Hoffman also is beyond doubt one of the greatest relievers of all time when longevity from a closer is scarce. I know he didn't have the greatest track record, but it's not entirely his fault he never won anything.

Yes but there aren't very many relievers in the HOF. You need to be the top of the top. I just don't think he ever was. Lee Smith's not in for the same reason.

My reason for no Hoffman
 

I would keep Hoffman out because was too much of a specialist. If he would be inducted he would have the 3rd fewest IP with 1089.1 over an 18year career. The two lower is Sutter with 1042 in 12 years and Paige with 476. With Paige being in for his Negro League play this would put Hoffman 2nd to only Sutter by 47.1 IP with a difference of 6 years of play.

Over Hoffman's 18 year career he had only 54.1 IP more than games played in. With 23 over games played coming in his RC season. This means that in the 17 following seasons he only had 31.1 more IP than games played.

Even L. Smith had only 1 GS and still recorded 267.1 innings more than games played in an 18 year career.

Hoffman was better than Smith.

My Ballot:
 

Jeff Bagwell
Ken Griffey Jr.
Trevor Hoffman
Mike Piazza
Tim Raines
Curt Schilling

and because I have a few extra spots:

Nomar Garciaparra
Larry Walker

If I had been on the Veterans Committee:

Sam Breadon
Wes Ferrell

Bonds
Raines
McGriff
Trammel
Griffey
Hoffman

Christmas Eve update
 

Now with 99 votes made public accounting for 22% of the ballots it seems clear that the best chance is for the following four still.
Griffey 100% (99) -Only needs to be on 68.1% of the remaining ballots
Piazza 89.9% (89) -Only needs to be on 70.9% of the remaining ballots
Bagwell 83.8% (83) -Only needs to be on 72.6% of the remaining ballots
Raines 80.8% (80) -Only needs to be on 73.5% of the remaining ballots

So these four players can maintain a lower percentage of ballots than they have achieved from the first 99 ballots and they still can make it in.

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?...C7uZHAmcVGWgwE

Tim Raines
Larry Walker

I think it's generally accepted that Bonds started using once he got to San Francisco. If there's compelling evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it. But he'd already achieved greatness before putting on a Giants uniform. In the three seasons prior to his move out west, he'd been a two-time MVP, an MVP runner up, a three-time Gold Glove winner, and was a 30-30 player twice. His 162 game averages between 1990-1992 clearly establish him as one of the best two or three players in the game: .301 AVG, 113 runs, 36 doubles, 34 home runs, 122 RBI, 49 SB, 120 BB, .990 OPS, 177 OPS +, 8.9 WAR. While there's no way for sure to know what he'd have done had he remained in a Pirates uniform, barring injury, he was on the fast track to the Hall of Fame.

I have a question for the HOF voters. If a player isn't worthy of getting in their first year of eligibility, how are they worthy a year or more later? The way I look at it is you are either good enough to be in the Hall or your not. After retirement players stats don't get better with age. :confused:

There are different levels of Hall of Famers. At the very top, you have the immortals, like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Walter Johnson, Stan Musial, Willie Mays and Christy Mathewson. These are the guys who deserve to be voted in on the first ballot. No waiting, Mr. Gehrig, here's your table.

Then there are guys like Duke Snider, Eddie Mathews and Orlando Cepeda. Clearly Hall of Fame players, but not quite on the same level as the true legends of the game. There is a hierarchy within the Hall, and I believe the voters handle their ballots to reflect this. Some will put their guys on their ballot right away, while some make players they eventually vote for wait a while.

Griffey
Bonds
Piazza
Kent

As far as Kent being compared to a 1st and 3rd baseman isn't right. His position was 2nd, and he should be compared as such.

As for his defense- saying his defense was horrible is a little harsh. I'd say it's pretty avg. People are saying Vizquel is a HOF'er. For what, because of his defense?

Maybe the HOf should have 2 buildings.

One for the immortals like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Walter Johnson, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Christy Mathewson, Clemente, Aaron, Mantle, etc,...

And another building for guys like Kent, Cepeda, Jeff Bagwell, Trevor Hoffman
Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, Curt Schilling, Nomar Garciaparra, Larry Walker, etc,... that writers, broadcasters, and fans can debate til the end of time.

I don't agree with that. Sometimes a player's career takes on a different context as time goes on. Goose Gossage is a good example of that. Today closers pitch one inning. Over time people saw the contribution of Gossage as having a greater significance given the nature of the position today. That's likely why he's in.

Other times there's a high level of competition for votes. So even though a player has a HOF career, he may enter the voting at a bad time where people are forced to vote for one person over another. That could delay election like it did for Biggio.

