2023 Contemporary Era Ballot Nominees

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Looks to me he fell way off after 1957.

1958: 126 OPS+
1959: 140 OPS+
1960: 134 OPS+
1961: 138 OPS+
1962: 148 OPS+
1963: 115 OPS+

What an amazing fall off! If these years don't count, well Belle's 10 years just became 5.

[packs]

Look at all the numbers though. He did post an OPS+ of 148 in 1962 but he played 80 games and had 5 homers and 30 RBI's.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by packs

Look at all the numbers though. He did post an OPS+ of 148 in 1962 but he played 80 games and had 5 homers and 30 RBI's.

Are we taking out Belle's 194+ top mark because he played 106?

If you want to argue Belle's peak is better, I agree with you. That's why I would put Belle in, his peak was utterly fantastic and I think overcomes his brief career to make him worthy as a Puckett type HOFer.

If we want to argue their careers are similar trajectory or effective length, they are clearly not. Snider played over 600 games more and many more productive years.

[packs]

Originally Posted by G1911

Are we taking out Belle's 194+ top mark because he played 106?

If you want to argue Belle's peak is better, I agree with you. That's why I would put Belle in, his peak was utterly fantastic and I think overcomes his brief career to make him worthy as a Puckett type HOFer.

If we want to argue their careers are similar trajectory or effective length, they are clearly not. Snider played over 600 games more and many more productive years.

But why not talk about production AND OPS+? Belle's 106 game season was clearly superior. 1994 was a strike season. He didn't play 106 games because that's all he could be in the field for. And he hit 36 homers, drove in 101 runs, scored 90 runs while hitting 357.

Clearly leaps and bounds ahead of Snider's 80 game output.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by packs

But why not talk about production AND OPS+? Belle's 106 game season was clearly superior. 1994 was a strike season. He didn't play 106 games because that's all he could be in the field for. And he hit 36 homers, drove in 101 runs, scored 90 runs while hitting 357.

Clearly leaps and bounds ahead of Snider's 80 game output.

Yes it was superior. But if we are dismissing part-time production, than it needs to be done for both. We're counting Albert's 109 OPS+ season and partial seasons, but trying to cut Snider off when he was outhitting the league by leaps and bounds. It must be consistent and have a consistent standard, not a different one for each player to writ the desired outcome.

I agree, again, that Belle's peak is better than Snider's, that when he was on the field Belle was a better hitter. That does not change the reality that Snider's effective career is much, much longer than Belle's. Snider is not a brief-time producer like Belle. They are very different type players.

For the fiftieth time, Albert would have my vote. But he is a brief peak player, as any reasonable look at the dataset will tell anyone.

[packs]

What separates them so much in your mind, though? From 22 to 30, Snider was a great player and his career stats for that length of time are eerily similar to Albert Belle's. But you're saying they weren't similar players. In what way?

Also, I only see one half-way decent season from Snider after his 30th birthday. he was decent in 1959 but pretty pedestrian every other season. I don't believe his peak was all that longer than Albert's. maybe one season.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by packs

What separates them so much in your mind, though? From 22 to 30, Snider was a great player and his career stats for that length of time are eerily similar to Albert Belle's. But you're saying they weren't similar players. In what way?

Also, I only see one half-way decent season from Snider after his 30th birthday. he was decent in 1959 but pretty pedestrian every other season. I don't believe his peak was all that longer than Albert's. maybe one season.

I don't know how many ways I can say this. BElle's career is very brief, Snider's is not. Snider played 604 more games in a time when the season was shorter (their period of being junk is roughly equal), and he played them effectively. 604 games would constitute 39% of Belle's career. That is a huge difference, 39%.

I get that you like Belle. I would vote for him too. But reality is reality, his career is very short. It is obviously way shorter than Snider's. It is very, very easy to look at the records. It's right there, in the Games column. This is an absurd thing to argue, that their careers are the same length or that in the context of a HOF discussion, Belle's career is not short.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

1958: 126 OPS+
1959: 140 OPS+
1960: 134 OPS+
1961: 138 OPS+
1962: 148 OPS+
1963: 115 OPS+

What an amazing fall off! If these years don't count, well Belle's 10 years just became 5.

Sure, but you're cherry picking. WAR?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Sure, but you're cherry picking. WAR?

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...nidedu01.shtml

Keep in mind that Belle's "10 year elite" run includes WAR's of 2.5, 2.0, 1.5, and 0.6.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...nidedu01.shtml

Looks like a significant drop off there.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Looks like a significant drop off there.

Sure, it's a fall from his peak, but these are very good productive time. Snider's peak did not last 15 years. I cannot imagine why we would think it would? We got maybe 5, 10 guys in all of baseball history who had that. But it's a very strong fall, far outperforming the league. If Belle had that at the end of his career, we'd have little discussion about him.

His highest war in your falloff is 3.5, which is better than 5 of Belle's "elite" 10 years. So If this is to Snider's detriment, then, exactly as I said using your cherrypicked stat instead of my cherrypicked stat, Belle's elite 10 just became elite 5.

[BobC]

You guys are doing an awful lot of debating and arguing for nothing. With 16 voters having 3 votes each, that comes to 48 total votes. And as someone already pointed out, with 12 votes needed for induction, the most number of players that could possibly be inducted from the 8 that are on the ballot are just 4 (48 / 12 = 4). And based on the probabilities and numbers, that isn't even remotely likely to happen. If I had to guess, I'd say they may be lucky to elect 1 new inductee, with the chance of a 2nd being elected being remote, at best. So a lot of this debating is going to end up being mute, with maybe no one getting in on this ballot.

Another issue/problem is we have no idea yet who the 16 committee members doing the voting will be, and thus no idea of their thoughts on alleged PED users, those who may have cheated in other ways, or how they view those who weren't always the nicest of humans.

And some of you mention how the committee put the 8 players they did on this Contemporary Era ballot, and thus it seems they have some obvious reasons/desires to want them on it and may therefore plan to vote for them. But remember, it is not the Committee doing the voting that picked and put these 8 players on this Contemporary Era ballot. To my knowledge no one has been selected for the 16-person voting committee yet, and I would assume (and hope) that no one involved in picking the 8 players on the ballot is included as part of that committee either.

[Mike D.]

Late to the party on Evans, but I'm fairly sure the Hall would put him in the pre-1980 grouping. Whitaker I think would have been on the Contemporary ballot if he'd been selected by the committee.