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If I Had a Vote in the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Election

If I Had a Vote in the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Election
23 Dec
2015
Not in Hall of Fame
As we gear up for the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting and announcements, the overriding question is: Have we returned to normal?

To put that into perspective, how's this for abnormal? In 2013, with a ballot overstuffed with Hall of Fame-caliber candidates (I counted 14), not one candidate was elected to the Hall. Adding to the debacle was the first appearance on a Hall of Fame ballot by Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, both of whom brought the bubbling issue of players suspected or confirmed of having used performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to an apoplectic, moralistic boil.

At least the 2014 vote by the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) elected three players to the Hall: Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and Frank Thomas, each elected in his first year of eligibility. The first two were pitchers who were not power pitchers but who instead worked by craft and guile (and who just happened to be career 300-game winners), while hulking, slugging Thomas was an outspoken critic of PEDs and an advocate for stricter drug testing. In other words, and in case it had not been clear in previous years, Hall of Fame voting was also a referendum on PEDs.

That viewpoint was reinforced as Rafael Palmeiro, only the fourth hitter in Major League history to combine at least 3000 hits with at least 500 home runs, failed to garner at least five percent of the vote needed to remain on the ballot. In his fourth ballot appearance, Palmeiro netted just 25 votes, or 4.4 percent of the total, as his Hall of Fame fate now lies with a future Expansion Era Committee (or whatever a veterans committee of the future is going to be called); Palmeiro's best showing on a BBWAA ballot was 12.6 percent in 2012.

By the way, the first three members of the 3000-hit-and-500-home run club, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray, were all elected in their first year of eligibility. Could it be that once Palmeiro joined the club, the novelty had worn off? Not likely. And let's recall that during the 2015 regular season, Alex Rodriguez joined this elite club when he collected his 3000th hit, but as Rodriguez is the owner of the longest single suspension for violating drug policy, his fate on a future BBWAA ballot does not look promising given the current PEDs opprobrium. Or does it? We'll explore that below.

In any event, the 2015 vote elected four candidates into the Hall of Fame: Craig Biggio, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz. Johnson, Martinez, and Smoltz were elected in their first year of eligibility while Biggio, a member of the 3000-hit club, had to wait two years before getting the nod, with the 2014 vote being particularly galling—Biggio collected 74.8 percent of the vote, two votes shy of election.

Those four 2015 inductees, which marked only the fifth time since voting began in 1936 that the writers had voted for four or more candidates in a single year, helped to alleviate the other pressing issue with the ballot—the logjam of qualified candidates that has persisted for the last few years and that could still be an issue over the next few years.

And what has the board of directors of the Baseball Hall of Fame done to address the perceived issues with the ballot? Last year the board introduced two changes. The first was the prohibition regarding a voter's transferring his or her ballot to another person or entity under penalty of a lifetime ban from voting on a Hall of Fame ballot (for more on why it did that, Google "Dan le Batard Deadspin"). The second change reduced the length of time a candidate can remain on a Hall of Fame ballot from 15 years to 10 years. (Candidates must still collect at least five percent of the vote in any given year to remain on the ballot, and candidates at or past the ten-year mark when the change was enacted have been grandfathered to the previous 15-year limitation.)

This year, the BBWAA proposed increasing the number of candidates a voter could select from 10 to 12. The proposal was an acknowledgement of the crowded ballot, and although it was merely an incremental change, the board rejected the proposal anyway. However, the board did implement one change: It declared that voters who have not actively written about baseball within the last 10 years are now ineligible to vote. This is a positive step as criticism has been ongoing, even among fellow voters, that voters who are distanced from the sport are not qualified to evaluate legacy; the action reduces the voting pool from a little less than 600 to 475.

Reducing eligibility length and refusing to increase the number of candidates who can be voted upon could alleviate ballot logjam—but not necessarily in a positive manner: Candidates, particularly qualified ones, could simply be eliminated from the ballot through term limitation, leaving the question of legacy determination to a future Expansion Era Committee—in essence, tossing the problem over the wall to the next bunch of guys, who have a checkered track record in the legacy department in any case.

But with the election of seven Hall of Famers in the last two years, have we managed to break some of that logjam on the ballot? Put another way, are we returning to "normal," with "normal" referring to many previous years in which there were at most a handful of truly qualified candidates, over whom voters did not have to spend sleepless nights wondering whom to include and whom to exclude? And if voting statistics from the past two years are any indication, voters are looking hard at candidates: In 2014, about 50 percent of the ballots cast had all ten voting slots filled, while in 2015 that percentage rose a tick to 51 percent, with voters averaging 8.4 candidates per ballot. So, will the 2016 ballot be any easier than in recent years?

Probably not. Although the 2016 ballot contains only one first-timer whose Hall of Fame candidacy is hardly in question, Ken Griffey, Jr., and only one first-timer whose election should be a foregone conclusion but may not turn out to be, Trevor Hoffman, and only two first-timers who are seriously on the bubble, Jim Edmonds and Billy Wagner, there is the nagging issue of the 17 holdovers from previous ballots. Several of those holdovers are qualified for the Hall of Fame—with two of those, Mark McGwire and Alan Trammell, on a BBWAA ballot for the final time, and two more, Tim Raines and Lee Smith, facing that fate next year if they don't get elected this year (or, improbably, receive less than five percent of the vote this year).

No, although the results of the 2014 and 2015 ballots went a long way toward easing the ballot logjam, it will take similar results for the next couple of years at least to winnow that ballot to a "normal" state. Of course, many voters have simplified the process by simply eliminating any player with known or suspected associations with PEDs, which would alleviate the logjam significantly even if it does nothing to address the PEDs issue beyond arbitrary and possibly misguided punishment.

Roger Clemens
Will Roger Clemens remain a poster child for performance-enhancing drugs on the 2016 Hall of Fame ballot?

With that in mind, let's examine what the 475 BBWAA voters had to contemplate—and complete—by December 21, with the results to be announced on January 6, 2016.

Candidates for the 2016 Hall of Fame Ballot

For the 2016 ballot, there are 32 total candidates, 17 returning candidates from previous ballots and 15 first-time-eligible candidates. The returning candidates have garnered at least five percent of the vote last year (the minimum percentage required to remain eligible) and they have not exceeded their 10th year on the ballot; the exceptions are Lee Smith and Alan Trammell, both of whom had been grandfathered as a result of last year's rule change from 15 years to 10 years, although this is Trammell's final year on the ballot regardless of the outcome. Last year, Don Mattingly faced his 15th and final year on a BBWAA ballot.

The remaining returning candidates are Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Nomar Garciaparra, Jeff Kent, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Mike Mussina, Mike Piazza, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa, and Larry Walker.

The 15 first-time candidates are Garret Anderson, Brad Ausmus, Luis Castillo, David Eckstein, Jim Edmonds, Troy Glaus, Ken Griffey, Jr., Mark Grudzielanek, Mike Hampton, Trevor Hoffman, Jason Kendall, Mike Lowell, Mike Sweeney, Billy Wagner, and Randy Winn.

The following two tables list the 32 candidates on the 2016 ballot, first the 25 position players, and then the 7 pitchers. They are ranked by their career Wins Above Replacement from Baseball Reference (bWAR) along with other representative qualitative statistics (explained below each table).

Here are the 25 position players on the 2016 Hall of Fame ballot, ranked by bWAR. First-time candidates are marked in bold italic.

Position Players on the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot, Ranked by bWAR

Position Player

Slash Line

wOBA

bWAR

fWAR

OPS+

wRC+

Bonds, Barry

.298/.444/.607

.435

162.4

164.0

182

173

Griffey, Jr., Ken

.284/.370/.538

.384

83.6

77.7

136

131

Bagwell, Jeff

.297/.408/.540

.405

79.6

80.3

149

149

Walker, Larry

.313/.400/.565

.412

72.6

68.9

141

140

Trammell, Alan

.285/.352/.415

.343

70.4

63.7

110

111

Raines, Tim

.294/.385/.425

.361

69.1

66.4

123

125

Martinez, Edgar

.312/.418/.515

.405

68.3

65.6

147

147

McGwire, Mark

.263/.394/.588

.415

62.0

66.3

163

157

Edmonds, Jim

.284/.376/.527

.385

60.3

64.5

132

132

Sheffield, Gary

.292/.393/.514

.391

60.2

62.4

140

141

Piazza, Mike

.308/.377/.545

.390

59.4

63.5

143

140

Sosa, Sammy

.273/.344/.534

.370

58.4

60.3

128

124

Kent, Jeff

.290/.356/.500

.367

55.2

56.4

123

123

McGriff, Fred

.284/.377/.509

.383

52.4

57.1

134

134

Garciaparra, Nomar

.313/.361/.521

.376

44.2

41.5

124

124

Kendall, Jason

.288/.366/.378

.334

41.5

39.8

95

99

Glaus, Troy

.254/.358/.489

.365

37.9

34.4

119

120

Castillo, Luis

.290/.368/.351

.327

28.9

28.4

92

97

Winn, Randy

.284/.343/.416

.333

27.5

28.1

99

100

Grudzielanek, Mark

.289/.332/.393

.320

26.3

23.2

90

91

Anderson, Garret

.293/.324/.461

.334

25.6

24.0

102

100

Lowell, Mike

.279/.342/.464

.346

24.8

26.0

108

108

Sweeney, Mike

.297/.366/.486

.366

24.7

21.1

118

117

Eckstein, David

.280/.345/.355

.316

20.8

16.8

87

92

Ausmus, Brad

.251/.325/.344

.299

16.4

17.2

75

76

Slash Line: Grouping of the player's career batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage.
wOBA: Weighted on-base average as calculated by FanGraphs. Weighs singles, extra-base hits, walks, and hits by pitch; generally, .400 is excellent and .320 is league-average.
bWAR: Career Wins Above Replacement as calculated by Baseball Reference.
fWAR: Career Wins Above Replacement as calculated by FanGraphs.
OPS+: Career on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by Baseball Reference. Positively indexed to 100, with a 100 OPS+ indicating a league-average player, and values above 100 indicating the degrees better a player is than a league-average player.
wRC+: Career weighted Runs Created, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by FanGraphs. Positively indexed to 100, with a 100 wRC+ indicating a league-average player, and values above 100 indicating the degrees better a player is than a league-average player.

Here are the seven pitchers on the 2016 Hall of Fame ballot, ranked by bWAR. First-time candidates are marked in bold italic.

Pitchers on the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot, Ranked by bWAR

Pitcher

W-L (S), ERA

bWAR

fWAR

ERA+

ERA–

FIP–-

Clemens, Roger

354–184, 3.12

140.3

139.5

143

70

70

Mussina, Mike

270–153, 3.68

83.0

82.5

123

82

81

Schilling, Curt

216–146 (22), 3.46

79.9

83.2

127

80

74

Smith, Lee

71–92 (478), 3.03

29.6

27.3

132

76

74

Hoffman, Trevor

61–75 (601), 2.87

28.0

26.1

141

71

73

Wagner, Billy

47–40 (422), 2.31

27.7

24.2

187

54

63

Hampton, Mike

148–115 (1), 4.06

20.8

28.0

107

94

99

W-L (S), ERA: Grouping of the pitcher's career win-loss record (and career saves, if applicable) and career earned run average (ERA).
bWAR: Career Wins Above Replacement as calculated by Baseball Reference.
fWAR: Career Wins Above Replacement as calculated by FanGraphs.
ERA+: Career ERA, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by Baseball Reference. Positively indexed to 100, with a 100 ERA+ indicating a league-average pitcher, and values above 100 indicating the degrees better a pitcher is than a league-average pitcher.
ERA-: Career ERA, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by FanGraphs. Negatively indexed to 100, with a 100 ERA- indicating a league-average pitcher, and values below 100 indicating the degrees better a pitcher is than a league-average pitcher.
FIP-: Fielding-independent pitching, a pitcher's ERA with his fielders' impact factored out, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by FanGraphs. Negatively indexed to 100, with a 100 FIP- indicating a league-average pitcher, and values below 100 indicating the degrees better a pitcher is than a league-average pitcher.

