103 thoughts on “WGOM’s Take on the 2014 Hall of Fame Ballot”

1. One thing I am curious about is how far behind Mussina and Schilling will be from Glavine in the BBWAA vote.

   1. Or this vote.

      1. I had 13 on my initial ballot. Nixed Mussina, Glavine, and Walker to make it fit.

         I see 14 names on the ballot at or above their respective Jpos standards (roughly, ubes' "better than the average HOFer" criterion, adjusted for position). I knocked of Rafe (Because Liar Liar), Mussina and Glavine (Because marginal and first-year), and Walker (Because Trammell).

2. Want to vote for more.

   1. This is who we would vote for, not our prediction, right?

      1. Correct.

   2. Me, too. Apparently I'm not a "small hall" guy.

      1. NEED MOAR VOTING SLOTS

         1. Seriously, I had to pare it way down and still forgot to vote for Piazza.

            1. I counted ten after keeping off Glavine and Moose for Schilling, and realized that I missed Piazza, but fixed it again.
               I think Larry Walker was that cut.

               Like bS, I kept Trammell over guys that were better than him because it's his last year.

               Might have considered McGriff and Kent and Raines and McGuire and Raffi, but I had guys clearly above them.
               And Raffi must be punished for that song...

               Definitely no room for a throwaway to Jacque or Lo Duca this year.

               1. For Schilling? Really? Isn't he just Morris 2.0?

                  1. He's a lot better than that. Ks, BBs, etc.
                     I don't remember every reason why. I decided it a while ago.
                     I know I'm probably minority on it, at least in some circles.

                     1. I would have voted for Schilling if I had more than ten picks. It was a tossup between him and Trammell.

                  2. Sure, but with 35 more rWAR. So he's almost Morris times 2.0.

                     1. Fair enough. Like AMR, I decided on him a while ago and don't' remember every reason why. I was thinking he was "fringe, but bloody sock!"

                     2. This. The Bloody Sock aside, the numbers are there for Schilling, ahead of Moose and Glavine.

                        1. Schilling's numbers really surprised me when he showed up on the ballot. It seems pretty obvious that missing the playoffs from '93 to '01 lowered his profile, and being contemporary with Clemens/Maddux/Johnson/Martinez is tough for comparisons. I think Morris would have been a total afterthought if he had to pitch when Schilling did.

      2. That is something that hopefully will be fixed for next year.

      3. I feel like I'm a fairly small Hall guy, and I could find 13 players to vote for on this ballot, plus one that fell off the ballot last year.

         1. Lofton?

            1. Yeah, Lofton. Only 7 center fielders (6 HOF'ers + Griffey) meet the JAWS bar of avg for CF, and Lofton is only 1.5 JAWS under the average of 55.7. Mays/Cobb/Speaker/Mantle raised the bar so high that Lofton seems deserving to me. I also think it says something that he made 1984 appearances in CF compared to just 50 in LF and 10 in RF.

               1. I'd like to know the median HOFer by position.

                  1. I'd like to know the median if it is just BBWAA inductees. Many/most of the veterans committee picks are filler that could really drag down the median.

                     1. sure, but they will have an impact on the mean too. Would be nice to know just how skewed that Jpos stat is.

   3. Maximum number of choices allowed: 10

      FAIL

      1. I considered allowing unlimited choices, but decided to try limiting it to ten.

3. Its been a while since we have had a poll.

   SSS so far, but I find it funny but not shocking

   'Spoiler'	SelectShow
   that Jack Morris has zero votes.

   and

   'Spoiler'	SelectShow
   Jeff Kent needs more votes! Although having Craig Biggio on the ballot makes Kent a less attractive candidate.

   1. Because washing pickup truck	SelectShow
      and because Kent is kind of a dick. I know, not supposed to be a bar, as it's not a Boy Scouts troop. But Kent just underwhelms me as a candidate. He ain't going in until Bobby Grich does, damnit.

      1. I don't like him either	SelectShow
         I think you can legitimately argue that his WAR7 is so low compared to the average for HOF 2B--35.7 compared to 44.5--that he never had a good enough peak to really be a HOF'er. He doesn't fare well in black ink or grey ink, so maybe he won't get enough votes in the end. Grich is more than qualified in my book.

