Current HOF election results
 

Looks like Scott Rolen and maybe Todd Helton .... Billy Wagner and Andruw Jones not quite...
Beltran's getting docked for his role in Astros cheating.

http://www.bbhoftracker.com/

The unpublished values tend to lower the percentages some, but I agree that Helton appears to be trending well, with Helton having a shot.

I actually think Beltran's showing is pretty good. If you make 50%+ your first year, you're kind of on the first track.

I am not seeing the case for Andruw Jones at all. Unless you want to admit Delgado, Gallaraga, and god knows who else. Yes, I know he could play center field.

I know it is of little actual consequence, but I miss the days when a solid player like J.J. Hardy would get a handful of votes. I though it was a nice recognition for a player who was a couple of time all star and had a nice career to get a few votes. My guess it was usually the hometown writers. Just seems sort of mean to see the zero %

Todd Helton has made a very nice jump from last year. Makes me happy, I have a good number of his cards autographed when he was in Colorado Springs.

Question I have to the group is who is the best TPG when it comes to autographed cards?

Butch

It looks like right now that no one will make it because Helton and Rolen aren't picking up enough new votes to make up their difference from last year. Check the percentage of ballots counted vs the number of new votes from last year and what they need. Neither is trending high enough.

That's a shame for Rolen, because his combined defense/offense makes him a better than some first ballot HOF'ers.

I could care less about Helton making it. I have no respect for any drunken drivers, especially not habitual offenders like him. Cooperstown only has one traffic light, so if he does eventually make it, be careful of the road if you go to his ceremony.

By the time we’re done keeping out and kicking out everyone who has done something negative or somebody doesn’t like because they don’t suit X narrative, we will have a plaque of Christy Mathewson in an otherwise empty building.

So let's then realize that Matty will get lonesome, and we restore about 40-50 of the best of the others.

I'm just glad that in the first 8 posts there has not been a single, ridiculous reference to the frickin' theoretical stat of WAR. Thank the Lord above (below?)!!!! The players being mentioned are people whose entire careers we basically all witnessed first hand, so we each know who we truly feel are Hall-worthy based on actually watching them play, yes?

Agree. I vote for both Todd and Scott. Screw that war junk.

I STILL believe Todd was screwed out of ROY just because the voters were enamored with Kerry Wood at the time. Ugh….. I’ll take a HOF selection for a nice compensation.

Peter -- As you suggest, Andruw's "case" is largely about the fielding as a CF. The claim is that he was in the Willie Mays category as a CF before he got heavy and then couldn't/didn't stick around to run up his hitting stats to 500 HRs or even 2000 Hits. He got to the majors as a fleet teenage prodigy and was DHing by his 30's

I find the fielding stats kind of hard to digest but he put together a run (with Gold Gloves from 1998-2007) that was historically great.

There are plenty of lesser offensive players in the HOF because of their fielding excellence -- middle infield and catchers. I think he rates highest of all outfielders in lifetime DWAR (defensive WAR)

https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...f_career.shtml

and scores second all-time for all fielders in something called "Total Zone Runs" which is another combined fielding metric.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...f_career.shtml

SORRY ABOUT THE WAR STATS --- didn't see Darren's post or Butch's post until I finished mine -;(

Of course that's not to say that defensive excellence means that they should be in the HOF.


--- He has a son ("Druw") who is listed as a top prospect -- he too plays CF.

Jones 111 OPS+ really make his bat not look so good. He played in a high run environment in which his offense is not nearly as good as people think when looking at his homers.

I’m not sure there is a defense first outfielder in the hall. Harry Hooper? Hooper is probably his closest type in the Hall. Defensive star in his day, 114 OPS+, some decent raw hitting totals.

He wouldn’t be a horrific choice, don’t think he would be a great one. But it has little to do with actual performance anymore.

I hear you. But .254 BA yikes, and as you pointed out that's without much of a tail off.

It’s all good, no need to apologize.

Ashburn? I guess not, his hitting totals look better than I remembered. Just no power.

Ashburn’s OPS+ is similar, but that’s because OBP and SLG are not on the same school and OPS heavily weighs slugging. Ashburn had a lot of league leads in offense and was well known as one of the very best top of the order guys. He is over the average HOFer in black and gray ink that counts only his bat, while Jones (HR/RBI once each, during his great season) and Hooper (nothing) are far below. I think Ashburn was batting average first, defense second in the public eye, but such a thing is very difficult to quantify exactly. Probably why the consensus today seems to be split on Jones, Hooper is a bad but not horrific pick, and Ashburn a lower tier but deserving HOFer. I think in this case I agree with what seems to be the general consensus.

