Hall of Fame Inductees

Alomar was a great player with perhaps some questionable character issues. No doubt in my mind about his hall of fame credentials.

Really happy for Bert Blyleven. Fine player and a winner. One of the best curve balls I have ever seen.

Great to see Blyleven get in. Growing up in the Midwest got to listen to a lot of Twins games and still love hearing him work a game.

Have to think the Hall takes in two more wonderful talents...and missed on one I believe to be very deserving...Jack Morris.

How do you guys feel about Palmeiro?

What we know about him is that he failed one test. He claims to be mystefied by how that could've happened and suggests he got a tainted B-12 shot from Miguel Tejada.

We do know that tests are sometimes inaccurate, and we also know that Tejada was a user and thus a possible source of bad stuff. That doesn't mean that Tejada would have given Palmeiro something without telling him the truth about what it was, though.

I am not a fan of PED users and in general I think McGwire was so one-dimensional that, having tainted his one big stat (HR's), he should never get in. But it seems to me that the case against Palmeiro is pretty thin on evidence. He certainly did not bulk up hugely the way many others did (thinking here of Bonds, McGwire, Pudge Rodriguez, Brady Anderson, et al).

Palmeiro is a guy who could hit from start to finish. He was projected as a guy who would develop power, and he met that projection. He became a very consistent producer, but not someone who put up such eye-popping numbers in just a couple of seasons that it arouses my suspicions. I think he hit 38 HR's on the nose several times. He was often overlooked for All Star voting because he had to compete with guys like McGwire. But for consistency of production, hitting for average too, and also his defense, it seems to me he compares quite favorably to a guy like Eddie Murray.

Does anyone else worry that we're throwing out the baby with the bath water here?

Midlo,
I think you make a very good/great point on who gets "tainted" but was clean.
It appears from the voting that Bagwell falls right into that dilemma. There has never been a scintilla of information, as far as I know, that Bagwell was in any way connected with the PED issue. He played for a long time and put up the best combined average and power numbers for any 1B in many, many years.
When looked at from an offensive and defensive perspective, he probably didn't have a peer during his many years with the Astros.
Didn't help much in the voting...41%.
For Palmeiro, there are too many unanswered or controversial issues for me.
The first is his wagging his finger, under oath, before Congress.
The second is the positive test very close in time to that under oath finger wagging.
The third is throwing Tejada under the bus, and to my knowledge, Tejada never confirming the Palmeiro version.
The 4th is the difficulty I have in accepting the story that Palmeiro "innocently" and without any knowledge let a teammate inject him with anything.
If he needed B12, why not approach the training staff. Why would he be willing to accept/rely on Tejada that it was only B12?
Having/letting a teammate inject him?
With all the current information on the health issues associated with needles/syringes including Hepatitis, etc, that entire story is difficult, for me at least, to process and accept.
Perhaps it is more believable than I can conceive. I have a real problem with the concept that teammates are "injecting" each other and only one of them is "naive" and uninformed.
The positive test and a couple of teammates injecting each other is, for me, more than being "thin" on evidence.
In fact, of the PED suspects listed for HOF consideration, isn't Palmeiro is the only one with a known positive test?

quote:

Originally posted by infielddad:
Have to think the Hall takes in two more wonderful talents...and missed on one I believe to be very deserving...Jack Morris.

I'm a huge fan also of "Black Jack" - maybe next year, he is certainly deserving. Here is how the rest of the voting went down:

Player Votes Percent
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 González 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
†*Raúl Mondesí 0 0.0
†*Kirk Rueter 0 0.0

I have to agree that Bagwell kind of got the shaft considering you can easily make a case for him being greatest ML first baseman after Gehrig, Pujols and Foxx. He was certainly the most complete player first baseman since Gehrig and Foxx until the rise of Pujols. I feel about Bagwell the same way as I do about Albert. If these men were on Juice, they would have been hitting 60 plus HRs since they were better hitters than McGwire and Sosa to begin with and were very powerful men.

