2022 Hall of Fame

[Wulaw Horn 18,963]

11 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

I was 17 or so and these dweebs in their 30s were talking about advanced stats and I was like, dude, 47 homers and 149 RBIs, or whatever. I now realize it was one of the dumbest selections of my lifetime. 

Looked up the voting. He had a 4.0 WAR season.  That's, uh, not great Bob.  Not for an MVP I mean.  OPS under 900.  Last place team.  Jack Clark had an OPS of 1.055 on a pennant winning team.  Ozzie had 6.8 WAR on same pennant winning team.  They finished 2 and 3. I assume they split the vote. 
Tony Gwinn had 8.1 WAR and hit .370 for the Padres. I assume they sucked.  I was a big Giants fan at the time so we loved Will Clark. He finished 5th in the MVP voting.  That, in retrospect, looks... reasonable?  Especially with the Giants winning the division.  

That might be a fun topic for the offseason/lockout- a retroactive look at baseball from, fill in a year from your childhood.  Compare your memories of what happened to actual memories.  Look at the analysis from todays standpoint and compare it to narrative of the time.  1987 was a huge year in baseball to me. I grew up listening to the Giants on my radio from the time I was 4 years old (that I can remember).  The Giants were terrible in 84 and 85. 84 is the first baseball year I really remember- the Tigers jumping out to like a 30-5 start and then steamrolling to the world series pennant (that's the way I remember it- didn't look this up yet) and the Giants lost 100 or something.  Then they lost 100 again in 85, and 86 they surprised by sticking with the Astros in the division chase until mid September.  So, it was mostly suck for my guys until 87.  And that team was just so much fun.  Got to love these kids was the slogan for the year if I recall correctly.  Boy I fucking hated St. Louis after that NLCS. It was chippy.  Jeffrey Leonard was awesome but not awesome enough. Running around the bases with 1 flap down on his HR's really really really tweaked the Cards.  I think that was the year Kevin Mitchell caught a ball barehanded which blew my mind.  Maybe not that year as it all runs together a lot now that I'm old.  
Maybe I will start that with 1984- the first year I kind of remember.  If people respond cool. If not- cool too.

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

I grew up ping ponging back and forth between Nashville and Houston...parents were from Houston but we moved up there for....reasons. Dad was an Astros fan but not hardcore yet because they had always been mediocre and he had been a Cardinals fan as a kid because of their tie with the Houston Buffs....So my earliest memories of MLB are of listening to the Big Red Machine on the radio out of Cincinnati. Joe Nuxhall was the color guy. Nashville is pretty much equidistant to Cincy, St Louis, and Atlanta, but those last two teams sucked in those days so Nasjvillle was kind of a lukewarm Reds town....It got hotter when they brought back minor league ball in about 1980 and the Nashville Sounds became the Reds AA club. The BRM was toast by then, though, and that was the year my grandparents starting taking me to games in the Dome/ They had season tickets up in the yellow section and I got in free. Ushers / ticket-takers didn't care -- if some seniors wanted to bring in a kid with them for free, that's just beautiful, that's America. 

Long way of saying I am staking out 1980. 

[Beau Vine 53,965]

32 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

I was 17 or so and these dweebs in their 30s were talking about advanced stats and I was like, dude, 47 homers and 149 RBIs, or whatever. I now realize it was one of the dumbest selections of my lifetime. 

Hell, I was in my early 20s and on usenet's rec.sport.baseball at the time IIRC.  I don't remember anyone complaining heavily about the Dawson or Welch awards at the time. 

They look horrible now, but not nearly as stupid as giving Cy Youngs and MVPs to relief pitchers.  Or Pete Vuckovich or Lamarr Hoyt.

[Wulaw Horn 18,963]

1 hour ago, Beau Vine said:

Hell, I was in my early 20s and on usenet's rec.sport.baseball at the time IIRC.  I don't remember anyone complaining heavily about the Dawson or Welch awards at the time. 

