Tag: 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).

Hot Takes on the 2019 Pro Football Hall of Fame Finalists

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On Thursday night, the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Board of Selectors announced the list of the 15 modern-era finalists who are eligible for induction into the H.O.F. in 2019 – and HO-LEE HELL, it is absolutely freakin’ LOADED.

No, seriously, I have no idea how in the world they are only going to be able to select five guys from the list. (While no less than seven people have been inducted into the Hall each year since 2010, only five “modern-era” finalists can be selected for enshrinement each year. It should also be noted that while some of those announced last night are on the ballot for the first time, not all of them are; rather, this year’s finalists were chosen from an overall pool of 102 other eligible “modern-era” players.)

And the best part is that I actually remember watching pretty much all of these guys! For the past few years, I’ve found myself caring more and more about the Hall – and the dog and pony show that comes along with it – than I ever did as a kid. With former players like Marvin Harrison, Terrell Davis, Jason Taylor, Kurt Warner, Terrell Owens, LaDainian Tomlinson, Brian Dawkins, Brian Urlacher, and Randy Moss all getting in within the past three classes, I have never been more attuned to the yearly announcement than I am nowadays.

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Last year’s class was a solid group.

But this list??!! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first saw it, and I have been agonizing all morning over which five of them I’d choose to make it in (ya know, if my opinion actually mattered at all in the grand scheme of things).

OK, OK, Mattes. We get it. So who’s on the list?

Here’s a full list of the 15 modern-era legends being talked about for next year’s class:

  • Steve Atwater
  • Champ Bailey
  • Tony Boselli
  • Isaac Bruce
  • Don Coryell
  • Alan Faneca
  • Tom Flores
  • Tony Gonzalez
  • Steve Hutchinson
  • Edgerrin James
  • Ty Law
  • John Lynch
  • Kevin Mawae
  • Ed Reed
  • Richard Seymour

That rundown reads like an early-2000s Madden dream team. And it even includes two former Patriots!

Save for Law, Seymour, Flores, and Reed, the group is actually pretty light in terms of Super Bowl hardware, but the amount of collective Pro Bowl appearances and All-Pro selections is ridiculous.

But alas, only five can be selected, so here are my picks for the 2019 Pro Football Hall of Fame Class:

(Tony Gonzalez)

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Tony G. was the easiest pick on the list for me. Some might be very quick to mention that it took him 16 years to finally get a playoff win, especially considering the fact he played on some pretty good teams in Kansas City and Atlanta throughout his career. OK. Fine. But there’s no doubting the fact that he is the most consistent and dependable tight end to ever play the game. In fact, he’s one of the most consistent and dependable pass-catchers to ever play the game, finishing second all-time in career receptions with 1,325! Only Jerry Rice has caught more balls in the history of the game, and the only other tight end who is even remotely close to Gonzalez’s total is Jason Witten – and he’s still almost 200 catches behind. Gonzalez is also eighth all-time with 111 receiving touchdowns. This is a guy who should get in purely on his numbers alone.

(Ed Reed)

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Throughout the first decade of the new millenium, there may have been no more dominant safety in the NFL than Ed Reed. (Although Troy Polamalu and Brian Dawkins, another Hall-of-Famer, might’ve given him a run for his money.) No, Reed wasn’t the biggest guy, or the hardest hitter. But his all-around ability gave opposing offensive coordinators fits, as there was very little you could do to fool him. He was always in the right spot at the right time, making tackles all over the field and ultimately finishing seventh on the all-time interceptions list with 64. Even Bill Belichick, who almost never gives praise to pretty much anyone, said this to Ed Reed back in 2009: “You’re the best free safety that has ever played this game that I’ve seen. You’re awesome.” Reed also helped the Ravens win a Super Bowl in 2013.

(Champ Bailey)

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Another guy who I’m selecting based more upon numbers as opposed to wins, Bailey defined the term “lockdown cornerback.” His 52 career interceptions are even more impressive when you consider the fact that most opposing quarterbacks usually did anything they could to avoid throwing the ball anywhere near him on the field. He was an All-Pro selection seven times in his career, including three in which he was on the First Team, and very few players in history have ever been able to completely nullify a team’s No. 1 receiver on such a consistent and prolonged basis. Bailey played in his first Super Bowl as a 35-year-old, injury-riddled backup in 2014, but his Broncos were annihilated by the Seahawks, 41-8. Still, this guy is one of the greatest cover men to ever play the game.

