Come In Out of the Raines

Dayn Perry at Chicago Sports Weekly touches on a theme I noted here:

Despite the protestations of mainstream writers to the contrary, they have trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that a hitter can be valuable without flashing a light-tower stroke. These scribes will whine that fans and the league have made a fetish out of the home run, but then cast more ballots for the inferior Jim Rice than they do for Raines. All too often, we’re subjected to generational spats over whether the Moneyball approach to offense (i.e., waiting for your pitch and hitting it out of the park when you see it) is better than the traditionalist’s beloved “small ball” game (bunts, hit-and-run, stealing bases, being aggressive at the plate). We know that the former leads to more runs, but it’s odd that the shrillest advocates of the latter would abandon Raines, who played the small-ball way better than almost anyone else. Somehow, though, they’ve turned their backs on him.

So, apparently, power matters to the writers except when they’re grouchy over the fact that bloggers/Web-based writers/stat geeks/kids on their lawns happen to like power.

Got it? It all raises the possibility that they don’t believe their own words. The truth is that Raines is a Hall-of-Fame caliber player regardless of how you think the game should be played. That he’s been so inexcusably dismissed by the writers speaks to the flawed nature of the process. Fans, however, are free to recognize Raines as one of the greats regardless of whether or not he ever gets the Cooperstown imprimatur.

As for the writers, we’ll leave them with their rank inconsistencies and their extra-large helpings of cognitive dissonance.

Sounds about right...

Check Your Brain at the Door

This has been out there for a while, but I'm still trying to get back in the swing of this blog thing...
After the Hall of Fame vote was announced, The Sporting News' Sean Deveney made this...well, for want of a better word, interesting observation:

Today, Rich Gossage was elected to the Hall, but, as usual, some of the top offensive stars of the 1980s remained out in the cold. Boston's Jim Rice finished with 72.2 percent of the vote, 16 votes shy of induction. Andre Dawson got 358 votes, 50 shy of induction. Tim Raines, one of the best all-around players of the '80s, got just 24.3 percent of the vote. Murphy -- a back-to-back MVP who hit 398 home runs -- got just 13.8 percent of the vote.

All four deserve Hall entry. But all four are greatly underappreciated because of the Steroid Era that came immediately after their careers were over. They were impressive players during their time on the field, but the problem is, by the time they came up for the Hall of Fame, baseball numbers everywhere were swelling -- thanks in large part to steroids. That made numbers put up earlier look paltry.

Deveney doesn't say anything I disagree with here. It's obvious to any sentient being that there were a lot more home runs hit in the 1990's than the 1980's. Kinda like how there were a lot more home runs hits in the 1930's than that 1910's (for different reasons, of course).

And that's why guys like Bill James and the folks at Baseball Prospectus and a host of other people who are smart at math have developed a variety of methods of comparing different eras.

But I digress...It's the last line of Deveney's piece that made me laugh out loud:

With baseball infected by swollen stats from the last 15 years, the stars of the 1980s are easily overlooked.

Note the clever use of the passive voice. Writers (and other assorted weasels) will use the passive voice when they don't want you to know who is actually performing the action they describe.

Let's recap Deveney's argument. Swell players like Rice, Dawson, and Raines "deserve Hall entry." But the offensive inflation of the Steroids Era made their numbers "look paltry." And because of those "swollen stats," Rice, Dawson, and Raines are "easily overlooked."

Ask yourself, Gentle Reader -- who overlooked those players in this year's Hall of Fame balloting? If Deveney wanted to be honest, he could have reworked that last sentence thusly:

With baseball infected by swollen stats from the last 15 years, the BBTAA easily overlooked the stars of the 1980s.

Deveney's entire piece is a lamentation over those damned dirty steroid cheats, and how their damned dirty cheating ways have unfailry kept our faves of the '80s out of the Hall. But is it really those dopers' fault? Or is it because the members of the BBTAA can't be bothered to conduct some critical thinking when it comes to cast their ballots?

Look, since McGwire, Sosa, and Palmeiro first when to Capitol Hill, we've been inundated with reports about the phony, fake numbers of the Steroid Era. You'd think those phony, fake numbers would be easy to disregard, especially in comparison to clean players like Dawson, Rice, and Dale Murphy. Apparently, you'd be wrong.

