Post by Brian (Blue Jays GM) on Jan 5, 2016 16:50:49 GMT -5
I had a very tough time leaving Jim Edmonds off my ballot, as I do believe he's a hall of fame center fielder. I just couldn't justify giving him the last spot on my ballot over Larry Walker who has an MVP award, 3 batting titles, and only 1 less gold glove.
Post by Jon (Astros GM) on Jan 5, 2016 16:56:29 GMT -5
My toughest spot was between Alan Trammell and Mike Mussina. While I think Moose gets in eventually and Trammell doesn't, I just think he deserves it. I also voted for the steroids guys. I have always felt that they were playing within the rules at the time and if you stop their careers from the moment they were caught they would still be Hall of Famers.
Post by Ben (Rays GM) on Jan 5, 2016 17:32:04 GMT -5
Raines - I go to bat for him every year and I'm really hoping this is finally the year for him. My guess is he ends up in the 60s but falls a little short but makes it next year in his final year. Second or third best leadoff hitter of all time ought to get him in. 5th all time in SBs but a much better SB% than any of the guys above him... or the next hundred or so guys below him makes him second all time in baserunning value. But could do lots of other things well, .385 OBP and .425 SLG = .810 OPS, 123 OPS+
Griffey - no brainer, right? The amazing thing about Griffey is he was worth over 70 WAR (by fangraphs) by the time he finished his age 30 season. Then for the rest of his career he was below average. What could have been...
Schilling - one of the very best pitchers in the game from '97 to '04
Mussina - numbers not as flashy as Schilling perhaps (other than wins) but longevity - an ace pitcher for just about his entire career - puts his WAR ahead.
Piazza - best hitting catcher ever
Bagwell - a top ten all time 1B
Trammell - I don't know all that much about him actually but stats and everything I've heard about him make me think he should make it in his final year on the ballot. Unfortunately it doesn't look like that will happen.
Which means I can only vote for three from the group of:
Walker Edmonds Martinez Clemens Bonds
So I'm going with Walker, Edmonds, and Martinez. Why? I think Bonds and Clemens should be in, and I'm becoming a bit more optimistic that they will eventually. I'm 99% sure they won't be making it this year and I'm 99% sure they won't be falling off the ballot, so no harm in leaving them off this year.
Maybe the most brutal thing about the 94 strike was that absolutely loaded Expos team. That team had a more than legit chance to win a World Series that year and given the small market/big market disparity at the time ( no revenue sharing, no competitive balancing, IIRC still under the old draft compensation system, etc), that would have been a really incredible year for baseball. The Yankees IIRC were strong that year too, so a Yankees/Expos World Series might not have been out of the question.
Larry Walker was a legit 5 tooler. Guy could do it all. In a bigger market, he'd get more love as a player.
Hard to say if it helps or hurts Mussina, but if you really look back at all the huge 9 digit contracts given out to starting pitchers that absolutely blew up in team's faces, and even 8 figure ones that made you cringe ( i.e. Darren Drifert/Chan Ho Park), the Moose was really one of the best value free agent signings ever in the modern era. Yankees got every last cents worth out of him across his time with them.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Lee Smith. He pitched in the pre set up men era, where he'd just roll those 2 or 3 innings to get a save.
The Crime Dog is an interesting case because the backlash of the Juice Era makes you wonder if the typical benchmarks for hitters will get a new relative scaling now.
Piazza's case and I'm guessing this will have to apply to Jeter one day is whether there will be a defensive tax on a players career. I.E. should the player have moved positions for the good of the team overall at some point in their career when they had the leverage to have that rare choice that few players have ever.
