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54 minutes ago, El Dragon said:

You wanna know why I don't value your opinion most of all? I wrote out a long paragraph explaining why Berkman had a case, others agreed he was a borderline case, and your entire against him was "LOL"

1900 hits, 1200 Rbi's and 366 and .293. Not anywhere near good enough. If you don't have at least 2500 hits and 1500 Rbi's, don't even bother applying for Cooperstown.

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11 minutes ago, Kuetsar said:

1900 hits, 1200 Rbi's and 366 and .293. Not anywhere near good enough. If you don't have at least 2500 hits and 1500 Rbi's, don't even bother applying for Cooperstown.

Ya might wanna rephrase those requirements of yours. 

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6 minutes ago, gatling said:

I'd be interested to see those five names, because if that's truly how you feel then hopefully you're happy with the Hall as it is, because there won't be too many players added going forward if you see only five sure fire guys on this list.  I think you're on the extreme end of the "Small Hall" side of things and while I'm not truly a "Big Hall" guy I don't think it's hard to see 10-12 definite Hall of Famers with another 5 to 7 guys with potential cases.  There have been excellent arguments made in this very thread for many different guys by multiple board members.  Are you simply a 3000 hits, 500 HR, or 300 wins or no way guy?  I'm honestly asking.  If that's the case and you only see five guys worthy, the guy voting for only two is pretty much horseshit.  I would have much less issue with someone leaving Rivera off their ballot since he'll get in and using that spot to vote for their 11th choice, but to leave 8 spots blank just screws guys since it takes 75% of the total votes to make it into the Hall.  

Pretty much. If you don't come close to that, you don't belong. Generally speaking, I think that if you have to think about your case, you don't belong. I've talked myself into Mcgriff, he's close enough to the magic numbers. I think the Hall is generally fine as it is, and all the juiced balls(and biceps) in the world doesn't change it. Frankly the part of the ballot that angered me more was the vote for Edgar, as I don't think he belongs either.

 

1. Bonds(I probably wouldn't vote for Steroid guys, but belongs)

2. Ramirez

3. Clemens(though I think he's one that you could argue that he wouldn't be a HOF without roids, he was closer to borderline at the end of his Sox run.

4.Rivera

5. Sheffield

6. Mcgriff, though he's at the borderline for me

Although if we are putting in the Bonds and company, they should put Palmiero in as well.

I think Sosa and Mac wouldn't have been HOFers without the juice, and I think Mac comes up short anyway.

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2 minutes ago, Tabe said:

Ya might wanna rephrase those requirements of yours. 

I don't think everyone with 2500 hits belongs, but that's the floor for me to take the candidate seriously.  Its about being an all star, its about being the best of all time.

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1 hour ago, Kuetsar said:

1900 hits, 1200 Rbi's and 366 and .293. Not anywhere near good enough. If you don't have at least 2500 hits and 1500 Rbi's, don't even bother applying for Cooperstown.

Yes, because counting stats are literally all that matters in baseball. Also, who the fuck uses batting average as a main indicator in 2018? 

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47 minutes ago, El Dragon said:

Yes, because counting stats are literally all that matters in baseball. Also, who the fuck uses batting average as a main indicator in 2018? 

Very likely, many BBWAA members with actual HOF votes. The same ones that undoubtedly complained about de Grom winning the Cy Young. 

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On 11/26/2018 at 7:54 AM, El Dragon said:

I'm kinda sad nobody engaged me on a discussion of Kevin Brown being the most under rated pitcher of the last 30 years.

Who under rates him? I sort of thought that the conventional wisdom was that he was mostly very good with a couple of excellent seasons. His top six comps according to Baseball Reference are: Bob Welch, Tim Hudson, Orel Hershiser, Don Drysdale, Catfish Hunter, & Milt Pappas. However, the closest comparison is Welch with a similarity score of 945.8, which is to say somewhat similar without being really close. Overall, it isn't a bad group comparison-wise, I'd put Brown dead center in the pack between Pappas at the low end and Hershiser and Drysdale at the high end with Hershiser being somewhat better than most people think and Drysdale not being anywhere near as dominant as people remember. Of his comps, 3 are in the HOF one of whom definitely doesn't belong (Hunter) and the other two are pretty marginal, Vance looks a lot better than he was due to the flashy strikeout totals. The fact is an out is an out is an out whether it be a strikeout a pop-up or a ground-out. Drysdale was certainly a very good and occasionally great pitcher, but he wasn't anywhere near as dominant as his reputation would have it. He was a very good pitcher on a very good team.

