Dolfan in NYC Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 3 minutes ago, RIPPA said: Because of all the ballots that aren't revealed - usually the guys in the 70s don't make it I also like that you put this in the wrong thread to really irritated me This is why pencils have erasers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 I really wish that they had to make the ballots public, that would put an end to some of the foolishness such as blank ballots and similar nonsense. We really don't need to gripe about Bonds and Clemens, that the best player of my lifetime and 2nd best pitcher aren't in is a travesty. Jeter is a given, looks like Walker may make it, I have mixed feelings on this, while he wouldn't be a horrible choice, Walker isn't really my idea of a HOFr. He was a fine, fine player that had a huge boost by playing in Coors. He was Barry Bonds at Coors, everywhere else, he was okay. I doubt that we see a shutout in 2021, whoever just misses this year will likely get the nod. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 5 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said: The fuckin' takes that will be coming out of this class... And judging by the percentages and who's eligible next year, '21 could very easily be a shutout. Sheff and Manny are both about where they should be. I'm very pleased to see Vizquel dropping to more reasonable totals after the nonsense of the last couple of years. Rolen should perhaps gain some ground, I'm not completely sold on the guy but he does make for an interesting discussion. Nothing about Todd Helton is interesting except to chuckle over his H/R splits. Andruw Jones last six years just fucking kill him. Jeff Kent was a good player that gets a seat next to Matt Williams in the Hall of the Very Good. Sosa was a one-dimensional player who was caught cheating more than once. I have no problem with guys trying for an extra edge, that's been part of the game since day one, just don't be so fucking stupid about it that you get caught. (Yeah, Raffy, we're looking at you too...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 Someone will end up voting for Soriano. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 The very idea of Schilling in the HOF nauseates me strangely. He really wasn't all that and a bag of chips, he was a good pitcher who for the most part played on good teams. Carl Mays has a much better claim on the HOF than Curt fucking Schilling. I'm not even down on the guy because he's a racist, right-wing twat; I'm down on him because he was the Jack Morris of his generation. A good pitcher who maintained the illusion of being a great one. Not unlike Don Drysdale and similar mistakes that the HOF has made. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 On 12/30/2019 at 6:48 PM, Ryan said: Someone will end up voting for Soriano. Does he have any relatives in the BBWA? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Man Known as Dan Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 Without going into any more debates about Walker cause it’s like shouting into the void, it still blows my mind Omar Visquel is getting 50% of votes. No sane person ever though he was as good as Kenny Lofton when they were on the Indians. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 (edited) Playing 77 straight seasons should be enough to get you into the HOF! If you can't get 3000 hits in as long of a career as he had, he really shouldn't be anywhere near it. I assume it's the eleven gold gloves. Edited January 2, 2020 by Ryan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 17 hours ago, Ryan said: Playing 77 straight seasons should be enough to get you into the HOF! If you can't get 3000 hits in as long of a career as he had, he really shouldn't be anywhere near it. I assume it's the eleven gold gloves. GG's tend to become very suspect as it often becomes a habit rather than an award of true merit. Does anyone REALLY think that Jim Kaat was the best defensive pitcher in the AL for fifteen straight years or whatever it was? Obviously, he was really, really good but to say that no one else in the league was ever better for over a decade isn't just silly, it was a slap in the face to several players who were every bit as good. Was Vizquel a fine defensive player? Sure; was he really the best shortstop in baseball when you had a glut of great players at the position during the time he played? Not hardly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 So, you're saying he belongs in his own wing! I understand ya. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 On 1/1/2020 at 2:46 PM, The Man Known as Dan said: Without going into any more debates about Walker cause it’s like shouting into the void, it still blows my mind Omar Visquel is getting 50% of votes. No sane person ever though he was as good as Kenny Lofton when they were on the Indians. Interesting that you mention both Walker and Lofton as I see them as incredibly similar as HOF selections. No, there's not a damn thing similar about them as players, but they both make perfect gate-keepers. There are very solid arguments why both should go in and there are equally solid arguments as to why both should remain outside looking in. We have to cast a jaundiced eye toward Walker's H/R splits and Lofton has the well-traveled journeyman jacket. One school of thought is that teams considered him expendable, the flip-side is that every team wanted him. Lofton was never moved as a salary dump or because he was genuinely expendable, he was moved because teams could get a shit-load of value for him and were willing to take the gamble. When you're picking up a couple of everyday players and three prospects (as an example), you are counting on the vets to make an immediate impact and if one of your three prospects turns into an everyday player you've maximized your return. