My mythical Hall of Fame ballot

You know this already, but I'll repeat it anyway: I don't have a vote for the Hall of Fame. Vin Scully and Bill James don't either, so I'm in pretty good company.

But that doesn't preclude me from looking at the writers ballot and asking myself: Who would I vote for? And it certainly doesn't preclude me from telling you who I would vote for.

The writers are limited to voting for a maximum of 10, and there are a lot more than 10 deserving names on the ballot. My 10 would be, in alphabetical order:

• Jeff Bagwell
• Barry Bonds
• Roger Clemens
• Vladimir Guerrero
• Jeff Kent
• Mike Mussina
• Jorge Posada
• Tim Raines
• Ivan Rodriguez
• Larry Walker

Four candidates I  supported last year aren't on the ballot this time -- two who were elected (Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza), one who ran out of time (Alan Trammell) and a fourth who didn't get enough support to stick (Jim Edmonds). And I created a fifth slot by dropping Curt Schilling in a futile protest of his "joking" support of lynchings.

I've added newcomers Ivan Rodriguez, Jorge Posada and Vladimir Guerrero, plus holdovers Larry Walker and Jeff Kent.

Walker and Kent are the marginal guys on this ballot; they get my nod over Edgar Martinez, but not by a lot, and I could if I tried (and I might try if it mattered) talk myself back into Schilling over any of the three.

I can't talk myself into supporting Trevor Hoffman, even though he appears to have an excellent chance of getting in this year. Hoffman's candidacy -- like that of Lee Smith -- is based largely on his imposing pile of saves, a stat of dubious value. It's difficult to rationalize voting for one of those two and not the other -- and even more difficult to support either over Billy Wagner, yet another one-inning closer. I say leave 'em all out.

Hall of Fame thoughts: Catchers (Jason Varitek)

Two posts on catchers on the Hall of Fame ballot; one on former Twins on the ballot. And now, one on a third catcher on the ballot who could -- should -- have been a Twin: Jason Varitek.

The Twins had back-to-back picks in the first round of the 1993 draft, picks number 20 and 21. With the first of the two picks -- which came from Cincinnati, which had signed free agent John Smiley -- the Twins selected Torii Hunter. We know how well that turned out.

With the second pick, the Twins chose Varitek, then a junior at Georgia Tech. Varitek was "advised" by Scott Boras, and he wound up returning to school for his senior year. The next year, Varitek was drafted by Seattle, which traded him to Boston three years later in one of those "what-were-they-thinking" trades that echo down the years: Varitek and Derek Lowe for Heathcliff Slocumb. Either Varitek or Lowe for Slocumb would have been a steal; both was simply ridiculous.

Varitek made his major league debut later in 1997 (one at-bat); he shared the catching chores in 1998 with Scott Hatteberg and became Boston's No. 1 catcher the following season. He never played a major league game for any team other than the Red Sox, and it's not easy today to imagine him in any other uniform. But it could have been otherwise.

Another catcher broke in in 1998: A.J. Pierzynski. He didn't really emerge as the Twins No. 1 catcher until 2001, however. Imagine an alternative universe in which Varitek/Boras and the Twins agreed to a deal back in 1993 and that Varitek's timeline to the majors was unaltered. What, then, happens to Pierzynski's career? There's a story that at the end of the 2001 season Tom Kelly told Pierzynski that he had never believed that Pierzynski would be a major league catcher but that A.J. had proven him wrong. It's possible that, had Varitek signed with the Twins, Pierzynski would have been blocked from the career he wound up having.

And if that happens, the Twins and Giants never get to make their "what-were-they-thinking" trade of Pierzynski for Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser. (Or maybe it gets made with Varitek instead of Pierzynski. The Twins were bound to make room for Joe Mauer at that point.)

