The 2014 Hall of Fame ballot is stuffed with worthy candidates. There are 22 players who deserve to have their credentials seriously discussed. Since voters are only allowed to vote for 10 players, you can see how this might be a problem. Let’s take a look at the top candidates:
Jeff Bagwell – He was a victim of BBWAA voters taking it upon themselves to be judge and jury with regard to unfounded steroid claims last year. He totaled 449 homeruns, over 1,500 RBIs, had a career OPS of .948, and accumulated 79.5 bWAR. He was also one of the better base-stealers on the ballot with 202 steals. (Rogan)
Craig Biggio – His 3,000 hits earn him a ticket to the Hall, but he was also the heart and soul of the Houston Astros for 20 years. (Koehler)
Barry Bonds – 1000% Yes! Is he a jerk? Sure! Did he cheat? You bet! Would he be in the hall based on his time in Pittsburgh? Probably. (Groveman)
Roger Clemens – Biases asides, Clemens was probably the best pitcher in the last 30 years. (Stack)
Tom Glavine – 305 wins, 2 Cy Young Awards., a bWAR of 74.0. Can’t hold his last game with Mets against him. (Zakour)
Jeff Kent – Hit 377 HR and knocked in over 1500 runs as, primarily, a second baseman. Arguably one of the top five second baseman of all time. One MVP and 3 additional top 10 finishes. (Ferguson)
Greg Maddux – He was the epitome of consistency. A great pitcher – A shoe-in for the hall. (O’Malley)
Edgar Martinez – Folks, it’s time to respect the DH. Yes his overall numbers do not scream Hall of Fame, but at the same time career closers like Bruce Sutter are getting the call, so it is time to start looking at the career(ish) DH, and not just the guys whom did it mostly towards the end like Paul Molitor. (Rogers)
Don Mattingly – Injuries cut short what once looked like a sure-fire Hall of Fame career. From 1984-1987, Mattingly put up a 24.7 fWAR. He received MVP votes in seven seasons and won the award in 1985. (Joura)
Fred McGriff – Again I think that the numbers he put up without taking steroids are impressive enough to put him in the hall of fame. (Manners)
Mark McGwire – Another awesome slugger and 10th on the all-time home run list, McGwire gets in too. (Stack)
Jack Morris – Nobody wanted to face this guy in the ’80s, backbone of the legendary ’84 Tigers. (Hangley)
Mike Mussina – He won 270 games, struck out 2,800 hitters, and had a career ERA+ of 123 while accumulating 83 bWAR. Perennial all-star and Cy Young candidate during his prime. (Rogan)
Rafael Palmeiro – Obviously, his Congress finger-wagging speech is a detriment to his cause, but he had overall numbers that were Hall worthy. (Stack)
Mike Piazza – No matter which way you slice it, Piazza is the greatest catcher to ever play the game. His defense got a bad rep because he couldn’t throw out base stealers but he was a great pitch framer and game caller. (Vasile)
Tim Raines – A game-changer for the Expos. Not really appreciated any more. A great player. (O’Malley)
Curt Schilling – 216 wins and over 3, 000 SO. Schilling was a key starter for three different World Series teams, including two championships. 11-2 Postseason record with a 2.23 ERA in 19 starts are his defining statistics. (Flattery)
Lee Smith – The Mariano Rivera of his time, Smith was the greatest closer when he played, so there is no excuse not to put him in the Hall of Fame. (Kolton)
Sammy Sosa – As one of the premier sluggers in the late 90’s and ranking 8th on the home run list, Sosa should get in. (Stack)
Frank Thomas – Probably the most feared hitter of the early 90s. Two MVPs. A lifetime bWAR of 73.6. Surely he will get into the Hall of Fame, might as well make it the first ballot. (Zakour)
Alan Trammell – At the time he joined the league, there was no such thing as an above-average power hitting shortstop and revolutionized the position. He also won the MVP in 1984 for the World Series. (McCarthy)
Larry Walker – He was an absolutely dominant hitter for his entire career, hitting over .350 four times. His 1997 season is one of the best that anyone has ever seen. His candidacy will get hurt because he played his prime in pre-humidor Coors Field. (Vasile)
So, how did our group vote? Here are the ballots for each of our writers:
