Every year Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) has the ability to elect retired (or deceased) players to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The rules are pretty straightforward – each member with a vote can place up to ten eligible performers on his ballot, and anyone who was named on seventy-five percent of the ballots wins election to the Hall of Fame. I have proposed altering these rules in the past in an effort to streamline balloting, but it will never happen. Anyway, I don’t have a ballot, and while I wish I did, considering that there are truly some clowns who hold them, that fact doesn't stop me from putting forth my choices for the 2011 Hall of Fame class.
First, I want to separate the weeds from the wheat. There are thirty-three players eligible for election by the BBWAA this year; some are holdovers from previous years (in which they had received at least five percent of the vote while finishing short of the required seventy-five percent), and there are quite a few newbies on the list as well. The first group of eligible players I name will be those who are most definitely not Hall of Famers or shouldn’t be considered as such at any point in time. I may or may not give an explanation for why I don’t consider them worthy. All stats quoted are from Baseball-Reference.
After jump, we start with the HELL-No Class – these guys are only on the ballot because they met the bare-minimum requirements to be on it, i.e. they played for ten years and have been retired for five. Every group will be done alphabetically, so there is no bias or hint as to who is favored over the others.
Lenny Harris
Bobby Higginson
Charles Johnson
Al Leiter
Raul Mondesi
Kirk Reuter
Benito Santiago
B.J. Surhoff
All of these guys had a couple of seasons here and there that were decent, but none of these guys could even be considered toward the top of their position even in their own era, never mind of all time.
The No Class – the ones who had nice careers but just aren’t Hall-worthy for various reasons.
Carlos Baerga
Harold Baines
Kevin Brown
John Franco
Juan Gonzalez
Marquis Grissom
Tino Martinez
Don Mattingly
John Olerud
Dave Parker
Lee Smith
Alan Trammell
Larry Walker
These players are a step above the “HELL No” group in that they all had nice careers; some may even get some vocal support for the Hall, but a complete look into their careers shows they are just short of what it takes to get into Cooperstown. Some have better cases than others, such as Mattingly, Parker, and Trammell, and some just get consideration due to being a decent player for a long period of time, such as Smith and Baines. A couple of them would have moved into borderline status with more sustained excellence, such as Juan Gonzalez and Kevin Brown. The other primary difference between this group and the first one is I would raise an eyebrow if any of these guys got in. I would be INSULTED if any of the first group got in.
I actually want to skip over the borderline guys and get right to the players I definitely believe should absolutely be inducted this coming July. These men have earned their plaques:
Roberto Alomar – he was the best second baseman of his era and a linchpin of two championship teams. His defense was a little overrated (10 Gold Gloves, but a negative Defensive WAR), but he was a great all-around player. He should already be in, but there has been a lot of ‘character’ issues that keep popping up for him, such as people remembering his spitting in John Hirschbeck’s face and all the allegations of sexually transmitted diseases.
Jeff Bagwell – it’s amazing that people are even debating this. There is no group who is more sanctimonious about protecting their institutions than baseball writers. There are a few good ones, but a lot of the old-timers are coming out against Bagwell because of what is essentially guilt-by-association. Ok, so he played in the 90’s. It’s quite a jump to suggest that, without proof I might add, he used steroids. Let’s look at the numbers, which I believe, speak for themselves - .297 BA, .408 OBP, 149 OPS+, 449 HR, 1,529 RBI, 1,517 runs scored, and 1401 walks. At any point in his career, he had led the league in runs, doubles, RBI, HR, Walks, Slugging. He had five years of 1.000+ OPS, won an MVP, a Gold Glove, played above replacement level defense, and did this on a horrendous playing surface for most of his career in a pitcher’s park (The Astrodome). People want to rip on this because of insinuations that he could have been on steroids. Give me a break.
Bert Blyleven – he is coming toward the end of his time on the ballot (15 years and that’s it), and he keeps inching closer, getting 74% of the votes last year. That aside, Blyleven has two things going for him – shutouts and strikeouts. He threw 60 shutouts in his career, good for ninth all time, and he is fifth in career strikeouts. People pay too much attention to wins (he had only 287 total and only one 20-win season) and that has been part of what has kept him out so far. If you look at what he did with some bad teams (ERA+, WAR, WHIP), the case should become a little clearer. It convinced me that Blyleven should be put into the Hall.
Rafael Palmeiro – I’m sure this will be a controversial pick. Yes, he tested positive for steroids, and he has also denied that he took them (knowingly or not). Ok, that is out of the way now. The big knocks against Palmeiro are these: he never won an MVP and he never led the league in any power category. Both of these are true, and yet the numbers overall don’t lie – it’s indeed hard to ignore the 500 HR-3,000 hit combination, no matter how much one tries. His OPS+ was 132 for his career and for the most part he was a plus defender. I think there are people who would like just to eliminate the entirety of the past twenty years of baseball. This cannot be done. The era has to be judged on its merits whether they like it or not.
Tim Raines – he spent his career in the shadow of Rickey Henderson, unfortunately, which masked what a great leadoff man Raines was. He led the National League in stolen bases four times, in runs twice, and showed a surprising amount of power for a man hitting at the top of the lineup. His OBP always hovered around .400 and he always walked more than he struck out. I think that Raines may be neglected again, as he has been for the past three years, but given what he did in the era in which he did it, he was definitely the premier leadoff man of the NL, and would have the best, save for Rickey Henderson.
