New Guys:
Carl Crawford
Prince Fielder
Ryan Howard
Tim Lincecum
Justin Morneau
Joe Nathan
David Ortiz
Jonathan Papelbon
Jake Peavy
A.J. Pierzynski
Álex Rodríguez
Jimmy Rollins
Mark Teixeira
Returning:
Curt Schilling – 71.1% (10th year)
Barry Bonds – 61.8% (10th year)
Roger Clemens – 61.6% (10th year)
Scott Rolen – 52.9% (5th year)
Omar Vizquel – 49.1% (5th year)
Billy Wagner – 46.4% (7th year)
Todd Helton – 44.9% (4th year)
Gary Sheffield – 40.6% (8th year)
Andruw Jones – 33.9% (5th year)
Jeff Kent – 32.4% (9th year)
Manny Ramírez – 28.2% (6th year)
Sammy Sosa – 17.0% (10th year)
Andy Pettitte – 13.7% (4th year)
Mark Buehrle – 11.0% (2nd year)
Torii Hunter – 9.5% (2nd year)
Bobby Abreu – 8.7% (3rd year)
Tim Hudson – 5.2% (2nd year)
Only two would get my vote - Schilling and Vizquel
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Link: Are you fookin kidding me, Cooperstown?
Lou is a sentimental choice by Tigers faithful, but he's clearly not HOF-worthy.
Because if you go by that metric, he's absolutely a Hall of Famer. He's 7th all time among 2nd-basemen in W.A.R. at 75, which is even better than Sandberg, and his peak 7 seasons is even with Sandberg. The difference is that Sandberg has 5 more All-Star appearances and 6 more Gold Gloves. And Sandberg had a couple of real eye-popping seasons that everyone remembers, whereas Lou was just consistently very, very good.
The catch with that statistic is that it places such a premium value on playing the 2nd Base position that it can inflate the value of guys at that spot relative to 1B or RF, who conversely really need to have huge offensive statistics to be valued as heavily.
home run barrages by Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa...before the steroid era, Barry was on track for the HOF, and his HR efficiency (i.e. batting prowess) was legendary throughout his career as evidenced by the amazing number of intentional walks he got...the right field wall of Giants Stadium was festooned with rubber chickens each time he was given an obvious pass by the opposing pitcher ;-).
Yes, he took the "cream" to build himself up, but in total context, he is totally deserving. BTW, in terms of their career performances, neither McGuire nor Sosa deserve the HOF...IMO.
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watch him play as often as I was you'd see how by himself he changed the other team's strategy...he was often intentionally walked, putting runners in scoring position...even third base.
I'm talking about this: "BTW, in terms of their career performances, neither McGuire nor Sosa deserve the HOF...IMO."
What is the basis for that statement, from a purely career performance standpoint?
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Well, their career stats are less than those of Bonds, but that is true of many already in the Hall of Fame. Objectively, both deserve to be included based solely on statistics.
But there is also the steroid issue to consider. To say Bonds was a Hall of Famer without using steroids probably is true and also irrelevant. He cheated. His conduct degraded from non-cheaters (Fred McGriff, for example). I have no issue with those that do not vote for Bonds.
That they were already Hall of Fame guys before the juice. The vote totals compared to guys like McGwire and Sosa basically bear that out, because most people feel the opposite about the latter 2: Juicers for virtually all of the elite portion of their careers.
I personally just don't like voters trying to parse it that way, because we don't have the real information, and it takes a lot of assumptions to make that decision. Either you accept that the juice was unfortunately part of the game and judge everyone against the contemporaries of their era, or you penalize all the known juicers, regardless of where and when it's believed they used.
my vote...it's not that I'm 'against' McGwire and Sosa, it's just that there's too much rationalization needed to get them in. Let's also be clear that both of them were outstanding players deserving of adulation for their skills...I still remember batting practice before a Giants/A's game and being awestruck at McGwire's prodigious blasts deep into the bleachers in left field...it was fun, and sold a lot of tickets back then...which put a smile on the faces of the Baseball "Powers that Be"...(you know where I'm going with that).
You -- probably correctly -- feel like they would not have had H.O.F. careers without P.E.D.'s, and so therefore, you feel that's what makes their careers not deserving.
And that's fine - it seems to be the same sentiment from the voters, given the comparison of votes that Bonds (and Clemens) have received relative to McGwire/Sosa. My read of your original email was that their raw career production without the other "data" wasn't H.O.F.-worthy. And that part obviously wouldn't be supported by the numbers.
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I'd also take a long look at Sosa and Scott Rolen. Sosa indeed gets marked down for the same reasons that 4 of my 5 selections suffer from, but he's also not as good of a player as they were.
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A .300 hitter, 14 homers per year, lots and lots of singles until Canseco joined his locker room.
For the rest of his career, he averaged 36 homers per season and his Slugging % went up almost 100 points. All the way up to age 40.
But remember, kids: Steroids don't make you hit the ball any better!
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ball history. A case could be made for Lincecum, but he flamed out quickly after dominating for a couple years.
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He was spectacular for 2 seasons, really darn good for 2 others, and that's about it. The World Series wins and postseason performances are big feathers in the hat of his career, but there's not enough there to make a legit Hall of Fame case.