Scott Ferguson – Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Glavine, Kent, Maddux, Piazza, Schilling, Thomas
Sean Flattery – Bonds, Clemens, Glavine, Maddux, Schilling
David Groveman – Bagwell, Bonds, Clemens, Maddux, Piazza, Schilling
Charlie Hangley – Bagwell, Biggio, Glavine, Maddux, Morris, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Tomas
Mike Koehler – Biggio, Maddux, Piazza, Smith
Dan Kolton – Bagwell, Biggio, Glavine, Maddux, Piazza, Schilling, Smith, Thomas
Spencer Manners – Biggio, Glavine, Maddux, Martinez, McGriff, Mussina, Schilling, Smith, Thomas, Walker
Julian McCarthy – Bagwell, Biggio, Glavine, Maddux, Martinez, Morris, Piazza, Smith, Thomas, Trammell
Jim O’Malley – Biggio, Glavine, Maddux, Piazza, Raines
Rob Rogan – Bagwell, Biggio, Glavine, Maddux, Morris, Mussina, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Thomas
Steve Rogers – Biggio, Glavine, Kent, Maddux, Martinez, Piazza, Raines, Thomas
Dan Stack – Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Glavine, Maddux, McGwire, Palmeiro, Piazza, Sosa, Thomas
Joe Vasile – Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Glavine, Maddux, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Walker
Chris Walendin – Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Maddux, McGwire, Mussina, Piazza, Schilling, Thomas
John Zakour – Bonds, Clemens, Glavine, Maddux, Piazza, Thomas, Walker
Of the 22 candidates, my belief is that 19 of them have put up a Hall of Fame career. The only ones who would not make my unlimited ballot are Mattingly, Morris and Smith. However, the ballot is limited to 10 – so nine deserving candidates will have to be left off.
Because of the tremendous backlog and the current rule where any candidate who does not receive five percent of the vote is eliminated from future consideration, my ballot will not consist of the best players. Instead, my ballot will be cast with the idea of keeping qualified candidates eligible, rather than the best players enshrined.
This is not my preferred way of doing it but it seems the most logical approach under crazy circumstances.
Now, while it’s clear who others have voted for in this exercise, chances are that the real voters will not have such certainty when they fill out their ballot. So, here is my ballot, featuring the guys in my view who need the votes, even if they don’t deserve a vote as much as Maddux.
Kent, Martinez, McGriff, McGwire, Mussina, Palmeiro, Raines, Sosa, Trammell, Walker.
In our 16 voter universe, a player needs 12 ballots to reach the 75% bar necessary to earn selection to the Hall of Fame. Here’s how they fared:
15 – Maddux
13 – Piazza
12 – Biggio
12 – Glavine
Thomas (10), Schilling (9), Bagwell (8), Bonds (7), Clemens (7), Raines (6), Martinez (5), Mussina (4), Smith (4), Walker (4), Kent (3), McGwire (3), Morris (3), McGriff (2), Palmeiro (2), Sosa (2), Trammell (2).
Maddux, Piazza, Biggio and Glavine make up our 2014 Hall of Fame Class. A player just needs one vote to clear the five percent hurdle and the only player not to get that is Mattingly. Also, this is the final year of eligibility for Morris, so he falls off the ballot.
Meanwhile, it’s not going to get any easier in the foreseeable future. Newcomers on the 2015 ballot include: Carlos Delgado, Nomar Garciaparra, Gary Sheffield, John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson. The real Hall of Fame voters need to vote for more players, they need to stop with the silly “first ballot” distinction and they need to revamp the rules about how a player stays on the ballot.
We’ve already seen players with legitimate Hall of Fame cases – like Kevin Brown and Lou Whitaker – fall off the ballot prematurely. It’s entirely possible that qualified guys like Mussina and McGriff could get booted off after this year, which would be a shame.
Instead of a five percent minimum in every year, there should be some type of advancing number. The last election, Mattingly received 13.2% of the vote in his 13th year on the ballot. There’s no way that Mattingly is going to get elected, either in 2014 or his last year of eligibility in 2015. Yet, there’s a clear 10% of the electorate who is going to vote for him until he’s no longer on the ballot.
