Category: Baseball

Greatness in sports is an evergreen source of fun, research and debate for most fans, and the recent election of (IMO) borderline third baseman Scott Rolen to baseball’s hall of fame has sparked predictably lively discussions.

In my previous post I mentioned that I wanted a tiered Hall of Fame, so I’ve decided to start one. Bill Simmons did something similar a while back with his Hall of Fame Pyramid for Basketball, but I think I’d like mine to be more inclusive than just 96 players. Here are my rules:

1. The player must be retired for 5 years, which is the same as the official baseball hall of fame.
2. The player must have appeared in 1,000 games, or pitched in at least 200 games (this is currently about 3,700 players)
3. Players who are selected are placed in Tier 1, the Hall of Stars. The target is about 10%. Players who are borderline may be deferred and will be re-evaluated in the future.
4. For every 3 spots in tier 1, a spot will open in tier 2, the Hall of Fame. New tiers will be created with this ratio. This means based on currently eligible players that there will be 6 tiers.

I don’t have any magic numbers like 500 Home Runs or 300 Wins, although I’ll be surprised if anyone who hit those marks doesn’t at least make Tier 1. I am going to make non-scientific affordances to players who lost time to injury or military service.

Whenever I have time, I’m going to pick 10 players at random and research if they should be accepted.

Howie Fox (1944-1954) – Not Accepted. A very average starting pitcher who spent most of his career with the Cincinnati Reds.

Erv Palica (1947-1956) – Not Accepted. A slightly below average utility pitcher who spent most of his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Johnny Lanning (1936-1947) – Not Accepted. A slightly above average utility pitcher who played for the Boston Bees (Braves) and Pittsburgh Pirates.

Mark Sweeney (1995-2008) – Not Accepted. A below average utility fielder and frequent pinch hitter who played for a number of teams.

Greg Minton (1975-1990) – Not Accepted. An above average relief pitcher who played for the San Francisco Giants and California Angels. 1-time All star. Notable achievement: 269¹?₃ consecutive innings without giving up a home run.

Dick Radatz (1962-1969) – Deferred. An above average relief pitcher/closer who had several great years for the Red Sox at the beginning of his career, becoming the first pitcher in history to have consecutive 20-save seasons, but struggled after that. Member of the Red Sox Hall of Fame.

Frank Francisco (2004-2014) – Not Accepted. A slightly above average relief pitcher who played for the Texas Rangers and several other teams.

George Kell (1943-1957) – Accepted. A 10x All Star contact-hitting, excellent-fielding third baseman who played for a number of teams. Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983.

Greg Vaughn (1989-2003) – Deferred. A power-hitting left fielder and 4-time All Star who played for the Milwaukee Brewers and other teams. Probably not going to be accepted, he was an average fielder with a lot of strikeouts, but I’m not sure yet where the line is so we’ll revisit.

Cookie Lavagetto (1934-1941, 1946-1947) – Deferred. A 4-time All Star infielder with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh pirates. An average fielder and average hitter, though above average for his position. He missed 4 full seasons to WWII service, which probably wouldn’t have made a big difference, but we’ll come back to Cookie again.

I posted a hypothetical hall of fame ballot way back in 2007 and decided to do this year’s version before they announce the result. There are 28 players on the list, half of them for the first time.

Scott Rolen – Almost
Todd Helton – No
Billy Wagner – No
Andruw Jones – No
Gary Sheffield – No
Alex Rodriguez – Yes
Jeff Kent – Almost
Manny Ramirez – Yes
Omar Vizquel – No
Andy Pettitte – No
Jimmy Rollins – No
Bobby Abreu – No
Mark Buehrle – No
Torii Hunter – No
Carlos Beltrán – Almost
John Lackey – No
Jered Weaver – No
Jacoby Ellsbury – No
Matt Cain – No
Jhonny Peralta – No
Jayson Werth – No
J.J. Hardy – No
Mike Napoli – No
Bronson Arroyo – No
R.A. Dickey – No
Francisco Rodríguez – No
Andre Ethier – No
Huston Street – No

Also, Fred McGriff was elected by one of the committees this year. To me McGriff represents possibly the best example of the “small hall” versus “big hall” points of view. The small hall thinks admission should be only for those whose greatness is beyond a shadow of a doubt, wheras the large hall thinks admission is a good capstone for a career full of solid contributions. There have been a little over 20,000 players to play major league baseball, and 270 are in the Hall of Fame, so about 1.35%, though if you filter out the number who only played a few games or even a single season, we’re probably in the 2-3% range. The small hall crowd thinks this should probably be closer to 1%, the large hall is probably more like 5%.

If forced to choose, I would probably land on the small hall side. I look at players like McGriff and Andrew Jones and think they were fantastic players that I would have loved to have on my team, but am I going to reminisce about how dominant they were? No. I’d actually like to see a tiered system where it’s not all or nothing, but we can give these players a more visible place in history while also recognizing those we felt we were lucky to see play, but that’s a post for another day.

The Yeses

As mentioned in 2007, steroids is still a factor, and in 16 years little progress has been made in how to handle that. My only two votes on this years ballots both had suspensions for PEDs late in a career that would have been automatic HoF status up to that point, but they will likely never get in from the writers’ voting as a result of the suspensions.

The Almosts

• Carlos Beltrán might make it eventually after a long and solid career, but is likely in the penalty box for the Astros cheating scandal, so we’ll think about him next year.
• Scott Rolen and Jeff Kent were great all-around players but I’d put them in the same tier as McGrifff.
• Todd Helton played half his games in a hitter’s wonderland and put together a few great seasons and a few good ones, but not enough to make the cut for me.

