The Hall of Fame used to mean a lot to me. But the wishy-washy way it’s conducted itself in the last 10 years, specifically the refusal to make a stand one way or the other on the steroids issue, has made my interest cool considerably. Still, it’s hard not to pay attention to the annual voting and see who gets in, who lands just short and who falls off the ballot completely. From the Mets, neither Billy Wagner nor Gary Sheffield got in. The first is a victim of voters not really knowing how to handle relievers and the second with the voters’ uncertainty of Sheffield’s PED usage. Meanwhile, David Wright drew enough support to stay on the ballot another year. A Facebook friend of mine, a White Sox fan, annually roots for Mark Buehrle to receive enough support to remain eligible. It’s a thing. Regardless, Wright was on a path to the Hall until injuries piled up. What’s there is impressive. There’s just not enough of it, unfortunately.
Meanwhile, one player who did get in was Adrian Beltre. Back in 1996, I met Beltre. He played for Dodgers’ Lo-A club in Savannah, a member then of the South Atlantic League, and made the All-Star team, along with two of his teammates, Dan Ricabal and Eric Stuckenschneider. The league held a party the night before and I was at the table with the Dodgers’ contingent. Neither Beltre nor Stuckenschneider say much, but Ricabal was a “life of the party” type of guy, one who also knew that at age 23, he shouldn’t be stuck at Lo-A.
Ricabal is hooting and hollering all night, especially enjoying the night’s entertainment, which consisted of a clogging performance. Eventually he starts talking to me and we had an extended conversation, or an extended one for a guy with little interest in staying seated and remaining focused. He introduces me to Stuckenschneider and points a lot at Beltre but doesn’t speak to him. He starts talking about Beltre, who’s 17 at the time, and tells me he’s the best ballplayer he’s ever seen. But he doesn’t speak a word of English. And then he points at him again and gives him the thumbs up sign.
Meanwhile, Beltre must be having an extreme culture shock moment here. This poor kid from the Dominican is stuck in some hick town, watching festivities that would have been a fine night out for the folks of Petticoat Junction. There’s no one his age, no one (apparently) who speaks his language and of the only two faces he recognizes, one keeps shouting and pointing at him all night. But my recollection is that he was very polite, didn’t get upset at Ricabal and tried to eat his food and watch the stage show.
It’s kind of neat to have met a guy before he made the majors who went on to make the Hall of Fame.
And, in hindsight, it was impressive to meet Ricabal, who most people would just classify as a goofball and call it a day. But he had enough self-awareness to know that his MLB dreams were over as he was toiling in Lo-A at an age he should be either in the majors or knocking on the door. And for his vision to know that this 17-year-old kid was something special.
Beltre made his MLB debut two years later, at age 19; now he’s a Hall of Famer. And it was just announced that Ricabal will be back for his second year as pitching coach for the Tigers Hi-A affiliate in West Michigan. It’s nice to know he’s still involved in the game. Linked In tells me that Stuckenschneider is a self-employed system engineer. Back in 2001, he was elected to the University of Central Missouri’s Hall of Fame, for leading the Mules to the 1994 Division II championship.
Given his stats, how could a handful of voters not vote for Beltre? It could only be that mentality of not letting people get in on the first vote. And not electing Billy Wagner is a joke. The reality is that all of the benchmarks that used to be used to measure Hall of Fame candidacy have all gone by the wayside. Gone are 500 home runs, 3000 hits, and 300 wins for a pitcher. It is really time to change the process for selection. They should not limit the vote to just 10 candidates, and perhaps it’s time to get new voters.
I know I’m not the first one to compare HOFer Kirby Puckett with David Wright, but here goes:
Puckett: 7831 PA 207 HR .360 OBP ..477 SLG 130 OPS+ 134 SB 53 oWAR -0.3 dWAR
Wright: 6872 PA 242 HR .376 OBP .491 SLG 133 OPS+ 196 SB 51.9 oWAR 0.0 dWAR
Puckett was elected to the HOF on his first ballot with 82.1% of the votes.
Wright just got 6.2% of the votes on his first time on the ballot.
Huh?
Neither one belongs.
That being said, you’re trying to use stats that the majority of HOF voters at the time of the Puckett election simply wouldn’t have put much faith in, if they were aware of them at all. But if you gathered those voters and told them one player was a Hall of Famer and the other wasn’t and presented them with these numbers instead:
Player 1 – 10X All-Star, 2X World Series Champ, 6 Gold Gloves, 6 Silver Sluggers, Batting Title, ALCS MVP, AS MVP, lifetime .318 AVG
Player 2 – 7X All-Star, 2X Gold Glove, 2X Silver Slugger, not a lifetime .300 hitter
Every single one of them would have picked Player 1.
I don’t believe the HOF has done enough to improve the electorate but they’ve made some strides, getting rid of some guys with flimsy credentials and adding more informed voters, too. If Puckett came up for election today, he wouldn’t make it just based on his numbers, to say nothing about the hits his character has taken since he was elected.
Finally, the last thing we should do is hold up a player with one of the worst cases and use him as an example of what a player has to do to make the HOF.
Good points, Brian.
I’ve often felt the Hall of Fame should have fewer entrants. Supposedly it’s about 1.something % of all major league players get in. That seems pretty elite which is good. But maybe it should be even less. My criteria would be, were they among the best at their position during the time they played and did they play at that level long enough (7 years, 8 years?). Forget the stats, but if Player A was a 10 x all star during a 15 year career, they were clearly among the best at their position. The first-ballot hall of famers are to me the ones who should really be in. If you’re not first ballot – the stats don’t change. Get rid of the restriction of only being able to vote for 10 players. Increase the percentage needed for remaining on the ballot.