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4 hours ago, Kuetsar said:

Pretty much. If you don't come close to that, you don't belong. Generally speaking, I think that if you have to think about your case, you don't belong. I've talked myself into Mcgriff, he's close enough to the magic numbers. I think the Hall is generally fine as it is, and all the juiced balls(and biceps) in the world doesn't change it. Frankly the part of the ballot that angered me more was the vote for Edgar, as I don't think he belongs either.

 

1. Bonds(I probably wouldn't vote for Steroid guys, but belongs)

2. Ramirez

3. Clemens(though I think he's one that you could argue that he wouldn't be a HOF without roids, he was closer to borderline at the end of his Sox run.

4.Rivera

5. Sheffield

6. Mcgriff, though he's at the borderline for me

Although if we are putting in the Bonds and company, they should put Palmiero in as well.

I think Sosa and Mac wouldn't have been HOFers without the juice, and I think Mac comes up short anyway.

Okay, let me take a stab at this:

1. Bonds(I probably wouldn't vote for Steroid guys, but belongs)

The best hitter of my lifetime, period. Even before he discovered "vitamins" Barry Bonds was a HOFr. He was the best player of the 1990s and when you have a Seattle boy making that statement it speaks volumes. Yeah, Griffey was a better fielder, but Bonds was no joke in LF.

2. Ramirez

C'mon, you're going to dog 'Gar because he didn't play defense, the argument could certainly be made that neither did Manny. ? 

3. Clemens(though I think he's one that you could argue that he wouldn't be a HOF without roids, he was closer to borderline at the end of his Sox run.

Look, I hate the miserable prick, but he was well on his way to Cooperstown pre-Roids.

4.Rivera

When you are the GOAT at your position you go in the HOF, it's just that simple.

5. Sheffield

We can agree that Gary was a fine, fine player but RF is over-represented in the HOF. That said, Shef is arguably the best RF not in the HOF and he makes a reasonably good gate-keeper, below which you don't go in. 

6. Mcgriff, though he's at the borderline for me

It took me a few years, but I finally came around on McGriff. He's the best first baseman not in the HOF and should serve as the gatekeeper spot like Sheffield. 

7. Edgar Martinez: We can argue the merits of 'Gar vis a vis Big Papi, but they both belong in.

Interestingly enough, the best player not inducted is Bonds, the next best will require action on the part of the Oversight Committee as the next best is a third baseman who retired when I was 12 (1969).  His only sin was having a career that almost exactly overlaps Eddie Mathews, and when you're #2 behind the (at the time) GOAT at the position there's no shame in that. Of course I am speaking of Ken Boyer, another fine example of the BBWA not understanding the position and the 50/50 balance between offense and defense. It is instructive to note that despite the overlap with Mathews, over a seven-year stretch Boyer led the league in double plays turned from the hot corner. So it can be argued that while Mathews had better power numbers with his bat, Boyer was superior defensively. 

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9 hours ago, Kuetsar said:

I don't think everyone with 2500 hits belongs, but that's the floor for me to take the candidate seriously.  Its about being an all star, its about being the best of all time.

You said 2500 hits AND 1500 RBI or they need not apply. So no Rickey Henderson, then? 

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I think going forward, for run producers 1500 rbi isn't a bad standard. Was I a little flippant about it? Yes. I still think that under around 2500 hits (and preferabliy a bit closer to 3000) is more what I look for in a HOFer. But then a again its not like I have a HOF vote, and will never have one either given that I'm not liekly to be a sports writer.

