Welcome to the second annual Bill James Online Hall of Fame vote.
Below I’ve listed the candidates on this year’s baseball Hall of Fame ballot, along with a few thoughts about the players. Read them over and then, in the comments section of the article, cast a ballot for the players you’d like to vote for.
You can vote for up to ten players on your ballot. Please cast only one ballot. Sometime in mid-January, I’ll tally the votes and announce who the BJOL readers would elect to the Hall of Fame.
Let the voting begin.
Looking Back: 2009
Before we get to this year’s ballot, a quick look back at last year’s voting. During the inaugural BJOL Hall of Fame vote, readers cast ballots for the players listed on the real Hall-of-Fame ballot. The results from last year’s vote are tallied below:
|
Name
|
%
|
# of votes
|
|
Rickey Henderson
|
100%
|
63
|
|
Tim Raines
|
89%
|
56
|
|
Bert Blyleven
|
86%
|
54
|
|
Alan Trammell
|
76%
|
48
|
|
Mark McGwire
|
64%
|
40
|
|
Andre Dawson
|
21%
|
13
|
|
Tommy John
|
18%
|
11
|
|
Dale Murphy
|
17%
|
11
|
|
Lee Smith
|
14%
|
9
|
|
Don Mattingly
|
10%
|
6
|
|
Jack Morris
|
10%
|
6
|
|
Jim Rice
|
6%
|
4
|
|
Harold Baines
|
5%
|
3
|
|
Dave Parker
|
5%
|
3
|
|
Jesse Orosco
|
3%
|
2
|
|
David Cone
|
2%
|
1
|
|
Mo Vaughn
|
2%
|
1
|
|
Jay Bell
|
0%
|
0
|
|
Ron Gant
|
0%
|
0
|
|
Mark Grace
|
0%
|
0
|
|
Dan Plesac
|
0%
|
0
|
|
Greg Vaughn
|
0%
|
0
|
|
Matt Williams
|
0%
|
0
|
Rickey Henderson was a unanimous selection by the BJOL readers, and Tim Raines, Bert Blyleven, and Alan Trammell all reached the 75% needed for admission.
We have a new ballot this year. After some thought, I decided to cut out Raines, Blyleven, and Trammell from the new list: whatever the real Hall of Fame says, we here at the BJOL have reached a concensus on them. As far as this site is concerned, they’re Hall-of-Famers.
2010 Hall of Fame Ballot
Roberto Alomar – 2724 Hits, 504 2B, 210 HR, 474 SB, .300 BA, 12 Gold Gloves
Roberto Alomar, during the 1992 ALCS, was about as exciting a player as any I’ve seen in baseball. He was, well, electric: he hit .423 during the series, with five stolen bases and two homeruns, including a shot off Oakland closer Dennis Eckersley to tie Game 4 in the 9th inning. He seemed everywhere during those games, and he played with a startling grace: playing baseball seemed easy to him. Rickey Henderson played in that series, and Alomar seemeedwas a new version of Henderson. It was obvious that Alomar was the future of the game; that he was on his way to becoming the next great second baseman. Anyway, I always rooted for him after that series.
Alomar arrived in Toronto with Joe Carter in 1991, as part of a trade that sent Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez to the Padres. It was a blockbuster in every sense: the four players involved were all All-Star caliber players, all big names in baseball. They were young players: Joe Carter was the oldest of the bunch: he’d turn thirty-one in 1991. Fernandez was 29, McGriff was 27, and Alomar was 23.
Alomar finished sixth in the AL MVP vote during each of his first three seasons with the Jays, who made the postseason all three years, winning back-to-back World Series Championships. That’s a neat trick, finishing sixth each year: When I saw that I thought: “Well, his numbers must have improved each year, because otherwise the voters wouldn’t keep putting him so high.” And it’s true: Alomar’s numbers increased in almost every category from 1991-1993. And, of course, the Jays kept winning.