I am aware that he had a great 7 years in Pittsburgh, but that's actually my point. 7 great years does not a HOFer make. If that's the case put Don Mattingly in right now. "Well on your way to the HOF" and "worthy of the HOF" are completely different things, just ask Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, etc. If all we should look at are the 7 years Bonds was supposedly clean (which is debatable, because whether it's generally accepted or not, who really knows) then I don't think he deserves HOF enshrinement any more than any other player who was very good (or even great) for such a short period of time. Dale Murphy was a two time MVP as well, with 5 Gold Gloves and 7 All-Star appearances, easily one of the top players in the league for the same amount of time that Bonds was a Pirate. Yet Murphy did it clean by all accounts, and is punished for hanging around the game and experiencing the natural decline in performance, even though his career stats make a compelling arguement for induction. Why should the track Bonds was on before allegedly using be viewed any differently than the track Murph was on?

Great points...
Gossage was a closer when the position required someone to pitch multiple innings. Guys like Hoffman coming into a new inning with the bases empty, and with a lead, didn't know pressure like Goose and his contemporaries did. Relievers today would panic if they had to come in with 1 out in the 8th and runners on 1st and 3rd, and THEN pitch the 9th. The game changed immensely and voters finally realized just how impressive it was to do what Gossage did.

As far as competition for votes, that could be fixed by allowing voters to vote for as many candidates as they like. The ballot is already vetted to a large degree before reaching the voters, so my opinion is that if the player's name appears on the ballot someone should be allowed to cast a vote for them without having to sacrifice a vote for someone else. That way the folks trying to keep Alan Trammell and Lee Smith on the ballot would still be able to vote for the slam-dunk guys like Greg Maddux without worry that their candidate might not meet the minimum requirement.

I like your point, but think Biggio is a bad example. Many don't think he's a qualified HOFer, 3,000 hits or not.

Bonds had three great years in Pittsburgh, and I'm in complete agreeance with you that he would not have warranted Hall induction solely based on his time as a Pirate. But, I've never said he would. My contention has always been that by the time he got to San Francisco, he was already one of the top two or three players in the game, and it was unnecessary for him to take steroids to become great. If he'd just continued on at the same level, or nearly the same level, for several years in San Francisco, he'd have a great case for induction.

And Murphy, while a two-time MVP, was never on Bonds' level. Murphy's best season, by WAR, was a 7.7 in 1987. His two MVP seasons he had a 7.1 and a 6.1. Look at the seasons Bonds had just in Pittsburgh: a 9.7 WAR in 1990, a 9.0 in 1992, and 8.0 in 1989, and a 7.9 in 1991. Then, as a Giant, he was off the charts.

From 1980 to 1990, Murphy played nearly every game, every season. By 1990, his age 34 season, he'd compiled only a 46.9 WAR. By 1992, when he left for San Francisco at age 28, Barry Bonds had already compiled a 50.1 WAR. He compiled a higher WAR in 1,000 games than Murphy did in 1,983 games.

And Don Mattingly didn't really have seven great seasons. He had three (1984-1986), one really good season (1987), and a couple other pretty good seasons (1988 and 1989). If Don hadn't hurt his back, I feel he'd have been a Hall of Famer. He was a great hitter and run producer, and an exceptional glove man. It's too bad, because I always really liked him.

That may be but in 2013 5 players got more than 50 percent of the vote and in 2014 3 players got elected. So Biggio had a fight ahead of him when he entered the vote.

I don't see how anyone is less worthy simply because of debate. I think there are certain players that people just didn't know were that good.

Without splitting hairs on the accuracy of a speculative stat such as WAR, this is the important part. Yes Bonds was on his way. Then he cheated and now he's on the outside looking in. Simple as that really. Saying that he didn't need to take steroids is not only speculation, it's irrelevant, because whether he did or didn't need to, he took them. He shouldn't be put in based on speculation of what he might have done during his career if he had been clean. The same consideration is not given to great players who had their careers derailed by injury, it shouldn't be given to someone who cheated, which is much more within the control of the player than getting hurt.

Day of morning look
 

With the reveal tonight, the ones to expect something from are still the following four.

With 194 ballots made public accounting for 43.1% of the ballots:

Griffey 100% (194) -Only needs to be on 56.3% of the remaining ballots
Piazza 86.1% (167) -Only needs to be on 66.8% of the remaining ballots
Bagwell 76.8% (149) -Only needs to be on 73.8% of the remaining ballots
Raines 76.3% (148) -Only needs to be on 74.2% of the remaining ballots

Bagwell and Raines have dropped significantly since the last update. I would not be surprised if it is only Griffey and Piazza with Bagwell and Raines being just below induction as Piazza was last year.