Is it because the members of the BBTAA can't grasp math more complicated than "fifty homers is more than thirty homers?" Is it because concepts like OPS+ or Equivalent Average get too close to the heresies espouses in Moneyball?

In fairness to Deveney, he wasn't the only one to make this argument, or the only one to disappear the conduct of his cohort. He's just the guy unlucky enough to have had an easily-found web link.

But all the arguments are ludicrous. If Rice and Dawson aren't in the Hall of Fame, don't blame McGwire or Bonds. Blame it on your fellow typists, the guys who actually vote. Bonds might be the worstest person in the history of the universe, but it's not his fault the writers check their brains at the door when it comes time to vote.

Here's More Professional Journamalism, Folks

Bob already covered this, but I can't pass it up. If you want to see what the drunken ramblings of the guy two barstools down from you looks like in print, go here.

And remember, as you read this, that Mike Downey received a paycheck for this. Who needs The Onion or the Daily Show? This is comedy gold.

Believe it or not, there are still many who claim that a degree from some journalism school and a professional gig makes what you say much more serious and wise than any silly bloggers. They are the same people that turn out crap like this.

The Hell With It, Part II

Just a quick follow-up on Jim's post below...

Like Jim, I've come to the realization that the results of the Hall of Fame voting (much like the results of the post-season award voting) aren't worth the bother getting upset about.

I used to be quite passionate in my arguments, railing over the injustice of leaving Obviously Qualified Candidate A out of the Hall while, at the same time, Obviously Unqualfieid Candidate B gets a plaque in Cooperstown.

But now I'm older, and perhaps the additional gray hairs have allowed some wisdom to seep through my thick skull. Sure, I'll be disappointed if Santo and Raines and Blyleven never get in the Hall. But I shan't lose any sleep over it.

I'm not interested in arguing about it anymore. I don't mind the conversations -- you know, where I say, "I think Blyleven should be in the Hall because of X, Y, and Z" and then you say, "Really? I disagree because of Q, R, and S." Or maybe you agree, which would be nice, too.

But the only way we can get to that point is if we're both interested in having a conversation. A conversation is not "You fool! This guy's a Hall of Famer! I know what a Hall of Famer is, and this guy is all of that!"

That's just shouting. I'm too old and tired for that nonsense.

And then there's this special nonsense, courtesy of the Tribune's Mike Downey. Jeebus only knows why the editors at the Tower keep waving crap like this into print:

How do you justify to people why Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter are in Cooperstown, with their humble stats, whereas Lee Smith is not and Clemens with his colossal 354 victories might never be?

How do you point out to the public—or, for that matter, to the voters—that Baines stands 40th on the all-time hits list? That he had seven fewer hits than Babe Ruth?

Couldn't they contend that Bill Buckner's 2,715 hits also are more than the likes of Ted and Billy Williams had, more than Reggie and Mickey, more than Fox and Foxx, more than Mr. Cub and Joe D and Yogi and the Duke? But that by no stretch of your imagination would Billy Buck strike you as worthy of the Hall?

How do you argue with Ron Santo's rabid supporters that, good as he was, he ranks tied for 140th place in hits, 80th in home runs, 82nd in RBIs and that his .277 lifetime average was not exactly the stuff of legends?

Downey pretends he's having a conversation, but he's not. He's throwing numbers around, but there's no real reasons behind the numbers -- Downey's just pulling things out of the Cupboard of His Love to shout all the louder just why Baines and Buckner and Big Lee are Hall of Famers.

This kind of rubbish is, sadly, what passes more and more for the Hall of Fame "debate." And it just doesn't interest me anymore. Oh, I'll probably still throw my ballot out there every January. But I've given up hope that the BBTAA will stop their collective shouting long enough to give their votes the thought they deserve.

Good for the Goose

I second Jim's congratulations to Rich Gossage on his election to the Hall of Fame. Unlike Jim, however, I am snarky enough to carp about a few aspects of the vote.

First, Rod Beck, Travis Fryman, Robb Nen, Shawon Dunston, Chuck Finley, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch, and Todd Stottlemyre alll received votes for the Hall of Fame. While these guys were all worthy players in their day, does anyone seriously consider them Hall of Famers?

Especially you lot out there who keep telling me Blyleven and Raines aren't Hall-worthy?

The fools who cast these votes have demonstrated that they don't deserve the honor.