Like Joe Morgan, the teams that had Alomar tended to win: the Padres were 65-97 before Alomar joined them, and then they won 83 and 89 wins with their young second sacker. When Robbie left for the Jays, the Padres slipped back under .500, going 75-87 without him.
The Jays went from 86 wins without Robbie to 91 wins with him, and then Toronto won two straight World Championships. When Alomar went to the Orioles, he helped what was a sub-.500 team win 88 games in 1996 and 98 in 1997. The Cleveland Indians won 89 games without Alomar 1998: when they acquired him in 1999 they won 97 games.
In 1996, when he was with Baltimore, Alomar spit in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck, and then made a few crass remarks about Hirschbeck’s family life. There is certainly no excuse for boorish behavior, and it is worth noting that some accounts suggest that Hirschbeck deserves equal blame for escalating the situation with a few choice words of his own. It is worth noting, however, that Alomar was quick to offer amends to Hirschbeck, and that the two came to regard one another as friends.
Alomar is one of the ten greatest second basemen of all-time. He was a five-tool player, a player who excelled in every single facet of the game. He was a good percentage player: he totaled more than one thousand walks and stole 474 bases with an 80% success rate. Even by the strictest of measures, Roberto Alomar is a Hall-of-Famer.
Kevin Appier – 169-137, 3.74 ERA, 1994 strikeouts.
The fourth winningest Royal in team history, behind Paul Splittorff (166), Dennis Leonard (144), Mark Gubzica (132) Appier won 115 games for the Royals. He is first in career strikeouts and leads all Royal pitchers with 1000+ inning pitched in Adjusted ERA (130), as his 3.49 ERA is better, considering contexts, than Saberhagen’s 3.21 ERA.
Appier finished 3rd in the 1993 AL Cy Young Award voting , behind Jack McDowell and Randy Johnson. Appier led the AL in ERA with a 2.56 mark, which was thirty-eight points ahead of the second-place finisher, Wilson Alvarez. Neither McDowell (3.37) nor Randy Johnson (3.24) finished in the top-ten in ERA that year, but McDowell won 22 games and Johnson notched 308 strikeouts, and both pitchers threw about seventeen more innings than Appier.
Harold Baines – 2866 Hits, 384 HR, 1628 RBI, .289 BA, 120 OPS+
Harold Baines never hit thirty home runs in a single season, yet he hit 384 during his career. He passed the 100 RBI mark just three times, but he collected 1628 RBI during his career, more than George Brett or Rogers Hornsby or Harmon Killebrew. He passed 30 doubles just twice, but has 488 on his career count. He collected 175 hits exactly once in twenty-two seasons, but he finished just shy of 3000. The ultimate compiler of numbers.
Baines has collected 5% of the BBWAA vote in each of the three seasons he’s been on the ballot. It will be interesting to see if the arrival of another DH will change that outcome.
Ellis Burks – 402 2B, 352 HR, 181 SB, .291 BA
I remember when Ellis came up in 1987: that was a “youth movement” year for the Red Sox; a year when it seemed like the Red Sox were bubbling with young talent. In 1987, a year removed from a World Series loss, the Red Sox had Burks and Mike Greenwell and Sam Horn and Todd Benzinger and Jody Reed and some guy named Clemens, all under the age of twenty-five. The future seemed bright.
They won the AL East in 1988 and 1990, but were swept by the A’s both years, and by 1992 they were a lousy team waiting for another transfusion of youth.
Burks was the most exciting of the lot: he had early success where guys like Horn didn’t, and he sure seemed to have it all: speed and power and a good glove in center. Eric Davis was a popular player then, and I think most of us kids in Boston thought Ellis would be our version of Eric Davis.
Burks was one of two young outfielders who had good power/speed years in 1987:
|
|
Age
|
R
|
H
|
2B
|
HR
|
RBI
|
SB
|
BB
|
BA
|
|
Player 1
|
22
|
94
|
152
|
30
|
20
|
59
|
27
|
41
|
.272
|
|
Player 2
|
22
|
99
|
144
|
34
|
25
|
59
|
32
|
54
|
.261
|
Player 1 is Ellis Burks, who didn’t receive a single ROY vote (1987 was a bumper crop for rookie seasons). Player 2 is Barry Bonds.
