2017 MLB HOF ballot released

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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He only voted for nine. That's interesting.

I just checked and we had the "same" votes accept I voted for Manny too.
 

mastergasket

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Nathaniel Rakich (@baseballot on twitter) projects 5 at this point, but I think his methodology on this is off base. I don't see any way Vlad gets in.

I think Hoffman at 73% actually has a pretty good chance this year, while Pudge at 83% looks doubtful based on the drop off Raines saw on the tracker during January 2016. Pudge may be at 79% or so on the eve of the announcement (which is 1/18), and at that point it could go either way.

I'm going out on a limb to say Hoffman in, Pudge out -- but I'd happily be wrong.
I tend to agree with Rakich's methodology, though he admits it has a notable margin of error, and only projects Hoffman and Vlad to get around 77% of the vote. So he could be "right" and both of them could still just miss out this year. But Vlad, in particular, strikes me as the kind of player traditional voters love - the kind narratives and legends are built around, and no hint of PEDs. I wouldn't be surprised if he stuck around 75% of the public vote, but shot up to 80-85% of the private vote. Heck, even fucking Dan Shaughnessy's ballot only has two players, and they are Vlad and Raines.
 

Sir Lancelotti

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Vlad is riding quite a bit of the "feared" "passes the smell test" platitude wave that carried the Jim Rice movement towards the finish line, although Vlad has a stronger Cooperstown resume on his own merits.

I'm more shocked I didn't initially recoil in horror over Cafardo's ballot (although I disagree on Kent, Sheffield, and Hoffman). His selection logic of course yielded absolutely nothing of substance.
 

moondog80

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If Vlad gets in, Expo or Angel?

MON: 8 years, 148 OPS+, 31.8 WAR
ANA: 6 years, 141 OPS+, 24.3 WAR

Won his MVP as an Angel, which counts for something, but I like to give some extra credit to a guy's first team. I'd say Expo (two Expos in the same year, maybe!), but I suspect MLB will want the team that actually exists.
 

moondog80

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The Expos still existed when Carter got in, and there was still hope they would remain there. They didn't exist when Dawson was inducted with an Expos cap, but the case for him going in with a Cubs hat was a lot weaker than Vlad with the Angels.
 

InstaFace

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I just went back and read through most of the last 5 years' worth of Joe Posnanski's HOF ballot coverage, because it's a topic that really puts his writing style to its fullest potential, his knowledge of statistics and their meaning but also how to use them to tell a story.

Anyway, I had been fairly undecided on Tim Raines for a while, but it was an anecdote from this article in his coverage last year that really sold me:

Instead of covering that familiar ground, let’s take a moment to remember just how good Tim Raines was at stealing bases.

Rickey Henderson stole about 500 more bases than anyone in baseball history. He was successful an excellent 81 percent of the time.

Lou Brock was successful 75 percent of the time. Maury Wills, often credited with bringing the stolen base back into the game, was successful about that same percentage.

Vince Coleman once stole 50 bases in a row; he was successful 81 percent of the time. Joe Morgan, the greatest baserunner of his generation, was successful 81 percent of the time. Willie Wilson, who I believe was the fastest man ever to play Major League Baseball, was successful an astonishing 83 percent of the time. It does not seem possible for anyone to top that percentage.

Tim Raines was successful stealing on 808 of 954 attempts. That’s 85 percent of the time. It’s untouchable.
To the extent that I allow some subjective elements to creep into my estimation of HOF worthiness, I think they revolve around the idea of someone being (or not being) extraordinary at some aspect of the game. Something beyond a numerical threshold that you can be above or below or in a gray area near. Vlad's amazing contact ability outside the zone, Pedro's brilliant ability to mess with a hitter's mind, the supernatural ability of Gwynn or Boggs to turn balls in play into hits, Randy Johnson's terrifying stature, visage, and slider... there ought to be something you can point to for why a player was electric and won over new fans to the game. That's what always bothered me about Jack Morris's apologists, since it seemed his candidacy was built on the back of a single game - and absent that game, he would have been popular but not a cause célèbre.

