Below is a sneak peek of this content!
Well, here we go -- Hall of Fame Day! Lots going on. The announcements should begin around 6:15 p.m. ET on MLB Network. I will be doing a YouTube Live recap and Q&A at 8 p.m., will send out all the details later (and you should be able to watch...
Hello. You're probably seeing this boring paragraph because you haven't signed up yet to become a member. You can sign up here. We have a lot of fun here -- we're counting down the 100 best major league players of all time, writing a lot about baseball and dieting and family and music and other sports and geek tech and infomercials and, you know, whatever comes to mind. Would love to have you join us. There's also a chance that you're reading this because you can't sign in -- if that's the case, please click here and you can go to "posts" and see all the stories and stuff directly on the Patreon membership site.
Unlock with Patreon
Roy Halladay was a great pitcher with a shortish career. I would vote for him, but 91% seems like way too high of a total for him. That’s what Pedro got for a similar career length that was much more dominant.
Pedro Martinez barely cleared 90% in 1995. Before him Greg Maddux received only 555/571 votes. And now Mariano Rivera is likely to be unanimous or near unanimous? There is no consistency in this. Why would anybody not vote for Maddux?
Agreed. Maddux had the numbers and nobody associated him with PED’s. Rivera was the best reliever ever, but he shouldn’t be the first to be unanimous.
Rivera threw 1283 innings, with a 2.21 ERA, 205 ERA+, 1.00 WHIP, and 2.76 FIP over his career.
Maddux, from 1992-1998 alone, threw 1675 innings, with a 2.15 ERA, 190 ERA+, .968 WHIP, and a 2.59 FIP.
So, over a consecutive 7 year stretch, Maddux threw 30% more innings than Rivera did in his career, and had comparable or better numbers.
I could go for a clause that if a writer doesn’t vote for a player and said player receives 95% or more of the vote, said writer loses their vote for 5 years. Get rid of the nonsense of not voting for a Mays/Aaron/Maddux type player.
I’m really not interested in continuing the flawed logic of the writers any longer. Let’s look at it as Does this player deserve to be in the HOF- if so, just vote yes.
Anything else creates all of these separate tiers ( Unanimous, Non-unanimous, 1st Ballot, etc) that don’t make any sense to the casual observer. At the same time, the tiers aren’t even worth a damn to the knowledgeable observer; Besides the obvious non unanimous Hall of Famers, there are other examples of twisted logic:
1. Kirby Puckett was a first ballot hall of famer. Do you think he was a more deserving hall of famer than Tim Raines? Was he more deserving than non-inductee Kenny Lofton?
2. Jim Palmer was elected first ballot; Was he more deserving than Lefty Grove
Why does it bother you so much that a player receives 95% of the vote instead of 100%?
> Why does it bother you so much that a player receives 95% of the vote instead of 100%
>
Why does it bother most people that Harold Baines received 75.1+ % instead of 74.9% . In the latter case, people would still be surprised but there would be less cause for discussion.
What is bothersome is the lack of logic. There is logic behind voting for Bonds and also behind not voting for him. But there is no logic behind voting for Bonds but not for Clemens, and vice-versa. Imagine one of them making it to HoF by polling one vote above the threshold and the other one falling short by one vote. That would be fun.
I am sure there are some voters who voted for Rivera today but not for Maddux (or Pedro) a few years ago. (Have all those who did not vote for Maddux died or retired or fallen off the voter list or simply did not submit a vote this year? I doubt it.) How can anybody follow that path? ‘Too many worthy candidates’ excuse would not apply to Maddux, nor to Pedro.
What dn said.
On the one hand, there isn’t much to whether somebody was elected unanimously or in the first year or later. Yet debates and discussions go on about these things all the time. Given that Willie Mays and Henry Aaron and Tom Seaver did not receive 100% votes, I would rather a more worthy candidate, like Rickey or Maddux, be the first unanimous selection than a reliever in Rivera. If I had a vote I would not vote the first time for Rivera because he was a reliever, or for Junior Griffey or Pujols for the terrible second half of their career and how their contract was an albatross for their club for very long.