The Hall of Fame needs to realize that some voters are not going to consider a candidate in his first year of eligibility. The first year percentage to remain eligible needs to be lower. One way they could handle it would be to require one percent of the vote in year one and then add four percent each additional year. So, after year two, a candidate would need five percent of the vote, after year three, nine percent and so on.
If this system was in place, Mattingly would have fallen off after his fourth year on the ballot, when he received just 12.8% of the vote, failing to reach the required 13%. He had not established any traction with the voters. Instead, he actually lost votes, as he debuted with 28.2% back in 2001. There’s no reason for Mattingly to be on the ballot now. He has no chance of ever being elected and his presence could potentially be hurting other guys whose candidacy should get a fair review.
A graduated system like this would have removed guys like Harold Baines, Dave Concepcion, Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Dale Murphy and Dave Parker from the ballot years earlier while allowing a guy like Morris, who clearly has gained traction with the electorate, a chance to build momentum and still have a shot in his 15th year to make the Hall.
It also would have given guys like Brown and Whitaker more than one year on the ballot and a chance for them to build momentum. Obviously, some voters needed more time to evaluate their Hall of Fame cases. Meanwhile, no one needs a 14th year to reexamine Mattingly’s credentials.
With the decision by one BBWAA member to sell his vote to Deadspin, it’s reasonable to expect there to be changes to how voting is handled in the near future. Hopefully we can see some common sense brought to the process. The last thing anyone should want to do is have the Hall of Fame continue on its current path with a huge backlog that causes players not to receive a fair shake.
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After 10 years of being on a ballot if a player can’t receive 50% then their name should be withdrawn. Also since many writers don’t want to include any new comers in their first year why not start the 5% minimum in the second year of eligibility? Increase the maximum amount of players a writer can list to 15. It’s The Hall of Fame. Not the hall of longevity. Glavine. Maddux, Thomas, Smith and Kent 100% yes. Trammell, McGriff, Biggio would follow. The alleged juiced candidates Bagwell, Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Palmiero and Piazza should not get in. And if some kind of compromise were to be reached, they should have their own separate wing sponsored by Tropicana or Minute-Maid. The remaining players had several years of incredible achievements but is that enough to warrant them being selected to the Hall?
pete, there is about as much proof that Piazza and Bagwell used PEDs as there is that Glavine, Maddux, and Thomas did: zero. I don’t think they should be lumped in with Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, etc. If we base it on unsubstantiated allegations, where does the witch hunt end?
That was exactly my reasoning for including Clemens and Bonds on my ballot. I think you have to judge all players from the era exactly the same because otherwise it becomes unfair to guys like Piazza and Bagwell who end up getting punished for hitting HRs in the 90s.
Pete – Are you holding Raines’ cocaine use against him or is there another reason you don’t support his candidacy?
I agree Rob. What we as fans don’t know about the private conversations between players and writers. And we don’t know who was on that list of users and did the information get leaked to beat writers. Otherwise Piazza should of been a slam dunk to be elected on his first try. Does that mean you would prefer the players who were found to be users “banned” from being voted in?
Piazza should have been a slam dunk last year and so should have Biggio. They were victims of that ridiculous “first ballot” distinction Brian referred to in the article (as well as Piazza being accused of PEDs).
I’m going to be honest about your last question: I don’t know. I mean, it’s clear that some of these players who used were great players to begin with and, in the case of Bonds and Clemens, would have likely made the HoF without them. The reason I didn’t vote for either of them was because of the circus they made of all of it. I personally feel both of their situations were an embarrassment and detrimental to the game. To be fair, some of that was out of their hands (a ridiculous pursuit for Congress to undertake in the first place).
It’s a tough question for me to answer at this time, as I’ve yet to fully form my opinion on it all. It’s easy to dismiss these players entirely in a black/white kind of way, but if people are truly honest with themselves they acknowledge that there are much worse people already elected into the hall. Not that that necessarily means we shouldn’t try to be better about who is elected into it in the future.
Bonds before the illegal substances was a great player. Take a look at Clemens career numbers and plug in when you think he may have started using. If you believe McNamee then the latter stages of Clemons career was aided by the injections he administered to Clemens. What a travesty. Instead of talking about players achievements, we spend time on writing about what players may or may not have done to further their careers.
