The all things HOF 2008 thread

[Moose Milligan]

Here's who Stark voted for this year:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/hof08/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=3171509&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos1

[Boy Howdy]

I check out a website where autograph collectors list their daily successes. Seems Goose Gossage has been answering a lot of old mail recently. It appears to be giving him good karma.

According to a post on BBTF, here are partial voting results collected by a pair of sources.

Keith Law's

89% - Gossage

66% - Rice

65% - Blyleven

65% - Dawson

48% - Morris

35% - Raines

35% - Lee Smith

24% - McGwire

23% - Trammell

19% - T. John

Baseball Primer

88% - Gossage

69% - Rice

60% - Blyleven

61% - Dawson

48% - Morris

31% - Raines

28% - Lee Smith

26% - McGwire

25% - Trammell

17% - T. John

Looks like the Goose might be all alone tomorrow

[Migrant Redbird]

I agree with Stark's philosophy.

.... Even after the Mitchell report, how much do we really know about the stars of that era? Do we know anything more about McGwire, for instance, than we knew a month ago? So if you're one of those voters who wants to make a statement, where do you draw the line?

.... If I could prove the innocence of the "clean" players of that era as easily as people think they can assume the guilt of the men they think were "cheaters," I might vote differently. But what can we prove, really? Not a whole lot.

So my philosophy, now and for as long as I vote, is to try to handle this issue as consistently as humanly possible. And the only true way to be consistent is to vote for just about all the best players of that era -- or none of them.

Let's face it; the voting is subjective. Every guy who fills out his ballot uses his own personal criteria for who belongs on it and who doesn't. If a voter believes that he knows for sure who used steroids and who didn't, then he's entitled to use that information -- such as it is -- to inform his voting. Some of the voters will develop their criteria stupidly. What's new?

[BaltimoreTerp]

I agree with Stark's philosophy.

Let's face it; the voting is subjective. Every guy who fills out his ballot uses his own personal criteria for who belongs on it and who doesn't. If a voter believes that he knows for sure who used steroids and who didn't, then he's entitled to use that information -- such as it is -- to inform his voting. Some of the voters will develop their criteria stupidly. What's new?

And, of course, they should be ridiculed for their imbecility.

[Moose Milligan]

I check out a website where autograph collectors list their daily successes. Seems Goose Gossage has been answering a lot of old mail recently. It appears to be giving him good karma.

According to a post on BBTF, here are partial voting results collected by a pair of sources.

Keith Law's

89% - Gossage

66% - Rice

65% - Blyleven

65% - Dawson

48% - Morris

35% - Raines

35% - Lee Smith

24% - McGwire

23% - Trammell

19% - T. John

Baseball Primer

88% - Gossage

69% - Rice

60% - Blyleven

61% - Dawson

48% - Morris

31% - Raines

28% - Lee Smith

26% - McGwire

25% - Trammell

17% - T. John

Looks like the Goose might be all alone tomorrow

That's insane.

K, I didn't expect Tim Raines to get in, even though I think he deserves it. But to be that low? Horrible.

I'm willing to bet more people remember him for his later years on the Yankees and his coke problems rather than being a dominator in the 80s

[mweb]

I check out a website where autograph collectors list their daily successes. Seems Goose Gossage has been answering a lot of old mail recently. It appears to be giving him good karma.

According to a post on BBTF, here are partial voting results collected by a pair of sources.

Keith Law's

89% - Gossage

66% - Rice

65% - Blyleven

65% - Dawson

48% - Morris

35% - Raines

35% - Lee Smith

24% - McGwire

23% - Trammell

19% - T. John

Baseball Primer

88% - Gossage

69% - Rice

60% - Blyleven

61% - Dawson

48% - Morris

31% - Raines

28% - Lee Smith

26% - McGwire

25% - Trammell

17% - T. John

Looks like the Goose might be all alone tomorrow

If this turns out to be accurate, Bert will be screwed again as will Trammell and Big Mac(obviously for a different reason), and Raines will be screwed over for the first time. I fear Raines will never get in.

Can anyone explain to me how Jim Rice is quite close to making it in, while Albert Belle didn't even sniff the HOF last year? Personality?

[Boy Howdy]

If this turns out to be accurate, Bert will be screwed again as will Trammell and Big Mac(obviously for a different reason), and Raines will be screwed over for the first time. I fear Raines will never get in.

Can anyone explain to me how Jim Rice is quite close to making it in, while Albert Belle didn't even sniff the HOF last year? Personality?

