Tagged: Hall of Fame
2017 Baseball Hall of Fame Projections
I love Hall of Fame speculation. Good piece here from Deadspin, which owes much of the speculation to inimitable Ryan Thibbs at the BBHOF Tracker. And nobody asked me, but here are my comments:
Black Ink | Batting – 6 (358), Average HOFer ≈ 27 |
“Black ink” are times leading the league. in anything. Six times, Vlad? Hmm. What were those career numbers?
Baseball Nerdfriends: advise (modern day HoF)
So my pops and I attended the Dodger game tonight, and in the course of conversation, the Hall of Fame arose. . .we thought about which modern-day (post-roid) ballplayers are locks for the Hall. This Excludes young dynamos such as Kemp, Cain, Trout (!), etc, that are sub-30 years old. . .accordingly, we came up with a grand total of. . .
SEVEN
four of whom play for the Yankees:
Jeter
Ichiro
A-Rod
Mo Rivera
the non-Yankees include:
Thome
Chipper
Pujols
Notable ‘perhaps soon’ names included:
Miggy Cabrera
Verlander
Sabathia
Lincecum
Pedroia
Cano
Fielder
But that’s IT. Two points here: 1) any omissions? 2) this list is conspicuously light on players that started their career between ’95-’04, eg Roid Era players. I mean has there been a ten year span with only SEVEN players that started their careers entering the Hall? Hmmm . . .
Thoughts? Omissions?
The Proto-Pujols: Frank Thomas Retires
Frank Thomas is set to announce his retirement today.
Frank Thomas was Albert Pujols before there was an Albert Pujols. From 1991 – 1997, The Big Hurt was THE preeminent hitter in the game. The most feared – and consistent – right-hander since Joe DiMaggio, Thomas walked much more than he struck out, utilized his amazing plate discipline, raw strength and sublime hand-eye coordination to produce numbers that hadn’t been reached in seven straight seasons since Ted Williams.
I’ll always remember the agonizing decision over whether to draft Thomas or Ken Griffey Jr. first in our proto-fantasy leagues, front yard baseball. Being that Kirby Puckett & Don Mattingly were our respective ‘protected players,’ Jared would always draft the lefty, Griffey Jr. Being a right-hander, I was more smitten with the burly White Sox first baseman, the one who legend had it used to block for Bo Jackson when they played at Auburn together.
It was the awkward Frank Thomas 1990 Topps card – of him playing in the field, of all things – that first introduced me to the former fullback, but it was the clean, old school Comiskey, pre-gangsta White Sox unis Frank Thomas 1990 Leaf that had card collectors going crazy. That Walt Hriniak follow-through would come to symbolize Thomas’s swing, and help revolutionize the approach of the modern day power hitter. In his prime, he was the proto-Pujols.
Well-spoken and ready with an amicable grin, Frank Thomas is now pursuing a career in broadcasting as he awaits results of the 2015 Hall of Fame voting, of which he should be a first ballot inductee.
McGwire Steroids Admission
The McGwire steroids admission is not so much a surprise as a cathartic release for Big Red. A good person by all counts, he was clearly pained when he didn’t want “to talk about the past” and was living under a self-imposed exile from baseball until good ol’ Tony LaRussa dragged him back to be the hitting coach for the Cardinals this year.
He knew that he’d eventually need to talk about the past, and the surprise is not so much the admission, but the level of detail – Big Mac outlined the years of usage, and his opinion on how successful he was/wasn’t in roided years versus non-roid years. Here’s the testimony, as well as the beginning of the AP story (Below).
Also note – this definitely affects his Hall of Fame chances, and I think it will paradoxically have a POSITIVE influence on votes. I realize most BBWAA members are curmudgeonly, white, male & self-righteous, but there was a certain charm possessed by McGwire; it may have been that he saved the game, it may have been his prodigious blasts – I think more than anything, voters were waiting for an admission before really giving him his chance. We’ll see what happens a year from now.
