I'm an optimist with my pessimism.

When discussing Schilling's personality, it's also worth remembering that he stole a pile of money from the state of Rhode Island.

More than I am a big hall or small hall guy, I am a prefer-the-players'-Hall-fates-be-determined-by-what-they-did-on-the-field guy. I'm aware of the character clause and all, and I can understand why some voters really place a premium on that and feel qualified to evaluate everyone's character, but it's all just luck -- what combination of genetic and environmental forces conspired to make you a moral paragon or a total degenerate or a star athlete or an uncoordinated dolt. I just want a place that celebrates the best players.

How about his humanitarian awards and charity? Or is that different, and only a company that ultimately failed, from which Schilling didn’t take a salary and lost millions himself on, that the state invested in should be a focus?

It’s a silly game of trying to find other reasons, applied to no other figure in baseball history, to justify the result without having to acknowledge what it plainly is.

Schilling’s stats and the eye test of the time make him either a low grade HOFer or just outside. I’m fine either way. If journalists vote and he posts a meme of hanging journalists, fair to expect he might not get in. Won’t lose sleep over it.

At the time I proposed they should shackle him to the front steps of the state capital and make him sign autographs for $10 each until he paid it all back. :cool:

That being said, I'd vote for him for the Hall of Fame.

I wouldn't go that far. He had a failed business. Didn't know what he was doing. He paid a pretty huge price. I'd bet 25% of people on this forum have a higher net worth than Schilling does at this point.

I don't think he's borderline at all in terms of stats and accomplishments.

He didn't post a meme about hanging journalists, he commented on it in a positive way, which was stupid, but different than what he is often accused of.

He didn't steal anything. Politicians invested money in his company and lost out when it failed.

He agreed to pay a few million back when sued for fraud and argued that he would pay more but he didn’t have it. Again, not losing sleep over someone like that not being in the hall. His bloody sock is probably in - that seems good enough. No cy youngs, a scattering of all star appearances. Great pitcher but not a clear cut guy to begin with and seems to have some issues.

He retweeted a picture of a guy wearing a T shirt that said: "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required." and added his comment: "Awesome."

Since the hall of fame voters are all journalists, that probably didn't help his HOF chances.

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They took $75,000,000 from Rhode Island and filed bankruptcy a year later. They moved to RI in April 2011 and were already bouncing checks in May of 2012. Those in charge of the funding were found to have committed fraud and the company, Schilling included, knew they couldn't deliver what they had promised for that $75m. That's theft. Plain and simple.

I was mentioning the fraud as an addendum took the mentions of his charity work. Just trying to help complete the picture.

They received the investment loan in 2010, May 2012 is the collapse. That they ran out of money is not unusual. They didn't make it. Most businesses fail. Is there any evidence that they could not have created the 450 jobs if they had succeeded? That doesn't seem like overkill for a studio that succeeds. There's a very good argument the government should not engage in this kind of speculative investment, which I agree with.

It was reported in 2014 that some unnamed executives knew that the loan was not enough to cover all their expenses and finish the game (which was finished though). I am not clear whether there was some promise in the contract that the investment would be the only money needed by the company. That would be highly unusual. The SEC charged Rhode Island Commerce Corporation and Wells Fargo with fraud for not disclosing relevant information to bond holders. The Rhode Island police were also unable to find anything to charge Schilling or 38 with. Schilling and the company eventually had to pay $61 million in civil suits and costs, eating up most of Schilling's net worth, apparently.

Citation for theft charge, and the claim that Schilling knew the company would not succeed and could not deliver? They came close, their game got very good reviews and sold over a million copies in the first 90 days, it's not like they were selling a phantom product they never made.

As far as I can tell, the government made poor choices, the company got some big names in that world and put together a good product, but it failed as the majority do, and so the company went under and it's backers, Schilling primary among them, lost money.

I see zero relevance to the Hall of Fame. I can't find any evidence Schilling did anything wrong here. Maybe I'm missing a piece. While I disagree with many of his public comments, I don't see the problem with a business not succeeding.

The game in question was an MMORPG that was never completed and never released.

If you take money for something you know you can't do, that's theft. It's really that simple.

How does this relate to his baseball career?

He has the 26th all time highest WAR as a pitcher. There are 84 pitchers currently enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Just on the surface that hardly says “borderline” or “just outside” the hall standards.

I am not a Schilling fan but it seems some are looking for reasons to exclude.

They released the single-player game to good reviews and decent sales in 2012. The MMO component, I see, is what the investment was for and ultimately didn't get to release when they ran out of money.