The table below combines both position players and pitchers into a ranking by bWAR with their fWAR values also listed. First-time candidates are marked in bold italic.

All 2015 Hall of Fame Candidates, Ranked by bWAR

Rank

Player

bWAR

fWAR

1

Bonds, Barry

162.4

164.0

2

Clemens, Roger

140.3

139.5

3

Griffey, Jr., Ken

83.6

77.7

4

Mussina, Mike

83.0

82.5

5

Schilling, Curt

79.9

83.2

6

Bagwell, Jeff

79.5

80.3

7

Walker, Larry

72.6

69.0

8

Trammell, Alan

70.3

63.7

9

Raines, Tim

69.1

66.4

10

Martinez, Edgar

68.3

65.6

11

McGwire, Mark

62.0

66.3

12

Edmonds, Jim

60.3

64.5

13

Sheffield, Gary

60.2

62.4

14

Piazza, Mike

59.2

63.6

15

Sosa, Sammy

58.4

60.4

16

Kent, Jeff

55.2

56.6

17

McGriff, Fred

52.6

57.2

18

Garciaparra, Nomar

44.2

41.5

19

Kendall, Jason

41.5

39.8

20

Glaus, Troy

37.9

34.4

21

Smith, Lee

29.6

27.3

22

Castillo, Luis

28.9

28.4

23

Hoffman, Trevor

28.0

26.1

24

Wagner, Billy

27.7

24.2

25

Winn, Randy

27.5

28.1

26

Grudzielanek, Mark

26.3

23.2

27

Anderson, Garret

25.6

24.0

28

Lowell, Mike

24.8

26.0

29

Sweeney, Mike

24.7

21.1

30

Hampton, Mike

20.8

28.0

31

Eckstein, David

20.8

16.8

32

Ausmus, Brad

16.4

17.2


As with previous assessments that use WAR as a ranking tool, WAR is not the be-all-and-end-all statistic although it is a fair assessment of player value: It measures a player's contribution to his team's wins, and it is the only qualitative statistic that enables comparison between position players and pitchers.

As a rough rule of thumb, position players and starting pitchers with a bWAR of 60 or more typically garner serious consideration for the Hall while relief pitchers generate the same consideration at 25 or more. Players with a bWAR of between 50 and 60 do tend to sit on the bubble, with many other factors deciding whether they are legitimate Hall of Famers. But on another packed ballot that allows 10 choices at most—this year, as in previous years, voters face some hard decisions that will need to encompass several aspects of a player' career.

Barry Bonds
Off the charts statistically, will Barry Bonds watch his Hall of Fame chances disappear like one of his home run blasts?

So even if, realistically, the bottom half of this year's ballot as ranked by bWAR is simply discarded, it still illustrates how in recent years it has been an honor just to make it onto a Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. It has become increasingly hard just to get onto the ballot.

Who Is Not on the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot?

Some of the more memorable 2016 first-time eligibles who didn't make the ballot include outfielder José Guillén, who played for ten teams in his 14-year career and became known as a rental player with pop, which included his temper, while he had been named in the Mitchell Report as a suspected user of performance-enhancing drugs. Also eligible this year was Bengie Molina, the first of the catching Molina brothers to make the Major Leagues, a two-time Gold Glover who once hit a home run but did not score the run—the dinger was initially ruled not a home run, but when the call was overturned Molina had already been lifted for a pinch-runner and was declared ineligible to return to the game. Molina is also the only MLB catcher ever to hit for the cycle and hit a grand slam in the same game—and for the notoriously slow-footed Molina to have hit that triple for the cycle is an event in itself.

The first South Korean-born player in Major League Baseball history, pitcher Chan Ho Park won 124 games in his MLB career, the most by any Asian-born pitcher. Park made further history when in late 2001 he gave up a pair of gopher balls to Barry Bonds that first tied, and then broke, Mark McGwire's single-season home run record. Two years earlier, Park surrendered a pair of grand slams in the same inning to Fernando Tatis, the only batter ever to hit two grand slams in the same frame. Speaking of Tatis, guess who had been left off this year's ballot—and guess what his crowning moment was?

Relief pitcher Scot Shields is emblematic of the disconnect the Hall of Fame is facing in evaluating role players, who are becoming more prominent in an age of specialization. Sports Illustrated dubbed Shields "Setup Man of the Decade" although Shields's 155 career holds, not an official Major League Baseball statistic, carry almost no weight. Finally, hot-tempered Jeff Weaver led the league in hits by pitch three times, posting double-digit totals eight times, while his career 124 beanballs is tied for 45th all-time. Weaver did face younger brother Jared once, though, with Jeff outpitching his star sibling in a 2009 interleague game.

Would any of these players have made a ballot in a "slow" year with few likely Hall of Fame candidates? Maybe, but their ultimate fate would have been the same as our next group.

The 2016 One-and-Dones

As has been the case for the overstuffed ballots during the last few years, players with fine although not superstar careers have been almost automatically dismissed, much like the string of contestants trotted out to try to unseat Ken Jennings during his historic 74-game winning streak on the television game show Jeopardy!

The following candidates, on the ballot for the first time, are not viable candidates for the Hall of Fame, but their inclusion on the ballot as an acknowledgement of their ability to thrive in the high talent compression of contemporary Major League Baseball is warranted, and they deserve a mention as they are unlikely to be seen again.

A three-time All-Star who placed third in National League vote for Rookie of the Year in 1996, Jason Kendall belied the stereotype of the slow-footed, heavy-hitting catcher: He notched 2161 of his 8702 plate appearances in the leadoff spot and posted career slash line of .288/.366/.378 playing primarily for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In addition, Kendall stole 20 or more bases in a season three years in a row, and his 189 career swipes as a catcher are second only to Roger Bresnahan in the modern era; meanwhile, he drew 721 career bases on ball against only 686 strikeouts, an unusual ratio in his free-swinging, fireballing era. Moreover, he got plunked by a baseball 20 or more times in a season five times, including a league-leading 31 in 1998, while his 254 beanings are fifth all-time. Kendall was an adequate defender susceptible to the stolen base, with his 29 percent caught-stealing ratio a tick below the league's 30 percent during his career, although as a catcher he is second in putouts (13019),fifth in games caught (2025), and eleventh in double plays turned (148).

Power-hitting third baseman Troy Glaus hit 40 or more home runs in back-to-back seasons, including a league-leading 47 in 2000, and he hit 25 or more dingers in seven of his 13 big-league seasons while driving in 90 or more runs six times and 100 or more four times. Glaus was integral to the then-Anaheim Angels' storied 2002 postseason as he was named the World Series Most Valuable Player as the Angels defeated the San Francisco Giants in seven games; Glaus posted a .385/.467/.846 slash line as he smashed three home runs and drove in eight runs. However, injuries plagued Glaus throughout his career—also plaguing him is his mention in the 2007 Mitchell Report on players associated with performance-enhancing drugs.

As a second baseman, Luis Castillo flashed a number of tools in his 15-year career. A three-time Gold Glove fielder, one who set the current record for second baseman for most consecutive games played without committing an error (143), Castillo also led the league in stolen bases twice, finishing with 370, good for 93rd all time, while posting a career .290/.368/.351 slash line as he scored 1001 runs. Castillo spent his first 10 years with the then-Florida Marlins, winning the World Series with them in 2003 while managing not to be sold off or traded in the fire sale the following season. He was a sure-handed if not ambitious fielder as his range factors against the league found him sticking close to home.

Randy Winn's 99 career OPS+ is right about league-average, which describes this outfielder who toiled for five different clubs in his 13-year career to a tee: Winn filled a lineup spot dependably—from 2001 to 2009 he averaged 639 plate appearances—while showing some power and speed. His 1759 career hits included 367 doubles and 110 home runs as he stole 215 bases, swiping 20 or more four times, and provided solid defense at all three outfield spots—for his career, Winn is 47 runs above average in Total Zone and 37 runs above average in defensive runs saved—although he was more effective at the corners. With the San Francisco Giants in 2005, Winn hit for the cycle.

Another reliable lineup filler, Mark Grudzielanek plugged up the middle infield, primarily second base, for six teams although, unfortunately, by the time he arrived in Chicago to play for the Cubs in 2003 and 2004, announcer Harry Caray was already dead and thus unable to slaughter Grudzielanek's name on a daily basis. Grudzielanek made his only All-Star roster in 1996 as he posted a .306/.340/.397 slash line while hitting 34 doubles and stealing 33 bases, his career high. In 1997, Grudzielanek led the NL in doubles with 54 while his 25 stolen bases was the last time he swiped 20 or more. During his stint with the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1998 to 2002, Grudzielanek was moved to second base full-time by 2001, which coincided with his career-high in home runs, 13. Grudzielanek's 391 doubles rank 200th all-time.

A lineup fixture for the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for 15 of his 17 years in the majors, Garret Anderson holds a passel of team records for career statistics, and on the surface Anderson looks impressive. He was the runner-up to Marty Cordova for the American League Rookie of the Year in 1995, and for 13 years, from 1996 to 2008, Anderson camped in left field and in the middle of the Angels' batting lineup, winning a World Series ring in 2002, the season in which led the majors in doubles with a career-high 56 as he finished fourth in MVP voting. But Garret Anderson's statistical record is deceptive, as I concluded last year in an examination of borderline candidates appearing on upcoming Hall of Fame ballots. He compiled a quantitatively impressive record including 2529 hits, 522 doubles, and 287 home runs, but that is what he did: compile. However, qualitatively, Garret Anderson generated a 102 OPS+ and 100 wRC+, indicating a league-average hitter—not an insult, but not a superlative, either.

The pinnacle of Mike Lowell's career must be the 2007 season, in which the third baseman placed fifth in MVP voting, his highest showing, with a .324/.378/.501 slash line during the regular campaign, establishing career highs in hits (191) and runs batted in (120) as he helped to carry the Boston Red Sox into the postseason. In the playoffs, Lowell's impressive World Series performance—a.400/.500/.800 slash line with three doubles, one home run, four RBI, three walks, and one stolen base—earned him Series MVP honors. Lowell had helped the Florida Marlins to their 2003 World Series victory with a .276/.350/.530 slash line, 32 long balls, a career high, and 105 runs driven in during the regular season. Lowell won a Gold Glove in 2005 with the Marlins, and he had six years in which he hit 20 or more homers, finishing with 223.

Mike Sweeney came up to the Kansas City Royals in 1995 as a catcher before moving to first base and then to designated hitter, which has always been Sweeney's strength. He sports a career .299/.366/.486 slash line, good for a 118 OPS+, but has been a liability in the field. Nevertheless, Sweeney had been beloved in Kansas City, where for a seven-year stretch from 1999 to 2005 he posted a .313/.383/.521 line built from, on average per year, 156 hits, 33 doubles, 23 home runs, and 54 walks (against just 55 strikeouts) while scoring 81 runs and driving in 97—this for a woeful Royals team that had one winning season during that span. As one of the Royals' few bright lights, Sweeney was named to five All-Star teams between 2000 and 2005.