Andre Dawson – 2774 Hits, 438 HR, 1591 RBI, .279 BA, .323 OPS, 314 SB, 8 Gold Gloves, 1987 MVP
Andre Dawson will eventually be elected to the baseball Hall of Fame. When he is, Dawson will have the worst on-base percentage of any outfielder ever elected.
Let’s go into that a little further: since 1901, 492 players have played 1000 or more games as outfielders. Of those 492, Dawson ranks 419th in career on-base percentage. His .423 mark ties him with Darren Lewis, Kevin Bass, Lee May, Jackie Brandt, Wally Post, and Red Murray.
That’s alright, I suppose. It’s absurd that he’ll be elected before Tim Raines, but it’ll be nice to have another Expo in the Hall. And he had a great nickname, “The Hawk.” And although he was a terrible MVP selection in 1987, Dawson was a fine player in the early 1980’s, before his knees came apart. He never met a pitch he didn’t like, but he was a fine outfielder and a good runner.
Andres Galarraga – 2333 Hits, 399 HR, 1425 RBI, .288 BA, 1993 Batting Champ
So you have Andre and Andres. The Hawk and the Big Cat. Dawson came up with the Expos and then moved to the Cubs at the age of 32, where his numbers went through the roof in the friendly confines of Wrigley. Galarraga came up with the Expos and then moved to the Rockies at the age of 32, where he hit .370 in Coors, winning the batting title and later posting three straight 40-homer seasons. Neither player walked a lot; both guys struck out three times for every base on balls.
Pat Hentgen – 131-112, 4.32 ERA, 1996 AL Cy Young
It’s hard to tell Halladay from Hentgen…in his 1996 Cy Young season, Hentgen was 20-10, with a 3.22 ERA in 265 IP, while leading the AL in shutouts (3) and complete games (10). In Roy Halladay’s 2003 Cy Young season, Doc was 22-7 with a 3.25 ERA in 266 IP. He also led the AL in shutouts (2) and complete games (9).
Creepy, eh?
Mike Jackson – 62-67, 3.42 ERA, 142 Saves
The historic bridge between Cleveland closers Jose Mesa and Steve Karsay.
Eric Karros – 1724 hits, 284 HR, 1027 RBI, .268 BA, 1992 ROY
Eric Karros never played in an All-Star game.
That’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, Karros was never a great player, but he was pretty good for a long time. He was the Rookie-of-the-Year in 1992, and he played first base for a high-profile team. He had five years of 30 homers/100 RBI’s, which has always been All-Star-like, even during the 1990’s. Does anyone know of another player with five 30/100 seasons who never made an All-Star team?
I thought maybe Karros was a slow starter, the way that Mark Teixeira has been, but he actually posted better first-half numbers during his career.
Ray Lankford – 238 HR, 258 SB, .272 BA
Lankford, the Cardinals centerfielder for most of the 1990’s, was Ellis Burks without the terrific home parks: both men were fast centerfielders who developed some power as they aged; good players, but not Hall-of-Fame caliber players. Burks’ career road line was .279/.352/.480; Lankford’s career line was .273/.364/.480.
Barry Larkin – 2340 Hits, 198 HR, 379 SB, .295 BA, 116 OPS+, 3 Gold Gloves, 1996 MVP
Like Alomar, any question of Larkin’s place in the Hall of Fame centers around where he ranks among the all-time greats. He is an obvious Hall-of-Famer.
Larkin was probably a better defensive shortstop than he is given credit for: he just happened to come along at a time when Ozzie Smith was given the award annually. Having just made a cursory glance at the annual Gold Glove winners, there is about a fifty percent chance of repeating if you win a Gold Glove. I should really find out the exact percentage, but I need to get this out onto the site.
