LGT 2009 HOF Ballot Results
by Ryan on Jan 12, 2009 9:00 AM EST
in Events
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PrintWith 23 ballots cast, here's the results of this weekend's voting:
(Players appearing on over 75% of the ballots in bold, and players appearing on less than 5% of the ballots in italics)
|
Player |
LGT Ballots | % Ballots |
| Harold Baines | 0 | 0% |
| Jay Bell | 0 | 0% |
| Bert Blyleven | 19 | 83% |
| David Cone | 0 | 0% |
| Andre Dawson | 2 | 9% |
| Ron Gant | 0 | 0% |
| Mark Grace | 0 | 0% |
| Rickey Henderson | 23 | 100% |
| Tommy John | 2 | 9% |
| Don Mattingly | 0 | 0% |
| Mark McGwire | 13 | 57% |
| Jack Morris | 1 | 4% |
| Dale Murphy | 0 | 0% |
| Jesse Orosco | 0 | 0% |
| Dave Parker | 0 | 0% |
| Dan Plesac | 0 | 0% |
| Tim Raines | 20 | 87% |
| Jim Rice | 2 | 9% |
| Lee Smith | 2 | 9% |
| Alan Trammell | 14 | 61% |
| Greg Vaughn | 0 | 0% |
| Mo Vaughn | 0 | 0% |
| Matt Williams | 1 | 4% |
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Comments
Doesn’t that break rule #1?
(1) Once I vote for a player, he remains on my ballot, barring extraordinary circumstances. A player can’t get worse by not playing.
by JulioBernazard on Jan 12, 2009 11:14 AM EST up reply actions
The first rule of secret identities is you don’t talk about secret identities
by Logodaedalus on Jan 13, 2009 12:50 PM EST up reply actions
FYI: Jay Bell received at least one more vote in the real world than he did on LGT.
by JulioBernazard on Jan 12, 2009 11:15 AM EST reply actions
Wow. I have mad respect for Brendan Roberts.
Buster Olney? Why’d ya do it? Rice, Morris, Dawson, but not Blyleven and Raines? I will never be able to take him seriously again.
Yeah that’s awful. He should be fired from ESPN….if they actually cared about serious analysis.
The best thing probably is to hit [Grady] 2nd -- Jay
by Buckeye Brad on Jan 12, 2009 11:45 AM EST up reply actions
He should be fired from ESPN….if they actually cared about serious analysis.
Well, that’s kind of it, isn’t it?
I remember a poli sci professor making fun of business schools with ethics classes. He said, “They give you one class in ethics and 31 classes in greed.”
Well, ESPN has Rob Neyer …
by Jay on Jan 12, 2009 8:49 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Raines received 24% last year and 87% this year. Why did perception of him change so radically in one year?
One of my roommates asked me today if Robbie Alomar would make it as an Indian. Certainly as a Blue Jay, right?
57% for McGwire. Wow. That’s high. Makes me wonder what Palmeiro will get in 2011 – probably surpass 75% (Bonds is a no-brainer).
Yankees and Red Sox - MLB's Axis of Evil
(And ESPN is right in the middle)
Palmeiro was going to need a few years to get in anyway. Lots of folks were dubious about his career, as if there’s a mediocre way to pile up 3000-500.
Is that due to the fact that he was primarily a DH? Or that his teams were never competitive? Going strictly by the numbers, he is one of the best hitters of all time. Is it because he did not stand out as among the top hitter of his era?
(I’m leaving the issue of steroids out of the discussion, because that was my point with the original post).
Yankees and Red Sox - MLB's Axis of Evil
(And ESPN is right in the middle)
He was never seen as an elite hitter, he was just a really good hitter who stayed really good for years and years, in an era when other first basemen sometimes put up ridiculous, cartoon numbers.
The whole topic of “eras” is confusing me. I hear folks say that Rice is not deserving because his overall numbers are not among the top historically, yet during his era he was one of the top players in the league. Palmeiro is on the other side of the argument – historically, one of the best, but during his era he was not at the very top.
I find it hard to figure out the 90’s. Not only did we have all of the ’roids, but the league added 4 new teams without a large new source of players. In the 70s, the league added 2 new teams, but Central and South America still had many new players to provide the league. The league did not have the dilution of talent in the 70s as we have seen in the 90s. Add to that the growth of football and basketball as competition for athletic talent, and I find it hard to compare players from decade to decade.
I’m not well-versed in all of the statistics, so maybe they do a better job of handling this?
Yankees and Red Sox - MLB's Axis of Evil
(And ESPN is right in the middle)
Rice was not even one of the top players of his era. He’s identical to tons of outfielders from that time period, including his outfield mates.
THIS
If you want to see some striking numbers, check out Dwight Evans numbers compared to Rice’s. Rice was good, but Evans was just a hair below Rice but was the FAR superior defender. Look at the High Leverage splits too, Evans was better in that regard.