         1. Jay Jaffe had a read-worthy article in SI on Kent a couple weeks ago.

            “I hated third,” [Kent] says. It showed. Once, after a Shea Stadium ball girl backhanded a foul ball, a fan shouted, “Hey, Kent. You should trade positions with her.” When errors — 21 in 89 games — began mounting faster than the national debt, Kent became defensive about his defense. “Bobbling a ball would so humiliate me that I couldn’t speak,” he says.

4. Moises Alou goes into the pee on your hands Hall of Fame.

   1. I had to look up Alou's stats, while not a HoF player he carved out a pretty good career. Better numbers than I expected.

      1. Hall of Very Good For a Long Time

5. Oops. I intended to vote for Glavine and not vote for Bonds. Oh well. I was voting for Clemens and Bonds when I first started voting, but then I realized I had too many votes, so I figured they could wait another year for my vote. The fact that this bunch could get only one guy through is ridiculous. The fact that the guy who might have the best chance of being the second guy through in this group has zero votes is probably even more ridiculous.

   1. I still can't understand the Bonds thing. He's a dick, for sure. But Vitamin S didn't make him a first-ballot HOFer. He was that without it. It just made him Above Pantheon.

   2. I edited the database, so you should see yourself voting for Glavine instead of Bonds now.

6. Oops. I missed Frank Thomas somehow. Dumb.

7. Of the 16 votes so far (with 160 spots on their ballots), 12 available spots have been left off.
   We're at 92.5% saturation.

   1. Three people in with four more six percentage points away.

      Edit: And one unanimous.

   2. After 20 votes, 187 votes were cast for 93.5% saturation. Four players elected by the WGOM: Maddux, Thomas, Bagwell, and Piazza.

8. Rk		YoB	%vote	HOFm	HOFs	Yrs	WAR	WAR7	JAWS	Jpos	Jdiff	OPS+	ERA+	Pos Summary
   1	Barry Bonds	2nd	36.20%	340	76	22	162.5	72.8	117.6	53.2	64.4	182		*78D/9
   2	Roger Clemens	2nd	37.60%	332	73	24	140.3	66.3	103.3	61.4	41.9	17	143	*1
   3	Greg Maddux	1st		254	70	23	106.8	56.3	81.6	61.4	20.2	5	132	*1
   7	Jeff Bagwell	4th	59.60%	150	59	15	79.5	48.2	63.8	54	9.8	149		*3/D9
   16	Mike Piazza	2nd	57.80%	207	62	16	59.2	43.1	51.1	43.1	8	143		*2D3
   8	Frank Thomas	1st		194	60	19	73.6	45.3	59.5	54	5.5	156		*D*3
   6	Curt Schilling	2nd	38.80%	171	46	20	79.9	49	64.4	61.4	3	-9	127	*1
   11	Alan Trammell	13th	33.60%	118	40	20	70.3	44.6	57.5	54.7	2.8	110		*6D5/478
   4	Mike Mussina	1st		121	54	18	83	44.5	63.8	61.4	2.4	1	123	*1
   12	Tim Raines	7th	52.20%	90	47	23	69.1	42.2	55.6	53.2	2.4	123		*78D4/9
   5	Tom Glavine	1st		176	52	22	81.4	44.3	62.9	61.4	1.5	22	118	*1
   10	Rafael Palmeiro	4th	8.80%	178	57	20	71.8	38.8	55.3	54	1.3	132		*3*D7/98
   13	Edgar Martinez	5th	35.90%	132	50	18	68.3	43.5	55.9	55	0.9	147		*D*5/3
   9	Larry Walker	4th	21.60%	148	58	17	72.6	44.6	58.6	58.1	0.5	141		*9387/D45
   15	Mark McGwire	8th	16.90%	170	42	16	62	41.9	52	54	-2	163		*3D/59
   14	Craig Biggio	2nd	68.20%	169	57	20	64.9	41.6	53.3	57	-3.7	112		*4*287/D9

   Sorted by JAWS minus Jpos. The "Rank" column is ranked by rWAR

   1. It's worth noting that Piazza's JAWS is 5th-best all-time for catchers, and his 51.1 beats the HOF average for catchers of 43.1 by a country mile. He's overqualified, IMO. Also regarding catchers, Mauer's WAR7 of 38.5 beats the C HOF avg WAR7 of 33.8. Basically, he already has a HOF-worthy peak, he just needs to compile for a bit (4 additional rWAR) to beat the C HOF avg JAWS.

