Four for the Hall

The Base Ball Writers Association of America -- the BBWAA, whose name is probably the final vestige of the obsolete style of splitting baseball into two words -- elected four stars of the 1990s and 2000s to the Hall of Fame. Four thoughts for four inductees:

* Much is being made of Mariano Rivera's unanimous election, the first in Hall history. The unaminity is unimportant, but I'm glad it finally happened because the BBWAA electorate, or at least part of it, couldn't seem to shut up about how it had never happened.

* The purging of the voting roster a few years back clearly got the desired result. This year's election continues the recent trend of multiple inductees -- and unlike most, it actually cleared out some of the backlog of deserving candidates. Rivera and Roy Halladay were first-time candidates, but Mike Mussina and Edgar Martinez have been on the ballot for a few years.

* Halladay's first-ballot election is intriguing because his career was relatively brief -- "only" 16 years and 203 career wins, which are pretty low for Cooperstown. I don't think he was even close to being the best pitcher, or even the best starting pitcher, on the ballot -- I'd take Mussina over Doc, and probably Curt Schilling as well -- but he had a good run in which the consensus had him as one of the best starters in baseball. High quality and enough duration to get in. Johan Santana -- off the ballot -- had the former but not the latter.

* The selection last month by the "Today's Game" committee of two lesser specialists in Lee Smith and Harold Baines probably cleared the way for Martinez's election and Rivera's unaminity. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, a beat writer I follow, had resisted voting for Martinez for years because he was limited to DH; he switched this year in part because of Baines and in part because he recognized that he was very likely to vote for David Ortiz in a few years. Here again, the purging of the "inactive" voters -- member of the BBWAA no longer involved in covering the game -- resulted in a younger electorate more accepting of specialists.

Gold Gloves, Tonk Out and RIP Doc

Both Byron Buxton and Brian Dozier were named winners of the Gold Glove Award on Tuesday.

Buxton, no question. Dozier, not so much. At risk of spoiling what I might comment on when my Handbook series gets to the Fielding Bible Awards section, Dozier wasn't in the top 10 of second basemen in that more-metric oriented approach. As the BIS-arranged voting has it, Ian Kinsler was by far the best fielding second baseman in the American League.

The Gold Gloves have a well-earned reputation for being swayed by a player's hitting, and Dozier has hit more than 100 homers over the past three seasons. Above-average defense and 30-plus homers a season makes him a very good player. But he's not really the best gloveman at his position, as Buxton is.

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The Twins sold Michael Tonkin to the Nippon Ham Fighters of Japanese baseball.

This clears another slot off the 40-man roster -- down now to 33 -- and gives Tonkin a better payday than he was going to get if he remained in the States. He'll get more than $2 million from the Fighters, who are expected to use him as their closer. (The team is owned by Nippon Ham; the name is not intended to imply that they are fighting hams.)

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Roy Halladay never pitched for the Twins, but he was for a decade one of the best pitchers in the game, and his death in a self-piloted plane crash Tuesday was the biggest news in baseball.

"Doc" Halladay was widely seen during his playing days as a likely Hall of Famer, but he didn't have the usual career path. His decline was brief and sudden, and his career totals (205 wins, 2,749 innings) are resultingly small for Cooperstown.

But his peak was longer than that of Johan Santana, his main rival for the title of Best Pitcher of the 2000s, and there are consensus enshrinees who essentially match Halladay's career totals -- Ed Walsh, Sandy Koufax, Rube Waddell, Dazzy Vance. And a few more dubious honorees.

He becomes eligible for the voting next winter -- I doubt the Hall will waive the five-year rule for him as it did for Roberto Clemente -- and his surprising death may perversely increase his chances of first ballot selection.

I think Halladay will eventually get in, and that's fine. I'm not sure he's a more deserving enshrinee than Mike Mussina or even Curt Schilling, but he should get in, sooner or later. Unfortunately, he won't get to be there to enjoy the honor.

The morning after the night before

I'll bet you figured that after that ridiculously long stream-of-consciousness blog last night that I couldn't possibly come up with anything more to say. Wrong again, websurfer.

A blizzard of white in the seats at Citizens Bank Ballpark.

1) I'm surprised this didn't occur to me during the game, but it didn't until I was watching highlights from the Roy Halladay no-hitter: No Homer Hankies in evidence at Target Field. I don't know what they call their hankies in Philly, but the fans there were waving white cloths.

I suspect the Homer Hanky phenomena in Minnesota died with the Metrodome. Or with all those first-round defeats of the Gardenhire era.

2) The Lou Piniella Theory of Postseason Baseball holds that you win in October with power pitching. (I blame this theory on Piniella, at least).

Roy Halladay: The National
League is easy for him.

High-strikeout pitchers are better in October than pitch-to-contact pitchers. That's true in April, May, June, July, August and September as well. But if by power pitchers we mean guys whose fastball pops are audible in the right field stands, that theory is badly overstated.

Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee are prime examples of that. They are precise with their location and they utilize all four dimensions of the strike zone (up, down, depth and timing).

Francisco Liriano and CC Sabathia looked like throwers Wednesday -- great stuff, limited command of it. Halladay and Lee were pitchers.

