2015 Hall of Fame Ballot officially released today

[CabinetCollector]

Jeff Kent leads all second basemen in home runs with 351, not to mention his 1,320 runs scored, as well as his 1,518 RBIs. Best power hitting 2b in history. He should be getting more attention.




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[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

Originally Posted by CabinetCollector

Jeff Kent leads all second basemen in home runs with 351, not to mention his 1,320 runs scored, as well as his 1,518 RBIs. Best power hitting 2b in history. He should be getting more attention.




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Tough to say best power hitting 2B. Hornsby was a dominant power hitter and his numbers stood out in his era.

[bn2cardz]

Biggio made it over the hump this year. Also with him are Randy Johnson, Pedro Martínez, John Smoltz.

[clydepepper]

A tip of the cap to Donnie Baseball - he will have to use the Joe Torre model to get in.

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by I Only Smoke 4 the Cards

Tough to say best power hitting 2B. Hornsby was a dominant power hitter and his numbers stood out in his era.

I agree, Jeff Kent doesn't excede the dominance Hornsby had.

Hornsby does have two more triple crowns than Kent. In fact Kent was never a league leader in any category. Hornsby led in SLG 9 seasons and Home Runs twice. Hornsby's career OPS 1.010 (SLG .577, OBP .434), Kent's OPS is 855 (SLG .500, OBP .356). So even though Hornsby's career home runs doesn't equal up he did enough to be considered dominant in the game when he was playing it.

I would say Kent is the 2nd most dominant power hitting 2nd baseman... and depending on the rest of Robinson Cano's career he could drop to #3 within the next decade.

[Beatles Guy]

As much as I like him, I'm not buying John Smoltz. He had two dominant years. Sure he had 55 saves in 2002, but an ERA over 3.00. I think maybe being part of the "big three" pushed him over the top.

As for Bagwell, it's a shame that he did not get in. Unless there is proof that I don't know about, he is not a suspected PED user. Averaged .297/34/115 over his career and being a Cardinal fan, I realize how feared a hitter he was.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by Beatles Guy

As much as I like him, I'm not buying John Smoltz. He had two dominant years. Sure he had 55 saves in 2002, but an ERA over 3.00. I think maybe being part of the "big three" pushed him over the top.

As for Bagwell, it's a shame that he did not get in. Unless there is proof that I don't know about, he is not a suspected PED user. Averaged .297/34/115 over his career and being a Cardinal fan, I realize how feared a hitter he was.

Smoltz's ERA was 3.25 because he got bombed in his second appearance, giving up 8 earned runs in 2/3 of an inning...other than that, his ERA was 2.37 and 0.00 in his last ten games with 2 hits and one walk.

I do think that Schilling and Mussina deserve it as much as Smoltz and I believe there is some truth to the 'big three' theory. Man, oh, Man...those were great days...we Braves fans suffered a long time to get to that!

As far as Bagwell and Piazza are concerned, it's a pity they are swept up with the more obvious PED-users. But remember, these guys are millionaires enhancing and then protecting their income and wouldn't you invest in the world's best masking agents if you were doing something illegal?

If they get in, it's an insult to all those who did it the right way. By juicing they made the decision to get the fame early and get paid accordingly. Being elected to the Hall-of-Fame is not a right but an honor and should be earned honorably.

Who are we to judge? Well, the writers judge and they supposedly represent or to some extent reflect the values of the fans each one of whom pay the salaries of both the players and the writers in a direct way either by paying to see them play or buying their newspapers, magazines or books.

[HRBAKER]

Unless there is proof that I don't know about, he is not a suspected PED user.


His current lack of support indicates to me that he is a "suspected" PED user.

[bn2cardz]

The one player I am a bit surprised didn't get a even a single vote was Brian Giles. A .291 BA with only 287 career home runs may not seem like much for a right fielder. Yet when you look at his Runs above average he has 294 over a 15 year career. This averages to 19.6/year. This is actually better than Gwynn's 17.65 (353 over 20 years). This comes from his On Base % being 400. There are only 59 players who have a career OBP of 400 or higher. Gwynn's was only 388. Giles OPS was a 902, only 63 players have career OPS above 900 (Gwynn had an 847).

Now I use Gwynn as a comparison for these stats because he is unquestionably the greatest hitter of the modern game (post 80s). His batting average 338 compared to Giles 291. Giles was able to accomplish his OBP by walking a lot. His 162 game average for walks was 104 compared to Gwynn's 52. Giles also didn't lead in power, but he had enough to end his career with a 162 game average of 25, which helped bring his RBI's for a 162 game average to 95 compared to Gwynn's 9hr and 76 RBI average.

So Giles didn't have the batting average of a Gwynn, and he certainly didn't have the power of a Ruth. He stuck somewhere in the middle. His best 7 year RAA (Runs above average) total is 255. Gwynn's best 7 year total is 252. Gwynn's WAR7 (best 7 year WAR total) is 41.1 (ranked 18th for RF) whereas Giles is 37.3 (26th).

I can see how Giles wouldn't make it into the Hall, but for him not to even get a single vote while Darin Erstad got one just doesn't make sense.

One last note about Giles. His K% (strike outs divided by PA) was 10.7% and his BB% (walks divided by PA) was 15.1%. This when the average was 16.9% (K%) and 8.8% (BB%). This ranks him as excellent in both categories on fangraphs (http://www.fangraphs.com/library/offense/rate-stats/).