Second, I find it amusing that the inflated numbers of the Steroids Era have turned some members of the BBTAA (Jim calls them the Baseball Reporters' Association of America -- I cannot give them that much respect, and fully believe that Baseball Typists' Association of America is an apter description) on to the concept of statistical context.

The latest to come to this mind-boggling conclusion -- The Sporting News' Sean Deveney. He's exceedingly put out that his good friends Jim Rice, Dale Murphy, and Andre Dawson were left out in the cold again this year:

There was some hope that, after the release of the Mitchell report confirmed the suspicions most had already had -- that steroids were prevalent among every level of player in the last 15-plus years -- voters might reconsider their views on the hitters of the '80s, might be more willing to put their numbers into the right context. Didn't happen.

No doubt, the gaudy numbers put up in the '90s has caused many to shrug off the accomplishments of those toiling in the previous decade. But keep those guys within the context of their decade and you realize that, yes, they did not wind up with enormous home run numbers. That's not because the players weren't any good. It's because home runs were harder to hit.

Putting aside the arugment that the Mitchell Report confirmed anything, I think it's sad that it took this confluence of events for Deveney and his cohort to realize that you just can't compare numbers from one era to another without taking the contexts of both eras into account.

Plenty of other baseball writers have been going on about this subject for years now. Bill James has been talking about it for over twenty years now! Too bad the typists couldn't be bothered to listen.

And if some deserving players from the '80s get hosed because some voters just can't wrap their minds around statistical concepts more complex than "Fifty homers is more than thirty homers"...well, you can't blame that on the juicers.

What the Hall?

OK, so the Hall of Fame voting results are due out next week. And as any regular readers left to us know, it has been our tradition to write up our choices for the Hall of Fame.

We've been doing this for a while now, and I for one have grown weary of recycling the same arguments for and against my choices. And those arguments haven't really changed from last year (or from years long past).

In an effort to shake things up a bit, I thought I'd try something different. Instead of relying on the same, boring, rational, semi-well-thought-out arguments, I shall instead recycle some of the less-well-thought-out arguments I've seen bandied about for some of the less-than-qualified candidates for the Hall of Fame by some of the less-than-rational members of the BBWAA (and you know who you are).

Besides, Jim has already laid out some pretty good stuff. I’d just be repeating what he said.

Here are my choices for the Hall, accompanied by some lame arguments that I won't take credit for:

Bert Blyleven: Back in 1990, I sent him a polite note asking him to sign the enclosed baseball card. He was nice enough to sign it and send it back (in the SASE, of course). Because Bert was nice to me, he should be in the Hall of Fame.

Rich Gossage: He was a key member of two World Series Champion Yankees teams. 'Nuff said.

Mark McGwire: Numbers should never enter into these kinds of discussions. He’s a Hall of Famer – ‘nuff said!

Alan Trammell: I remember seeing him play in 1987, and he always came up huge when it counted. And he clutch in the 1984 World Series. Post season performance should count for more than the regular season…

Tim Raines: Dude played in Denver for a while. Anybody who played in Denver is a bona fide Hall of Famer in my book!

The Cupboard of the BBWAA's Love

One of the few channels provided by my good friends at DirecTV that I bother to tune into on a regular basis is BBC America. Yes, this is just another sign of my vast reservoir of pretense.

At any rate, I particularly enjoy the wacky comedy Coupling (also available on DVD from Netflix, if you're so inclined). One episode I recently viewed is titled "The Cupboard of Patrick's Love," in which it is revealed that resident stud/borderline creepy guy Patrick keeps a video record of his sexual conquests in his closet (or cupboard, as the Brits would say).

All this is a roundabout way to discuss how the BBWAA approaches the Hall of Fame election. Far too often, the writers don't bother looking at the record when making their choices. All they need to do is look in the Cupboards of Love in their own minds to determine who's in and who's out.

The difference is that the Cupboard of Patrick's Love actually contains an actual, historical record of that happened. The Cupboard of the BBWAA's Love contains no records, historical or otherwise. It's a garbled mish-mash of increasingly fuzzy memories that get focused only in the context of favored scripts.

Do Andre Dawson and Jim Rice deserve to be in the Hall of Fame? Hell, yeah! We remember seeing them back in the day, and they were awesome! Pitchers hated facing those guys! They were clutch!

How about Rich Gossage or Jim Kaat? Hell, no! We don't remember them doing anything particularly memorable. And don't bother us by reciting their stat lines – yawn, yawn, boring, boring. There's no room for dull numbers in our cupboards!