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5 hours ago, Kuetsar said:

I think going forward, for run producers 1500 rbi isn't a bad standard. Was I a little flippant about it? Yes. I still think that under around 2500 hits (and preferabliy a bit closer to 3000) is more what I look for in a HOFer. But then a again its not like I have a HOF vote, and will never have one either given that I'm not liekly to be a sports writer.

I'm afraid that I'm with Bill James on this one, magic numbers and minimum standards are horrible ideas for reasons we've recently seen play out. I've remarked before on my first baseball book that I owned as a wee lad, at the time of publication (around 1962 or thereabouts) every retired player with either 3000 hits or 300 HRs was in the HOF. These seemed like "magic numbers" until of course, they weren't... As Roy Sievers, Frank Howard, Lee May, Joe Adcock, Rocky Colavito, Willie Horton, et al retired over the next few years it became obvious that any pretty good player could reach 300 HRs. How about 400? Well, no one ever mistook Dave Kingman for a HOFr, so how about 500? It took the poster boy for compiling stats, Raffy Palmeiro to show that 500 was no longer that big of a deal. How about 600? Finally, we have a number that everyone can agree on, oh, wait... What's that? McGwire and Sosa? uh, yeah... 

Now how about that 1500 RBI business? Considering that this plateau is a result for a specialist, it has to be a singularly bad idea. When you have two of the greatest lead-off men to ever play the game, Henderson and Raines barred admission because they didn't drive in enough runs, there's a problem. If we are going to use any sort of yardstick at all (and I'm not for a second suggesting that we do, as if the years since WWII has taught us anything, it's that the game is dynamic and while we're currently in a boom period for stats to trend upwards, that could change. In 1961 no one watching Mantle and Maris tear it up would've believed that we were less than a decade away from a man winning the Triple Crown with less than 50 HRs, but that's exactly what happened, we settled into an era of pitching dominance. Runs created is a far more useful tool than RBIs, as it is no discriminator of power hitters vs. the table setter. SImply stated, every player from the lead-off man to the #9 guy has the same job, to create runs. And there are as many ways to go about this as there are batting stances.

Dragon makes the admittedly weakass case that Lance Berkman was something special and I guess part if that argument hinges on his 50+ HR season. I can recall a time when I could easily rattle off the players that had achieved that milestone, including the gentlemen who had done it twice. From the time Mantle and Maris did it to George Foster was over a decade, from Foster to Cecil Fielder another ten years elapsed, clearly 50 in a season took a prodigious power hitter getting hot and staying hot. However, once the ferocious power hitters such as Luis Gonzalez and Brady Anderson made it, 50 didn't seem so special any more and once Sosa managed to bang over 60 three times with a needle hanging out of his ass, 50HRs in a season was just what you would expect a power hitter to reach upon occasion. 

As much as we might like to delude ourselves into thinking that the HOF is reserved for the most elite of five-tool players like Mays, Bonds,, & Griffey, the reality is that the HOF is also comprised of a number of specialists, be they the fleet of foot like Henderson or the ponderous slugger like Killebrew or the offensive threat from traditionally a defense-centric position like shortstop, there are a multitude of ways that a player can differentiate himself from his fellows with the net result being that people realize that they're watching something special..  Now I'm old enough to remember the playing days of Eddie Mathews and Ken Boyer and there was no doubt in mind that I was watching two future HOFrs hold down the hot corner. Well, Mathews made it in rather easily as well he should have, but Boyer is still waiting, what happened? Well, for starters Mike Schmidt and George Brett happened and their numbers viewed without context make Boyer seem pretty ordinary. With context, Boyer is the best eligible 3rd baseman not enshrined. He'll drop a spot when A-Rod becomes eligible. Viewed without context Darrell Evans and Graig Nettles HR totals seemingly put Boyer to shame. Actually, they do nothing of the kind, Boyer is a bonafide HOFr, what he accomplished during his time was extraordinary. Comparing what Schmidt did in the 1980s to what Boyer did in the 1960s is just silly. During Boyer's playing days a man hitting 42 HRs had a reasonable expectation of leading the league, 32HRs likely put you in the top ten. Nowadays a 3rd baseman hitting less than 33HRs in a season had best be brushing up on his conversational Japanese. 

