HOF today

The HOF voting will be announced later today. It'll be interesting to see if anyone gets in. The only decent first timer is Alomar and there could be serious backlash for the spitting incident. Dawson and Blyleven are on the bubble, so it's possible no one may go this year.

Personally, I would have voted for Blyleven, Dawson, Alomar, Morris and Raines.

Edited to add Edgar Martinez. Forgot he was on the ballot

McGwire, Raines, Alomar and Blyleven...in that order.

Dawson & Morris, no. I don't think I can be swayed to let them in.

Edgar...he's a maybe. I think after Frank Thomas who was a better DH and a better first baseball. I just associate them together for some reason, even though I would rather have Frank on my team.

What about McGwire?

And since I am bored at work, here's the list from the HOF website of the future eligible players. I bolded who I think should get in.

2011: Jeff Bagwell, Rafael Palmeiro, John Olerud,
Kevin Brown, Larry Walker, Juan Gonzalez, Tino Martinez, B.J. Surhoff,
Marquis Grissom, John Franco, Bret Boone, Al Leiter, Benito Santiago,
Carlos Baerga, Raul Mondesi, Bobby Higginson, Wilson Alvarez, Rey
Sanchez, Charles Johnson, Jose Offerman, Ugueth Urbina, Ismael Valdez,
Dan Wilson, Paul Quantrill, Cal Eldred, Kirk Rueter, Steve Reed
2012: Edgardo Alfonzo, Pedro Astacio, David Bell,
Jeromy Burnitz, Vinny Castilla, Scott Erickson, Carl Everett, Jeff
Fassero, Alex S. Gonzalez, Danny Graves, Rick Helling, Dustin
Hermanson, Jose Hernandez, Brian Jordan, Matt Lawton, Javy Lopez, Bill
Mueller, Terry Mulholland, Jeff Nelson, Phil Nevin, Brad Radke, Joe
Randa, Tim Salmon, Ruben Sierra, Jose Vizcaino, Bernie Williams, Eric
Young
2013: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Craig Biggio,
Curt Schilling, Sammy Sosa, Mike Piazza, Kenny Lofton, David Wells,
Julio Franco, Shawn Green, Steve Finley, Roberto Hernandez, Jeff
Cirillo, Jose Valentin, Reggie Sanders, Jeff Conine, Jose Mesa, Royce
Clayton, Bob Wickman, Ryan Klesko, Aaron Sele, Woody Williams, Rondell
White, Mike Lieberthal, Tony Batista, Mike Stanton, Sandy Alomar Jr.,
Damian Miller, Todd Walker

2014: Moises Alou, Armando Benitez, Sean Casey,
Jose Cruz Jr., Ray Durham, Damion Easley, Jim Edmonds, Keith Foulke,
Eric Gagne, Tom Glavine, Luis Gonzalez, Mark Grudzielanek, Scott
Hatteberg, Jacque Jones, Todd Jones, Jeff Kent, Jon Lieber, Esteban
Loaiza, Paul Lo Duca, Greg Maddux, Matt Morris, Mike Mussina, Trot
Nixon, Hideo Nomo, Jay Payton, Kenny Rogers, Richie Sexson, J.T. Snow,
Shannon Stewart, Frank Thomas, Mike Timlin, Steve Trachsel, Jose Vidro

Jason Stark does a better job of arguing for Morris, Blyleven and Dawson than I can. I still don't understand why he likes Murphy? Got one MVP when Al Oliver should have but he was media darling and they hated Oliver.

Stark HOF article

If Blyleven doesn't make it this year then year 15 (2012) on the ballot looks pretty good since there doesn't appear to be any Hall worthy candidates.

Your choices for the upcoming years are pretty good. Schilling and Sosa will be interesting to watch, as will Bonds and Clemens

Jay

sabrjay wrote:

Personally, I would have voted for Blyleven, Dawson, Alomar, Morris and Raines.

Edited to add Edgar Martinez. Forgot he was on the ballot

dawson is not a hof'er, rest i agree with. pissed seeing mediocre players getting in

also jason stark doesn't impress me, most of the time he seems like a rambling simpleton. law, neyer, the baseball prospectus guys are alot better.