Edger Martinez – 2247 Hits, 309 HR, 1261 RBI, .312 BA, 147 OPS+
There are a few players I’d like to dedicate longer articles to, and Martinez is one of them. The idea is I’ll write a few articles on some of the more interesting or debatable players on the ballot, and give us a space to discuss their candidacy. So: there will be more on Edgar.
Don Mattingly – 2153 Hits, 222 HR, 1099 RBI, .307 BA, 127 OPS+
Last year I mentioned that Mattingly’s career batting line is very similar to Kirby Puckett’s. I think it is unlikely that Donnie Baseball will be elected by the writers, for a couple of reasons. First: his numbers, while dramatic during the 1980’s, pale in comparison to the first basemen of the next generation. Second, I think the acceptance of advanced measures will hurt his candidacy: his .307 batting average is offset by an on-base percentage of only .358. Lastly, the memory of Mattingly’s greatness is quickly fading: it will be easy to forget that he was one of the most iconic players of his time.
There are certainly more deserving candidates, but I don’t think the Hall of Fame would lose one iota of it’s credibility by having a player like Mattingly represented among its players. I don’t have a vote, but if I did I’d cast one for him.
Fred McGriff – 2490 Hits, 493 HR, 1550 RBI, 1305 BB, .284 BA, 134 OPS+
Which era do we place Fred McGriff in?
Through the age of thirty, McGriff was one of the top players in the game: from 1988 thru 1994 the Crime Dog posted adjusted OPS totals over 140 every year, finishing in the top-five in OPS each season. He seldom led the league in catagories (twice in HR, once in OPS), but McGriff was usually in the top-five in those stats we attribute to sluggardly sluggers.
But McGriff suddenly stopped being an elite slugger: his OPS+, starting in 1995, dropped from 157 to 119, then 119, then 106 and then 111 before rebounding in 1999. His numbers actually stayed the same: he still hit 25-35 homeruns, he still collected 90-100 RBI, but the players around him started getting a lot better.
I think the general belief is that McGriff was the last of the pre-steroid sluggers: the noble man adrift in a sea of HGH. If it is true of McGriff that he didn’t use steroids, and if it is true that the spike in performance of his competitors was due to steroid usage, it makes sense to view his numbers within the context of pre-steroid sluggers. By those metrics, McGriff’s 493 homeruns are more than enough to punch his ticket for the Hall of fame.
That said, there were changes in the game unrelated to steroids that caused the upswing in offense during the early 1990’s, and McGriff’s numbers were almost certainly aided by those changes: it is possible (and even likely) that the increase in offense merely disguised a precipitious dropoff in McGriff’s abilities.
Fred McGriff, on paper, looks like Mr. Consistancy: his numbers in Tampa Bay in 1999 and 2000 match almost perfectly his years in Toronto a decade earlier. But the impact of those numbers changed: posting a .269/35/96 Triple Crown line in 1989 meant that McGriff was the best hitter in the league. But posting a .277/27/106 line in 2000 was average for a first baseman. His career certainly appears consistent, but it isn’t. McGriff was a Hall-of-Fame caliber player in his twenties, but merely above average in his thirties.
Is it enough to make him a Hall-of-Famer? I don’t know. I’m curious how the vote will go for the Crime Dog.
Mark McGwire – 6 Triples, 583 HR, 1414 RBI, .263 BA, 162 OPS+, 1987 ROY
Nobody has ever hit homeruns with more frequency than Mark McGwire. Which, considering the homerun is the best possible outcome for an at-bat, makes McGwire a strong candidate for the Hall.
I think, sometime next spring, McGwire will sit for one of those confessional interviews. He’ll do it before he starts his job as a coach for the Cardinals, and it’ll go a long way towards helping him get elected to the Hall of Fame. I’ll be happy when it’s over: I always liked Big Mac.
On a side note, has any other ‘feel-good’ story in sports gone off the rails as badly as the 1998 Home Run Race between Sosa and McGwire did? The only other one I can think of is the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding figure skating stuff.