I guess I hadn't fully appreciated just how brilliant Raines was at basestealing before Pos put it that way. Sure, Raines was a very good player (near-MVP quality in his 20s) for a very long time. But having become a baseball fan more than halfway through his career, I never really had a moment where he "clicked" with me as a HOF candidate. I'd read lots of articles making the case for him, but this was the first that resonated, mostly because "there's an argument that Raines was the greatest basestealer of all time". Perhaps Rickey and even Brock have better arguments. Perhaps Utley, Werth and Beltran will end up with a better SB%. But Raines at least has an argument to something truly superlative, and it feels like that should matter.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Vlad is a really tough call...he set so many records in Montreal but had his greatest career success after he left, including his MVP award in his first season in Anaheim. I imagine this might come down to a coinflip unless Vlad himself has a strong opinion on the subject.

And I'm still saying Pudge gets in, though it might be by the slimmest of margins. Hoffman may but I have this weird feeling that the reliever bias will work against him in the other 60-someodd percent of the ballots left to be counted. I base that on absolutely nothing but gut feeling but I can see a lot of voters having an issue putting him in before Clemens, Bonds, et al., PED stuff notwithstanding.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
The Expos still existed when Carter got in, and there was still hope they would remain there. They didn't exist when Dawson was inducted with an Expos cap, but the case for him going in with a Cubs hat was a lot weaker than Vlad with the Angels.
Just curious why you think the Hall will lean toward the team that still exists. What's the perceived benefit there?
 

moondog80

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Just curious why you think the Hall will lean toward the team that still exists. What's the perceived benefit there?
Look what the Red Sox do marketing-wise when they get a HOFer. Teams care about this, that's why the Red Sox and White Sox both lobbied for Fisk.
 

coremiller

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I just went back and read through most of the last 5 years' worth of Joe Posnanski's HOF ballot coverage, because it's a topic that really puts his writing style to its fullest potential, his knowledge of statistics and their meaning but also how to use them to tell a story.

Anyway, I had been fairly undecided on Tim Raines for a while, but it was an anecdote from this article in his coverage last year that really sold me:



To the extent that I allow some subjective elements to creep into my estimation of HOF worthiness, I think they revolve around the idea of someone being (or not being) extraordinary at some aspect of the game. Something beyond a numerical threshold that you can be above or below or in a gray area near. Vlad's amazing contact ability outside the zone, Pedro's brilliant ability to mess with a hitter's mind, the supernatural ability of Gwynn or Boggs to turn balls in play into hits, Randy Johnson's terrifying stature, visage, and slider... there ought to be something you can point to for why a player was electric and won over new fans to the game. That's what always bothered me about Jack Morris's apologists, since it seemed his candidacy was built on the back of a single game - and absent that game, he would have been popular but not a cause célèbre.

I guess I hadn't fully appreciated just how brilliant Raines was at basestealing before Pos put it that way. Sure, Raines was a very good player (near-MVP quality in his 20s) for a very long time. But having become a baseball fan more than halfway through his career, I never really had a moment where he "clicked" with me as a HOF candidate. I'd read lots of articles making the case for him, but this was the first that resonated, mostly because "there's an argument that Raines was the greatest basestealer of all time". Perhaps Rickey and even Brock have better arguments. Perhaps Utley, Werth and Beltran will end up with a better SB%. But Raines at least has an argument to something truly superlative, and it feels like that should matter.
Here's a different take on Raines's SB%. The base-stealing break-even percentage has been generally around 65-70% (it varies slightly based on the run-scoring environment). If you are stealing bases at an 85% rate, your SB% is too high: it suggests you should be running even more often and trying to take advantage of more marginal opportunities.

For example, in 1983 Raines led the NL league with 90 SB, being caught 14 times, so he attempted 104 steals with a SB% of 86.5. He got to 1B (H+BB+HBP-2B-3B-HR) 231 times. So he ran 104/231 = 45% of the time (I know not all his steal attempts were from 1B, but I suspect the vast majority of them were, so I'll ignore that for now). Maybe he should have been running way more often!

