Harold Baines.....Lee Smith in Hall of Fame

[tntoriole]

12 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think they might eventually do something like that, an inner circle.  To generate interest.  Let's hope they design the voting structure this time, instead of letting it hapazardly occur with no design or oversight.

I agree...maybe a 90 percent vote of BBWAA and 90 percent of a fan ballot.  Or 90 percent ballot of the OH...lol

[25 Nuggets]

16 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Anyone that would be considered "inner circle"? 

I would hope the situation wasn't so confused that upper echelon guys were not getting ignored.

Not really.  The best players on the 1960 ballot were Johnny Mize, Luke Appling, and Arky Vaughan.  One could argue that Vaughan is inner circle but he wasn't thought so at the time -- he needed the Veteran's Committee to be inducted.  Mize and Appling are merely "above average" HOFers.

Other future HOFers on the ballot include Goose Goslin, Red Ruffing, Red Faber, Lou Boudreau, Joe Medwick, Joe Gordon, Earl Averill and Ralph Kiner.

[Frobby]

It might be fun to have a Hall of Fame that’s limited to 100 players, and to vote somebody in you have to vote somebody else out.    Now that would make for some good debates!   There are 226 players in there now, so time to start cutting!

[DrungoHazewood]

3 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

I agree...maybe a 90 percent vote of BBWAA and 90 percent of a fan ballot.  Or 90 percent ballot of the OH...lol

If you set the threshold at 90% you guarantee that most years there will be no induction.  As previously stated the 75% threshold often results in clusters of years where the BBWAA doesn't elect anyone.  Ruth will probably get his 90%, everyone else will be a battle that might not ever be won.  Even with Ruth you'll get a few who talk about him drinking and never playing in an integrated league.  And at 90% it doesn't take too many to deny induction.

That kind of thing works in an internet Hall, but not on a museum trying to bring in paying visitors.

[25 Nuggets]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

It might be fun to have a Hall of Fame that’s limited to 100 players, and to vote somebody in you have to vote somebody else out.    Now that would make for some good debates!   There are 226 players in there now, so time to start cutting!

It's a fun exercise but cruel in real world practice.  I prefer the "X players per Y" method.  Baseball Think Factory does it 1 player per a certain number of plate appearances across the league.

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, 25 Nuggets said:

Not really.  The best players on the 1960 ballot were Johnny Mize, Luke Appling, and Arky Vaughan.  One could argue that Vaughan is inner circle but he wasn't thought so at the time -- he needed the Veteran's Committee to be inducted.  Mize and Appling are merely "above average" HOFers.

So here's a weird thing... Lefty Grove got 6 votes (2.2%) in 1960.  He was inducted into the Hall in 1947.  Did several voters just forget?

[DrungoHazewood]

The voting in 1960 was just strange.

10 players now seen as having careers worth less than 10 WAR got votes, including backup catcher/spy Moe Berg.  Orval Grove got seven votes for going 63-73, mostly when the real players were at war.  Mike Gonzalez, catcher of the teens and twenties who only played 100 games four times got some votes.  Hank Gowdy, another catcher in the teens and 20s, only got into 1050 games and 3145 PAs and only had 400 PAs in a season once got 38 votes, good for 14%.  Hal White, a swingman for the Tigers who's career looks a little like Mark Williamson or something got votes.

Maybe the writers were given a list of everyone they could find who'd played in 10 MLB seasons, plus Addie Joss.

This is what happens when there are few guidelines, an almost endless list of candidates, and nobody taking control.

[Moose Milligan]

35 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It might be fun to have a Hall of Fame that’s limited to 100 players, and to vote somebody in you have to vote somebody else out.    Now that would make for some good debates!   There are 226 players in there now, so time to start cutting!

I'm into it.  Let's do it.  

[tntoriole]

22 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It might be fun to have a Hall of Fame that’s limited to 100 players, and to vote somebody in you have to vote somebody else out.    Now that would make for some good debates!   There are 226 players in there now, so time to start cutting!

 

21 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

If you set the threshold at 90% you guarantee that most years there will be no induction.  As previously stated the 75% threshold often results in clusters of years where the BBWAA doesn't elect anyone.  Ruth will probably get his 90%, everyone else will be a battle that might not ever be won.  Even with Ruth you'll get a few who talk about him drinking and never playing in an integrated league.  And at 90% it doesn't take too many to deny induction.