I guess I could say I called it.

For the past few years now, I buy an All Star Game jersey for one of the Red Sox that is playing that year. I’ve avoided getting one for perennial attendee Manny Ramirez, figuring that since he easily makes it every year, I’d be better off getting one from more variable players.

Here’s what I’ve gotten so far:

2004: Ortiz
2005: Varitek
2006: Papelbon
2007: Okajima

And in 2008 (ordered before even the rumors started flying)?

P.S. Last year I started buying a National League jersey as well. Who did I get? Bonds (who isn’t playing this year). Apologies in advance to Chipper Jones…

All of the awards have been announced now, so let’s recap:

Rookie of the Year

American League

My Pick: Pedroia
Winner: Pedroia, by a large margin.

I’d change my vote for runner-up here to Joakim Soria, who had a fantastic year on a team nobody watches, and as a closer for a team that rarely wins.

National League

My Pick: Tulowitzki
Winner: Braun, by two points.

I still stick by my Tulowitzki pick, but Braun’s numbers were apparently too good. I think this comes down to whether the award goes to the player that performed the best (Braun) or the one that showed the most potential/promise (Tulowitzki).

Cy Young

American League

My Pick: Sabathia
Winner: Sabathia, by a fair margin

I was actually surprised that the voting wasn’t closer. Perhaps there’s a little Boston backlash or maybe the voters are starting to realize that wins are a garbage statistic.

National League

My Pick: Peavy
Winner: Peavy (unanimous)

Most Valuable Player

American League

My Pick: Rodriguez
Winner: Rodriguez, all but two votes

National League

My Pick: Holliday
Winner: Rollins, by a small margin

This was the biggest surprise. Rollins had a great year, but Holliday had a monster year. Playing on an east coast team, at a more important position, and being more “exciting” (i.e. faster), as well as the Coors Field effect, must have been the deciding factors here. In hindsight, I probably should have picked Rollins as the runner-up.

Picking a Rookie of the Year is probably the most subjective of the big baseball awards. Evaluating a player on such a small sample size is anathema to sabermetricians, and hype can help or hurt the impression a player makes on his new fans. To me, the best rookies not only perform well, they show potential. The guy who comes up and has more HR than BB doesn’t really impress me (though sometimes that’s all you have), the guy that fields well and has clutch hits or pitches and still manages to put together decent numbers are the real future stars.

National League RoY: Troy Tulowitzki. Between Ryan Braun and Tulowitzki, I have to Tulowitzki the edge, but I didn’t really get a chance to see either of these guys play. Based on what I’ve read and what little I’ve seen, Tulowitzki is a talented shortstop who can hit and Braun is a clumsy third baseman who can really hit. Braun pretty much beats Tulowitzki hands down in terms of production, but I don’t trust power numbers from rookies (will he be a McGwire or a Maas?) as much as I do fielding and discipline, so Tulowitzki gets it.

American League RoY: Dustin Pedroia. Sox fans have been hearing about Pedroia since he was drafted, but always with caveats like “maybe he’s too small” or veiled warnings like “he plays with heart”. He came up early in the season and basically stunk up the joint, but his manager had faith, and eventually something clicked. Pedroia turned into a hitting machine, fielded like veteran, and always seemed to be fired up. I think the sox have a solid .300+ hitter for a few years, probably settling into the #2 spot if Ellsbury’s power is low enough that he becomes the leadoff. Runner Up: Daisuke Matsuzaka*

*I love the fact that the baseball market is going global, but something just doesn’t feel right about experienced players winning Rookie of the Year. Can you imagine Manny Ramirez going to play in Jpan and being considered a rookie? Even if I didn’t feel this way I still wouldn’t have given Dice-K the nod over Pedroia.

One of the key differences (beyond the rules of the game) between the 4 major professional American sports is the role of the managers. In football a team wins or loses largely based on the cleverness of the coach. Basketball and hockey teams use styles and plans that the coach comes up with, even if the action itself is largely tactical.

Baseball calls the position a manager, not a coach, and is also the only sport where the manager wears a completely unnecessary uniform. The term manager is probably more accurate, since most of what the manager does is done off-field, keeping two dozen or more alpha jocks in line every day for 6 months. During the actual game, the manager rarely moves, typically waddling out of the dugout only a few times per game. Sometimes a bad call is made and a show must be put on, but the decisions largely make themselves, and the limited number of options often makes them rather easy.

I devote a blog post (the first of several, most likely) to poking a stick at the 30 guys that often make more than a million dollars a year because one of my pet peeves came to light in tonight’s exciting one-game-playoff between the Padres and Rockies.

Why do managers never pull pitchers in the middle of a count?

It was obvious to anyone watching the game that Jorge Julio had nothing. He walked Giles, throwing pitches anywhere but over the plate. His first pitch to Hairston was just as bad, and I said to my roommate, “they need to get this guy out of there”. The cameras showed the manager pacing, not looking happy. The poor pitcher had no control at all, the manager is sitting on a 40 man roster, and this is the most important game of the year. Julio has pitched well this season, but when every pitch counts this much, you have to mitigate the risk. Needless to say, the next pitch left the park.

I have never seen a pitcher pulled in the middle of facing a batter. It’s apparently one of the unwritten rules that makes no sense like not switching sides when you bat (or pitch). There are probably hitters out there who would do well to switch sides when they get ahead or behind in the count, but they don’t do it. Short of an injury or ejection, a manager would sooner watch his team lose while he’s posed on the top step of the dugout than just run out and tell a guy he’s done and he’s not going to get a chance to throw two more balls or lob the meatball the batter is obviously sitting on.