Jack Morris – 254-186, 3.90 ERA, 2478 strikeouts, 105 ERA+
I’ve said this before, so I’ll be brief: Jack Morris’s win-loss record is an accurate reflection of the teams that he played for. Whenever Morris went 20-13 or 19-11 or 21-6, it was on a very good team. And whenever he went 6-14 or 15-18, he was on a lousy team. His career mark of 254-186 is a reflection of the quality of the teams he played for, and not a sign that he possessed a unique ability to ‘win.’
Led the league in Wild Pitches six times, and is one of just two modern pitchers to record over 200 wild pitches in his career (the other being Nolan Ryan, of course).
Dale Murphy – 398 HR, 1266 RBI, .266 BA, 121 OPS+, NL MVP in 1982 & 1983, 5 Gold Gloves
Let’s give him a separate column. This is getting too long.
Dave Parker – 339 HR, 1493 RBI, .290 BA, 121 OPS+, 1978 NL MVP, 3 Gold Gloves
Him, too. And for the record, the Cobra was a great nickname. Why don’t we have great nicknames anymore? Prince Albert? C’mon.
Shane Reynolds – 114-96, 4.09 ERA, 1403 strikeouts.
What am I going to write about Shane Reynolds? His Astros reached the postseason in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2001, losing each series. The Astros were 2-12 during those playoff games.
David Segui – 139 HR, .291 BA, 131 GIDP
Segui is one of the ‘connectors’ of the steroid era: his name shows up in many of the documents released during that time period, and he has admitted to using anabolic steroids obtained from the Mets clubhouse attendant.
Lee Smith – 71-92, 478 Saves, 1251 strikeouts, 3.03 ERA, 131 ERA+
You know, I’ll write about him, too.
Robin Ventura – 1006 Runs, 294 HR, 1192 RBI, .267 BA, 114 OPS+, 6 Gold Gloves
You could do a lot worse than have a career like Ventura’s. He won’t get into the Hall of Fame, but he had a fine career.
Ventura hit .301 with 32 home runs and 120 RBI for the Mets in 1999…how many third basemen have reached .300/30/100 in a season?
Thirty-three seasons, twenty players:
|
Name
|
HOF seasons
|
|
Chipper Jones
|
5
|
|
Alex Rodriguez
|
3
|
|
Eddie Mathews
|
2
|
|
Phil Nevin
|
2
|
|
David Wright
|
2
|
|
Vinny Castilla
|
2
|
|
Dick Allen
|
1
|
|
Al Rosen
|
1
|
|
George Brett
|
1
|
|
Mel OtT
|
1
|
|
Ken Caminiti
|
1
|
|
Gary Sheffield
|
1
|
|
Jim Thome
|
1
|
|
Ron Santo
|
1
|
|
AdrianBeltre
|
1
|
|
Tony Perez
|
1
|
|
Scott Rolen
|
1
|
|
Miguel Cabrera
|
1
|
|
Aramis Ramirez
|
1
|
|
Robin Ventura
|
1
|
Ventura was 3-for-19 against Nolan Ryan in his career. Probably should’ve been happy for the walk.
Todd Zeile – 2004 Hits, 253 HR, 1110 RBI, .265 BA
Oddly enough, Zeile platooned with Ventura at third base when they played on the Mets in 1999.
Zeile, as a few of you may remember, was one of the brightest prospects in baseball in the late 1980’s. He came up through the Cardinals system, and was moved to third base by Joe Torre, who took over the reigns of the team in mid-1990. (Actually, Torre was the third manager of the Cards that year, following Herzog and Red Schoendienst….when Torre is elected to the Hall, that will make the 1990 Cardinals the only team managed by three Hall-of-Famers).
Zeile was a lousy third baseman and, for a few years he wasn’t much of a hitter either. I suspect that asking the most highly touted prospect on the team to learn a new position in mid-season isn’t the best way to foster a young career.
Okay….cast your votes. And chime in on the articles about Parker, Murphy, and Smith.
(Dave Fleming is a writer preparing to leave Iowa City. He welcomes comments, questions, and packing tape here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com)