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

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I'll also say I think Chipper Jones should have been the first unanimous player elected because he got a Hooters waitress pregnant and no one else has that on their resume (that we know of).

At least it adds to MY HoF standards.  

I think Mickey Mantle once said "Hell, If I'd known getting a Hooters waitress pregnant was going to be a big deal, I'd have done it every year!"

[PaulFolk]

On 1/17/2019 at 9:47 AM, Moose Milligan said:

Empty ballots don't count, IIRC.  If a ballot is empty, it just never happened.  

That's not correct. If a voter submits an empty ballot with their signature and everything, it counts. It's considered a "no" vote for every candidate.

On the other hand, if a voter just never submits their ballot, then that doesn't count.

[Moose Milligan]

9 minutes ago, PaulFolk said:

That's not correct. If a voter submits an empty ballot with their signature and everything, it counts. It's considered a "no" vote for every candidate.

On the other hand, if a voter just never submits their ballot, then that doesn't count.

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification.

[Moose Milligan]

I get this Stathead email from baseballreference.com each day.  It's usually got some pretty cool information and they're doing a HoF breakdown of players on the ballot each day.  Today is Bonds and I found this amazing:

Quote

Initially one could wonder why Bonds' teams rarely made the postseason, but it's worth noting that his 2001 and 2002 seasons (the latter resulting in his lone World Series appearance), he was responsible for over 23% of the team's Runs Created, something only Sammy Sosa in 2001 has also accomplished in the Expansion Era (since 1961). If that threshold were lowered to 21%, Bonds had 5 such seasons where he had to carry the load for his team's scoring; no other player in the Expansion Era has done that more than once in their career. As for that World Series which the Giants lost to the Angels in 7 games, Bonds finished with 16.5 Runs Created in that series, more than any other player in World Series history (2nd place is occupied by David Ortiz's 15.6 RC in the 2013 World Series).

That is...absurd.  

[Il BuonO]

10 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I get this Stathead email from baseballreference.com each day.  It's usually got some pretty cool information and they're doing a HoF breakdown of players on the ballot each day.  Today is Bonds and I found this amazing:

That is...absurd.  

He was absurdly good.

[Can_of_corn]

1 hour ago, Il BuonO said:

He was absurdly good.

I love the if he never swung the bat season projection.

[Moose Milligan]

http://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/25770773/mlb-ranking-every-current-hall-famer-tiers

[25 Nuggets]

18 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

http://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/25770773/mlb-ranking-every-current-hall-famer-tiers

I've taken part in several "HOF Tier" exercises over the years courtesy of another site.  They're fun, and for me anyway, quite educational.  But ultimately inconsequential.

What I took away that is most useful is an idea of where my HOF cutoff would be.  I look at a player candidate and see if he makes the 25th percentile - or in other words, is better than the bottom quarter of the HOF.  If he is, he gets my vote.  If not, I move on to other criteria and chances are he wouldn't get my vote.

[25 Nuggets]

BTW Moose I'm not an ESPN insider so I don't have access to the list.

There are currently 226 former Major League players (and 35 Negro league players).  The quartile then is the bottom 56 players, not counting the Negro Leaguers (a handful of which are questionable, but they're kind of their own thing).

Neither Lee Smith nor Harold Baines beat out 56 HOF players in my book.  If you want me to name them I can, but it'll be a long post.

The candidates on the current ballot I have as follows:

1st quartile - Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens

2nd quartile - Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Manny Ramirez, Mariano Rivera, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Larry Walker

3rd quartile - Roy Halladay, Todd Helton, Jeff Kent, Fred McGriff, Scott Rolen, Sammy Sosa

4th quartile - Lance Berkman, Andruw Jones, Roy Oswalt, Andy Pettitte, Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner, Michael Young

Worse than High Pockets Kelly - nobody with a vote

(I have Tommy McCarthy at the absolute bottom but I can't use him as he is unreasonable)

[DrungoHazewood]

21 hours ago, 25 Nuggets said:

Worse than High Pockets Kelly - nobody with a vote

Bill James once wrote a piece talking about how Kelly didn't belong in the Hall, and afterwards Kelly's son or maybe grandson wrote him several long letters politely (or maybe not so politely) informing Mr. James that his dad was one of the all time greats in the history of the game and Mr. James was basically an idiot.  I don't begrudge a son/grandson idolizing his dad or grandad.  But Kelly was about 60% as good as Boog Powell or Kent Hrbek, about on level with Lee May and Paul Konerko and Prince Fielder.  Even by oldtimers ways of thinking he was a first baseman who didn't get to 2000 hits, 150 homers, or a .300 average.