Your 2009 Hall of Fame Ballot

[RyDogg66]

If you had one, who would be on it?

 

2009 candidates

• Harold Baines

• Jay Bell

• Bert Blyleven

• David Cone

• Andre Dawson

• Ron Gant

• Mark Grace

• Rickey Henderson

• Tommy John

• Don Mattingly

• Mark McGwire

• Jack Morris

• Dale Murphy

• Jesse Orosco

• Dave Parker

• Dan Plesac

• Tim Raines

• Jim Rice

• Lee Smith

• Alan Trammell

• Greg Vaughn

• Mo Vaughn

• Matt Williams

 

I am going to go with Jim Rice, Bert Blyleven, Ricky Henderson and upon further review Tim Raines.

[sveumrules]

i'd go with blyleven, rice, henderson and ROCK RAINES.

 

the "best" brewer of all time has a 342/430 career line. granted that is brought down by the teen/early twenties years spent in the bigs, but those hits all counted so the penalty on the rate stats comes along with the increase in counting stats.

 

raines has a 385/425 career line. but i guess that doesn't really hold a candle to that 401/419 that henderson put up. wow, 10 whole ops points. not to mention a better stolen base % than henderson too.

 

(cleaned up grammar)

[Fatter than Joey]

Rickey Henderson for me -- and that's probably about it.

[splitterpfj]

Links to Hall of Fame Trials for several of these players can be found here:

 

http://www.brewerfan.net/...wArticle.do?articleId=284

 

Rice and Dawson will be coming in the next few weeks, if you've got a request for another player, feel free to ask.

[Fatter than Joey]

I request a HOF trial for Ned Yost... as a player -- not as a manager...I request a criminal trial for Yost as a manager.

[Invader3K]

For me, I think I'd go: Jim Rice, Bert Blyleven (come on, let him in already), Ricky Henderson, and...Dave Parker.

 

No Greg Vaughn love around here, eh?

[splitterpfj]

Henderson, Blyleven, Dawson and Raines.

[nate82]

I would go with: Bert Blyleven, Rickey Henderson, and Ron Gant. OK maybe not Ron Gant but wow I remember back in the late 80's and early 90's when the Braves were making their run Gant was talked about as being a sure bet Hall of Famer. Then he injured himself in the offseason and was never the same after that.

[brewerguy71]

I would go with Blyleven, Henderson, Murphy and Rice. I would also add Lee Smith but make him wait a few years like Sutter and Gossage did, he was just as good as those two guys were, and then the guys who as time goes on should get more and more consideration and eventually get in: Dawson, Morris, Parker, and McGwire would be in there too if not for the steroids issue.

[StearnsFTW]

Just Henderson for me.

 

Raines was a really good player but he was not the game-changer Rickey was.

[joepepsi]

Blyleven, Henderson, and Raines. It's about more than counting stats and how long you played. Raines was a dynamite player from 1981 when he burst onto the scene at 21, until 1993 when he put up a Pedroia/MVP type season of .306/.401/.480. That's 12 years in a row of peak performance, with 7 straight All Star appearances during that run. Admittedly he lost his speed sometime after that and wasn't an everyday player, but he could still hit and get on base.

 

He was a dominant player for 12 years. According to baseball-reference.com he's 53rd all time in Runs Created. The voters need to get better at analyzing peak performers who don't have the counting stats.

[sbrylski]

Blyleven, Hederson, Raines

[dlk9s]

Raines is significantly hurt in the eyes of voters because he played in the shadow of Rickey Henderson. He's more than an worthy HOF'er.

[davego]

Bert (I'm trying not to hold his booth work against him) Rickie, The Rock, Tommy John and maybe Morris.

[bjkrautk]

I'd be curious on a HoF trial for David Cone; 1 Cy Young + 5 WS rings, 22nd All-time in Strikeouts (although not a full-time starter until about age 25). On the other hand, he only won 20 games once in his career (amazingly, not the same year he won the Cy Young), and it's difficult to say he was the best starting pitcher on most of those Yankees teams.

 

Henderson's a no-brainer.

[splitterpfj]

Vote at ESPN

[Cracked Bat Collector]

Put in Rickey and Blyleven and Big Mac.