Yes, at a Willie Mays level. But also agree he's not hall-worthy.

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Baseball has been about stats for oh, about 150 years now, and WAR is one of the best.

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Why is Sheffield getting a better vote percentage than his fellow 'roiders...

A-Rod
Manny
McGwire
Sosa
Palmeiro
Bonds
Clemens

Do they think he was really better than those guys, or do they somehow consider him less of a "user"? Or is it something else?

WAR is just a way to measure what a player did, in a way that helps you answer certain sorts of questions. It's a tool. Like any tool, it's useful for some things, and not for others.

For what it's worth, Rolen measures up very well by WAR. On the career list he's one spot above Ed Delahanty and exactly tied with Carlos Beltran. Which also feels about right to me.

The thing that bothers me about this years' voting is the Billy Wagner love. Yes, he struck out a lot of guys, but in his entire career he pitched only 903 innings. Of course, that's because he was a relief pitcher, but it's going to be very hard to be as valuable to your team as a HOF-level starting pitcher if you're only pitching 70 innings a year.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...fair-free-pass

Gary Sheffield
5 OF 6
With 509 career home runs to his name, it's not necessarily surprising to attach Gary Sheffield's name to the list of steroid users in the game of baseball. With that said, it is shocking that his name is not grouped with the likes of Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Ken Caminiti.

After all, Sheffield trained with Bonds during the 2001-02 offseason and received PEDs directly from the hands of one of the most notorious steroid users in the game.

Four years removed from baseball, Sheffield will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2015. When the ballot comes around, will the BBWAA consider his admission of using a testosterone-based steroid supplied to him by BALCO?

Sheffield came clean about his use of "the cream", as well as pill forms of steroids, that he received from Bonds in a Sports Illustrated piece quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2004.

"(Bonds) said, 'I got guys here, they can get your urine and blood and prescribe a vitamin specifically for your blood type and what your body needs.' And that's what I did."

Sheffield called his 2002 season (the season following his steroid use) his "worst year ever." He hit .307 with 25 home runs and 84 RBI. He dwarfed those numbers in 2003, batting .330 and slugging 39 home runs while driving in 132 runs.

You be the judge.

Ozzie Smith

Outfielder.

Try again.

Centerfielder extraordinaire Cesar Geronimo had a career batting average of .258, and he is in the Hall of Fame*


* The Reds Hall of Fame

He's the best closer not named Mariano Rivera. I don't like closers in the Hall but it's a real position (now) and Wagner was absolutely elite at it for 15 years.

Since there is usually a drop off between the ballots made public before the official results are announced and the ones made public later or never made public, it looks like it will be very close for Rolen and Helton. My guess is that Helton doesn't make it this year, and Rolen will either get in or miss by a few votes.

Except in the playoffs, which kills him for me. 10.03 ERA in the biggest games of his career and a WHIP close to 2. He melted down in practically every playoff series he was ever in.

Rolen missed by 47 votes last year. While he is trending well with the few first-time voters, he has only picked up eight votes from people who didn't vote for him last year, with 35.8% of the votes accounted for right now. That pace is going to need to get a lot higher soon, otherwise we are looking at him missing by about 20-25 votes.

As I said, the first-time voters help, but they also add to the amount of votes he needs to get in, so their help is minimal. He needs more of the people who don't release their ballots online to switch to him. He only received 34% of the votes with the people who didn't release their ballots at all last year, and that group is about 20% of the voters. Public voters had him at 69%, though it also went down with the people who waited to release their ballots until after the results are announced.

I have no problem seeing Scott Rolen and Todd Helton in the HOF and hopefully the expected droppoff percentage wise will not be to much and will get them in.

I am not a fan of Billy Wagner getting in

I am neutral regarding Andrew Jones

I would like to see Sheffield In

Beltran I am on the fence about he deserves to be in but the Scandal with Houston is an issue

I would love to see Jeff Kent to get in

A big +1 and Amen!

Is it just me? The people we're talking about here SEEM mighty weak to be talking about HOF. Unless I'm missing something, these people were good ballplayers. Is that what the HOF is, the Hall of Good? Do you really see these guys up there with Ruth, Cobb, Mantle, Mays, Aaron, etc.?

I don't think Scott Rolen is a weak HOFer. He's ranked as the 10th best third baseman of all time and the 9 guys ahead of him are all in the HOF (with Beltre being a lock).

Yes. Do you really not see these guys up there with the likes of Lindstrom, Kell, Marquard, Maranville, Aparicio, Ferrell, et al.?

