Bill James’ Hall of Fame predictions from 1994

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Sandlapper Spike

A baseball Hall of Fame post, because I haven’t written about baseball in a while, and that needs to change…

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In 1994, Bill James published a book called The Politics of Glory (the title was later changed to Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?). It is, in my opinion, the best book ever written about baseball’s Hall of Fame.

I was rereading it the other day and came across his list of predictions for future Hall of Famers. James wrote:

I could give you long lists of totals for active players, but they all change every year. History suggests that there are probably now about 30 or 40 players in the major leagues who will eventually be in the Hall of Fame, but it will be at least 70 years until we have a firm total, and in that time the Veterans Committee could be abolished and reinstituted several times. Here’s the way I see the BBWAA votes for the next quarter of a century. I wouldn’t even try to guess what the Veterans Committee will do (other than they’ll have to elect Bunning and Fox).

James then made a list for the years 1995 to 2019, picking two players to be enshrined each year.

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First, James was correct on several of the points he made in the above paragraph. Jim Bunning and Nellie Fox were both indeed elected by the Veterans Committee, and the VC has changed in multiple ways over the past twenty years.

Here is how James saw things going forward. Players actually enshrined in Cooperstown are in bold.

1995 — Mike Schmidt, Jim Rice
1996 — Don Sutton, Pete Rose
1997 — Steve Garvey, Phil Niekro
1998 — Gary Carter, Al Oliver
1999 — Nolan Ryan, George Brett
2000 — Robin Yount, Carlton Fisk
2001 — Andre Dawson, Dave Winfield
2002 — Eddie Murray, Ozzie Smith
2003 — Dave Parker, Jim Kaat
2004 — Dennis Eckersley, Ted Simmons
2005 — Wade Boggs, Cal Ripken Jr.
2006 — Rickey Henderson, Paul Molitor
2007 — Tony Gwynn, Roger Clemens
2008 — Kirby Puckett, Dale Murphy
2009 — Jack Morris, Lee Smith
2010 — Tim Raines, Ryne Sandberg
2011 — Barry Bonds, Joe Carter
2012 — Brett Butler, David Cone
2013 — Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker
2014 — Goose Gossage, Don Mattingly
2015 — Jack McDowell, Greg Maddux
2016 — Fred McGriff, Dwight Gooden
2017 — Frank Thomas, Ruben Sierra
2018 — Ken Griffey Jr., Roberto Alomar
2019 — Jeff Bagwell, Juan Gonzalez

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Of course, James had no idea when the careers of most of these players would end, so the years themselves were pure guesses. Some of the players retired earlier than he had anticipated (like Puckett, Alomar, and Sandberg), while others hung on longer than expected (Rickey Henderson).

The PEDs debate/debacle also wasn’t an issue (at least, in terms of mainstream knowledge) in 1994; otherwise, his choices of Bonds and Clemens would be right on target. Pete Rose’s exclusion from the Hall needs no explanation.

All in all, though, it’s not a bad projection at all.

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Let’s review the cases of some of those listed who have not been elected:

– Steve Garvey: James doesn’t seem to have actually favored Garvey’s candidacy, despite this projection (James rated Garvey the 31st-best first baseman of all time in the New Historical Baseball Abstract, released in 2001). Garvey would remain on the ballot for the full 15 years without ever coming close to election (peaking at 42.6% of the vote).

When James wrote The Politics of Glory, Garvey’s public “clean” image had largely dissipated due to some well-chronicled personal issues. Garvey was at one time an extremely popular player; without those off-the-field foibles, I suspect he would have come much closer to election and probably would have been a serious contender to gain election via the Veterans Committee. I could see arguments for/against him developing along lines similar to what we have seen with the candidacy of Jack Morris.

– Al Oliver: I’m not sure why James picked Oliver for this list. Oliver was only on the BBWAA ballot once, in 1991, and dropped off after only getting 4.3% of the vote.

Having said that, Oliver was a really good player. He could flat-out rake, leading the league in doubles twice and RBI once while compiling over 2700 career hits (.303 career batting average). In votes by two recent iterations of the Veterans Committee (2008 and 2010), Oliver has received some support (but not a lot) for enshrinement.

– Dave Parker, Jim Kaat, Dale Murphy: These three guys stayed on the BBWAA ballot for 15 years, but none of them ever got as much as 30% of the vote.

I think all three stand a decent chance of future enshrinement by some version of the Veterans Committee, particularly Kaat (who won 283 games and has had a significant career in the broadcast booth). I have always supported Murphy’s candidacy, though most of the BBWAA voters certainly didn’t agree with me. Parker had some peaks and valleys in his career, but no matter what will always have the 1979 All-Star game.

– Ted Simmons: In 1994, Simmons appeared on the BBWAA ballot for the first time — and the last, as he received only 3.7% of the vote.

In the Historical Abstract, James rates Simmons as the 10th-best catcher in baseball history, though by this point Simmons will have been passed by Ivan Rodriguez. I’m guessing that Simmons will be elected some day; that day, however, may be in the distant future.

– Brett Butler, David Cone, Joe Carter, Jack McDowell, Ruben Sierra: You’ve got to give James a little credit for listing Cone, even if he didn’t wind up a Hall of Famer. Entering the 1994 season, Cone was in the middle of a nice career (95-65, 3.14 ERA), but projecting the then 30-year-old Cone as a Cooperstown candidate might have been a stretch. Of course, in 1994 Cone proceeded to win the AL Cy Young Award. He would win 99 games after James published the book.

Brett Butler and Joe Carter are good examples of well-known players who had long, successful careers that didn’t quite rise to Hall of Fame quality. Carter was very prominent at the time The Politics of Glory was released, thanks to his walk-off homer to win the 1993 World Series.

As I mentioned, David Cone won the 1994 Cy Young Award. Jack McDowell had won the award the previous year, winning 22 games.

McDowell was 27 years old. He would only win 46 more games for the rest of his career, and was finished as a major league pitcher by the age of 33.

Ruben Sierra was the AL MVP runner-up in 1989, when he was 23 years old. That turned out to be his career year. Sierra played for nine different clubs between 1994 and 2006, his last season in MLB.

– Lou Whitaker: In 2001, Lou Whitaker debuted on the BBWAA ballot. He received only 2.9% of the vote.

Whitaker’s one-and-done BBWAA vote has been scrutinized (and criticized) for the past decade. Bill James rated Whitaker the 13th-best second baseman of all time, ahead of Hall of Famers Billy Herman, Nellie Fox, Joe Gordon, Bobby Doerr, Tony Lazzeri, Johnny Evers, Red Schoendienst, Bill Mazeroski, and Bid McPhee. (Two other second basemen rated behind Whitaker, Miller Huggins and Bucky Harris, are in the Hall for their managerial careers.)

All of the Hall of Fame second basemen named in the preceding paragraph were Veterans Committee selections. I suspect that Whitaker will ultimately join them as a VC pick.

Of the 12 second basemen James rated ahead of Whitaker, all but two are in the Hall. Craig Biggio is one of them, and he will probably be elected this year. The other, Bobby Grich, would be a worthy choice for the Hall as well.

– Dwight Gooden: From 1984 through 1993: 154-81, 3.04 ERA, 2128 1/3 IP, 1.169 WHIP

From 1994 until his career ended in 2000: 40-31, 4.99 ERA, 672 1/2 IP, 1.532 WHIP

What might have been…

– Juan Gonzalez: He actually won two MVP awards after James’ projection. Gonzalez lasted for all of two BBWAA ballots, which arguably was one more appearance on the ballot than he deserved. Igor only had 781 plate appearances in the majors after his age 31 season.

