Tag: Baseball Hall of Fame

Ken Griffey Jr. is Still DRIPPING Swag in Custom Cufflinks, Socks, and Tie at Hall of Fame Weekend

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Ken Griffey Jr. is probably the favorite baseball player of anyone between the ages of 30-35 because he legitimately changed the game. He was the first guy that I remember having fun while simultaneously being the best player in the game. Guys like A-Rod and Jeter looked like anxiety attacks and business suits whereas Griffey just put his hat on backwards and hit moonshots with a smile on his face. Not to mention he was the namesake of one of the best video games of all time: Ken Griffey Jr Baseball.

I haven’t really heard much from Junior since his retirement in 2010. I know he works as a special consultant in the Mariners front office, but unless you’re doing TV like Pedro does in addition to his role with the Red Sox, then its a pretty behind the scenes gig. So for Griffey to step out at Hall of Fame weekend just DRIPPING in swag is awesome to see. All these years later and he’s still cooler than the other side of the pillow with custom branded cufflinks, socks, and tie.

The swingman tie may be the greatest fashion accessory I’ve ever seen. Incredible branding by Junior. Excuse me while I try and squeeze into my Griffey Mariners jersey from 1996.

Some Thoughts on the Baseball Hall Class of 2019

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The National Baseball Hall of Fame election results were announced last night and the Class of 2019 is now set. Here are my thoughts on the players who were elected, the players who weren’t, and the process in general:

    • Mariano Rivera getting elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility was no surprise, but Rivera becoming the first player ever to get elected unanimously to the Hall was a surprise to me. A pleasant surprise. I thought for sure some crusty old baseball writer would step in and stop it from happening. [More on the crusty old  baseball writers later.] Rivera’s Hall of Fame case was an open-and-shut case and it was great to see every voter get it right.
    • Edgar Martinez getting elected in his final appearance on the writers’ ballot was no surprise either. It took ten years on the ballot for him to get voted into the Hall of Fame, but his stock had been steadily rising over the last five years and he had momentum on his side. He wouldn’t have been on my ballot, but I’ve got no beef here. He was the greatest DH of all time when he retired.
    • Seeing Roy Halladay get elected was not a shock, but I didn’t expect to see him get 85.4% of the vote. I think the writers got this one right too, though. He was one of the best pitchers in the game for more than a decade, winning two Cy Young awards seven years apart (and one in each league).
    • Mike Mussina wouldn’t have appeared one my ballot. He was consistently good/very good for two decades, but never one of the handful of best pitchers in the game. It would seem that he got elected on his longevity and durability:

      With that information, I will withhold any further objections to his induction.

    • I was disappointed to see how far short Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds fell when the final voting results were released. For the record, I would vote for Clemens and Bonds. Watching the Baseball Hall of Fame Vote Tracker over the last few weeks, I was hopeful both would see jumps similar to what Edgar Martinez saw over the last few years.

      In the end, Clemens only jumped about 2% from last year, appearing on 59.5% of the ballots this year. Bonds only jumped about 3% this year, to 59.1%. It would appear that the crusty old baseball writers who prefer not to publicly release their ballots are to blame:

      Clemens and Bonds appear to be a package deal for most voters, one way or the other, and it’s getting harder to see them getting elected in the next three years. They don’t seem to have the same “momentum” Martinez had his last few years on the ballot.

    • While steroid accusations will probably keep Clemens and Bonds out of the Hall for good, politics and personality may just postpone Curt Schilling’s induction. I say that because his polling jumped about 10% this year to 60.9%. A force in October for 15 years, Schilling deserves a spot in Cooperstown. With comparable contemporary Mussina getting in this year, I think Schilling will eventually get in.
    • I don’t think Juan Pierre is a Hall of Famer, but I thought he deserved at least a few votes. He was one of 11 players on the ballot not to receive a single vote, and one of 16 players to receive less than 5% of the vote and fall off next year’s ballot. Pierre played in 162 games for five straight years in the mid-2000s and led his league in stolen bases three times (and caught stealing seven times).

Taking a Look at the 2019 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

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The National Baseball Hall of Fame released the 2019 Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot last month. While I don’t have a ballot to cast myself, I once again took a look at all of the names on the ballot to determine who I would vote for if I did have a ballot to cast. The 2019 ballot features 35 players, and voters are allowed to vote for up to 10 players.

