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How will HoFame balloting be affected by the voter purge?

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Griffey is a shoe-in for 2016 class; who else might be affected? Photo via freeteam.com

Griffey is a shoe-in for 2016 class; who else might be affected? Photo via freeteam.com

(Editor note: we’ll take a quick break from the minor league reviews and arguing about why the Nats are trying to fill a 5th starter spot instead of one of their several obvious needs for that classic Late December task: arguing about the Hall of Fame.  I wrote most of this post much earlier this summer/fall, waiting for the “hall of fame” blogger season to post it.  Now’s as good of a time as any).

In the middle of the 2015 post-season, an interesting tidbit got reported by NBCSports’ Craig Calcaterra: The Hall of Fame BBWAA electorate has been reduced by a whopping 20% thanks to the new voter eligibility rules announced back in July 2015.

20% of voters!  That’s a huge number.  I thought the rules, when they were first announced, would have a negligible effect on things and would be a paper tiger.  But losing 20% of the voters will have a profound effect on the ballots going forward.  I agree with Calcaterra in characterizing these types of voters as generally being out of touch, industry-has-passed-them-by, believe everything they read from Murray Chass types who have directly led to the ballot congestion and the ridiculous voting patterns we’ve seen lately.  No word yet on whether the category of writers purged also includes those who no longer cover the sport actively (the most egregious example being the 3 voters who write for www.golferswest.com) who not only kept their votes but felt the need to pontificate about the state of the sport!).

Early returns are promising, by the way.  The BBHOF tracker website has taken the lead in collecting all published ballots and they’re tracked directly in this Google xls.  As of the time of this writing, they have about 20% of the ballots in the tracker spreadsheet and borderline candidates like Piazza, Raines and Bagwell are all trending above the 75% needed.  Griffey is at a perfect 100% and still looks like a good bet to beat Tom Seaver‘s all time record.  That is until some curmudgeons decide they like Seaver more than Griffey and send in blank ballots or some dumb-ass thing.

Key Dates in 2016 HoF class voting:

  • 11/9/15: ballot officially released, though we’ve known for years who’s actually on it thanks to baseball-reference.com.
  • 12/21/15: BBWAA ballots due back to Cooperstown for counting
  • 1/6/16: Class of 2016 announced, as well as 10,000 internet blogger posts on the topic.
  • 7/24/16: Official induction ceremony for the Class of 2016 in Cooperstown, NY

Anyway.  Lets look at the 2016 Ballot (hey, its never too early to do Hall of Fame vote analysis) and guess how things may go for the candidates, now that 20% of dead-weight is gone.

  • Ken Griffey Jr: if anything, his chances of breaking Tom Seaver‘s vote % record may rise thanks to the elimination of a bunch of curmudgeons who have been witholding votes inexplicably to prevent there ever being a unanimous inductee.  Easily gets elected in 2016.
  • Trevor Hoffman: might be hurt by more new-age voters who realize how minimal the impact of a closer is, no matter how good (Hoffman had just a 28.4 career bWAR, less than Mike Trout had accumulated by the end of his third full season, by way of comparison).

There’s not really anyone else new to the 2016 class worth mentioning; I could see Jim Edmonds getting 5% of the vote to stay on the ballot but nobody else getting much more than home-town beat writer sympathy votes.  This isn’t an indictment of Edmonds at all; there’s just too many good players on the ballot (our lament every year) and I think he’s a worthy candidate (some of the Jay Jaffe JAWS analysis on Edmonds is pretty telling; for a period of 10 years during his peak he trailed only Griffey and Bonds in terms of WAR).

How about the hold overs?  I think there’s good news for some guys:

  • Mike Piazza/Jeff Bagwell: two “PED-suspicion” guys who have never had any actual concrete proof against them probably now get in thanks to the elimination of a class of voters who probably believed everything they read in the anonymous-sourced NYTimes articles from 10 years ago.  Bagwell has further to go and may not get to 75%, but Piazza should.
  • Tim Raines: the more older/non sabremetric appreciating voters that go mean the higher percentage of votes Raines will get from more modern voters who realize just how valuable he was.  Like Bagwell, he has further to go and may not get to 75% this time, but between 2016 and 2017 he should get in.
  • Roger Clemens/Barry Bonds: I can see their vote totals rise from the 35% they’ve  been getting into the 50% range, still not enough to get enshrinement.  Still too many wounds and not enough voters who can overcome their disdain for what happened.
  • Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa: same story as Clemens/Bonds, except whack off another 20% of votes.
  • Curt Schilling/Mike Mussina: Hard to see their vote totals changing much; older voters were probably giving Schilling too much credit for the bloody sock game but new voters havn’t supported him as much as expected (and he’s doing himself no favors with his continued idiotic political twitter posts).  Mussina just doens’t seem like the kind of pitcher that gets elected to the Hall thanks to a long career without specific accolades and being a known pr*ck to the media.

