111 replies to this topic

[DJ MC]

http://deadspin.com/...-now-1476310675

 

Deadspin voting is open!

 

Basically, you can vote yes or no for any or all players on the ballot. Every player with 50 percent or more of the vote will go on the submitted ballot. If more than ten players receive >50%, the top ten percentages (with total "yes" votes as a tiebreaker) will receive a place on the ballot.

 

I voted for 18 players

[PatrickDougherty]

If anyone wants to engage in a despicable act like having a say in HOF enshrinement, here's Deadspin's page where you can vote for the nominees: http://deadspin.com/...-now-1476310675

 

Results from their polling are being kept private so the seller's ballot isn't thrown out.

[DJ MC]

Having A Hall Of Fame Vote Turned Me Into A Monster

 

I think it can be taken too far. There's a line between honoring the HOF and treating it like the unapproachable Holy of Holies instead of a living, evolving cultural signifier. You can argue that journalists shouldn't be the ones to vote, but that's the system we're stuck with for the time being. And BBWAA members are not high priests. They're regular people with biases and failings and that's okay, as long as they remember that they're just offering their opinions. Having a vote doesn't make their opinions more valid. It does give them an obligation to make sure their opinions are educated and honest, and not some protest like Murray Chass voting for Jack Morris and no one else, as he's promised to do again this year.

 

Also, some great stuff from Ray Ratto in there.

[Oriole85]

CBS Sports: Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre elected to Hall of Fame

 

http://www.cbssports...seball/24369871

[DJ MC]

CBS Sports: Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre elected to Hall of Fame

 

http://www.cbssports...seball/24369871

 

Good choices, all. Although I did like the point that Calcaterra made about the Hall having an issue with PED-aided players but not so much with PED-aided managers. It's two different situations, of course, and two different voter pools, but it's still amusing on the whole.

 

They did leave the most deserving of all the candidates out, though. And that continues to be a shame, and a stain on the Hall.

[PatrickDougherty]

For anyone who voted in the Deadspin poll, are you willing to discuss your ballots (or what you can remember of them)? Arguments for and against putting someone in are more interesting when you can actually back them up with a vote.

[DJ MC]

For anyone who voted in the Deadspin poll, are you willing to discuss your ballots (or what you can remember of them)? Arguments for and against putting someone in are more interesting when you can actually back them up with a vote.

 

Like I said, I voted for basically half of the field: Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Glavine, Kent, Maddux, Martinez, McGwire, Mussina, Palmeiro, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Sosa, Thomas, Trammell, Walker. If I had to drop it to ten, I'd probably cut Walker, Trammell, Kent, Glavine, McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro and Martinez, but I believe all eight are worthy. That's the worst part of the gridlock the Hall is experiencing.

 

I would be curious if anyone who voted wanted to choose more than ten but stuck to that number as though in a real ballot.

[PatrickDougherty]

I voted for less than 10 because I didn't want to put the work in to find out anything about careers I didn't already know. I also jumped around for names that popped out at me. So I'm like a real Hall of Fame voter (even ones that don't cover baseball any more get to vote because nobody loses their vote)!

 

From what I can remember, I voted for Bonds, Piazza, Mussina, Madduz, Glavine, Schilling, Thomas, and Bagwell. I definitely voted no for Sosa and Clemens.

 

DJMC, do you have a specific reason for voting known steroid users into the Hall?

[Oriole85]

I voted for less than 10 because I didn't want to put the work in to find out anything about careers I didn't already know. I also jumped around for names that popped out at me. So I'm like a real Hall of Fame voter (even ones that don't cover baseball any more get to vote because nobody loses their vote)!

 

From what I can remember, I voted for Bonds, Piazza, Mussina, Madduz, Glavine, Schilling, Thomas, and Bagwell. I definitely voted no for Sosa and Clemens.

 

DJMC, do you have a specific reason for voting known steroid users into the Hall?

Why yes on Bonds but no on Sosa/Clemens (moreso the latter)?

[DJ MC]

I voted for less than 10 because I didn't want to put the work in to find out anything about careers I didn't already know. I also jumped around for names that popped out at me. So I'm like a real Hall of Fame voter (even ones that don't cover baseball any more get to vote because nobody loses their vote)!