Bagwell has never been mentioned in any report and Canseco named everybody and his brother but never mentioned Bagwell. There had to have been some hitters in that era that would have been outstanding 30 and 40 HR men and since Bags was never, ever mentioned as a cheater you have to assume he was one of them. If someone can argue that his numbers are not good enough as they are, then I could accept that, although you KNOW I'm going to come back with my reasoning of why they are good enough. But lets not bar every guy from that era who was not a singles hitter.

I'm happy for Blyleven, in my mind his election to the Hall was a couple years overdue. He didn't have an overpowering fastball like the other top strikeout pitchers, but his curveball sure dropped off the table and was the culprit of many of his 3701 K's. 287 wins (13 short of the magic 300), and a 3.31 career ERA in the AL isn't too shabby. He was never dominant, but always consistent, and one of the good guys in the league.

Roberto Alomar's character (or lack of?) was brought to the forefront after the spitting incident, but you have to admit that he was one of the greatest All-Around second baseman of all time.

I don't believe that Jeff Bagwell should be a first ballot Hall of Famer...but he should have received a larger percentage of the vote. The man was consistent, and as Three Bagger stated, he should be mentioned with some of the other great first baseman of all time...449 HR's, 1529 RBI's, 1517 R's, .297 BA., and 202 SB's for a first baseman!

Bagwell's 162 game Avg. 114 R's, 174 H, 37 2B's, 34 HR's, 115 RBI's, .408 OBP, .540 SLG...hmmm, first ballot numbers!?

Rafael Palmiero's numbers are amazing too, but he has a few things going against him. Number one, he was a teammate of Jose Canseco for two plus years, and Canseco accused him of using. But what hurt him the most IMO, was the televised testimony a few years ago where he and other notable players denied the use of PED's, only to test positive shortly there after. 569 HR's and over 3000 hits is a no brainer for the Hall most of the time, but I don't think he has a chance...only time will tell?

And half of that career in that batter's graveyard the AstroDome which was one of the WORST hitters parks of all time!

Fuel for the Palmeiro fire

Rafael Palmeiro Could be Telling Truth, Says Former Congressman

Bagwell was/is my all time favorite Astro but...

He did get awfully big during "the era" then when the heat was on he got skinny again! (Just like Puljols and Sosa and a lot of other players.)

Surely I'm not the only one who noticed.

The sad part about McGwire is that as a "skinny" rookie (rookie of the year) he hit .289 with a rookie record 49 homeruns and 118 RBIs. Unlike Bonds he started setting HR records as a very young player. He was voted on the all century team and was an all star 12 years. In comparison, Bagwell, as great as he was, only made the all star team 4 times. Both were awarded the gold glove once.

It will be interesting to see how Biggio does on the first ballet. Bagwell deserves to be in the hall of fame and so does Biggio IMO.

I'm sick of players being the only ones punished by something baseball allowed and even promoted at times. There are many who used steroids and didn't put up good numbers.

This is just too confusing trying to figure out who cheated and who didn't. I wish baseball decided who gets in rather than a bunch of sports writers who are probably using Viagra to enhance their own performance. BTW, what ever happened to those Rafael "performance enhancement" commercials? How ironic!

Why doesn't baseball tell us who is not eligible to be inducted because of steroid use. Why leave it up to sports writers to determine who might have used PEDs?

It's obvious by the results that some voters have no idea about who belongs in the hall of fame. 5% of the voters didn't vote for Babe Ruth. More than 5% didn't vote for Willie Mays. 7% didn't vote for Ted Williams or Stan Musial. Some say Rogers Hornsby was the greatest ever, 22% of HOF voters didn't vote for him.

These are the people in charge of selecting HOFers. Anyone here who would not have voted for Babe Ruth?