There's nothing wrong with using memories as part of the reasoning process. But there is everything wrong with using memories as all of the reasoning process. That's because human memory is faulty – mine, yours, everybody's.

That's why humans invented numbers and writing and stuff all those centuries ago. So we could keep track of stuff. Because it's hard enough remembering what you had for lunch two days ago, let alone how good a player was twenty-five years ago.

Hall Pass

On Tuesday, the Baseball Writers Reporters Association of America will announce the results of their Hall of Fame voting for 2008. I've already exposed you to some of the sheer lunacy by which members of the BBRAA make their selections; the really scary thing is that the reporters usually do a BETTER job of selecting than the Veterans' committee does. More about that later.

Since Bob and I don't have the "privilege" of entering a smelly clubhouse to ask real live players and managers stupid questions, we have no real say in the voting. But we can tell you how we would vote, if we could.

The BBRAA votes from a ballot of players with at least ten years service in the major leagues. A committee pre-screens candidates to remove guys like this and cut the field to players who were actually good players. The weakest candidate on the ballot this year is probably Todd Stottlemyre, and Todd Stottlemyre won 138 games in the big leagues. That counts as a good player.

Bob and I have been over most of this ground before, but it's a really crappy, cold, rainy, windy day here today so I have nothing better to do than to cover it all again. Let's start with the guys who are honored enough just to be on the ballot and are not really qualified in any way for the Hall of Fame:

Brady Anderson (although highly qualified for Bob's fantasy team HOF)
Rod Beck (overqualified for the facial hair HOF)
Shawon Dunston
Chuck Finley
Travis Fryman
David Justice
Chuck Knoblauch
Robb Nen
Jose Rijo
Todd Stottlemyre

Pretty much the entire new group of nominees, with one exception. We'll come to him later.

Now let's commence the arguin'. Not getting my vote:

Harold Baines. The sponsor of his baseball-reference.com page says, "Here's to one of the greatest White Sox of all time and my favorite player! Harold belongs in the Hall !" Harold Baines is also my favorite player, and I'm here to tell you that no, he doesn't. Only in 1984 could he reasonably have been considered to be one of the best players in the league, and accomplishing that only once in a 22-year career doesn't make you a Hall of Famer.

Dave Conception. Yes, he was the best NL shortstop of the 1970's. Being the tallest midget in the circus is not a HOF-worthy acheivement. Conception was a good player, but nowhere near as good as the guy who succeeded him as the Reds' SS. No, not Kurt Stillwell.

Andre Dawson. Don't even start with the knee injury stuff. Yes, the injuries reduced his skills and hurt his career. That's part of the game. A Hall of Fame election should be about what a player did, not what he might have done. The same claim about the knees could be made, in fact even more so, for Harold Baines. Injuries very likely kept Tony Oliva, Pete Reiser, Hal Trosky, Charlie Hollocher, and many others out of the Hall. Sorry about that, but those are the breaks.

The only things Dawson has going for him are (1) he won an MVP award, (2) he's a nice guy, and (3) he was a very athletic player. Well, the most athletic guy I ever saw in a baseball uniform was Glenn Braggs, and this was his career. Looking great in the uniform doesn't cut much in this election. Neither does being a nice guy, although it's certainly a positive for your karma. As for the 1987 MVP election, that was one of the worst choices of all time, rivalled by the AL vote the same year (more on that one later). Andre Dawson wasn't one of the 20 best players in the NL in 1987, 49 homers or not. And if you don't believe me: Tony Gwynn, Tim Raines, Mike Schmidt, Will Clark, Jack Clark, Ozzie Smith, Dale Murphy, Pedro Guerrero, Darryl Strawberry, Eric Davis, Kal Daniels, Bill Doran, Andy Van Slyke, Tim Wallach, Juan Samuel, Howard Johnson, Nolan Ryan, Orel Hershiser, Mike Scott, Rick Reuschel...I could go on for a bit, but that's piling on.

OK, one more thing. Andre Dawson's career on-base percentage was .323. Dave Conception's was .322. If you're a power hitting outfielder with the same low OBP as a light hitting shortstop, are you really a Hall of Famer?