 

From what I can remember, I voted for Bonds, Piazza, Mussina, Madduz, Glavine, Schilling, Thomas, and Bagwell. I definitely voted no for Sosa and Clemens.

 

DJMC, do you have a specific reason for voting known steroid users into the Hall?

 

Yes.

 

Baseball has done a very poor job overall figuring out what to make of the past two decades of baseball. There continue to be revelations of either modern PED usage or some form of precursor (baseball players and monkey testicles in the 1890s, for example) in all sports going back further and further. And the entire history of the sport is very vague when it comes to what exactly constitutes cheating, and more importantly, what constitutes morality.

 

So in my opinion, you either need to throw everything from the last two decades (where we know for a fact that there was widespread use) out, or you need to keep it all in. By everything, I mean EVERYTHING: basically, you can't vote for Cal Ripken and not vote for Barry Bonds for the Hall of Fame.

 

I've decided to keep it all in. We know some of the people who used, but even accounting for the innuendo that has done almost a libelous amount of damage to certain players we have no way of knowing who used, who didn't, who dabbled, who considered it, and so on.

 

In my mind, this now becomes just another era, and I will make my choices based on that era and how those players balance with the rest of baseball history.

[DJ MC]

Why yes on Bonds but no on Sosa/Clemens (moreso the latter)?

 

I second this question. We know Bonds just as much as we know those two.

 

In fact, the only player on the ballot we can say without a doubt we KNOW is Palmeiro, because he actually failed a test.

[Pedro Cerrano]

I voted for whoever both Joe Posnanski and DJ MC voted for. If they disagreed on any player I flipped a coin.  Heads, vote.  Tails, no vote.

[DJ MC]

I voted for whoever both Joe Posnanski and DJ MC voted for. If they disagreed on any player I flipped a coin.  Heads, vote.  Tails, no vote.

 

I knew one day you would come around! 

[PatrickDougherty]

Why yes on Bonds but no on Sosa/Clemens (moreso the latter)?

To be totally honest, for no really good reason. Actually, probably for really bad reasons. I thought Bonds was likely HOF-worthy before juicing up, so I voted for him as if to say "hey, you were good enough without all that." I didn't follow baseball until 2009, so my knowledge of Sammy Sosa is "66 home runs and a weird stint with the Orioles" and my knowledge of Clemens is "steroid d-bag," neither of which were convincing resumes without doing any extra digging.

 

Retroactively, I am going to try to justify Clemens by saying that he was average to very good for the majority of his career prior to his time with the Yankees and Houston, when he suddenly became incredible at age 36, save for a couple of incredible seasons including one sub-2.00 ERA. His ERA+ is well above 100 for every year or nearly every year of his career and he benefited from being on great teams. But that's retroactive and I took none of it into consideration when voting.

[Russ]

You're underrating Red Sox and Blue Jay Roger Clemens.

[PatrickDougherty]

Yes.

 

Baseball has done a very poor job overall figuring out what to make of the past two decades of baseball. There continue to be revelations of either modern PED usage or some form of precursor (baseball players and monkey testicles in the 1890s, for example) in all sports going back further and further. And the entire history of the sport is very vague when it comes to what exactly constitutes cheating, and more importantly, what constitutes morality.

 

So in my opinion, you either need to throw everything from the last two decades (where we know for a fact that there was widespread use) out, or you need to keep it all in. By everything, I mean EVERYTHING: basically, you can't vote for Cal Ripken and not vote for Barry Bonds for the Hall of Fame.

 

I've decided to keep it all in. We know some of the people who used, but even accounting for the innuendo that has done almost a libelous amount of damage to certain players we have no way of knowing who used, who didn't, who dabbled, who considered it, and so on.

 

In my mind, this now becomes just another era, and I will make my choices based on that era and how those players balance with the rest of baseball history.

This is a really fantastic reason. It reminds me of an article I read a while back (probably on Deadspin, my go-to for sporting news and opinion) that steroids during the steroid era could be viewed as no different than aspirin or cortisone or legal protein supplements when compared to previous eras. What they meant was: we have no way of knowing how good Willie Mays might have been if he had access to the OTC medicines or MLB-approved medicines that players can use today, or if he had the training staff that players do now. Since that sort of comparison is impossible, and we aren't adding asterisks for guys that take ibuprofen, we have to just evaluate players during the time in which they played, when we can better assume that everyone was on an even playing field, even if the playing field was changed by medicine and on a different plane than past or future generations.