1994 Expos Roster
# Pitchers Height Weight Throws Bats Date Of Birth 38 Denis Boucher 6-01 195 Left Right 1968-03-07 48 Joey Eischen 6-01 190 Left Left 1970-05-25 13 Jeff Fassero 6-01 195 Left Left 1963-01-05 41 Heath Haynes 6-00 175 Right Right 1968-11-30 20 Rod Henderson 6-04 195 Right Right 1971-03-11 27 Butch Henry 6-01 205 Left Left 1968-10-07 34 Gil Heredia 6-01 190 Right Right 1965-10-26 44 Ken Hill 6-02 175 Right Right 1965-12-14 35 Brian Looney 5-10 180 Left Left 1969-09-26 37, 45 Pedro Martinez 5-11 180 Right Right 1971-10-25 51 Mel Rojas 5-11 185 Right Right 1966-12-10 42 Kirk Rueter 6-03 195 Left Left 1970-12-01 54 Tim Scott 6-02 205 Right Right 1966-11-16 31 Jeff Shaw 6-02 200 Right Right 1966-07-07 57 John Wetteland 6-02 195 Right Right 1966-08-21 47 Gabe White 6-02 200 Left Left 1971-11-20 # Catchers Height Weight Throws Bats Date Of Birth 24 Darrin Fletcher 6-01 199 Right Left 1966-10-03 2 Tim Spehr 6-02 200 Right Right 1966-07-02 25 Lenny Webster 5-09 191 Right Right 1965-02-10 # Infielders Height Weight Throws Bats Date Of Birth 23 Juan Bell 5-11 176 Right Right 1968-03-29 15 Freddie Benavides 6-02 180 Right Right 1966-04-07 5 Sean Berry 5-11 210 Right Right 1966-03-22 12 Wil Cordero 6-02 190 Right Right 1971-10-03 30 Cliff Floyd 6-04 230 Right Left 1972-12-05 4 Jeff Gardner 5-11 165 Right Left 1964-02-04 3 Mike Lansing 6-00 180 Right Right 1968-04-03 39 Randy Milligan 6-01 228 Right Right 1961-11-27 # Outfielders Height Weight Throws Bats Date Of Birth 18 Moises Alou 6-03 190 Right Right 1966-07-03 7 Lou Frazier 6-02 175 Right Both 1965-01-26 9 Marquis Grissom 5-11 210 Right Right 1967-04-17 33 Larry Walker 6-03 235 Right Left 1966-12-01 22 Rondell White 6-01 205 Right Right 1972-02-23
Post by Micah (White Sox GM) on Jan 6, 2016 10:49:05 GMT -5
I really think Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, Bagwell, Griffey, McGwire, and Sosa deserve to be in.
I didn't honestly put a lot of analysis into the last 3, as differentiating between the borderline cases is quite tough, as has been already mentioned. I didn't end up voting for any closers, but Hoffmann probably deserves it and I can see the arguments for Wagner and Smith. I really like the arguments for Raines, Trammell, Edmonds, Mussina, Sheffield and even Kent and Schilling too. Instead I went for Walker, McGriff, and Martinez. Their careers seem to be a bit underrated for whatever reason, but they were always among the best hitters year after year.
My opinion (this is from an Astros fan that grew up watching the Biggio/Bagwell era)
Bagwell (one of my favorite players) should have been in a long time ago. I wish he would have gone in last year with Biggio. But letting him have his own day will be good too. I still don't understand how Frank Tomas got in last year and Bagwell didn't. Bonds/Clemens - both were great players, but i'm pretty indifferent if they make it in or not. (I did vote for them here) Griffey - probably a shoe-in this year (not too sure why), I remember his Reds years and him being hurt a lot. Piazza - probably best hitting catcher ever, should have already been in. Schilling - always liked the way he pitched. Consider him to be the best pitcher on the ballot except for Clemens. Wagner/Hoffman - I have a feeling Hoffman will get in. But I remember seeing Wagner pitch in his prime. It would seem like no one could hit anything off of him (This is the Astros fan coming out of me again). I think he was the better closer overall, just did not play as long.
Other folks I considered. Walker - too much of a Coors field product. Edmunds - what I remember of him was a couple of lucky catches and hits. Had injury problems like Griffey McGuire/Sosa - too much of a 1 trick pony. Only hit homeruns. Trammel/Rains/Martinez/Mussina - I don't know that much about them. Seems like they are all border line hall of famers.