When Rickey Henderson set the single-season SB record of 130 in 1982, he was caught 42 times, for a SB% of 75.5 on 172 attempts. Rickey got to 1B 223 times, so he ran 172/223 = 77% of the time! To me, that's way more impressive than Raines' season despite the lower SB%.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Look what the Red Sox do marketing-wise when they get a HOFer. Teams care about this, that's why the Red Sox and White Sox both lobbied for Fisk.
Fisk went in before they changed the rules about who decides the cap, so it was his call ultimately. Now it's the Hall that decides, not MLB or any individual teams. While they might be lobbied, I'm not sure how much influence it would have. They'll ask the player for his preference but he won't always get his way. Ironically, both players already in with an Expos cap (Carter and Dawson) didn't want the Expos cap.

I'm inclined to believe the Hall powers that be will lean Expos for Vlad, but given how close a call it is, I think it may just come down to Vlad's preference, since they do take under consideration even if they don't always give the player his wish. Look what they did with Maddux a couple years ago. Maddux chose to go with a blank cap so as not to favor (or slight) the Braves or Cubs franchise/fanbase, since both had a strong case to be the team.
 

InstaFace

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Here's a different take on Raines's SB%. The base-stealing break-even percentage has been generally around 65-70% (it varies slightly based on the run-scoring environment). If you are stealing bases at an 85% rate, your SB% is too high: it suggests you should be running even more often and trying to take advantage of more marginal opportunities.
That can cut both ways, though, because not all SB opportunities are created equal. The runner needs to feel like he has a good read on the pitcher, a good lead, a good pitch to run on, and some sort of chemistry with the batter to give him the space to run. Sometimes the batter grounds out on the first pitch. Sometimes you're on base against a Lefty who's not named Jon Lester. Sometimes a Molina-esque catcher is behind the plate. The sum total of good opportunities is way less than 100%.

Maybe he would have had a success rate north of 90%, except for some opportunities he took because he was encouraged to "run more" when they were actually <50% chances, and he got thrown out. And of course, there's also the fact that while ~70% is an average, it averages across a wide range of leverages in the particular game contexts. There are many times where the cost of an out is so much greater, relative to the value of an extra base, that the breakeven point is higher for that context. Maybe he ran less in those times.

We have no idea what the distribution of "theoretical SB success rate" looks like across all of a player's on-base opportunities, so to say he should have run more is to say that you think there are certain, specific opportunities he didn't run on, where he would have had a success rate north of 70%. That's really unknowable, and pretty tough criticism to say you know it better than the guy who stole 800+ bases in the big leagues.
 

coremiller

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That can cut both ways, though, because not all SB opportunities are created equal. The runner needs to feel like he has a good read on the pitcher, a good lead, a good pitch to run on, and some sort of chemistry with the batter to give him the space to run. Sometimes the batter grounds out on the first pitch. Sometimes you're on base against a Lefty who's not named Jon Lester. Sometimes a Molina-esque catcher is behind the plate. The sum total of good opportunities is way less than 100%.

Maybe he would have had a success rate north of 90%, except for some opportunities he took because he was encouraged to "run more" when they were actually <50% chances, and he got thrown out. And of course, there's also the fact that while ~70% is an average, it averages across a wide range of leverages in the particular game contexts. There are many times where the cost of an out is so much greater, relative to the value of an extra base, that the breakeven point is higher for that context. Maybe he ran less in those times.

We have no idea what the distribution of "theoretical SB success rate" looks like across all of a player's on-base opportunities, so to say he should have run more is to say that you think there are certain, specific opportunities he didn't run on, where he would have had a success rate north of 70%. That's really unknowable, and pretty tough criticism to say you know it better than the guy who stole 800+ bases in the big leagues.
I don't really disagree with any of this, although I suspect most of the leverage and matchup issues wash out over a large enough sample. But obviously we have evidence of excellent base stealers running much more often (e.g. in addition to 83 Henderson cited above, when Coleman stole 110 bases at an 81% rate in 1985, he ran on 71% of his opportunities). My point was that while the record SB% is a shiny knob for HOF voters to hang their hats on, it's actually kind of misleading about value.
 