Recently Bill James tweeted how Randy Johnson had a similar (indeed, better) second half of the career to Clemens after a far inferior first half. But Johnson’s sudden improvement, which brought him on par with roided Clemens, is not considered suspect, in general. I do not know whether Bill James has his doubts about it, but I do have mine.
We do not know whether Maddux or Rickey never took drugs, but we can only go by what is publicly known, and they have not been accused and there are no grounds for suspicion as best I can see. Maddux would have been an excellent choice for the first unanimous selection.
With Johnson, his improvements were directly related to his walk rate. His BB/9 through the age of 28 was 5.4, 7.9, 4.8, 4.9, 6.8, 6.2. Starting with the age 29 season, he cut that walk rate in half. The three season starting with his cut in walk rate, he was in the Top 3 in the CY. His K/9 went up a bit from the high 10s to the low 12s in his peak years. But that could be influenced by having better command overall. Not just not walking people, but throwing it where he wants more often. I’ve not seen any evidence that he was throwing harder since he always threw very hard and got a lot of K’s. So if you want to use anecdotal evidence like, “he got better when he was older”, you need to back that up with something else. Unless you are making a link between walk rate and PEDs, which would be a major stretch, there isn’t much of a case.
Someone please help me: what is the criteria to just be listed on the ballot? I read the HOF by-laws (?), and they are vague.
Looking at this list, some of these are a massive waste of time.
Players must have 10 years of service, and be retired for 5 years to be eligible.
Anyone who received at least 5% the year prior is carried over to the next ballot. Anybody eligible for the first time must receive at least 2 votes (out of 6) from a screening committee in order to appear on the ballot.
You’re right, there are a lot of guys that have zero chance of being elected, but I think it’s considered quite an honor to even make a ballot.
yeah, thats what i read, and thought that i was missing something, LOS the only real criteria to be placed on a ballot.
It’s definitely vague. There’s also some weird inconsistency in terms of who actually ends up listed: the 2016/17 ballot left off Javier Vazquez completely, while giving Casey Blake a moment in the sun.
I wouldn’t call it a waste of time, though. Even if it’s just an enhanced level of Let’s Remember Some Guys, it’s fun to think about Placedo Polanco and Ted Lilly again.
It doesn’t waste my time having them on the ballot. I assume you believe it’s wasting your time… how so?
uh, Joe? He could be finishing his book about Doug Henning.
I feel certain that Joe is glad that these players with great careers are briefly and somewhat in the spotlight again. I am certain that he wouldn’t think it’s a waste of his time. And I strongly approve of Joe writing a book on the amazing Doug Henning. Though I’d more strongly approve of a book on Henning and also David Copperfield. Those guys were MAGIC.
The joke’s on you! Henning and Copperfield are huge parts of the book. There’s an entire multi-chapter section on Copperfield.
OK, I’ll buy it then! (Just to be sure, I wasn’t being sarcastic about Henning and Copperfield… I loved watching those guys on TV in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and still watch them on Youtube. And I love Penn & Teller’s show “Fool Us” and have watched dozens of its episodes on Youtube. Shin Lim is amazing!)
Hopefully Ricky Jay makes an appearance!
Joe, I know no-one wants to rehash the PED club again. But I’ve always been confused about how you treat Manny Ramirez. I understand that you didn’t vote for him, but only because of the 10-player limit, and I remember you DID vote for him ahead of Guerrero one year. I don’t think Ramirez should be anywhere near a HoF vote, and here’s why.
For Bonds and Clemens, a lot of people disqualify them because of there steroid use. Fair, but there are points on both sides. The counterargument is 1) they both had full HoF careers before they started doing steroids; 2) everyone was doing it; and 3) although it was “against the rules”, there was no testing, and there are a lot of “rules” that people skirt, and baseball is full of them. How were they supposed to know that PEDs were different?
Whatever you think of those arguments, none of them are relevant to Ramirez. He tested positive in 2009 and 2011 (and reportedly 2003) as well. So here’s what Ramirez has going against him:
1) We know from examples like Bonds (who became Babe Ruth in his late 30s) and others that steroids work miracles. There were other things going on in the “steroid era” too, but it’s hard to argue that steroids don’t make a massive difference for some players. Ramirez was an excellent player, but if you subtract Bonds’ “steroid improvement” from Ramirez, his numbers are well short of the HoF standards. So it’s easily possible that without steroids, he wouldn’t have been close.