[brwrsfan]

How about Jim Rice? It's his last year on the ballot and he's been gaining steam. He was at like 72% last year, 16 votes shy. I bet he finally gets in

as there really aren't many very good candidates and it's his last shot. I think he deserves it personally.

[Minigoon]

Rickey Henderson, Bert Blyleven, Tim Raines, and Alan Trammell.

[dvoiss]

Henderson, Rice, Morris

[pitchleague]

I'm too generous this year: (please note: I didn't look a single stat up. Just going on memory.)

 

Rickey Henderson definitely belongs in. Career SB, runs, walks (I think, or did Bonds pass him?). Was one of the most feared players (not necessarily "hitter") in the game in the 1980s and early 1990s.

 

Bert Blyleven should have been in a few years ago. Sure, he doesn't have 300 wins but not many people realize that he was a strikeout pitcher (I think he is still all-time top 10) and he had a devastating curveball that players in the 1970s just despised.

 

Andre Dawson is a marginal pick by me, but I'd let him in. His career numbers are pretty good and, likely, would have been so much better had he not had knee problems playing on the concrete, er, turf in Montreal for 10+ years.

 

Tommy John was not an outstanding player by any means but he wasn't garbage either. He should be elected just because he took a chance on an unknown surgical procedure, risking everything, and managed to pitch something like 10+ years afterward, setting the stage for pretty much all other pitchers in baseball since.

 

Mark McGwire may have done steroids and he may not have. But he did use andro, even though it wasn't illegal at the time and many people take him down a notch for that. I saw the kid play his rookie year and he was the real deal. Completely clean, I believe he still would have had over 500 homers. He didn't want to talk about the past at the Senate hearing and the writers are burning him for it.

 

Jack Morris was the dominant right handed pitcher in the American League in the 1980s. Enough said. But then he continued to play well into the early 1990s also. He was one of the most feared hurlers of all AL hitters. Hall of Fame is supposed to equal best player during the time period of your career. Jack was that. And that 1991 World Series game 7 was phenominal (even if it did break my heart since I wanted Atlanta to win.)

 

Jim Rice was to pitchers what Morris was to hitters in the late 1970s-mid 1980s--a hitter so feared due to his prodigious power. Sure, the guy didn't hit 500 bombs, but he struck fear into the hearts of opponents all over the AL. And those eyes could seriously burn a hole right through you.

 

My wild card would be Lee Smith, but he is a "victim" of longevity, which resulted in such a successful closing career. I doubt that he ever gets in, but I'd at least throw a vote his way.

[RyDogg66]

Vote at ESPN

Heh. Nice to see that after 15K votes that not a single player has the requisite 75% to get in in that poll.

[sausage racer]

Rickey Henderson is a shoo-in, most dominant lead off man of all time and a game changer. Anyone whos good enough to refer to themselves in 3rd person all the time has to be in the Hall.

Bert Blyleven is being robbed more than anyone in the history of the voting. Hes the poster child for star trapped on a crappy team and being hurt by it in the ballot. He was one of the most dominant strikeout guys of his or any era and had a ton of wins for his crappy teams.

I think Rice will get in this year out of pity from the voters but if he gets in they better be prepared to let Dawson and Morris in next year cause they are at least as deserving as Rice.

Tim Rock Raines is a tough one though. Without Rickey over shadowing him he would have been the premier leadoff man of his day. BUt heres another guy who plays on a crappy team, and still dominates, being over looked.

If Raines and Blyleven would have been Red Sox or Yankees in their prime they would be locks.

McGwire deserves it as much as that pains me to say. and I still remember Donny Baseball in my youth, he was the man for about a decade, to bad his career was so short.

[TSack27]

Henderson, Rice, Dawson, Raines & Blyleven

[colbyjack]

Rickey Henderson and Bert Blyleven are no-brainers for me.

 

Lee Smith would also get my vote. He started his career taking the torch from Bruce Sutter as an old-school closer, tossing more than 100 innings a year, and converted into the new style of closers, at one point becoming the all-time saves leader. He's still 4th on that list, but this guy was a very good closer for a very long time.

 

Jack Morris, Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines and Allan Trammell are all on my Hall of the very good, but not great list. I think all of them are hurt by the fact that they did not achieve major statistical milestones. I think Rice might make it considering how close he was last year.