They look horrible now, but not nearly as stupid as giving Cy Youngs and MVPs to relief pitchers.  Or Pete Vuckovich or Lamarr Hoyt.

Stupid?  Mark Davis was an amazing Cy Young choice (was that who it was?) Didn't he have like 56 saves?

[Beau Vine 53,965]

42 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Stupid?  Mark Davis was an amazing Cy Young choice (was that who it was?) Didn't he have like 56 saves?

Was more talking about Willie Hernandez winning the MVP.  Imagine looking at the '84 Tigers and deciding that WH was not only the best player on that team, but in the whole league.

[Guest Lobo]

It's Guillermo!  Why do you feel the need to white-wash 1984 history?  

Oh yeah, because the AL awards were bullshit.  

Hernandez finishes with 16 of the 28 first place votes.  Yeah, yeah...I know he threw 140 innings...a mexican metric shitton for a reliever even in those days.  But come the fuck on.  A number of great position players/batters have huge years that season for great teams, but it goes to Willie Hernandez?  

Fun fact---Cal Ripken leads the AL that season with a 10.0 WAR on the nose.  But slugging stalwarts such as Andre Thornton, Juan Beniquez, and half-drunk 107 basehit Steve Balboni all finish comfortably ahead of Ripken in the voting (Cal finished #27 for 85-win Orioles...in case you thought they knew what the fuck they were doing back then).  

Edited December 13, 2021 by Lobo

[Cheeseweasel 26,437]

23 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Steve Balboni

[Wulaw Horn 18,963]

Take it to the 1984 thread I started. Maybe that will be fun. Maybe it will be me talking to myself. 

[dcar00 14,023]

On 12/12/2021 at 4:57 PM, MaybeACoordinator said:

Voters just get bored of writing the same name....not logical but that's the way it is. Bill James has said that nobody but Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle of Barry Bonds would have won MVPs for years at a stretch if the voters acted like Vulcans.

Welch's Cy Young season was like Andre Dawson's MVP year in Wrigley.

OK so I looked it up.  from 54 to 65 Mays lead the league in WAR 10 of 12 times.  the other 2 were Aaron and Banks. fucking nuts.

[Guest Lobo]

Willie Mays was good at various aspect of baseball.  I would stay, good to quite good.  That he only won 2 MVP's boggles my fucking mind.   And he took off 1953 for Korea.

If he had been white or played for the Yankees.  Just one of those two---He'd be the deity of a major world religion.  

Edited December 15, 2021 by Lobo

[dcar00 14,023]

1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Willie Mays was good at various aspect of baseball.  I would stay, good to quite good.  That he only won 2 MVP's boggles my fucking mind.   And he took off 1953 for Korea.

If he had been white or played for the Yankees.  Just one of those two---He'd be the deity of a major world religion.  

uh from 49 to 69 the NL MVP was white only 5 times.  everything isn't about race.  he's considered one of the top 5 players of all time.  

[Guest Lobo]

i didn't say the MVP votes were about race.  I'm just saying he was so unbelievably good for so long, had he been a Yankee or White...he'd be the source of a major faith-based organization.

[Johnny Sack 8,397]

7 minutes ago, Lobo said:

i didn't say the MVP votes were about race.  I'm just saying he was so unbelievably good for so long, had he been a Yankee or White...he'd be the source of a major faith-based organization.

His handicap was playing on the left coast.

Mays was a baseball god.

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2,056]

evidently bonds and clemens have the same votes right now . . . because someone voted yes bonds no clemens, and someone else voted no bonds yes clemens.

 

 

 

 

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2,056]

On 12/3/2021 at 11:51 PM, Scraps said:

Even Heyman bringing the dumb

 

On 11/30/2021 at 10:18 PM, Scraps said:

Check out this dipshit

oh.  i see we already covered that.

[dcar00 14,023]

14 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

His handicap was playing on the left coast.