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Then there are the players James didn’t list who are now serious Hall of Fame candidates (or who have been elected). Here are a few of them:

– Bert Blyleven: James only mentioned Blyleven once in The Politics of Glory, and even that was only in passing. In the Historical Abstract, however, he rated Blyleven the 39th-best pitcher in baseball history (as of 2000, the year he rated pitchers). That is basically right on the border of the Hall of Fame.

Only one pitcher rated ahead of Blyleven (Carl Mays) is not in the Hall, and there are many behind him who have been enshrined. Some of the guys rated lower than Blyleven should not have been elected, honestly, but quite a few of them are deserving. In other words, Blyleven is definitely not out of place as a Hall of Famer, a conclusion James had already reached.

– Craig Biggio: James initially rated Biggio the 5th-best second baseman of all time in the Historical Abstract, which he later acknowledged was probably a mistake. Still, there is no doubt that James is on board with Biggio’s Hall of Fame case (calling him “the greatest underappreciated player of my lifetime”).

James had no way of knowing in 1994 that Biggio still had over 2000 games to play in his career. Through the 1993 campaign, Biggio had played in exactly 800 games, having converted from a catcher to a second baseman in 1992. His career OPS+ following the 1993 season was 113. His OPS+ when his career finally ended? 112.

I think it’s interesting that Bill James listed Biggio’s Houston teammate, Jeff Bagwell, in his Hall of Fame projections despite Bagwell having only played three MLB seasons at the time.

– Tom Glavine: It’s a little surprising that Glavine didn’t get the nod from James. As I mentioned above, at the time of the publication of The Politics of Glory, David Cone was 95-65. Glavine was 95-66, with three consecutive top-3 Cy Young Award finishes (including winning the award in 1991). Glavine did have a significantly higher career ERA through the 1993 season (3.53 to Cone’s 3.14). Cone was three years older than Glavine, though.

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In closing, let me quote Bill James one more time:

…the effect of [Hall of Fame] discussion is to create confusion, and in general this is how the Hall of Fame argument progresses: cacophony, leading to confusion.

It’s been 20 years since James’ book made order out of some of that confusion. Given the current controversies surrounding the process, however, the topic remains one of bewilderment…

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Baseball’s Hall of Fame changes its election procedures (again)

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Sandlapper Spike

Some observations on the revised election procedures for the Veterans Committee…

In case you were wondering why the procedures were revised, it’s fairly simple — the Hall wants more players elected.  It needs more people traveling to Cooperstown for Hall of Fame weekend.  Darren Rovell wrote about this, and that was prior to this weekend’s paltry attendance at the induction ceremony.

Since the BBWAA is struggling to elect more than one player per year (although I think both Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar will be elected this winter), the Hall needs the Veterans Committee to elect some players to excite fans of a certain age.  It hasn’t been easy.

The previous iteration of the VC (which Chris Jaffe refers to as the “Joe Morgan SuperFriends Committee” ) managed to elect no post-1960 players in three years of trying.  Now the VC has morphed into the following:

There will now be one composite ballot consisting of managers, umpires, executives and long-retired players divided into three eras, rather than four categories with separate electorates.

The “categories with separate electorates” voting resulted in the election by the VC of no “modern” players (courtesy of the SuperFriends, as noted above).  The only modern-day players elected were those few selected by the BBWAA.  The only player actually enshrined courtesy of any VC committee was Joe Gordon.  Gordon is one of two players elected by the VC in the last decade (Bill Mazeroski was elected in 2001).

The VC setup did produce several other Hall of Famers — two managers (Billy Southworth and Dick Williams), two owners (Barney Dreyfuss and Walter O’Malley) and former commissioner Bowie Kuhn.  Thus, the past three years of voting by the VC resulted in six new Hall of Famers, only one of whom (Williams) was still alive to accept the honor.

So what are the new divisions/categories?

The new divisions are as follows: Pre-Integration (1871-1946), Golden (1947-1972) and Expansion (1973-1989 for players; 1973-present for managers, umpires and executives)…

…One election will be held each year at the annual Winter Meetings, but the eras rotate, resulting in one era per year. The Expansion era will be first, followed by the Golden Era election in 2011 and the Pre-Integration Era election in 2012.

The new rules take effect immediately and will be put into practice at the first election at this year’s Winter Meetings, to be held on December 5, 2010, in Orlando, Fla., with the Expansion Era up first.

Oy.

First, who thought it would be a good idea to call one of the divisions the “Golden” era?  What a way to sell your current on-field product, guys.  It’s a sop to some of the baby boomers, and certain syrupy writers, I guess.

Then there is the actual dividing line between the categories.  Why does the “Expansion” era start in 1973, rather than in real expansion years like 1961 or 1968?  What is so special about 1973?  It was the first year of the DH.  Maybe that’s what it is.  Or maybe…

Maybe it’s because George Steinbrenner bought the New York Yankees in 1973.

I have to say that I’m not completely sure I’m going to buy the Big Stein Line of Demarcation theory, if only because I’m not sure Steinbrenner’s election would automatically result in overflow crowds venturing to Cooperstown next July.  However, let’s take a look at a potential ballot.  Remember, the “Expansion” era is up first, so The Boss is up for election immediately.  There will be 12 names on the expansion era ballot, made up of players, managers, umpires, and executives.

I figure that around eight of them will be players.  If I were to pick the top eight eligibles among this group of players, the list might look like this:

Tommy John
Bobby Grich
Darrell Evans
Ted Simmons
Buddy Bell
Bobby Bonds
Sal Bando
Jose Cruz, Sr.

I think it will be hard for any of these players to get 75% of the vote from a committee of 16 people.  John would have the best shot, and Grich likely would get serious consideration (at least, he should).

Then we have the non-players who would be on the ballot.  Bobby Cox and Lou Piniella would not be eligible for consideration this year.  Who would?  Steinbrenner, of course.  Charlie Finley.  Ewing Kauffman.  Marvin Miller.  John Schuerholz.  Davey Johnson.  Allan H. Selig…

That’s right.  Bud is a potential candidate.  I don’t think he’ll be on the ballot this time, but just wait three years.  Just wait.

If I had to guess at four non-players on the ballot, the spots would be taken by Steinbrenner, Miller, Kauffman…and Billy Martin.  Imagine the press if Steinbrenner and Martin are enshrined at the same time.

So will the VC elect anyone this winter?  Probably.  There is one potential hitch, though.  As Tom Tango observes, past iterations of the VC mandated that each voter could only vote for up to four candidates, making it very hard, if not impossible, for an individual to get 75% of the vote.  That will be particularly true for a 12-man ballot (as opposed to the 10-man ballot for the Golden and Pre-Integration eras).

If instead each candidate gets an “up or down” vote, with no further restrictions for those on the committee, then I think there could be three or four candidates elected.  If not?

Then it’s Steinbrenner, and nobody else.  Somewhere, Frank Constanza weeps.

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To be a Hall of Famer — the 2008 ballots (Part 3)

Posted on December 13, 2008 by Sandlapper Spike

In the first two parts of this series, I took a look at the pre-1942 nominees ballot and the post-1943 ballot.  Part 3 covers the BBWAA vote, which this year features only 23 players.  First, a brief summation of the results of the first two elections…

Boo.

However, in the case of the post-1943 ballot it’s a “I’m not surprised” booing situation, because it is by no means shocking that no one was elected.  The natural tendency of some of the Hall of Famers to favor exclusivity in admitting new members to their club, plus the restrictions on voting (the you-can-only-vote-for-up-to-four rule) combined to make it practically impossible for any candidate to get the required 75% of the vote.  Ron Santo came closest, with 39 of the 48 votes he needed, but that’s not really that close.  Santo’s reaction was predictable, as he would like a return to the system that elected Bill Mazeroski.  Of course, it was the election of Mazeroski that led to the current system.