After reviewing all 35 players on the ballot, I determined there would have been eight players on my ballot. They are:

Mariano Rivera
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Sammy Sosa
Manny Ramirez
Curt Schilling
Billy Wagner
Roy Halladay

  • Mariano Rivera, the greatest relief pitcher of all time, is a no-brainer. The all-time saves leader was consistently excellent for 19 seasons. A 13-time all-star, Rivera posted a career ERA of 2.21.
  • As I’ve said before, I wouldn’t have any qualms about voting for suspected PED users. Baseball was the wild west during the Steroids Era. I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure who used, who didn’t, and who just dabbled. Rather than get into that, I’d rather just vote for the best players. That’s why I would vote for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.Bonds won seven MVP awards, including FOUR in a row 2001-2004. Clemens won seven Cy Young Awards and won the award back-to-back on two occasions, a decade apart. They are undeniably the best hitter and pitcher of their generation.
  • Sammy Sosa was the 1998 NL MVP and is the only man in history with three 60+ home run seasons. Sosa played in the same era as Bonds so he is not the best player of his era, but few players were ever as dominant as Sosa was for six straight seasons, 1998-2003.
  • I’ve flipped on Manny Ramirez. I wrote last year that he never won an MVP award, regularly quit on his team and teammates, and actually flunked drug tests. But, if I am being consistent and just look at the numbers, he’s a Hall of Famer. 555 home runs. 1831 runs batted in.  A career .312 hitter with a .996 OPS. The guy made 11-straight all-star teams from 1998-2008.And while it is commonly accepted that he would quit on his team at times, he was never an impediment to winning. His teams won two World Series, four pennants, and Ramirez played in 111 playoff games from 1995-2009. He was the best right-handed hitter in the game in the early 2000s and one of the biggest and best free agent signings in the history of the game. For that reason, I’m in on Manny.

    kevin oleary GIF by Shark Tank

  • Curt Schilling was the best big-game pitcher in the game for more than a decade. He went 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA in 19 postseason appearances and won a ring in Arizona before winning two in Boston. You can’t tell the story of baseball in the 2000s without him. I wouldn’t retweet him, but I would check the box for him.
  • I’d still vote for Billy Wagner this year out of principle. Trevor Hoffman got in last year but I believe Wagner was the better reliever. The only number Hoffman has on Wagner is saves. Hoffman saved 601 games in 18 years and Wagner saved 422 in 16 years. But Wagner had a better win-loss percentage, a substantially lower ERA, he struck out more batters in almost 200 fewer innings, had a lower WHIP and a better strikeout-to-walk ratio.
  • Roy Halladay only won 203 games, but he was a beast for a solid decade. He won Cy Young Awards in 2003 and 2010, and made eight all-star teams during his 16-year career. He threw 67 complete games and 20 shutouts in a time when not many other guys regularly went the distance. On October 6, 2010, in his first postseason appearance, he threw just the second postseason no-hitter in baseball history. When the Doc was on, he was exceptional, and that’s why he’d get my vote.

Regarding some notable candidates who I wouldn’t have voted for…

Edgar Martinez was a very good player for a long period of time but was never the best player on his own team (Griffey, A-Rod, Ichiro). I do not care that he was primarily a DH. If you contribute more to your team as a DH than a first baseman or third baseman, then you should DH. But while Martinez was a professional hitter for a long period of time, he was never the most feared bat in the league (or lineup).

Mike Mussina was perennial 1A starter in the AL East for 18 years. Mussina pitched for some very good teams, but never won a ring and he was never the most feared pitcher in the game. Mussina only pitched one full season with a sub-3.00 ERA.

Andy Pettitte was a perennial #2 starter for very good teams. He logged more than a full season’s worth of playoff starts (44) and innings (276.2), and has five rings to show for it. Still, he was never one of the best pitchers in the game.

 

Hit me up with your thoughts on Twitter @The300sBigZ

Baines and Smith Get the Call to the Hall

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Congratulations to Harold Baines and Lee Smith. They just received their game’s highest honor after long and distinguished careers. The National Baseball Hall of Fame is one of the most exclusive clubs in sports. Receiving the call to the Hall yesterday must have been an honor and a thrill. But if we’re being honest, it was probably also a bit of a surprise.

