Who's on your 2016 ballot

Dec 10, 2012
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HangingW/ScottCooper said:
Thank you for posting that. I figured the number would be around 30%, but really the change should have been made in 2013 after nobody got in. For what it's worth, my ballot for next year would be:
 
Griffey
Hoffman
Piazza
Raines
Schilling
Clemens
Bonds
Bagwell
Mussina
Kent
DtTtB's ballot:
 
Bonds
Clemens
Griffey
Piazza
 

grimshaw

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Griffey
Piazza
Bagwell
Clemens
Mussina
Schilling
Edgar Martinez
Raines
Trammell
Walker
Strategically leaving off Bonds because I think Walker is deserving and Bonds will have his day down the line
 
I've never been a fan of closers in the HoF.  Rivera is basically the only sub 75 IP guy I want in the Hall.
They simply cannot impact a season to the extent a starter or every day player can.
I think Hoffman will get in eventually if you compare him to Lee Smith who got 30% in this crowd.
 

Rasputin

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Bonds, Clemens, Griffey, Mussina, Schilling, Bagwell, Raines, Edgar Martinez, Piazza.
 
That's nine. I guess the ten spot goes to Trammel as it's his last chance.
 
Dec 10, 2012
6,943
Fratboy said:
Who's newly eligible next year?
Griffey
Edmonds
J Kendall
Glaus
Hampton
L Castillo
G Anderson
R Winn
Lowell
Mike Sweeney
Grudz
Eckstein
Chan Ho
Jeff Weaver
Ausmus
Russ Ortiz
C Guzman
G Matthews
Howry
Jose Guillen
Tatis
Russ Springer
B Molina
 
and Hoffman, oops.
 

Yelling At Clouds

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Bagwell, Bonds, Clemens, Griffey, Martinez, Mussina, Piazza, Raines, Trammell, Whitaker (write-in)

(Schilling in seriousness)
 

getfoul

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I only have ten that I think are Hall of Famers, so it's pretty easy for me:
 
Clemens, Bonds, Griffey, McGriff, Raines, Schilling, Mussina, Trammell, Piazza, Bagwell
 

twothousandone

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Is there a compelling case to be made for Fred McGriff?
 
I've been unconvinced by the cases for Trammel and Walker. Never heard one for McGriff.
 

mwonow

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I'd probably go Griffey, Schill, Raines as 'definitely' guys, Mussina, Piazza, Bagwell and maybe Edgar as 'they belong too' guys, and Trammell and maybe Hoffman on the 'might well deserve it, but I 'd need to think about it more' part of the ballot.
 

j-man

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bonds take out  1999-2007  from 86-98   he was a top 5 players for 10 years 
Clemens   from 85-99  was good enough without ped's   
Ken Giffey JR 1 of my fav Ballplayers   
shoeless joe jackson 
pete rose 
piazza   
L Walker  
Schilling  yankee killer   
Bagwell  as a kid loved his batting stance 
that all  
 

JohntheBaptist

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j-man said:
bonds take out  1999-2007  from 86-98   he was a top 5 players for 10 years 
Clemens   from 85-99  was good enough without ped's   
Ken Giffey JR 1 of my fav Ballplayers   
shoeless joe jackson 
pete rose 
piazza   
L Walker  
Schilling  yankee killer   
Bagwell  as a kid loved his batting stance 
that all  
 
Nice ballot! Bagwell's stance just totally confounded me growing up too. How the hell did he do that?
 
No Raines love?!
 