At this point, it seems doubtful to me that Santo will ever get elected, at least in his lifetime.  The same is true of all the other men on the ballot, with the exception of Joe Torre, who will presumably be enshrined whenever he decides to quit managing.  As I’ve stated before, the failure of the VC to already elect Torre shows a complete disregard by the voters of the Hall’s own rules for considering nominees.

The pre-1942 committee did elect someone, Joe Gordon.  I have no problem at all with Gordon’s election, as he is a solid choice.  I am concerned that the voters came very close to electing Allie Reynolds, who in my opinion was one of the weaker choices on the ballot, and that the most qualified of the nominees, Bill Dahlen, got less than three votes.

Since it appears that the committee is not inclined to support the candidacy of any player who started his career prior to 1920, perhaps the Hall should consider a special committee (similar to the Negro Leagues Committee from 2006) for those players, to wrap up that era and make it easier on the VC to focus on post-Dead Ball era players.

On to the BBWAA ballot…

Harold Baines:  He played forever, but if I’m going to support the candidacy of a DH-type he needs to put up a little more than a career 120 OPS+.  Baines led the AL in slugging in 1984.  That’s the only time he ever led the league in a significant statistical category.

Jay Bell:  I don’t think he will get 5% of the vote (you need 5%+ to remain on the ballot), but he was a good player for quite a long time — underrated, really.  What I remember most about him was there was a two-year stretch where Jim Leyland would have Bell sac-bunt in the first inning whenever the leadoff man reached base.  I mean he did this every time.  I never understood that.

Bert Blyleven:  He’s up to almost 62% in the balloting, so he’s probably going to get elected in the next few years.  It appears that the bulk of the BBWAA membership has come around on his candidacy, which is good.  I understand the problem with trying to evaluate him (I think he has one of the more unusual pitching careers in MLB history), so I’m not going to criticize the writers for not electing him yet.  If you’re still not sold on him, just consider all those shutouts.  He’s ninth all time, and he’s going to stay in the top 10 for many, many years to come.

David Cone:  The “hired gun” is on the ballot for the first time.  He might get to 5% and hang around for another year, although he’s not going to get in the Hall unless some future Veterans Committee elects him.  I think he would be getting a lot more votes if he hadn’t moved around so much, and if he had managed to get to 200 wins.  His closest comp is Dwight Gooden, which is interesting, although I think Cone had a better overall career than Doc.  Gooden, incidentally, got 3.3% of the vote in 2006 and fell off the ballot.

Andre Dawson:  He’s up to almost 66% in the balloting and is going to get in.  I support his candidacy, despite the .323 OBP.  I think people sometimes evaluate him as a corner outfielder and forget he won four of his eight Gold Gloves as a centerfielder.  He’s a very close case, but he also gets bonus points on the character issue and for having a cool nickname.  When he was active, I think the majority of baseball fans thought of him as a future Hall of Famer.  Of course, you could also say that about Steve Garvey…

Ron Gant:  He’s not a Hall of Famer, obviously, but he did finish in the top 6 in the MVP voting twice, which I bet would surprise some people.  Gil Hodges never finished in the top 6 of the MVP voting.

Mark Grace:  It wouldn’t surprise me if some Veterans Committee of the future elected him, since Mickey Vernon got serious consideration by this year’s VC, and Grace was a similar player.  That’s not saying it would be a good decision, of course.

Rickey Henderson:  Everyone awaits with great anticipation his enshrinement speech.

Tommy John:  This is his last year on the ballot.  I go back and forth on his candidacy, to be honest…he was a very good pitcher for a long time, but for me his playing career tends to be a borderline-no situation.  Then you have the operation that bears his name, for which some people give him extra credit, while others quite reasonably suggest that the credit belongs to Frank Jobe.  However, it’s also true that the rehabilitation (obviously unprecedented at that time) came through John’s hard work (and was mostly developed by him, apparently), and that aspect of the surgery and recovery may be underappreciated.

If he were elected, it would in part be as a pioneer, which means no one else could really compare his career to John’s as a way of saying “if him then me” when it comes to the Hall.  I think that works in his favor.  He’s not going to be elected this year, but a future VC is going to seriously consider him, and rightfully so.

Don Mattingly:  Some of the people supporting his candidacy have been known to argue that if Kirby Puckett is in the Hall, so should Mattingly, because their batting statistics are similar.  Of course, they never seem to mention that Puckett was a centerfielder and Mattingly a first baseman.  Comparing a first baseman’s batting stats to those of a borderline Hall of Fame centerfielder is not the way to get your man in the Hall.

Mark McGwire:  I would vote for him.  The rules were the same for him as they were for everyone else, which is to say, there were no rules.  You have to evaluate him by the era in which he played.  In that era, he’s a Hall of Famer.

Jack Morris:  One game doesn’t make up for a career ERA+ of 105.  He was a workhorse, but he was never an elite pitcher.  Guys like Tommy John and Bert Blyleven (just to name two pitchers also on the ballot) pitched a lot longer and were more effective.

Dale Murphy:  Like Dawson, a lot of people forget that Murphy played the majority of his career as a centerfielder, including the bulk of the six-year period (1982-87) during which he was arguably the best player in baseball.  Murphy’s career was short, which hurts him, and the argument against him is that his peak wasn’t long enough to offset that.  I think it’s close.

There is something else about Murphy that doesn’t get discussed much, but I think is worth mentioning.  Murphy was a Superstation Star, perhaps the first.  Everyone around the country could follow the Braves via TBS, even when they were bad, as they were through much of Murphy’s time with the club.  Because of that, along with his reputation as an individual of high character, Murphy has to be one of the most popular players of his era, and maybe of any era.

Personally, I think it’s possible that the success (and in some cases, existence) of programs like East Cobb Baseball can be traced to kids following and being inspired by the Braves, and the main, if not only, reason to follow the Braves in the mid-to-late 1980s was Dale Murphy.  It’s worthy of study, at least.  That type of influence on the game should be recognized.

Jesse Orosco:  He was his league’s oldest player in each of his last five seasons.

Dave Parker:  There is a five-year doughnut hole in his career which is basically going to keep him out of the Hall of Fame.  It’s nobody’s fault but his, though.

Dan Plesac:  I’m not familiar with his TV work, but I understand it’s good, so I’m looking forward to seeing him on the new MLB Network.

Tim Raines:  Raines got less than 25% of the vote his first time around with the writers, in part because he played his best years in Montreal, the Witness Protection Program of baseball, and in part because he is compared to Rickey Henderson.  That’s a tough comparison for just about anybody, so Raines loses out.  Never mind the fact that Raines was better than Lou Brock, who is already in the Hall.  Raines was a truly great player, and belongs in Cooperstown.  I think he will eventually get there, but it’s going to take a while.  I’m hopeful the BBWAA votes him in sometime in the next decade.

Jim Rice:  In my opinion, he would already be in the Hall if he hadn’t annoyed enough writers (or carried a rep as being difficult) so that a significant percentage of them won’t vote for him out of spite, as opposed to not voting for him because his career is borderline for a Hall of Famer.  I am inclined to support his candidacy, because I think his peak was very high, higher than some saber-stats would suggest.  I don’t feel that strongly about it, though, which evidently differentiates me from a lot of folks in the online baseball community, some of whom think the world will end if Rice is elected.  It won’t, trust me.  Now if Mo Vaughn is elected, all bets are off…

Incidentally, I am less sure than most about Rice’s election this year being an inevitability.  I think it will be very close.