PG- I agree, it's tough to understand? There appears to be a number of HOF voters that hold grudges against certain players. I didn't mention McGwire on my last post. He was one of my favorite players growing up in So Cal, born and raised about an hour away from my home. McGwire was also a great "2-Way Player" at USC, and as you noted, hit 49 HR's as a young skinny rookie in 1987. He and Sammy arguably did more for the game in 1998 than any other two players in one season (I wasn't around for Maris & Mantle). McGwire should have come clean when he was initially implicated for PED's, maybe the public would have been more foregivng? Looking at his numbers, it appears that he probably started using sometime after a few injury riddled seasons in 93'/94'?

This is really going to get interesting in 2013 when Bonds is eligible. He had three MVP's before his head grew a couple sizes, and was already considered one of the greatest outfielders of All-Time....Maybe as PG suggested, the HOF voters should just put the list out of players that Will Never get in due to PED's?

quote:

who are probably using Viagra to enhance their own performance

What is this "Viagra" of which you speak? Does it help with writers block?

1) I agree with Alomar and Blyleven
2) Jack Morris was the winningest pitcher for a decade. He belongs in the Hall.
3) If MLB places players in the ballot it should be about their playing results not all the peripheral stuff. What about all the players who took greenies in previous decades?

I can see how the hall of fame balloting can be quirky. Other than the 1979 World Series or 1987 Twins, I wouldn't know that much about Bert Blyleven and may have been inclined not to vote for him. I was lucky and got to see him win in Cleveland for five years as he was 48-37 during that time.

He also had some of the poorest run-support of all time imho with a weak-hitting Indians lineup behind him. I know they love him in San Francisco, but Duane Kuiper hit one career homerun for the Tribe ... and he was one of our top homerun hitters

Perhaps hall of fame voting is as much about a person's fame as it is about their respective talent.

Blyleven is easily a hall of fame talent imho but that is only because I was able to see him play. Many people cannot.

Maybe they reduce future hall of fame voting down to an algorithm and thus, take the people-factor out of it. Maybe they can come up with a number for how many times a person has appeared on Sports Center's top 10 highlights. Surpass that number... and the algorithm summarily sends you on to the hall of fame... sorry for rambling but felt like typing for some odd reason...

Think about Sandy Koufax and Gayle Sayers for example. You cannot simply go by their numbers.

cball,

Bagwell got smaller when his shoulder was wrecked and he no longer could lift any more. The last year or two of his career, there were times when he couldn't throw the ball forty feet--all strength was gone from that shoulder. As someone who was fanatical about lifting weights for seven or eight years, I know there are certain injuries where it becomes impossible to lift or lift heavy and your body shrinks like crazy. I have a good example of that on my own Facebook page where my wife posted a picture of me when I was lifting heavy and constantly and pictures of me now. Lots of difference! Most people do forget, you can get big over a three or four year period if you lift heavy and are already an athletic person anyway. There were many that took steroids during that era but when we start punishing people who the only evidence against them after fifteen years is the way they looked, especially the short type build Bagwell started with since it is easier to bulk up than tall lanky guys. I still feel he will go in as around 42% is something to build on. I will state again, if Bagwell and Pujols were on steroids, we would have seen those guys in their best years hitting 58, 60, 63 HRs maybe more, because Sosa and McGwire were not in their league as great hitters. Was Bagwell better than McCovey and Stargell? Certainly!

You can get big without steroids but have you noticed, I'm sure you did, there's a different look to guys that put it on naturally and those that juice.

RJM,

Mark Grace had the most hits in a decade. Does that make him a Hall Of Famer?

While there is a different look if you can see the person up close with no shirt and gym shorts maybe. For certain steroids the skin is paper thin and the veins look like small ropes. For others or improper use, the body has a bloated look as the person retains water bigtime unless he also takes diuretics to get tid of the excess. In the 1980's I had kids come up to me in the gym and if I could get them steroids, so I guess I looked like I used them but I never did. That's another thing. I knew who was doing the roids in the gym for the most part and I truly believe the biggest lie of the whole baseball steroid era is all the guys saying, I didn't know people who were using or I never suspected this guy...They take showers with these guys!

quote:

Originally posted by Three Bagger:
RJM,

Mark Grace had the most hits in a decade. Does that make him a Hall Of Famer?

