Hall of Fame Ballot: 2019 Induction

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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No. I saw that.

But voting for Pettitte over Halladay is a bit much.

Edit: and also voting for Clemens and Bonds but not Manny? Get out of here with that bullshit.
 

Jim Ed Rice in HOF

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Cafardo getting grief but CHB and his 1 man ballot goes unmentioned? Given that he’s such a miserable prick it really shouldn’t surprise me that his ballot looks like this.
 

lexrageorge

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Cafardo getting grief but CHB and his 1 man ballot goes unmentioned? Given that he’s such a miserable prick it really shouldn’t surprise me that his ballot looks like this.
Agreed. There is no way to look at that ballot and determine that there is only one worthy player.
 

Gdiguy

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No. I saw that.

But voting for Pettitte over Halladay is a bit much.

Edit: and also voting for Clemens and Bonds but not Manny? Get out of here with that bullshit.
Pettitte over Halladay is odd, though Halladay is pretty certain to be voted in whereas Pettitte is borderline dropping off the ballot entirely - so you can make a non-completely ridiculous argument about strategic voting there.

Clemens and Bonds over Manny is even less crazy to me - I think that's a pretty easy statistical argument if you're ignoring steroid issues
 

JohntheBaptist

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Bonds over Ramirez is one thing. He voted for Sheffield over him too. Everything you could pin on Manny—PEDs, quitting on his team, poor defense—Sheffield did too.

The guy couldn’t be worse if he tried.
 

Yelling At Clouds

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Bonds over Ramirez is one thing. He voted for Sheffield over him too. Everything you could pin on Manny—PEDs, quitting on his team, poor defense—Sheffield did too.

The guy couldn’t be worse if he tried.
Once again, Sheffield, unlike Manny Ramirez, was never suspended as a result of a positive test under MLB's rules.
 

JohntheBaptist

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Manny's domestic violence arrest could be part of it too.
Definitely. Though I believe Bonds had some accusations thrown at him in an article at one point, this is probably the answer as to why.

Once again, Sheffield, unlike Manny Ramirez, was never suspended as a result of a positive test under MLB's rules.
Yes I read your post above and am already totally clear on this. It is a fairly meaningless distinction where this is concerned. I wasnt trying to argue that he hadnt come up with a pointless reason to pick one and not the other.

The domestic violence/ workplace violence is the more sensible answer.
 
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DanoooME

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I was just happy Cafardo voted for 10 people, even if they weren't the 10 best choices.

CHB should be drawn and quartered for his ballot.
 

Spelunker

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I was just happy Cafardo voted for 10 people, even if they weren't the 10 best choices.

CHB should be drawn and quartered for his ballot.
Yeah, I'm actually surprised by how close to competent Nick's ballot is. At the least, it's defensible.

If you showed me these two ballots blind, I would have assumed they were switched.
 

InstaFace

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Final update on ballot data, prior to announcement:

Total ballots 228 (~55% of total).

Name (Current %, % from Last Update*, Year on Ballot, +/- among Returners, 2018 public-to-result diff%):
Mariano Rivera (100%, 100%, 1st, n/a, n/a)
Roy Halladay (93.0%, 94.9%, 1st, n/a, n/a)
Edgar Martinez (89.9%, 91.2%, 10th, +25, -6.9%)
Mike Mussina (81.6%, 83.2%, 6th, +18, -6.5%)
--- cutoff assuming 2018 diff% ---
Roger Clemens (71.5%, 75.2%, 7th, +3, -7.1%)
Barry Bonds (71.1%, 74.5%, 7th, +3, -8.0%)
Curt Schilling (70.2%, 73.0%, 7th, +17, -9.1%)
Larry Walker (65.8%, 65.7%, 9th, +48, -4.4%)
---
Fred McGriff (39.5%, 34.3%, 10th, +45, +3.0%)
Omar Vizquel (38.2%, 36.5%, 2nd, +14, +3.4%)
Manny Ramirez (25.4%, 27.7%, 3rd, -2, -0.3%)

Of note is the big surge in +/- this year, pretty much just as strong for Schilling as for Mussina, and almost as big as Edgar and McGriff. It seems lots of writers were happy to punish him last year when he was still publicly yapping a lot, but now that he's had a quiet year they're OK with putting him in (or nearly so, collectively).