Mays was a baseball god.

exactly. and being in SF instead of LA didn't help either. if he played in Boston, NY, Brooklyn, probably even St Louis/Pittsburgh he would have won more MVP's.   Dick Groat won 1 because he hit .325 once.  Maury Wills won 1 for LA in a year Mays hit 49 HR, 141 RBI, and .304.

 

[Guest Lobo]

That 1960 vote was bullshit.  Top two vote-getters are Pirates left-side of infield.  Mays finishes a distant third.  I get that Pittsburgh had a great team that year but half the Top 12 vote getters were Pirates.  Ah well, Mays is in the Hall and on the Mount Rushmore of greatest position players.  

[DanRydell 799]

Yeah so ESPN did a what would their final numbers have been without Roids for Clemens and Bonds. Someone tell that slapsixk that got quotes upthread (not the surly-ite but the blue check mark) that Clemens would have dropped all the way down to 4 on the all time list for pitchers War. So, yeah, no conceivable justification to vote for Bonds and. It Clemens and anyone who can vote for either Ortiz or ManRam but doesn’t vote for Bonds/Clemens should be shot. 

That Bonds didn’t likely rape a child feels like a conceivable justification to vote Bonds but not Clemens

[Cheeseweasel 26,437]

8 hours ago, DanRydell said:

That Bonds didn’t likely rape a child feels like a conceivable justification to vote Bonds but not Clemens

Wut

[Guest Lobo]

is he saying that Clemens likely raped a chid?  

This is as confusing to me as the fact that there was an Expos player named Razor Shines.  And nobody ever talks about it.  We're all just pretending that it's totally normal.  And it was his real given name.  

[DanRydell 799]

Wut

When Clemens was 28, he started an affair with then 15/16-year-old Mindy McCready

[formermav43 4,599]

I assume he’s taking about the Mindy McCready thing, though even she claimed they didn’t have a sexual relationship till years after they met.

Edit: yeah, was typing that when he posted confirming.

Edited December 17, 2021 by formermav43

[Guest Lobo]

That's some Jimmy Page level shit right there.  

I had forgotten all about that.  He claimed she was a family friend or some shit.  And then he later admitted things turned sexual with them down the road or something?  But the two of them would fly privately when she was still a teenager for her "music career" or something?  

Didn't realize she had died.  Shot her dog and herself in the same spot her boyfriend had done it exactly one month prior.  And of course, almost all of this took place in Florida.  

Clemens seems weird.

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2,056]

11 hours ago, DanRydell said:

That Bonds didn’t likely rape a child feels like a conceivable justification to vote Bonds but not Clemens

nypost tabloid stuff.  neither party said it was sexual when she was a minor.  she said it became sexual after she'd moved to nashville and became a star in her 20s during her rapid descent.

[DanRydell 799]

4 minutes ago, OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys said:

nypost tabloid stuff.  neither party said it was sexual when she was a minor.  she said it became sexual after she'd moved to nashville and became a star in her 20s during her rapid descent.

Sure, because 28-year-old pro athletes frequently hang out with teenage girls they hit on at a karaoke bar in a non-sexual manner. That seems totally plausible and not at all like a bullshit story to make him sound less rapey.

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2,056]

ok.  but just know you're picking between the statements of two people that were actually involved and your active imagination.

[Cheeseweasel 26,437]

So we need a Hall of Fame For Guys Who Were Not Only Good At Baseball, But Were Generally Good People.

 

So, Clemente and no one else?

[Guest Lobo]

I think Tom Seaver was generally well liked and respected.  Probably Jackie Robinson and maybe Sandberg.  Nobody else comes to Mind right now. 
 

you can’t leave Clemens out because of some tabloid innuendo thirty years ago.  He’s being left out for drug use and being an asshole about the coverup.  I think he was a hall of famer without them and I’d like see him get in.  As stated by cheese, almost every guy in there was one of: an asshole, racist, wife beater, and cheated at some point in his career by whatever technological means was available in his era.  Statistically speaking, there’s probably a few pedophiles in Cooperstown as well.  