Here’s where it gets super tough, but I only have two more slots to fill. So, without further ado:

(Alan Faneca) 

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This one might not be the sexiest of picks, but I gotta show some love to the big fella. Faneca was a reliable and consistent force on the Steelers’ offensive line for 10 seasons and missed a total of only two games over that time. He not only helped Jerome Bettis stay relevant toward the end of his career, but he was also one of the people helping to protect a young Big Ben, with whom he won a Super Bowl in 2006. He was also a First-Team All-Pro six times (again, not just “All-Pro,” but “First-Team All-Pro”). (Side note: I always made sure to select Faneca as my top O-lineman in my Madden fantasy drafts. I’ve been a big fan of this dude for years.)

(Tom Flores)

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OK, so I wasn’t even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes during Flores’s time, but after reading a pretty awesome ESPN.com article on him today, I can’t ignore what I now know. Flores is eligible to be inducted into the Hall as a coach, even though he did spend some time as a player. And he was not just any player; he was the first professional Latino quarterback in history and finished as the fifth-leading passer in AFL history. (Again, this was before the NFL as we know it today was a thing.) He’s also won four combined Super Bowls in his career: one as a player, one as an assistant coach, and two as head coach of the Raiders in the 1980s. Again, I’m no expert on the guy, but after learning as much as I did about him recently, he’s a shoe-in.

We won’t know who ultimately makes it in until early February, but it’s always fun to speculate. (And I’m sorry to my guys Ty Law and Richard Seymour! But as the faithful 300s readers know, I’m no Patriots toadie! They’ll always be my No. 1 squad till I die, but I also keep it real, baby!)

We’d also love to know who you think should make it in and why. Be sure to let us know in the comments section or on Facebook!

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.

 

Terrell Owens Says He Can Play in the CFL. I Say He’s Not Crazy.

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Fresh off a night on which he was FINALLY inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, Terrell Owens was out to prove that he can still play.

Much of the talk surrounding T.O. in recent weeks has focused on his decision to skip out on attending the actual H.O.F. induction ceremony in Canton due to what he believes to be a “flawed system.” (Seriously, it took THREE tries for the committee to vote him in??!! That’s absolutely shameful, and I don’t necessarily blame the guy for feeling the way he does.)

But regardless of whether or not you agree with his decision, there should be no questions about his resolve.

ESPN reported early this morning that T.O. worked out for the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders on Sunday in Tennessee. And while some may initially laugh at the 44-year-old’s seemingly foolish hubris – after all, he hasn’t played a full season of football since 2010 – the guy is still in phenomenal shape and has been seriously talking about a comeback for quite some time now.

Just check out these tweets, which he posted back in May:

The man is a freakin’ Adonis, and apparently still has the jets, too:

Here it is right here!! Just ran a 4.44 and 4.43 @theherd @undisputedonfs1 @shannonsharpe84 @ucla Ask the fellas how I’m picking em up & puttin em down! 🏃🏾‍♂️💨@juliojones_11 @hawk_inc @larrylegend85

A post shared by Terrell Owens (@terrellowens) on (By the way, the person recording that video was Julio Jones, as the two have been working out together quite a bit this offseason. And I don’t know about you, but if one of the NFL’s current premier studs thinks T.O. can still get it done, I’ll buy in, too.)

As much of a meathead as he could be at times, Owens is an absolute NFL legend and one of the very best receivers to ever play the game:

  • 1,078 career receptions (8th all-time)
  • 153 career receiving touchdowns (3rd all-time)
  • 15,934 career receiving yards (2nd all-time)

Though Larry Fitzgerald is likely to surpass Owens on the all-time receiving yardage list this season (he’s only 389 yards away at the moment), those are some pretty astounding numbers that most guys at his position will never even come close to sniffing in their lifetime. And, while it was indeed eight years ago, T.O. finished his last season in Cincinnati with nine touchdowns and fell just 17 yards shy of compiling his 10th 1,000-plus-yard season.

(I realize he attempted to come back in 2012 with the Seahawks, and let’s just say it didn’t go so well. However, as he only played in a few preseason games that summer and was cut before the start of the regular season, I’m going to go off of what he did when it last mattered.)

Above all, if anyone has the stones to actually come back in his mid-40s after a six-year absence from professional football, it would be Terrell Owens. This is someone who, for better or worse, has never once given a flying shit what ANYONE thought about him or the things he does. And as much as he may have rubbed people the wrong way over his very enigmatic 15-year NFL career, the guy’s got the heart of lion, and I truly believe he is committed to the cause.

Will anything actually come out of this, or is this simply a PR stunt? Only time will tell.

Does The 300s have a great track record so far with predicting success in the Canadian Football League? Not so much. (Sorry to both Red and Johnny Manziel for that one. But hey, it was only one game, right??!!)