The rule of thumb I've heard is a player who dominates the game for ten years. Grace may have the most hits but he didn't dominate his position. He wasn't a power hitter, a speed guy or big rbi guy. He never had 100 rbi's. He only scored 100 runs once. Morris dominated his postion. What's more dominating than winning as a pitcher?

Winning because you shut the other guys out not because your team scores the most runs for you over the decade. Morris was not known as dominant all that much at the time he was playing. Morris was not in the 80's and 90's talked about like that. That one World Series game made his reputation. He is one guy that has gotten better through the years since he has retired. He wasn't even the star of his own team--Trammel and Gibson were.

While a person can make a case for Morris, I will accept hard stats but not things like an arbitrary time period where a guy led in something that the past years Cy Young voting just proved isn't one of the key things we should be looking at to find the best pitcher simply because the team makes winners of pitchers too often not his dominance. Now Koufax, he won despite the team he was on not because of them.

We're going to have to disagree. He was the ace of his staff. He won more than anyone in the decade. He was dominant in the post season until his last post season when he was past he prime and had a bad season. He received Cy Young votes seven times. He received MVP votes seven times. He had winning seasons thirteen times in a fourteen season run. He won 254 games.

.

"Writers still resisting PED users."

They're looking for some guidance.

.

RJM,

That's one of the great things about baseball--arguing the merits of one player over another and such.

I like Jack Morris, he should be in the HOF discussion. But IMO if you put someone like Morris in because of his playoff prowess, then my favorite player growing up should have received more consideration...Steve Garvey didn't have monster numbers over his 18 year career, but like Morris, he had very strong numbers for a ten year period. He played everyday and was the Iron Man of the National League. He had numerous Gold Gloves. He had a career playoff Avg. of .338 with eleven HR's. He was the 1974 MVP and finished second in the voting in 1978. He finished in the top six in MVP voting five times. He had over 200 hits six different seasons and wasn't a speed burner by any means. He played his career at Chavez Ravine and Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium, both considered pitchers ballparks. He was simply a winner. Did he have issues outside of baseball? Yes, but they were personal family issues that aren't relevant to his playing career.

I'm sure that we'll have the same discussion with someone like Bernie Williams when he's eligible for the HOF in the next couple of years? I agree with Three Bagger, it's fun arguing/discussing the merits of one player over another.

I think it all comes down to this: One person's Hall of Fame might have room for all the Jack Morris's of baseball and one person's might go down to the Dave Conception's of the world or the Ron Ceys and Davey Lopes. I just happen to want a more elite level of player for the Hall and to do that they would have to actually kick out a few dozen people and that ain't gonna happen. Even so, I fight against letting in guys who lower the level of the Hall as well as guys who I think belong in Hall of Very Good.

quote:

Originally posted by Three Bagger:
Even so, I fight against letting in guys who lower the level of the Hall as well as guys who I think belong in Hall of Very Good.

That...

From Sunday Boston Herald:

One of the biggest boosts to Bert Blyleven’s Hall of Fame candidacy was the rise of sabermetric analysis. And one of the most compelling statistics in his favor was WAR, or Wins Above Replacement. It measures how many more wins a team would have with Player X on the mound than a replacement with Triple-A skills. Blyleven’s career WAR of 90.10 is 13th among pitchers, which slots him between Randy Johnson and Christy Mathewson. Cy Young, appropriately enough, has the highest WAR of all time at 146.

Here are the top 10 WAR rankings among post-1900 players not in the Hall of Fame:

Player WAR Rank
Roger Clemens 128.4 2
Greg Maddux 96.8 8
Randy Johnson 91.8 12
Pedro Martinez 75.9 23
Mike Mussina 74.8 24
Curt Schilling 69.7 28
Tom Glavine 67.0 29
Rick Reuschel 66.3 30
Kevin Brown 64.8 34
John Smoltz 63.9 38

SOURCE: BASEBALL-REFERENCE.COM

One thing to remember of course, is that WAR is just ONE sabermetric tool not the end-all be-all. Bert Blyleven while a worthy Hall of Famer was NOT a better pitcher than Pedro Martinez or Christy Mathewson. Pedro's peak value was much higher than Bert's but Blyleven had a longer career with accumulated value. This tool alone does not tell the true story. That is why a person trying to match players against each other has to incorporate the whole story and all the statistical information and not just focus on one something like "he won the most games in the decade."