Baseball Reference credits Pierzynski and Varitek with pretty close to the same career WAR: 23.3 for Pierzynski, 24.3 for Varitek, with Pierzynski's totals being dragged down in recent season. Neither is to be found in the other's similiarity score list, however, and Pierzynski's comps are in fact more impressive than Varitek's, with two Hall of Fame catchers prominent (Ernie Lombardi and Gabby Hartnett). It's an interesting question in retrospect: Which catcher would you rather have, Varitek or Pierzynski?

Failing to sign a first-round pick is not a recommended strategy for team building. But failing to sign Varitek worked out OK for the Twins -- and, obviously, for Varitek. Varitek will be one-and-done on this ballot. But he had a fine career.

Hall of Fame thoughts: Ex-Twins on the ballot

There are two names on the writers ballot this year who played briefly for the Twins, and both will assuredly be one-and-done.

There's no shame in that; just getting onto the Hall of Fame ballot signals an impressive career. It requires a minimum of 10 seasons in the majors, for one thing, and even that longevity is not enough by itself.

The former Twins on the ballot this year:

Casey Blake. It 's easy to forget (or to have never noticed) that Blake played for the Twins. Indeed, he had two separate tenures with Minnesota.

He debuted with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1999, then the Twins picked him up on waivers. He got 21 plate appearances with the Twins in 2000 and another 25 in 2001 before the Twins waived him in September. The Baltimore Orioles claimed him and played him in six games, then waived him themselves after the season -- and the Twins claimed him back. He got another 22 PAs with the Twins in 2002.

The Twins then released him. He was 29 and had gotten exactly 125 major league plate appearances. He was blocked in Minnesota by Corey Koskie, but two other organizations had found him wanting. This is the description of a Quadruple A player, a guy who probably needs to find something else to do with his life.

Blake signed with Cleveland, and his career turned around. Over the next eight seasons he averaged more than 20 homers a year, splitting time between third base, right field and first base, playing in three postseasons. He never led the league in anything, never made an All-Star team, but he was a solid regular for both the Indians and the Dodgers. (The Indians traded him for Carlos Santana, so he still has an impact on the Tribe.)

Orlando Cabrera. His career is essentially in two segments: The Montreal years, eight seasons with the Expos, and the nomadic years, in which he wandered from playoff team to playoff team, a short-term shortstop.

He was the shortstop for Boston when the Red Sox broke the curse. He stepped in for the 2009 Twins, hitting over .280 down the stretch and bopping a key homer in the famous Game 163. He never made the postseason with the Expos, but he was in the playoffs six of seven years after leaving Canada. I wouldn't say those teams won because of O-Cab; I would say that he didn't keep them from winning.

Like Blake, he never made an All-Star team, but he did win a pair of Gold Gloves. He was never the best shortstop in the league, but he was a good one and stuck at the position well into his 30s.

Hall of Fame thoughts: Catchers (Ivan Rodriguez)

Jorge Posada, subject of Tuesday's post, isn't the only catcher debuting on the writers ballot this year. He isn't even the best catcher debuting on the writers ballot.

That distinction belongs to Ivan (Pudge) Rodriguez, a genuine challenger to Johnny Bench and Yogi Berra as the greatest backstop in major league history.

By the numbers, by his career accomplishments, Rodriguez deserves first-ballot entry, even by the reluctant-to-honor-catchers standards of the BBWAA. He has a rare set of credentials for a catcher: a brilliant peak and longevity, both an outstanding hitter and a gifted defensive catcher.

But ... steroids.

Rodriguez never tested positive, never was suspended. He was named by Jose Canseco as a fellow 'roider, and he did drop a lot of weight when testing began, the kind of circumstantial evidence that delayed Mike Piazza's election and has held back Jeff Bagwell.

My basic stance on this: I draw a line at the beginning of testing. Before that, performance-enhancing drugs were officially illegal, but nobody bothered trying to enforce that ban. If anything, the culture of the sport -- nurtured, no matter what they say now, by the likes of Bud Selig and Tony LaRussa --  encouraged players to do whatever they could to improve.