Mussina will either make it or miss it this year by the skin of his teeth. Clemens, Bonds and Schilling should be solidly in the low-to-mid 60s along with Walker (who has a real shot next year), representing a decent gain from their ~57% finishes (51% for Schilling) last year.

* This last update I did was on Jan 1st, with 134 ballots (33% of total), so this gives a sense of trend in late-released ballots. To make that explicit...

Biggest fall-offs in the most recent ~100 ballots:
- Clemens (-3.7%)
- Bonds (-3.4%)
- Schilling (-2.8%)
- Manny (-2.3%)

Gainers in most recent 100 ballots:
- McGriff (+5.2%!)
- Vizquel (+1.7%)
- Walker (+0.1%)

At this point, McGriff voters are throwing away their vote. Spend it on someone who has more years remaining to build a campaign and candidacy. Rolen, for example.
 

jon abbey

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MLB Network is doing a five hour show starting at 3pm but the announcement will come at 6pm.
Thank you, this is exactly the info I was looking for. I was thinking the announcement was at 3 and I was on the train wondering why Twitter didn't have the results yet.
 

E5 Yaz

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Rivera deserves the 100%. Now, I hope someone leaves Jeter off a ballot
 

moondog80

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Rivera deserves the 100%. Now, I hope someone leaves Jeter off a ballot
I agree in the sense that he deserves to be in, but there are dozens of guys who should have gotten this honor before he did.
 

soxhop411

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When was the last time sports writers all agreed on something?

I never thought we would see a unanimous inductee.

I always expected some writer to leave someone off because


A: they want to make a name for themself

B: make up some Cockamamie reason to leave them off (like closers are not a real position)
 

InstaFace

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edit: the 4 "next up" candidates, Clemens, Bonds, Schilling and Walker, had pretty big public-to-final differentials. RC -11.6%, BB -11.6%, CS -8.9% and LW -11.3%. That's much bigger than last year for all but Schilling, who took a -9.1% hit last year.
 

Ale Xander

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Interesting year. Zero position players made the cut, or even top 6 places. While Bonds is still on the outside.

Also did not know Placido Polanco's parents had votes.
 

Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat

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When was the last time sports writers all agreed on something?

I never thought we would see a unanimous inductee.

I always expected some writer to leave someone off because


A: they want to make a name for themself

B: make up some Cockamamie reason to leave them off (like closers are not a real position)
C. They genuinely believe that if Ruth, Mays, Cy, Cobb, etc weren't unanimous, then no one should be.
 

Average Reds

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I agree in the sense that he deserves to be in, but there are dozens of guys who should have gotten this honor before he did.
Everyone gets that. But it’s still fitting because no other player is head and shoulders above every other player at his position like Mariano.

Plus, it robs Jeter of the possibility of being first. A huge plus.
 

InstaFace

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I think we can consider "The Backlog" to be largely cleared here, aside from Bonds and Clemens remaining. Next year only one sure-thing is joining the ballot (Jeter), and only 2-3 other "Vote-bait" candidates who aren't getting in but whose HOF Monitor rating is >100 (Jason Giambi 108 / 50.5 WAR, Alfonso Soriano 105 / 28.2 WAR, plus Bobby Abreu 95 / 60.5 WAR). Meanwhile, this year they elected 2 first-balloters, 1 long-building-campaign guy (Edgar), and 1 bubble guy who was probably getting in sooner or later, so sooner is better than later (Moose) - all of whom were going to siphon big shares of votes until they got in. I'm not sure that next year even the "Big Hall" voters will think there are >10 deserving candidates, so finally their vote will probably be concentrated on all those they think are worthy. That alone should bump the top candidates a few percentage points here and there.
 