      I guess I overlooked Palmeiro--he has a strong case (JAWS > 1B avg of 54.0), but I have trouble getting excited about first baseman in general. McGwire is borderline in my book, and I wouldn't crucify anyone for inducting him, but I don't feel particularly compelled to back him.

      1. Just goes to show you how soft all of the HOF catchers are if their WAR7 average is below that pansy Mauer's.

   2. Whoa, you changed that table a lot while I was commenting.

      1. yea, sorry about that. I realized I had to go edit it externally to do what I wanted. Preemptive initial posting.

         1. No worries, you definitely improved it.

9. My picks

   SelectShow

   Bagwell, Bonds, Clemens, Maddux, Mussina, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Thomas, Trammell. All 10 of those players meet the criterion of having a JAWS greater than the average JAWS of players at their position already in the HOF. Edgar Martinez and Tom Glavine also meet that bar, but I only had 10 votes and they were closer to the line than the others. Biggio is close enough to a HOF-average JAWS at 2B that I would at least consider voting for him if I had more votes to give. Kenny Lofton is very, very close to meeting that bar (a relatively high bar, in my opinion), and I would probably make him a HOF'er if it was up to me.

10. 'My Ballot'	SelectShow
    Bagwell, Biggio, Glavine, Maddux, Martinez, Mussina, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Thomas, Trammell, Walker Players in bold received my vote in this poll.

    'Explanation'	SelectShow
    I've decided until the Hall of Fame articulates a plan for how – as a museum – it's going to address the PEDSelig era, I will not be voting for any player with direct links to PED use.

    1. I really wish the Hall would do something about this. It's their friggin' museum, not the writer's. If they want guys like Bonds and Palmeiro in, they should say so.

       1. Right. If the Hall were to actually take a position – any position! – on how to address the era, the voters in the BBWAA would have to address the Hall's position when writing about their ballots. If the voters were overly dismissive of the Hall's position, that gives the Hall cover for changing how the voting works and who is eligible to vote.

          Mostly, though, I'm thinking about this as a historian: I'd like to see somebody finally tackle the PED era in a meaningful, nuanced way that better contextualizes it with the record book and culture of the game. History is the Hall of Fame's sole reason for existing.

          1. Mostly, though, I'm thinking about this as a historian

             Dude, it's a Cash Grab strategy. If they just wanted to be a history museum, there would be no HOF selection process at all. The very point of election is marketing.

             1. I won't deny that the Hall makes a pretty penny from the inductions. But people wouldn't continue to go to Cooperstown every year to see relics of ballplayers their grandparents never even saw play unless the history means something.

                1. I'm just saying that the baseball museum doesn't need a Hall of Fame to attract visitors and do its job of telling history.

                   From the Repository:

                   The Hall of Fame was founded in 1939 by Stephen Carlton Clark, the owner of a local hotel. Clark sought to bring tourists to a city hurt by the Great Depression, which reduced the local tourist trade, and Prohibition, which devastated the local hops industry.
                   ...

                   According to the Hall of Fame, approximately 300,000 visitors enter the museum each year,[1] and the running total has surpassed 14 million. These visitors see only a fraction of its 38,000 artifacts, 2.6 million library items (such as newspaper clippings and photos) and 130,000 baseball cards.[1]

                   However, the Hall has seen a noticeable decrease in attendance in recent years. A 2013 story on ESPN.com about the village of Cooperstown and its relation to the game partially linked the reduced attendance with Cooperstown Dreams Park, a youth baseball complex about 5 miles (8 km) away in the town of Hartwick. The 22 fields at Dreams Park currently draw 17,000 players each summer for a week of intensive play; while the complex includes housing for the players, their parents and grandparents must stay elsewhere. According to the story,[27]

                   Prior to Dreams Park, a room might be filled for a week by several sets of tourists. Now, that room will be taken by just one family for the week, and that family may only go into Cooperstown and the Hall of Fame once. While there are other contributing factors (the recession and high gas prices among them), the Hall's attendance has tumbled since Dreams Park opened. The Hall drew 383,000 visitors in 1999. It drew 262,000 last year.

