Place your votes for the 2008 Hall of Fame Class

[splitterpfj]

vote here

 

The holdover most likely to make it this time....Rich Gossage.

 

The "new guy" with the best shot....Tim Raines.

[bullox]

vote here

 

The holdover most likely to make it this time....Rich Gossage.

 

The "new guy" with the best shot....Tim Raines.

In other words...a blase class.

 

[RU Rah Rah]

vote here

 

The holdover most likely to make it this time....Rich Gossage.

 

The "new guy" with the best shot....Tim Raines.

In other words...a blase class.

 

How can you say that, with Rob Nen and Jose Rijo on the ballot?

 

[DrWood]

I voted for blyleven, rice, gossage, dawson, smith, and Mcguire. maybe should have voted for raines, I didn't look up his numbers.

[GAME05]

Tim Raines and Lee Smith are the closest for me, but nobody in this class would get my vote for HOF.

[Manty1]

Interesting over 125,000 votes and not a single player over 75%.

 

Has there ever been a year when no one was voted into the HOF??

[AdvantageSchneider]

Raines and Blyleven are no brainers IMO. Raines is 5th all time in SB and his OPS is within 10 points or Ricky Henderson's. People just don't value leadoff men like they should.

[splitterpfj]

The writers elected no one in 1996, but the Veterans Committee elected two players and two managers.

[Fatter than Joey]

nobody in this class would get my vote for HOF.

 

Agreed -- and I think this is what will happen.

[iluvlamp]

I think Gossage and Blyleven should be locks. But that won't happen.

[ILuvDaBush]

I concur that Gossage and Blyleven are the two best bets for this year. I'm on the fence about Raines, and I think Andre Dawson has no place in Cooperstown.

[sveumrules]

the goose and bert bly should already be in, rock raines is criminally underrated.

[Brian the Automator]

I'd vote only Gossage.

[splitterpfj]

Blyleven, Gossage and Raines, from their Hall of Fame Trials...

 

I compared Bert to a group of ten Hall of Fame starting pitchers, all of whom were active during his career. The group consists of Bob Gibson, Gaylord Perry, Catfish Hunter, Phil Niekro, Steve Carlton, Fergie Jenkins, Jim Palmer, Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan and Don Sutton. As with the other players I've examined, I wanted to see how Blyleven compared to his peers who are in the Hall on a per season basis.

W=wins, L=losses, CG= complete games, SHO=shutouts, HR= Home Runs Allowed, BB=Walks Allowed, K=strikeouts, ERA=Earned Run Average, S= seasons, 34 starts or 68 relief appearances=1 season

S	W	L	CG	SHO	HR	BB	K	ERA
19.4	15.2	11.8	12.2	2.7	20.2	80.3	161.8	3.13	Group
20.2	14.2	12.3	11.9	2.9	21.2	65.4	183.2	3.31	Blyleven

Gossage will always be compared to Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers, and fellow Hall candidate Bruce Sutter. No doubt, these three were the class of their era, here's a statistical comparison, also including Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm. These numbers are averages per season

S	W	L	SV	GF	IP	BF	K	ERA	WHIP
15.7	8	7	20	44	118.3	491	98	3.01	1.23	Gossage
9.72	6	7	30	52	107	437	88	2.83	1.14	Sutter
14.4	7	8	23	49	117.7	481	90	2.90	1.15	Fingers
16.5	8	7	13	39	136.3	555	97	2.52	1.12	Wilhelm

S= Seasons, GF= Games Finished, BF= Batters Faced, WHIP= Walks + Hits per Inning Pitched 1 Season = 34 Starts or 68 total games

Take a look at how close Raines is across the board from runs scored through steals per season. In those seven categories, Rock's averages are basically dead on. From there, Raines has a definite edge in both batting average and OPS (on base plus slugging percentage). I compared Raines' seasonal averages to a group comprised of Henderson, Brock, Joe Morgan, Paul Molitor and Ozzie Smith. I decided to waive Henderson in because I see no doubt that he will be elected. I also knew Rickey's offensive numbers would offset the negative impact of Ozzie's numbers, and I figured if Raines wants in the Hall of Fame, he cannot avoid comparison to the greatest base stealer ever.

S=seasons, again, 162 games played=1 season

S	Runs	Hits	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
15.4	102	169	28	7	11	63	52	.294	.810	Raines
16.7	101	171	29	5	11	62	48	.282	.774	Group

[sveumrules]

good comps as always, splitter. the two things that jump out at me as being most interesting are that blyleven has better k and bb numbers, but a higher era, than the control group. kinda goes to show how luck based of a stat era is. or maybe it was those extra home runs he gave up skewing it upwards a bit.

 

the other thing is how good/undervalued raines is. i know i've been crusading pretty hard for raines (on here and on the thread from when the class was announced) but he seriously gets so overlooked it's ridiculous.