It’s time to rip the Bandaid off and send in the roid class and be done with the debate.  Baseball needs to move on from this dark cloud and righting things in Cooperstown will go a lot further to that effect than bullshit congressional hearings.  

[Surly Bevo 24,692]

On 12/13/2021 at 1:25 PM, Beau Vine said:

Or Pete Vuckovich 

How's your wife and my kids?

[Cheeseweasel 26,437]

23 minutes ago, Lobo said:

I think Tom Seaver was generally well liked and respected.

He once spit at me when I said "Nice game pretty boy" to him.

[Guest Lobo]

That’s weird.  Usually your dates back then would have swallowed.  

[Not a cat 5,612]

Good to see Oliva in.  I'm no sabremetric guru that can tell you whether or not he's actually deserving from a baseball standpoint, but he's a genuinely good dude. His grandson and my son play on the same baseball team and he'll just sit around and bullshit with anyone about anything, even if you can't understand half of what he says. 

Yes, I know, cool starry bra. 

[Guest Lobo]

You in SD/MN area, I take it?  Big Cuban community up that way?   

That's cool that he's engaged his grandson's baseball life (and probably whole life overall).  One of my uncles played some minor league ball in the Cleveland organization, but got cut and ended in some Latin American semi-pro leagues including Puerto Rico where Oliva and other up-and-coming Cubans played in the Winters.  It's amazing, he can't remember what he did last week but he remembers the names of so many of those guys that went through those leagues as they transitioned to AA/AAA ball.  He still speaks Spanish with a South Texas accent, but when he swears and/or talks baseball---he switches to a Cuban accent.  It's pretty funny.  Anyway, those guys from Cuba all played because they just fucking loved baseball.  They got American beer, American women, and paid in American dollars to play the American Pastime.  Of all the guys he played with, my uncle's favorite were always guys from Cuba.  We're gonna toast to Oliva and Minosa at Christmas.  

Having said that, almost every MLB player I've ever met in my adult years has been a fucking asshole.  Doesn't mean they don't deserve their spot in the Hall.  

Edited December 17, 2021 by Lobo

[Not a cat 5,612]

I'm in Bloomington, MN, home of both Oliva and Joey Freshwater.  

Oliva told some stories where he and some other latin player fresh off the boat were assigned as part of a PR tour to go speak to a group of season ticket holders in BFE Minnesota.  A couple of Cubans at the height of the cold war with barely passable English getting lost in rural Minnesota.  They'd pull over to ask for directions, someone would recognize them and direct them to their eventual destination. 

[Beau Vine 53,965]

Look at this fucking gimp:

 

 

https://twitter.com/TooGooden17/status/1476342264037322760

Edit: It's fake.

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by Beau Vine

[dcar00 14,023]

On 12/16/2021 at 9:30 AM, Lobo said:

That 1960 vote was bullshit.  Top two vote-getters are Pirates left-side of infield.  Mays finishes a distant third.  I get that Pittsburgh had a great team that year but half the Top 12 vote getters were Pirates.  Ah well, Mays is in the Hall and on the Mount Rushmore of greatest position players.  

East Coast media. 

[Scraps 13,531]

almost 1/3rd in and these are the ones above the line so far....long way to go though:

With 121 ballots revealed/~30.9% known:

Ortiz - 81.8%

Bonds - 80.2%

Clemens - 78.5%

[Wulaw Horn 18,963]

2 hours ago, Scraps said:

almost 1/3rd in and these are the ones above the line so far....long way to go though:

With 121 ballots revealed/~30.9% known:

Ortiz - 81.8%

Bonds - 80.2%

Clemens - 78.5%

How many tests did Ortiz fail?  More than Clemens and Bonds combined, right?

 

so dumb 

[Cheeseweasel 26,437]

1 hour ago, Wulaw Horn said:

How many tests did Ortiz fail?  More than Clemens and Bonds combined, right?

 

so dumb 

Yeah, and as pointed out earlier, Clemens is a first timer if he never takes a 'roid. Bonds probably. Ortiz? Questionable. 