2) Ramirez tested positive twice, and both times were after the congressional hearings and after the Mitchell Report. By this point, he had to know that PEDs were a rule violation that was taken very seriously by MLB and the public. And it’s not like everyone was doing it anymore (or at least they weren’t failing tests), so Ramirez was getting an advantage over his teammates and opponents that others were not getting, that was against the rules, and that baseball had clearly communicated was one of the cardinal sins.
3) There’s the argument that the HoF is the “story of baseball”, and therefore PEDs or not, Ramirez should get in. But that’s ridiculous. Roger Maris was the story of baseball, and he’s not in. Jason Varitek was the story of baseball, and he’s not going in. Well, they are in the museum, but being inducted is more than that: it’s about your quality of play. That’s clearly the reason Ramirez gets votes, because he was an amazing hitter.
Additionally, the HoF is baseball’s biggest honor, whether it’s supposed to be or not. Remember, Ramirez cheated in a way that baseball condemned. PEDs are unhealthy and dangerous, so we want players to avoid them for that reason. It’s actually quite easy to not get caught, so it’s a great calculus for a player to say “I’ll never be a star without them; if I take them I might get away scot free, and if I don’t, I’ll have had time to put up big numbers, make big money, and give myself a great shot at the Hall.”
So how do we stop this from happening? We either give every player an invasive blood test every day of the season. Or we say: “we’ll test you as best we can. But if you’re caught, especially if you’re caught multiple times, you’ve been taking a massive unfair, unhealthy advantage for years, and now you’re in deep #$%^”.
I think we’ve been over these arguments a million times. It’s become a faith issue. Either you believe that steroids were no big deal/part of the game/not really against the rules or you don’t. I will say that you made a factual error. PEDs were, in fact, specifically against the rules per a ruling/letter from the Commissioner well before these specific allegations were raised. You could argue that the rule had no teeth because there was no testing. But the league had to get the players to agree to it in collective bargaining, so there was a delay. And, no doubt, there was some ambivalence about it on both sides since the league was cashing in with the long ball, as were players. But it was against the rules and players knew it. Obviously they also didn’t feel like it was much of a risk that they were getting caught and probably sensed that the league wasn’t terribly serious about it. But I still kind of bristle when I see people say that it wasn’t against the rules, as if nobody ever came out and said anything about it, so it was actually legal. It was, in fact, specifically against the rules. And players knew it was against the rules. That’s why they hid their use and always denied it.
Yep. Cheated their way to a pay check. No reason to ‘honor’ them more than they’ve already honored their accounts. And if asked to return the ill gotten loot and u go into HoF, what would they say? Amazed at folks who seem to think these players are ‘victims’. What garbage. Like the Black Sox, their story speaks louder ‘outside’ than in. So …
Baseball made it very clear what happens if you fail one test, two tests and three tests. If baseball wanted to ban Manny and his cohorts, they would have banned at 2. They ban at 3. I do not have a crystal ball but lets go with your assumption that he started using in 2003 . So staring in 1994, OPS+ of 125, 147, 146, 144, 146, 174, 186, 162, 184. Boy, he stunk before he started taking PEDs. We do not know when he started, but his aging curve looks pretty standard. 2003 is his 31 year old season and he starts going down. Maybe he had some boost, but does not seem too. By his age 34 season, he had his last true great season. So the only year, I can see PEDS helping him outside his normal curve is his 36 season but that seems artificially boosted by killing the National League for a part of a season. Then he hung around for a couple more years not adding that much value. I can spin a story that he tooks PEDs to hang around and play a game he loved. I guess that is OK for Andy but not Manny.
First positive test result: 80 game suspension
Second positive test result: 162 game suspension (the entire season, including the postseason)
Third positive test result: lifetime ban from MLB
He didn’t say Ramirez started using in 2003. He said Ramirez reportedly had a positive test in 2003. I think it’s likely that he used during his entire career.