More thoughts/ranting...I still do not understand how Biggio was not a first ballot hall of famer. I will be very interested to see what happens when Jeter hits the ballot. His stats are very similar to Biggio's. Will he be a shoe in his first ballot, or will he have to wait for several years too? I'm not anti-Jeter, but I don't believe that playing for the Yankees should automatically put you above other people.
Something that might have hurt Biggio was, IIRC, he spent his first 2-3 seasons as a catcher before he was shifted to 2B.
Sort of interesting to note, when Biggio moved from behind the plate, the Astros had a hole at catcher. They traded with the Indians for Eddie Taubensee, who by all accounts, was not a bad catcher, just not a great one. The player sent for Eddie? A young Kenny Lofton.
If Biggio stayed behind the plate, odds are his career would have been shorter, it would have sapped his speed more ( he was actually pretty fleet as a young catcher) and he would have played fewer games in a season as most catchers do. However, the Astros, then still in the NL, wouldn't have needed a catcher, and maybe they hold onto Lofton. Imagine a young pre injury Lofton hitting leadoff, in front of Steve Finley, Biggio, Bagwell and Caminiti.
Just a pretty interesting times for the Astros period. They won the Glen Davis trade, getting Curt Schilling, Steve Finley and Pete Harsnich for a veteran first baseman whose career got derailed by vertigo. They won the Larry Anderson/Jeff Bagwell trade. But losing Lofton and then big ticket/big dollar contracts to Doug Drabek and Greg Swindell just sort of choked out that team.
As for Biggio versus Jeter, Jeter by staying at short is compared to shortstops, a historically weaker offensive position on the whole. If he had moved to the outfield or 2nd or 3rd mid career, I think he's still make it, but he'd be compared to guys who had more speed and more power. Jeter staying at short was and is great for his HOF resume, however his defense towards the end was really in question and I think it's fair to ask if he was hurting his team. I mean even Cal Ripken moved off of short near the end. There's also the post season resume. Part of Jeters career, the Yankees still had many of the big market advantages to buy a lot of help for their roster, and near the end, pure expansion of the playoffs. Biggio had a lot of weaker teams and didn't get that post season luster that seems to help the HOF resume.
Maybe it goes back to the old truism, it's always great to be good, but sometimes its better to be lucky. Jeter was really very lucky in his career, coming up as a rookie during the Yankees 90s dynasty phase with a huge bankroll and a large market. If Biggio was a Yankee or a Red Sox, maybe it would all be different.
As for Frank Thomas, there were always unpleasant rumors about him during the PEDS/Juice era, a lot of them asking if Thomas sold out other players in private to keep his name out of the report. There were also, IIRC, some unpleasant rumors at the time regarding Nolan Ryan and Cal Ripken, and that MLB just buried them for those players, seen as too iconic to allow to be tarnished and ever hope to win back the fans.
I remember Bobby Bonds was being interviewed, and he said even he couldn't get his son to budge on things. That one time, IIRC, some people in the media wanted Barry Bonds do a meet and greet with kids of 9/11 victims, and Barry said no, and that Barry would never do the little things just to make his life easier with the media. And that they went after him accordingly, whenever possible. In that regard, I think all HOF cases, outside of the slam dunks like a Nolan Ryan, that ride the fringe, that sometimes it does come down to your relationship with the general media, esp the ones that are HOF voters. If you are an easy quote, you are accessible and maybe you pass some inside dirt, they go easy on you when you slump or hit a scandal and maybe stump for you during HOF time. If you give them nothing and keep making everything a grudge match, I guess you get what happened to Barry Bonds, pretty much no mercy.
Actors openly campaign and lobby for Oscars, sadly I can see some components of the process just boil down to pure interpersonal politics.
Post by Kevin (Guardians GM) on Jan 7, 2016 0:24:37 GMT -5
After living in San Diego for 8 years and having season tix for a while, glad to see Hoffman do so well. He was just plain dominate for so long. I think he could be in next two years for sure.
Post by Micah (White Sox GM) on Jan 7, 2016 9:50:45 GMT -5
Looks like we would have voted in Griffey, Bagwell, and Piazza, not far away from what the BBWAA did. (16 votes is 75% of 21 voting) However we narrowly missed on Bonds and he has a ways to go yet...