Lee Smith:  Trying to define a Hall of Fame relief pitcher is difficult.  Of the relievers already enshrined, I would rate all of them above Smith except maybe Bruce Sutter, who is a questionable selection to say the least.  On the other hand, among other eligibles and active pitchers, I would only rate Mariano Rivera as being clearly ahead of Smith.  Ultimately, I can’t support Smith’s candidacy, mainly because he never “seemed” like a Hall of Famer to me.  I reserve the right to reconsider…

Alan Trammell:  The biggest injustice in the balloting the last few years, easily, is Trammell not even being close to election.  His problems are at least twofold:  he played at the same time as Cal Ripken Jr., essentially, and then after his career ended the ARod-Nomar-Jeter triumvarite appeared on the scene, closely followed by Miguel Tejada.

He suffers in comparison to Ripken, and his batting stats don’t measure up to the new wave of shortstops that followed him.  He also got jobbed of the 1987 MVP award, which would have helped his case (he did win the World Series MVP award in 1984).  In the New Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James rated him the 9th-best shortstop of all time, which struck me as a reasonable placement.  In the last BBWAA election, the 9th-best shortstop of all time got 18.2% of the vote.

The 10th-best shortstop, according to James, is Pee Wee Reese.  Curiously, Reese was not elected by the BBWAA, but by the Veterans Committee.  The BBWAA also failed to elect another great shortstop, Arky Vaughn.  This doesn’t bode well for Trammell’s chances on the BBWAA ballot, not to mention those of Barry Larkin, who becomes eligible for election next year.

Greg Vaughn:  What I remember most about Vaughn is in that magical year of 1998, before everyone decided 1998 didn’t really happen (although royalty checks for several books about that season were cashed anyway), he hit 50 home runs and got a place in a really good article by Gary Smith in Sports Illustrated.  Smith decided to go watch the great home run chase, and got super-lucky, because in three consecutive games he attended games in which Vaughn, McGwire (in the same game), Ken Griffey Jr., and Sammy Sosa all homered.

Mo Vaughn:  He’s not going to make the Hall of Fame, but at least he has Albert Belle’s MVP award.

Matt Williams:  Would he have hit 62 homers in 1994?  We’ll never know.  Could he have stayed at shortstop and put up similar offensive numbers?  We’ll never know.

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I don’t have a vote, but if I did, my ballot:  Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines, Alan Trammell, Bert Blyleven, Andre Dawson, Dale Murphy, Mark McGwire, Jim Rice.

What I expect:  Rickey and probably Rice will make it.

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To be a Hall of Famer — the 2008 ballots (Part 2)

Posted on December 5, 2008 by Sandlapper Spike

In Part 1 of this 3-part series, I took a look at the candidates from the ballot for players who began play in 1942 or earlier.  In this post, I’m going to discuss the ballot for players who began play in 1943 or later (and who have been retired for at least 21 years).  Part 3 will concern the BBWAA ballot.

In the case of this ballot, it’s very important to understand the process of selecting (or not selecting) players for enshrinement.  The reason the procedures were changed (for the umpteenth time) after the last Veterans Committee election was due to the fact that no one was getting elected.    The powers that be at the Hall weren’t happy about that, so the process was streamlined.  Only Hall of Fame players and managers will vote for the players on this ballot (previously, Spink and Frick winners also voted).  That cuts the list of potential voters down to 64 (from 80+).

To be elected, a candidate has to be named on 75% of the returned ballots.  Assuming all 64 ballots were submitted, that would mean a candidate would have to be listed on 48 ballots.

The good news for candidates this year is that that the final ballot has been cut to 10.  In the last election, for example, voters had to choose from among 27 players.  This time a winnowing-out process by a pair of different committees reduced the field of candidates to 21, and from there the living Hall of Famers submitted preliminary ballots, resulting in further reducing that number to 10.  It would seem easier for the voters to develop a consensus resulting in at least one player being elected when the number of candidates is limited.

There is one catch, though, and it’s a significant one.

Voters can vote for up to four candidates.  They can’t vote for more than four.  That strikes me as potentially disastrous, if the goal is to elect somebody.  In last year’s election, when no candidate got 75% of the vote, the average ballot contained 5.96 names.

Let’s say, for example, that in the last election a voter cast a ballot listing Tony Oliva, Dick Allen, Jim Kaat, Maury Wills, Gil Hodges, Joe Torre, Vada Pinson, and Ron Santo.  Well, this time around all eight of those guys are on the ballot again, but the voter would only be able to vote for four of them.  If he decides that his “top four” are Oliva, Allen, Kaat, and Wills, that’s one less vote for the other four (including Santo, who came closest to election last time).  The elector’s vote would essentially count against the Hodges-Torre-Pinson-Santo group.

Ron Santo got 57 votes in the last election (out of a possible 82).  There is no guarantee that all 57 of those voters considered him to be one of their top four candidates.  The same is true for the other candidates, of course, including the three other players to receive greater than 50% of the vote in the last election (Kaat, Hodges, and Oliva).

I think by limiting the electors to four choices, the Hall risks another shutout.

All ten of the nominees appeared on the ballot for the prior election.  In fact, the top six vote-getters in that election are on this ballot, along with the 8th-place finisher (Pinson), 11th-place finisher (Tiant), 13th-place finisher (Al Oliver), and 17th-place finisher (Allen).  The most surprising omission may be Don Newcombe, who did not even make the list of 21 candidates on the preliminary ballot (Newcombe finished 7th in the last election, with just over 20% of the vote).  Other players from the ballot for the last election who did not make the “semi-finals” despite being eligible were Curt Flood, Sparky Lyle, and Bobby Bonds.

Roger Maris, Minnie Minoso, Ken Boyer, Mickey Lolich, Thurman Munson, and Rocky Colavito were on last year’s ballot and made this year’s preliminary ballot, but did not make the final 10.  The players who were on the preliminary ballot who did not appear on the ballot for the last election were Steve Garvey, Bert Campaneris, Mike Cuellar, Ted Kluszewski, and Lee May.

Okay, on to the ten candidates.  I’m going to start by stating that there is one guy on this list who absolutely should be in the Hall of Fame, more so than any of the other players, and I think the electors should draw some criticism for not already electing him.  I’m talking, of course, about Joe Torre.

Maybe you thought I was going to say Ron Santo, and I’ll get to him (he belongs in the Hall too)  — but to me, the one guy who you just have to vote for if you are an elector is Torre.  Let’s go to the rules for election for the post-1943 candidates.  Rule number 6-B, to be precise:

Those whose careers entailed involvement as both players and managers/executives/umpires will be considered for their overall contribution to the game of Baseball…

So when the electors are considering Torre, they are to take into account his complete contribution to the game, which includes his borderline Hall of Fame career as a player AND his no-questions-asked Hall of Fame career as a manager.  If the electors are supposed to vote based on his entire career in baseball, is there any doubt that they should be voting for him?

Of course, that was also true in the last election, and in the last election Joe Torre received less than 32% of the vote.  Basically, two out of every three voters disregarded his managerial career.  (For all I know, all of them did, and the guys who voted for him did so because they thought just as a player he was Hall-worthy.)

I realize there might be some hesitation from some of the voters who are unsure whether to consider his managerial career (particularly when he’s still active).  I would tell them that from a practical standpoint, it doesn’t matter if Torre goes into the Hall classified as a “player” or a “manager” — there is no real distinction, a point proven by the fact that both managers and players are voting in this election.  This is something that Joe Morgan or one of the other leaders among the Hall of Famers probably needs to emphasize to his fellow voters.