Tommy John. I'm a big Tommy John fan. Tommy John was a better pitcher than many who are already in the Hall (I'm looking at you, Pennock, Hoyt, and Haines). But being a really good pitcher for a long time isn't the same as being a great pitcher. All throughout his career, he had contemporaries who were better: Palmer, Carlton, Perry, Jenkins, Clemens. Sure, it's a tough standard, but this is the Hall of Fame, for crying out loud. The standard had better be tough.

Don Mattingly. I know that this is an emotional issue for a generation of New Yorkers, but facts are facts. No matter how bright your childhood memories, no matter how nice a guy he is, Don Mattingly had a career of only fourteen years, and in only four of them was he a HOF level player. Back injuries suck. Mattingly is another great "if." If he had two or three more years like 1984-1987, if he had been able to play even at his 1988 level for three or four years, then I could see a case. Lacking that, I can't.

Jack Morris. Among the silliest of the arguments this year are those supporting Morris over Bert Blyleven. Setting Blyleven's candidacy apart for the moment, Morris' case is weak. He was a good pitcher, and durable, but much of his record comes from the support of the teams behind him. A lot of people thought that this guy was a good pitcher, too, at least until he left Detroit. And don't give me that crap about game seven, 1991. Yeah, it was one of the greatest games ever. Yeah, Morris pitched a great game. If that's going to be the criteria for induction, here'are my votes for Johnny Podres, Don Larsen, and Steve Blass.

Dave Parker. Spent 1980-1984 blowing his career up his nose. Had his career continued at a normal progression during those years, he'd be in. It didn't; he's not. Please take note; I don't hold the drug years against him as a character flaw, I hold them against him because for what should have been five of his peak seasons he was a highly talented mediocrity.

Jim Rice. See Don Mattingly. I don't want to hear about how feared he was. Frank Howard was feared, too, and he's not in. In fact, Howard and Rice are pretty damned similar, and even finished with exactly the same number of career home runs, 382. I could even make the argument that Howard was a better player than Rice. One measure of a hitters' greatness is his OPS+ (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, compared to the league average) . On this scale, a score of 100 is exactly league average. Rice's best three seasons were 157, 154, and 147, good scores all. Howard's were 178, 170, and 170. Howard also had seasons of 153, 149, 147, and 144. Like Rice, he was considered the strongest guy in the league, was not a good outfielder (although he had a very strong arm, which Rice did not), and when his career slipped, it slipped quickly. Unlike Rice, he played in the worst hitting era in fifty years, in a poor hitters park, for teams that were bad and unpublicized. Frank Howard for the Hall of Fame, anyone?

Lee Smith. Was a fun guy to watch, racked up a lot of saves. Good for him.

And now, my waffle votes:

Dale Murphy. On the plus side, won two MVP awards (although both should have gone to Mike Schmidt), was truly outstanding between 1982 and 1987, was able to stay in center field for a long time (unlike Dawson), nice guy. There are a lot of nice guys on this year's ballot. Negatives: Didn't reach 400 homers (although he had more than Rice), played most of his career in the best home run park in the league, career went completely off the cliff in 1988.

I'm going to vote no this time, and look at him more closely next year. While he's certainly better than many outfielders currently enshrined, I don't know if the total package is enough to win my vote.

Alan Trammell. One of the biggest reasons for Jack Morris' success, and the best player on the strong Tigers teams of the 1980's. Should have won the 1987 MVP award. I mean, come on, George f*****g Bell? Trammell was a terrific defensive shortstop with a .352 lifetime on base percentage. I'm gonna vote for that.

And now, the obvious winners:

Bert Blyleven. Most of the anti-Blyleven argument is that (1) he was a good pitcher, not a great one, and (2) his W-L record isn't good. People making these arguments have been in space too long. The answer to both is the same: dude, did you look at the teams he pitched for? No one is going to look great in front of this or this or this. Those aren't just random bad teams; most of his career is like that. Until he reached the age of 37, Blyleven's ERAs were better than league average every year except 1980, when he was just a bit worse than average, and 1982, when he was hurt and only pitched in four games. And most of the time it wasn't just a little better than average, it was a lot better:

Year	Bert ERA	League ERA	ERA+
1973	2.52	3.98	158
1974	2.66	3.77	142
1977	2.72	4.11	151
1984	2.87	4.12	150
1985	3.16	4.26	134
1989	2.73	3.81	140

And so on, and so on. If that doesn't look like the records of a great pitcher, then I don't know what else to tell you.

Goose Gossage. The greatest relief pitcher of all time, possibly excepting Hoyt Wilhelm.