E5 Yaz

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tims4wins said:
So how many votes do we think Eckstein will get? I am guessing around 20
 
0 ... since he's off the ballot
 

EricFeczko

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Unfortunately I think there are at least 15 HOFers (I prefer a big hall to a small one), so my ballot is more strategic than "who's the best?":Asterisks are for players I think are less deserving than at least one of the others I've listed below my ballot:

My ballot:

Trammell*
Raines*
Bagwell
Piazza
Jeff Kent*
Fred Mcgriff*
Sosa*
McGwire*
Larry Walker*
Edgar Martinez*
 
left off but would vote for if not for a ridiculously overcrowded ballot:

Griffey -- He'd get in anyways, so he doesn't need my vote as much as the above
*Sheffield -- career wRC+ 141 in ~11,000 PA, a solid baserunner with speed (12.8 BsR to go with 250 SBs over his career). Both of which overcome his deficits in the field; I think he'll get barely enough to stay on the ballot, and he's got time, but it was close.
Edmonds -- Above average defensive centerfielder with a 132 wRC+ in ~8000 PA. Obviously not a griffey's level, but he's still an impressive slugger and one of the top centerfielders of the 90s and 2000s. I don't think he'll get voted in next year, but I think he'll get ~30-60 percent of the vote, so I'm comfortable leaving him off.
*Schilling -- He should be in right now or Smoltz shouldn't be, if it weren't for the stupid. Fortunately he's trending upwards, so I'm comfortable leaving him off for a couple more years.
*Mussina -- see schilling.
Clemens -- Incredible pitcher who's talent was only rivaled by his asshole and his whole ass. Steroids make him controversial, but he'll get enough of the vote that I am not concerned yet
Bonds -- see Clemens.
Lou Whitaker (write-in) -- One of the best second basemen ever who was done in by a lack of sexy counting stats. I'd only write him in if I had room though, so probably not unless 12 guys get in over the next year or two.
 
*I went back and forth on these guys before settling on my above 10
 

Tyrone Biggums

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Rock Raines
Griffey
Piazza
Hoffman
Schilling
McGriff
Bagwell
 

Average Reds

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EricFeczko said:
*Schilling -- He should be in right now or Smoltz shouldn't be, if it weren't for the stupid. Fortunately he's trending upwards, so I'm comfortable leaving him off for a couple more years.
 
Free country and all, but ranting about the outrage of Schilling not being in the HOF and then including a Bill Conlin-esque rationalization for not including him on your own hypothetical ballot is pretty funny.
 
My ballot:
 
Griffey
Piazza
Bonds
Clemens
Raines
Bagwell
Kent
Schilling
Trammell
Martinez
 
Edit:  Knew I left someone off...
 

mjm3773

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In order:

Bonds
Clemens
Piazza
Bagwell
Griffey
Schilling
Mussina
Edmonds
Sheffield
Trammell

I would also vote for Edgar, Walker, McGwire, Raines, Sosa and Kent if I could. Even after 4 were elected this year, there is still a huge backlog.

Also, I don't get the McGriff love as compared to Jim Edmonds. For just a couple of simple arguments, Edmonds has 60.3 bWAR compared to 52.4 for McGriff. Or alternatively, Edmonds had a 132 OPS+ as an above average defensive CF while McGriff had a 134 OPS+ as a below average defensive 1b.

Edit: Removed Lofton from would also vote for list (got 5% last year) and added Walker (brainfart)
 

Wake's knuckle

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Yeah, I'm very curious about Edmonds. Easy to forget how great he was, somehow... by he was a dynamic defensive CF with power and great on-base skills. But his career was a little short in terms of games and ABs, not seasons, only ~2000 games as opposed to ~2600 for Jr (btw, they had almost the same career OPS) -- he got a late start (age 25 season was his first full season). I was a huge fan of Tony LaRussa Baseball II in the 90s -- particularly the exercise of drafting your own team -- and Edmonds was one of those guys I remember you HAD to get to maximize the number of wins you could get in a simulated season. I distinctly remember getting Schilling and Edgar Martinez as well, who provided TREMENDOUS value as an 8th round pick :D.
 