Of course, “everyone was doing it” is a lie, and it’s not anywhere close to the truth. How to know PED’s were different: if you’re injecting yourself in the butt with an illegal substance, it should be common sense that that’s different from stealing signs.
…
I personally believe that taking a oral steroid (like andro) maybe should be seen as different from taking an injectable one (like Deca-Durabolin). That’s because I think the former is less harmful. But I’m sure it depends on dosage, and I could be wrong.
…
Well, let’s see who got in this year…
Spitballs and all other doctoring of the ball were banned before 1920. Galylord was elected in 1991. I agree that PEDs are cheating. The only real problem was that the new PEDs were too successful (and not just for strength and speed sports as was previously thought). It was cheating that altered the game and people reacted. Now we want to retroactively say that this type of cheating was too much (greenies were not too successful so we do not retroactively punish Hank Aaron and all the players from the 70s). Bonds was already a HOF in 1998 (3 MVPs and over 91 in BWAR) and already had a $43M contract. This was not a guy taking someone else’s job (and I agree not everyone was doing it). I wish Bud Selig and the HOF gave a damn in the 90s and made a statement but they did not. I am just against this punishment. PED usage is still not the same as betting on baseball. Bet on a game and you are out. Take a PED and you miss 1/2 a year. Take a PED again and miss a year. Baseball could take the stance that PED usage is the same as betting but they have not. Make your adjustment as Joe says but stop giving a lifetime ban retroactively.
It isn’t retroactive to say that injecting steroids was too much. We knew then that using them the way the players used them was highly dangerous, and that’s why using them (without a prescription) was illegal.
Using amphetamines without a prescription is illegal and can lead to strokes. Basically using any controlled drug without being under medical care is illegal and usually highly dangerous. So Bonds would have been OK if he found a doctor to write him a prescription (some studies show that baseball players have more than twice the average rate of ADD and can use Adderall because of a TUE). The players in the 90s cheated in the same way that players in the 70s cheated. The only difference is the punishment was worse because steroids worked better (we are just mad at the results). Lets be honest then, any player that took a controlled substance not under the care of a doctor should be kicked out of the HOF. That would be at least logically consistent. We know what the rules are now and what the punishment is. Fail three tests and you are out.
“It took the deaths of several young white women, McBee’s high-profile exposé in LIFE, and a series of congressional hearings to wake the United States up to the magnitude of its legal speed epidemic. In 1970, with the passage of the Controlled Substances Act, amphetamine became a Schedule III drug; a year later, it was classified as a Schedule II drug, or one “with a high potential for abuse, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence.” Today, opioids like Vicodin and fentanyl—part of a modern epidemic of legally prescribed drugs—share Schedule II status with amphetamine.”
I don’t believe that the amphetamine that players took in the 1970’s was anywhere remotely as dangerous as injecting steroids. I don’t know how much amphetamine the players took. But I had an Adderall prescription for a few years and think that a small amount could really help a player with focus while not being hazardous. I’ll bet what the players took then isn’t much different from the dose I took.
…
Also, I don’t know of any player who had permanent damage from greenies. Do you? Of course, there are plenty that have had permanent damage from steroids.
…
I think it’s silly to equate Adderall with fentanyl. Fentanyl is responsible for somewhere around 10,000 deaths a year in the US. How many is Adderall responsible for? Also, I think pot was on one of those “schedules” once, and may still be.
…
Punishing steroid users more severely than greenie users because steroids worked better seems valid to me.
I wonder whether Bonds and Clemens are living adverts that injecting steroids is not as dangerous as it is said to be. I think nearly 100% Tour de France riders dope, and a vast majority of them live on merrily. Ken Caminity died early but his abuse was especially severe, and I think his chosen device for abuse was the very legal alcohol? Flo-Jo died in a flash, but the East German swimmers and runners from 1970s and 1980s have lived fairly normal life. I do feel for them. They could not say no. Taking drugs may kill you, but refusing to take those drugs would surely have got them killed, and even their parents would have been thrown in jail for the refusal.
