The BBWAA chokes. Again.

Bert Blyleven (above) fell five votes short of Hall of Fame induction in the results announced Wednesday.

Roberto Alomar — who I reckon was one of the ten greatest second baseman in history — didn't make it either. Nor did Barry Larkin — one of the 10 best shortstops in history.

Andre Dawson did. The Hawk was a good player. He wasn't anywhere near as good as Tim Raines, but why vote for the second greatest leadoff hitter in history when you can induct somebody whose career on-base percentage is 20 points lower than the previous worst among HOF outfielders?

Dawson isn't quite as bad a joke as last winter's selection of Jim Rice, but it's close.

It used to be that almost all the mistake inductions into the Hall came from the various Veterans Committees. After Jim Bunning, Tony Perez, Rice and Dawson, it's becoming increasingly common for the writers to boff it.

10 things to remember about Randy Johnson's career

1) He played college ball at USC with Mark McGwire — and played basketball there too.

2) When he arrived in the majors with Montreal, he was the tallest man ever in MLB. (Jon Rauch, now with the Twins, is the current record-holder.)

3) His first three seasons in a major league rotation — with Seattle — were a struggle for command. He led the AL in walks each year. Nolan Ryan, then with Texas, suggested that he change his stride so that he landed on the balls of his right foot rather than the heel. That made a smoother delivery with less jostling — and his pitching immediately got dramatically better.

4) He threw tremendous numbers of pitches for his time, frequently exceeding 130 pitches and about once a year going over 140. This workload came with a physical price. He had four back surgeries and three knee operations. He pitched the last six years or so of his career with an artificial lubricant in his right knee — it was injected at the start of the season and again around the mid-point — because his cartilage was gone.

5) He terrorized left-handed hitters — think John Kruk in the 1993 All-Star game; Johnson threw his first pitch over Kurk's head, and Kruk spent the rest of the at-bat as far from home plate as he could get — and most lefties got a day off when Johnson's turn in the rotation came up. As a general rule, only the very best left-handed hitters faced him, and even they weren't too happy about it.

6) He threw a perfect game on May 18, 2004, against the Atlanta Braves. I remember watching the highlights and realizing that he had, for the last two innings, returned to a delivery that put more stress on the knee — risking further damage for the chance at the perfecto.

7) Speaking of risking damage for glory: Johnson, then with the Arizona Diamondbacks, pitched seven innings (107 pitches) to win Game 6 of the 2001 World Series against the New York Yankees. The next day, in Game 7, he came out of the bullpen to get the last four outs as the D'backs put an end to Joe Torre's streak of World Series titles.

His stats for that World Series: 3-0. 1.04 ERA, 11 baserunners allowed in 17.1 innings, 19 strikeouts.

8) He won five Cy Young Awards, four of them in a row. He also finished second three times.

9) His strikeout total (4,875) is second all-time only to Ryan. His strikeouts per nine innings rate — 10.6 — is unsurpassed.

10) Of course, the bird. In a 2001 spring training game, a hapless bird darted into the path of a Johnson pitch and disappeared in a puff of feathers. (The ruling, incidentally, was no pitch.)

The Big Unit calls it quits

I keep in my skull a list of the great pitchers I've seen work in person.

I saw Roger Clemens beat the Twins in 1986 a few weeks after his first 20-strikeout game announced his arrival as a star.

I saw Greg Maddux during his Cy Young season with the Cubs — that game was in St. Louis — and again when he pitched against the Twins in the Metrodome.

I saw the Twins beat Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling. I saw John Smoltz and Tom Glavine in the World Series.

I remember seeing games pitched by Jim Palmer and Steve Carlton on their way out, Bert Blyleven and Frank Viola, Jim Kaat and Tommy John and, of course, Johan Santana.

But I don't remember ever being at a game with Randy Johnson pitching, and now I never will.

The Big Unit hung 'em up Tuesday, calling an end to one of the great pitching careers of this or any era. A 303-166 won-loss record, 4,875 strikeouts, five Cy Young Awards, four of them in a row — the numbers are staggering.

Part of why I never saw Johnson pitch is, I think, is a piece of personal history. Johnson's father is buried in Duluth, and when his team came to Minnesota, Johnson would go to visit the grave. At some point, Lou Piniella — who managed Johnson for most of his time in the American League — decided that he would avoid pitching Johnson in the Metrodome, because the pitcher was too wound up emotionally.

According to Baseball Reference, Johnson made 11 starts in the Metrodome — only one after 1995.

His Metrodome ERA was 4.11 — almost a full run higher than his ERA in the Kingdome, his home park in those days — and his strikeout rate in Minnesota is the lowest of any park in which he threw at least 20 innings.

It seems likely, as I sort through his game logs against the Twins, that I may have been at one or two of his starts early in his Seattle tenure, when he was walking 150 men a year and greatness was not evident. I had partial season tickets in those days — Saturdays and Mondays and occasional other days — and I find a couple of Monday games in the Dome on his record.

But I simply don't remember him. He wasn't the Big Unit yet. He was just a really tall guy trying to get his body to work efficiently, trying to harness his stuff.

Which, I guess, is a story that offers some hope for Francisco Liriano.

The annual Francisco Liriano hype

Important if true: From the Pioneer Press today: Ron Gardenhire says Francisco Liriano is impressing in winter ball.

"I just got a report that he's throwing the living fire out of the ball down in the Dominican (Republic)," the Twins manager said. "He threw eight innings the other day, and his fastball was 92 to 94 (mph) and his slider was filthy. That's a really good thing, because he can be the bonus if we can get him on track."

Let's backtrack. Liriano in 2006 — that wondrous nine weeks or so when he was absolutely incredible — was topping out on the radar gun at around 97 mph before his injury. Last year, he was in the low 90s. Nothing impressive, then, on the velocity part of this report; it's what he was doing last season.