Still can't find any evidence at all that Schilling solicited and took money for a project he "knew" they couldn't do. That's a very, very serious crime if he did. Have that source for it?

Not at all, we just now truly believe that if you start a business and it fails, that should keep you out of the Hall of Fame if your name is Curt Schilling. This has nothing to do with politics, this rule is specific to him and only him just because.


I almost don't care what the standards are, but the standard should be the same for all. It is blatantly corrupt and wrong when they are not.

Ah, a good ol' Curt "Schrodinger's HOF'r" Schilling discussion.

Great pitcher, especially considering he didn't fully figure it out until his late 20s. Shame he decided to alienate reporters and a few million other people as a post-career hobby.

Maybe we'll have less of this kind of thing in the future.

I'm more interested in how the committee will treat Bonds and Clemens.

Ahh, enough time wasted on Schilling. He isn't disliked because he is a vocal Republican; he is disliked because he is a vocal asshole.

Let's talk Kenny Lofton. No character knocks on him. I absolutely hated seeing him come to the plate against teams I liked. I think the issue with him, frankly, is that he played a position at the time that always made him the third-best CF, behind Kirby Puckett and Ken Griffey Jr. Third fiddle in an orchestra with Jascha Heifetz and Izhak Perlman is pretty, pretty good, but won't get you the attention. The other issue was that he hung on after he'd lost a step or two and went from all-world to very good. I think that hurts his candidacy as it does Mattingly, Belle and Murphy. None of which I'd have an issue seeing in the HOF, but none of whom were anywhere near as valuable to their teams over their careers as Lofton was to his teams. His #s put him squarely in the middle of CFs in the HOF, just a tad below their average. His modern-style numbers are better than those three by a lot, but are a completely different mix of components.

Agreed!!

Lofton is a top 10 Centerfielder in WAR and JAWS, ahead of such Hall of Famers as Andre Dawson, Richie Ashburn, and Kirby Puckett. I think he gets overlooked because he didn't have a lot of black ink, as he only led the league in stolen bases (5x in a row), triples (1×) and hits (1x), and nothing in the last decade of his career. So unlike a lot of the short peak, low WAR guys up for a vote (Murphy, Mattingly, Belle) the highest he finished in MVP voting was 4th and 11th. It should be noted that in 1994, when Lofton finished 4th in MVP, he actually led the American League in WAR with 7.2.

He also didn't win a World Series or play particularly well in the playoffs. Note that neither Murphy, Mattingly, or Palmeiro ever made it to the World Series, and Belle played on the same '95 WS team as Lofton (Lofton also got to the WS with San Francisco in 2002).

I think Kenny Lofton is underrated as a fielder. He won 4 Gold Gloves, but probably deserved more. His career dWAR is 15.5. To put that in perspective, Andruw Jones and Willie Mays, widely regarded as the best fielding CFs ever have 24.4 and 18.2 respectively. 10x Gold Glove winner Ken Griffey Jr. has a career dWAR of 2.2, 8x Gold Glove winner Jim Edmonds has a career dWAR of 6.4.

If you care about overall career value, Lofton should be in.

I agree on Lofton being a good candidate and perhaps the best "one and done" candidate ever.

He didn't have any controversy during his playing career, but last year there was this:

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...ton%20co%2Down

My read on it is that it's not really a big thing...some employees had access to someplace he shared nude pictures in private messages....more dumb than evil.

Curt is a clear cut HOFer.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_P.shtml

There are bad guys in the HOF, drug smugglers, players who beat up fans, punched umpires, spit in umpires face, racists, admitted cheaters, players who beat their wives, etc. Schilling's crime are words, he wouldn't be close to the worst guy in the HOF, if elected.

I tend to agree that we need to define the Hall of Fame by what a player does on the field. It's not realistic to play "morality police" and we can recognize a player's greatness on the field while not claiming they are saints.

I agree! I have always liked Lofton and never really understood why he hasn’t rec’d more support.

Let me throw a name out there...I am completely a supporter of Lofton and Sweet Lou getting another look, but no one ever mentions Rick Rueschel. Talk about someone who doesn't pass the eyeball test, but the stats are right there in comparison to the mid-level HOF pitcher. Despite pitching for poor teams he has a 69.5 WAR (34th among starter) and is statistically ahead of several hall of famers. One of the better one and done candidates.

Ftx
 

Speaking of business failures, how about those goons at FTX and all of their celebrity pitchmen?