Well, that's a hard one, because all I know of the fellows you mentioned is what I have read. And depending on what you read, they come off sounding better than their peers. It wasn't me who elected them. I saw Rolen, Wagner, Jones, et al, and to me they aren't HOFers, not even close, and same goes for Biggio, Morris, Baines, etc., already in. Good, but not HOF. To me. If you see things differently that's fine. Obviously, sooner or later someone will be going in. So be it.

What do you mean not even close though? Who was better than Rolen in his time? I would say nobody. What else does a third baseman have to do to get into the Hall? He won 8 gold gloves, he won a title, and he's 10th all time in WAR at the position.

There are 9 guys ahead of him, one of which is Paul Molitor, who played less than 800 games at the position. All 9 players ahead of him are in the HOF or in the case of Beltre, are a lock to get in.

How is he not even close? Even the guy directly behind him is in the HOF (Edgar Martinez).

The HOF has never been limited to truly elite, all time starting lineup type players. So that's a false comparison.

True. When the Hall opened, after the first few inaugural classes, they let in a whole mess of "lesser-quality" guys simply to fill the place. I guess nobody was going to buy tickets to a museum with only 12 incomparables in it.

WAR, what is it good for?

Sorry, I had to...

I always had a soft spot for Sheffield since his time with the Yankees.

Elite offensive player when healthy, though his defensive metrics absolutely slaughter his overall value.

Same Rookie card year as Craig Jefferies, with similar hype. Only difference in collector interest, was Jefferies was coming up in the New York market, and Sheffield the Milwaukee market, so Jefferies was held in slightly higher regard by weekend warrior speculators at the time.

Bombed his first few years in Milwaukee. Written off as a bust before he turned his career around.

Absolutely fantastic Walk to Strikeout ratio. I think people forgot what a great hitter he was.

Missed lots of games due to injury, and still racked up some impressive lifetime counting numbers.

Sheff was an ornery guy, and not always gracious with the press, but he did always come off as up-front, genuine and honest...even when it didn't put him in the best light.

As you mentioned, he "came clean", regarding his steroid experiences. How many other players can you say that for, outside of Jose Canseco (who I believe was up front about it for different reasons)?

Nobody ever got the sense from him, he was ever hiding anything, because he was so "matter of fact" about everything.

And don't forget the Frank Frisch-led veterans committee, which gave us Chick Hafey, Jesse Haines, Dave Bancroft, Ross Youngs, Waite Hoyt, Harry Hooper, Rube Marquard, Earle Combs and High Pockets Kelly.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I hope that the voters keep only his on-field activities in mind when voting. No one is perfect and what happens off the field should have zero effect on HOF voting. Its not the "Perfect Human Being" HOF.

By the numbers and compared those already inducted, Scott Rolen is clearly a Hall of Famer. It's not even close. Pie Traynor was once considered the greatest third baseman who ever lived. So was Jimmy Collins. Would you really rather have either one of those guys on your team instead of Rolen?

Many fans simply misunderstand what a Hall of Fame third baseman looks like. There are few third sackers history who had a great glove to go along with hitting for power and average, like Rolen. As a result, there are far fewer third baseman inducted in Cooperstown than any other position, including executives who never played the game (17 third baseman vs. 40 executives). I see this as an indictment that the Hall of Fame is as much of a good old boys club as it is an institution that truly honors the best who ever played the game.

Been said many times, but always funny, now I have Edwin Starr on the mental audio. Perhaps one of the worst songs of all time, but great in its awfulness. Good god, y'all!!

Someone's gotta give that a +1. (Edit... Of course Peter beat me to it.)

As for Rolen, I see him as borderline. And I do believe Pie Traynor was more highly regarded (in his time) than Rolen ever was. Excellent 3rd Baseman though.

Let's let Lou Gehrig keep Matty company, so he doesn't get too lonely in that big Hall.

Seems pretty harsh to me.

So you are calling for the removal of Carlton Fisk, Tony LaRussa and other HOFers who have been convicted of DUIs?

Helton was the best fielding first baseman I ever saw. His hitting reflexes were incredible. Also a very nice man, although an introvert.

Edited to add:

Tiger Woods, Mike Tyson and Michael Phelps should all be removed from their respective Hall of Fames under the proposed standard.

This is when the wheels started to come off. The Veterans committee, while certainly responsible for some good, destroyed any opportunity we had at a "Small Hall."

Many questionable choices throughout the years. Not much we can do about it though.

Guess you never watched Wagner in the postseason.

He is also melted down in big regular season games as well.