All I know is that I am rooting like hell for Owens, and here’s to hoping the Roughriders decide to take a chance on a living legend.

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

Close But No Cigar For El Tiante

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Lost in between the news of Giancarlo Stanton’s trade to New York and the Patriots tough defeat in Miami over the last few days was the fact that Luis Tiant was up for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame again. Unfortunately for Tiant and his fans, his Hall of Fame candidacy came up short once again. Looking at his numbers, though, that’s the right call.

Tiant played for 19 seasons, but only received Cy Young Award votes on three occasions and never took the award home. He didn’t receive any Cy Young Award votes after arguably his best season, 1968, but that had more to do Denny McLain going 31-6 and pitching 28 complete games. Tough luck for Tiant I suppose, but he had some pretty lean years too. He went 9-20 a year later in 1969 and got off to a rocky start in Boston in 1971.

Looking at all of his seasons on Baseball-Reference.com, Tiant had some great years and some not so great years but was generally a pretty good pitcher for 17 years. He was a big part of a very fun time in Red Sox history and is rightfully a member of the Red Sox Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, that doesn’t get you into Cooperstown. You can be brilliant over a shorter career – Sandy Koufax, Pedro – or you can compile stats over a longer career – Nolan Ryan, Tom Glavine – but Tiant gets caught in between in no man’s land.

The fact that baseball fans and writers have been debating Tiant’s Hall of Fame resume for literally 30 years is a great example of how broken the voting system is.  At least it appears to have gotten this one right.

Check back later this month for my mock Hall of Fame ballot.  You can see who I would’ve voted for last year here.

Its Official, David Price has Poisoned the Well for the Red Sox

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So in whats become one of the most lengthy Red Sox dramas that I can remember in a long time, David Price and the boys are morphing into a group of unlikeable assholes right before our eyes. It started of course with Shaugnessy’s story detailing how Price was berating Hall of Famer and NESN analyst Dennis Eckersley on the team plane in front of everyone, supposedly because of Eck’s “Yuck” comment about a recent E-Rod rehab start. Not because Eck was criticizing Price, not because Price also recently flipped the fuck out on Evan Drellich (also in front of a crowd of reporters), but because he’s a good teammate. If you think thats a pretty convenient excuse for Price to rip into a member of the media merely to defend a teammate, then you’re right – its bullshit.

Price is actually pitching well, but he seems to be falling apart mentally, lashing out at anyone and everyone for various reasons.

While you’re still an asshole for the way you went about it, you can rip into Evan Drellich and no one will care. But when you start talking shit to a national treasure like Eck and do it on the plane surrounded by your teammates like a schoolyard bully? Then thats where the problem starts. If there’s one thing fans in Boston do not like its entitlement. Now obviously thats a sliding scale with all professional athletes because they’re all entitled to some degree, but when the $30M per year pitcher starts grandstanding and bitching about every little slight because he can’t handle his Twitter notifications, then its a BIG problem.

To make matters worse, rather than suspend, fine or ya know TALK to Price about the incident and ask him “uhh you good big guy?” Instead of doing any of those things, the Red Sox ignored the problem and literally changed the plane boarding procedure. Rather than address the issue, lets just bury our heads in the sand and separate the kids like its recess.

Now we hear that other Red Sox players and even Pedroia (Bradfo disagrees) were cheering Price on while he was berating Eck? Like a bunch of assholes. Thats a goddamn shame. Talk about poisoning the fucking well.

If this galvanizes the team and they f-bomb everyone around them all the way to a World Series title then thats one thing. That’ll be their thing. 2013 was Boston Strong, 2004 was the Idiots, 2017 can be the miserable assholes who rail against the world. But if they don’t? If they stumble down the stretch and get bounced in the first round or somehow miss the playoffs? I wouldn’t put it past John Henry to say FUCK THIS and send a drastically different looking team to Fort Myers in 2018.

Now after weeks of this incident lingering, sports radio eviscerating the players, and just general fan backlash, the Red Sox return home from a long west coast road trip and send none other than David Price to the mound Friday night. This guy better take the hill and strike out the side right out of the gate because if he doesn’t he very well may get his balls booed off. There’s a lot of pressure on Price tonight, about as much as there can be for a game in the dead of July, but holy shit, if this guy comes out and takes a beating tonight? Forget it, the Fenway faithful might literally break this guy’s psyche. And I for one am excited as all hell to see this unfold.

Want to vocalize your distaste for all this bullshit going on with the Red Sox? Maybe get in David Price’s brain from the stands to rattle his cage a little bit? Buy a Yuck shirt.