What is a bit contradictory to this is the possibility that the voters are applying managerial credit to Gil Hodges and not Torre.  At least, that could be the explanation for the continuing support for Hodges’ candidacy (61% in the last election).  It probably isn’t the full explanation, however.

Hodges is most likely getting credit as a player/manager/icon.  As a player, he is similar to a raft of non-Famer first basemen, like Boog Powell and Norm Cash (or Tino Martinez, perhaps an apt modern comparison).  The difference is Hodges’ status as a beloved symbol of the Brooklyn Dodgers.  After all, nobody ever wrote a book called Praying for Roy Sievers.

I would like to support Hodges’ candidacy.  I respect the consistent support he received from a large portion of the BBWAA during his time on that ballot (in his final year, he received 63.4% of the vote).  He was obviously an impressive man.  The facts are, though, that his playing career doesn’t measure up, and his managerial career, tragically, isn’t long enough to compensate.

Ron Santo is (at worst) one of the seven greatest third basemen of all time.  You could argue he’s as high as fifth-best.  If you go by the rankings in Bill James’ New Historical Baseball Abstract (which ranks him sixth), the seventh-best second baseman of all time is Ryne Sandberg.  The seventh-best shortstop is Ozzie Smith.  The seventh-best first baseman is Harmon Killebrew.The seventh-best catcher is Bill Dickey.  The seventh-best center fielder is Junior Griffey.  You get the idea…

Now, that doesn’t mean that the position of third base is as strong historically (in terms of number of great players) as those other positions.  Maybe it isn’t.  It’s certainly an undervalued position as far as Hall of Famers go.  Despite the relative paucity of players at that position in the Hall, however, Santo would rank in the upper half of third basemen so honored.  However, in his final year on the BBWAA ballot, Santo only received 43.1% of the vote.

He hasn’t been elected because of the era in which he played (depressing offensive stats across the board), general confusion over how to evaluate third basemen, and the fact that the Cubs never made postseason play during his career, despite having three current Hall of Famers on the roster with Santo for much of that time.  As far as the too-many-Famers-already argument, I think it’s inherently lame.  It’s not like there is a quota on how many Hall of Famers can be on a team at any given time.  The fact the Cubs could not get over the hump during that period (or any other over the last 100 years) is just a testament to the fact that having a collection of great players isn’t enough.  You generally have to be solid across the board to be a championship team.  The strength-of-the-chain-is-only-its-weakest-link concept applies in baseball, because in 162 games, that weak link is going to eventually be exploited.

Santo also played his entire career with Type 1 diabetes, which even today would be very impressive.  Perhaps he should get some consideration for that as well.  His case doesn’t really need it, though.

Vada Pinson is a guy who doesn’t really compare to any other player, which in a way is a point in his favor.  His similarity scores list Steve Finley as his best comp, but Pinson was better than Finley.  Bill James wrote in one of his books that Pinson was as a player essentially at the halfway point between Roberto Clemente and Willie Davis (who are both in his similarity score list as well).  James reported in the New Historical Abstract that Pinson was actually two years older than was believed (he was 23 in 1959, not 21).  This in part explains why he never rose to the heights expected of him after his first three seasons in the National League.  He still managed to fashion an outstanding career.  I’m not quite sure he has Hall of Fame numbers, but you could make a very good case for him.  It should be pointed out that for about two-thirds of his career, he was a center fielder.  Pinson spent 15 years on the BBWAA ballot; he never received more than 15.7% of the vote.

Pinson was probably a better player than Al Oliver, though.  Oliver could hit (.303 lifetime average) but didn’t walk much.  Oliver played centerfield for about a third of his career, first base for about a third, and left field/DH for the remainder.  He compares to Steve Garvey; Oliver was a better hitter and maybe a better all-around player (it depends on how good a fielder you think Garvey was).  Oliver was only on the BBWAA ballot once, in 1991.  He received 19 votes (4.9%) and was dropped from future ballots.

Dick Allen never received more than 18.9% of the vote from the BBWAA electorate, despite very fine career batting totals (career OPS+:  156), albeit in a relatively short career.

Of course, that doesn’t begin to tell the Dick Allen story.  I don’t think any player’s Hall of Fame case is quite as polarizing as that of Allen.  His numbers are generally outstanding, but he never seemed to improve his teams, short-term or long-term.  Despite his hitting prowess, he got traded frequently, almost always for lesser players (including Jim Essian twice).  He missed a lot of games during the heart of his career due to injuries, was suspended for following the ponies at the expense of a doubleheader in 1969, and walked out on the White Sox with two weeks to play in 1974, when Chicago was still involved in a pennant race.  He was, in short, disruptive.

My sense is that people who don’t remember Allen (the majority of baseball fans) are more supportive of Allen’s candidacy than people who were on the scene, so to speak (although there are exceptions).  Allen received 11 votes (13.4%) in the most recent Veterans Committee election.  I’m guessing that he gets a similar percentage this time.

Maury Wills isn’t the most popular guy around, either.  Wills finished fifth in the last Veterans Committee election (receiving 40.2% of the vote).  That’s a similar percentage to what Wills got in the 1981 BBWAA vote.  The next year, his vote total dropped by almost half (163 votes to 91); he never approached his high-water mark in votes again.

Wills stole 104 bases in 1962 — you may have read about it — and his Hall of Fame candidacy has fed off that one year.  That’s about all it can feed on, because once you get past 104, you’re left with a leadoff hitter who didn’t walk and had no power, and who was a decent but not great defensive shortstop.  Plus, if Gil Hodges and Joe Torre are getting credit for their managerial careers, surely Wills has to get negative credit for his.

There are two pitchers on the ballot.  Jim Kaat won 16 Gold Gloves and 283 games in a long career that was extended several years by his conversion into a reliever.  He later became a respected broadcaster.  Kaat was a very good pitcher for a long time, but here I think the expression “compiler” does apply somewhat.  I’ve seen other players saddled with that unfairly (Bert Blyleven, for example), but Kaat does seem to fit the bill.  Kaat never received as much as 30% of the vote in 15 BBWAA elections, but he received a surprising 63.4% of the vote in the last Veterans Committee election, suggesting that he may indeed have a Cooperstown plaque in his future.  If that happens, it won’t be a tragedy.  Kaat is quite close to the border, and a case could be made he crosses over it.

Luis Tiant received just over 18.3% of the vote in that particular election, in line with the vote in his final BBWAA ballot.  Tiant actually got over 30% of the BBWAA vote in his first go-round, in 1988, but the ballot was swamped with distinctly better pitchers the next year, and Tiant’s vote total crashed, never to recover to its initial level.

Tiant had a career ERA+ of 114 in just under 3500 innings.  His closest Similarity Scores comp is Catfish Hunter, only you could make a good argument that Tiant was better than Hunter.  That’s something for Tiant backers to emphasize, since Hunter was actually elected by the BBWAA, and not the Veterans Committee.  Very rarely has the BBWAA elected a borderline candidate (most of those get put in the Hall by the VC).  However, Jim Hunter is one of the exceptions to the rule.

He’s yet another guy who is quite close.  I think he’s just on the wrong side of the line, but the line is really hazy.  Being somewhat famous will help El Tiante’s cause.

Tony Oliva, on the other hand, isn’t famous.  That probably has hurt his cause a bit.  For whatever reason, I get the impression he may be the least known (to the general public and/or casual baseball fan) of the ten nominees; it’s either him or Pinson.  That’s too bad, because he was quite a player.  In his rookie season he led the league in hits; in his second season he was the runner-up for league MVP.  He was named to the All-Star team in his first eight seasons.  He led the league in batting three times, in slugging once, in doubles four times, and added another runner-up finish in the MVP voting in 1970.  For eight years, he was on a no-doubter Hall of Fame track.