Another Mike, Mike Hampton, hit nearly as well as the other two Mikes—a noteworthy feat as Hampton was a starting pitcher who won five consecutive Silver Slugger Awards. Moreover, with the Houston Astros in 1999, Hampton was runner-up to no less than the Arizona Diamondbacks' Randy Johnson for the National League's Cy Young Award as Hampton led the NL in wins (22) and winning percentage (.846). Dealt to the New York Mets the following season, Hampton's pitching helped the Mets into the World Series as he was named the NL Championship Series Most Valuable Player, pitching a three-hit, Game Five shutout that clinched the series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Then Hampton signed a contract with the Colorado Rockies that up to that point had been the largest deal in MLB history. But Coors Field was a boon only to Hampton's hitting, and then injuries hampered Hampton before he retired in 2011. As a hitter, Hampton posted a .246/.294/.356 slash line with 178 hits, 22 doubles, and 16 home runs while scoring 97 runs and knocking in 79.

Currently the manager for the Detroit Tigers, Brad Ausmus may come under Hall of Fame consideration decades in the future (provided his 2015 results do not indicate a continuing trend). Certainly as a catcher with an outstanding tactical and strategic grasp of the game—and a degree in government from Dartmouth College—Ausmus was one of the best defensive catchers of his era whose winning "just" three Gold Gloves belies his all-time rankings: He is third in putouts (12839), seventh in games caught (1938), 25th in double plays turned (130), 57th in assists (956), and 62nd in defensive WAR (18.3; Baseball Reference version) among all positions. As a hitter, Ausmus was a terrific defender although he did make his only All-Star squad in 1999 when he established career highs in several offensive categories. Ausmus also stole 102 bases (at a 65.8 percent clip) in his career, with five seasons of 10 or more swipes.

And then there's David Eckstein, at five feet, six inches and 170 pounds truly a David among the Goliaths of the Steroids Era. An adequate defender in the middle infield, Eckstein was the typical pesky table-setter with a .284/.349/.358 slash line in 4241 plate appearances as a leadoff hitter, but although he hit just 35 home runs in 5705 total plate appearances, he led the majors in grand slams with three in 2002. And in one respect, Eckstein's name could be shortened to just "Stein," as in the kid from The Bad News Bears: Eckstein led the American League in hits by pitch during his first two seasons and retired with 143, 24th all-time. Eckstein won two World Series rings, one with the Angels in 2002, and one with the St. Louis Cardinals four years later as he was named the Series Most Valuable Player as he posted a .364/.391/.500 slash line with three doubles and four runs driven in, striking out just once in 23 plate appearances.

Again, none of the one-and-dones would attract much notice even on a light ballot—as noted above, Anderson's compiling would invite some polite discussion—but on the 2016 Hall of Fame ballot, as with ballots from the past few years, they are thankful just to be included.




First-time Candidates with Legitimate Hall of Fame Credentials

Even though, at least by my reckoning, you could fill the ten spots on the 2016 Hall of Fame ballot with just the holdover candidates from last year's ballot and still have three left over, there are four first-time candidates who are also in the serious discussion for the Hall: Jim Edmonds, Ken Griffey, Jr., Trevor Hoffman, and Billy Wagner.

I've examined Edmonds, Hoffman, and Wagner previously in my evaluation of borderline candidates, and Griffey, Jr., seems to be a foregone conclusion, so we don't need to spend too much time examining any of them.

First-time Center Fielders

With a sweet smile and an even sweeter swing, Ken Griffey, Jr., was the Mickey Mantle of his generation: Gifted with tremendous baseball talent, Griffey accomplished towering feats on the diamond, but, like Mantle, injuries hampered him throughout his career and curtailed what could have been even greater achievements—Griffey had been on the very short list of hitters who could have broken Hank Aaron's career mark for home runs. As it is, he is sixth all-time with 630 home runs and one of only eight men to have hit 600 or more long balls. In his first 13 seasons, from 1989 to 2001, Griffey racked up 460 homers, including seven years with 40 or more—and, remarkably, he was just in his age-31 season in 2001, but that also marked a string of seasons shortened by injuries.

The son of Cincinnati Reds star outfielder Ken Griffey, Sr., "Junior" actually played with his father on the Seattle Mariners before the elder Griffey retired in 1991; the pair hit back-to-back home runs in a 1990 game against the then-California Angels, the first father-son duo to do so. Griffey, Jr., launched his star in Seattle, playing his first 11 seasons there, posting a .299/.380/.569 slash line while averaging, per season, 158 hits including 29 doubles and 36 home runs, 97 runs scored, 105 runs batted in, and 15 stolen bases; he posted a 149 OPS+ during this period, with his eye-opening 70.6 bWAR averaging to an All-Star-caliber 6.4 wins above a replacement player each year—indeed, Griffey was named to the American League All-Star squad in his every year in Seattle except his rookie year, and made 13 All-Star teams altogether.

Griffey was also the AL Most Valuable Player in 1997 when he led the league in five categories including home runs (56), runs batted in (147), slugging percentage (.646), total bases (393), and runs scored (125), and he practically duplicated those totals the following year while coming in fourth on the AL MVP ballot. In fact, Griffey finished in the top five in voting five times, including a 1994 runner-up showing to Frank Thomas, and in the top ten seven times.

But although Griffey won ten consecutive Gold Gloves with the Mariners from 1990 to 1999, and his spectacular play in center field has stocked many a highlight reel, advanced defensive metrics have not been kind to the Kid. His range factors and fielding percentage are just below league averages, and while as a center fielder his Total Zone rating is six runs above average (Baseball Reference calculation), his defensive runs saved is 42 runs below league average; his career defensive WAR is 1.3.

None of which is likely to affect his chances even if the second half of his career, played mostly with the Reds and marred by stints on the disabled list, features a more down-to-Earth .262/.355/.493 slash line, although his final two seasons, back with Seattle, are among the most mediocre of any top-level player, capped in May 2010 by his being benched for poor play and then being unavailable to pinch-hit allegedly for having been asleep, an incident quickly dubbed "Napgate"; Griffey retired soon afterwards, later claiming that he did not want to be a distraction to the team.

In addition to ranking sixth all-time in home runs, Griffey ranks 13th in total bases (5271), 15th in runs batted in (1836), 33rd in runs scored (1662), 35th in slugging percentage (.538) and 35th in bWAR among position players (83.6), 44th in doubles (524) and 50th in hits (2781); furthermore, Griffey's 83.6 bWAR ranks 35th among position players and 57th among all players while his 136 OPS+ ranks 100th. Even if "Napgate" remains fresher in the mind, Ken Griffey, Jr.'s, scoring the winning run from first base in extra innings in the decisive Game Five against the New York Yankees in the 1995 AL Division Series is the image voters will remember about Junior as they check his box for the Hall of Fame. Too bad not enough of them remember that it was teammate Edgar Martinez who hit the double that scored Griffey, but we'll get there soon enough.

One center fielder who came by his eight Gold Gloves honestly was Jim Edmonds, although in the latter half of the 1990s, playing for the California/Anaheim Angels, he had been overshadowed by the Angels' AL West rivals the Mariners and their center fielder Ken Griffey, Jr. Like Griffey, though, Edmonds was no stranger to the highlight reel—and unlike Griffey, he has the defensive metrics to justify the video acrobatics.

Since the Gold Glove was instituted in 1957, only seven other outfielders have won more of the award than Edmonds, while his defensive WAR of 5.9 is certainly respectable for a defender at one of the strength positions up the middle.

For comparative purposes, here are the FanGraphs and Baseball Reference Total Zone total fielding runs above average ratings, ranked by FanGraphs Total Zone, for center fielders currently enshrined in the Hall of Fame and (in bold italic) first-time candidates Edmonds and Griffey, Jr., along with Kenny Lofton, who was criminally one-and-done in 2013, and Andruw Jones, expected to be eligible in 2018.

The FanGraphs Total Zone ratings are for centerfield unless marked by an asterisk (*), which indicates that only overall outfield data is available. For Baseball Reference Total Zone, no data is available for players up to the 1950s.

Rank

Player

Total Zone—FanGraphs

Total Zone—Baseball Reference

1

Jones, Andruw

220

61

2

Willie Mays

148

176

3

Lofton, Kenny

115

115

4

Speaker, Tris

91*

NA

5

Carey, Max

86*

NA

6

Edmonds, Jim

83

80

7

Dawson, Andre

78

77

8

Duffy, Hugh

68*

NA

9

DiMaggio, Joe

49*

NA

10

Hamilton, Billy

30*

NA

11

Combs, Earle

6

NA

12

Griffey, Jr., Ken

4

6

13

Cobb, Ty

0

NA

14

Ashburn, Richie

–5

39

15

Roush, Edd

–6*

NA

16

Doby, Larry

–8

–5

17

Puckett, Kirby

–12

–12

18

Snider, Duke

–20

–7

19

Mantle, Mickey

–26

–10

20

Averill, Earl

–32*

NA

21

Wilson, Hack

–32*

NA


Should Edmonds be elected to the Hall, his FanGraphs Total Zone rating of 83 would place him sixth all-time. He ranks 17th in double plays turned (31) and 20th in putouts (4343) among centerfielders since 1954, and 20th in assists (116) among centerfielders all-time. But while Edmonds may in fact be one of the defensive greats in center field—you can believe the highlight-reel footage—how does he stack up as a hitter? Will his bat help to carry him into Cooperstown?

Qualitatively, Edmonds looks strong if not overpowering, with a slash line of .284/.376/.527 producing an OPS of .903 and an OPS+ of 132 (tied with Hall of Famers Tony Gwynn, Joe Morgan, and Jackie Robinson), with a wRC+ of 132 and a wOBA of .385. In 2011 games, with 7980 plate appearances and 6858 at-bats, Edmonds generated a bWAR of 60.2 and an fWAR of 64.0. Jaffe's JAWS ranking puts Edmonds in 14th place among all center fielders.

Quantitatively, Edmonds, who had been dogged by injuries during his career, compiled decent if not spectacular numbers. He fell just short of 2000 hits; his 1949 hits are 299th all-time. His 437 doubles are 126th all-time, just behind Hall of Famers Luke Appling, Roberto Clemente, and Eddie Collins. His 393 homers ranks 56th all-time, just behind Hall of Famers Duke Snider and Al Kaline. In runs scored, Edmonds ranks 146th all-time with 1251, and in runs batted in, he places 152nd among career leaders with 1199, just behind Hall of Famer Chuck Klein. Always a free swinger, Edmonds finished with 1729 career whiffs, 25th all-time, ahead of Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle and Harmon Killebrew and just behind Hall of Famer Lou Brock—although this is hardly an auspicious career highlight.

Edmonds never led the league in any offensive category. He finished within the top five in Most Valuable Player voting twice, in 2000 and again in 2004. With his career bWAR of 60.3—with FanGraphs giving him a more bullish 64.0—Edmonds deserves serious consideration for the Hall of Fame. Jay Jaffe's JAWS places Edmonds 14th all-time among center fielders, just behind Hall of Fame members Ritchie Ashburn, Andre Dawson, and Billy Hamilton and well ahead of several Hall of Famers including Larry Doby, Kirby Puckett, Max Carey, Earl Averill, and others.

Despite the highlight-reel catches, however, Jim Edmonds does not feel like a Hall of Fame player. He feels like one who is very close, but while Edmonds was a key ingredient on the Angels and later with the St. Louis Cardinals, with whom he went to the World Series twice, winning it in 2006, he was not the prime ingredient, one who shone like a Hall of Famer does. A truly stand-out season or an auspicious career offensive milestone would have bolstered Jim Edmonds's case for the Hall.

