Hall Of Fame Vote

Career Wins over Replacement per BaseballReference.com

Mike Mussina 83
Curt Schilling 79.9
John Smoltz 69.5
Kevin Brown 68.3

HOF vote percentage and year on ballot

John Smoltz 82.7%, inducted on 1st year.
Curt Schilling 39.2% 3rd year
Mike Mussina 24.6% 2nd year
Kevin Brown 2.1% (2011- removed from ballot after 1st year)

Lesson: Kiss old time media ass if you want to be elected to the Hall of Fame.


P.S., yes I believe that Smoltz is deserving on the merits. The point remains...

Alan Trammell and Derek Jeter have identical career Wins over Replacement, approximately 71, per baseball reference.

Trammell equaled Jeter's total WARP in approximately 3000 less Plate appearances.

Reality: Trammell received votes of 25% of HOF voters in his 13th year of eligibility and will wash off the ballot in 2 years.

Reality 2: Jeter will be inducted (deservingly so) by nearly 100% of the voters in his first year of eligibility.

Lesson: Being a media darling in a huge market rather than a solid, quiet figure in the upper Midwest helps one get inducted to the HOF.

Cap Anson. In the Hall of Fame.

Bonds, Clemens, Sosa: At 10-36% "yes" votes after 3 years of eligibility.

Lesson: Being a racist douchebag, not a disqualifier. Using PEDs before the game's official ban in 2004, a disqualifier to most voters.

Biggio, inducted (deservingly) in his 3rd year of eligibility after a career producing 65 wins over replacement.

Bagwell denied induction in his 5th year of eligibility after a career producing 79 wins over replacement.

Piazza denied induction in his 3rd year of eligibility after being the greatest offensive catcher of all time.


Lesson: We don't need no stinking proof of PED use to harm your HOF chances, we just need rumors circulated on the internet. Hit singles instead of home runs and you'll be less suspicious. Don't get buffed. Guilty til proven innocent ? Not a problem.

Yes, Teamnasty, we get it. You think WAR is the end-all/be-all statistic that decides everything. Here's a news-flash: it isn't. There are many statistical and non-statistical ways to evaluate a player's success and worthiness for the HOF...not just WAR.

Also, being a racist douchebag does not give a player an unfair advantage over non-racist players. Using PED's does give players unfair advantages over those who don't.

Jim Rice, terrific player of the 80's, with 47.5 career warp. In (and not deserving).

Tim Raines, terrific player of the 80's, with 69 career warp (and immensely deserving). Out, and in danger of washing off ballot in 2 years unless he picks up 20% points.

Lesson: The voters are largely elderly baseball writers who haven't read a lick of Bill James or any serious analytical books/studies articles over the last 35-40 years. RBI, a team dependent stat, is the be all end of all of individual performance. On base percentage, an individual stat, and the most telling single measure of merit, is like an appetizer salad.

Corollary: Defense, shmefense

Corrolary 2: If you happen to play with a comparable contemporary even better than you (Rickey) you suffer by comparison and risk being denied entry vs. lesser players who lack such contemporary.

"Being a racist douchebag does not give one an unfair advantage over other players".

LOL! The competitive advantage Anson gained by preventing/arguing against integration in baseball is massive compared to the "advantage" gained by taking PEDs in an era when about 80% of your contemporaries were doing the same.

Easy exercise to demonstrate the point: print out all current major league rosters and remove all non-whites and see who is left. Then fill the vacancies with the best White minor leaguers from each system. THAT's close to the level of competition that Anson played in, EXCEPT his era didn't even have the pro-competitive influences of free agency, salary inflation, unionization, and professional minor leagues. Even worse in other words.

Fact: Many of the HOF voters haven't regularly covered teams in a few decades. "Hof worthiness" = a popularity contest dominated to please last generation's sports journalists...i.e., guys who weren't good enough writers to cover politics.

Jim Rice, terrific player of the 80's, with 47.5 career warp. In (and not deserving).

Yes, one of the most dominant offensive players of the late 70's/early 80's doesn't belong in the HOF because his WAR isn't pretty. That just shows how incomplete an evaluator WAR is.

Tim Raines, terrific player of the 80's, with 69 career warp (and immensely deserving). Out, and in danger of washing off ballot in 2 years unless he picks up 20% points.

Tim Raines rocks and he should be in. We agree here.

Lesson: The voters are largely elderly baseball writers who haven't read a lick of Bill James or any serious analytical books/studies articles over the last 35-40 years. RBI, a team dependent stat, is the be all end of all of individual performance. On base percentage, an individual stat, and the most telling single measure of merit, is like an appetizer salad.

Are they mostly elderly? I think you should show evidence to support that dubious supposition. Also what do you consider elderly. I'm an old man to my students at 46, but I'm not sizing up rocking chairs yet. And Rbis and (even more-so) on-base percentage do matter. Baseball people still value them greatly. I have no idea what an "appetizer salad" analogy means, but i bet it doesn't apply to OBP.

Corrolary 2: If you happen to play with a comparable contemporary even better than you (Rickey) you suffer by comparison and risk being denied entry vs. lesser players who lack such contemporary.

We completely agree here. I said the exact same thing earlier in the thread.

LOL! The competitive advantage Anson gained by preventing/arguing against integration in baseball is massive compared to the "advantage" gained by taking PEDs in an era when about 80% of your contemporaries were doing the same.

Easy exercise to demonstrate the point: print out all current major league rosters and remove all non-whites and see who is left. Then fill the vacancies with the best White minor leaguers from each system. THAT's close to the level of competition that Anson played in, EXCEPT his era didn't even have the pro-competitive influences of free agency, salary inflation, unionization, and professional minor leagues. Even worse in other words.

The excited laughter again. Relax, Teamnasty. We're talking baseball here, not politics.

Yes, white players like Cap Anson benefited from not having African-American opponents. However, it didn't give him or any other players any advantages over their opponents on the field. That's a big difference. Players who used PED's did gain such an advantage, regardless if many others were doing the same.