He had bad knees, though, and his career went downhill after 1971.  He played in only 10 games in 1972, and finished his career as a DH.  In that role, however, he was not nearly as productive as he had been as a regular position player.  Oliva basically had eight great seasons and three other seasons as a league-average batting DH.  That’s not enough for a lot of people, including the majority of BBWAA voters (his vote totals peaked at 47.3% in 1988).  Interestingly, he seems to have a solid base of support from the Hall of Famers.  Oliva got 57.3% of the vote in the last VC election.  I have a sneaking suspicion that he could be surprisingly close to election this time around.

—

If I were voting, Torre and Santo would get my vote.  I would seriously consider Kaat, Tiant, Pinson, and Oliva.  As to what I think will actually happen, I think there is a decent chance that no one is elected again.  If anyone is elected, it’s going to be Santo.  We’ll find out on December 8.

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To be a baseball Hall of Famer — the 2008 ballots (Part 1)

Posted on December 4, 2008 by Sandlapper Spike

This year there are three separate elections for enshrinement in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.  Three distinct voting groups will vote on the following:  a list of 10 players whose careers began in 1942 or earlier; a list of 10 players whose career began in 1943 or later; and a list of players still eligible for election by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA).  The first two groups are what we think of as “veterans” committee picks, although in this case the makeup of the committees making the selections (if there are any selections) will be quite different.

In this post I’m going to take a look at the pre-1942 veterans ballot.  Subsequent posts will feature a brief analysis of the post-1943 veterans ballot and the BBWAA ballot (which has 23 players on it).

The ten men on the pre-1942 ballot are the finalists of a process that began with a group of BBWAA appointees winnowing the field from the many thousands of major leaguers who predated 1942.  Two of those involved in the initial phase, Bill Madden of the New York Daily News and Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau, are on the 12-person selection committee.  They are joined on the committee by Hall of Famers Duke Snider, Bobby Doerr, Robin Roberts, Ralph Kiner, Phil Niekro, Don Sutton, and Dick Williams, longtime baseball executive Roland Hemond, retired Atlanta Journal-Constitution sportswriter Furman Bisher, and Claire Smith, who currently works as a “news editor” for ESPN, but who previously covered baseball for a variety of newspapers, including The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

That’s an interesting committee to say the least.  Incidentally, Bobby Doerr was a teammate of one of the ten men on the ballot, Junior Stephens.

Okay, now to the ballot itself.  There is one player on it who absolutely should be in the Hall of Fame.  That player is “Bad Bill” Dahlen.

Dahlen is not in the Hall already in part because he played about half of his career in the nineteenth century, and the other half in the twentieth.  He actually started his major league career before the pitcher’s mound was moved back.  He wasn’t really known as “Bad Bill” until his managerial career (he was ejected 65 times in only 606 games as a skipper).  As a manager, he wasn’t so hot — but as a shortstop, he was tremendous.

Dahlen played in 2443 games, mostly at shortstop, and had a career OPS+ of 109.  He finished in the top ten in slugging three times, runs batted in four times (winning the RBI title in 1904), walks five times, doubles six times, triples four times, and homers five times.  In 1894 Dahlen had a 42-game hit streak, went hitless in the next game, and then started a 28-game hit streak.

He was considered an outstanding fielder for much of his career (despite a high error total).  John McGraw once traded for him in what he called “the most successful deal I ever made…just what I wanted – a great defensive shortstop.”

Dahlen had a drinking problem at the beginning of his career, got it under control, and then returned to the bottle in a major way after his career ended.  McGraw managed to get him a job as a night watchman at the Polo Grounds, which was standard operating procedure for McGraw faves who had lost their way (Dan Brouthers and Amos Rusie were also night watchmen).

If he is elected to the Hall of Fame, perhaps he could be in line for a marked gravestone…

None of the other players on the ballot are guys I feel strongly should be in the Hall of Fame, although most of them have pretty good cases.  It’s a good ballot overall.

Sherry Magee was a Deadball-era outfielder who played mostly for the Phillies, finishing his career with the Braves and Reds.  If they had given out an MVP award in the National League in 1910, he almost certainly would have won it.  Alas, the first NL MVP award was handed out in 1911.  Magee had a career OPS+ of 136 (in 2087 games), with six top 10s in batting (one title) and eleven Top 10s in slugging (first twice).  He finished in the top 5 in hits on six occasions and was in the top 10 in runs seven times.  He led the league in doubles in 1914 and finished second in that category five times in a row from 1906-10 (four times beaten out by Honus Wagner).  He finished in the top 5 in stolen bases six times.  Did I mention his four RBI titles yet?  He ranked among the league leaders in triples and homers too.  He was also a solid defensive outfielder.

On the other hand, he was a hothead, had bullying tendencies, and was by nature a bit of a crab, and was also occasionally accused of being more interested in his personal stats than the team’s success.  He was suspended for over a month in 1911 for punching an umpire.  He was traded from the Phillies to the World Champion Braves after the 1914 season, and the Phillies won their first pennant the next year.  1915 was also the year Magee stepped in a hole during spring training, fell, and broke his collarbone.  He was never the same, and his play declined substantially until Boston waived him in 1917 to the Reds.  In a mini-comeback of sorts, he batted .321 for Cincinnati during his stint with the Reds that year, and then led the league in runs batted in in 1918.  That was about it for Magee, although he did play for the Reds when they won it all in 1919, pinch-hitting twice in that much-discussed World Series.  Magee, rather amusingly, would later become an umpire, but he died of pneumonia at age 44 in 1929.

Bill James, in The Politics of Glory, wrote extensively about both Joe Gordon and Vern Stephens.  I’m not going to rehash all of that here, but there is one particular passage that I would like to quote:

I am not advocating that Junior Stephens should be in the Hall of Fame — but I wonder if we aren’t in danger of honoring exactly the wrong combination…we’ve got one from Boston (Doerr), one from New York [Phil Rizzuto], one second baseman, one shortstop.  I wonder if we…have the wrong one in all four categories — the wrong one from New York, the wrong one from Boston, the wrong second baseman, the wrong shortstop.

At the time James’ book was published, Rizzuto was on the cusp of being elected to the Hall.  He was, of course, eventually enshrined.

Both Gordon and Stephens had relatively short careers, and you could be justified in not supporting either’s candidacy.  Stephens does have eye-popping offensive numbers, especially for a shortstop (career OPS+ of 119).  His raw numbers for the 1949 season were outrageous, and he could easily have been the MVP for the Browns in 1944, the only time the Browns ever won the pennant (albeit in a war year).  I would not necessarily vote for him, but if he were elected I wouldn’t question it.  I will say, though, that it would be curious for him to be elected after never receiving a Hall of Fame vote from the BBWAA.  Not one.  Even assuming that some  of the voters of the time weren’t all that bright, it’s awfully hard to go against essentially the entire electorate of that era.

I would rate Joe Gordon slightly ahead of Stephens, although his career was even shorter.  However, Gordon missed two years due to World War II.  Gordon is famous (or infamous, I guess) for winning the MVP award in a year (1942) in which Ted Williams won the Triple Crown.  That was a poor selection, of course, but I think it may have hurt Gordon a little in the eyes of people who only remember the bogus MVP award and not the rest of what was an outstanding career.  Gordon was the best second baseman in baseball for much of the 1940s, an outstanding defensive player who was an integral part of several championship teams, mostly for the Yankees but also for the 1948 Cleveland Indians.  In 1948 Gordon led the Tribe in homers and runs batted in.  Gordon had a career OPS+ of 120.