3) One way to think about these teams is to consider who on each is on a plausible Hall of Fame path. The Phillies, for example, have Halladay, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, arguably Roy Oswalt. The Yankees, of course, have at least three first-ballot guys (Jeter, Rivera, A-Roid). The Twins have Mauer. Tampa Bay has Longoria. Texas has Hamilton and Lee. San Francisco has Lincecum. Atlanta has Chipper Jones (even though he's out).

And Cincy has ... nobody. Oh, Joey Votto might win the MVP this year, but the man's 27 already and hasn't hit 100 homers in his career. Ardolis Chapman throws 105, but let's let him stay healthy after a couple hundred innings before we say he's on a Hall of Fame path. Orlando Cabrera and Scott Rolen have had distinguished careers, but if Alan Trammell and Ron Santo aren't getting in, Cabrera and Rolen aren't either.

This is not to lessen Halladay's accomplishment -- a no-hitter is a no-hitter. But Cincinnati does not strike me as a particularly talented playoff team.

A perfectly memorable day for Halladay

Roy Halladay (above) just wrapped up a perfect game against the Florida Marlins.

Not that you can ever expect a perfect game, or even a no-hitter, but one has to figure this was a lot more likely than Dallas Braden's perfecto. Halladay is an established star pitcher, one of the very best in the game. Braden, not so much.

 Box score here. Game story here.

Comparing the big pitching trades

The ornately complex four-team transaction that involved two former Cy Young winners and a heap of Grade A prospects finally complete, everybody's in a hurry to declare who won or lost.

Too soon. What we can tell is who got what they wanted, and at first blush everybody involved (with the exception of the Blue Jays) should be pretty happy with the results.

The Jays can't be happy with it because they lost the best pitcher in their 31-season history, Roy Halladay (pictured). They got prospects back — good prospects, to be sure, but prospects nevertheless. The Jays traded Halladay because they are getting more than they would have had they hung on to him for his walk year. It's small comfort.

Seattle gets a year of Cliff Lee to pair up with King Felix Hernandez — and a real clear shot at unseating the Angels in the AL West.

Philladelphia swaps a year of Lee (who wants to hit the open market next winter) for three of Halladay (who was eager to sign an extension and has pitched better than Lee anyway.). They also get some extra cash ($6 million) and lose a little bit overall in the exchange of prospects.

And Oakland wedges itself into the deal at the last minute to swap prospects. Michael Taylor's more useful to the A's than to the Jays, and Brett Wallace fits the Jays needs more than Taylor does.

This makes four trades in two years involving Cy Young winners — Johan Santana from the Twins to the Mets before spring training 2008, CC Sabathia from Cleveland to Milwaukee in midseason 2008, Lee from Cleveland to Philadelphia in midseason 2009, and now the Halladay-Lee megadeal.

Obviously, we don't know how the new trade will work out. If Kyle Drabek and Wallace live up to the hype and Halladay breaks down, Toronto can wind up looking pretty good; if Phillippe Aumont turns into a top-flight closer and Lee leaves without lifting Seattle to postseason glory, the M's can have egg on their faces.

What I will say is this: The Twins did not get a prospect in the Santana trade as well regarded at the time as Drabek, Taylor, Wallace or Aumont — or even Matt LaPorta, the jewel in the Sabathia trade.

We outsiders will never know how serious the rumors of Jon Lester or Phil Hughes were, if there was ever truly an opportunity for Bill Smith to get one of those pitchers for Santana.

The Twins's take on the Santana trade at this point is two (mediocre) years of Carlos Gomez, J.J. Hardy, Jon Rauch and whatever Delois Guerra may eventually amount to. At this point, we can be justified in saying that they would have been better off keeping Santana for his walk year and taking the draft picks.

But then, they'd still be looking for a shortstop.

Notes, comments and a committment

The Twins tonight start a week-long West Coast swing. The reality of our current print deadlines is that we're unlikely to have game stories in the paper after the night games.

But I'll post commentary and a link to the AP game stories here after each of the night games, just as I did with last night's extra-inning affair.

*Guys who can make a living as pinch-hit specialists fascinate me. There have been quite a few of them in the 40 years that I've been following the game — Jose Morales (the first one, who played for the Twins in the Gene Mauch era), Terry Crowley, Lenny Harris, Mark Sweeney, Manny Mota come immediately to mind. Randy Bush milked an extra couple of years out of his career in the role.

Brian Buscher (above) looks to me like he has a chance to carve out such a niche. The man's career OBP as a pinch hitter is .500. Granted, it's only 32 plate appearances, but that's the kind of thing that can get a reputation. And reputation counts.

* A lot of contenders — including the Twins — had scouts at Roy Halladay's start Sunday. I'm guessing the Twins scout wasn't there to eyeball Doc. He was looking for bullpen arms. It wasn't a good day to see Toronto's relievers in action.

* A few weeks ago I suggested the Twins could target ground-ball machine Cla Meredith in their search for middle relief help. On Sunday the Padres traded him to Baltimore for a utility infield type named Oscar Salazar. Salazar appears to be a better hitter than the likes of Matt Tolbert and may well be a more valuable bargaining chip than any infield chip the Twins could reasonably offer. Still ...