First-time Relief Pitchers

The only two relief pitchers to record both 500 saves and 600 saves are Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera, so it's no surprise that in 2014 Major League Baseball created an award given to the top relief pitcher in each league—previously, an award had been given to the top reliever in both leagues—and has named the award for each league in honor of Hoffman, for the National League, and in honor of Rivera, for the American League. Hoffman spent his entire career in the NL, mostly with the San Diego Padres, while Rivera spent his entire career with the AL New York Yankees.

Edgar Martinez, too, has an award named for him, for the outstanding designated hitter in the American League, but that does not seem to have helped his chances for the Hall of Fame. Then again, the Hall has never been receptive to honoring the DH or role players such as a relief pitcher. To date, only five relievers have been enshrined in the Hall: Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Rich "Goose" Gossage, Bruce Sutter, and Hoyt Wilhelm, and Eckersley spent the first half of his career as a starting pitcher before switching roles. The other four epitomized the era of the "firemen," especially Wilhelm, who in many respects pioneered the closing role.

The case of Lee Smith is emblematic of the Hall's indifference to relief pitchers: Smith is the prototype of the modern closer, the one-inning specialist who enters the game to record the final three outs. Smith retired after the 1997 season with 478 saves, the most all-time until passed by Hoffman and then Rivera. He has been on the Hall of Fame ballot for 13 years, but he has yet to reach 50 percent of the vote, let alone the 75 percent needed for induction. In 2014, his vote percentage fell to a tick beneath 30 percent, his worst showing to date, and he picked up scant percentage points last year to flop back over the threshold to 30.2 percent—hardly an encouraging sign as he has just two more chances for election by the BBWAA.

Adding to Smith's woes will be the appearance of both Hoffman and Billy Wagner on the 2016 ballot. Hoffman surpassed Smith as the all-time saves leader until he himself was surpassed by Rivera, and Wagner pulled within 56 saves of Smith. But as the number of saves itself is not an accurate indicator of relief-pitching effectiveness, and thus a criterion for Hall of Fame inclusion, let's examine these closers a little more closely.

The following two tables list various criteria of relief-pitching effectiveness, the first concentrating on the save situation itself, and the second on the effectiveness of the pitching in those situations, with each criterion explained below its respective table. The sample includes the five Hall of Fame relievers already mentioned along with (in bold italic) Hoffman, Rivera, Smith, and Wagner.

This table ranks the relief pitchers by save percentage and lists career statistics for end-of-game performance and the leverage—the "pressure"—faced in those situations. (Note: Dennis Eckersley's statistics are for his relief pitching only.)

Relief Pitchers, Ranked by Save Percentage

Pitcher

GF

SV OPP

Saves

Blown Saves

SV PCT

aLI

Rivera, Mariano

952

732

652

80

.891

1.868

Hoffman, Trevor

856

677

601

76

.888

1.914

Wagner, Billy

703

491

422

69

.859

1.812

Eckersley, Dennis

577

461

390

71

.846

1.398

Smith, Lee

802

581

478

103

.823

1.865

Wilhelm, Hoyt

651

295

227

72

.769

1.348

Fingers, Rollie

709

450

341

109

.758

1.604

Sutter, Bruce

512

401

300

101

.748

1.969

Gossage, Goose

681

422

310

112

.735

1.584

GF: Games Finished, the number of games in which the pitcher was his team's final pitcher whether or not it was a save situation.
SV OPP: Save Opportunities, the number of times the pitcher entered the game qualified to earn a save. Typically the sum of saves and blown saves, but rules in place prior to 1973 results in an anomaly for Hoyt Wilhelm, whose career dated back to 1952.
Saves: Credit to a pitcher for successfully maintaining his team's lead in a game, as defined by Rule 10.19 of the Official Rules of Major League Baseball.
Blown Saves: Credited to a pitcher who entered a game with a save opportunity but failed to maintain the lead, allowing the other team to tie or surpass his team's lead.
SV PCT: Save Percentage, the ratio of saves to save opportunities.
aLI: Average Leverage Index, as calculated by Baseball Reference. Measures the amount of "pressure" the pitcher experienced in his appearances. Average pressure is 1.0, low pressure is below 1.0, and high pressure is above 1.0.

This table ranks the relief pitchers by ERA+ and lists various measurements of the pitchers' performance in limiting opposing teams' offensive effectiveness. (Note: Dennis Eckersley's statistics are for his relief pitching only, with an asterisk (*) indicating an aggregate statistic as the reliever-only statistic is not available.)

Relief Pitchers, Ranked by ERA+

Pitcher

Slash Line

ERA+

ERA–

FIP–

WHIP

SO/9

SO/BB

Rivera, Mariano

.211/.262/.293

205

49

63

1.000

8.2

4.10

Wagner, Billy

.187/.262/.296

187

54

63

0.998

11.9

3.99

Wilhelm, Hoyt

.216/.288/.308

147

68

81

1.125

6.4

2.07

Hoffman, Trevor

.211/.267/.342

141

71

75

1.058

9.4

3.69

Sutter, Bruce

.230/.288/.340

136

75

78

1.140

7.4

2.79

Smith, Lee

.236/.306/.341

132

76

74

1.256

8.7

2.57

Gossage, Goose

.228/.308/.330

126

80

84

1.232

7.5

2.05

Fingers, Rollie

.235/.292/.340

120

83

83

1.156

6.9

2.64

Eckersley, Dennis

.225/.259/.352

116*

86*

84*

0.998

8.8

6.29

Slash Line: Aggregate opposing hitters' batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage against the pitcher.
ERA+: Career ERA, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by Baseball Reference. Positively indexed to 100, with a 100 ERA+ indicating a league-average pitcher, and values above 100 indicating the degrees better a pitcher is than a league-average pitcher.
ERA–: Career ERA, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by FanGraphs. Negatively indexed to 100, with a 100 ERA– indicating a league-average pitcher, and values below 100 indicating the degrees better a pitcher is than a league-average pitcher.
FIP–: Fielding-independent pitching, a pitcher's ERA with his fielders' impact factored out, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by FanGraphs. Negatively indexed to 100, with a 100 FIP– indicating a league-average pitcher, and values below 100 indicating the degrees better a pitcher is than a league-average pitcher.
WHIP: Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched.
SO/9: Strikeouts per nine innings pitched, the number of strikeouts by a pitcher, multiplied by 9, then divided by the number of innings the pitcher pitched, to project the average number of strikeouts a pitcher would record over the course of an entire game.
SO/BB: The ratio of a pitcher's strikeouts to bases on balls (or walks).

With respect to save conversions, Trevor Hoffman ranks behind only Mariano Rivera in terms of effectiveness, behind only Bruce Sutter in average leverage index, or pitching in high-pressure situations, and behind only Wagner in strikeouts per nine innings. That last is significant because Hoffman, who had been a power pitcher before sustaining a shoulder injury, relied on a devastating changeup as his out pitch, although, like Rivera and his cut fastball, Hoffman too had a pitch that every batter knew was coming, yet those batters had difficulty with it all the same.

As a closer, Hoffman was remarkably consistent and remarkably effective. For a 14-year period, from 1994 to 2007, Hoffman averaged, per season, 58 appearances and 61 innings pitched, allowing just 46 hits including 5 home runs while striking out 66 and walking only 16, earning 37 saves while posting a 2.61 ERA, a 154 ERA+, a 1.020 WHIP, a 9.8 strikeouts-per-nine-innings ratio, and a 4.12 strikeouts-to-walks ratio. More impressively, he accomplished this while pitching for the San Diego Padres, which had reached the postseason during his time with them just four times, advancing beyond the first round only once. Admittedly, Hoffman's postseason pitching record is good but hardly auspicious, with a couple of high-profile blown saves. By contrast, Mariano Rivera is the greatest postseason relief pitcher ever.

But when compared to both his contemporaries and those relievers already in the Hall, Trevor Hoffman ranks among the best at the position based on both his qualitative and quantitative record. Jay Jaffe's JAWS system ranks Hoffman at 21st place among relievers, behind Lee Smith (although ahead of Rollie Fingers), but that is a ranking based exclusively on bWAR alone and does not tell the entire story as Hoffman's consistency and excellence at his position is among the best-ever at that position. (And JAWS also factors in Dennis Eckersley's not-inconsiderable bWAR as a starting pitcher, thus skewing the range.)

Although his relatively low profile may make Trevor Hoffman seem to be little more than a compiler, his quantitative and—more importantly—his qualitative record put him on a par with not only existing Hall of Fame relievers but also with certain Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera. He belongs in the Hall.

Trevor Hoffman
Will Trevor Hoffman, the first pitcher to 600 saves, make an impression on Hall of Fame voters in 2015?

That could also be the case for Billy Wagner, who may be the best relief pitcher about whom you never gave a second thought, but whose own record prompts serious consideration for the Hall of Fame. He may be the greatest left-handed reliever of all-time, but that will not be enough to get him into the Hall. Nor will his ranking fifth in all-time saves with 422, one of only five pitchers with 400 or more saves, although as we have seen with the qualitative comparisons for relief pitchers, Wagner looked pretty formidable with a 187 ERA+, second only to Mariano Rivera in our sample, and an unreal 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings pitched, which topped all nine relievers.

The two biggest knocks against Wagner are longevity and anonymity. Although Wagner's career lasted 16 years, from 1995 to 2010, and he made 853 appearances, all in relief, he totaled 903 innings pitched, which is light for Hall of Fame consideration as all the other relievers in our comparisons logged at least 1000 innings pitched. Moreover, Wagner, who had nine seasons with 30 or more saves, appeared atop the leaderboards only twice, both for games finished, first in 2003 with 67 finishes for the Houston Astros, and then in 2005 with 70 for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Wagner did finish within the top ten in Cy Young voting twice, placing fourth in 1999 and sixth in 2006; JAWS lists Wagner as the 20th-best relief pitcher of all time. An archetypal power pitcher with a fastball that could hit triple digits and that had good movement on it, Wagner complemented the heat with a hard slider, making him an outstanding reliever. However, that couldn't help him from posting a disastrous postseason record, and his contentious relationships with former teams further sullies his image, although neither aspect will be what keeps him out of the Hall of Fame. Despite Billy Wagner's dominating stuff, he did not dominate the leaderboards, and without the gaudy counting numbers, and until the Hall develops an approach to recognize role players—if it ever does—Billy Wagner will be lucky to stay on the ballot past his first year.

Another challenge to Wagner and the other three viable newcomers is the number of highly-qualified candidates returning from previous ballots, to whom we will turn now.




Return Engagements

There are 17 returning candidates on the 2016 ballot, ranging from two who debuted last year and managed to secure at least five percent of the vote needed to remain on the ballot to two candidates whose last chance to be elected by the BBWAA to the Hall of Fame is now.

The following table lists all 17 returning candidates, ranked by the number of years they have been on the ballot, with selected voting percentages.

2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Returning Candidates, BBWAA Voting Summary, Ranked by Years on Ballot

Player

First Appearance

Years on Ballot

Debut Percentage

2015 Percentage

Highest Pct. (Yr.)