When Gordon came back from the war in 1946, he had a poor year, and thinking he might be through, the Yankees traded him to Cleveland for Allie Reynolds.  Guess who’s on the ballot with Gordon?  Yes, Allie Reynolds.

Reynolds is not one of the better candidates on the ballot, though.  He did pitch for six championship teams, including five in a row (1949-53).  Reynolds generally pitched well in the Series (7-2, 4 saves, 2.79 ERA).  He had a career ERA+ of 110, however, and if you’re going to be a Hall of Famer with an ERA + of 110, you better have had a really really long career.  For example, one of the members of the committee, Don Sutton, had a career ERA+ of 108.  However, Sutton pitched 5292 innings in his career.  Reynolds pitched less than 2500.  Another panelist, Phil Niekro, pitched even more innings than Sutton and had a better ERA+ (115).

In fact, many of those under consideration had relatively short careers for Hall of Fame candidates.  Stephens, Gordon, Reynolds, Wes Ferrell, Bucky Walters, and Carl Mays all fall into this category.  The first three I’ve already discussed.  Let’s look at the other three.

Wes Ferrell was a better player than his brother, who is in the Hall.  Of course, Rick Ferrell is one of the worst selections for enshrinement ever made, so that doesn’t say much.  Ferrell is often cited as the best-hitting pitcher ever (non-Ruth division), although I think a case could be made that Bob Caruthers deserves that title.  Wes Ferrell was a very good pitcher, and indeed a solid hitter, but for a limited amount of time (2623 innings).  He did have six 20-win seasons.  Ferrell (and his brother) were the subjects of a book by noted baseball researcher Dick Thompson.  Thompson (who is now deceased) suggested that Ferrell’s pitching career was actually better than his numbers indicate because he pitched more often against the league’s better teams.  However, this claim has been challenged by another researcher.

Bucky Walters won the 1939 MVP award after a 27-win season.  His effort helped push the Reds into the Series for the first time since 1919.  The next year, Walters won 22 more games, and the Reds won the world championship.  Walters got off to a late start in his pitching career because he came up as a third baseman (who couldn’t hit).  He still logged more innings than Ferrell, Mays, or Reynolds, but I think he needs a bit more heft in his resume to be a Hall of Famer.

Carl Mays has slightly better career statistics than Walters.  He also killed a guy with a pitch.  That shouldn’t automatically disqualify him from consideration for the Hall, of course.  Mays was a submariner who could throw hard (think B.K. Kim when he was actually good).  He won 20+ games five times.

He was also tremendously unpopular.  He was known as a headhunter (this was long before the Ray Chapman incident).  He couldn’t get along with anybody, including teammates.  Many baseball people also believed that Mays threw at least one, if not two, World Series games.  Basically, he was a nasty bit of goods (who despite that found work as a scout in later years).  His statistical record as a pitcher (who was not a bad hitter, either) is probably close to the border for a legitimate Hall of Famer.  His “extracurriculars”, if you will, have kept him out of the Hall, and in my opinion, deservedly so.

The final two players on the ballot are Mickey Vernon, who debuted in 1939, later than any of the other nominees, and Deacon White, whose major league career ended in 1890, before any of the other nominees had debuted.

Vernon was a first baseman who in a long, Mark Grace-like career won two batting titles and the enduring support of many fans, as he was extremely popular.  Vernon was an outstanding defensive first baseman and a seven-time All Star.  A native of Pennsylvania, he would be the first Villanova alum to be enshrined in Cooperstown.  Vernon was still alive when he was named as a Hall of Fame nominee (in August 2008), but he died last September at age 90.

Deacon White was a third baseman and catcher at the dawn of the National League.  He was already 28 when the league was founded, so a lot of his best years were already behind him, but he still fashioned a lengthy career in the NL, playing until age 41 in that league (and adding a season in the Players League at age 42).  He was the oldest player in the majors for the last four seasons of his career.

White won the RBI title in the first two years in the new league, and won the batting title in 1877.  That year he was primarily a first baseman; in 1876 he had been a catcher.  It would not be until Roy Campanella in 1953 that another catcher would win the RBI title in the National League.

White’s candidacy, I think, hinges on whether or not he should get credit for his time in the “pre-majors” era.  He was a big star in the National Association, the forerunner to the National League.  If you count those years (particularly the last three), then I think he’s a Hall of Famer.  I would count them –it’s not White’s fault there wasn’t an established major league (or what we now consider a major league).  White also gets bonus points for being a solid citizen; he was called “Deacon” because he was one.  Maybe you would take away bonus points because White believed the world was flat…

His younger brother Will was a fine pitcher, by the way.

—

If I voted, I would definitely vote for Dahlen, and I would be inclined to vote for White as well.  I would seriously consider both Magee and Gordon.  I wouldn’t vote for Stephens, but I could understand why someone would.

Vernon, in my view, is not of the same quality (in terms of on-field value) as the other nine candidates, and I see no reason to honor Mays.  Reynolds, Ferrell, and Walters are fairly similar candidates who don’t quite measure up to the standard (such as it is).

As to who I think the committee will elect (if anyone):  I have no idea.  I suspect that Reynolds will get a lot of support, and the very fact Dahlen and White are on the ballot may suggest that they have supporters from among those on the committee who were on the panel formulating the ballot.  Vernon’s appearance on the ballot troubles me a little.  I wouldn’t be shocked if he were elected.

We’ll see on December 8.

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Mike Mussina and Bob Caruthers

Posted on November 23, 2008 by Sandlapper Spike

Mike Mussina retired last week.  Mussina finished his career with a 270-153 record and a 3.68 ERA, pitching his entire career in the American League for two teams, the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees.  He won 20 games this past season, the first (and as it turns out, only) time in his career he reached the 20-win milestone.

There has been considerable discussion in the press about whether or not Mussina deserves to be in baseball’s Hall of Fame.  In an article by Tyler Kepner of The New York Times, several writers interviewed by Kepner expressed reservations about voting for Mussina, mostly because he wasn’t perceived as a dominant pitcher.  One of them, Dom Amore of The Hartford Courant, stated that while he hadn’t ruled out voting for Mussina, “his candidacy would be based on longevity, and longevity candidates need 300.”

This is probably the typical line of reasoning behind people not supporting Mussina’s candidacy, but there is a problem with it, namely that Mussina isn’t strictly a “longevity candidate”.  Rather, he is a different sort of peak candidate.  He never had a big-win season or won an ERA title, but he was really good almost every season, and as a result posted a career .638 winning percentage, which is extremely impressive.  Sometimes you hear longevity-type Hall of Fame candidates dismissively referred to as “compilers”.  A pItcher with a career winning percentage of .638 is definitely not a compiler.  As pointed out in the article, the only pitchers with as many wins as Mussina and a better winning percentage are his former teammate Roger Clemens and four immortals of the distant past: Lefty Grove, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson.

Of course, all of them were demonstrably better than Mussina, with longer careers, but it speaks to the unusually successful nature of his career.  Wins aren’t everything, obviously, and are often overrated, particularly in individual seasons, but over a long career wins generally give you a good idea of the value of a pitcher.

Even if you dispute that, there is no arguing that wins and winning percentage are key considerations for most writers who have a Hall of Fame vote.  That leads me to this point:  Mussina, by the Hall’s own standards, is a no-questions-asked Hall of Famer.  He is 113 games over .500 in his career as a pitcher.  That’s a very large win-loss differential, and every Hall-eligible pitcher who has finished his career at least 100 games over .500 has a plaque in Cooperstown.  Every pitcher except one, that is.  The lone exception, the man on the outside looking in, is Bob Caruthers, who had a career win-loss record of 218-99.