Raines may still make it. He's absolutely got my vote. Just knowing how the voting has traditionally gone, I knew he didn't have a prayer the first time on the ballot. Right or wrong, the only guys who make it on the first try are the 500hr, 300-win, 3000-hit type guys. The fact that Raines walks plus hits total beats Tony Gwynn, for example, gets overlooked.

As for Belle, I think he suffers from the perception that he compiled most of his numbers in an era of inflated offense and steroids. I'm not saying I believe that exactly, but I think the average voter probably does.

I saw Rice play a lot except for his first couple of years. All I can say is he was absolutely regarded as a future HOF the entire time he was playing. He just fizzled in a hurry. That statistical case against him (home/road #'s etc) is compelling, but I think the perception around the league when you're active ought to count for something.

[tywright]

How many HOF's have played at least 6 years (thru 1985) during the 80's? Here's your answer, only 25 players:

Ripken

Gwynn

Sutter

Boggs

Sandberg

Molitor

Eckersley

Murray

Carter

Smith

Winfield

Puckett

Fisk

Perez

Ryan

Brett

Yount

Sutton

Niekro

Schmidt

Carlton

Jackson

Seaver

Fingers

Carew

[ironman]

Gossage the only one elected. 86% of vote (wow, big jump from previous years). Rice missed by only 14 votes.

[tywright]

That's a shame...Rice should be in

[DrungoHazewood]

Listening to the stream on the HOF site and it looks like Law pretty well nailed the final result. Goose is in, and he's alone among BBWAA inductees. Didn't hear vote totals for everybody, but Rice was the #2 guy at 72-ish percent.

Good for Gossage. Sucks for Blyleven, Raines, Trammell. Guess it sucks for the others who didn't make it, too, but they have less of a rational for being upset.

[DrungoHazewood]

That's a shame...Rice should be in

If you ignore the fact his OPS in all parks not named Fenway was .789.

Even in his monster 1978 MVP season his road line was .269/.325/.512. That's a good season but, heck, Ken Singleton was a better hitter that year. Nobody's calling for him to go to Cooperstown.

[Leitch]

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7025

Interesting thing about how "feared" Rice was in this article, actually in the free part:

[...]Addressing the notion that Hall of Fame candidate Jim Rice was "feared" and tying it into the great disparities in his home and away production, we find that managers of the day understood that such fears–-if they did, in fact, exist--should be limited primarily to Boston. As Vegas Watch points out, he was not among the leaders in intentional walks received during the course of his career. In fact, he had about half of those received by Mike Schmidt, George Brett, and Ted Simmons, and less than Leon Durham in spite of 4,000 more PA. More telling, though, is the dichotomy between his home and road IBB: 50 to 27, respectively. The managers of Rice's day might not have come right out and said it, and they might not have even consciously thought it, but instinctively they understood that outside of Boston they were not facing one of the great offensive bogeymen of the day. This intentional walk split certainly suggests that explanation, anyway, given that Schmidt and Brett's home/road ratios were much more even.

Since Rice's numbers do not come up to Hall of Fame standards, voters predisposed to give him the nod are left looking for intangibles such as this so-called fear factor. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that even this is a concoction of memory.

[66-70-83-??]

If you ignore the fact his OPS in all parks not named Fenway was .789.

Even in his monster 1978 MVP season his road line was .269/.325/.512. That's a good season but, heck, Ken Singleton was a better hitter that year. Nobody's calling for him to go to Cooperstown.

Regardless of his home/road splits he still put up the totals that are borderline HOF.

Cal Ripken has strongly endorsed Jim Rice for the HOF.

But, what does he know about baseball, right ?

I am on the fence with Gossage and Rice. Raines and Blyleven I would have voted in. Trammell- I don't think so.

I don't get much company in this one- I would vote Morris in if I had a vote.

I know some think I am crazy, but he seems to be one of those players who was better than he is given credit for.

You can't judge players strictly on the career numbers. They do not take into account postseason play or other factors.

[DrungoHazewood]

I don't get much company in this one- I would vote Morris in if I had a vote.

I know some think I am crazy, but he seems to be one of those players who was better than he is given credit for.

You can't judge players strictly on the career numbers. They do not take into account postseason play or other factors.

You do know that they record the results of postseason games, right?

I know a lot of folks believe that Morris "pitched to the score" but people have gone back and looked at the boxscores and his ERA in close games was nearly identical to his ERA in not-so-close games.