HOF Vote 2023

[Brewcrew82]

This is one of the most interesting ballots in recent years imo. No first-ballot locks and all the steroid guys have been cleared off the ballot, except for Manny and A-Rod. Then, you have guys like Rolen, Helton, Wagner, and Jones, who have gained votes in recent years and seem to be making headway towards eventual induction. 

Unfortunately, a shut-out still seems to be the most likely scenario, though if anyone's going to get inducted, it looks like it would be Helton and/or Rolen. Both would be very deserving in my view. 

 

[Devinep]

I’d give votes to the top 5 on that list in the tweet, except for Sheffield 

[clancyphile]

Of those on the list, Sheffield and Kent warrant in. The former for reaching 500 HR, the latter as perhaps one of the best 2B of all time. None of the others really come close.

[nate82]

I think Wagner is deserving to be in the HOF.  If you look over his 16-year career it is very much an elite level for a relief pitcher. 

If Wagner is not a HOF player then really anyone besides Rivera and Hoffman in the last few years are the only relief pitchers who are HOF players then.

[owbc]

Rolen, Sheffield, and Abreu are easy locks based on their offensive production. Helton is maybe slightly below them (park adjusted) but had one of the greatest 5-year runs of all time. 

Kent was one of the best 2B of all time, but Andruw Jones was one of the best CF of all time. If you vote for one you have to vote for the other. 

I'm on the fence about Wagner but I don't think he should get knocked out for his bad postseason numbers. 

Pettite and Buehrle were two of the best starters of the steroid era. Again I think you have to do both or neither. 

The voters have spoken on the other guys with PED/character issues so I've decided to go along with that. 

That leaves me with one vote which goes to Carlos Beltran, who is another borderline guy who we will likely be discussing every year for a while. 

Ballot: Rolen, Sheffield, Abreu, Jones, Helton, Kent, Wagner, Pettite, Buehrle, Beltran

 

 

 

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, nate82 said:

I think Wagner is deserving to be in the HOF.  If you look over his 16-year career it is very much an elite level for a relief pitcher. 

If Wagner is not a HOF player then really anyone besides Rivera and Hoffman in the last few years are the only relief pitchers who are HOF players then.

1089 IP | 71 ERA- | 73 FIP- | 28.6 rWAR | 25.9 fWAR | +32.78 WPA for Hoffman.

903 IP | 54 ERA- | 63 FIP- | 30.1 rWAR | 24.0 fWAR | +28.40 WPA for Wagner.

Obviously Hoffman has the saves and about three extra full seasons of work, but Wagner was far more dominant from both a run prevention and peripheral standpoint so their WAR/WPA end up in the same range despite Hoffman’s advantage in volume.

[CheeseheadInQC]

40 minutes ago, owbc said:

Rolen, Sheffield, and Abreu are easy locks based on their offensive production. Helton is maybe slightly below them (park adjusted) but had one of the greatest 5-year runs of all time. 

Kent was one of the best 2B of all time, but Andruw Jones was one of the best CF of all time. If you vote for one you have to vote for the other. 

I'm on the fence about Wagner but I don't think he should get knocked out for his bad postseason numbers. 

Pettite and Buehrle were two of the best starters of the steroid era. Again I think you have to do both or neither. 

The voters have spoken on the other guys with PED/character issues so I've decided to go along with that. 

That leaves me with one vote which goes to Carlos Beltran, who is another borderline guy who we will likely be discussing every year for a while. 

Ballot: Rolen, Sheffield, Abreu, Jones, Helton, Kent, Wagner, Pettite, Buehrle, Beltran

 

 

 

I don’t mean to pick on you because tons of people do it, but why does Pettitte always get left off the “steroid guy” lists?

[owbc]

3 minutes ago, CheeseheadInQC said:

I don’t mean to pick on you because tons of people do it, but why does Pettitte always get left off the “steroid guy” lists?

Honestly I completely forgot he was on that list. 

[sveumrules]

26 minutes ago, owbc said:

Ballot: Rolen, Sheffield, Abreu, Jones, Helton, Kent, Wagner, Pettite, Buehrle, Beltran

Good ballot. I pretty much disregard the PED stuff since Selig presided over the whole thing, managers like TLR/Torre played dumb, and who knows how many users are already in, so I’d have Manny/ARod in place of Abreu/Kent.