Rice finished 1st, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th in MVP balloting, was named to eight All-Star teams, and ranked among the top five in RBIs seven times, home runs five times, total bases five times and batting average four times. What other outfielders during his era compare? Maybe Dave Parker, but not quite. Reggie Jackson? George Foster?
Comparable to Evans? Dewey was voted to 3 All-Star games and finished 3rd, 4th, 7th, 9th and 11th in MVP balloting. Not even close. Are you saying the voters for MVP and All-Start games were ignorant back in that era?
Yankees and Red Sox - MLB's Axis of Evil
(And ESPN is right in the middle)
Uhh, yes. They have always been totally ignorant, especially when you get into things like finishing 5th in MVP balloting.
Wow, I thought this was common knowledge. It’s one thing to look at MVP voting, which is bad, but All-Star voting is a complete joke. To base anything on that is extremely foolish. Hafner was one of the two best hitters in the AL from 04-06 and never made an All-Star team.
The best thing probably is to hit [Grady] 2nd -- Jay
by Buckeye Brad on Jan 14, 2009 10:31 PM EST up reply actions
MVP and, to a somewhat lesser degree, All-star voting is useless information to use in support of a HOF candidacy because you are essentially sampling the same population of voters. Those people who voted for the MVP awards are among the same group of people voting for HOF today. Using subjective assessments from the ‘70s to support the same subjective conclusions today doesn’t really work.
Also, there is a different time perspective. We are talking about 5-15 years after a career has ended, as opposed to during the peak of that career. A player like Rice may be less appreciated today than when he played, just as Blyleven may be more appreciated, and these can be quite legitimate points of view.
Also also, in the HoF we are looking a an entire career. A player with a strong peak (e.g., Dale Murphy or Dave Parker) can rack up an number of high MVP finishes and still be fairly judged to fall short on career standards.
Not really. We don’t have any less information now than we did then, but we may be able to understand it better.
Real analysis doesn’t happen as part of an emotional narrative, it comes from looking at information objectively. Writers liked to write that Rice was “feared” in his day, but there is no evidence that this was the case. That “fear” had no evident impact on his numbers or the strategies of managers and pitchers who had to face him.
It was, essentially, just an emotional reaction by the writers and perhaps some players. To the extent that it was real, it didn’t make him a better ballplayer.
I wasn’t really clear about what I was replying to.
My point is that it’s overly charitable — false — to say that the 20-year-old perspective is equally valid, or valid at all. What we’re talking about is an imperfect nostalgia for the emotional reaction that writers liked to write about. We have the real objective data perfectly preserved, and everything else is really just babbling.
Essentially, many writers voted for the guy because they used to write about how feared he was. There isn’t anything valid about that “perspective.”
I’m not sure we disagree. Being “able to understand it better” is not inconsistent with “perspective.”
Surely we should all have a better perspective on Rice’s career today than we did in, say, 1978. There has been time for reflection, analysis, comparison to similar players, and so on. The evaluation process at this stage should be more rigorous than a post-season award vote. Otherwise, why the five-year waiting period?
This is not to suggest that some writers haven’t instead spent that time making up stuff about how Rice was more feared in his day than Foster or Parker or Baylor.
Great minds think alike. So do we.
Steel Nick
by nickjs21 on Jan 15, 2009 10:39 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Spidey, I’m not sure what the controversy is here. Most knowledgeable fans would say that the All-Star and MVP voting is flat-out idiotic right now, let alone 25 years ago. The writers on the whole are unsophisticated and uncritical, and a whole host of political and systemic factors go into making All-Star selections.
Rice was a very good but overrated player for seven or eight years, but he wasn’t close to as good as Albert Belle, and his career didn’t last long enough to measure up to most Hall of Fame outfielders.
John Brattain at THT has an ok post this morning which, if not the best piece of analysis, effectively shows the similarities between Rice and a lot of other guys who are fringe HOFers or aren’t considered hall-worthy at all (Dwight Evans, Ellis Burks, Moises Alou, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Andre Dawson, Albert Belle).
I hope that in time the voters will see Rice as a mistake and not as some sort of standard. It may seem inequitable to allow one guy in and not others similarly qualified, but I prefer that to the other option.
Poz has a long post (of course all his posts are long) comparing Rice to Dale Murphy. They are very similar in many ways, with Rice being the better hitter (helped by his home ballpark) but Murphy being the better all-around player. Of course, there’s a huge difference in voter support between the two players.
The best thing probably is to hit [Grady] 2nd -- Jay
by Buckeye Brad on Jan 14, 2009 10:29 PM EST up reply actions
Palmeiro was amazingly consistent and durable.
From 1988-2004, the fewest games he played in was 111. The second fewest was 143.
From 1990-2002, the lowest OPS+ he posted was 113. Second lowest was 123.
The argument against Palmiero is that he was never that great. He never finished higher than 5th in the MVP voting, never led his league in OPS+. He finished second once, but only one other time in the top five. He did finsih in the top ten several times, but that isn’t really good enough for a first baseman.
I think that if it weren’t for steroids, he’d be a first ballot hall of famer. So far, 3,000 hits has garnered that honor every time.
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