Brand Name

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Interesting year. Zero position players made the cut
Including today, the two times that a player has played a majority (>50%) of his career games at DH, zero position players wound up being elected by the BBWAA:

2014 Inductees:

-Tom Glavine
-Gregg Maddux
-Frank Thomas (56.4% of games at DH)

2019 Inductees:

-Roy Halladay
-Mariano Rivera
-Mike Mussina
-Edgar Martinez (68.3% of games at DH)
 

nattysez

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I think we can consider "The Backlog" to be largely cleared here, aside from Bonds and Clemens remaining. Next year only one sure-thing is joining the ballot (Jeter), and only 2-3 other "Vote-bait" candidates who aren't getting in but whose HOF Monitor rating is >100 (Jason Giambi 108 / 50.5 WAR, Alfonso Soriano 105 / 28.2 WAR, plus Bobby Abreu 95 / 60.5 WAR). Meanwhile, this year they elected 2 first-balloters, 1 long-building-campaign guy (Edgar), and 1 bubble guy who was probably getting in sooner or later, so sooner is better than later (Moose) - all of whom were going to siphon big shares of votes until they got in. I'm not sure that next year even the "Big Hall" voters will think there are >10 deserving candidates, so finally their vote will probably be concentrated on all those they think are worthy. That alone should bump the top candidates a few percentage points here and there.
That's a great analysis. This is a pretty big vote, as it creates new respect for closers and DHs and inducted a "Big Hall" guy (Mussina). That's good news for Papi, Larry Walker, and Schilling.

Edited to add: If Giambi gets substantially more votes than Manny next year, I will be very, very pissed.
 

E5 Yaz

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Larry Walker lone player going for the "final ballot year" bump
 

Brand Name

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Yeah this is why I figured we would never see 100 percent and is somewhat defensible.
This is what almost happened with Christina Kahrl's ballot, by the same use of logic. I'd defend as much too, but she did not want the reaction if she had wound up being the only dissenter.
 

Deathofthebambino

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Also glad that Mo got 100%. If anyone in the modern era deserved it, he's on the very short list. Nothing but the utmost respect for him and his career.

Edgar getting in means Papi probably gets 90%+ on his first ballot. At least, it fucking better.

I'm certainly no fan of Curt Schilling the Person, but Curt Schilling the player should be in the HOF if Mussina and Halladay are in, especially if Halladay is all of a sudden a first ballot HOF'er. The three of them have fairly comparable regular season stats, but when you throw in the post-season, Schilling is on another level. Complete horseshit that its a popularity contest when it comes to him, as opposed to a vote on the merits. Even if they wanted to lump him with the steroid guys, I'd feel better about that than him getting shafted because he's an asshole.
 

Sad Sam Jones

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I was curious…

Harold Baines career batting line vs:
Roy Halladay - .300/.300/.600
Mike Mussina - .200/.222/.229
Mariano Rivera - .214/.214/.214

*
 

Scoops Bolling

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I flat out do not understand the idea that Mariano Rivera "deserved" to be voted in unanimously. Here's stacking up his career against a few contemporaries, all Hall of Famers themselves.

Rivera: 2.21 ERA, 82-60, 1283.2 IP, 1173 Ks, 286 BBs, 2.76 FIP.
Player A: 2.13 ERA, 90-40, 1191.2 IP, 905 Ks, 204 BBs, 2.58 FIP
Player B: 2.63 ERA, 100-38, 1274.1 IP, 1746 Ks, 374 BBs, 2.60 FIP
Player C: 2.20 ERA, 104-32, 1221.1 IP, 1555 Ks, 268 BBs, 2.27 FIP

In Rivera's favor is the fact that his innings are all high leverage. Weighted against him is the fact that Player A and Player B accomplished those totals in a mere 5 seasons, while Player C has an injury abbreviated 6th season in there. If anyone "deserved" to be the first player (and a pitcher at that) to be voted in unanimously, it would be one of Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, or Pedro Martinez. Rivera was a Hall of Fame player...but he's not in the conversation with Inner Circle, potential GOAT, guys like that who really deserved to be put into the Hall unanimously.