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Man Known as Dan Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 2 hours ago, OSJ said: Interesting that you mention both Walker and Lofton as I see them as incredibly similar as HOF selections. No, there's not a damn thing similar about them as players, but they both make perfect gate-keepers. There are very solid arguments why both should go in and there are equally solid arguments as to why both should remain outside looking in. We have to cast a jaundiced eye toward Walker's H/R splits and Lofton has the well-traveled journeyman jacket. One school of thought is that teams considered him expendable, the flip-side is that every team wanted him. Lofton was never moved as a salary dump or because he was genuinely expendable, he was moved because teams could get a shit-load of value for him and were willing to take the gamble. When you're picking up a couple of everyday players and three prospects (as an example), you are counting on the vets to make an immediate impact and if one of your three prospects turns into an everyday player you've maximized your return. You say that, but I remember the Cubs getting Kenny Lofton AND Aramis Ramirez for Jose Hernandez, Bobby Hull, And Matt Brubeck. Lofton to me is a case that people just didn’t evaluate defense well at all in his heyday. Hell, he was a case of “player who is great at all the things people didn’t pay attention to”. In the age of the homerun, he was an incredible defensive CF (a position nobody in the HOF voting really evaluate for.... some reason”, who was a career 300 hitter who also had a very good walk rate. Also, over 600 career stolen bases, while the value of these is down, being top 15 career in it is a positive. Those just don’t grow on trees. My usual argument for Lofton is “he is Lou Brock if Lou Brock went from a shitty defensive Left Fielder to one of the better defensive center fielders ever”. I just don’t think he is where I draw the line. It’s more of a case that teams were shitty talent evaluators during most of his prime. As for Walker, to be blunt, we have too big of a gap of difference between or view points for a discussion for anything of insight to come from it. You view him as a fringe guy. I view him as the best overall Right Fielder I’ve seen in my 30 years of life. I can’t see any good argument for Vladimir Guerrero over Larry Walker as a ball player and Guerrero got in on first ballot. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 7 minutes ago, The Man Known as Dan said: You say that, but I remember the Cubs getting Kenny Lofton AND Aramis Ramirez for Jose Hernandez, Bobby Hull, And Matt Brubeck. Lofton to me is a case that people just didn’t evaluate defense well at all in his heyday. Hell, he was a case of “player who is great at all the things people didn’t pay attention to”. In the age of the homerun, he was an incredible defensive CF (a position nobody in the HOF voting really evaluate for.... some reason”, who was a career 300 hitter who also had a very good walk rate. Also, over 600 career stolen bases, while the value of these is down, being top 15 career in it is a positive. Those just don’t grow on trees. My usual argument for Lofton is “he is Lou Brock if Lou Brock went from a shitty defensive Left Fielder to one of the better defensive center fielders ever”. I just don’t think he is where I draw the line. It’s more of a case that teams were shitty talent evaluators during most of his prime. As for Walker, to be blunt, we have too big of a gap of difference between or view points for a discussion for anything of insight to come from it. You view him as a fringe guy. I view him as the best overall Right Fielder I’ve seen in my 30 years of life. I can’t see any good argument for Vladimir Guerrero over Larry Walker as a ball player and Guerrero got in on first ballot. Okay, thirty years of life makes a LOT of sense in that you didn't see Hank Aaron and I did. Matter of fact, I recall arguing with the kid down the street when we were seven or eight about the merits of Aaron vs. Mantle. I grew up a Braves fan, whereas all of my contemporaries were Yankees or Dodgers fans (my two most-hated teams). They routinely pooh-poohed the notion that Henry Aaron would by-pass Mantle on the all-time HR list. It didn't take a math genius to figure that the aging and oft-injured Mantle was in the twilight of his career while Aaron was just peaking (I recall getting the 1969 Mantle in a pack and realizing that it would be his last card as a player; seven years later Aaron was still kicking ass and taking names). I don't think that any of us figured that Aaron would pass Ruth, we all thought that it would be Willie Mays, and no one thought that Frank Robinson would get as close as he did. If Robinson hadn't been such an unselfish man he likely would have been, (along with Aaron) one of two players to pass Ruth, but he frequently sat himself as player-coach in order to give