On the other hand if the Hall of Fame is really just a museum and it’s supposed to tell the history of the game of baseball, than there’s room for non-hall worthy players who were important to the game’s ongoing narrative. That would include the steroid users as well as unique players who didn’t have the career or longevity typically required – like a Bo Jackson, for example.
So can I veer off this particular train of thought on this Open Thread and ask about a statistic I’ve noted over the years? It’s a teams expected W-L record based on the seasons run differential; the Pythagorean W-L mark. Does it actually mean anything? Anyways, on a whim, I looked over the past 62 years of Mets seasons and noted the differences between the actual season record, and the “Pythagorean number”. I thought I’d share some interesting(?) figures.
1. 18x’s the Mets “best” the expected numbers; 36x’s the Mets “under performed” to the expected mark; and during 8 seasons, they were “spot on”. Those seasons were 1981, 1988, 1997 & 98, 2008, 2013, 2016, and 2021.
2. “Best” seasons were a +12 in 1984, +11 in 1972, +9 in 2001, and a +8 in 1969.
3. “Worst” seasons were a -14 in 1993, -10 in 1962, -8 in 1977, and 1990,1995,1996 gave us a -7.
4. The managers who did the best in exceeding the projections were Bobby Valentine with a +13 in his six seasons at the helm, and Davey Johnson with a +7 during his almost seven years as manager. You’ll note his -7 during his last season really sinking his score. Interesting to note that Gil Hodges scored a -1 during his four years; the magical season was his only positive.*
I know it was just a numbers/mental exercise for me on this rainy day, but it was a fun look at the history of our beloved Mets. That 1993 was such a shockingly bad year; even worse then 1962, was a surprise!
* Gil’s place in our hearts and the positive impact he had on his players is secure nonetheless.
This is exactly what the Open Thread is for.
Several years ago – I’m unaware of a newer study – the expectation was that 95% of teams would be within three wins of their Pythagorean Record. So, if your run record at the end of the year was 90 wins, 95% of teams would be between 87 and 93 wins. If you’re beyond three wins, that’s when you start looking at luck.
Thank you Brian…..So historically, the Mets do tend to have “bad luck”.
I’m a fan of a small Hall with only the truly great, which is about 1% of players. Beltre and Mauer both fit.
A more interesting question is how much value to place on longevity versus a truly dominant peak. For me, the Hall requires both a dominant 6-7 year peak and very good performance for about 10 other years. That’s why David Wright (like Don Mattingly and eventually deGrom) doesn’t belong in the Hall. The longevity just isn’t there.
If you value longevity, then the question arises of whether Koufax belongs in the Hall. I’ll be the apostate and say he doesn’t; he’s the ’60s version of deGrom. Historic 6-year peak and not much else.
Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system does a great job of factoring in peak performance and longevity. Using JAWS, Koufax is ranked 95th among SPs, just below Dwight Gooden (87th) and Jerry Koosman (94th).
A little embarrassed to admit this but I didn’t realize that Jaffe’s system was the average of WAR7 + Career WAR. Thought it was just WAR7. And this is a simple way to balance peak and longevity – so it’s good in that respect. But it’s going to unfairly punish certain individuals and Koufax is one of them.
For the record, I think Koufax is generally overrated. Not enough is made about the move to Dodger Stadium and his record against the 1960s expansion teams. But while I think it’s a mistake to consider him for the greatest pitcher of all time, I believe the “Fame” part of his career, combined with what he did on the field, is enough to make him a legitimate HOFer, unlike, say, Jack Morris, who didn’t have enough other stuff to go with the “Fame.”
FWIW, Morris ranks 164th on Jaffe’s SP list, which you can see here — https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_P.shtml
I just opined to Brian by email but I’d like to bring it up here as well. There is one big name free agent I’d like the Mets to consider before calling it an offseason. I’d like them to make an offer to Brandon Woodruff for multiple years. The article below uses Chad Green as a guide and I think their numbers are light based on Woodruff’s ceiling but I’d love to see the Mets invest in 2025 by signing Woodruff for the tail end of 2024.
It sounds like a good idea. The problem is multiple years, something that Stearns still seems intent on avoiding at this juncture.
The intent is to get back under the CBT threshold some time soon and get out from under the draft and international free agency penalties involved with going over in multiple consecutive years. That will be exceedingly difficult, but not impossible to do this year. If they do, however, they get under in 2024, they get a reset for 2025 can spend again without having any draft penalties. If not, they may still need to limit their 2025 spending – perhaps not as much as this year, but limited nonetheless – in order to stay under the threshold in that year. And that precludes making commitments for 2025 at this time.
It’s essentially impossible this year to get under $277 million, the draft pick threshold, unless they trade Alonso before the start of the season, which they said they weren’t going to do. Spotrac lists their CBT payroll at $302.6 million while Cot’s has it at $319.5 million. If they wait until the deadline, they’d need to deal Alonso, Quintana, Manaea and more, not pick up any of the remaining money owed or take back salary, either.
My guess is that 2025 is when they try to get under all tax thresholds and then spend big in free agency for the 2026 season.
We’re on the same page here. I’m aware of the numbers, and I don’t disagree with you. The total value of expiring contracts is about $95-96 million, so a third of that (or so) that they might save at the trade deadline might not be enough. That said, let’s also consider the possibility of trading off Marte a year early.
The thing is, trying to stay under the threshold for 2025 means passing on a free agent class that is [allegedly] deep in quality starting pitching, not to mention Soto if he is still available.
I’m not saying that is the plan. But I do think Stearns is trying to keep the option open.
The Hall voters are flaky. How is it, that only one player elected was unanimous, Mariano Rivera. Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Tom Seaver, Sandy Koufax, not unanimous. It is a joke.
Yet, Harold Baines the DH gets elected. Ayeee