The Russian gymnast expected to challenge Nadia Comaneci in 1980 broke her spine in 1979. She later said her first feeling was one of relief, that she would not have to go through the training any more thanks to the broken spine. Even Roger Clemens seemed tired of training in 1996 until Dan Duquette irked him to both train harder, and try stimulants.
Yeah, Caminiti was a long-time cocaine user, and he died from a speedball: cocaine and heroin. I just looked for some info on long-term health effects from steroids, specifically examples of pro athletes, and the evidence seems to be scant, and supports what you say about it not being quite as hazardous as is commonly believed. I think so. I think the *short*-term hazards of steroids are well-known, but I may be wrong about the *long*-term hazards. I saw a few people say that the problems go away after steroid use stops. In men, anyway… I did see that some effects in women from steroids are irreversible. I suppose that would be expected for a drug that involves testosterone.
…
I was also thinking of Lyle Alzado, who claimed that steroids led to his brain tumor. But there is no established link between the two, and he may have not known what he was talking about.
…
So: you may be right, and I may need to re-think my own attitude about penalties for steroids in baseball. Or are the adverse short-term effects of steroids enough to maintain penalties? I can’t decide… my brain’s getting tired…
To those of you disagreeing: you don’t have to go as far as invitro to agree that Ramirez shouldn’t get anywhere near the Hall. I mostly agree with his arguments that guys in the 90s probably knew what they were doing would not be well-received. So if Ramirez had say stopped after 2003 (but somehow maintained his superhuman level of hitting…) we could lump him in with Bonds, Clemens etc. as a “faith issue”, as Rob says.
But he didn’t stop. He kept using through the Congressional Hearings, through the Mitchell Report, and even after he got caught once. So he wasn’t exactly naive through all this.
David’s point that “Baseball made it very clear what happens if you fail one test, two tests and three tests” is that best counterpoint that I’ve heard. But I think two things: 1) Baseball’s official punishment is far too light (don’t get me started about the NBA and NFL), and much more importantly for this discussion: 2) By the time Ramirez got caught, baseball had also made very clear that steroids -> blacklisted from the Hall.
It may seem weird that I’m focusing on Ramirez given that Bonds and Clemens are much more salient cases for actually getting into the Hall. I could see that either way. But what baffles me is that somehow very smart people (like Joe) lump them together with Ramirez, who unquestionably cheated for a long time after baseball had gotten serious about drugs.
Anyone who extensively used PEDs after 2003 should not even appear on the HoF ballot.
I agree that the current penalties for PED use in baseball are too light. But let’s be sure to know the sole reason for that: the MLBPA.
Thanks Andy and Invitro. I always enjoy these discussions. Maybe I am just a big softy but I just really have trouble punishing someone when rehabilitation seems the better answer. I also think that baseball should go to the two strikes approach and skip the first step (while leaving some room for contamination problems, etc.). First positive is a year, second is done. We all know steroids are bad and could be part of Bonds seeming rage issues (domestic verbal abuse at a minimum). I remember kids in high school in the 80s doing roids for football season and the health problems they encountered. Some kind of amnesty for all usage pre 2004 and players talking about the health problems and how it was not worth it. It has been 15 years and we are still pretending it did not happen and punishing some players but not all.
I don’t like the word rehabilitation, but I do like the word atonement. I think everyone should be allowed to atone for their sins. For Bonds and Clemens, the first step in that atonement would be to come clean about what substances they used and when they used them, why they used them, how they got them, etc. If they were to do that, and make a large donation to a science lab that researches how to alleviate the long-term health problems of steroid abuse, and made a few dozen talks to teenage athletes about why they shouldn’t use steroids… anyway, if they did some things like that, then I might think that they’ve paid their price, and I’d probably be fine with putting them in the Hall.
…
But they haven’t done jack squat of any kind of atoning, so let them lie in the bed they made.
Writers who don’t vote for a candidate for years and then start voting for him in years 8-9-10 should be stripped of their right to vote. But they do serve a purpose, in keeping the ballot clogged. As a small-hall person, I would limit the ticket to HoF to 20 players every decade, indeed 2 players per year. If a third player receives higher than 75%, he gets carried over to the next year. If 3 or 4 players get 100% vote, nobody gets in and they all get carried over to the next year.