Soxfan in Fla

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Gammons discusses his ballot (with references to eddie Vedder and a bazillion other things):

A decade ago, a player known to smoke marijuana was labeled a pothead and likely traded (after putting private investigators on the road with the Red Sox late in the 1976 season, a half-dozen players thought to be smoking dope were traded or dumped in the next two seasons).

http://www.gammonsdaily.com/peter-gammons-the-hall-of-fame-ballot/
Here's a different take on Raines's SB%. The base-stealing break-even percentage has been generally around 65-70% (it varies slightly based on the run-scoring environment). If you are stealing bases at an 85% rate, your SB% is too high: it suggests you should be running even more often and trying to take advantage of more marginal opportunities.

For example, in 1983 Raines led the NL league with 90 SB, being caught 14 times, so he attempted 104 steals with a SB% of 86.5. He got to 1B (H+BB+HBP-2B-3B-HR) 231 times. So he ran 104/231 = 45% of the time (I know not all his steal attempts were from 1B, but I suspect the vast majority of them were, so I'll ignore that for now). Maybe he should have been running way more often!

When Rickey Henderson set the single-season SB record of 130 in 1982, he was caught 42 times, for a SB% of 75.5 on 172 attempts. Rickey got to 1B 223 times, so he ran 172/223 = 77% of the time! To me, that's way more impressive than Raines' season despite the lower SB%.
Of the 55% of the time Raines didn't steal, how many times did he have a runner(s) on base in front of him.
 

coremiller

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Of the 55% of the time Raines didn't steal, how many times did he have a runner(s) on base in front of him.
Frankly I have no idea, and I'm too lazy to do the work to find out. My point is just that that SB/CS ratio and SB% is not the best way to think about value created by base-stealers.
 

coremiller

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What's so counterintuitive about the principle? Isn't it obvious that a runner with 10 SB/0 CS is a less valuable base-stealer than a runner with 100 SB/10 CS, despite the former's higher SB%? That's a more extreme example of the idea, but the principle is the same.

Ideally wouldn't you want something like Net Runs Created by SB, relative to Opportunities, Above Average? I.e. how many runs did the player add by SBs/lose by CS, relative to what an average base-stealer would have added, given the same number of opportunities (opportunities defined as, say, being on base with an open base ahead of him).
 

Schnerres

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When Rickey Henderson set the single-season SB record of 130 in 1982, he was caught 42 times, for a SB% of 75.5 on 172 attempts. Rickey got to 1B 223 times, so he ran 172/223 = 77% of the time! To me, that's way more impressive than Raines' season despite the lower SB%.
What's so counterintuitive about the principle? Isn't it obvious that a runner with 10 SB/0 CS is a less valuable base-stealer than a runner with 100 SB/10 CS, despite the former's higher SB%? That's a more extreme example of the idea, but the principle is the same.
So Henderson got +40 steals and +28CS on Raines. That´s a big difference than your example of +90steals and +10 CS. Having a bigger total number helps in many cases, but if you add on Raines´ season numbers (90/14) the missing numbers to Hendersons´ record season (130/42), that will result in the mentioned 40/28 numbers. 59%SB/41% CS, which is much lower than the 75% number you mentioned before.


Easy question:
In the following season to his "most steals" season, Henderson got -22 SBs and -23 CS (130-->108 SBs // 42-->19CS). Based on just his steals and caught stealing season numbers, which is the better one for Henderson?
 

E5 Yaz

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Billy Wagner has now qualified for next year's ballot
 

Moog

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For example, in 1983 Raines led the NL league with 90 SB, being caught 14 times, so he attempted 104 steals with a SB% of 86.5. He got to 1B (H+BB+HBP-2B-3B-HR) 231 times. So he ran 104/231 = 45% of the time (I know not all his steal attempts were from 1B, but I suspect the vast majority of them were, so I'll ignore that for now). Maybe he should have been running way more often!