In baseball, stats are #1, but context is a very close #2.

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I think raffy probably belongs, since he did both 3000 and 500, but if he doesn't get in so be it. I agree comparing 60's stats with 90's and 2000's+ stats is nuts. I'll admit that looking at the number Boyer looks anemic, but I was born after he retired, so i"ll bow to superior judgment on that. I think magic numbers have value no so much as to who gets in, but who stays out. I don't think that for a player who played since the numbers explosion that low 2k hits is enough, but enough kicking the dead horse.

Pitchers are tougher. After relooking at Mussina's stats, I think he should go in.Now do you make him the floor, or Andy Pettite? Roy Halladay was Really fuckng good, but his stats aren't quite as impressive, and by all the baseball reference numbers he's borderline. So for pitchers do you go by wins or WAR or what?

 

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1 hour ago, Kuetsar said:

I think raffy probably belongs, since he did both 3000 and 500, but if he doesn't get in so be it. I agree comparing 60's stats with 90's and 2000's+ stats is nuts. I'll admit that looking at the number Boyer looks anemic, but I was born after he retired, so i"ll bow to superior judgment on that. I think magic numbers have value no so much as to who gets in, but who stays out. I don't think that for a player who played since the numbers explosion that low 2k hits is enough, but enough kicking the dead horse.

Pitchers are tougher. After relooking at Mussina's stats, I think he should go in.Now do you make him the floor, or Andy Pettite? Roy Halladay was Really fuckng good, but his stats aren't quite as impressive, and by all the baseball reference numbers he's borderline. So for pitchers do you go by wins or WAR or what?

 

I think Halladay is a lock.  He comes up about one and a half to two years short on the career WAR and JAWS numbers, but he's strong on the Bill James scale--he exceeds the Black Ink number, just misses the Gray Ink(though that's for the average HOF), exceeds the Hall of Fame Monitor(and is just shy of the 130 mark that is considered a "virtual cinch"), and is just shy of the average HOF mark.  Halladay won two Cy Young Awards, was top 5 in 5 other years(and should have received at least one vote in 2002 when only 4 AL pitchers received votes) and was the best pitcher in baseball for a 6 year stretch from 2006 to 2011 by fWAR--actually he had the most fWAR for the ten year span of 2002 to 2011(Johan Santana might have had a better peak run it was just shorter like his whole career) but he had two years cut short by a shoulder issue and a broken leg.  Then shoulder surgery after two seasons of shoulder issues and a back problem ended his career--likely a couple of years early.  If a guy has a career cut short by injury, he had better have been the best at his position for a decent stretch--and Halladay was absolutely that. 

Pettitte for me doesn't make the cut, he had two really strong years and while those were 2 of the 5 years he finished in the top 6 in Cy Young voting, the other three years seem to be simply due to win totals and pinstripes.  The rest of his career he was above average(career 117 ERA+) but that's about it, it's why comes up short on the Black and Gray Ink numbers, the career WAR, 7 year peak and JAWS score.  He's the 90th best SP by JAWS, behind guys like Mark Buehrle, Chuck Finley, and Kevin Appier--guys that no one is confusing for Hall of Famers.  He had the good fortune to pitch for two excellent teams in the Yankees and Astros, every year in the majors he made at least 21 starts he won at least 11 games thanks to strong offenses backing him up.  He's ahead of 16 Hall of Famers on the JAWS list but only 4 of those 16 were post-WWII pitchers.  I wouldn't yell too loudly if he made it in, but I don't think I'd ever vote for him if given the chance.  

I definitely wouldn't go by wins or RBI...really any "magic" or benchmark numbers as the only way for someone to get into the Hall.  We have so many tools and better stats to use to compare players across eras and to quantify value to determine if they should make it in or not--wOBA, OPS+, ERA+, ERA-, WAR, JAWS.  