McGwire apologizes to La Russa, Selig
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Mark McGwire finally came clean Monday, admitting he used steroids when he broke baseball’s home run record in 1998.
McGwire said in a statement sent to The Associated Press on Monday that he used steroids on and off for nearly a decade.
McGwire statement
Text of the statement Mark McGwire issued Monday, admitting he used steroids during his career:
“Now that I have become the hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, I have the chance to do something that I wish I was able to do five years ago.
I never knew when, but I always knew this day would come. It’s time for me to talk about the past and to confirm what people have suspected. I used steroids during my playing career and I apologize. I remember trying steroids very briefly in the 1989/1990 off season and then after I was injured in 1993, I used steroids again. I used them on occasion throughout the ’90s, including during the 1998 season.
I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.
During the mid-’90s, I went on the DL seven times and missed 228 games over five years. I experienced a lot of injuries, including a ribcage strain, a torn left heel muscle, a stress fracture of the left heel, and a torn right heel muscle. It was definitely a miserable bunch of years and I told myself that steroids could help me recover faster. I thought they would help me heal and prevent injuries, too.
I’m sure people will wonder if I could have hit all those home runs had I never taken steroids. I had good years when I didn’t take any and I had bad years when I didn’t take any. I had good years when I took steroids and I had bad years when I took steroids. But no matter what, I shouldn’t have done it and for that I’m truly sorry.
Baseball is really different now — it’s been cleaned up. The commissioner and the players’ association implemented testing and they cracked down, and I’m glad they did.
I’m grateful to the Cardinals for bringing me back to baseball. I want to say thank you to Cardinals owner Mr. DeWitt, to my GM, John Mozeliak, and to my manager, Tony La Russa. I can’t wait to put the uniform on again and to be back on the field in front of the great fans in Saint Louis. I’ve always appreciated their support and I intend to earn it again, this time as hitting coach. I’m going to pour myself into this job and do everything I can to help the Cardinals hitters become the best players for years to come.
After all this time, I want to come clean. I was not in a position to do that five years ago in my congressional testimony, but now I feel an obligation to discuss this and to answer questions about it. I’ll do that, and then I just want to help my team.”
“I wish I had never touched steroids,” McGwire said in a statement. “It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.”
Only Andre Dawson Makes the Hall
I personally would have Roberto Alomar along with Dawson, and down the road McGwire, Larkin and Tim Raines (best leadoff hitter outside of Rickey for about 15 years). Perhaps Dale Murphy too – Jack Morris and Bert Blyleven need each other’s shortcomings (give Bert Jack’s postseason or give Jack Bert’s regular season and they’re both shoo-ins). McGriff was VERY low, but tough era for the Crime Dog. Love that guy.
Player | Total Votes | Percentage |
Andre Dawson | 420 | 77.9% |
Bert Blyleven | 400 | 74.2% |
Roberto Alomar | 397 | 73.7% |
Jack Morris | 282 | 52.3% |
Barry Larkin | 278 | 51.6% |
Lee Smith | 255 | 47.3% |
Edgar Martinez | 195 | 36.2% |
Tim Raines | 164 | 30.4% |
Mark McGwire | 128 | 23.7% |
Alan Trammell | 121 | 22.4% |
Fred McGriff | 116 | 21.5% |
Don Mattingly | 87 | 16.1% |
Dave Parker | 82 | 15.2% |
Dale Murphy | 63 | 5.9% |
Harold Baines | 33 | 6.1% |
Andres Galarraga | 22 | 4.1% |
Robin Ventura | 7 | 1.3% |
Ellis Burks | 2 | 0.4% |
Eric Karros | 2 | 0.4% |
Kevin Appier | 1 | 0.2% |
Pat Hentgen | 1 | 0.2% |
David Segui | 1 | 0.2% |
Mike Jackson | 0 | 0% |
Ray Lankford | 0 | 0% |
Shane Reynolds | 0 | 0% |
Todd Zeile | 0 | 0% |