I’d like to see Tom Brady and Steph Curry kept out of their respective HOFs for their participation in crypto codswallop and magic beans hucksterism.

For that matter, I’d like to see MLB take some lumps for putting FTX patches on the umpires uniforms.

For those of you who protest that Brady and Curry weren’t part of the ownership group, allow me to suggest that they were. At least from what has been publicly disseminated, they received equity in the business in exchange for their pitchmen roles. And a lot more than $75M evaporated when FTX went under.

Rueschel is an interesting one for sure. The modern metrics love him, but at the time and with traditional stats, he's solid but unspectacular.

People will insist this means that modern stats aren't worth a lick, but what amazes me is how often the traditional and the modern metrics AGREE on who the best players are.

BTW, the "active" version of Rueschel is Evan Longoria. His WAR is far higher than I would expect, with it approaching low end of HOF consideration. He did a lot of things better than average, but wasn't a standout in any one thing.

Lofton, I think, should also get in*. It’s a disgrace he fell off the ballot immediately. However, Schilling is actually on the ballot that the tread is about and Lofton is not. Getting to these other guys is one of many reasons to induct the obvious candidates that have been backlogging the ballots for the last decade.

I would probably not vote for Reuschel*. He has nothing but WAR; where we usually use WAR as a general ranker to summarize other stats, he has nothing else in hall territory at all.

Watching FTX crash and burn in the way that it has has been hilarious.

*I guess I need to investigate Lofton and Reuschel’s business careers to see if they’ve ever had a failed business before determining, though.

You're thinking of Dave Justice.

The Crime Dog would have kept it on the downlow.

I admit that I usually love the WAR stat and by WAR Shilling is a no question Hofer. I just don’t really understand how his WAR is so high vs some players who seem to have pretty comparable stats. Consider below

Curt Shilling. 216-146 3.46ERA. 15-10 per 162 WAR 79
Lew Burdette. 203-144 3.66 ERA 14-10 per 162. WAR 28

Is it all era adjustment, strike outs, does Shilling get a big bump because of his defensive stats? Shillings stats are clearly a tick better, but over 50 wins better

Lou Burdette posted an ERA below the league average over his career. He was a league average rate player on a good team who pitched a lot. Schilling's ERA is 27% better than the league, for one example.

WAR heavily weighs context to baseball at the time. The Gap in FIP, which WAR uses, is even bigger than their ERA+'s. Schilling get's a lot of points for K and BB ratio's too, while Burdette's were marginal.

Whenever the topic of the HOF comes up --
 

I think of an article that Dick Young of the New York Daily News wrote about the consideration of Lefty Gomez in 1974. "Election to the Hall of Fame is largely a popularity contest."
There are some players that simply cannot be left off -- or maybe they can and have been because it's a voting process, and each voter has his conscience.
The art of lobbying for a particular player's election is a delicate one. Around 1970 a very knowledgeable fan (Dr. V. M.) compiled statistics for Sam Thompson and Roger Connors that were compelling and badgered the Veterans Committee unmercifully for several years with documentation. At one point he threatened them with court action for a full disclosure of the vote. When Sam was elected in 1974, I asked Paul Kerr what had changed their minds? He looked me straight in the eye, and with a voice dripping icicles said "Sam Thompson was elected to the Hall of Fame in spite of V. M. I know also from other sources (Charlie Gehringer) that the members of the Veterans Committee did not like being told their business and reacted accordingly.

Hypothetical to see if there are limits to what you say. Suppose OJ Simpson had decapitated 2 people shortly after retiring. Should he still have been voted into the football HOF?

Some people think Joe Jackson and Pete Rose should be in the Hall based on their play. So, I'm wondering, aren't there some non-playing things that do, and should, disqualify someone from HOF consideration?

Yes, I agree there is a logical limit...but things like poor business dealings, unpopular opinions, probably even steroid use during the non-testing days...kind of need to move past those eventually.

On Jackson and Rose...I do wonder if they'll eventually get in. I'm happy enough for Rose to be considered AFTER he's served his lifetime ban. I don't mind him being in, but I don't want anyone subjected to his self-absorbed acceptance speech. :D

It doesn't and I never said it did. Since his charitable works and humanitarian stuff - which also don't relate to his baseball career - were brought up, I added in tvs stuff about his company to fill in picture. Nothing more, nothing less.

You didn't ask but I'll tell you - I think he's good enough to be in the Hall.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/b...8-studios.html

Schilling said they needed $100m to make the game. They got $75m.