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On 11/28/2018 at 9:52 PM, gatling said:

I think Halladay is a lock.  He comes up about one and a half to two years short on the career WAR and JAWS numbers, but he's strong on the Bill James scale--he exceeds the Black Ink number, just misses the Gray Ink(though that's for the average HOF), exceeds the Hall of Fame Monitor(and is just shy of the 130 mark that is considered a "virtual cinch"), and is just shy of the average HOF mark.  Halladay won two Cy Young Awards, was top 5 in 5 other years(and should have received at least one vote in 2002 when only 4 AL pitchers received votes) and was the best pitcher in baseball for a 6 year stretch from 2006 to 2011 by fWAR--actually he had the most fWAR for the ten year span of 2002 to 2011(Johan Santana might have had a better peak run it was just shorter like his whole career) but he had two years cut short by a shoulder issue and a broken leg.  Then shoulder surgery after two seasons of shoulder issues and a back problem ended his career--likely a couple of years early.  If a guy has a career cut short by injury, he had better have been the best at his position for a decent stretch--and Halladay was absolutely that. 

Pettitte for me doesn't make the cut, he had two really strong years and while those were 2 of the 5 years he finished in the top 6 in Cy Young voting, the other three years seem to be simply due to win totals and pinstripes.  The rest of his career he was above average(career 117 ERA+) but that's about it, it's why comes up short on the Black and Gray Ink numbers, the career WAR, 7 year peak and JAWS score.  He's the 90th best SP by JAWS, behind guys like Mark Buehrle, Chuck Finley, and Kevin Appier--guys that no one is confusing for Hall of Famers.  He had the good fortune to pitch for two excellent teams in the Yankees and Astros, every year in the majors he made at least 21 starts he won at least 11 games thanks to strong offenses backing him up.  He's ahead of 16 Hall of Famers on the JAWS list but only 4 of those 16 were post-WWII pitchers.  I wouldn't yell too loudly if he made it in, but I don't think I'd ever vote for him if given the chance.  

I definitely wouldn't go by wins or RBI...really any "magic" or benchmark numbers as the only way for someone to get into the Hall.  We have so many tools and better stats to use to compare players across eras and to quantify value to determine if they should make it in or not--wOBA, OPS+, ERA+, ERA-, WAR, JAWS.  

We are agreed on most all of this. Halladay is to me a no-brainer, his decade of 2002-2011 stacks up very nicely against most anyone, and when you consider he did this in an offense-based era, it looks even more impressive. I'm in agreement about Petitte, though in truth all three pitchers that you named had flashes were they did indeed look like HOFrs. Believe me, Mark Buehrle channeled Bob Gibson whenever he pitched against the Mariners. If he could've pitched his whole career against the M's he'd have 300 wins. Petitte makes a fine floor for starting pitchers and when you consider how good his teams were you'd expect a more impressive record, but  it's not there. Funny thing is he's a lot like a latter-day Jack Morris, a perfectly good pitcher whose teams created the illusion that he was a great one, which he certainly wasn't.  There are certainly worse pitchers in the HOF, but I certainly wouldn't get excited about putting Petitte in, (I wouldn't say that his presence besmirches the HOF, but there are far more deserving candidates.)

And to answer Kuetsar in the same post... Context is everything, when you look at what Halladay did in an offense-based era, he goes from borderline to no-brainer with a quickness. Raffy is the very definition of don't get hurt, play for a long time and compile numbers. I got to watch his whole career as did most everyone posting here and I never once said to myself, "That's a HOFr!" Now I'm having a hard time reconciling that with not one, but two "magic numbers". Like it or not, you have to be pretty fucking consistent for a long time to get to 3000 hits, there are far more great players that didn't reach that milestone than did. However, the other guy to reach it recently I remarked several times watching him play, "There's a HOFr", in fact, every season but the time spent Seattle, Adrian Beltre looked to be a HOFr. I'm not going to say that he's the best 3rd baseman not in the HOF, I still think Boyer was superior (you can't compare the eras), but Beltre was one hell of a ballplayer.