Trammell, Alan

2002

15

15.7

25.1

36.8 (2012)

Smith, Lee

2003

14

42.3

30.2

50.6 (2012)

McGwire, Mark

2007

10

23.5

10.0

23.7 (2010)

Raines, Tim

2008

9

24.3

55.0

55.0 (2015)

Martinez, Edgar

2010

7

36.2

27.0

36.5 (2012)

McGriff, Fred

2010

7

21.5

12.9

23.9 (2012)

Bagwell, Jeff

2011

6

41.7

55.7

59.6 (2012)

Walker, Larry

2011

6

20.3

11.8

22.9 (2012)

Bonds, Barry

2013

4

36.2

36.8

36.8 (2015)

Clemens, Roger

2013

4

37.6

37.5

37.6 (2013)

Piazza, Mike

2013

4

57.8

69.9

69.9 (2015)

Schilling, Curt

2013

4

38.8

39.2

39.2 (2015)

Sosa, Sammy

2013

4

12.5

6.6

12.5 (2013)

Kent, Jeff

2014

3

15.2

14.0

15.2 (2014)

Mussina, Mike

2014

3

20.3

24.6

24.6 (2015)

Garciaparra, Nomar

2015

2

5.5

5.5

5.5 (2015)

Sheffield, Gary

2015

2

11.7

11.7

11.7 (2015)


For several of the old-timers on the ballot, what is noticeable is how their support spiked in 2012. This was before the Furor of 2013 and the Fawning of 2014 and 2015.

The Furor resulted from the ballot debut of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the two poster boys for performance-enhancing drugs that brought the PEDs controversy to a head, and that led to a Hall of Fame ballot overstuffed with qualified candidates from which not one was elected—although one player was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013 courtesy of the Pre-Integration Era Committee, which ushered in Deacon White, a 19th-century ballplayer and apparent member of the Flat Earth Society. That overstuffed ballot scattered support across the board, enabling no one candidate to secure the 75 percent needed for election.

The Fawning resulted from the 2014 ballot debut of Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and Frank Thomas, all of whom were quickly elected while leaving returning candidate Craig Biggio two votes shy of election. More Fawning ensued in 2015 with the debut of Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz, all of whom, as in the previous year, leapfrogged over the seemingly motley crew of returnees except for Biggio, who was pulled into the Hall along with the other three. And if you're puzzled by where the "Fawning" comes in, all six first-ballot Hall of Famers in the last two years seem to be repudiations to the entire Steroids Era—five pitchers and one position player who had never even been suspected of using PEDs; indeed, as a player, Thomas had been openly critical of PEDs usage, and during his eligibility period he crowed about how he played "the right way."

The following table ranks the 17 returning candidates by bWAR along with their voting percentage from 2015 and their highest voting percentage to date.

All 2016 Returning Hall of Fame Candidates, Ranked by bWAR with Selected Ballot Results

Rk.

Player

bWAR

fWAR

2015 Pct.

Highest Pct.

1

Bonds, Barry

162.4

164.0

36.8

36.8 (2015)

2

Clemens, Roger

140.3

139.5

37.5

37.6 (2013)

3

Mussina, Mike

83.0

82.5

24.6

24.6 (2015)

4

Schilling, Curt

79.9

83.2

39.2

39.2 (2015)

5

Bagwell, Jeff

79.5

80.3

55.7

59.6 (2012)

6

Walker, Larry

72.6

69.0

11.8

22.9 (2012)

7

Trammell, Alan

70.3

63.7

25.1

36.8 (2012)

8

Raines, Tim

69.1

66.4

55.0

55.0 (2015)

9

Martinez, Edgar

68.3

65.6

27.0

36.5 (2012)

10

McGwire, Mark

62.0

66.3

10.0

23.7 (2010)

11

Sheffield, Gary

60.2

62.4

11.7

11.7 (2015)

12

Piazza, Mike

59.2

63.6

69.9

69.9 (2015)

13

Sosa, Sammy

58.4

60.4

6.6

12.5 ((2013)

14

Kent, Jeff

55.2

56.6

14.0

15.2 (2014)

15

McGriff, Fred

52.6

57.2

12.9

23.9 (2012)

16

Garciaparra, Nomar

44.2

41.5

5.5

5.5 (2015)

17

Smith, Lee

29.6

27.3

30.2

50.6 (2012)


The following table ranks those 17 returning candidates by their 2015 voting percentage along with their WAR values (bWAR and fWAR) and highest voting percentage to date.

All 2016 Returning Hall of Fame Candidates, Ranked by 2015 Voting Percentage

Rk.

Player

bWAR

fWAR

2015 Pct.

Highest Pct.

1

Piazza, Mike

59.2

63.6

69.9

69.9 (2015)

2

Bagwell, Jeff

79.5

80.3

55.7

59.6 (2012)

3

Raines, Tim

69.1

66.4

55.0

55.0 (2015)

4

Schilling, Curt

79.9

83.2

39.2

39.2 (2015)

5

Clemens, Roger

140.3

139.5

37.5

37.6 (2013)

6

Bonds, Barry

162.4

164.0

36.8

36.8 (2015)

7

Smith, Lee

29.6

27.3

30.2

50.6 (2012)

8

Martinez, Edgar

68.3

65.6

27.0

36.5 (2012)

9

Trammell, Alan

70.3

63.7

25.1

36.8 (2012)

10

Mussina, Mike

83.0

82.5

24.6

24.6 (2015)

11

Kent, Jeff

55.2

56.6

14.0

15.2 (2014)

12

McGriff, Fred

52.6

57.2

12.9

23.9 (2012)

13

Walker, Larry

72.6

69.0

11.8

22.9 (2012)

14

Sheffield, Gary

60.2

62.4

11.7

11.7 (2015)

15

McGwire, Mark

62.0

66.3

10.0

23.7 (2010)

16

Sosa, Sammy

58.4

60.4

6.6

12.5 ((2013)

17

Garciaparra, Nomar

44.2

41.5

5.5

5.5 (2015)


If you're a betting person, you might do well to put a wager on Mike Piazza. He debuted in the Furor of 2013 but polled quite respectably with more than half the vote, and he has been trending upward since then to the point where he can start to knock on the door to Cooperstown. If BBWAA voter engagement remains strong, meaning that we can see multiple inductees this year, Piazza is the most likely returnee to make it.

That path is steeper for Jeff Bagwell and especially Tim Raines. Bagwell has been dogged by suspicions that he used PEDs, which may be why he needs substantial additional support to get to the 75 percent threshold. He has made some inroads since his 2011 debut, but with tenure on the ballot now down to 10 years, his gains cannot be incremental. Raines feels that pressure keenly—next year is his last chance on a BBWAA ballot—and considering that he has gone from a quarter of the vote in his 2008 debut to his best showing of more than half the vote last year, his case is not hopeless. However, he needs a quantum jump.

Tim Raines
Voters had better hustle if they want to elect Tim Raines to the Hall of Fame--he's running out of time.

As for the other 14 returnees, their fate hinges on their tenure and notoriety. Alan Trammell is on his final ballot, with Lee Smith on his penultimate ballot; both are the last of the grandfathered candidates from when ballot tenure had been shortened for the 2014 ballot and subsequently. Smith peaked with half the vote in 2012, but with relievers Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner debuting this year, he is facing more pressure than a bases-loaded jam in the ninth. Trammell's prospects are grimmer—he has never garnered more than a third of the vote, and with just one-quarter of it last year, he needs a miracle.

Mark McGwire is also in his last year, but he has been a PEDs target for a decade now and is effectively done; McGwire has even declared publicly that, in effect, he won't get into Cooperstown unless he buys a ticket. Two of McGwire's other PEDs cohorts, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, have been holding at around one-third of the vote since they debuted in 2013, and given the Fawning of "clean" players over the past two years, an appreciable increase in support seems very unlikely. Similarly, McGwire's partner during the 1998 home run chase, Sammy Sosa, has disappeared into the woodwork and will probably disappear from subsequent ballots, going the way of Rafael Palmeiro. Having debuted just last year, it is difficult to determine what will happen to Gary Sheffield, also implicated with PEDs, although he certainly polled higher than McGwire and Sosa.

Of the "clean" returnees not yet discussed, Curt Schilling may have the fourth-best voting results, but at just below 40 percent it is both puzzling and discouraging, which can be said about Edgar Martinez, who is starting to feel that tenure pressure as he faces his seventh ballot this year, as well as about Fred McGriff, but McGriff doesn't even have an award named for him; meanwhile, Larry Walker seems unable to escape the notorious park effects of pre-humidor Coors Field, at least in voters' minds. Mike Mussina has seen incremental support but could be another Alan Trammell, although with fewer years in which to impress voters. Jeff Kent may be the new Fred McGriff, while Nomar Garciaparra managed to hang on by his fingernails in his debut, but only this year's results will tell whether all his courtesy votes will spark a closer look at him.

Voting results, of course, only tell part of the story of these returnees, who for our purposes can be placed into three groups: the SABR Darlings, the Wallflowers, and the PEDs Pariahs.

The SABR Darlings

As is the case with all the returning candidates, I have written about them before, and for those ballot veterans I have been writing about them for years. Thus, it is hard to write about candidates whom I evaluated for the 2015 ballot, for the 2014 ballot, for the 2013 ballot (and that ballot with a substantial history lesson, too), and the 2012 ballot because I am simply repeating myself.

In the case of Tim Raines, I evaluated him for legacy in 2002, long before this website existed, and even before he had retired. I had done so as a classroom assignment on feasibility reports, which evaluate alternatives and recommend one. My "assignment" was done as a fictitious "Underdog Committee" looking at upcoming retired players who would be considered borderline Hall of Famers. Along with Raines, I chose Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, and (don't laugh) Andres Galarraga (hey, he looked impressive at the time) for analysis, with the goal of choosing one to recommend for the Hall of Fame. I didn't do an extensive analysis, but because I did use positional scarcity and on-base percentage as criteria, I suppose I was entering the realm of sabermetrics, named for its association with the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). Going into the project, I figured I would end up choosing Martinez, but to my surprise, I found myself choosing Raines.

I still choose Tim Raines, who is a SABR Darling along with Mike Mussina, Alan Trammell, and Jeff Kent, and I think that all four are worthy of the Hall of Fame. What makes them SABR Darlings is that they don't look like Hall of Famers, but when you look at their numbers, they sure played like Hall of Famers.

Tim Raines is the poor man's Rickey Henderson. Raines is fifth in lifetime stolen bases with 808, and he ranks 13th in stolen base percentage with an 84.7 percent success rate. In 2502 games played, he banged out 2605 hits including 430 doubles and 170 home runs while adding 1330 walks, 1571 runs scored and 980 runs driven in.

Here is the SABR part: Raines's qualitative statistics compared to Rickey Henderson's:



BA

OBP

SLG

OPS

OPS+

wOBA

wRC+

Rickey Henderson .279

.401

.419

.820

127

.372

132

Tim Raines

.294

.385

.425

.810

123

.361

125


Henderson is the lifetime leader in runs scored and stolen bases (and times caught stealing), and in 500 more games than Raines he did reach 3055 hits including 510 doubles and 297 home runs while collecting 2190 walks. Henderson was a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Raines still finds the sand slipping away in his hourglass. Jay Jaffe's JAWS (Jaffe's WAR Score) system ranks Henderson as the third-best left fielder of all timewith Raines in the eighth position, and both of them are above the average JAWS ratings of all left fielders in the Hall of Fame.

On his first try, Tom Glavine entered the Hall of Fame with 305 wins and a 3.54 earned run average. With 35 more wins and a fractional drop in earned run average, Mike Mussina, with 270 career wins and a 3.68 ERA, is Tom Glavine. In fact, Mussina was worth 83.0 wins above a replacement player in his career while Glavine was worth 81.4 WAR, and Jay Jaffe's JAWS ranking system puts Mussina as the 28th-best starting pitcher of all time—two slots ahead of Glavine as both pitchers rank more highly than the average of all starting pitchers in the Hall.