When Rickey Henderson set the single-season SB record of 130 in 1982, he was caught 42 times, for a SB% of 75.5 on 172 attempts. Rickey got to 1B 223 times, so he ran 172/223 = 77% of the time! To me, that's way more impressive than Raines' season despite the lower SB%.
Of the 55% of the time Raines didn't steal, how many times did he have a runner(s) on base in front of him.
The percentages for how often they ran, relative to opportunity, are generally lower than they're made out to be here. B-Ref lists Stolen Base Opportunities (SBO) = plate appearances through which a runner was on 1st or 2nd with the next base open—so more or less what Soxfan was asking for.
For their careers, Raines ran 22% of the time (954 attempts/4397 SBO) and stole a base in 18% of his opportunities. Rickey ran 32% of the time (1741 attempts/5411 SBO) and stole a base in 26% of his opportunities. (I'm not accounting for pickoffs, which could be considered a component of base-stealing value; for the record, Raines had 51, Rickey 161.)

Rickey's 1982 season is an extreme anomaly—172 attempts vs. 225 SBO = he ran 76% of the time (so, similar to the percentage you gave, though the calculation is different). In Raines' 1983 season he ran 31% of the time (104 attempts / 333 SBO). The only other seasons in Rickey's career where he ran more than 45% of the time were 1983 (63%) and 1986 (52%).

In re: Rickey's 1982 vs. Raines 1983—Rickey also got caught 16 times attempting to steal 3B or home versus only once for Raines, got picked off 16 times to Raines's 10, and took 22 extra bases versus Raines' 38. So I'm not sure how much the extra 68 attempts at 59% success rate really earned him.
 
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Moog

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BTW if you're looking for a better example of balancing base-stealing percentage with max opportunities taken, it might be Vince Coleman: 752 steals, 81% success rate. By SBO he ran much more often, 47% of the time over his career. In his first four seasons, he ran an incredible 58% of the time, with 407 steals and an 82% success rate.
 

CarolinaBeerGuy

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Perhaps Utley, Werth and Beltran will end up with a better SB%. But Raines at least has an argument to something truly superlative, and it feels like that should matter.
Interesting to see that 7 of the top 10 and 24 of the top 50 stolen base percentages of all time are held by currently active players. Is this due to better scouting? Worse pickoff moves? Slower pop times? Fewer attempts?
 
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Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Looking at the the most recent ballot tracker update, there are a few guys who are starting to creep closer to being over 70% with nearly 60% of the ballots to still be counted. There might be a slim chance that we see one of the biggest classes in history that wasn't one of the inaugural first few. A few have pointed out that a lot of these numbers see big dips or increases once the dust settles, so it's not unreasonable that guys who are at or beyond the 2/3 mark might get to 3/4 when that happens.
 

Moog

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Interesting to see that 7 of the top 10 and 24 of the top 50 stolen base percentages of all time are held by currently active players. Is this due to better scouting? Worse pickoff moves? Slowe pop times? Fewer attempts?
I wonder if this is a combination of faster players early in their careers (the minimum for that list is only 80 SB attempts), and/or managers being more knowledgeable/selective on when it makes sense to steal (the latter is pure conjecture).

Increasing the minimum to, say, 250 SB attempts gives the following (current players in italics; more than 500 SB in bold):
Carlos Beltran, 86.4% (312 SB)
Tim Raines, 84.7% (808 SB)
Eric Davis, 84.1% (349 SB)
Shane Victorino, 83.4% (312 SB)
Willie Wilson, 83.3% (668 SB)
Barry Larkin, 83.1% (379 SB)
Tony Womack, 83.1% (363 SB)
Davey Lopes, 83.0% (557 SB)
Stan Javier, 82.9% (246 SB)
Jacoby Ellsbury, 82.5% (321 SB)
Jimmy Rollins, 81.7% (470 SB)
Carl Crawford, 81.5% (480 SB)
Julio Cruz, 81.5% (343 SB)
Ichiro Suzuki, 81.4% (508 SB)
Alex Rodriguez, 81.2% (329 SB)
Brian Hunter, 81.0% (260 SB)
Joe Morgan, 81.0% (689 SB)
Vince Coleman, 80.9% (752 SB)
Rickey Henderson, 80.8% (1406 SB)

So Raines was something like an ideal combination of success rate and volume: 2nd in percentage, 5th in steals.