2nd edit: omg i forgot the y in ja(y)son stark...that seals it for me

I agree about mediocre players. It should be the best of the best of the best. Sort of like a Baseball Card Hall of Fame

I just can't see Morris & Dawson. Hall of Very Good...yes. Hall of Exceptionally Good like Blyleven (which is the standard today), I don't think so.

I see Morris as a compiler that didn't compile enough to warrant induction. When you start to break down Blyleven's numbers, they are impressive.

Dawson...what annoys me is when people write, "he was great before his knees became bad" and other injury items. So what? Know who else was great before he got fat, Mo Vaughn. I was going to write that Dawson reminds me of Luis Gonzales but thought better of it. Then went to Baseball Reference to just look at his stats one more time and Gonzales is 6th in the similarity score.

I think that all the steroid stuff will die down. Bonds was a HOF before his head became larger.

On another topic, I would like to see the HOF voting open up to fans/everyone and not just the writers. Make it online and one vote per person. The technology is there (when the Post Office verifies you when changing address via credit card) and online survey instruments are a dime a dozen.

Forgot this... about Stark....outside of Tuesday Morning Quarterback on Page 2, I don't read ESPN at all. Ever.

I would have only voted for Alomar. I could see Blyleven getting in but the guy just has a very pedestrian record. I cant imagine McGwire or Sosa getting in. Bonds and Clemens will as they were good before steroids kicked in so their entire careers arent tainted like the other two.

oh yea, no morris for me either. blyleven in, morris out for me. according to all the metrics rock raines is deserving (and very underrated).

my feelings have shifted on the steroid thing. almost certain not just the big guys were juicing. every eras have their flaws.

Dawson and no one else? WTF?!?!?!?!?!

Yeah, Blyleven missed by one, maybe two votes. He should be a shoe in next year and definitely 2012 when there is no one worthy on the ballot besides him Raines and Morris.

I don't get what people have against Morris. In the 80s he was the pitcher you wanted on your team. The early 80s had Carlton and late 80s had Gooden and Clemens, but for the whole decade there was no one better and that's the definition of a HOFer. He anchored 3 championship teams and pitcher one of the greatest World Series games ever.

Blyleven gets no respect either and his numbers are amazing when taken in context. He spent most of his career in hitters ballparks. He had 60 shutouts in career. The entire AL hasn't had that many in 18 years. Thrown in the best curve ball ever and if hadn't played on such bad teams with poor run support, we wouldn't be having this discussion because he would have easily cruised past 300 wins. 287 is nothing to sneeze at.

Concerning Morris, I don't by the "greatest game" call. It is one game. Bob Horner once hit 4 home runs in a game; the HOF is a career achivement not a single game achievement.

Also, his regular season ERA is 3.90, post season was 3.80. No difference. I don't feel like looking up the advanced stats but he was always average or slightly above.

Morris was never dominant - looking at either a 5 - 10 year stretch (Like a Koufax) or career compiler (Blyleven).

Here's Joe Posnanski in a column from two years ago. Skip down until you see 1980 in bold, about 4 clicks on the page down key....

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2007/12/29/best-pitcher-of-the-1980s/

agreed on morris, he had a couple nice WS starts but he was not "dominant". morris had 25wins when he gave up 5+ er, blyleven -- 4!!! (courtesy law). also dawson is a joke, but i guess jim rice set the precedent last year (for so-so OF with the mislabeled "feared" tag getting in). who's starting a campaign for paul o'neill because he was a TRUE YANKEE or bret saberhagen because he was Mr. Kansas City???

quan, take a look at the Blyleven's park and league adjusted numbers by season and career. I've always liked Pete Palmer's linear weight system (as do many people) for player performance because it rewards you for peak performance and penalizes you for hanging on at the end of your career to try and get 300 wins, 3000 hits, etc if you are performing poorly. Blyleven ranks right behind Steve Carlton in the all time ranking for pitchers. The most current numbers I have show Blyleven at the #11 pitcher all-time. I'll have to crunch the numbers for Maddux, Johnson, Clemens and some others, but I don't think Blyleven will be slipping from the top 15 any time soon.

Jay

i like blyleven as a hof'er...not morris.