Mike Mussina
Mike Mussina is every bit a Hall of Fame pitcher as first-ballot inductee Tom Glavine--but why don't voters know this?

Yet we will be looking at Mussina pretty much like this guy . . .

Of the 16 shortstops ranked by JAWS above the average values for all shortstops in the Hall, Alan Trammell ranks 11th, just above Derek Jeter. Yet Jeter is all but certain to be elected in his first year of eligibility—and Jeter has every reason to be. He had more than a thousand hits than did Trammell while hitting 25 points higher than he. Yet Trammell was still a fine hitter while his 22.0 defensive WAR is 34th all-time among all position players—and Jeter cost the Yankees nearly 10 wins over his career from his fielding. Trammell had the misfortune of being a great two-way shortstop at the same time as Cal Ripken, Jr., and just before they became commonplace.

Admittedly, Jeff Kent is a borderline pick for the Hall: He is ranked by JAWS as the18th among all second baseman all-time, below the average values for all Hall second sackers, yet better than Hall of Famers Billy Herman, Bobby Doerr, Nellie Fox, and Tony Lazzeri. With 560 doubles and 377 home runs, including the 351 he hit while playing second the most by any player at that position, Kent looks like a poor man's Rogers Hornsby—all right, a very poor man's Hornsby, but nobody looks rich next to the Rajah—and was certainly one of the most formidable second basemen of his generation.

Considering that in my 2002 assessment of Tim Raines I also evaluated Edgar Martinez and Fred McGriff, you might think that they would be among the SABR Darlings too. No, I've assigned them to another special circle of Hall of Fame hell.

The Wallflowers

Just like those bashful hopefuls looking on expectantly from the periphery at the school dance, the Wallflowers get overlooked in the rush to grab the most attractive—but any one of the Wallflowers could indeed blossom into the belle of the ball. (If only Albert Belle were in the Hall, I could have made that into a pun—the Belle of the Hall.)

Truth be told, I think that only Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, Larry Walker, Edgar Martinez, and Curt Schilling are Hall of Famers, with Fred McGriff just below the threshold, Lee Smith further on down, and Nomar Garciaparra considerably further from that.

Barring a sudden collective change of heart by voters, Mike Piazza looks to be busting moves at the Hall of Fame cotillion as his voting trend in just three ballot appearances points that way. Yet Piazza is still a Wallflower—he got leapfrogged by six first-timers while Craig Biggio, who debuted in the same year as Piazza, also got asked to dance before him. The greatest hitting catcher of all time blah blah blah. Ranked fifth by JAWS. The music's starting. Ask him already.

While you're at it, ask Jeff Bagwell already. Of course, Bagwell has a reputation, as they used to say while smoking in the boys' room—which is why I deliberately did not include him among the PEDs Pariahs because all there has ever been are whispered innuendoes that he must have been juicing because . . .. well, just look at him. That might have worked in Salem during the Witch Trials, but modern individuals expect evidence. Don't have any? Then induct him already. Why? I'm getting sick of answering that question because every year I keep making the argument for Bagwell, all the way back to the very first article I wrote for this site. Five-tool first baseman—how rare is that? The only 30-30 first baseman in history. Ranked sixth by JAWS—and look at all the great first basemen there have been. The music's still playing, but there is still time to dance.

Jeff Bagwell
Arguably the best all-around first baseman ever, Jeff Bagwell is overdue for the Hall of Fame.

Another Wallflower I wrote about at the start is Larry Walker, and later I even went into why the Coors Effect is bunk. A five-tool right fielder. Ranked tenth by JAWS—and .you know how many great right fielders there are? There are 24 of them in the Hall of Fame already. That may be too many—Chuck Klein (*cough* the Baker Bowl *cough*)? Ross Youngs? Tommy McCarthy?—but of the JAWS top ten, the only one not in the Hall of Fame is—

Then there is Edgar Martinez. What poetic justice were Martinez to be inducted alongside longtime Seattle Mariners teammate Ken Griffey, Jr. And apparently having an award named after you—that would be the Edgar Martinez Outstanding Designated Hitter Award—is still not enough to convince voters that he is a Hall of Fame-caliber player. (Would Cy Young not make the Hall in today's environment?) Looking back at what I wrote about Martinez for the 2012 ballot assessment, I see that I did say that I would pick Frank Thomas as my DH of choice. But Thomas made the Hall on his first ballot, which affects Martinez's Hall of Fame credentials not at all. And although Jaffe's JAWS system does not evaluate designated hitters, Martinez is still ranked as the 11th-best third baseman all-time, a position at which he did make 532 starts.

Curt Schilling is not the most uncontroversial candidate around, and his anti-Muslim tweet in August 2015, in which he went Godwin and subsequently got himself suspended by ESPN, won't endear him to Hall voters who see the "integrity" clause in voting guidelines as a license to adjudicate morality—but is it simply personality that accounts for his not being elected to the Hall already?

His Red Sox teammate Pedro Martinez was elected last year in his first year of eligibility. For comparative purposes, here are some representative statistics for each pitcher: win-loss record, ERA, ERA+, strikeouts, strikeouts per nine innings, strikeouts to walks, and wins above replacement (Baseball Reference version).



W–L (Pct.)

ERA

ERA+

SO

SO/9

SO/BB

bWAR

Pedro Martinez

219–100 (.687)

2.93

154

3154

10.0

4.15

84.0

Curt Schilling

216–146 (.597)

3.23

127

3116

8.6

4.38

79.9


Curt Schilling is the poor man's Pedro Martinez—and if that's "poor," I want to move to that neighborhood. Moreover, Schilling's postseason performance is richer (totals include all levels of postseason play):



W–L (Pct.)

GS

IP

ERA

SO

SO/9

SO/BB

Pedro Martinez

6–4 (.600)

14

96.1

3.46

96

9.0

3.20

Curt Schilling

11–2 (.846)

19

133.1

2.23

120

8.1

4.80


Schilling's iconic postseason moment? The "bloody sock" with (appropriately enough) the Boston Red Sox in Game Six of the 2004 American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees. Schilling guts it out, Red Sox win game, then ALCS, then go on to win first World Series in 86 years. Oh, and Schilling was, with Randy Johnson, co-MVP of the 2001 World Series as the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the Yankees in a thrilling seven-game series; then, way back in 1993, Schilling pitched a five-hit shutout against the Toronto Blue Jays in Game Five of the World Series to keep the Philadelphia Phillies' hopes alive.

Martinez's iconic postseason moment? With the Red Sox, playing the Yankees in Game Seven of the ALCS from the previous year. Eighth inning, Yankees threatening as Boston leads 5–2, four outs from winning series and advancing to World Series for the first time since 1986. Martinez convinces manager Grady Little that he's got enough gas in the tank to get out of trouble. Gives up three runs, Yanks win in extra innings, Little's contract is not renewed.

By the way, JAWS ranks Pedro Martinez as the 21st best starting pitcher of all time. Curt Schilling is ranked 27th. Reminder: First-ballot Hall of Famer Tom Glavine (Class of 2014) is ranked 30th.

If only, if only, runs one tale about Fred McGriff. En route to a monster season with the Atlanta Braves in 1994, McGriff and everyone else found that the season had been halted by the salary-cap dispute that resulted in the players' walkout in August. The first baseman had already clouted 34 home runs in 424 at-bats after 113 games before play was halted, a robust home run frequency of one every 12.5 at-bats, a rate that could have added up to 14 more round-trippers to his total had the season continued. What's the tale here? McGriff has 493 career home runs—and had 1994 been a full season, he would have surely reached the 500-homer plateau, and perhaps his credentials for the Hall would look more convincing. We do love our neat tiers in baseball stats, but "Crime Dog" is the same hitter at 493 dingers as at 500, and that hitter is very good but not Hall of Fame good. (And as far as the "if only" thinking goes, McGriff could have sustained a season-ending injury in Game 114 of the 1994 season.) McGriff ranks 29th among all first basemen, and while that is better than Hall of Famers Orlanda Cepeda, Frank Chance, and Jim Bottomley, if only, if only the various veterans committees had not selected them in the first place.

As we saw in the examination of Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner, Lee Smith is stuck in relief-pitcher limbo between the stalwart firemen who preceded him and the precision specialists who succeeded him, even if he was essentially the prototype of the one-inning closer. Smith had been the all-time leader in saves until Hoffman, and then Mariano Rivera, passed him, and although both Hoffman and Rivera benefited from the relief-pitching strategy that Smith helped to develop (and although both may have been more shrewdly marketed than Smith), Lee Smith, as with Fred McGriff, is a very good pitcher but not Hall of Fame good. (JAWS ranks Smith as 14th all-time among relief pitchers—but WAR and JAWS are not accurate measures of a reliever's effectiveness, and with only five relievers in the Hall so far, with two of those ranked below Smith, the sample is a small one.)

The road to the Hall of Fame is like trying to get to Mordor in the The Lord of the Rings: It's long and treacherous, and you might get ambushed and not get anywhere near your destination. Surprisingly, Nomar Garciaparra, who did look like a Hall of Famer in his first few seasons, garnered five percent of the vote last year and thus is able to remain on the ballot this year. One data point doth not a trend make, though, and it will be interesting to see what voters will do with Garciaparra this year.

But even the Wallflowers, whose chances for the Hall of Fame look grimmer than an overweight video-game addict with acne and halitosis hoping to be asked to dance, don't have the very special circle of hell reserved for our next bunch.

The PEDs Pariahs

Let's face it: When it comes to the Hall of Fame, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Gary Sheffield, and Sammy Sosa are radioactive, with a half-life that won't see them cool to an acceptable form for some time. That is the impression that has been reinforced by voters on the last few ballots, who, collectively, have shown a third of the support for one of the greatest hitters (Bonds) and for one of the greatest pitchers (Clemens) of all time while demonstrating outright disdain and even contempt for any player with admitted, alleged, or even suspected associations with performance-enhancing drugs.

However, could that hard line be weakening? Because, again, let's face it: Even with rules and penalties now clearly outlined with respect to PEDs, players are still using them. The Biogenesis scandal that broke in 2013 resulted in the simultaneous suspension of thirteen players. That is more than had been suspended at any one time since 1921, when the eight Chicago White Sox players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series had been banned by baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Three more players tied to Biogenesis—Melky Cabrera, Bartolo Colon, and Yasmani Grandal—had been suspended for 50 games in 2012.

Among those suspended in 2013 were Ryan Braun and three players—Everth Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, and Jhonny Peralta—who had been named as All-Stars that season, although the most notorious suspension was to Alex Rodriguez, whose suspension saga ultimately entailed his missing the entire 2014 season, with his initial 211-game suspension the longest ever meted out to a player.

But despite the intense speculation during the suspension as to whether Rodriguez could return as a major-league talent in 2015, his age-39 season (he turned 40 in July), Rodriguez returned with a productive season that saw him reach the 3000-hit, 2000-run, and 2000-RBI plateaus as he passed Willie Mays for fourth all-time among career home run leaders; in fact, Rodriguez attained the distinction of becoming the fifth player in MLB history to combine at least 3000 hits with at least 500 home runs—a distinction last achieved by Rafael Palmeiro, who had been unceremoniously dumped following a poor showing on the 2014 Hall of Fame ballot.

So, how surreal was it to see, during the 2015 postseason, a Fox Sports team of baseball analysts that included Rodriguez and Pete Rose, analysts whose discussion included punished-for-PEDs Bartolo Colon, pitching for the New York Mets, and Jhonny Peralta, playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals? (Rose's banishment from baseball for violating gambling rules was again upheld in December 2015 by Commissioner Rob Manfred, who cryptically, although accurately, noted that Rose's Hall of Fame eligibility was not within his purview.) Adding to the surreality was the presence of analyst Frank Thomas, one of the most outspoken opponents of PEDs.