Off-topic edit: it makes me happy that Ichiro is still a current player. And that Rodriguez isn't.
 

InstaFace

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Interesting to see that 7 of the top 10 and 24 of the top 50 stolen base percentages of all time are held by currently active players. Is this due to better scouting? Worse pickoff moves? Slowe pop times? Fewer attempts?
I would wager that it's almost entirely an effect of aging - speed in stealing bases is about as typical a "young player" skill as you'll find. As players get older they try attempts they're no longer fast enough to make, and their SB% goes down. It's why most of the career leaders in some big rate stats are all active players: they haven't yet had a decline phase to average in to their numbers.

Could test that theory pretty easily by taking the top (say) 100 players by career SB, and then breaking their careers out by age-year (for SB%) and building up to an estimate of SB% by age - and seeing how the curve goes.
 

CarolinaBeerGuy

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I would wager that it's almost entirely an effect of aging - speed in stealing bases is about as typical a "young player" skill as you'll find. As players get older they try attempts they're no longer fast enough to make, and their SB% goes down. It's why most of the career leaders in some big rate stats are all active players: they haven't yet had a decline phase to average in to their numbers.

Could test that theory pretty easily by taking the top (say) 100 players by career SB, and then breaking their careers out by age-year (for SB%) and building up to an estimate of SB% by age - and seeing how the curve goes.
I don't have time to break it out, but all 6 of the current guys in the top 10 (I miscounted earlier) are over 30 years old, with Utley (37), Werth (37) and Beltran (39) in the top 4 all time. Only 6 of the top 50 are under 30 years old. There's no doubt that the 80 minimum attempts is a bit low for this type of assessment, but that's the number they're using.
 

InstaFace

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It would be difficult to overstate my disdain for Murray Chass and his ego. Is he getting purged from the voter rolls soon, on the 5-year rule? Or does he have some sort of "former BBWAA chairman" exception? He hasn't written for the NY Times since 2008.
 

Moog

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It would be difficult to overstate my disdain for Murray Chass and his ego.
"By the time of my second vote, I realized that by voting for 10, I was saying I wanted to see 10 elected. What a horrible thought, to make people sit through 10 speeches in the hot July Cooperstown sun. I also realized that by having 10 players inducted on the same day lessened the honor for each. From then on I voted for only the players I considered the best of the elite."

My god. What a fucking moron. *Those* are his reasons for voting for fewer than 10 players? That the sun is too hot??
Does he know how math works? That voting for 10 players doesn't mean that ten players will be elected—it increases the chances that more than, say, 1 or 2 will be in any given year?

Hey Murray, you know what really "lessens the honor" for a player? NOT GETTING ELECTED because of dipshits like you.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
EDIT: Deleted because Murray C.'s whole purpose in posting that ridiculous blank ballot was so that people would talk about him on the internet, and I don't want to give the dyspeptic old putz the satisfaction.
 
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Moog

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I fell for it of course, but may console myself with the assumption that he won't be seeing anything here, so hopefully no satisfaction given.

/feels shame nonetheless
 

axx

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Pudge down to 80% in the Tracker with 43% of the projected ballots. I think he's going to get in but I expect it to be close to 75%.
 

SumnerH

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Here's a different take on Raines's SB%. The base-stealing break-even percentage has been generally around 65-70% (it varies slightly based on the run-scoring environment). If you are stealing bases at an 85% rate, your SB% is too high: it suggests you should be running even more often.
Show your work? You might be right but it's not obvious from this argument.

For optimal results you want to maximize expected runs*; break even is stealing way too much (it is net zero). The optimal rate is somewhere in between there and 100% but it's not clear exactly where. Back of the envelope, 85% is the halfway point between 70 and 100; that doesn't seem obviously too conservative at first glance, though likely the distribution is probably skewed one way or the other and it could be.

