Jim Kaat and Tony Oliva among others were elected already by the various Veterans Committees this year so it's not like Big Papi would have stage to himself.
I don't know who you are talking about, but Schilling isn't getting in for reasons already beaten to death; and Rolen is kind of the next guy up and he's not getting in either. I think Rolen is getting the want-to-vote-someone-in sympathy vote... so if Ortiz manages to break through it kind of kills that.
Yeah but the Hall prefers at least one voted in every year for tourism reasons. Ortiz getting in next year certainly works for them since in 2024 you'd have Beltre and 2025 Ichiro. Changing the voting rules so that the top vote getter always gets in is a simple solution if they feel like they need it.
Schilling should have been years ago before any of his craziness even started, he's been a more than viable candidate for years and they still didn't vote for him. He should have been a 1st ballot guy along with Mussina.
Unsure on Rolen. He had 1 top-5 MVP season (2004 - 4th), and only one other top-15 MVP season (2010, 14th). He did make 7 ASG and was ROY, but it never felt like he was a great hitter, just a very good one. Of course he was also one of the best ever defensive 3B which probably does put him over the edge. But offensively he was more very good than great IMO.
If those 3k PAs didn't bring his rate stats down then yeah he'd be in the conversation, but Rolen was a much much better fielder. Like Rolen is one of the best defensive 3b of all time, Chavez wouldn't even be close to that even if you gave him 4 more good years.
How is Rolen a better candidate than Ortiz? I know he's worth 15% more than Ortiz on a per game basis by WAR, but that just tells me WAR is bullshit when it comes to comparing good and bad defensive players. Would any GM have traded David Ortiz for Scott Rolen? There's no way the Red Sox would have won those three World Series trophies with Rolen on the team rather than Ortiz.
There was some Rolen discussion in the SoSH ballot thread. Not a ton of his support there was based on WAR alone. He's one of the best 3B of all time by OPS+ (9th all time of players with 1500 games played, 75%+ at 3B). That, his great defensive prowess, and the severe lack of 3B in the Hall (least represented position other than DH) are the strongest arguments for his inclusion.
Santo, Adrian Beltre, and Rolen are all fairly similar IMO, but of course Beltre blows the other two away in counting stats.
Sometimes it's useful to look at B-ref's offensive WAR. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/WAR_off_career.shtml
To be clear, offensive WAR also includes a positional adjustment. That might be what you're looking for as you compare offensive contributions across positions, but just being higher on that list does not mean the person was a better hitter.
Could be Andruw Jones and Billy Wagner, also, assuming you consider “closer” a position.
Not to repeat the other thread, but there’s a couple of issues with looking at his MVP support in a vacuum - first, his prime coincided with a lot of other historically great players, including at least one future-HoF teammate. His best season was probably 2004. He finished fourth in the voting, but who would you bump who finished ahead of him? He didn’t even have the “great defensive 3B on a playoff team” lane to himself that year? The other thing is that this was back when voters did things like give the award to whoever led the league in RBIs. By modern standards, Rolen in his prime would get a lot more recognition.
Both of those guys are top 10 3b all time, so not really sure the relevance of being closer to one than the other, other than that Santo also should have been elected long before he was.
Considering in the same time period Ryan Howard was getting consistent votes with mostly shitty seasons because he hit BOMBS I'm going to go with yes
Man, just look at Bonds’ stats that year. A .609 OBP is preposterous. A 1.422 OPS (good for 263 OPS+) is absurd. How was he “only” worth 10.6 WAR that year? I guess the 120 intentional walks denied him the opportunity to put up more counting stats (helped the OBP, though).
Yes. But no matter how you sort the stats (even counting or rate stats, given a minimum career) there's going to be a clustering of HOF hitters at the top, then there's going to be a cluster of HOVG hitters some of whom have good reason to be in the HOF, based on less capturable attributes or era, and and others who don't.
To an extent, yes, and to an extent no. Sometimes those awards go to the statistically dominant players. Sometimes they go to players that have a special circumstance for that particular season, or a but-for performance. It's the seasonal MVP - there's a degree of subjectivity by necessity and design.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/sports-columnists/story/2022-01-01/column-nick-canepas-sez-me-column
Someone should honestly ask him this, and see the cockamamie logic he tries to use to justify them being in the HOF
Isn't Mariano Rivera the only unanimous HOFer? Exactly how many at-bats did he have in his career?
I'm pretty sure there's a pretty good number of Yankee fans who felt the same way about Jeter's defense at SS (and probably a good number here who now look at X through similar lenses). I don't think it does us any favors to basically declare any idea or discourse that doesn't align with our own views or fandom to be garbage. Most "eye tests" tend to reveal myopia in the tester IMO, rather than compromising the numbers they argue against.
OTOH it would be great fun to break open the hypothetical Manny for Rolen trade discussion.
Not sure if the part about most guys being better hitters when playing in the field is true, but regarding Ortiz I don't think you can tell much from his splits because nearly half his career appearances at 1b were with the Twins, and most of those were his first full year in the league.
There's a very strong relationship between the highest scoring teams and the ones who win the most games. There isn't much of a relationship between the best defensive teams and winning. I think it would be fun to see the limits of that. How would a team of 8 Manny Ramirezes plus a pitcher and catcher do against 8 Scott Rolens? The Mannys would give up 3 or 4 runs every game by not being able to catch the ball, but they'd also score 10.
I had originally looked at those numbers back when there was a lot of debate about shifting Papi to 1B to slot Manny into the DH spot; following up, the years he had a better OPS + as a 1Bman (Sox only) were 2006, 09, 12 & 15, but all of the sample sizes for 1B play are pretty small…
Meh not a fan of this characterization. Bonds and Clemens are very close to where they usually are for private ballots. To say that they are in “ good shape” is premature. Papi…unclear (def better though)
Oh I know, I was being critical of the headline of the article, not your post....
I'm not sure if this was meant to be a rhetorical question, but looking at his stats year by year, the answer is a resounding yes.
He was a Red Sox writer for years and still a member of the BBWA. This is kind of the problem is that people who don’t cover baseball anymore still have a hall vote.