Following his 2012 suspension, served while he was with the San Francisco Giants, Melky Cabrera signed a two-year, $16 million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays, and then in 2015 he signed a three-year, $42 million contract with the Chicago White Sox.

Jhonny Peralta served his 50-game suspension while with the Detroit Tigers, who had no problem adding Peralta to their 2013 postseason roster when he returned from his suspension (unlike the San Francisco Giants, who chose not to add Cabrera to the World Series roster after he had become eligible during the National League Championship Series). Following the postseason, Peralta inked a four-year, $53 million deal with the St. Louis Cardinals, and while there were some protests concerning the deal being made with a known violator of stated drug policy, the Cardinals seemed satisfied that his having served the suspension closed the matter.

Nelson Cruz served his 50-game suspension while with the Texas Rangers in 2013, after which he became a free agent. He turned down the Rangers' qualifying offer of $14 million to take his chances in the market, but his suspension must have cast doubts among buyers because he finally accepted a one-year deal offered by the Baltimore Orioles for "only" $8 million just before 2014 spring training. Cruz went on to lead the majors in home runs with 40, which must have encouraged the Seattle Mariners, who offered him a four-year, $57 million contract at the end of 2014. Cruz responded in 2015 by posting perhaps his best full season yet, with career highs in hits (178) and home runs (44), for a team that finished fourth in the American League West.

Ryan Braun, the 2011 NL Most Valuable Player while with the Milwaukee Brewers, tested positive for elevated testosterone levels at the end of 2011, but he successfully challenged the sample-collection process on a technicality, publicly professing self-righteous innocence as he did so. Then he was linked to Biogenesis of America, the Coral Gables, Florida, clinic that had been supplying major-league players such as Cabrera, Peralta, and Rodriguez with performance-enhancing drugs. Handed a 50-game suspension for his involvement, Braun accepted the suspension without appeal—and he was handed an additional 15 games for his conduct during his appeal of the initial drug test. Braun was then openly branded a liar for his sometimes pugnacious dissembling during the affair. Braun returned from his suspension to play right field for the Brewers with no seeming stigma, although his performance has yet to match his MVP-caliber play.

Already a PEDs pariah for his positive results in 2003, Alex Rodriguez returned to the apparent delight of Yankees fans, who saw Rodriguez help the Bronx Bombers to a postseason wild-card spot as he passed a number of individual milestones during the regular season. Coverage of Rodriguez, which in 2013 and 2014 centered on his record suspension for violating drug policy and, if he did return in 2015, whether he could continue to perform at the Major League level—assuming, of course, that the Yankees were willing to have him try—now lauded his accomplishments. Capping his successful return was his postseason stint (once the Yankees had been knocked out in the first round by the Houston Astros) as a television analyst.

Huh?

Beginning in the early 2000s, outcry over the use of performance-enhancing drugs grew until it resulted in a revamped drug policy for Major League Baseball, the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program adopted by the MLB Players Association and the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball in 2006, and an independent investigation by former United States Senator George Mitchell (D-Maine), whose 2007 report on his findings identified dozens of players alleged to have used PEDs including current Hall of Fame ballot candidates Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Troy Glaus, and Gary Sheffield.

In a sense, the December 2007 release of the Mitchell Report represented the culmination of the PEDs outcry. Earlier that year, Barry Bonds had broken the career home-run record then held by Hank Aaron in a "grim, joyless" assault on baseball history (as sportscaster Bob Costas described it); however, after having become the all-time home-run king, Bonds, who had been indicted in November on perjury and obstruction of justice charges resulting from his 2003 testimony in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) investigation, found himself unemployable in Major League Baseball. (In 2011, Bonds had been convicted of felony obstruction of justice, but that conviction was eventually overturned in 2015.)

Mark McGwire made his debut on the Hall of Fame ballot in 2007 and received less than one-quarter of the vote; he has never received more than that during his decade-long sojourn on the ballot. Thus the outcry over PEDs has been extended into legacy. Rafael Palmeiro, only the fourth hitter in MLB history to collect at least 3000 hits and at least 500 home runs, received at best half the support that McGwire had since his 2011 ballot debut; then, in 2014, he received less than five percent of the vote, thus booting him from future BBWAA ballots.

Mark McGwire
The 2016 ballot is Mark McGwire's last chance to swing for the fences of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Of course, this is the same Rafael Palmeiro who, while under oath, declared emphatically to a Congressional hearing in March 2005 that he had never used PEDs—only to be suspended for ten games in August later that year for failing a drug test and testing positive for an anabolic steroid. Sammy Sosa, too, has had at best half the support that McGwire, Sosa's foil during the historic 1998 home run chase that "saved baseball" following the 1994 strike, has received; Sosa, with just 6.6 percent of the 2015 vote, less than half the support he got on his 2013 debut ballot, threatens to go the way of Palmeiro as Sosa, eighth all-time with 609 home runs and the only hitter ever to have three seasons of 60 or more home runs, sees those accomplishments as a PEDs-stained liability.

The polling results of Sosa's fellow debutantes on the 2013 ballot, Bonds and Roger Clemens, made it clear that the Hall of Fame ballot is an unofficial referendum on players with associations—accused, admitted, or merely suspected—with PEDs. The same organization, the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA), that had voted Bonds and Clemens, respectively, the Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner an unprecedented seven times each has subsequently mustered one-third the votes required for them to enter the Hall of Fame.

In other words, the BBWAA has tacitly appointed itself the arbiters of morality for baseball's history by withholding the privilege of Hall of Fame enshrinement to players it deems guilty of having used performance-enhancing drugs and thus have "cheated" to enhance their careers and, ultimately, their legacy.

But despite the sustained outcry against PEDs, which have resulted in more stringent penalties for players caught using them, baseball players are still using them. And even if players are caught and suspended, baseball teams are still hiring them, seemingly without regard to stigma but with the goal of "putting the best product on the field." Because baseball is a business. It always has been, and all its stakeholders seem willing to do whatever is necessary to improve that business. Branch Rickey may be lauded for having helped to integrate baseball, but his pragmatic interest was that African-American players like Jackie Robinson could help him to win championships, which increase a team's marketability.

Thus, the moral dudgeon of Hall of Fame voters rewarding players who "played the game the right way"—such as Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, and Frank Thomas—and punishing players who, in their eyes, did not—from Rafael Palmeiro, guilty of a sitcom-like hypocritical comeuppance, to Jeff Bagwell, guilty of merely looking as if he had used PEDs with no proof of that extant—is itself hypocritical: These voters, particularly now that they must have been writing about baseball in the last ten years in order to remain a qualified voter, must surely see that cheating is simply part of the cost of doing business, much like a company that is fined for polluting or for underreporting its taxes.

Today, players fail drug tests. They are suspended. Once they have served their suspensions, they are hired by teams willing to pay handsomely for their services. A decade ago, by contrast, Barry Bonds—who had never been suspended from baseball—could not get signed by any baseball team after he broke Hank Aaron's career home run record in 2007. Granted, he was 42 years old, although hitters half his age would have envied his 2007 season, but his notoriety spelled career death at the time.

Moreover, players such as Cabrera, Cruz, or Peralta are unlikely to be serious contenders for the Hall of Fame (although Alex Rodriguez is unquestionably a contender), so in one sense their scrutiny is academic to the question of legacy. But that is not the point. The point is that they represent how the game is played, not just today but how it has been played previously. How the game is and had been played becomes part of baseball's history—and excluding players because they are emblematic of the conditions of their times becomes a denial of that history.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa are Hall of Famers. Gary Sheffield is on the borderline, and although I do not think he is a Hall of Famer, his credentials are still much better than several other players already enshrined, and his induction based on his playing record would not be egregious.

Nor would his induction based on his connections with PEDs. Had the "Steroids Era" that peaked from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s been an aberration, it would be easier to see Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sheffield, and Sosa as PEDs Pariahs, marked by their associations with illegal substances, even if the bulk of their careers occurred before baseball finally codified its policies and penalties in 2006 (with updates occurring subsequently). But we are still living in a "Steroids Era" as players are still using PEDs, and although they may be suspended for failing drug tests, they are still playing baseball because teams have no compunction about hiring them.

It is an embarrassment to baseball that its all-time hits leader, Pete Rose, its all-time home run leader, Barry Bonds, and one of its greatest pitchers ever, Roger Clemens, have not yet been inducted into its Hall of Fame, baseball's monument to performance greatness. You can maintain that all three, and others like them, transgressed by breaking the rules of baseball conduct, which is true enough. Yet there is a depressing tendency in the sport to punish the individual for failing his personal responsibility while ignoring the collective responsibility of the environment, Major League Baseball, in which the individual operates.

Is it that "a few bad apples" have managed to infiltrate the barrel? Or is it the very nature of the barrel itself that causes apples to go bad? In the last few years, following the furor of the Steroids Era that continues to be played out annually during Hall of Fame voting, Ryan Braun, Melky Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, Jhonny Peralta, and Alex Rodriguez have all been suspended for violating drug policies that did not exist in their current form when Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, and Sosa were at the height of their careers. Yet Braun, Cabrera, Rodriguez, and the others have resumed their playing careers and often have been awarded handsome contracts as if their transgressions were minor errors in judgment—and as if the Steroids Era were simply a mistake from the past.

We are still living in the Steroids Era. Players who have been caught using performance-enhancing drugs and have been penalized for it are still being hired by baseball teams. Induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame is indeed a privilege, not a right; it is a conferred honor, not an automatic requirement. And if it were just "a few bad apples," some of those with Hall of Fame-caliber careers, under evaluation, then voters could feel justified in their refusing to confer the honor upon those players. But the current crop of Hall of Fame candidates are representative of an era that tacitly condoned their behavior—and continues to condone it. And for voters who continue to deny that reality are painting an incomplete and ultimately dishonest version of baseball. You evaluate the baseball you have, not the baseball you wish you had.




My 2016 Hall of Fame Ballot (If I Had One)

Has the logjam of qualified candidates for the Baseball Hall of Fame been broken? Not by my count—I identify 15 Hall of Famers on the 2016 ballot, with another five just below the threshold whose election would not perturb me unduly.

Those 15 definite candidates include two first-timers, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Trevor Hoffman; all four SABR Darlings, Jeff Kent, Mike Mussina, Tim Raines, and Alan Trammell; five of the Wallflowers, Jeff Bagwell, Edgar Martinez, Mike Piazza, Curt Schilling, and Larry Walker; and four of the PEDs Pariahs, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa. The five bubble candidates include two first-timers, Jim Edmonds and Billy Wagner; two of the Wallflowers, Fred McGriff and Lee Smith; and PEDs Pariah Gary Sheffield.

Counting the below-the-threshold candidates, that is twice the maximum allowable number of votes on a BBWAA ballot, and even excluding them means having to discard one-third of the qualified candidates. That in turn leads to a number of different voting strategies: Do you vote for the most likely winners just to ensure that they get off the ballot and help to reduce the logjam? Do you include those candidates whose time on the ballot is drawing to a close? Do you omit those candidates because they are unlikely to be elected in any event? Do you omit the PEDs Pariahs entirely? Or only some of them? Or do you attempt a combination of some or even all of those strategies?

No matter how you slice it, you are still going to omit a deserving candidate, making it a simultaneously, and even a paradoxically, can't-miss and can't-win situation.