In his 22 seasons in Major League Baseball from 1980 to 2001, Baines led his league in an offensive category once. In 1984, Baines led the American League with a .541 slugging percentage. That’s it. He was a six-time all-star, and won a Silver Slugger award in 1989, but he never placed higher than ninth in MVP voting. He received MVP votes for only four seasons, 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985. He never played in a World Series.

Baines certainly had an enviable career. He played in the big leagues for more than two decades and compiled some great numbers. He’s in the top 50 all time in hits (46th), total bases (43rd) and runs batted in (34th), though that’s due in large part to his longevity. He’s 20th in career games and 33rd in career at bats. Still a wildly successful career, but it’s hard to say that he was one of the all-time greats or even one of the best of his era.

That seems to be the opinion of the vast majority of the baseball writers, too. He appeared on the baseball writers’ ballot five times and never received more than 6.1% of the vote before falling off the ballot after 2011.

Lee Smith has a better Hall of Fame case. A seven-time all-star, Smith led his league in saves four times and retired as the all-time saves leader. He’s currently third on the all-time saves list behind Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera. Good company. Smith finished in the top five in Cy Young Award voting three times in the early ’90s, and posted a career ERA of 3.03 in 1022 career games, 12th most by a pitcher.

In his 18-year career, though, Smith pitched in just four playoff games. He suited up for eight teams in 18 seasons. That’s not unusual for a relief pitched, but you wouldn’t expect an all-time great to bounce around like that.

The Hall of Fame Eras Committees, formerly the Veterans Committee, should be tasked with electing to the Hall of Fame players who may have been unfairly overlooked in their time. They should not look to push in borderline candidates like Baines, Smith and Jack Morris and Alan Trammell last year, players who already had their fair shot on the writers’ ballot.

The election process isn’t perfect, but it does seem to get it right more often than not. More inductees like this from the Eras Committees will water down the baseball Hall of Fame and turn it into the basketball Hall of Fame. And if that happens, you better believe I’ll be pushing hard for Johnny Damon the next time the Today’s Game Committee meets.

 

Vladimir Guerrero Just Spit In Montreal’s Face

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This is just the latest turn of the knife in the gut of Montreal baseball fans over the past 15 or so years. Vlad Guerrero, the last star of the Expos, nay, the last PRIDE of the Expos, Montreal’s beloved baseball team of yore, has chosen to enter the Hall of Fame as a Goddam Anaheim Angel (Blogger’s Note: Not a huge baseball guy anymore, per say, so IDK what the Halos call themselves these days location-wise). First they lost their team, now one could argue they’ve lost (see: been abandoned by) their identity.

For context, I actually know a bit about the maple syrupy ecosystem that is Monteal baseball twitter. That’s no lie, it’s a rabbit hole I have been down. And friends, It’s basically revisionist history 101. You see, I don’t doubt that folks from Montreal love baseball, hell I don’t doubt they loved the Expos as an idea, a concept. With that said, loving something via admiration is not the capitalistic way you express your fandom. You do that by, you know, showing up to watch your team play every once in awhile. So allow me to remind you that Montreal’s (Olympic?) stadium was routinely as empty as the Chinamen’s cars in The Departed. I remember being downright horrified the few times the Sox went up there for inter-league play. I think I asked my Dad if they were playing at a forgotten stadium in Chernobyl or something. The hot dog vendors were probably volunteers – both in terms of their time and the hot dogs. It was ridiculous. With allll of that said Montreal baseball twitter is in LOVE with baseball and obsessed with two things:

1.) Obviously getting the Expos back so no one can show up again, the rest of the league can get pissed off again, and the team can get relocated again to somewhere like fucking Temecula or something.
2.) Vladimir Guerrero. The cannon-armed right fielder who didn’t need no batting gloves.

Indeed I respect the fuck out of number 2. Vlad had it all. A 5-tool guy with a personality to boot. Just always seemed to love playing the game and enjoying the moment. So this must just absolutely SUCK for our neighbors to the French Canadian north. Instead of representing his original team, the team where he made his bones and is still largely remembered as the team he played for the most,  Vlad will enter the Hall as a member of the team forever known as being at the center of the movie that would serve as JGL’s launch pad. Just a whole lot to cry aboot.

 

Taking a Look at the 2018 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

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While I don’t have a ballot to cast, for the second straight year I have taken a look at all of the players on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America Hall of Fame Ballot. I figured if I’m going to gripe about the Hall of Fame selection process I might as well fill out a mock ballot myself to get a better handle on the process.