Think my new favorite dark horse candidate has to be Buehrle though.

From 2001-15 (Buehrle’s entire career as a starting pitcher) he is second in rWAR behind only Roy Halladay.

During that decade and a half his 490 GS & 3232 IP were first by a significant margin over Sabathia in second at 452 GS & 2988 IP.

Throw in the perfect game, a World Series ring, the gold gloves and he’s got the “Fame” element too.

[Brewcrew82]

14 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Good ballot. I pretty much disregard the PED stuff since Selig presided over the whole thing, managers like TLR/Torre played dumb, and who knows how many users are already in, so I’d have Manny/ARod in place of Abreu/Kent.

Think my new favorite dark horse candidate has to be Buehrle though.

From 2001-15 (Buehrle’s entire career as a starting pitcher) he is second in rWAR behind only Roy Halladay.

During that decade and a half his 490 GS & 3232 IP were first by a significant margin over Sabathia in second at 452 GS & 2988 IP.

Throw in the perfect game, a World Series ring, the gold gloves and he’s got the “Fame” element too.

I'm on the fence with Buerhle. His WAR case is pretty solid and he piled up a lot of wins, but his ERA and peripherals are really low for a HOF pitcher. His ERA (not the best stat, I know) would be the second worst I believe behind Jack Morris. 

[sveumrules]

7 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

I'm on the fence with Buerhle. His WAR case is pretty solid and he piled up a lot of wins, but his ERA and peripherals are really low for a HOF pitcher. His ERA (not the best stat, I know) would be the second worst I believe behind Jack Morris. 

Buehrle (117 ERA+) blows out Morris (105 ERA+) once adjusted for era.

That ERA+ is on the low end for HOF but still in line with guys like Gaylord (117), Glavine (118) or Blyleven (118) who got in more on quantity than quality.

[Brewcrew82]

Just now, sveumrules said:

Buehrle (117 ERA+) blows out Morris (105 ERA+) once adjusted for era.

That ERA+ is still on the low end for HOF but still in line with guys like Gaylord (117), Glavine (118) or Blyleven (118) who got in more on quantity than quality.

Yeah. Buehrle is definitely more of a compiler along the lines of those guys. It's a truly interesting HOF case that may not be resolved for a while. I think the BBHOF is too exclusive as it is so I'll likely be rooting for him. 

[MrTPlush]

I am one to not overly care about PED stuff. However, I do care how good you were for your time.

Todd Helton and Scott Rolen are nit HOFers to me. Todd Helton’s incredible 5 year stretch managed a single Top 5 MVP finish. After that his only award was a 13th finish once. Scott Rolen was #4 in voting once and then has a bunch of fringe Top 25 finishes.

Mark Buehrle? A 5.0 K/9, 3.80 ERA, and one Top 5 finish (#5 at that) in his long career? If Tim Hudson barely survived a year on the ballot, Buerhle has zero shot of ever getting close.
 

Gary Sheffield is arguably one of the more deserving. I think he never gets credit because he played for a million teams and doesn’t have the legendary charm with one team. 9 AS teams, Three Top-3 MVP finishes, three more in the Top 10. That guy was arguably one of the best baseball players a good chunk of the years in his career.

There was so much longevity back then to allow good players to rack up 60 WAR. Gu

[MVP2110]

Scott Rolen is 10th all time in 3b WAR, he should be an absolute lock. 

I also agree Wagner should be in as well as Buehrle. 

I'd lean yes on Helton, Kent, and Sheffield as well

[owbc]

23 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

I am one to not overly care about PED stuff. However, I do care how good you were for your time.

Todd Helton and Scott Rolen are nit HOFers to me. Todd Helton’s incredible 5 year stretch managed a single Top 5 MVP finish. After that his only award was a 13th finish once. Scott Rolen was #4 in voting once and then has a bunch of fringe Top 25 finishes.

Mark Buehrle? A 5.0 K/9, 3.80 ERA, and one Top 5 finish (#5 at that) in his long career? If Tim Hudson barely survived a year on the ballot, Buerhle has zero shot of ever getting close.
 