 

As such, I don't preclude (probable) steroid users from entering the HOF based on that fact alone. That Sosa used steroids or a corked bat to hit 60 home runs doesn't mean he can't get in; it means that, like any other player, I need to evaluate 60+ HR in reference to that era, when a few other people hit 60+, and ask what else he did to earn enshrinement.

 

So anyway, you have a far better reason than I do, since mine is based mostly on "I don't know that guy" or "he seems like a tool." But I have a HOF vote and I can do whatever I want with it 

[PatrickDougherty]

You're underrating Red Sox and Blue Jay Roger Clemens.

I almost assuredly am.

[DJ MC]

To be totally honest, for no really good reason. Actually, probably for really bad reasons. I thought Bonds was likely HOF-worthy before juicing up, so I voted for him as if to say "hey, you were good enough without all that." I didn't follow baseball until 2009, so my knowledge of Sammy Sosa is "66 home runs and a weird stint with the Orioles" and my knowledge of Clemens is "steroid d-bag," neither of which were convincing resumes without doing any extra digging.

 

Retroactively, I am going to try to justify Clemens by saying that he was average to very good for the majority of his career prior to his time with the Yankees and Houston, when he suddenly became incredible at age 36, save for a couple of incredible seasons including one sub-2.00 ERA. His ERA+ is well above 100 for every year or nearly every year of his career and he benefited from being on great teams. But that's retroactive and I took none of it into consideration when voting.

 

Between 1986 (his first full season) and 1992 he put up a 160 ERA+. He averaged 257 innings, 239 strikeouts and had almost a 3.5:1 K/BB. He won three Cy Young Awards and finished second and third in two other seasons. He was the 1986 AL MVP and finished third in 1990.

 

He was ridiculously good even before leaving for Toronto, which is where the rumors start. He pretty much has the same argument as Bonds, in that his record through 1996 is close to Hall-of-Fame-worthy on it's own.

[DJ MC]

This is a really fantastic reason. It reminds me of an article I read a while back (probably on Deadspin, my go-to for sporting news and opinion) that steroids during the steroid era could be viewed as no different than aspirin or cortisone or legal protein supplements when compared to previous eras. What they meant was: we have no way of knowing how good Willie Mays might have been if he had access to the OTC medicines or MLB-approved medicines that players can use today, or if he had the training staff that players do now. Since that sort of comparison is impossible, and we aren't adding asterisks for guys that take ibuprofen, we have to just evaluate players during the time in which they played, when we can better assume that everyone was on an even playing field, even if the playing field was changed by medicine and on a different plane than past or future generations.

 

As such, I don't preclude (probable) steroid users from entering the HOF based on that fact alone. That Sosa used steroids or a corked bat to hit 60 home runs doesn't mean he can't get in; it means that, like any other player, I need to evaluate 60+ HR in reference to that era, when a few other people hit 60+, and ask what else he did to earn enshrinement.

 

So anyway, you have a far better reason than I do, since mine is based mostly on "I don't know that guy" or "he seems like a tool." But I have a HOF vote and I can do whatever I want with it 

 

Sosa is very interesting, because he didn't come out of nowhere. In the five years leading up to 1998, he averaged 34 home runs a year. Even if you cut out half of the home runs he hit in the five years starting in 1998, he still ends up with over 460 for his career. Basically, he would be Andre Dawson with less of a defensive reputation. He also may have played a little longer to pad his stats a little more. I don't know if that's Hall-of-Fame-worthy at that point, but I also don't think whatever effect PED use had on him was so dramatic. Add in the fact that he was facing pitchers who likely also used, and I'm perfectly willing to give him my vote.

[DJ MC]

Vote For Jack Morris (And Shut Up About Game 7 Already)

 

Now, you might say that when judging a man's career, cherry picking one of his absolute worst postseason appearances is unfair. You might also say it's obnoxious. I would definitely say that, and I'm literally in the middle of doing it. But I am super, super, super, super sick of hearing about Game 7 in 1991. If pro-Morris people can put that much weight on a game where he pitched wonderfully and clinched a World Series, I get to remind them about a game the very next year when he had exactly the same chance and got knocked out in the fifth.