Mark McGwire. Get off of your soapbox. Especially those of you who acted as his cheerleaders in 1998 and 1999. Mark McGwire didn't have an Underdog Super Energy Vitamin Pill; I didn't notice Howie Clark, Larry Bigbie, or Chad Allen hitting 70 homers. The Mitchell report named a lot of players; a lot of those names can be placed as evidence that PED's have little value as performance enhancers.

Tim Raines. Twenty three seasons of .385 on-base percentage works pretty well for me. So do the 808 stolen bases (at an 85% rate). So do the 1571 runs scored, and the 1330 walks. Raines should have won the 1987 MVP award that went to Dawson, and maybe one or two more. But the BBRAA didn't appreciate him then, and I won't be surprised if they don't appreciate him now.

Mind Numbing Idiocy

I am going to talk about the Hall of Fame tomorrow, but I want you all to be able to see why Hall of Fame elections suck and are getting suckier. Please read this. Your assignment afterwards will be to answer the following question: Who has their heads further up their asses, Republican presidential candidates, or the BBWAA BBRAA?

Show your work.

Is It Any Wonder, I Reject You First?

Last week’s Baseball Weekly included a discussion of which current players have the best chance to make the Hall of Fame after they retire. Most of it was devoted to the steroids debate (understandable). However, the folks at BW also ran an internal poll of their five writers (Paul White, Bob Nightengale, Hal Bodley, Mel Antonen, and Jorge L. Ortiz) on a bunch of active players.

The caveat on this poll: the writers vote on the players’ Hall-worthiness assuming their careers ended today.

Except for veterans at the very end of their careers, this kind of “What If?” game is fraught with peril. Who knows how the careers of the hottest young players will pan out? How can you tell that “proven” veteran well on his way to Cooperstown after nine years won’t just flame out after the tenth?

Be that as it may, these brave writers voted on several players in the twilight of their careers, players that we can reasonably start to debate their Hall merits.

Some of them are no-brainers. Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, David Wells, and Curt Schilling, to name five of them (with unanimous results for all five – the first three for, the last two against).

Ken Griffey Jr. gained a 5-0 thumbs up, as did Frank Thomas. Ditto for A-Rod and Jeter (although it might be a bit premature for that pair).

But the one vote that caught my eye was for Craig Biggio. Biggio has said he would retire at the end of the year, so we’re not jumping the gun with this discussion.

However, BW’s panel actually voted Biggio down, by a 4-1 margin.

Great googaly moogaly! I know conventional wisdom has it that the juice, smaller ballparks, and expansion have led to an erosion of milestone batting accomplishments. But 3,000 hits are still a hell of a lot of hits. Especially coming from a catcher who worked hard enough to become a solid defensive second baseman and center fielder.

I don’t understand this vote. I hope the four guys who voted no take the next five years to reconsider their position…

Veterans' Committee Revamps Rules

I hope this doesn't make it "too easy" for these guys to elect anybody. I wouldn't want Bob Feller to cry, you know...

Apples and Lemons

The Trib’s Mike Downey offers his unfettered support for Sammy Sosa’s Hall of Fame campaign:

Sosa has more hits than Joe DiMaggio, Willie Stargell, Kirby Puckett, Hack Wilson, Ralph Kiner or Duke Snider.

Sosa has more runs batted in than DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, Al Kaline, Paul Waner, Tris Speaker, Lou Brock, Billy Williams or Tony Gwynn.

Sosa has more home runs than DiMaggio, Mantle, Ted Williams, Reggie Jackson, Mel Ott, Frank Robinson and all but four men in the 131-year history of the game.

To put it simply, this kind of reasoning is daft.

I don’t care if Downey thinks Sosa is a HOFer. Maybe he is. I don’t know – I usually wait the requisite five years before I make my call.

But the logic that My Guy has more fill in the blanks than Arbitrary Hall of Famer is spurious. Have we learned nothing from statistical analysis? Does Downey not understand the concept that different eras have different statistical standards?

Just taking a couple examples from Downey’s list above…Sosa has more RBIs than Billy Williams and Roberto Clemente. Williams and Clemente played a big chunk of their careers in the 1960s. You may recall that the Lords of Baseball decided to lower the mound in 1969 because of the distinct lack of offense during the proceeding nine years or so.

So maybe Billy and Roberto had a slightly harder time finding runs to drive in. Just a theory.

