

Again, this isn't a rant against Halladay or his candidacy. He's a Hall of Famer. Just still struggling with the process and consistency of voters. 

I am super happy that Edgar gets in and hope it breaks the dam of voters bias against the DH. Eventually I hope that will happen for relievers and voters will rely less on the dumbest stat of all time - saves. Unfortunately, Wagner will fall off the ballot before that happens I would imagine. 

Santana had a 3-4 year run in the mid 2000s where he was really, really good.  What killed him was the injuries (later in his career).  There’s no question had he stayed healthy he’d be a lock HOF.  He may still be deserving. 

Halladay had the longevity and was much more consistent as a starter, not to mention he won 2/3 of his games.  He pitched well as a starter for about 10 straight years. 

Tschmack posted:

Santana had a 3-4 year run in the mid 2000s where he was really, really good.  What killed him was the injuries (later in his career).  There’s no question had he stayed healthy he’d be a lock HOF.  He may still be deserving. 

Halladay had the longevity and was much more consistent as a starter, not to mention he won 2/3 of his games.  He pitched well as a starter for about 10 straight years. 

 

 

 

Santana had 7-8 really really good years in a row. Halladay pitched in 50 more games overall, and 90 more starts. Again, that's like 3 years of being used in the pen at beginning of career as much as anything. And, Santana won nearly 2/3 of his games as well. 

That said, I'm not here to take up the Santana fight. I will fight all day on Billy Wagner though. 

Another way to try to look at this in an unbiased way is to look at similar scores. This is a stat devised by Bill James where a score of 1000 is a perfect match.

https://www.baseball-reference...out/similarity.shtml

There's some interesting names on both of the top 10 for Santana and Halladay. There are no current HOFers on Santana's list, but Scherzer is almost a lock at this point. Only Verlander is a lock on Halladay's (Dazzy Vance is already in but it's hard to make that comparison). Ron Guidry shows up on both lists and is a very relevant comparison to both of them since Guidry was kept out mainly for longevity issues. Guidry had a 9 year period where he made 4 All-Star game appearances, won a Cy Young, was in the top 7 of Cy Young voting 6 times (including 2nd and 3rd place finishes), and went 154-67, with 1523 Strikeouts and threw 26 shutouts.  His career WHIP was 1.18. He also won 5 Gold Gloves.

Guidry was also 5-2 in the post-season with an ERA of 3.02 and was the staff ace for two World Series champions. He also had one of the top 10 or so starting pitching seasons in history. In 1978, he went 25-3 with 248 strikeouts and threw 9 shutouts in 35 starts.

If Guidry isn't in yet, neither of these two should get in. Guidry peaked at 8.8% of the HOF vote.

Here's Santana's career comparators statistically (by baseballreference.com)

1. David Price (962.1)
2. Adam Wainwright (945.6)
3. Max Scherzer (932.4)
4. Cliff Lee (928.5)
5. Ron Guidry (911.5)
6. Johnny Cueto (911.2)
7. Jim Maloney (911.1)
8. Josh Beckett (906.5)
9. Roy Oswalt (906.1)
10. Jered Weaver (905.6)

Here's Halladays.

1. Justin Verlander (926.3)
2. Zack Greinke (923.8)
3. Dwight Gooden (920.2)
4. Jon Lester (899.9)
5. Ron Guidry (898.0)
6. Jimmy Key (894.1)
7. Dazzy Vance (890.3) *
8. Roy Oswalt (887.5)
9. Bret Saberhagen (883.4)
10. Tim Hudson (882.5)

Guidry was hurt because that point in time was SO heavily focused on hitting "magic" numbers like 300 wins, 3000 hits, .300 Avg, etc. late 90's voters were never voting for a guy with <200 wins. Conversely, Don Sutton, a nice enough pitcher, but an average guy that played forever didn't get injured sporting a lifetime ERA+ of 108 makes it in...

I think what I would question about Guidry is that he had a REALLY good 3 year stretch from 77-79 and after that, he was good, but not stellar vs the rest of the league. Santana had 8 seasons with an ERA+ of >130, Halladay 9, Guidry had 3. Wouldn't have a problem making the same call on all 3 of Guidry/Santana/Halladay though. 

when announcing Mariano Rivera to enter the Hall of Fame in Spanish the guy sounded like an Iowa tourist trying to order a burrito in the mission in San Francisco

Pretty chalk on the results. Thought it might be closer for Mussina based on last year's private voters.  Good for him!

Lance Berkman gets dropped in 1st year? 144 OPS + 293/405/537/943 slash line. 5 votes.  Man. I just don't get it. 

Jeff Kent gets 77 votes, Berkman 5.  WTF? 

So Rivera is the first player to get the full 100% of the vote

Now that it has happened, One would expect to see it more often on sure-fire first ballot HoF'ers

Rejection From Hall Of Fame Sends Roger Clemens Spiraling Into Performance-Enhancing-Drug Binge https://t.co/cjexLaLOAo pic.twitter.com/Ps2BhsiCat

— The Onion (@TheOnion) January 23, 2019