11. That Jacque vote is mine...couldn't help myself.

    1. I almost did the same thing, so no complaints will come from me.

       1. Glad to see someone did.
          I certainly would have were it not for the huge list of others.
          I would have voted for Radke when he was up, no matter what though.

12. Man - If you really want to see some passion about Morris...well, anti-Morris in the HOF - read through some of JS's comments in this post.

    A sample of his work:

    Quote: "Sabermetrics only exists to skew an argument in the direction that the sabermetrician wants it to go."
    This is a disgustingly baseless and false claim! You are gross and sick and disgusting and putridly ignorant for suggesting such a thing!

    I find it funny that idiots think that anyone who knows how to read statistics is someone who never watches games.

    Anyone who said that Jack Morris was the best pitcher of the 1980's is just a jackazzhole.

    Statistics like WAR, which you are too feeble minded to understand, you declare as "made-up" and meaningless.

    You are a stupid idiot to say that WAR is a "made up" stat.

    KT,
    I rarely call people names on the internet, but you're testing me with your level of ignorance. Morris was no where near as good a pitcher as Blyleven

    1. Not a made-up stat? Where does it come from, then? Is it the fruit of the WAR bush? OF COURSE it is "made-up"!!!!!

       1. In fairness, he clarifies in a later post to say that every stat, down to hits and at bats is "made up", but yeah... he's not exactly a shining beacon of level-headed wisdom.

    2. I enjoyed this ringing endorsement from one of Morris' longtime Detroit teammates.

    3. That was a fun rabbit hole to fall down for a half an hour this morning.

       So much bile.

       1. Someone needs to show BBall where the enter key is.

          1. I laughed aloud at the one post in particular, but JS clearly read it all, because he found about twenty things to call BBall an idiotic fool about in that word salad.

    4. He's got some good data in there on the pro-Schilling side.

       The next statistic is Adjusted Pitching Runs. This measures how many runs a pitcher prevented versus the league average pitcher. It adjusts for the league ERA as well as for the ballpark. So there doesn't need to be any stupid arguing over DH league or no DH league with this statistic.

       Most APR by a pitcher not in Cooperstown

       Roger Clemens 708
       Greg Maddux 531
       Randy Johnson 496
       Pedro Martinez 485
       Curt Schilling 354
       Mike Mussina 345
       Mariano Rivera 334
       John Smoltz 327
       Tom Glavine 310
       Roy Halladay 310
       Kevin Brown 307

       Emphasis added.

       1. Yep, Martinez looks like the cutoff.

          1. Martinez doesn't at all look like the cut-off. He's 9th all-time in that statistic and there are 57 starting pitchers in the HOF. I don't know anyone who advocates that small of a Hall. The next 6 HOF'ers below Schilling in APR are Amos Rusie, Bob Gibson, Jim Palmer, Whitey Ford, Bert Blyleven, and Bob Feller--not exactly marginal HOF'ers.

             APR's not really my metric of choice, but Schilling seems plenty qualified to me. It's also worth mentioning that by APR, Clemens, Maddux, Johnson, and Martinez are 4 of the top 10 pitchers of all-time.

             1. Because sarcasm.

             2. Rhu_Ru's just a really small hall guy.

    5. My main beef with Morris is that even if you don't want to believe in fancy-pants stats, his case still seems weak to me. 0 CYA. 0 MVP awards. His Black Ink is only 20, with HOF'ers usually around 40. For someone famed in pitching deep into games, he only led the league in CG once in his entire career. For someone who was all about winning games, and led his league in wins twice, he falls well short of 300 wins, with 254--33 fewer than Blyleven, who pitched on crappier teams. His 3.90 ERA seems barely worth mentioning.

       I think there should be a really cool display at the hall for the '91 WS, too, but his HOF case just seems like so much of a stretch.

       1. sadly, it seems increasingly likely he will get in, mainly as an EFF-YOU at Clemens and Bonds by the buffalo heads in the BBWAA.

          1. I'm going the other way. I think he loses out. We need a prediction segment.

             1. Hastily written post posted.

             2. I agree. Too many others to vote for now instead.

    6. I've read through most of that now, and wow, if I was in that site putting a case out there based on evidence I'd end up pissed off and vulgar too. (Post #57 should be the new standard for hall of fame selection. That would be fantastic.)