Ortiz had a lifetime .286 Avg. Played a total of 2162 innings in the field (which translates to 240 games). if ANYONE benefitted from steroids, it's they guy who's only redeemable feature was mammoth HR's. 

[Wulaw Horn 18,963]

1 hour ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Yeah, and as pointed out earlier, Clemens is a first timer if he never takes a 'roid. Bonds probably. Ortiz? Questionable. 

Ortiz had a lifetime .286 Avg. Played a total of 2162 innings in the field (which translates to 240 games). if ANYONE benefitted from steroids, it's they guy who's only redeemable feature was mammoth HR's. 

Yeah. All of that. It’s absurd. He was a JAG until he was a steroid guy. Bonds and Clemens were awesome before roids. 

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

4 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Yeah. All of that. It’s absurd. He was a JAG until he was a steroid guy. Bonds and Clemens were awesome before roids. 

Baseball writers are kinda pitiful in how much of a premium they put on guys being nice to them. And it doesn't matter if the dude is secretly all kinds of fucked up like Kirby Puckett. Big Papi was and is really good at PR and Bonds and Clemens have never given a shit about it.

[Guest Lobo]

I think Keenan Thompson did more for Big Papi's image than Big Papi did for Big Papi's image.  

We gonna have.......some........Mofongo.  And Some Wasakaka con queso frito

I'll never understand some of the writer's decisions as far as non-steroid guys go.  Puckett being chief among them.  I honestly don't remember, was Puckett already dying when they voted on him?  

Edited January 4, 2022 by Lobo

[dcar00 14,023]

it's gonna be hilarious when it is Ortiz and no one else.  one guy...who actually failed a test.  Boston Scrong!

[Wulaw Horn 18,963]

21 hours ago, Lobo said:

I think Keenan Thompson did more for Big Papi's image than Big Papi did for Big Papi's image.  

We gonna have.......some........Mofongo.  And Some Wasakaka con queso frito

I'll never understand some of the writer's decisions as far as non-steroid guys go.  Puckett being chief among them.  I honestly don't remember, was Puckett already dying when they voted on him?  

I don’t believe so, no. 
I actually don’t have a problem with Pickett in the HOF. He was iconic and the straw that stirred the drink on a team that won 2 titles. Everyone knew who he was and he had a career worthy of celebration. I’m a big hall kind of guy. I think Tommy John should be in there because of his surgery being a trail blazer and coming back and having longevity. Harold Baines is absurd bc he doesn’t resonate the way Puckett did. Jack Morris would absolutely be in my hall of fame. That dude was considered a gamer. Shilling should also be in. He’s famous and you can’t tell the story of baseball on the 2000’s without talking about him and Johnson in 2001 and the bloody sock. 
has anyone every had one thought about Harold Baines since he retired?  While he was playing?  

[Guest Lobo]

Lucky for you, Jack Morris IS in the Hall of Fame.  

I scratch my head always and forever on Puckett and Baines.  I'm a sucker for longevity, and Puckett didn't have it.  Granted he packed a lot in to 12 seaons, but feel-good stories aren't what the Hall of Fame is for.  And Baines played a long time, but he didn't do that much while he was DH'ing and being an above-average hitter.  

Tommy John in an interesting case.  IIRC, he's got the most Wins and IP's of anybody not in the Hall not named Roger Clemens.  I wonder what the various selection committees rationale on him is these days.

Schilling should get in.  He's an asshole, sock is bullshit or not bullshit, Texans don't like him, whatever the fuck.  We can't kick people out of the Hall of Fame, so there's certainly more than enough guys in there whose careers he handily surpassed.  So he gets to join them.  Some committee will just put him down the road anyways, may as well try to do it proper.  

[Wulaw Horn 18,963]

1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Lucky for you, Jack Morris IS in the Hall of Fame.  

