Current HOF election results

[nat]

WAR is just a way to measure what a player did, in a way that helps you answer certain sorts of questions. It's a tool. Like any tool, it's useful for some things, and not for others.

For what it's worth, Rolen measures up very well by WAR. On the career list he's one spot above Ed Delahanty and exactly tied with Carlos Beltran. Which also feels about right to me.

The thing that bothers me about this years' voting is the Billy Wagner love. Yes, he struck out a lot of guys, but in his entire career he pitched only 903 innings. Of course, that's because he was a relief pitcher, but it's going to be very hard to be as valuable to your team as a HOF-level starting pitcher if you're only pitching 70 innings a year.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by nat

The thing that bothers me about this years' voting is the Billy Wagner love. Yes, he struck out a lot of guys, but in his entire career he pitched only 903 innings. Of course, that's because he was a relief pitcher, but it's going to be very hard to be as valuable to your team as a HOF-level starting pitcher if you're only pitching 70 innings a year.

He's the best closer not named Mariano Rivera. I don't like closers in the Hall but it's a real position (now) and Wagner was absolutely elite at it for 15 years.

[jayshum]

Since there is usually a drop off between the ballots made public before the official results are announced and the ones made public later or never made public, it looks like it will be very close for Rolen and Helton. My guess is that Helton doesn't make it this year, and Rolen will either get in or miss by a few votes.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by jayshum

Since there is usually a drop off between the ballots made public before the official results are announced and the ones made public later or never made public, it looks like it will be very close for Rolen and Helton. My guess is that Helton doesn't make it this year, and Rolen will either get in or miss by a few votes.

Rolen missed by 47 votes last year. While he is trending well with the few first-time voters, he has only picked up eight votes from people who didn't vote for him last year, with 35.8% of the votes accounted for right now. That pace is going to need to get a lot higher soon, otherwise we are looking at him missing by about 20-25 votes.

As I said, the first-time voters help, but they also add to the amount of votes he needs to get in, so their help is minimal. He needs more of the people who don't release their ballots online to switch to him. He only received 34% of the votes with the people who didn't release their ballots at all last year, and that group is about 20% of the voters. Public voters had him at 69%, though it also went down with the people who waited to release their ballots until after the results are announced.

[toppcat]

Originally Posted by Tabe

He's the best closer not named Mariano Rivera. I don't like closers in the Hall but it's a real position (now) and Wagner was absolutely elite at it for 15 years.

Except in the playoffs, which kills him for me. 10.03 ERA in the biggest games of his career and a WHIP close to 2. He melted down in practically every playoff series he was ever in.

[tod41]

Originally Posted by toppcat

Except in the playoffs, which kills him for me. 10.03 ERA in the biggest games of his career and a WHIP close to 2. He melted down in practically every playoff series he was ever in.

He is also melted down in big regular season games as well.

[Peter_Spaeth]

10.03 postseason ERA. Yeah yeah small sample size I can hear it now.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by tod41

He is also melted down in big regular season games as well.

Career 1.70 ERA in September & October.

[G1911]

If we pick out 11.2 inning sample sizes, I can make anyone look like an all-time great or a terrible player.

A reasonable argument against Billy Wagner is that he pitched barely 900 innings.

[abothebear]

The innings pitched is a big factor against modern relievers (and likely will be for starters going forward), but even bigger than that, in my view, is that closers can easily be replaced, and often are. Would anyone argue that a team’s top two or three starters wouldn’t succeed if the only had to pitch one inning and would likely only have to use their two best pitches? So each team has at least two guys that could do the job as good or better. The only reason they aren’t is because they are too good to be a closer, and their skills are needed in a more valuable spot. I don’t know how voters vote modern closers in as best in the game when they are likely not even the best on their own team. Furthermore, in recent years, the Wins star has lost some of its shine, with voters realizing that there is only so much a pitcher can do to get a win, that how a game ends is often outside of the starter’s control. Assigning the W is affected by circumstance and does not always reflect the pitcher’s performance (good or bad). The Save stat is just as circumstantial. Blown Saves makes more sense as a stat that measures performance, but what I am getting at is if you take the S numbers away, no one would give a second look to a pitcher that averaged less than 90 innings per year, no matter how great his other stats were. End rant.

[cgjackson222]

Some Billy Wagner Fun Facts (from the George Will Opening Day quiz from 2022):

1) Wagner has the lowest WHIP among pitchers with at least 900 innings in the live-ball era. (0.998 — fewer base runners than innings)

2) Wagner has allowed the fewest hits per nine innings since 1900 among pitchers with at least 900 innings. (5.99)

3) Wagner has the best strikeout rate per nine innings in MLB history among pitchers with 900 or more innings. (11.92)

4) Wagner is the only pitcher of the live-ball era, with a minimum of 750 innings pitched, against whom hitters batted below .200. (.187)

[tod41]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Career 1.70 ERA in September & October.

