Here, via Baseball Reference, are the players on this year's ballot. Your task, as a mock voter, is to pick up to 10.
My ten, more or less in order of the urgency I feel about voting for them:
- Ken Griffey Jr
- Tim Raines
- Alan Trammell
- Mike Piazza
- Jeff Bagwell
- Mike Mussina
- Roger Clemens
- Barry Bonds
- Curt Schilling
- Jim Edmonds
I don't have a lot of enthusiasm for Edmonds, but his stats say he's deserving. When I took a look this past year at how Torii Hunter stacked up against the enshrined center fielders, I concluded that (a) Hunter was better than a lot of them and (b) that hardly made him unique. Edmonds' stats are pretty comparable to Duke Snider's and I have no qualms about the Duke.
And I'd rather vote for a career centerfielder with eight Gold Gloves than a career DH (Edgar Martinez) or closer (Lee Smith, Billy Wagner, Trevor Hoffman.) At least one of those four will get more voted than Edmonds, I'm sure, but I'll plunk my vote for the complete player as opposed to a specialist.
My comment is that the bar for HOF enshrinement is a bit high.
ReplyDeleteI do not follow enough MLB games to comment on many non-Twins ... but to me Tony Oliva should absolutely be there without question. I think Jim Kaat should be there, he was a fine pitcher who could bat with authority and field his position with the very best in history. Jack Morris as well. He who won a lot, finished a high percentage of his games and would not be denied in the most important games on the biggest stage.
These players pass the eye test with room to spare, in my opinion voters have held almost meaningless stats against them to keep them out and the Vets committee has not rectified that either.
I would not vote players in who had PED's. McGuire was no better than Hrbek without enhancers, in Bond's situation no player hits more HR's in their late 30's than when they were 26.