I scratch my head always and forever on Puckett and Baines.  I'm a sucker for longevity, and Puckett didn't have it.  Granted he packed a lot in to 12 seaons, but feel-good stories aren't what the Hall of Fame is for.  And Baines played a long time, but he didn't do that much while he was DH'ing and being an above-average hitter.  

Tommy John in an interesting case.  IIRC, he's got the most Wins and IP's of anybody not in the Hall not named Roger Clemens.  I wonder what the various selection committees rationale on him is these days.

Schilling should get in.  He's an asshole, sock is bullshit or not bullshit, Texans don't like him, whatever the fuck.  We can't kick people out of the Hall of Fame, so there's certainly more than enough guys in there whose careers he handily surpassed.  So he gets to join them.  Some committee will just put him down the road anyways, may as well try to do it proper.  

Yeah. It black jack didn’t get I. Until the vet committee and plenty argued against him. I was using him as a point to say guys like that should be in and through the normal process. 

[Guest Lobo]

Yeah, I have a feeling it grates on some of the guys who have to wait decades to get in via committee as opposed to being enshrined the normal route.  I know they give the same smiling speech in Cooperstown, but it has to bother the true competitors among them.  But any induction is a good induction.  

They've done a good and relatively thorough job going back through the ages to comb through the multiple eras, the Negro Leagues, the overlooked hispanic players from the early days, et. al.  I feel like there's only a handful of truly overlooked guys from 100 years of baseball that need to be more seriously reviewed for induction by the various committees.  So there's that.  Then we've got the steroid class elephant in the room.  And we need to take care of that.  And then I think beyond that (and those are two very large tasks)...by the end of the decade, I'd like to see it just return to the old system.  The BBWA ballot and maybe one standing committee that meets every year to review overlooked players but does not have to vote anybody in...they can just make strong recommendations.  If you have a half dozen committees each putting a guy in every single year, that's gonna start to dilute the Hall and make it like the NFL or NBA ones where if you started for ten years, you're basically an auto-admit.  This is Cooperstown, not College Station.  But yeah, there's a whole lotta wrong to be corrected between now and that day.  

At least there's not a committee sniffing around looking for guys to kick out of the Hall...so there's that.  

[Beau Vine 53,965]

2 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Shilling should also be in. He’s famous and you can’t tell the story of baseball on the 2000’s without talking about him and Johnson in 2001 and the bloody sock.

That's already in the Hall of Fame.   His bloody sock is literally a display in the Hall of Fame with a board telling the story of it.

[Wulaw Horn 18,963]

37 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

That's already in the Hall of Fame.   His bloody sock is literally a display in the Hall of Fame with a board telling the story of it.

Quite a literalist. His place on the Red Sox team that won the pennant over the Yankees and ended the curse.

oh- also the fact that the body of work for his career is ball worthy. 

[Hank Chinaski 6,310]

On 1/3/2022 at 11:45 AM, Cheeseweasel said:

Yeah, and as pointed out earlier, Clemens is a first timer if he never takes a 'roid. Bonds probably. Ortiz? Questionable. 

I agree with you, except for the “Bonds probably” part. Barry Bonds had over 100 fWAR by the end of the 1999 season. He was the best player of the 90s (yes, better than Griffey) and won 3 MVP awards (and should have won 6; he was the best player in the NL in ‘91, ‘95 and ‘96 by a wide margin). He was a first-ballot HOFer if he retired at the end of ‘99. Instead he did PEDs and went on the most dominant 4-year stretch in baseball history, which was incredible to watch but made people forget about his career from 86-99.

(And, even with the PEDs, those 01-04 seasons were insane. I remember reading an article once that summarized how productive he was on pitches in the strike zone. I wish we had statcast stuff for those years. Basically, he almost never swung at balls. On the few occasions that pitchers threw him strikes, he almost never missed. It was incredible. Lots of guys were using back then and none of them were in the same galaxy as Barry Bonds. It’s disappointing that he used because he very likely would have had great seasons in those years anyway. PEDs took him from being best of his generation to best ever.)