Now 500 HRs? In some cases it's a hallmark of a great player, in others, it's the mark of a specialist (and an important specialist to be sure, all the table-setting is for naught if you don't have that big bat to drive everyone home.) However, it could also be argued that some specialists are so one-dimensional that those 500 HRs ring a bit hollow. Let's face it, if Dave Kingman wasn't such an obnoxious jerk, he could have played another couple of seasons and almost assuredly would have reached 500HRs. Would he be a HOFr then? Like bloody hell, he would have, he would be a lumbering oaf that happened to hang around long enough to hit 500HRs.  So much for the "magic". I still think 3000 hits is a magic number, there is something to be said for that kind of consistency spread out over at least a 17 or 18 year career. 

Any of you guys know off the top of your head who reached 3000 in the fewest number of plate appearances?

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4 minutes ago, OSJ said:

We are agreed on most all of this. Halladay is to me a no-brainer, his decade of 2002-2011 stacks up very nicely against most anyone, and when you consider he did this in an offense-based era, it looks even more impressive. I'm in agreement about Petitte, though in truth all three pitchers that you named had flashes were they did indeed look like HOFrs. Believe me, Mark Buehrle channeled Bob Gibson whenever he pitched against the Mariners. If he could've pitched his whole career against the M's he'd have 300 wins. Petitte makes a fine floor for starting pitchers and when you consider how good his teams were you'd expect a more impressive record, but  it's not there. Funny thing is he's a lot like a latter-day Jack Morris, a perfectly good pitcher whose teams created the illusion that he was a great one, which he certainly wasn't.  There are certainly worse pitchers in the HOF, but I certainly wouldn't get excited about putting Petitte in, (I wouldn't say that his presence besmirches the HOF, but there are far more deserving candidates.)

And to answer Kuetsar in the same post... Context is everything, when you look at what Halladay did in an offense-based era, he goes from borderline to no-brainer with a quickness. Raffy is the very definition of don't get hurt, play for a long time and compile numbers. I got to watch his whole career as did most everyone posting here and I never once said to myself, "That's a HOFr!" Now I'm having a hard time reconciling that with not one, but two "magic numbers". Like it or not, you have to be pretty fucking consistent for a long time to get to 3000 hits, there are far more great players that didn't reach that milestone than did. However, the other guy to reach it recently I remarked several times watching him play, "There's a HOFr", in fact, every season but the time spent Seattle, Adrian Beltre looked to be a HOFr. I'm not going to say that he's the best 3rd baseman not in the HOF, I still think Boyer was superior (you can't compare the eras), but Beltre was one hell of a ballplayer.

Now 500 HRs? In some cases it's a hallmark of a great player, in others, it's the mark of a specialist (and an important specialist to be sure, all the table-setting is for naught if you don't have that big bat to drive everyone home.) However, it could also be argued that some specialists are so one-dimensional that those 500 HRs ring a bit hollow. Let's face it, if Dave Kingman wasn't such an obnoxious jerk, he could have played another couple of seasons and almost assuredly would have reached 500HRs. Would he be a HOFr then? Like bloody hell, he would have, he would be a lumbering oaf that happened to hang around long enough to hit 500HRs.  So much for the "magic". I still think 3000 hits is a magic number, there is something to be said for that kind of consistency spread out over at least a 17 or 18 year career. 

Any of you guys know off the top of your head who reached 3000 in the fewest number of plate appearances?

Will get to the rest of this later, but I always assume the answer to any crazy stats based on hits is Tony Gwynn

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Thing is, Raffy wasn't just a compiler. From 1993 to 2003, he hit 37+ homers every year except the strike season. 

He was tainted by steroids, no question, but he put up big numbers for a long, long time. 

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4 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Admittedly, I looked it up. It was Ty Cobb.

Which really shouldn't be a surprise when you think about it.

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21 hours ago, El Dragon said:

Early Nomination for worst ballot we will get this year

Mariano Rivera

Curt Schilling

Jeff Kent

Placedo Polanco

Omar Visquel

Yeeeeeep.

That's just grotesque; really, no other word at my command fits so perfectly. Is the one logical and perfectly correct pick supposed to make up for the four brain-dead absurdities? Well, it doesn't... The writer that submitted this needs to cover nothing more serious than Roller Derby from now on. 

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