*well, situational factors need to be considered, too.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Posada: still under 5% and dropping. Looking like he'll be one and done, which is truly shocking given how much he was a part of that "core four" we kept hearing about. I would have thought he'd stick around a year or two on that reputation alone.
 

cheech13

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I wouldn't vote for Posada but his numbers aren't that far off from the HOF standards for a catcher and he has the types of intangibles that media types usually go nuts for. Surprised he hasn't done better in the voting.
 

Bowlerman9

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I wouldn't vote for Posada but his numbers aren't that far off from the HOF standards for a catcher and he has the types of intangibles that media types usually go nuts for. Surprised he hasn't done better in the voting.
I'm not. If there wasnt a 10 vote limit, he'd easily get >5% and probably be on the ballot for the next 10 years. But (in my opinion, and the opinion of many others) there are 10 or more guys currently on the ballot who should be in the HOF, so it makes sense that Posada isnt getting votes when the voters are capped at 10.
 

Gdiguy

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I'm not. If there wasnt a 10 vote limit, he'd easily get >5% and probably be on the ballot for the next 10 years. But (in my opinion, and the opinion of many others) there are 10 or more guys currently on the ballot who should be in the HOF, so it makes sense that Posada isnt getting votes when the voters are capped at 10.
Eh, maybe... though there's already 80 non-full ballots on that tracker (and even if you subtract a few for crazy people, that's still quite a few), and he's currently below 5% by only 0.7 votes.

I still think he makes it above 5%
 

Merkle's Boner

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Apr 24, 2011
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http://joeposnanski.com/ballot-7-larry-walker/

Great discussion by Posnanski of Larry Walker and how he is one of a very few players in history who was good at everything.

Also, wasn't aware how strong his numbers were away from Coors. .282/.372/.500 is nothing to sneeze at. I could definitely see him becoming the next Tim Raines cause celebre in the next few years.
 

InstaFace

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Sep 27, 2016
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Updated standings as of this morning (1/13), with 197 ballots (45.3% of expected totals):

Name, Current% (# years on ballot, +/- from last year)

Tim Raines, 91.4% (10th & last, +25)
Jeff Bagwell, 90.9% (7th, +16)
Ivan Rodriguez, 79.7% (1st)
---
Vlad Guerrero, 74.6% (1st)
Trevor Hoffman, 73.1% (2nd, +17)
Edgar Martinez, 66.5% (8th, +31)
Barry Bonds, 64.0% (5th, +20)
Roger Clemens, 63.5% (5th, +21)
Mike Mussina, 60.9% (4th, +16)
Curt Schilling, 52.3% (5th, -10)
---
Lee Smith, 29.4% (15th & last, +4)
Manny Ramirez, 25.4% (1st)
Larry Walker, 23.9% (7th, +11)
Fred McGriff, 16.2% (8th, -2)
Jeff Kent, 14.7% (4th, -1)
Gary Sheffield, 12.2% (3rd, +2)
Billy Wagner, 11.2% (2nd, +5)
Sammy Sosa, 9.6% (5th, +3)

(everyone else is under 5%, though Posada is at 9 votes out of 197 (4.6%) and only needs 4 more to stick)

Raines has jumped 1 vote ahead of Bagwell, Hoffman has picked up some steam, and Vlad has dropped 1 vote off the pace. Bonds and Clemens have lost ~6-7% since last week, and Edgar has passed them. At this point it's hard to see how the usual "everyone who gets 50% eventually gets in" rule of thumb will continue to hold, since that's quite a logjam in the top 10.
 

Bowlerman9

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At this point it's hard to see how the usual "everyone who gets 50% eventually gets in" rule of thumb will continue to hold, since that's quite a logjam in the top 10.
I think this will largely hold true. Keep in mind that after a deep ballot next next (adding Chipper, Thome, and Rolen), the following year has Mariano (along with borderline guys like Halladay, Helton, and Pettite) and then Jeter (with Konerno being the only borderline guy).

Vlad and Hoffman will get in next year if not this year. Edgar has a really good chance to go in on his 10th and final ballot along with Mariano. Mussina will get in eventually, maybe the Jeter year. Bonds, Clemens and Schilling are in a class of their own. I think Bonds and Clemens get in sometime in the next 5 years. Schilling probably does too, maybe in his 10th year, if he just shuts up and deletes his Twitter account.