That kind of thing works in an internet Hall, but not on a museum trying to bring in paying visitors.

I was only referring to the inner circle in regards to a higher voting percentage threshold, the same threshold can remain for new inductees to the regular Hall. .  

And the Inner Circle, the Holy of Holies, the Highest Valhalla would be a new section for visitors to visit with even more relics, detail presentations and curated information about this group.  I like the idea of a top 100 for that section with an even higher designation of All Time Best Team...8 position players, 4 starting pitchers, 1 reliever. .    And every 5 years, a vote would be held to see if there would be any new or regular inductees can move into the top 100  with someone having to move out.  

And every 25 years, a new vote for the All Time Best Team to see if any new or interim members would replace any existing members. .   Sort of like the All Century team. 

Or they could just keep doing what they are doing, I suppose....lol. 

[25 Nuggets]

7 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I'm into it.  Let's do it.  

Last exercise I participated in like this (over on Baseball Almanac) did it in chunks of 20.  It would take too long to do less, but we could do more, like Top 50 and then 51-100.

Another possibility is to take an existing Top 100 list and alter it.

[ShaneDawg85]

49 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It might be fun to have a Hall of Fame that’s limited to 100 players, and to vote somebody in you have to vote somebody else out.    Now that would make for some good debates!   There are 226 players in there now, so time to start cutting!

I've thought of the same exercise with the Orioles Hall of Fame, putting aside personal feelings towards specific players or homerism, but rescinding membership to lesser deserving candidates.  It'd make for never ending discussions.

[weams]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

It might be fun to have a Hall of Fame that’s limited to 100 players, and to vote somebody in you have to vote somebody else out.    Now that would make for some good debates!   There are 226 players in there now, so time to start cutting!

I think current writers would have no problem removing those who they never saw who did not play in New York or Boston.

[weams]

Thank U, next.

 

[atomic]

22 hours ago, eddie83 said:

Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker better get in at some point.  

Hell Mattingly with their criteria. 

And Tommy John.

[SteveA]

I gotta say, this one is definitely mystifying.

I have never been a strict "look at the WAR and put them in" guy.   It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Accumulated Value.   Saying just take the highest WAR and set a cutoff never appealed to me.   Like the women's golf HOF where you get in as soon as you win a certain # of tournaments.

Huge postseason performances (Jack Morris), fantastic record setting stretches (Orel Hershiser) are worthy of consideration in my mind.   Greatness can be about more than accumulated value.   Is it "fair" that other guys didn't get a chance to have those because of the team's they were on?   Probably not.   But if Archie Manning had been drafted by a different NFL team he could have had a career like Elway's.   If Bert Jones hadn't gotten badly hurt he WOULD have had a career like Elway's.   But they didn't.

Lee Smith was the saves leader for an era when saves were a Big Deal, and he was pretty dominant at it.   Throughout most of his career, pre-Rivera, I'll bet if you asked the top hitters in baseball who they would least like to face in the 9th inning, his name would be at the top of the list.   I have no problem with putting someone who was the best at something for over a decade in the HOF even if modern analytics show that "something" isn't worth what people thought it was.   In the game at the time he was a dominant closer and closers were considered critical to a team's success.

So sometimes I fall on the other side when someone tries to use one metric such as WAR to try to determine HOF consideration.   I think there's a lot much more to it, and I won't dismiss postseason success, or how much a player was respected and feared by opponents during his career, or extraordinary achievements that didn't significantly increase his WAR.

But Baines, I just don't get.   He didn't have the postseason heroics, or even the reputation as someone opposing teams feared.   He had a long career and accumulated some stats.   I get that he is Mr. White Sox, and the White Sox as a franchise are probably the least represented in the HOF of all the pre-expansion franchises.   But if you went around in the 80s and early 90s asking pitchers who they feared more, or who they couldn't get out, they would probably list a lot of guys ahead of Baines.    So he lacks any of the "intangibles" that I am usually willing to accept that the pure-WAR folks are horrified at.

And it's darn shame that such a good guy is now going to be the center of a controversy that he didn't ask for and that his name will have a negative connotation to so many baseball fans because of it.