Hall of fame ballot

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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby vintagebrett » January 6th, 2010, 8:15 pm

It's unfortunate that "tradition" plays a larger role than logic in determining who should be in the Hall of Fame.

This time of year is always painful for people who appreciate logic - you have your choice, Hall of Fame selection or the BCS.
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby ebbets55 » January 6th, 2010, 9:01 pm

I like Murph's point of view. It went down fine in my opinion. Rob, I really did a number on my old man about Blyleven. It was my most convincing argument yet and it worked. Sorry.

If anyone wants a copy of the actual HOF Ballot, drop me an e-mail. I just PDF'd my copy and would be happy to send it.

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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby Number9 » January 6th, 2010, 10:33 pm

Cool. I'd definitely like to see that JD. Please send one along.

I completely agree with the logic behind each player getting a single shot at entrance, but, in practical terms, I really like that they have longer. True, the stats don't change but the circumstances surrounding the election, as well as the perspectives on their careers do. When the "scary" hitters of today are all linked in with steroids; Jim Rice looks a whole lot more impressive. When "the greatest reliever of all time" (Mariano Rivera - HA!) pitches one inning every three days for twelve years; Goose Gossage looks a whole lot better as someone who can come in whenever needed and throw three innings. Next year, hopefully, as we struggle through another season watching pitchers on pitch counts and five days rest struggle to be effective, I expect someone like Blyleven to stand out even further. Guys like him look better after the twelfth round of elections because guys like him don't exist anymore. Pitchers don't pitch anymore. They rest. I like that that change in perspective can happen under the current system.
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby vintagebrett » January 6th, 2010, 10:57 pm

Number9, good points - I agree. I just don't think it's logical for a voter to say I'm not voting for him the first year but I will the second. I think that the votes should be made public and if asked, each voter should have to give their reasons for voting/not-voting for a certain player. If their answer is "I don't vote anyone the first time" they should lose their voting privilege.
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby Number9 » January 6th, 2010, 11:14 pm

Transparency is reasonable. Most active writers do a story on their votes anyway. I agree with you on the rogue reporter theory, but, I like when the truly special player(s) get the stage all to themselves. So in that circumstance, I don't mind them holding back a vote. Gwynn and Ripken together was nice. It wouldn't have been the same if it was Gwynn, Ripken, and a borderline guy. That's just me. I also line up all the forks in my silverware drawer.

I don't think the guy who left Buck O'Neil off the ballot would appreciate his name being known though! The Hall of Fame has that info locked up.
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby vintagebrett » January 8th, 2010, 2:06 pm

Coincidence or not, there was new book at the library yesterday called "Cooperstown Confidential." I checked it out because it looked intriguing - about 1/3 through it so far and I've found it very interesting. Not written by a baseball writer so it has some objectivity to it. Will report more when I finish.
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby murphusa » January 8th, 2010, 5:17 pm

Hey if you take my point of view Joe DiMaggio would not be in the HOF

But I think almost 1/3rd of those in the Hall don't belong. It should be there for the players who were far and above better than the other players for at least a period of 7 to 10 years. I want the game changers in the Hall, not someone who one hit 268 for his lifetime. If you are going to bat below 300 you betteer have 500 or more home runs.

I want the dominate play of the day, not just a good player. I don't want the heart and soul, I want the best. I want the player that I wait for to come to bat, I want the pitcher I go to buy a ticket for the game to see him pitch. Not the guy who goes 15 wins and 14 loses in a year I want the 24 and 7 guy

Tinkers, Evers and Chance great story but not HOFers, Kiner, come on, Ashburn, close but no cigar, I would go as far as say Snider was boarderline, he couldn't hit a lefty to save his life.

The ideal would be 5 years of eligibility and that's it
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby vintagebrett » January 9th, 2010, 2:05 pm

Finished the book - interesting and informative - didn't agree with everything the author had to say but I could see his line of thinking. I didn't realize that many of the players in the Hall of Fame were selected by their cronies in the 60's and 70's. Lot of interesting political things within the committee and the First Family of Cooperstown. It was eye opening to say the least.

I agree with murphusa, only the best of the best should be in. However, because of the cronyism that allowed players in that didn't really belong, potential inductees have the argument "well so and so is and and my stats are comparable or better."

On a side note, but somewhat on topic, if you read Bill Simmons' book on basketball, he has a very interesting take on how a hall of fame should be built - pyramid style.
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby GloveCrazy » June 13th, 2010, 8:23 pm

Thanks for the feeback on the book, Brett. Pretty interesting.

I actually agree with MurphUSA, too, about only wanting the best of the best. I think the challenge harks back to the word "best" being so very subjective, so we need to look to other things to help define it. Good or bad what we seem to have is a handful of important key statistics for pitchers and hitters, a handful of lesser important ones, and a bar set by previous voting (certainly influenced by tons of lobbying and factors outside the key stats). I hope that decisions are never made to lower the bar, and I'm even ok with sort of wanting a little bit above the bar (to make sure it isn't lowered), but some people suggest we should ignore the bar which I'm 100% against. Why punish future eras?