Now let’s finally move onto the Borderline guys – the ones that spur the fights in the barrooms and among fans of all eras and ages. I will judge them individually and then render a verdict of yes or no as to their worthiness of the Hall of Fame.
Barry Larkin – Larkin’s career is an interesting one. He played more than 150 games just four times. He also won an MVP, three Gold Gloves, and was a twelve-time All-Star. He hit .295 in his career with close to 1,000 RBI and over 1,300 runs scored. This is his second year on the ballot (he received close to 52% of the vote last year). I think much has to be considered that he played shortstop (at least the first half of his career) in an era when that position was not considered a productive one, at least offensively. Verdict: Yes.
Edgar Martinez – the argument against Martinez is a pretty valid one: he was almost exclusively a designated hitter, a position that I loathe with every ounce of my existence. What gets ignored in that part, though, is that when he was a fielder, he was decent. The last two years he was a full-time 3B had him playing above replacement level defense. So, I think had he played defense for most of his career, it could not be held against him. On to his offense – for a 14-season period (1990-2003), Martinez had an OPS+ of 153. So even in an offensively stacked era, he was posting an OPS that was 53% better than league average. That’s mind-boggling. What else? Two batting titles, 500+ doubles, a .312 career batting average, five seasons of 1.000+ OPS. Others may have their hang ups about a DH in the Hall of Fame, but don’t count me in that. Verdict: Yes.
Fred McGriff – he has some very good numbers, nearly 500 HR (493 to be exact), 1550 RBI, a .284 BA, 134 OPS+, and almost 2,500 hits. He’s a tough one to gauge, though. In a lot of ways, he mirrors Rafael Palmeiro, although he did lead the league in HR twice (1989 – AL, and 1992 – NL). The key difference between McGriff and Palmeiro is that McGriff never reached either milestone that Palmeiro did – and I would say that 3,000 hits ranks over 500 HR. The other knock against McGriff was that he was never truly a transcendent player in any way – in that era of power hitting first basemen (Bagwell, Thomas, McGwire, and so forth), it would be hard to even consider him a top five player in his own position. Verdict: No. Hall of Very Good? Yes, just not Hall of Fame.
Mark McGwire – this is another one people will argue over until the cows come home, mostly over his denial and apology of steroid usage. I think that argument misses the whole point, that McGwire was a completely one-dimensional player who could hit a baseball far. He was a transcendent player…for five seasons, 1987 and 1996-99, because he could hit a baseball far. I’ll be the first to admit that during 1998, I was transfixed to my TV whenever McGwire came up to bat. However, once the fog is removed from his 583 HR, you see that he was a .263 hitter that had only 1,626 hits in his career (36% of his hits were HR) and was a defensive liability that was only great for five seasons and good for two, maybe three others. He did have an OPS+ of 162 for his career, which is twelfth all-time. He had only seven seasons driving in 100 runs, which is actually one less than Fred McGriff had. For a guy who was on base nearly 40% of the time (career .394 OBP), he scored less than 1,200 runs. Keep in mind that he scored half the time on his own hits. You put all of this together and it just doesn’t add up. Mark McGwire brought a lot of thrills to a lot of people for a while, but it just doesn’t make him Hall-worthy. Verdict: No.
Jack Morris – there hasn’t been a player that has evoked more passion in favor of a candidacy than Jack Morris. I understand why – he won 254 games, was an ace pitcher on some championship teams (1984 Tigers, 1991 Twins, and 1992 Blue Jays), and pitched one of the most iconic games of all time – Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, a 10-inning shutout to win it all. One moment makes not a Hall of Fame career, although I wonder sometimes with Bill Mazeroski getting in (he was a Veterans’ Committee selection, though). Ok, numbers – he never had a season below a 3.00 ERA. His ERA+ was only 105, and this was in a fairly depressed offensive era, the 80’s, when speed was the commodity teams were after. In other words, one moment tends to make Morris an incredibly overrated pitcher. His WHIP was pretty high year after year and he threw a lot of wild pitches. His reputation as a ‘big game pitcher’ and as a durable one tends to put weight behind his candidacy, but the perception doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny. Good pitcher for a long time and even great at times, but not enough to get in. Verdict: No.
Dale Murphy – this is actually a simple one, and I was debating whether to put him in the ‘No’ category or borderline category. Therefore, you can pretty much figure out how this is going to go. Murphy was great for about six seasons (1982-87), winning two HR titles and driving in 100 runs five times and scoring 100 runs four times. He won five Gold Gloves and two MVP awards. I think it is that last one that moves him to borderline. What separates him from, say, Juan Gonzalez is the era and the defense. Murph was a converted catcher who became a good outfielder. He keeps hanging around the ballot with between ten and twenty percent of the vote. I would guess he will be on it for all fifteen years (this is year 13). Nice player, nice man, but not a Hall of Famer, although he was one of the subjects of John Kruk’s more famous quips about how the 1991 Phillies consisted of ‘twenty-four morons and a Mormon’. Verdict: No.
So that is seven players that I would place on my ballot if I were a member of the BBWAA. What's interesting is that the battles will get even more heated over the next 5-10 years as more players from the so-called 'Steroid Era' retire and become Hall-eligible. Ken Rosenthal certainly isn't relishing the coming battles. But we will have to deal with it, one year at a time. Fire away in the comment thread.
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