Everyone else held over from the 2015 ballot not already mentioned (Smith, Martinez, Trammell, Kent, McGriff, Walker, Sheffield, Garciaparra) each have specific issues that likely prevent any of them from getting much above the vote totals they’ve already gotten and probably won’t be helped much by the purge of the electorate.  I would vote for some of these guys (namely Martinez and Trammell) but understand why others don’t.

This is as close to a prediction piece as we’ll do for the Hall of Fame 2016 ballot (there’s way too many of them already), but my guess is that we’ll be seeing just Griffey and Piazza in Cooperstown in July 2016, with Bagwell, Raines and perhaps Hoffman right on the cusp to join them in 2017 (where the incoming class has some pretty serious PED-related issues that should be fascinating to watch play out; more on that in a year’s time).

Here’s some similar articles for your Hall of Fame perusal:

Edmonds or Sheffield for the Hall?

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Will Jim Edmonds' defensive capabilities lift him to HoF status? Photo: www.vivaelbirdos.com

I know it is cliche, and that every baseball writer pens the same article whenever a big name retires.  But these opinion pieces are still fun to write and argue about.  So argue away.

Within the past week, two notable hitters hung up their spikes.  Gary Sheffield was forced to admit (much like Barry Bonds, Jermaine Dye and other aging DH-only players quickly being obsoleted in the fast, new, young MLB) that no team would hire him after sitting out all of 2010 and officially filed the paperwork with the league.  Meanwhile, Jim Edmonds retired from a lingering achilles heel injury that prevented him from suiting up in 2011.

For the sake of this article, we will exclude consideration of the fact that Sheffield has admitted to PED/Steroids use and thus probably faces little chance of making the hall.  Lets talk about their performances on the field.

Case 1: Gary Sheffield

Sheffield hails from the famous Hillsborough High School in Tampa, which also produced the likes of Dwight Gooden, Carl Everett and (infamously) Elijah Dukes.  Sheffield’s career numbers are strong.  He retires with a CAREER OPS+ of 140.  That’s essentially an entire career of production at the average level of what Ryan Zimmerman gave the Nats last season.  He hit more than 500 homers while also having more than 250 stolen bases.  He has a career slash line of .292/.393/.514, which is also great.  His hall of fame monitor and standard scores (Bill James’ creations that try to measure whether a player is HoF worth) both easily put him in. His closest comparison on baseball-reference is Mel Ott.  That’s heady company.

Awards: 9 times an all star, 7 times getting MVP votes (a 2nd, two 3rd and a 6th place finish).  5 silver sluggers.  Played 3B early, RF middle and LF/DH late in his career.  His best season was in 1997, finishing with a ridiculous 189 OPS+ for the Marlins but only finishing 6th in the MVP voting.

Beyond the Boxscore printed out an interesting Visual Hall of Fame graphic that essentially shows that Sheffield’s best seasons of his 22-yr career were in the latter part of his career, consistent with a steroids user who was able to beat back the hands of time and not diminish as he aged.  In the same way that Bonds did not tail off as he entered his late 30s.

Regardless of the steroids, I think he’s a hall of fame player.  He was a feared, ferocious hitter who clearly had 5-tools (though not quite at the 5-tool level of someone like Willie Mays or Ken Griffey).  He was a game changer who bounced around the league but produced wherever he was.  Unfortunately because of a prickly relationship with sports writers and implications in the BALCO scandal, his only chance of entrance will be 30 years from now by a veteran’s committee.  He’ll be on a very busy 2014 hall of fame ballot (other first timers on that ballot include near locks Greg Maddux, Frank Thomas, and Tom Glavine, along with borderline cases Jeff Kent and Mike Mussina).

Case 2: Jim Edmonds

Edmond’s case is less about pure offensive merit but weighing the benefits of a player who can produce at a high offensive level AND provide fantastic defense.  Edmond’s career offensive numbers are good but not amazing; in 17 major league seasons he hit 393 homers, had a respectable career slash line of .284/.376/ .527, and a career OPS of 132.

Those numbers compare pretty favorably to Sheffield’s career lines when you consider that Edmonds was considered among the best 2-3 outfielders in the game for the middle 10 years of his career.  He earned 8 gold gloves for his work in centerfield and has a litany of high-light reel catches to his credit. He was excellent defensively but this did not correlate to raw speed on the base-paths; he retired with only 67 stolen bases for his career, averaging just four a year.   His diving catches helped contribute to his demise; he was frequently injured, missed the entirety of 2009 and hung it up because he was not going to be medically cleared to play this year.