EricFeczko

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Average Reds said:
 
Free country and all, but ranting about the outrage of Schilling not being in the HOF and then including a Bill Conlin-esque rationalization for not including him on your own hypothetical ballot is pretty funny.
The stupid isn't the fact that few voted for Schilling. The stupid is the dissonance involved in voting for smoltz but not schillling. For those who prefer a big hall, there is a backlog of players on the ballot who should've been cleared off by now. Had Smoltz missed the cutoff in 2015, I would have left him off in 2016.
 
mjm3773 said:
Also, I don't get the McGriff love as compared to Jim Edmonds. For just a couple of simple arguments, Edmonds has 60.3 bWAR compared to 52.4 for McGriff. Or alternatively, Edmonds had a 132 OPS+ as an above average defensive CF while McGriff had a 134 OPS+ as a below average defensive 1b.
Like I said earlier, I prefer a big hall. McGriff is a borderline HOF, which would make it in in my hall, and I completely agree that edmonds is more deserving. I also think that McGriff is more in danger of being left off the ballot due to the backlog than Edmonds, which is why I'm comfortable leaving Edmonds off. When I said, "I don't think [edmonds] will get in" I meant in 2016 only. I think he'll get in if/when the ballot is cleared a little.
 

EricFeczko

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twothousandone said:
Is there a compelling case to be made for Fred McGriff?
 
I've been unconvinced by the cases for Trammel and Walker. Never heard one for McGriff.
It seems like you prefer a smaller hall, so his case will probably not convince you. He's a borderline HoF; 7 shy of 500 home runs with a 0.377 OBP, 0.225 ISO and a 134 wRC+, no steroid rumors but played in the steroids era. Below-average 1B defensively. In terms of WAR he's in the same tier as Jeff Kent, another borderline HoF, and definitely below Walker or Trammel (unless you use inconsistent criteria for determining your hall).
 
 

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New guys:
1. Griffey- obvious, well over 90% of vote
2. Hoffman - not a big fan of closers, but I would vote for him
 
Guys who should have been in already:
3. Bagwell - seriously this shouldn't be that difficult of a choice. He did everything, hit for average, hit for power, solid D, good patience, very good baserunner esp. for his position
4. Piazza - best hitting catcher of all time, another no brainer
5. Raines - 2nd best leadoff hitter of his generation, under appreciated based on playing in Montreal and in Henderson's shadow
 
The "not so obvious" omissions:
6. Kent - such a great offensive player at a "non-premium" position. His numbers are close, but he gets my vote
7. Schilling - I don't think the post-season alone is reason to put him in, but his regular season numbers are pretty freaking good, and the post-season dominance puts him in.
8. Mussina - I think the numbers and consistency are good enough. Closest call on my ballot
 
The Special Cases
9/10. Bonds and Clemens - If they were borderline, then the drug use/suspicions might keep them out, but the best offensive player and best pitcher of a generation should be in. I think early in their careers before the "steroid era" they were putting up HOF numbers. Steroids might have boosted numbers or prolonged careers, but their numbers are so far above that steroids alone didn't make them HOFers. 
 
If the rules were changed and 10 wasn't the limit, would give serious consideration to Edgar, Trammell, and Walker
 

Average Reds

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EricFeczko said:
The stupid isn't the fact that few voted for Schilling. The stupid is the dissonance involved in voting for smoltz but not schillling. For those who prefer a big hall, there is a backlog of players on the ballot who should've been cleared off by now. Had Smoltz missed the cutoff in 2015, I would have left him off in 2016.
 
 
I understand why people get pissed about this, but given the makeup of the BBWAA it is it's entirely predictable.
 

OzSox

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Average Reds said:
 
I understand why people get pissed about this, but given the makeup of the BBWAA it is it's entirely predictable.
 
Right, the same with Pedro getting 91.1% and people here not understanding how some voters didn't vote for him. The answer is that some of them looked at his win total and decided it wasn't a HOF-worthy number. You don't have to agree with that to understand that that's still how some voters vote.
 