It’s not rocket science but there are some tough decision to be made. Voters may vote for up to 10 of the 33 players on the ballot. I selected eight on my mock ballot. They are:

Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Vladimir Guerrero
Chipper Jones
Curt Schilling
Sammy Sosa
Jim Thome
Billy Wagner

Obviously I’m not opposed to voting for suspected steroids users. I voted for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens because, whether or not they used steroids, Bonds was indisputably the best hitter in the game for much of his career and Clemens was indisputably the best pitcher in the game for much of his career. The same cannot be said for Manny Ramirez.

Bonds won seven MVP awards, including FOUR in a row 2001-2004. Clemens won seven Cy Young Awards and won the award back-to-back on two occasions, a decade apart. Ramirez never won an MVP award and quit on his team more times than I care to remember. He was also popped for PEDs twice. While strong cases could be made against Bonds and Clemens, those guys never failed drug tests. Testing didn’t start until 2003, but I have a hard time giving guys grief for doing business as business was being done at the time.

Maybe numbers were inflated, and careers extended, but Bonds and Clemens were far and away better than the rest of their contemporaries. Again, the same cannot be said of Ramirez.

Regarding Sammy Sosa, he won the 1998 NL MVP award and is the only man in history with three 60+ home run seasons. Sosa played in the same era as Bonds so he is not the best player of his era, but few players ever were as dominant as Sosa was for six straight seasons, 1998-2003.

Vladimir Guerrero made nine all-star games in 12 seasons between 1999 and 2010. He was a great offensive player and had one hell of an arm in the outfield. He didn’t compile huge numbers over a lengthy career, but he was one of the best players of the 2000s and he gets my vote for that reason.

Jim Thome was never the best player at his position, never mind the best player in the game. But he did compile huge numbers over a lengthy career. Mammoth numbers. He’s not in the 500 Home Run Club. He’s in the 600 Home Run Club. He’s eighth on the all-time home run list with 612. He also drove in nearly 1700 runs. He never won an MVP award, but it’s hard to not vote for a guy with those numbers on his resume. Guy just went to work and mashed for 22 years.

Chipper Jones was consistently very good for more than 15 years and was a big part of Atlanta’s run of division titles. The 1995 NL MVP made eight all-star teams, and I was pleasantly surprised by his 468 home runs and 1623 RBI.

As I said last year, Curt Schilling gets my vote because he was the best big-game pitcher of his era. He was 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA in 19 postseason appearances and won a ring in Arizona before winning two with the Sox. Now a noted meme curator, it’s been sad to see him self destruct in recent years but he’s a Hall of Famer nonetheless.

And in a flip from last year, I voted for Billy Wagner this year instead of Trevor Hoffman. Hoffman appeared on 74% of ballots last year and Wagner only appeared on 10% of ballots but Wagner was the better relief pitcher. The only number Hoffman has on Wagner is saves. Hoffman saved 601 games in 18 years and Wagner saved 422 in 16 years. But Wagner had a better win-loss percentage, a substantially lower ERA, he struck out more batters in almost 200 fewer innings, had a lower WHIP and a better strikeout-to-walk ratio. I know that Hoffman is getting in and Wagner probably won’t sniff even 20% but I’m taking a principled stand here. Wagner was better than Hoffman.

Regarding some notable candidates left off my ballot…

Edgar Martinez was a very good player for a long period of time but he wasn’t even the best player on his own team for most of his career (Griffey, A-Rod, Ichiro). There’s just not enough offensive production on his resume to separate him from the rest of the pack for me. It has nothing to do with being a DH, though.

Mike Mussina pitched very well in an era of inflated offense but he was never the most feared pitcher in the game, and he never won a Cy Young award.

Gary Sheffield posted very good offensive numbers for a long period of time, but it’s hard to think he would’ve bounced around as much as he did if he were truly one of the all-time greats. (Editor’s note: Dougie did his capstone project in a college Baseball Stats class arguing Sheffield should make the HOF. The most comparable HOFer? Jim Rice)

Larry Walker posted very good offensive numbers, but a lot of that production came in Colorado in the late 1990s. To give you an idea of what was going on in that era, he hit .379 with 37 HRs and 115 RBI in 127 games in 1999 and finished 10th in the MVP voting that season. He was a very good player in his era, but not head and shoulders above everybody else.

 

That’s all I got. Hit me up with your thoughts on Twitter @The300sBigZ