 

molitor 369/448/817

raines 385/425/810

yount 342/430/772 (though this is probably dragged down some by his over 2000 pre-age 22 season at bats)

[JohnBriggs12]

Gossage was the equal of Fingers and Sutter who are both in. He's a no-brainer. He should have been in long ago. Gossage's numbers are somewhat skewed by the year he was starter for the White Sox. He threw a lot of innings (15 complete games) but he was often kept in games after he had run out of gas. He would dominate for 4-5 innings with his all out style and then run out of gas. Had he relieved that year, his ERA would be well under 3.

 

Blyleven should be in but so should Tommy John who except for strikeouts, has nearly identical stats.

 

Dawson and Raines are worthy also by a hair.

[And That]

Bert Blyleven, Jim Rice and Dale Murphy. Murphy is my horse this year.

[Phenomenal Smith]

Blyleven, Raines, Gossage, and Trammell (though I'm a bit weak on my support for him).

[davego]

Smith, Goose, Raines (I'm bias towards him, simpy loved his game back in the day) and Bert.

[Tbadder]

Smith and Blyleven. I believe that Raines is underrarted, but I wouldn't put him in the hall. He never seemed to me to be one of the 20 best players in any single year (though I haven't broken down individual years, and could be very wrong on this account). I don't remember his peers praising him, or writers recognizing his abilities to any great extent. He may be great, but he never gave the impression, not like some of his teammates like Dawson, etc.

[sveumrules]

Smith and Blyleven. I believe that Raines is underrarted, but I wouldn't put him in the hall. He never seemed to me to be one of the 20 best players in any single year (though I haven't broken down individual years, and could be very wrong on this account). I don't remember his peers praising him, or writers recognizing his abilities to any great extent. He may be great, but he never gave the impression, not like some of his teammates like Dawson, etc.

hey tbadder, check out this article that jay jaffe wrote...

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/11/29/bp.raineshalloffame/index.html

 

his methodology has raines as the 9th best leftfielder EVER. he also mentions that james had him as the 8th best leftfielder and 2nd best leadoff hitter of all time in his 2001 abstract.

[NievesNoNO]

Dawson and Smith. Blyleven and Rains also could be worthy. I think too many players are in the Hall. How is it decided who gets their name on the ballot? Seems to me like some of those players are a joke to even be on there. Brady Anderson????

[splitterpfj]

Getting on the ballot is very basic, any player who played in ten major league seasons will show up five years after retirement, as long as they haven't been banned from the game. Every year there are guys who have no chance at all of being elected, but they show up once, and then they're gone, it's pretty harmless stuff.

 

The offensive part is when you see a deserving player left out, and then some guy at the bottom of the list gets a vote or two. I really wish they'd revamp the voting process, frankly, it does not belong in the hands of the writers, they make decision based on friendships, etc, and some of them don't even cover baseball anymore.

 

1. A baseball player must have been active as a player in the Major Leagues at some time during a period beginning twenty (20) years before and ending five (5) years prior to election.
2. Player must have played in each of ten (10) Major League championship seasons, some part of which must have been within the period described in 3 (A).
3. Player shall have ceased to be an active player in the Major Leagues at least five (5) calendar years preceding the election but may be otherwise connected with baseball.
4. In case of the death of an active player or a player who has been retired for less than five (5) full years, a candidate who is otherwise eligible shall be eligible in the next regular election held at least six (6) months after the date of death or after the end of the five (5) year period, whichever occurs first.
5. Any player on Baseball's ineligible list shall not be an eligible candidate

http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers/bbwaa.jsp

 

EDIT: I should clarify that, not every player who played ten years will show up, there is a screening committee of six writers who review the list, first-timers have to be nominated by two of the six. That part is both mysterious and funny, every year there are names on there that seem completely out of place.

[Baldkin]

Raines for sure.

 

I'd also vote for Blyleven.

 

The others... I can't really see it.

[RockCoCougars]

In my opinion, if Sutter is in, Gossage should be as well. Sutter may have been slightly more dominant in his prime, but that prime was much shorter. In my opinion, Lee Smith had a better career than Sutter too, so he should be in also.

 

I think that Andre Dawson should be in also. He was a complete package who piled up nice stats despite playing on two bum knees for most of his career. One of the most feared hitters in the game.

 

Another guy that I think should be in is Jack Morris - heck, Game 7 in 1991 should get him in on it's own, but the guy was the winningist pitcher of the 80's and was effective for the early 90's as well .

 

I'm not sold on either Blyleven or Raines. Blyleven has nice career totals in wins and k's, but a lot of that is because he came up when he was 19, and was an "above average" pitcher for around 20 years. Good, but not great. Kind of a similar career as Don Sutton, but he's in, so what do I know? Raines was on a Hall of Fame path until about 1987, but he didn't do much after that point. I wouldn't even consider him for the Hall, so I'm surprised he is getting as much love as he is. In my opinion Dale Murphy, Jim Rice, Don Mattingly and Dave Parker are all better candidates than Raines, but they all fall just short because they didn't sustain their primes quite long enough.