       1. Re: #57
          Watching ESPN several (5+?) years ago and the host asked the question, "Who would you pick for Game 7: Pedro in his prime or Josh Beckett." Skip Bayless picked Beckett. I wonder if he's the next Morris when he makes it on the ballot.

          1. Skip Bayless has to learn a lot more than he already knows to be considered a Know-nothing. I just saw someone retweet something last weekend from Skippy from January 2012. In effect, he said that Tebow > Luck because Tebow has "it" and Luck doesn't. Ok, Skip.

       2. Wow now I read more.
          #68 is a great example of ad hominem if I've ever read one, maybe too obvious?

          #95 "Not a single one of my statements was stupid and I have the utmost credibility."
          /Drops mic

          Looks like a fun place to visit, but I could never live there.

          1. It really might just be the internet done to perfection.

          2. "Not a single one of my statements was stupid and I have the utmost credibility."

             That is an epic epitaph. It should be the motto of the JG Taylor Spink Award.

       3. I think that standard's unfair to relief pitchers. No one ever knows when they're going to get the call, so they don't put many butts in the seats.

          1. Well, life in general is unfair to relief pitchers.

13. This is fun, even for someone like me that doesn't give a darn about the Hall. I'm in on the top 7, plus Sosa, McGwire and Glavine. Walker and Mussina were my final cuts.

14. 23 votes, and Maddux is still at 100 %

    1. If we can get one more voter to participate and include Bonds and Clemons, they're in!

       1. They're in. You're welcome.

          1. Six players in! That beats the BBWAA's record of five in the inaugural vote.

    2. Not anymore. Ken Gurnick's ballot is only Jack Morris. That's it. Jack Morris and nine empty slots. Awful.

       1. That's why we don't let Ken Gurnick vote here.

          teh Stoopid! It burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnsssssssssssssssssss!

       2. Anyone who hands in a "statement" ballot should be excluded from future votes.

          I get that the actual non-museum portion of the Hall of Fame is a frivolity to any right-thinking fan, but the point in all of this is that the Hall takes itself seriously, so why would it allow itself to be decided upon by those who don't take the process seriously?

          1. Because can't bite hand that feeds the publicity machine.

             1. Obviously, but it just seems so... transparent. I don't know know why any fan would take it seriously, other than some half-baked sense of tradition.

                1. You do recall that "fan" derives from "fanatic", right? 😉

       3. Does anyone think jokers like this Gurnick guy give Morris a bad name?
          I mean, its your right as a voter to vote who you want, but only voting for Morris when there are at least 5 no brainers not only makes the voter look foolish, but by extension Morris. Maybe I am over thinking it.

15. You know what would be cool? To have Maddux and Glavine snubbed until Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz can all go in together.

16. I think that my favorite part about this exercise is that Jack Morris has 0 votes.

    1. The statistical case aside, I think Morris's WGOM Hall case is severely damaged by many of us having heard him on the radio.

       1. But we've all heard Bert on the TV and we all pretty much supported his case.

          1. That's why I just said damaged instead of destroyed.

       2. If we're going to talk about damaging his case off the field, allow me to point to the tears he cried when signing his contract with Minnesota and his subsequent vanishing act about 2 minutes after the last out of the 1991 World Series, opting out of his contract and signing elsewhere.

          I'm all for players maximizing their revenues. But, Jack's performance was just a little offensive to my sensibilities.

          1. I was always bothered by that, too. If you want to go where the money is, fine. I have no problem with ballplayers, or anybody else for that matter, making as much money as they can as long as it's legal and ethical. But it offended me that he spent all of 1991 telling us how much it meant to him to play for his hometown team and then left as soon as someone waved more money under his nose.

17. So now that we've voted, how about another survey on who we think will get in. Maybe also with a bonus, what will Jack Morris' percentage be.

    1. as of 4:15 Eastern, the Gizmo has 161 ballots (28.3 pct of last year's turnout). Three candidates have 90+ pct (Maddux, Glavine, Thomas) and one more (Biggio) is well above the 75 pct threshold. Piazza (67 pct) needs a big run to make it this year. Seems increasingly likely that there will be four and only four elected.

       1. Hey, beats last year, no matter what.

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