young players more experience. Robby was a class act from the word "go". As for Vlad over Larry, I have to confess that I don't get it. Yes, Vlad was probably the best bad ball hitter of your lifetime and ranks with Yogi as one of the two best of my lifetime (and granted, I only saw Yogi's last season and barely recall it (I was like six or seven at the time), but his ability to hit anything remotely close to the strike zone was legendary. If I have to choose between Vlad's genius at hitting or Walker as the consummate 5-tool player, I'd have a hard time choosing, the only thing that might tip the scales toward Vladdy is the H/R splits for Walker. He was Barry Bonds at Coors, everywhere else he was good to very good without being great. The H/R splits are pretty hard to ignore. I don't know as I'd say he was a "fringe" guy as much as I'd say that were he to be inducted (which seems pretty likely this year), he's more of a bottom 20% HOFr; that's still a HOFr, but more on the Goose Goslin, KiKi Cuyler, or Yaz* level than the Aaron, Mays, Robinson level. Still, no shame in that, there's literally been hundreds of players that didn't come anywhere near those levels; park-aided or not. *We've touched on this before and Yaz is very much the Pete Rose of the AL, a good player for an extraordinary amount of time, he's basically a guy that had three-four seasons that were so atypical of his usual performance that it's ridiculous. Two of them happened to occur at just the right times for him to stand out in a really weak field. When you look at his Triple-Crown stats, they are almost laughable, it's just that pitching was so dominant for a stretch there in the late 1960s - early 1970s that one could actually win a batting title by barely cracking .300. Just ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sabremike Posted January 20, 2020 Share Posted January 20, 2020 On this MLK Day I would just like to say the fact that Buck O'Neil was not inducted before he passed away (and even worse has still not been inducted) is a disgrace and everyone responsible for such a travesty should be completely ashamed of themselves. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_O'Neil 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolfan in NYC Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChesterCopperpot Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 (edited) Walker makes it Jeter gets 396/397 Edited January 21, 2020 by ChesterCopperpot 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 Hell yeah. Second Canadian ever in the hall. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 Barry Bonds isn't in which means the hall of fame is still a fucking joke. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChesterCopperpot Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 (edited) Edited January 21, 2020 by ChesterCopperpot 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Man Known as Dan Posted January 22, 2020 Share Posted January 22, 2020 1 hour ago, ChesterCopperpot said: Walker makes it Jeter gets 396/397 I think I speak for a lot of people when I say: Fucking Finally with Walker. Now if I can convince all the Visquel voters they should be voting for Jones instead, I’ll be happy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SorceressKnight Posted January 22, 2020 Share Posted January 22, 2020 Jeter...yeah, we all knew he was going in. Nothing to see there. Walker...it's a positive that the BBWAA is slowly but surely getting their heads out of their asses. First they elect two DH's last year, then they elect the first Rockies player to get in and have the "81 games in Denver" hanging over their head...next, we can see about the PED cases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KidNatural Posted January 22, 2020 Share Posted January 22, 2020 Honestly to me... even though I'm a Rockies fan, the recognition of pure ability versus stats is a great step forward. The h/r splits were only part of the story with Walker. His pure talent was the rest. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted January 22, 2020 Share Posted January 22, 2020 1 hour ago, ChesterCopperpot said: Walker makes it Jeter gets 396/397 Supposedly the BBWAA will announce who voted for whom on February 4. I can't wait for that knucklehead to explain his brave, principled choice in completely leaving a guy like Jeter off his ballot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Man Known as Dan Posted January 22, 2020 Share Posted January 22, 2020 2 minutes ago, Pete said: Supposedly the BBWAA will announce who voted for whom on February 4. I can't wait for that knucklehead to explain his brave, principled choice in completely leaving a guy like Jeter off his ballot. There is one explanation I’d buy: The MLB limits you to 10 votes and I thought more then 10 guys should be in, so didn’t vote Jeter because I knew he’d get in regardless. Some others would hate that, but I’d get it. Other then that, yeah, no real good reason. And I say that as someone who was unconvinced Jeter was one of the 5 best players on the ballot this year. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 22, 2020 Share Posted January 22, 2020 Strategic voting makes sense. i definitely did it with my Observer HOF ballot, to try and get some of the overdue lucha guys in. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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