Liriano had Tommy John ligament replacement surgery late in 2006, missed all of 2007, and the reports during the the 2007-08 offseason — winter ball in the Dominican — had him throwing in the mid 90s.

Then he reported to training camp, and the velocity he displayed in Fort Myers was nowhere near what it had been in 2006.

The moral here: Don't figure that he's back until he shows it in the states. He should be regarded as a pitcher with slightly above average stuff and below average command, because that's what he demonstrated himself to be last season. Winter ball reports on Liriano have been inflated before.

Another IF target gone

Adrian Beltre (left) is reportedly a physical away from signing with the Boston Red Sox —a one-year deal for $9 million plus a player option for $5 million with $1 million buyout.

This, then, is a one-year, $10 million deal, since he's not going to accept that $5 million option short of a paralyzing accident. He'll take the $1 million buyout and try free agency again.

Even on a one-year basis, $10 million figured to be a bit rich for the Twins, who are already looking a a $90 million-plus payroll with the Joe Mauer negotiations at whatever phase they may be.

My earlier list of eight free agent infielders I imagined the Twins making take-it-or-leave-it offers to is now down to four: Miguel Tejada (who would be moved to third base), Orlando Cabrera (who would be moved to second), Felipe Lopez (second base) and Orlando Hudson (second base).

Meanwhile, the Red Sox figure to be motivated sellers of Mike Lowell, who has a $12 million contract for 2010 and just had thumb surgery. A Lowell to Texas deal (for prospect Max Ramirez) fell through because of the thumb issue; supposedly (a) the Red Sox are willing to pick up $9 million of Lowell's salary and (b) they're willing to wait until spring training, when Lowell is supposedly to be ready to show that the thumb is fine, to do a deal.

Also meanwhile, the Twins are said to have dangled Glen Perkins in a trade for Kevin Kouzmanoff of the Padres, with San Diego wanting something more than Perkins.

Kouzmanoff as a hitter is Joe Crede, only younger, sounder of back and with less defensive ability. He's arbitration-eligible, which is why the cash-strapped Padres are peddling him.

That there is mutual disgruntlement between Perkins and the Twins is no secret. I can't imagine the Twins wanting to have him in camp.

So ... Perkins for Lowell and $9 million? If the front office doubts it can get one of the free agents at its price, and if the alternative fall-back option is Crede, it's a deal they should offer Boston. Whether the Red Sox would take that offer might depend on whether they want a bird in the hand or the ones in the bush.

I'm sponsoring Michael Cuddyer

Well, kind of.

What I'm really doing is sponsoring Cuddyer's page on Baseball Reference. For the next year, Baseball Outsider's message and link will be on his stat page — and on those of Terry Steinbach and Gene Larkin.

Why those three?

• Cuddyer is the best of the available current Twins — Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Denard Span, Joe Nathan, Jason Kubel were already taken.
• Steinbach is the best major league player to emerge from the Free Press circulation area.
• Larkin is a favorite of my wife's — and, of course, as the man who drove in the winning run of Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, a Minnesota Twins legend.
• And, finally, the total ($40) fit my arbitrary budget.

So stop by and visit their numbers sometime.

More on de los Santos

Thursday's post — built around a quote from the Twins top talent evaluator that Estarlin de los Santos is the only "true shortstop" in the system — was deliberately crafted to avoid giving an opinion on how good a prospect he is.

That's because I haven't the slightest notion.

Seth Stohs, a blogger (linked to on the sidebar) who is pretty well plugged into the Twins system, was surprised when the Twins put de los Santos on the 40-man roster. Prospect guru John Sickels, in his preliminary grading of Twins prospects, not only didn't put de los Santos in the top 20, he doesn't have him in the running. (Trevor Plouffe didn't make the top 20 either, but Sickles did include him in a lump of "Grade C" prospects.)

The Twins, on the other hand, believed that if they didn't protect him, de los Santos would get snatched away in the Rule 5 draft, a la Everth Cabrera, who played A ball for the Rockies in 2008, was picked by the Padres and finished 2009 as San Diego's regular shortstop.

Mike Radcliffe, in the Baseball America article that triggered the initial post, talked of de los Santos' "plus hands and plus arm" — scouting terms that mean he has well-above major league average defensive skills — and claimed that he has improved his strike zone judgment.

One could hardly design a better example of the difference between traditional player evaluation and stat-based evaluation. Radcliffe judges de los Santos by his physical gifts; Strohs and Sickles look at his numbers and aren't nearly as impressed.

If Radcliffe is correct about de los Santos' strike zone command, it's not showing in his walk and strikeout rates (13 walks and 50 strikeouts last season); if he's correct about the outstanding hands and throwing arm, it's not showing in his fielding percentage (.905 at short last season).

This split between perceived ability and demonstrated ability doesn't bother me — much — in a player in Class A ball. If it persists in the higher levels — in Double A, where I assume de los Santos will open 2010, or Triple A — then there's reason to be concerned. It takes time for most players with major league caliber tools to learn how to use those tools.

Do not get too worked up about his hitting stats. The Twins' current set of minor league affiliates are almost entirely in difficult places to hit. With the exception of Elizabethton in the Appy League, their parks depress offense and make pitchers look good. In the context of Fort Myers and the Florida State League, de los Santos actually hit well in 2009. His batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage were all above league average.

But ... it was the second straight season in which he missed considerable time to injury. He's about to turn 23 and he's still in High A; Plouffe is about six months older and has a year and a half of Triple A on his resume. That's significant.

My sense is that Sickles is right: Plouffe is the better prospect, but not by enough that one should wager heavily on either ever becoming a major league regular.