Caruthers debuted with the St. Louis Browns of the American Association late in the 1884 season, after starting his pro career with Grand Rapids, a minor league club in the Northwestern League.  He was only 5’7″ and weighed less than 140 pounds, but the 20-year-old Caruthers impressed his new team immediately, appearing in 13 games with 7 starts and compiling a 7-2 record (125 ERA+).  St. Louis finished fourth that season, but thanks to Caruthers and teammate Dave Foutz, the Browns would dominate the AA in 1885, winning the pennant by 16 games.  Caruthers went 40-13 (158 ERA+), pitching 482 innings.  He started and completed all 53 games he pitched.  He led the league in wins, ERA, shutouts, and winning percentage.

During the winter he held out for more money.  Caruthers had traveled to Europe, and did his negotiating from Paris via telegraph.  That aspect of the contract dispute led to his nickname, “Parisian Bob”.  Caruthers eventually returned and led the Browns to another pennant, with a 30-14 record and 148 ERA+ in 387 innings.  Caruthers led the league in winning percentage and was second in ERA.  He was more than just a pitcher, though — a lot more.  That season, Caruthers played 43 games in the outfield when he wasn’t pitching (and also made two cameo appearances at second base).  He batted .334 (with a .448 OBP) and a .527 slugging percentage.  That added up to an OPS+ of 200.  Caruthers led the league in OBP, OPS, and OPS+, was second in slugging, and was fourth in batting average.

Caruthers missed three weeks of the 1887 season with malaria, but still managed a 29-9 record with an ERA+ of 138 (341 innings), leading the league in winning percentage.  As a batter, he continued to shine, batting .363 with a .453 OBP and a slugging percentage of .547, playing 54 games in the outfield and 7 games at first base when he wasn’t pitching.  Caruthers finished third in OPS, OPS+, and OBP, and fifth in batting.  The Browns won their third consecutive pennant.

The Browns lost a postseason exhibition series to the NL’s Detroit Wolverines, which angered eccentric (I’m being kind here) St. Louis owner Chris Von der Ahe.  He accused the players of playing too hard off the field, and sold the contracts of those he considered blame-worthy.  One of those players was Caruthers (a known cardsharp and an excellent pool player).  Caruthers went to Brooklyn with Foutz and catcher Doc Bushong for $18,500.

Brief digression Number One:  Bushong was a dentist as well as a catcher, and is credited by some sources as the inventor of the catcher’s mitt.  Bushong was an alumnus of Penn who never let anyone forget that dentistry was his longterm career path, not baseball.

In 1888 Caruthers went 29-15 for Brooklyn (128 ERA+), pitching 391 innings.  Caruthers also played 54 games in the outfield, but his batting declined substantially, with a .230 batting average (still an OPS+ of 111, though).  Brooklyn finished second in the AA, as St. Louis managed to hang on for its fourth straight pennant.

The next season, Caruthers would win 40 games for the second time in his career.  His 40-11 record wasn’t quite as impressive as his sensational 1885 season.  In 1889 his ERA+ was only 112, although that was in 445 innings.  He finished in the top three in the league in WHIP for a fifth consecutive season.  He led the AA in wins, winning percentage, and shutouts.  Caruthers rarely played the outfield this season, although his hitting was still quite respectable (OPS+ of 126).

Brief  (okay, maybe not so brief ) Digression Number Two:  The pennant race in 1889 would be a memorable one.  Brooklyn had to play all its games on the road for a month after its home grandstand burned to the ground, but recovered to catch St. Louis in the standings in August.  A crucial two-game series at home in early September against the Browns would turn into a farce.

In the first game, St. Louis led 4-2 in the eighth, with darkness approaching.  Von der Ahe set up a row of lighted candles in front of the visitors bench in an effort to intimidate the umpire into calling the game for darkness, which would have given the Browns the victory.  The umpire refused to take the bait, and the game continued even after Brooklyn fans threw beer at the candles and started a small fire.  The Browns refused to take the field for the ninth inning, and the game was forfeited to Brooklyn.  In protest, Von der Ahe also would not allow his team to play the next day.

After considerable deliberation, the AA president decided to call the two-game series a split, with the first game awarded to the Browns (because of darkness) and the second to Brooklyn (because of forfeit).  Brooklyn would eventually win the pennant by two games, but in part because of the club’s unhappiness over how the situation was handled by the league office, Brooklyn resigned from the AA after the season and joined the National League.

In his first year in the NL, Caruthers went 23-11 in 300 innings (112 ERA+).  He would finish in the top 10 in wins, winning percentage, and WHIP.  Caruthers also played 39 games in the outfield.  His batting average for the season was .265, with a high OBP (.397) and an OPS+ of 114.  Brooklyn would win the pennant in its first season in its new league.

Caruthers would slip to 18-14 in 1891, although his pitching statistics were very similar to the year before, with the exception of WHIP (which rose noticeably).  Caruthers only played 17 games in the outfield, although his batting improved from the 1890 season (.281 BA and an OPS+ of 120).  Brooklyn would collapse to sixth in the standings, 25 1/2 games out of first.

Caruthers returned to St. Louis (which had by then joined the NL) in 1892, but he could no longer pitch effectively.  His pitching career ended ignomiously, with a 2-10 record.  However, Caruthers could still hit, and he wound up playing 122 games in the outfield.  He compiled an OPS+ of 120 in over 600 PAs.

Caruthers would finish his major league career in 1893 with one appearance for Chicago and thirteen for Cincinnati, all in the outfield.  He would play a few more years in the minors, and also umpired in the American League for two seasons.  Caruthers died at age 47 in 1911 after a long illness (at least one source suggests he had a nervous breakdown).

The three main arguments against Caruthers’ candidacy for the Hall of Fame are 1)  his career length, 2)  the fact he played most of his career in the American Association, which while designated a major league (in retrospect) is generally considered to have been inferior to the National League, and 3) he won a lot of games because his teams were a lot better than their competition.  Of the three arguments, I think the third is weakest, partly because Caruthers wasn’t just winning those games as a pitcher – he was helping his team at the plate, too.  I’m not going to say he was Babe Ruth before there was a Babe Ruth, but he was a remarkable two-way player.  His value to his club was enormous.

He did have a short career, but so did Addie Joss, and Dizzy Dean, and Sandy Koufax (no, I’m not saying he was as good as Koufax).  None of them could hit like him, either.

What is held against Caruthers the most, though, is the level of play in the American Association.  It’s a legitimate point (as is noting the shortness of his career), but if Caruthers is not a Hall of Famer because most of his career was in the AA, then why is the AA considered a major league?  Also, his rate stats from 1889 (when he pitched in the American Association) and 1890 (when he pitched for the same team, but in the National League) are very similar.  The difference is that he only pitched 300 innings instead of 445, which is a significant difference to be sure, but it seems obvious to me that by 1890 he was already on the downside of his career (even though he was only 26 years old).  I suspect that he would have been dominant in the NL in his early years, probably to a similar degree as he was in actuality in the AA.

I’m not saying that Caruthers definitely should be in the Hall, but he is certainly a serious candidate, right on the border.  The main thing held against him is the quality of his competition.  Mike Mussina, on the other hand, pitched his entire career in the AL East.  Nobody’s going to argue about the level of his competition.  Given that, and the history of the Hall voters when considering pitchers with similar numbers, there shouldn’t be any question that Mussina will be (and by the Hall’s own standards, should be) enshrined shortly after he becomes eligible for election.

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