Career Achievements: 8th in his Rookie voting, 4 time all star, 6 times receiving MVP votes (a 4th and a 5th place vote his best achievements).

Bill James’ Hall of Fame metrics are not quite as kind to Edmonds; he falls short in both the Monitor and the Standard.  His most similar player comparison is to one Ellis Burks, not really a flattering comparison.

Is he a hall of famer?  I say “probably.”  When grading the defensively minded players (shortstops, catchers and athletic center fielders) you have to balance offensive and defensive.  With Edmonds, he’s nearly the hitter of Sheffield with fantastic defense. I’m concerned by the lack of MVP consideration, and lack of all-star selections.  If a player isn’t routinely considered among the best players in the game, how can he be a hall of famer?

He’ll be on the 2015 ballot along with first timers (and locks) Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz.  So he may have to wait to get in but he should merit it.

Interesting Hall of Fame candidates…

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Droopy passed along a great trivia question; what four players have hit 400+ homers and have 10 gold gloves.  (the question was spurred on by one of the four answers, one Andruw Jones, having just hit his 400th homer this season and joining this exclusive club).  (The other three answers are at the bottom of the post).

But, it got me to thinking.  Andruw Jones is only 33, has 400 homers, 10 gold gloves and should be towards the end of his prime as a ballplayer.  Instead he seems to have basically forgotten  how to hit at age 30 and is bouncing from team to team to try to regain his swing.  Certainly Andruw is not a HoFamer at this point in his career, but if he was able to turn it around and become relevant again, even for a couple of seasons, and achieve some milestone numbers he very well may be.   I think the epitaph of Jones’ career will read something like, incredibly accomplished early in his career but inexplicably washed up by age 30.  Steroids?  Falsified age? Anything is possible.

Here’s a couple other test cases for HoF worthiness:
1. Johnny Damon.  Currently sits at 2527 career hits at age 36 and still hits well enough that you’d have to think he has an ouside shot at 3000.  Is he a hall of famer

if he gets to 3000?  The only guys who have 3000 that are NOT in the hall are:

  • Rose (ineligible)
  • Biggio (will be soon)
  • Palmeiro (Roids).

Bonds retired with2935 (roids).  Jeter will get 3000 but i think he’s HoF material no doubt.  Harold Baines another test case; 2866 hits but isn’t getting close to induction on the votes.

My vote: nope.  Not an impact player, also an accumulator of stats over a long career.  He’s actually a worse fielder and hitter than Baines.

2. Jim Thome.  Currently sitting at 578 homers career and almost a lock to get 600 at age 39 and producing pretty well this year.  A number of years getting

MVP consideration but never finishing top 3.  5-time all star.  Some fo the hall of fame standards stat measurements have him just over the cusp.  My “standard” is always the stardom or fear factor test.  When Thome comes up, are you scared?  Are you on the edge of your seat?  Would you (as a visiting fan) see his team coming to town and think about buying tickets so you could see him (like Pujols with St. Louis for example).

My vote: borderline yes.

3. Adam Dunn.  (for the sake of argument you have to project his career to what it probably ends up at).  I’ll project him, sitting at 346 now but on pace to end
this year at 360 , to end up with right around 600 homers for his career. Analysis: give him 40-40-38-35-30-30 for the next six seasons, taking him to age 36 and sitting at around 575 homers.  Even if you trend those numbers down a bit, he’s still sitting in the mid 500s at age 36, and Thome has hit hearly 100 homers after that age.  Hell, if Dunn stays healthy and doesn’t precipitously decline in power (like Ortiz), he has an outside shot at 700 homers.  Unbelievable.

But you look at his career “accomplishments” and there’s NOTHING there.  To date he has made ONE all star team, finished 4th in ROY voting and in only two seasons
has even had an MVP vote, let alone come close to winning.  If Dunn reaches 600 homers is he a hall of famer?

My vote: nope.

There’s other great test cases out there (David Ortiz, Carlos Delgado, Jim Edmonds or Paul Konerko) with it comes to looking at “home run accumulations” for a career.  Perhaps another time.

ps: Trivia Answer: Andruw Jones, Ken Griffey Jr, Willie Mays and Mike SchmidtAl Kaline had 10 gold gloves but exactly 399 career homers.  Barry Bonds only managed 8 gold gloves before turning into a hulking left fielder on or about the same time he found steroids in 1999.