Let us get carried over a bit more. And revolutionize the hall.
If every player on the ballot receives 100%, the hall is shut for ever, and baseball-reference.com gets renamed HoF-reference.com with every player covered by it deemed worthy of the now-closed hall.
I’m very happy to see Schilling get a big gain (9%), Walker get a huge gain (20%), and the roid ragers get small or no gains. Also nice to see decent gains for Rolen and Wagner. Next year’s most interesting candidate will be Walker, to see if he can gain 20% again to make it on his final ballot. (And I hope reporters remind people what was in Halladay’s blood when he crashed.)
Why mention his blood report after he died? Unless you suspect once an injector into blood, always an injector.
This one isn’t about PED’s.
If it is not about drugs (whether oral or injectable, whether PEDs or other types), what is it about? A search for ‘Roy Halladay Death’ brings up phrases like ‘fatal level of amphetamines’, ‘presence of 3 drugs when he died’, etc. This is well-known. You say it is not about ‘once an injector, always an injector of PEDs (even as a player)’ suspicion. Then what is it about? Why should writers remind people about the blood report after his death?
The same reason that when someone dies of lung cancer and was a smoker, it’s always reported that he was a smoker. Or that if someone was drinking and driving when he crashed his car and killed himself, it’s always reported that he was drunk.
Let me amend my last comment. If a reporter suspects that if Halladay was on drugs post retirement, then it is somewhat likely (10% likely?, 20%, 60%, you choose the figure that suits you) that he used them even during his playing career, then that is a fair suspicion. But if a reporter thinks he should not make that link, that is also a plausible way of looking at Halladay’s playing career and death. Such a reporter need not report what was in Halladay’s blood when he died. As it is I doubt whether any voter made that link, and how many of those who did make that link then withheld their vote for Halladay because of it. And I am sure he gained at least a few sympathy votes who may not have voted for him otherwise (if he had not died young), at least not in his first year on the ballot.
Schilling is as good a candidate as Halladay. He could have had a Cy or two but for Randy J. (Halladay could also have had an extra Cy or two.) Schilling is a post-season legend, and has higher WAR and more wins than Halladay. It is his post-career legend that is holding back Schilling. It makes no sense that Jack Morris is in but Schilling is out. To be fair to BBWAA, this one is not on them.
But Schilling getting only 55-60% votes and Halladay getting 80+ is on BBWAA. I hope Schilling gets elected soon.
Just to be clear, I don’t think the drugs in Halladay’s blood when he died say anything about whether he was on PED’s when he played; it seems clear to me that he was just “partying”. To be even more clear, here’s the info from Wikipedia:
…
On January 19, 2018, following the release of an autopsy report by the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner’s Office, USA Today wrote that Halladay “had high concentrations of morphine and amphetamine along with the presence of an antidepressant, the sleeping aid Zolpidem (sold under brand name Ambien) and trace amounts of alcohol in his blood.” According to forensic pathologist Burr Hartman, “He had a drug combination similar to a speedball. He was impaired by these drugs. It was definitely not safe for him to fly an airplane.”
…
FWIW: The last sentence was not there when I posted yesterday.
…
Also, the way Halladay died (OK, killed himself) would have no impact at all on my HoF vote; I definitely would’ve voted for him, and indeed, think he’ll be coming up when Joe resumes his Hot 100, but not until he gets to the 70’s or even higher.
…
I think I may have got a little salty because I read someone somewhere saying that Halladay’s death was “just like how Clemente died”. 🙁
I am not sure at all that it is ‘always’ reported that a person was drunk or a smoker, even when that is the cause of death. And even if others ‘always’ report it, if I were a reporter I may choose not to report it when discussing his HoF selection, or I may even be unaware of the cause. His b-r page does not mention how he died, nor should it.
People do hope that it will be mentioned on Bonds’ plaque that he was a suspected cheater. That is a fair wish because it almost certainly helped his career. Halladay’s cause of death is irrelevant to his baseball career.
You’re right, “always” is not correct. Change it to “often”.
Congratulations to Mo, great person, great player.