Check out what he did or didn't do in late August 2007 against the Phillies during the Mets awful collapse in 2007. The guy got the routine saves not the ones when the pressure was on. I remember him blowing a 4-0 lead against the Yankees at Shea.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by tod41

Check out what he did or didn't do in late August 2007 against the Phillies during the Mets awful collapse in 2007. The guy got the routine saves not the ones when the pressure was on. I remember him blowing a 4-0 lead against the Yankees at Shea.

So he blew ONE lead against the Yankees in May of 2006 and that means he can't get saves when the pressure is on. Never mind that his ERA against the Yankees was 0.82 outside of that one appearance. Also weird that you don't remember that he got saves in 1-run games against the Yankees the day before and after that blown one.

Yeah, he had a bad stretch at the end of August in 2007. That happens. When you cherry pick 3 or 4 games out of 850, you're going to find some bad ones. That's like saying Mariano Rivera sucked in the World Series because he blew Game 7 in 2001. Or trashing Rivera because he was horrible in 1995.

[lowpopper]

if Rolen gets in with his 2000 hits, it's time to stop paying attention

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by lowpopper

if Rolen gets in with his 2000 hits, it's time to stop paying attention

Don't forget about that stellar .281 batting average.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by lowpopper

if Rolen gets in with his 2000 hits, it's time to stop paying attention

Yeah, can't have him lowering the bar. If he gets in, before long guys with 1588 hits and zero power like Phil Rizzuto will get in. Oh wait...

[lowpopper]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Yeah, can't have him lowering the bar. If he gets in, before long guys with 1588 hits and zero power like Phil Rizzuto will get in. Oh wait...

Superior players have been denied prior to Rolen.

Rizzuto needs a damnatio memoriae from the hall, agreed

[tod41]

Originally Posted by Tabe

He's the best closer not named Mariano Rivera. I don't like closers in the Hall but it's a real position (now) and Wagner was absolutely elite at it for 15 years.

Guess you never watched Wagner in the postseason.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by tod41

Guess you never watched Wagner in the postseason.

Yep, his 11 whole innings of postseason play were pretty awful. Doesn't change his regular season dominance.

[tod41]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Yep, his 11 whole innings of postseason play were pretty awful. Doesn't change his regular season dominance.

His innings were so low because he was so awful in just about every playoff series he was in. He was the reason the Mets didn't win the World Series in 2006.

[G1911]

There are not very many 3B in the Hall. I looked at all the HOFers, and cut out those who played less than 50% of their career games at 3B (Molitor/Martinez), and those who played 3B but were elected as managers or Negro League players (McGraw/McKenchie/Wilson/Judy Johnson; their raw totals will skew things heavily because of the low game count. If counted, Rolen would get a lift).

That leaves only 13 on the list. Baker, Boggs, Brett, Collins, Jones, Kell, Lindstorm, Matthews, Robinson, Santo, Schmidt, Traynor, White.

Out of these 13, the average number of hits is 2,359. Rolen would rank 9th.

The average batting average is .297, partially weighted by the two guys who played when the league hit around .297. Rolen would rank 10th, ahead of Mike Schmidt, Eddie Matthews and Brooks Robinson, clearly poor hall of famers.

Rolen is not an exciting hall of fame candidate, his stats are largely buttressed by WAR's love of the modern game and that there are not many very good third basemen in baseballs history as compared to other positions. But even if these chosen stats were a magic barrier, Rolen is hardly a lowering of quality. Shall we kick out Schmidt for falling even below Rolen here? Schmidt is 8th in hits and tied for dead last in average.

Hall debates are really fun when the arguments made for and against a candidate are both reasonable arguments. That Rolen is some large lowering of the bar setting the hall into irrelevancy because of his hit count that is better than many HOFers and that Wagner should be kept out over an 11 inning sample size are not reasonable arguments.

I would not vote for Wagner. I would probably vote for Rolen, considering him lower tier but deserving.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by tod41

His innings were so low because he was so awful in just about every playoff series he was in. He was the reason the Mets didn't win the World Series in 2006.

Bold assertion since they didn't play in the Series and the Mets won 2 of the 3 games he pitched in the NLCS. I'm thinking scoring 1 run against the illustrious crew of Jeff Suppan and Randy Flores in game 7 had a little more to do with it. Or Paul La Duca hitting .207 with 1 extra base hit in the series. Or David Wright hitting .160.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by Tabe

He's the best closer not named Mariano Rivera. I don't like closers in the Hall but it's a real position (now) and Wagner was absolutely elite at it for 15 years.

+1

- of course, I have a definite bias toward lefties, plus he finished with the Braves!



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