[As an aside, Sosa is a HOFer because he’s got more RBIs than Lou Brock? Mike, you do realize that Brock was a leadoff hitter, right? Why not just say he had more RBIs than Carl Hubbell? Sheesh…]

But it’s not just the statistical oversimplification that gets to me. Part of Downey’s case is that Sosa has more hits, homers, and RBIs than Joe DiMaggio.

Think about that for a moment. Would you consider Sosa better than Joe Freaking DiMaggio? Or even equal to the Yankee Clipper?

I wouldn’t, either.

Unfortunately, that’s not the most embarrassing thing that Downey writes. This is:

He is not exactly Jackie Robinson when it comes to being a gentleman to admire. But he has 800 more hits than Robinson did and twice as many RBIs. Sosa is a genuine Hall of Famer as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, Downey did go to the Jackie comparison. More proof that we need to celebrate Jackie Robinson Day every year.

If It's Broke, Don't Fix It

So seems to be the Hall of Fame's attitude towards the Veterans' Committee.

Coincidentally, Jim and I were discussing the Vets' Committee earlier today. The gist of the conversation came down to whether we really need the Committee at all.

Let's face it -- most of the truly marginal Hall of Famers (if such players can be said to be marginal) were elected by the Veterans' Committee. But we don't want to turn the clock back to that era of laxness.

However, ratcheting up the standards so that nobody can get in is pointless, too.

I've heard Joe Morgan and a few others make the argument that Ron Santo and Minnie Minoso and Gil Hodges (and the others) all had their shot with the BBWAA -- and how can anyone hold the Vets' Committee at fault if those guys weren't good enough to get the nod from the writers?

That's a fair cop. But if that's the reasoning, why have the Committee at all? After all, the only guys who are on the Committee's ballot are the guys who didn't get elected by the writers. And thus (by this logic, at least) are therefore unworthy of election.

The Hall of Fame directors should make some changes to the current voting procedure, and not necessarily just for the players. There are plenty of managers, executives, umpires, and others who should be in Cooperstown that deserve better than the Vets' Committee current quadrennial shafting. I love Ron Santo, but I think it would be far more shameful if guys like Doug Harvey, Walter O'Malley, Marvin Miller, and Bill James were left out for no better reason than Bob Feller and his Crotchety Old Geezer Club didn't want to let anyone else into their little clique.

Hall Passes

In what is quickly becoming a rite of spring, the Veterans’ Committee has once again passed on admitting a new member or two to its exclusive clique. And, at the risk of alienating all those fans whose pet candidates (Santo, Kaat, Oliva, Minoso, Torre, even Doug Harvey and Marvin Miller) weren’t elected, I can’t really work up the dander to declare that this latest non-election will result in dogs living with cats and the general end to Civilization As We Know It™.

I’m a Cub Fan, and I’d sure like to see Santo get his moment in the sun. And I think you can make a case for Minoso and Olivo, and perhaps a few other guys on that list. But at the same time, the Hall of Fame is a private institution with its own rules for admission. Unless Diebold was tabulating the ballots, it is unlikely that the election was fixed to screw one of these guys,

The AP reports that the Hall of Fame is now considering revising the Veterans’ Committee process, which was revised a few years back. I guess they’re getting a little nervous that, after three votes, the Committee hasn’t elected anybody – and that sure won’t draw the tourists to Cooperstown in July. Hall Chair Jane Forbes Clark said:

We are disappointed that no one has been elected in the three voting cycles. We will be evaluating this process and its trends at our next meeting, which is March 13, and discussing whether there should be any changes.

The board may decide that the trends are not what we thought they were going to be. Perhaps this hasn't worked as well as some of the board members thought it would and maybe it needs a little bit of change.

Ironically enough, the board decided to revamp the Vets’ Committee back in 2001, which was the eighth straight year it had given someone a plaque (not a bust, as some Hall of Fame voters seem to think).

Typical Hall of Fame – set up a system that makes it too easy to get in (or appears to be too easy to get in), replace it with a more stringent system, and then fret that it’s too hard to get in, and maybe it should be a little easier. Should we expect anything less of the institution Bill James once famously described as “a self-defining institution that has by and large failed to define itself?”

Oh, well. Much like the MVP and Cy Young votes of November, the Veterans’ Committee votes every other February give fans something to argue about in the off-season. And sometimes that’s the most you can hope for…