Lofton never really struck me as a HOFer when he played but I'd be OK with him getting in. Jim Edmonds is a guy I don't understand not being in. Elite defender at a premium position, twice hit 40 homers, 393 career homers, 132 OPS+. That reads like a HOF resume to me.

To the casual reader, though, the case against Mr. Schilling may not be all that impressive. After all, if people went around suing everyone who accepted a loan for less money than they actually needed, the courts wouldn’t have time for anything else. In the state’s version of events, Mr. Schilling comes off as an arrogant and overexuberant entrepreneur, possessed of grand delusions. But there’s no suggestion that he intended to swindle anyone. He clearly believed he could succeed.

No, it was the entire political establishment of Rhode Island, not Curt Schilling, who decided that it would be a good idea for the taxpayers to capitalize a gaming company that had never actually produced a game, because the guy running it had a World Series ring, and because it might just seed a magic garden of technological innovation.

Sounds like a sure thing to me.

Where do I invest?

In fact, getting 3/4 of the estimated cost from a single investment group is pretty darn good. It is not theft, a swindle or any kind of a crime to secure 75% of estimated costs from a single investor. If it was, basically ever senior person at most companies would be in jail. Hell, I'm probably a criminal under this standard. That's just not how it works...

This isn't a big deal. Schilling's business failed, took out his wealth and his investors lost money. They got 1 of their 2 products to release, and that 1 did pretty well actually. What is it, more than 3 in 4 businesses fail in their first few years? This isn't a crime. It's completely normal. It's a high risk high reward game.

It's never had anything whatsoever do with the Hall before.

These arguments are especially stupid because they are unnecessary. It isn't hard to make Schilling look like an ass, one doesn't need to make up fake news about crimes that didn't happen or being a Nazi to do that. Just give him a microphone and he will soon enough say something that a lot of people won't like. Which doesn't have anything to do with the Hall of Fame either.

I would say anything out of sports should be irrelevant. O.J. is the most extreme case, and I don't know the exact criteria by the Pro Football hall of fame related to such an extreme case, but I would say he should not be removed. Whatever he did outside of football is irrelevant to the question, is he or is he not one of the greatest pro players? The answer is undeniably "Yes".

Now if they put up an exhibit honoring his victims, I would be in favor of that too, because O.J. is a titanic waste of human life. But it doesn't change that he was one of the best RB's ever.

There's another baseball player being punished now, Omar Vizquel. His vote has been cut in half after a private suit was filed by an bat boy alleging Vizquel molested him and seeking financial compensation. None of us have the evidence of alleged incident available to make any meaningful judgement and I don't believe it has gone to court, but Vizquel is being treated wildly different in Hall voting due to the claim, which we do not know any evidence for or against.

My opinion is that Vizquel does not belong in the Hall on playing grounds, but this treatment is also wrong. A claim, without any evidence yet presented and made for financial gain, is also enough to sink a candidate for an honor based on his actual playing. This is wrong.

Yes, Edmonds is another good candidate. His WAR is significantly lower than Lofton's, but still well within the range of a Hall of Fame center fielder.

With all these relooks, Keith Hernandez should be seriously considered. His metrics are better than Mattingly's.

There simply has to be a tier of players that comes very close, but fails to get into the Hall. It is illogical to believe that there's a line to be drawn which clearly delineates the hall of famers from the rest of the crowd. There will never be a big drop-off between HOFers and those that come close.

It's unfortunate for players like Dale Murphy, Steve Garvey, Kenny Lofton, Lou Whitaker, Joey Belle, Dave Parker, Jim Edmonds, Todd Helton, Don Mattingly, Keith Hernandez and Fred McGriff. I watched every one of those guys play many many games in their primes.

And during the course of their careers, I (personally) thought Murphy, Garvey, Parker, McGriff, Mattingly and perhaps Edmonds would end up in the Hall for sure.

Never really felt that way when watching Vizquel, Baines, Raines, Lofton, Whitaker, Belle, Walker, Helton, Trammell, Edgar, Rolen or Ted Simmons... half of which are in; half are not. They all just seemed like very good players. Just my 2 cents. :p

100% agree.

Hernandez meets the eye test.

I just don't see the case for Hernandez. Not much power, hit below .300, less than 2200 hits, etc. I know he's got all the Gold Gloves but, at the end of the day, 1B isn't a premium defensive position and dWAR doesn't like him that much. And, really, if you're putting in Hernandez, how do you leave out John Olerud?