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?...C7uZHAmcVGWgwE

I feel Bonds will likely get in one day, but the fact that he did use performance enhancers forever taints his accomplishments in my eyes.

Do you consider amphetamines performance enhancers?

Not nearly to the degree of steroids. I equate greenies and all that crap to Gaylord Perry's spitball. Yes, players were more alert. No, they didn't (generally) see their home run totals spike by 200% in any given season. The effects anabolic steroids have to a person's body is night and day compared to amphetamines.

Evidently Bonds felt he needed to cheat.

I would be shocked if Bonds ever gets in. JMO....

Yes, but I pretty much agree with Derek's opinion. I know that Mays and others have admitted to using greenies. Greenies, to my knowledge, didn't completely alter a player's body type, add muscle, help players recover faster from injuries, etc. I could of course be wrong, as I haven't done serious reading as to the differences between the two (from a recognizable, expert source). All I know is that when you look at a player like Henry Aaron, he was 170 lbs in 1956. In 1975, he was 180 lbs. Barry Bonds in 1987 was 165 lbs. By 2007, he weighed 230 lbs.

Bonds added 65 pounds to his frame. I know that the kind of weight training done today really didn't exist back in the 1950s and 1960s, at least it wasn't done in Major League Baseball. But conditioning and exercise program aside, Bonds adding 65 pounds to his frame just seems unnatural to me.

Edit to add, I would be interested in your position on the two, Peter. I respect your opinion.

Will they ever hold another Negro League vote?

I seem to remember them saying that the vote in 2007 would be the last time they considered Negro League players but I could be misremembering. I sure hope they hold another as there are still several viable candidates, most notably Buck O'Neill and Minnie Minoso.

+1
.
.

If Minoso makes it into the HOF it will be for his major league career so he is probably still eligible.

I can count the number of players better than bonds in history doing baseball things on one hand...so it's an injustice that he's not in yet. I dont begrudge cobb for not hitting more home runs in the deadball era. I dont begrudge ruth doing ruthian things against only white players...so why should i penalize bonds putting up video game numbers against his juiced up peers?

Hes a hofer in any era, but because hes a byproduct of the ped era people dont want to give the man his dues alongside cobb ruth and williams. Hey bbwaa dinosaurs...become extinct already!

I think there's more to it than that. Bonds was defiant, wouldn't admit what he did, more or less had a man do time for him, and cheated for the most superficial reasons you can name. He's a blight on the sport.

Cobb was a raging racist, ruth a womanizer, mantle was a drunk....money buys you privilege. I dont look at pro athletes to uphold our moral virtues.

It's not about morality, it's about the fact that his numbers are forever in question because nobody can ever definitively know what part of his stats came from cheating and what came honestly. That's it. All the "well, he didn't start until..." and "he'd be a HOFer anyway..." arguements don't matter because not one person with those arguements is any more confident in Bonds' career than the writers, and there will never be a way to prove it. Giving someone the absolute highest honor when they didn't come by it fairly is not just condoning cheating, it's basically saying there's no need for rules at all. Nobody makes a fuss when Olympians have their medals stripped for the same offenses, Bonds had nothing taken away from him. He's just not getting anything extra either.

BTW, Cobb being racist in a period of our history that was predominated by racists, and Ruth womanizing and Mantle drinking when those two things are still rampant today, none of those qualities changed the stats those men put up on the field. The same can't be said for Bonds' actions.

And you can't assume everyone of his peers were juicing either.
He's the one who chose to cheat, I can certainly hold that against him.

Cobb was not a raging racist. He built low-income housing in Georgia specifically for African American residents, would often sell them land for nothing, and fought for integrated play long before it was generally accepted.

“The negro has the right to compete in sports and who’s to say they have not?”
-1952

i take it back on cobb then, respect him even more. everything else i said i still believe. they call it the ped era for a reason, don't think it's just some isolated cases in each locker room. bonds/clemens was the greatest of that era, they should be in. thank god their votes are trending upward so i believe they will be in eventually. just kind of odd piazza is in before bonds...

I find it hard to draw the line between what one generation used to enhance their performance and what another used, on the basis that the later generation had better stuff. The intent was the same, to get whatever edge they could. I would guess if nothing else, amphetamines reduce sensitivity to pain, I believe they are used for that purpose in combat. So to lionize Aaron Mays and Mantle and to condemn Bonds and Clemens?? I don't know.

Even if you can accept his 65 added pounds, how does someone's head increase a couple sizes????