Eddie Cicotte's HOF chances - should he get in? Will he?
 

Thoughts?

No. And no. Setting aside what he's best known for, even his stats don't quite cut it for me. I'll eat my hat if he gets more than 2 votes.

No, no. He’s a borderline choice, a low end HOFer if he makes it. Doubt he gets anywhere even if he makes a committee ballot. Unlike Jackson and Rose it’s not clear he would be in if he hadn’t rigged games or bet. I think we should be done with deadball pitchers at this point.

Borderline candidate

some credit him with inventing the knuckleball and based on the fact that Candy Cummings is in the HOF for just "inventing" the curve ball you could argue that is enough...but Cicotte had good peak years and solid career ERA w borderline win total.

I'd vote for Cicotte but doubt he gets 5 votes which is required to stay on the ballot.

Cicotte's role in the 1919 WS fix is much more damnable than Joe Jackson's which should hurt Cicotte's chances

Cicotte was a primary and possibly THE primary fixer as many believe it was his idea.

No and No. I also think that Shoeless Joe doesn't get in as well.

Cicotte I think falls in that group of pitchers where it seems almost random why someone is in and someone is not. Why are Rube Marquard and Jack Chesbro in and not Babe Adams, Wilbur Cooper, Jesse Tannehill, Wes Ferrell, etc., etc.?

That being said, if you have any faith in Baseball Reference rankings, he is nestled right there with several HOFers.

Chesbro is in bc of 1 amazing season and Marquard bc he played in a New York market (as did Chesbro) and was one of those Veterans Committee elections that Frankie Fisch pushed with his click to get a lot of former Giants and Cardinals in that probably didnt deserve it

He's borderline with a high peak. There are worse pitchers in and better ones not.

If you give him credit for another solid 2 years or so, he's in. If you don't.. he's not.

His peak is 3 out of his last 4 years so not very long. Why would you give him credit for another 2 years that he didn't pitch? It's not like he was serving in the military. He was thrown out of baseball for helping throw World Series games.

No arguments here but there are some that will feel that because he is now eligible and "forgiven", he was robbed of a few years at the end of his career that could have really put him over the top. He was acquitted criminally and maybe if Landis didn't rule with an iron first, all their punishments might be more lenient, aka miss 1 year and come back and finish up. Who knows..

I have no problem either way if he goes in or not.

I can see more people feeling that way about Weaver than Cicotte. Also, it's obviously impossible to know what Cicotte would have done if he had pitched longer, but with the introduction of the livelier ball, he might not have done much to improve his overall stats.

Well Said Thomas
and eligible does not mean deserving and eligible does not take away to me the degree of the guilt/involvment of his role in the Fix

Sign me up for team "no and no" also. Although he's reasonably close and might have made it if not for... you know... the thing.

As a guy with a HOF collection, it doesn't matter all that much to me whether he gets in or not. But I really hope they don't put in Jackson. A Cicotte card I can afford. Jackson though :(

He would be borderline with me if he didn't have a hand in the World Series fix. To me it's the same as my personal thoughts on Andy Pettitte and Todd Helton, though more so with Pettitte.

Helton is borderline for me, but he was a habitual drunk driver, which is a big no for me. So I would have never voted for him. He didn't learn his lesson when he was charged the first time, then he doubled down on it and did something worse (who knows how many times he wasn't caught, or caught and let go). So he doesn't belong in Cooperstown.

Pettitte is the better example though. He is a borderline player, could go either way. He admitted steroid use once, then came clean and said he did it multiple times. Steroid use should be factored into stats. I'm okay with Bonds and Clemens being in because they were HOF players without it. I'm also okay with them waiting to get in. When a fringe HOF player has a red flag, then no thanks. His steroid use made him a fringe candidate. Stay out.

Ciccotte is that fringe/red flag guy. I'm also not in the camp that since Helton is in, then I should overlook a red flag. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather 100 guys threw games than one guy drove drunk, so I'm not comparing their mistakes. Putting him in because Helton is in is not learning from mistakes.

Ed's enjoying the discussion

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Agree on Chesbro. I guess I shouldn't have said "why are" they in. I was just looking for borderline selections.

I agree that Frisch got a lot of less-than-deserving teammates in (Bancroft, Kelly, Haines, etc.). Marquard was never a teammate of his (as far as I can tell) but did go in while Frisch was on the committee. I think what helped Marquard was going from the "$11,000 lemon" to winning 20+ games for three straight pennant winners and once winning 19 decision in a row. There is also speculation that he got a "Glory of Their Times" bump. He was in the book and was elected after it was published.

There is a usually a story behind a borderline selection...a famous feat, friends(s) on the committee, renewed interest in a player, etc. Cicotte's story has certainly kept his name in the public eye longer than many pitchers with similar records.

Beat me to it. Throw Coveleski, Goslin et al into that argument, although I'm fine with those guys being in. Marquard I could have done without, but it's not a Haines or Lindstrom situation where it almost inspires anger. Frisch really screwed with things, that's for certain.

Yeah, I was going to mention Coveleski and Goslin (and Hooper) as well but I didn't want to expand the discussion into whether those players should be in (of the four, Goslin to me is the most obvious inclusion).

What is crazy is I think Cicotte's HOF comp is Red Faber...who some have argued as a borderline HOF pitcher was selected/pushed over the mark and elected because he was not in on the 1919 WS fix or 1920 game fixing!


Here is Cicotte's career (14 seasons) compared to Faber's first 14 seasons.

He has an interesting case because he put up some pretty big seasons right before his ban. He won 28 and 29 games. I imagine if he had managed the wins and was a two time 30 game winner it would be hard to keep him out.

Faber played six more seasons after that. In which he won 49 more games, put up 15 more WAR, and pitched to a 111 ERA+. That's six more years of good pitching. (Not great pitching, but plenty good.) Cicotte may have had that in him - he was still a fine pitcher in 1920 - and if he could keep pitching effectively into his early 40s like Faber did, he would be well-qualified for the fall of fame (except for that whole throwing the world series thing). As it is, he's not a bad candidate, just not an especially good one either.

Throwing the WS makes him a no for me. These guys weren’t “forgiven “ or exonerated, the commissioner merely ruled that the lifetime ban ended when your lifetime ended.