Gary Sheffield is arguably one of the more deserving. I think he never gets credit because he played for a million teams and doesn’t have the legendary charm with one team. 9 AS teams, Three Top-3 MVP finishes, three more in the Top 10. That guy was arguably one of the best baseball players a good chunk of the years in his career.

There was so much longevity back then to allow good players to rack up 60 WAR. Gu

Oh man, Tim Hudson got robbed. At the very least he should have been given a longer run on the ballot. I'm not entirely sold on Buehrle either but I think he deserves to have a long ballot run at the very least. 

I'm of the same opinion as Brewcrew82 that the standards are a little too exclusive for my liking. I also like having a full ballot in order to give these borderline guys time to make their case. 

Weighing longevity vs. peak production is one of the tricky/fun parts about this. The intangibles also need to be considered with the borderline guys. Buehrle has a perfect game and a no-hitter as well as well as a pile of gold gloves. That matters. If MVP voting is important, then you can make a case for Rollins and Kent. Plus there's the position-relative aspect...four silver sluggers is pretty impressive for Kent.

If your criteria is asking which of these guys were truly feared in their prime, guys who were at the absolute top of the sport, that's Helton, Wagner, and Sheffield. So maybe the hive mind of the voters knows what they are doing after all. 

 

[sveumrules]

36 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

Mark Buehrle? A 5.0 K/9, 3.80 ERA, and one Top 5 finish (#5 at that) in his long career? If Tim Hudson barely survived a year on the ballot, Buerhle has zero shot of ever getting close.

I'd have no problem with Hudson being in either. Him an Buehrle are the only pitchers in MLB with 3,000+ IP from 1999-2015 so they get their own personalized FanGraphs leaderboard to click around on...

LINK

Even with a two season head start, Hudson (479 GS | 3,123 IP) still ended up pitching a lil less than Buehrle (493 GS | 3,283 IP), but Tim was better on a per inning basis with an 83 ERA- | 90 FIP- versus an 87 ERA- | 93 FIP- for Mark. 

Add it all up and rWAR favors Hudson (64.2 vs 59.9) while fWAR favors Buehrle (52.3 vs 49.0). 

The common denominator holding them back would seem to be they were lifelong peripherals beaters who didn't strike guys out (92 K%+ for Hudson, 78 K%+ for Buehrle) with Hudson getting most of his value from the unsexy combo of ground balls (131 GB%+) and homer avoidance (69 HR9+) while Buehrle never walked anybody (65 BB%+) and fielded his position like a wizard (+87 career DRS, Greinke is second all time at +55).

But yeah, I don't have high expectations. When a guy like Kevin Brown (3,256 IP | 78 ERA- | 78 FIP- | 72.9 rWAR | 76.5 fWAR) who suppressed home runs (58 HR9+) better than anyone in the post-integration era falls off the ballot on his first go round, the electorate clearly isn't paying close enough attention.

[Brewcrew82]

2 hours ago, sveumrules said:

I'd have no problem with Hudson being in either. Him an Buehrle are the only pitchers in MLB with 3,000+ IP from 1999-2015 so they get their own personalized FanGraphs leaderboard to click around on...

LINK

Even with a two season head start, Hudson (479 GS | 3,123 IP) still ended up pitching a lil less than Buehrle (493 GS | 3,283 IP), but Tim was better on a per inning basis with an 83 ERA- | 90 FIP- versus an 87 ERA- | 93 FIP- for Mark. 

Add it all up and rWAR favors Hudson (64.2 vs 59.9) while fWAR favors Buehrle (52.3 vs 49.0). 

The common denominator holding them back would seem to be they were lifelong peripherals beaters who didn't strike guys out (92 K%+ for Hudson, 78 K%+ for Buehrle) with Hudson getting most of his value from the unsexy combo of ground balls (131 GB%+) and homer avoidance (69 HR9+) while Buehrle never walked anybody (65 BB%+) and fielded his position like a wizard (+87 career DRS, Greinke is second all time at +55).