The ballot may be loaded now, but by 2019 and 2020 they should be able to elect 2-3 guys a year with only 1 of them being a "first ballot" guy (Rivera in 2019 and Jeter in 2020).
 

E5 Yaz

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(everyone else is under 5%, though Posada is at 9 votes out of 197 (4.6%) and only needs 4 more to stick).
Posada needs 13 more votes to stay on the ballot. It says so, right there on the spreadsheet
 

Hendu At The Wall

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Jul 31, 2005
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Woodstock, NY
Edgar has a really good chance to go in on his 10th and final ballot along with Mariano...

The ballot may be loaded now, but by 2019 and 2020 they should be able to elect 2-3 guys a year with only 1 of them being a "first ballot" guy (Rivera in 2019 and Jeter in 2020).
2018: Chipper, Thome, Vlad, Pudge
2019: Rivera, Martinez
2020: Jeter, Clemens, Bonds
2021: Schilling, Mussina, Victorino ;)
 

InstaFace

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Sep 27, 2016
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Perhaps easier to do the forecasting thing by WAR.

For context, Piazza's 59 WAR was the lowest for an eventual inductee since 2009 (Rice, 47). Only other low-WAR inductees since the 90s are mostly relievers (Gossage, Sutter, Eckersley). Other inductees who were around the borderline have included Gwynn (69), Murray (68), Sandberg (68), Alomar (67), Biggio (65), Dawson (65), Winfield (64), Perez (54) and Puckett (51).

Highest WAR that ultimately failed to make it recently include Lou Whitaker (75), Palmeiro (72), Trammell (70), Kevin Brown (68), Lofton (68), Tiant (67), Dewey (67), Cone (63), Tommy John (62), and McGwire (62), Edmonds (60) and Keith Hernandez (60). Palmeiro and McGwire obviously had off-field factors negatively affect them, and Kevin Brown arguably as well. Bonds and Clemens may get in despite that, but Manny (69) and Schilling (80!) may have more trouble.

So I'd think of 60-70 as a gray zone, where below 60 you either need to be a reliever or a highly-sentimental favorite. The menu coming up includes:

2018: Chipper (85), Thome (73), Rolen (70), Andruw Jones (63)
2019: Rivera (57), Halladay (65), Helton (61), Pettitte (61)
2020: Jeter (72), Abreu (60), not much else
2021: Jack and Shit, respectively - Hudson (59) and Buerhle (59) are the top additions to the list

I agree with Bowlerman: other than the first names listed in the next 3 years, I don't see a first-balloter there. But the other 2018 names may add to the logjam, not lighten it. You'll have the highly-likely pair of Vlad and Hoffman getting momentum votes for 2018. And aging off, you have Edgar's last ballot in 2019, and Walker's in 2020. So maybe you'll see Bonds and Clemens in 2020, and the others have a real shot starting in 2021, but that doesn't leave your Mussinas and Schillings many years of eligibility to build momentum - nevermind Manny or Larry Walker.
 

Moog

New Member
Oct 10, 2016
50
I think this will largely hold true. Keep in mind that after a deep ballot next next (adding Chipper, Thome, and Rolen), the following year has Mariano (along with borderline guys like Halladay, Helton, and Pettite) and then Jeter (with Konerno being the only borderline guy).
Konerko is borderline? He of the career 27.6 WAR?
 

manny4goldglove

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Jul 17, 2005
14
Rockville, MD
I hate using career WAR as a way to determine HOF worthiness. Most people using it have no idea how things like Tim Raines' defensive WAR are calculated (a guesstimate based on play-by-play data). JAWS is based on WAR too. It's not the gospel truth people want it to be.
 

InstaFace

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No one, least of all me, said it was the "gospel truth" for HOF worthiness. My lists of low WARs who made it and high WARs that didn't should be evidence enough of that as far as the voters are concerned. But when talking about how crowded the ballot will be in the next few years, it's a useful way of separating the slam-dunks (Chipper, Jeter) from the filler whose greatest ambition is to stick around a few years (e.g., Abreu, Hudson).