In the discussion of Blyleven I provided a link to comparable pitchers from his era (and historical). I had people debating Blyleven with me behind the scenes who eventually told me they didn't bother to look at the link. That was fascinating to me, but in a sense not so hard to believe based on the history of HOF voting. Maybe that's one of the reasons why it takes longer for some people to get in, but they eventually get in.

Another factor to this is that even with numbers there are ones that you can control and ones that you can only influence. For a pitcher, strikouts, walks, era, and to a lesser degree complete games are the ONLY ones in your control. Wins are not because you cannot control how many runs your team scores, and to a lesser degree what the relievers do behind you. We can argue about many things, but we should be able to agree in the concept that some pitcher's win totals were significantly assisted by the production of their teams and some were significantly hampered, right?

The worst part about this scenario is that all-star selections and Cy Young voting have historically been heavily weighted on wins. In effect, if a player played on poor scoring teams he likely made less all-star teams and placed lower in Cy Young voting (triple jeopardy). Modern statistics can normalize comparisons between scoring teams and non scoring ones and they look VERY favorable to some players (especially Blyleven). Catfish Hunter who most everyone thinks was one of the "best" was significantly helped by playing on the A's and Yankees. I'm not saying Catfish Hunter doesn't belong (he does belong), but a reasonable argument based on modern statistics suggests that Blyleven was a better pitcher. He certainly was on the things within his control (and not just compared to Hunter).

Similarly for hitters, average and homeruns are the ones mostly in your contol. Runs Batted In require base runners. Also, there has been a historical bias to teams that have had post season success, which I think should be a factor, but again mostly outside of one person's control in this team sport. But those are debates for another day because Blyleven has post-season success.
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby GloveCrazy » July 1st, 2010, 11:24 am

I'm not going to get ahead of myself and suggest that fellow SDSU alum Stephen Strasburg is a hall of famer just yet, but his record through five games illustrates the point I was trying to make in my previous post. After five games Strasburg's Nationals are only 2-2 in those games. When you look at his performance, however, he has an overall ERA of 2.77, a low WHIP of 1.01, and a dominant 48 to 7 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Few people would argue that Strasburg hasn't been dominant, so far, but his win/loss record is not reflective of that dominance.

In game three in particular, Strasburg threw seven complete innings, giving up only one run with 10Ks and no walks and ended up with a no-decision (team lost 2-1). The next game he went six innings giving up one run, striking out 9 with no walks in the LOSS (team lost 1-0). To put it another way, he was Blylevened in the two games (though Blyleven probably would have thrown a complete game in one of the two). I understand that games like those have a tendency to balance out over the course of the year for many teams, but not nearly as much for teams who are near the bottom in runs scored and defensive statistics.

Again, Blyleven retired THIRD all-time in strikeouts (FIRST in the modern era) with 287 wins, and losses or no-decisions in 178 Quality Starts (6 or more innings pitched with 3 or less earned runs). The more you look at his individual games the more you you see that with a little team production he would have been deep into the magical win number, but he is already there in the magical strikeout numbers (and it's statistically harder to get 3,000 strikeouts than hits). Of those who are eligible, the top 14 in strikeouts are in ... except one ... yet. Peace, out.
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby Number9 » July 1st, 2010, 2:08 pm

Rob, I love your passion for this subject. The fact that you re-opened a dying thread, twice, to back up your stance, with no argument against your earlier post is awesome.

By the way, I totally agree.
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby murphusa » July 1st, 2010, 3:32 pm

In the past week the sports radio, news and blogs in the Philly area have been pushing Jamie Moyer as a HOF candidate aligning him with Blylevan.

Sorry guys no way. pitching for 27 years doesn't cut the mustard.

But then again, I don't think about 100 of the men in the HOF belong there, including Ashburn, Maz, Cater, Phil Rizutto ans others
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby GloveCrazy » July 1st, 2010, 4:26 pm

Thanks Number 9. Murph, let's just say the we agree to disagree, which is part of what makes sports interesting to talk about at happy hour. Jamie Moyer's 2,393 strikeouts and 4.22 ERA aren't anywhere near Blyleven's 3,701 Ks and 3.21 ERA. In fact, the difference is HUGE.

Most of the other guys you mentioned weren't longevity guys, they were mostly post season stats guys, many of which were carried by other dominant players/teams, which I agree shouldn't be in. It's the Robert Horry (NBA) argument.

As for the argument about 7-10 years of dominance, I think you'd be surprised how that significantly expands the field of people you'd let in (including such phenoms as Cecil Fielder, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, and MANY others). Yes, there is a case for some of the shorter career dominant guys who had injury issues (such as a Sandy Koufax), but punishing longevity is counter to how it is supposed to work. Nobody without longevity -- or steroids -- reached the "automatic" induction thresholds.
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby GloveCrazy » September 13th, 2010, 4:49 pm

Starting with the AL Cy Young voting last year, and this year's Felix Hernandez debate, more writers are coming around to the understanding that won/loss is more of a team statistic than an individual one: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AoyQ7Wb6.K4McTrpYPuYZ1k5nYcB?slug=jp-tendegrees091210
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Re: Hall of fame ballot

Postby vintagebrett » January 5th, 2011, 1:36 pm

I wonder if glovecrazy is nervously twiddling his thumbs hoping today is finally the day for Bert? :lol:
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