JohntheBaptist

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Lose Remerswaal said:
Fernando Tatis, just for his mad Twitter and MS Paint skillz
 
Sadly revealed to have been not-Nando. Still, Hall worthy MS Paint skillz in any event.
 
My ballot:
 
Bonds
Clemens
Griffey
Mussina
Schilling
Bagwell
Raines
Piazza
Martinez
Trammell
------
Edmonds
Walker
Kent
 
I'd vote for all these guys, above the line would be my ballot if restricted to 10.
 

EricFeczko

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Average Reds said:
 
I understand why people get pissed about this, but given the makeup of the BBWAA it is it's entirely predictable.
Part of the problem is the backlog itself, there are so many names that players get forgotten. I certainly forgot to include kenny lofton and pete rose on my left-offs.
 
That being said, there is a similar cognitive dissonance with players like kent (56.4 fWAR/55.2 bWAR/123 OPS+) vs. mcgriff (57.1 fWAR/52.4 bWAR/134 OPS+), simply because kent was a 2nd baseman and won an MVP award once. I find it reasonable to leave both off the ballot or vote for both, but I think its much harder to defend voting for one but not the other on the basis of what they did (i.e. apart from strategic reasons).
 

deanx0

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Dan to Theo to Ben said:
Griffey
Edmonds
J Kendall
Glaus
Hampton
L Castillo
G Anderson
R Winn
Lowell
Mike Sweeney
Grudz
Eckstein
Chan Ho
Jeff Weaver
Ausmus
Russ Ortiz
C Guzman
G Matthews
Howdy
Jose Guillen
Tatis
Russ Springer
B Molina
 
and Hoffman, oops.
 
A fun yearly game would be to guess the worst (subjective, I know) player to get an HOF vote from one of the mouth-breathing morons. On that list, I think it's Ausmus.
 

amfox1

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My HoF ballot (8):
 
Griffey
Bagwell
Piazza
Bonds
Clemens
E.Martinez
Walker
Sheffield
 
On the outside, looking in (10):
 
Trammell (last year on ballot)
Raines
Schilling
Mussina
McGriff
Edmonds
Kent
Hoffman
Wagner
L.Smith
 

singaporesoxfan

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EricFeczko said:
Part of the problem is the backlog itself, there are so many names that players get forgotten. I certainly forgot to include kenny lofton and pete rose on my left-offs.
 
That being said, there is a similar cognitive dissonance with players like kent (56.4 fWAR/55.2 bWAR/123 OPS+) vs. mcgriff (57.1 fWAR/52.4 bWAR/134 OPS+), simply because kent was a 2nd baseman and won an MVP award once. I find it reasonable to leave both off the ballot or vote for both, but I think its much harder to defend voting for one but not the other on the basis of what they did (i.e. apart from strategic reasons).
In my mind Kent is a borderline HOFer and McGriff is borderline but not. I'm not confident enough in defensive metrics that I would just take their very similar WARs to indicate that they provided equivalent value, and I believe when metrics are that close that you should assess careers qualitatively, which brings a great deal of subjectivity.
 

DanoooME

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deanx0 said:
 
A fun yearly game would be to guess the worst (subjective, I know) player to get an HOF vote from one of the mouth-breathing morons. On that list, I think it's Ausmus.
 
Not all of those guys are even going to make the ballot.  There's a review process by another committee that pares down the list of eligibles that end up on the ballot.
 
 
My ballot:
 
Bonds
Griffey
Clemens
Raines
Piazza
Bagwell
Sheffield
Trammell
Mussina
Schilling
 
Possibilities for the future:
 
Walker
Edmonds
Martinez
McGriff
 
An interesting comparison is Walker vs. Edmonds.  Walker has the hitting advantage although he had a few years in Colorado to boost his totals.  You may say Edmonds has the defensive advantage, but it isn't as big as you'd think.  Edmonds was an excellent CF, but Walker was an excellent RF and Colorado had a lot of ground to cover.  IMHO, I believe you have to put in Walker before Edmonds, but it's close enough to argue either way.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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DanoooME said:
 
Not all of those guys are even going to make the ballot.  There's a review process by another committee that pares down the list of eligibles that end up on the ballot.
 