Truthfully, I think all these guys are deserving. For this article I picked the ones I thought were the most deserving. This is a really strong group.
I think certain players were HOF worthy prior to steroids and others weren’t. I get it’s tough to distinguish who did what and when, but it’s not fair that guys like Bagwell and Piazza are lumped in with that group.
I didn’t vote for McGriff, but if I had an 11th ballot, I would have.
Brian Interesting question But I don’t know whether or not playing high on cocaine is going to make you a better player. Would I vote for Raines knowing that he used cocaine? Probably not. I see the players who get in each generation are a reflection of our times. I think that BBWAA members are really going to take their time about voting any of the questionable players in. If in the future one of those players get in then you have to allow all of them to get in.
This remains one of the most profound reads on the Hall of Fame:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/hof13/story/_/id/8826383/what-mlb-hall-fame-be
For the record. I favor museum.
Very well thought out article. So many questions but very answers. I don’t know. Writers are human and if 1/3 feel that none of those players should get in then I don’t how any of them will get in. The accomplishments the players did are on record. Maybe that’s enough for some of the writers. I’m in favor of the HOF being a museum as well.
Sorry. Should of read very few answers
I like Jim’s comment on Tim Raines, but I’d like to supplement it with my own: If Tim Raines had his best years anywhere but Montreal (and maybe Seattle), he’s in the HOF already.
Tony Gwynn went in the HOF on the first ballot, with a higher percentage of the vote than Willie Mays. Meanwhile, if you take Gwynn and add 500 walks and 500 SB and subtract 500 singles you get Tim Raines. Now, a single is better than a walk but those 500 SB shouldn’t just be waved away. It’s pretty hard to seriously consider Gwynn a slam dunk and Raines not being worthy.
Justifications with each vote (and non-vote) would solve a lot of problems.
This will weed out those who don’t take it seriously as well as reduce the number of eligibility years needed as justifications will be open to everyone to see and can sway other voters.
The subject provides many entertaining debates and opinions. The fact that everyone has their own criteria makes it all the more interesting.
Sean therein lies the problem. With no set of guidelines or clear cut rules on this subject it’s up to each individual voter as to how he or she perceives if what was done was right or wrong.
Perhaps I would believe this if there wasn’t direct evidence to the contrary.
Pete Rose received 41 write-in votes in 1992 even though there was a crystal clear rule that he was ineligible and he did not appear on the ballot! I’m not sure about 2013 but he still received a write-in vote in 2012. You want to give this group more rules to follow and you expect more clarity?
I tolerate voters who invokes the character clause and don’t vote for any player who used steroids. But those writers are still not voting for highly qualified candidates — and that’s a big reason we have the huge backload we do today.
Biggio, Glavine, Kent, Maddux, McGriff, Mussina, Schilling, Thomas, Trammell, Walker
That’s 10 guys to vote for who never failed a steroids test and have no credible steroids allegations against them. It doesn’t even include Bagwell and Piazza, who never failed a test and have only paper-thin rumors that they did. It doesn’t include Raines, who used a performance-reducing drug in cocaine. It doesn’t include Martinez who’s only a DH.
If there were certain thresholds that meant automatic induction to the Hall – then the writers wouldn’t be necessary. I’m all for allowing them to have voting privileges but they’ve got to stop abusing them if they want to keep them in the future. They need to stop making stuff up (like the first-ballot garbage) and they need to acknowledge that the guys who played in the 70s-80s-90s were every bit as good, if not better, than the guys who played in the 30s-40s-50s and vote accordingly.
I wonder if we will ever find out who was on the list that failed their drug test. I am amazed that so far no reporter has been able to get a copy or have a look at the names. The backlash from the inference of using was to the extreme that no one got in last year unfortunately. There is no reason why 6 or 7 players can’t get in this year. As time goes by will the writers soften their opposition to the known users? I doubt it. Guys like Palmiero will not get in unless its by the veterans committee 30 years from now. The writers are human beings with all their faults and prejudices. If their opinions on what these players isn’t going to change then I don’t see any of them getting in any time soon.
I was trying to decide between Glavine and Mussina and in the end I realized that Glavine was superior and Mussina would eventually get in