If Pudge was using in, say, 2003 and quit when the game got serious about changing the culture, that's fine by me.

Hall of Fame thoughts: catchers (Jorge Posada)

The great Joe Posnanski recently pointed out, in writing about the presence of Jorge Posada for the first time on the writers' ballot, something I was vaguely aware of but had not really put together in my brain:

Six catchers -- only six -- whose careers began after World War II have been elected to the Hall of Fame by the writers. They are, more or less chronologically, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Gary Carter and Mike Piazza. Only one of those six (Bench) went in on the first ballot.

The writers have been stricter on catchers, Pos postulates, than on other players of other positions. I think he's right. I think the writers have, for generations, applied the offensive standards they use for outfielders in weighing the candidacies of catchers, while still demanding the higher level of defense from catchers that they do for middle infielders.

Heck, Ted Simmons was a better hitter in his prime years than Jim Rice or Tony Perez. But Simba caught, while Rice pretended to be a left fielder and Perez butchered third base before moving to first, and the position beat the brilliance out of Simmons. He was essentially done -- as is the case with almost all outstanding hitting catchers -- by age 30.

Catchers don't rack up the numbers that outfielders and first basemen do. They can't. It's not physically possible.

Posada played 17 years with the Yankees, but two of them at the start were cuppa coffee and another seven were two-thirds time at best. That cuts him down to nine seasons as the clear primary catcher. He was the best hitting catcher in the league for a few years, until Joe Mauer arrived, and then he was the second best hitting catcher in the league for a few years. He was never a stellar defensive backstop, but his teams sure as hell won a lot anyway. His highest finish in the MVP voting was 2003 (third behind Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Delgado); I remember thinking at the time that I would have voted for Posada. 

Had I a Hall of Fame vote, Posada would get one. Simmons would have too, easily, and Bill Freehan. Posnanski says Posada falls outside the established parameters for Cooperstown catchers, that he's closer to Simmons than to Piazza, and I agree on that. If Simmons doesn't belong, Posada doesn't either. But I think those standards are overly strict.

A thought on pitch framing

Jeff Sullivan, Hardball Times, on pitch framing:

Every team now wants good-receiving catchers. Every team, additionally, wants to develop more good-receiving catchers. The market is going to end up flooded with good-receiving catchers. By then we’ll no longer recognize them as good-receiving catchers. Pitch-framing is sufficiently important that baseball teams will prioritize it right into insignificance.

Sullivan's essential point: Now that it is possible to quantify pitch framing -- now that we can measure it -- and now that every front office takes analytics seriously, there will be less of a gap between the best and the worst.

The Twins are late to this party, but they are trying to make up for lost time. Sullivan's piece uses Ryan Doumit as its example of a terrible pitch-framer; the Twins embraced Doumit as a catcher for 2-plus seasons. Sullivan also includes a chart of the ten best and ten worst pitch framers of 2016. Jason Castro, the Twins new No. 1 catcher, is on the nice list, and Juan Centero, departed backup, is on the naughty list.

This conversion is part of what Sullivan is talking about. The Twins organization wasn't necessarily opposed to good-receiving catchers, but it wasn't a priority. Now they have prioritized that skill, and one more of the 30 organizations has jumped on the bandwagon.

The Sunday Funnies

Merry Christmas ... and Happy Birthday to the great Rickey Henderson, a staple figure in these stories.

In the last week of his lone season with the Red Sox, Chairman Tom Werner asked Henderson what he would like for his ‘going-away’ gift. Henderson said he wasn’t going anywhere, but he would like owner John Henry’s Mercedes. Werner said it would be tough to get the same make and model in less than a week and Henderson said, “No, I want his car.”

The Sox got Henderson a Red Thunderbird and when he saw it on the field before the last game of the season, Rickey said, “Whose ugly car is on the field?”