And that list, according to the Hall of Fame website:
 
Garrett Anderson
Brad Ausmus
Luis Castillo
Jim Edmonds
Troy Glaus
Ken Griffey Jr
Mark Grudzielanek
Jose Guillen
Mike Hampton
Trevor Hoffman
Jason Kendall
Mike Lowell
Russ Ortiz
Chan Ho Park
Mike Sweeney
Billy Wagner
 

deanx0

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So worst player to get a vote...I will stick with Ausmus, although I can see some smartass writer throwing support behind Grudzielanek
 

JohntheBaptist

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deanx0 said:
So worst player to get a vote...I will stick with Ausmus, although I can see some smartass writer throwing support behind Grudzielanek
 
I think you're right and it will be Ausmus. I'm guessing Garret Anderson as the worst player to get more than one but less than ten votes. The word "underrated" will be used by someone, somewhere.
 
DanoooME said:
An interesting comparison is Walker vs. Edmonds.  Walker has the hitting advantage although he had a few years in Colorado to boost his totals.  You may say Edmonds has the defensive advantage, but it isn't as big as you'd think.  Edmonds was an excellent CF, but Walker was an excellent RF and Colorado had a lot of ground to cover.  IMHO, I believe you have to put in Walker before Edmonds, but it's close enough to argue either way.
 
Walker is a really interesting player to me--you're right about his offense and how underrated his defense has always been; tremendous arm, and if I remember correctly, a very highly regarded baserunner. He wasn't fast necessarily, but there really wasn't much on a baseball field he didn't excel at. He does have the COL factor dogging him, but he was an elite player away from Coors, too--he had a higher road OPS in his 97 MVP year, for instance, and while there are years with wider gaps often his home OPS is something just south of Ruthian with the road numbers being simply All-Star level. He'd be in for me, Edmonds on the line with an ultimate "yes" and Sheffield a likely no, but I'd have to look at some defensive numbers more closely.
 

singaporesoxfan

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JohntheBaptist said:
 
I think you're right and it will be Ausmus. I'm guessing Garret Anderson as the worst player to get more than one but less than ten votes. The word "underrated" will be used by someone, somewhere.
Do those writers who cast the token vote for players who are clearly not Hall of Famers really think those players belong in the HoF? My impression was that such writers were just throwing a bone to players that they liked. Kind of like the sympathy votes for Darryl Kile.
 

JohntheBaptist

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Well I'm sure there's a range of reasons. With GA, I remember everyone wanted to remind you that he was "underrated," so was just guessing a few of them would toss him a vote to "honor his career" and show they weren't the ones doing the underrating (even though in reality he was basically an average hitter with mediocre to poor defense).
 

EricFeczko

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singaporesoxfan said:
In my mind Kent is a borderline HOFer and McGriff is borderline but not. I'm not confident enough in defensive metrics that I would just take their very similar WARs to indicate that they provided equivalent value, and I believe when metrics are that close that you should assess careers qualitatively, which brings a great deal of subjectivity.
That's perfectly reasonable, and precisely why a case needs to be made to dissociate the two. Such marginal cases can be used to determine a consistent factor(s) to determine the point of entry. The factor(s) may still be subjective, but at least it will be consistent. It's harder to dissociate between the two than to include both, and therefore requires a justification.
 
Obviously, you don't need to explain your reasoning to others :)
 

NHbeau

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Lowest level of hell.
Bond's
Griffey
Piazza
Clemens
 
 I don't find anyone else on the ballot compelling as worthy of the hall of fame. I consider myself a bit of a curmudgeon that it's the hall of "fame" not the hall of "very good". I've given up trying to figure who used PED's and when and for how long. I just assume everyone was dirty, and judge the players of that era in that context.