It will be interesting to see how Clemens will fair with the HOF committee voters? He's in on the first ballot in my book, but his PED issues will hurt him. Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux are "No Brainers" to be elected on the first ballot. As for the rest of the list, without looking at the numbers I'd have to believe they'll all be in at some point with the exception of Brown and Reuschel.

If Morris is in the Hall..of Very Good, doesn't that set a ceiling and upside for Curt Schilling?
Never liked him anyway.

The case of Schilling as opposed to Morris is somewhat compelling. While Morris did win 38 more games, he had 40 more losses so a 38-40 record in his extra decisions are certainly not compelling evidence of being better. Morris has 28 shutouts to 20 for Schilling, but Schilling added two more in playoff action while Morris had none. In every other meaningful stat Schilling comes out on top

K's-- 3116 to 2478
Saves--22 to 0
ERA--3.46 to 3.90
WHIP--1.14 to 1.30
BB--only 711 to 1390

Playoff records:
Schilling 11 wins 2 losses with 2 shutouts, 2.23 ERA
Morris 7 wins 4 losses 0 shutouts, 3.86 ERA

League leading stuff:
Schilling--GS twice, CG once, IP twice, K's twice wins twice, 3 twenty win seasons, 3-300 K seasons, 5-200 K seasons

Morris--GS twice, CG once, IP once, K's once, wild pitches 6 times, 3 twenty win seasons, 3-200 K seasons

Another black mark for me about Morris is eight ERA's over 4.00 in eighteen seasons with almost all occurring during a much lower offensive period than Schilling pitched in.

I have to say that I would put Schilling in the Hall of Fame before Morris although his win total is somewhat low. Actually Morris is somewhat below my cutoff while Schilling is probably just above it.

Threebagger,
Here is where we are on very opposite sides.
Morris pitched 18 years, Schilling pitched 20.
Morris had 600 more innings, one more 20 game season and did it all in the AL, with the DH, as contrasted to Schilling who had more seasons in the NL with pitchers batting.
Morris clearly went farther into games since he had 549 starts vs 569 for Schilling, but far more innings pitched.
To leave out the DL when stats are being compared does not come across as all that fair from where I seat and read and evaluate.
Morris is better in some areas.
Schilling is superior in others.

In my view, the DL has to be factored.
Don't you agree that if you are going to use comparative stats you have to factor the DL?

Infielddad,

That's a good point and only fair although I think I can prove that the overall offense and runs scored per team in the NL during the Schilling's era was higher than the AL's scoring during the lower scoring years of the 1980's and very early 1990's. If you want I can calculate it but I think everyone knows that run scoring even in the DH-less NL was MUCH higher in 1994 through 2008 than in the 1980's AL. The thing that bothers me the most is that Morris will have the highest ERA in the Hall and to me that brings down the level of talent in the Hall while Schilling, especially highlight seasons of over 300 K's which are some of the highest totals of all time does not. I'm still kind of torn over whether Schilling deserves to go in. Probably neither deserves enshrinement since I want my Hall to be for the really elite guys. To me Morris is an accumulator--he played a long time and put up good numbers for a long time, ending up with a decent amount of wins and K's. But where are the highlights outside of three twenty win seasons and one well pitched WS game. This years Cy Young voting in the AL has already shown that people are realizing that pitcher wins are more of a team support factor than actually proving who pitched the best.

Part of the reason Morris pitched further into games was BECAUSE he had the DH in the AL and also the way managers now use relievers in the last 20 years precludes even the best pitchers from going deep into games as someone a decade before.