A big Hall of Fame class

The writers voted in four this year: first-ballot candidates Chipper Jones and Jim Thome, plus holdovers Vladimir Guerrero and Trevor Hoffman. Edgar Martinez missed making it five by 20 votes and will almost certainly get in next year.

Add in the two selected by whatever they called this cycle's veterans committee (Alan Trammell and Jack Morris) and it's going to be a long induction ceremony this summer.

It's a big class, and the writers finally made some progress on their backlog of candidates. They've had a number of multi-inductee classes of late -- this was the second time in four years that they've chosen four -- but the first time they didn't get there with a majority of first-time candidates.

Two of them were short-term Twins (Morris and Thome), and obviously neither will have a TC cap on their plaque. Morris' cap is obvious (Detroit), and I would think Thome will go in as a Clevelander over the Phillies or White Sox. I would vote Montreal Expos for Guerrero, but I can see a case for the Angels. He won his MVP award in Anaheim.

I'm not big on the Hoffman selection. It might look better a generation from now if the one-inning closer is still the standard, but I see that approach to bullpen management fading now, and it might become obsolete in my lifetime. Of course, the three-out closer has been a thing for 20 years now, and we already have Dennis Eckersley and arguably John Smoltz in as a result. Now Hoffman, and next year Mariano Rivera ... If it is a fading strategy, four is probably too many, but there are worse HoF selections than Hoffman.

One is Morris, but I've beaten that horse enough over the years.

Pic of the Week

Chipper Jones said Thursday that 2012 would be his final
season. It brings to mind something Ozzie Guillen said:
"Good players retire. Bad players get released. I got released."

How different would baseball history be if the current draft rules -- designed to further limit the leverage of players -- had been in place in 1990?

That spring, the Atlanta Braves had the first overall pick, and a high school right-handed pitcher named Todd Van Poppel was the consensus top prospect. Bobby Cox, then the Atlanta GM, met with Van Poppel, looked him in the eye, and decided the kid was sincere when he told Cox he would not sign, that he was going to college.

The Braves drafted Chipper Jones instead. Van Poppel went much later, to the defending AL champion Oakland A's, and signed a contract that today would be prohibited.

Jones became a no-question Hall-of-Famer, a middle-of-the-lineup fixture on a playoff perennial who spent his entire career with Atlanta; Van Poppel became a very mediocre middle reliever who wandered from team to team.

I'd say it worked out pretty well for Atlanta.

What we knees to know

Twins knees to know: Jose Mijares goes on the 15-day disabled list with his knee injury. I've seen nothing on whether he needs surgery or how long he's expected to be out, but he's clearly not going to pitch for a couple of weeks at least.

Jeff Manship got the callup. What I expect: Manship takes the long-man role. Glen Perkins, who figured to inherit that burden (all this is assuming that Kevin Slowey's elbow is not going to keep him from starting this weekend) will become the second lefty in the bullpen, with Ron Mahay assuming Mijares' spot as the primary LOOGY.

I can hear you groaning about that. But lefties are only hitting .230/.250/.295 against Mahay. The damage has come from right-handed hitters. He's actually been more effective than Mijares against lefties.

And that said, if Mijares is out for the year, I would expect the Twins to scour the waiver wire for a lefty reliever, because off last night, it's difficult to have much faith in Perkins.

Famous knees to know: He hasn't said so explicitly, but I assume that Chipper Jones' playing days came to an end Wednesday night when he blew out his ACL. (Photo above)

Bill James did an elaborate age-to-age comparison between Jones and Eddie Mathews (it's in the 2010 edition of the Bill James Gold Mine) and concluded that Jones was slightly superior to Mathews — who was a great player.

No question in my mind that Chipper's going to the Hall of Fame.