But yeah, I don't have high expectations. When a guy like Kevin Brown (3,256 IP | 78 ERA- | 78 FIP- | 72.9 rWAR | 76.5 fWAR) who suppressed home runs (58 HR9+) better than anyone in the post-integration era falls off the ballot on his first go round, the electorate clearly isn't paying close enough attention.

Kevin Brown’s problem when he fell off the ballot is that he didn’t win 300 games. Unfortunately, that was pretty much the universal measuring stick for starting pitchers until the last decade or so, unless you had overwhelming run-prevention and peripheral numbers like Sandy Koufax. If he came onto the ballot nowadays, I think he’s be pushing first ballot status.

[Brock Beauchamp]

5 hours ago, CheeseheadInQC said:

I don’t mean to pick on you because tons of people do it, but why does Pettitte always get left off the “steroid guy” lists?

Probably because he apologized and wasn’t a jerk (that I’m aware of anyway).

[StearnsFTW]

On 12/30/2022 at 8:39 AM, clancyphile said:

Of those on the list, Sheffield and Kent warrant in. The former for reaching 500 HR, the latter as perhaps one of the best 2B of all time. None of the others really come close.

Ridiculous post.

It continues to be a crime that Rolen isn't in.

[sveumrules]

On 12/30/2022 at 8:39 AM, clancyphile said:

Of those on the list, Sheffield and Kent warrant in. The former for reaching 500 HR, the latter as perhaps one of the best 2B of all time. None of the others really come close.

Kent’s 55.4 career WAR ranks 19th all time among 2B.

Rolen’s 71.0 career WAR ranks 10th all time among 3B.

If Kent is perhaps one of the best 2B of all time, Rolen is certainly among the best 3B of all time.

[CheeseheadInQC]

17 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Kevin Brown’s problem when he fell off the ballot is that he didn’t win 300 games. Unfortunately, that was pretty much the universal measuring stick for starting pitchers until the last decade or so, unless you had overwhelming run-prevention and peripheral numbers like Sandy Koufax. If he came onto the ballot nowadays, I think he’s be pushing first ballot status.

Brown had the double whammy of, if I remember correctly, being named in the Mitchell report and being primarily remembered for the massive contract (for the time) that didn’t work out rather than why he got the contract in the first place.

[sveumrules]

1 minute ago, CheeseheadInQC said:

Brown had the double whammy of, if I remember correctly, being named in the Mitchell report and being primarily remembered for the massive contract (for the time) that didn’t work out rather than why he got the contract in the first place.

Being a petulant jerk to the media his whole career was the cherry on top.

[CheeseheadInQC]

6 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Being a petulant jerk to the media his whole career was the cherry on top.

I came across a Joe Torre quote when looking up Brown basically saying both Brown and David Wells made you miserable being around them. The difference was, Wells did it on purpose.

[LouisEly]

I'd love to see someone reverse-engineer Helton's stats to simulate him playing for another NL team replacing his home stats with 1/15th weighting of his home stats and 14/15th weighting of his road stats and what that would mean in terms of WAR.  I get that OPS+ does that to a certain extent, but his home BABIP inflated his OBP and I'm not sure how much that factors into the OPS+ calculation and how that adjustment in career WAR would compare to other 1B of his era.

His career OPS+ is 133; the only two players with a career OPS+ of 133 who are not in the HOF are David Wright (not eligible until next year as he last played in 2018) and Danny Tartabull. 

[sveumrules]

 

Not a ton of examples on Helton’s level, but from the few there are I think OPS+ does a pretty good job with Coors…

Holiday COL 06-08: 2003 PA | 142 OPS+
Holiday STL 09-13: 3151 PA | 144 OPS+

Walker MON 92-94: 1617 PA | 137 OPS+
Walker COL 95-04: 4795 PA | 147 OPS+
Walker STL 04-05: 545 PA | 134 OPS+

Arenado COL 15-20: 3577 PA | 127 OPS+
Arenado STL 21-22: 1273 PA | 135 OPS+ 

Its harder to isolate out Walkers home/road OPS splits for Colorado, but Arenado (1.022 home / .829 road from 15-20) and Holiday (1.098 home / .855 road from 06-08) both had similar splits as Helton (1.048 home / .855 road).