Given all these considerations, and were I to have a ballot, I would do something rash—a protest vote. No, I wouldn't submit a blank ballot, or pull a Dan le Batard and give away my ballot to another entity, or do anything that would disqualify me or the ballot. But I would vote for underdogs, pariahs, and hopeless cases.

To illustrate, here are the five for whom I would not vote this year, keeping in mind that I consider them to be Hall of Famers. First are the two first-timers, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Trevor Hoffman. Griffey is a gimme, and Hoffman should be one; Griffey should get sufficient votes this year to be elected, and if Hoffman does not, he still has nine more chances. Next is Mike Piazza, whom I pegged as a "tough sell" back in 2011, but who made an encouraging ballot debut in 2013 and had garnered nearly 70 percent of the vote last year—a year that saw the election of four candidates. Call me an optimist, but I think Piazza will be elected this year. It is possible that Jeff Kent could disappear from the ballot in just his third appearance although his 15.2 percent debut support in 2014 and his 14.0 percent share last year indicate some interest in his candidacy.

Is there such a thing as a non-essential Hall of Famer? The short and obvious answer is, no—if he is non-essential, then he is not a Hall of Famer. Yet Sammy Sosa's accomplishments are emblematic of his era even if they seem to have been self-serving; that's the non-essential part. However, there is something weirdly appropriate that Sosa, the only hitter ever to have three seasons of 60 or more home runs, should never have led his league in home runs in those years; he did lead the league in home runs in two other seasons. And even though I think Sosa, having scraped together just enough votes last year to stave off elimination from the ballot, will go the way of Rafael Palmeiro this year and receive less than five percent of the vote, that too is weirdly appropriate, because years from now, when baseball fans and scholars ask how it was that one of only eight men as of 2015 to hit 600 or more home runs but was not elected to the Hall of Fame, it will force a re-appraisal of Sosa's era.

With that, here are my ten choices for the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. The rankings indicate a "snub and suffering" index that reflects the candidate's level of support—or lack thereof—and time on the ballot: The bigger the snub and the longer the suffering, the higher the ranking.

10. Mike Mussina

Mike Mussina is another one I considered to be a "tough sell" in 2011, and his first two years on the ballot have seen him poll in the 20-to-25 percent range. I didn't pick Mussina for my ten in 2014he was ranked 14th—but he did make the eighth slot last year.

Mussina is a relative newcomer compared to the others in my ten for this year, which is why he snuck onto the end of the list, but as I noted previously, with a fractionally lower ERA and 35 more wins, Mussina is Tom Glavine. And if 35 wins seems like a significant margin, consider that Glavine pitched primarily for the perennial division-winning Atlanta Braves while Mussina toiled for half his career for the middling Baltimore Orioles. Sabermetrician Jay Jaffe's War Score (JAWS) System ranks Mussina as the 28th-best pitcher in MLB history while Glavine is two places behind Mussina.

9. Roger Clemens

JAWS ranks Roger Clemens as the third-best pitcher in MLB history. I ranked Clemens second in 2013, third in 2014, and fourth last year.

8. Barry Bonds

JAWS ranks Barry Bonds as the best left fielder in MLB history. Bonds topped my list in 2013, he came in second in 2014, and he was ranked third in 2015.

7. Curt Schilling

JAWS ranks Curt Schilling as the 27th-best starting pitcher of all time. He was one of my "tough sells" back in 2011, and that has proved to be the case, unfortunately. Schilling placed fourth on my 2013 ranking, fifth in 2014, and sixth last year.

Curt Schilling
Too many voters seem to have collective amnesia when it comes to recalling Curt Schilling's Hall of Fame career.

6. Larry Walker

JAWS ranks Larry Walker as the tenth-best right fielder in MLB history. The nine ahead of him on the list are in the Hall of Fame.

Walker is one of those candidates I'm tired of discussing. In 2011, he was featured in my first article for this site. He was listed as one of my picks for the 2012 ballot. I ranked him sixth in 2013. His ranking in 2014 was ninth. Last year it was tenth.

Larry Walker
Is Coors Field the kiss of Hall of Fame death for hitters like Larry Walker who played there?

5. Edgar Martinez

JAWS ranks Edgar Martinez as the 11th-best third baseman in MLB history, which of course is a little misleading because it is his status as a designated hitter—for whom the damned award is now named—that is the issue. Maybe voters were waiting until Ken Griffey, Jr., was eligible for the Hall of Fame ballot, so they can be inducted together? What a foolish pipe dream that is.

Speaking of foolish pipe dreams, I see that in 2011 I assumed that Martinez, who had debuted the previous year, would be elected soon enough. At least by 2012 I recognized that he would be a "controversial pick," although in 2013 I had him lodged in the 11th spot. By 2014 I had him slotted in 13th place, and last year I again didn't have him in the top ten.

Well, Edgar Martinez has been on the ballot for six years and has never received more than roughly a third of the votes; he got just over a quarter last year. He has four more chances on the ballot. It's time to stop mucking around and elect him.

Edgar Martinez
With Ken Griffey, Jr., likely to be elected this year, will fellow Mariner Edgar Martinez get the Hall nod too?

4. Mark McGwire

Mark McGwire embodies the best and the worst of the Steroids Era. He gave baseball a shot in the arm (and, yes, I use that phrase advisedly) in 1998 when he broke Roger Maris's single-season home run record—shattered may be the better word—and when everyone caught wind of performance-enhancing drugs, McGwire was the first up on the chopping block.

That includes consideration for the Hall of Fame as this is McGwire's last year on a BBWAA ballot. In nine years, he has never attracted more than a quarter of the vote, and last year that sunk to ten percent. McGwire himself has given up on being elected to the Hall of Fame.

And yet Mark McGwire should be in the Hall of Fame.

JAWS ranks McGwire as the 17th-best first baseman in MLB history. He is ranked higher than Hall of Famers Harmon Killebrew, another classic Three True Outcomes hitter, as well as Tony Perez and Orlando Cepeda.

It's not just that McGwire is tenth in home runs all-time with 583, or even that many of those dingers traveled a long way; it's that he hit them at a greater rate than anyone in baseball history, including Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Ralph Kiner, Killebrew, and the rest—McGwire's at-bat per home run rate is 10.61, besting Ruth's 11.76. It's not that McGwire's slugging percentage of .588 ranks seventh all-time.

It's not even that McGwire, who hit an unimpressive .263 lifetime based on 1626 hits, managed to get on base at a .394 clip, 131 points higher than his batting average and good for 80th place on the career list, as he walked 1317 times although only 150 of those were intentional. That in turn contributed to his career OPS of .982, ninth-best all-time, and indexed as OPS+ that translates to 163, tenth-best in history and tied with Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx.

It's that Mark McGwire epitomized the gaudiness of the Steroids Era yet had the lumber to back it up. McGwire will leave the ballot this year far short of the 75 percent of the vote needed to elect him to the Hall of Fame, and he will then join the expected logjam of players hoping for a second chance with the Expansion Era Committee or whatever that veterans committee will be called in the future. But had the writers been honest about the period that they covered, they would have elected McGwire by now.

I discussed McGwire's chances in 2012, ranked him 12th in 2013, and 17th in 2014, although he did not make my top ten last year.

3. Jeff Bagwell

JAWS ranks Jeff Bagwell sixth all-time among first basemen. That is higher than Frank Thomas, in the ninth spot, who was elected in 2014 in his first year of eligibility.

Bagwell has been on the ballot since 2011. He debuted at just above 40 percent, saw a high of nearly 60 percent in 2012, and polled 55.7 percent last year. I profiled Bagwell in my very first article for this site, touted him in 2012, ranked him third in 2013, fourth in 2014, and fifth in 2015.

2. Tim Raines

JAWS ranks Tim Raines as the eight-best left fielder of all-time. Including this year, Raines has only two chances on the BBWAA ballot to make the Hall although he is looking a lot like Bert Blyleven in terms of building support: He garnered just under a quarter of the vote in his 2008 debut, but last year was his best showing to date, with 55.0 percent.

Guess what? I've been talking about Raines forever, in my very first article, in 2012, as my number-five pick in 2013, and as my number-six pick in 2014. However, he was not among my top ten in 2015.

1. Alan Trammell

Nor was Alan Trammell among my top ten in 2015 although, like Raines, I think he is a Hall of Famer. JAWS ranks Trammell as the eleventh-best shortstop in MLB history. It will be up to whatever future veterans committee incarnation exists to ponder Trammell's fate when his name comes up for discussion—he is not going to be elected this year, which is his final shot on a BBWAA ballot. He got 15.7 percent of the vote during his 2002 debut, peaked at 36.8 in 2012, and received a tick over one-quarter of the vote last year. That proverbial miracle is needed to get him elected now.

That is why I chose Alan Trammell as my number-one vote. He is not the best Hall of Fame candidate on the ballot by a long shot, but he is a Hall of Fame shortstop, as I noted in 2012, again in 2013—listing him tenth on a highly-packed ballotand tenth again in 2014 although he did not make the top ten last year.

Alan Trammell
Barring a miracle, Alan Trammell's Hall of Fame hopes lie with a future veterans committee. Shame on you, writers.

Post-game Wrap

By picking Alan Trammell, I may indeed be throwing away one of my ten hypothetical votes—in fact, I may indeed be throwing away a number of votes here. That is my point: There are too many Hall of Fame-caliber players to be contained on a ballot on which a voter can choose a maximum of ten candidates.

Trammell is a lost cause, Larry Walker is a puzzling one, and Mark McGwire is a foolish one, or so some might think. Perhaps those votes should have gone to Trevor Hoffman, or Mike Piazza, or even Ken Griffey, Jr., although Griffey is most likely going to leapfrog over the returning candidates and become a first-ballot Hall of Famer; Hoffman, too, has a chance to do that as well. And, again, that is my point: Familiarity breeds contempt.

A number of the qualified candidates may not have been elected yet not because they are not Hall of Famers, but because the ballot logjam has impinged upon many of them. A number of them do bear the PEDs stigma, or, like Edgar Martinez and perhaps Hoffman, played a position about which Hall voters have not fully developed a threshold of legacy, or, like Larry Walker, spent some time in a ballpark that they believed conferred an unfair advantage to him.

The 2014 shortening of a candidate's time on the ballot from fifteen years to ten years solves the issue of ballot logjam much like the remedy for a broken hand is to simply cut it off. The Hall of Fame has chosen to throw the problem over the wall to the Expansion Era Committee (or whatever a future veterans committee charged with evaluating recent candidates will be known as). As the overall quality of play continues to increase, it becomes harder to evaluate the talent because the great players do not stand out as much as they used to in decades past. That intense competition also manifests itself in ways that can jeopardize legacy—why do you think so many players are willing to risk taking performance-enhancing drugs?

But in a sense—and not to put lipstick on a pig—it is a happy problem to have: So many qualified candidates from whom to choose. And what is encouraging, considering the debacle of 2013 and no candidates chosen, is that BBWAA voters have elected seven players in the last two years. Moreover, with the pruning of the voter roll of writers who have not actively written about baseball in the last ten years, this leaves a more engaged electorate that has been keeping up with baseball and its significant changes in the last two decades.

And although a few prospective Hall of Famers will be leaving the ballot in the next few years—and not for Cooperstown—I do think that we could see another year of multiple inductees in 2016. My projection, a foolishly optimistic one, is:

4. Jeff Bagwell (77.5 percent)

3. Tim Raines (79.3 percent)

2. Mike Piazza (84.2 percent)

1. Ken Griffey, Jr. (91.7 percent)

Now that would be a return to normal.
Last modified on Thursday, 12 May 2016 00:49

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