2013 Hall of Fame voting

[Derwood]

So the same baseball writers who spent every day of the steroid era in the locker rooms, watching the players taking all flavors of illegal [expletive] are now going to pretend to be the moral jury of baseball?

 

[expletive] them all

[Mike Aller]

So the same baseball writers who spent every day of the steroid era in the locker rooms, watching the players taking all flavors of illegal [expletive] are now going to pretend to be the moral jury of baseball?

 

[expletive] them all

I second this.

 

There is some sort of fake aura that people assume follows baseball. But, it has only slowed any progress or evolution of the game. And, it's this same mentality that puts such a huge, unnecessary emphasis on steroids.

[SouthSideRyan]

How on earth does Teddy Greenstein have a vote?

 

It's astonishing how easy it is to become a member of the BBWAA

[Tracer Bullet]

I sorta feel bad for deserving players but the whole thing is such a joke. I wonder how important the hof is to current stars. Does Castro care? Stanton? Seems like it was a huge deal to guys like Santo and even Sandberg's era. Wonder if that's still the case.

[Mark Priors Calves]

How on earth does Teddy Greenstein have a vote?

 

It's astonishing how easy it is to become a member of the BBWAA

Yeah, he was on the Cubs beat for a year or two. Phil Hersch has a vote, he's covered the Olympics for the past 25 years.

[J.R.]

How on earth does Teddy Greenstein have a vote?

 

It's astonishing how easy it is to become a member of the BBWAA

Yeah, he was on the Cubs beat for a year or two. Phil Hersch has a vote, he's covered the Olympics for the past 25 years.

Greenstein was also on the Sox beat for several years. Not that it justifies the vote, however ...

[imb]

I sorta feel bad for deserving players but the whole thing is such a joke. I wonder how important the hof is to current stars. Does Castro care? Stanton? Seems like it was a huge deal to guys like Santo and even Sandberg's era. Wonder if that's still the case.

 

that's actually a really interesting question.

[Brian]

I imagine they don't really think/care about it right now, but give them a long career with HOF worthy numbers I bet they would want it at that point.

[DivineBovine]

http://i.imgur.com/e7g3g.jpg

 

It is totally understandable that Palmeiro, McGwire and Sosa got no votes that Bonds didn't get as well. But a lot of voters penalized Piazza and Bagwell for steroids as well, because the percentage of votes they got from Bonds voters is significantly higher than from non-Bonds voters. This is not explained simply by them being tougher voters, because more of them preferred Edgar Martinez and Tim Raines, and the Biggio vote was very close.

 

Even if Piazza and Bagwell never did steroids, they are certainly getting lumped in with the rest of them. But there's no way to know they weren't clean. And there's no way to know if Biggio and Bagwell weren't injecting each other's asses in the Astros locker room.

[Banedon]

Front page of the NYT Sports Section:

 

http://jimromenesko.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/nyt.gif

[jersey cubs fan]

It loses its impact when you realize the "front page" of the sports section is actually on page 11 of the business section of the NYT.

[champaignchris]

So the same baseball writers who spent every day of the steroid era in the locker rooms, watching the players taking all flavors of illegal [expletive] are now going to pretend to be the moral jury of baseball?

 

[expletive] them all

 

I want to ask all the would be gatekeepers, "Where the Hell were you when Steve Wilstein was being criticized for doing his job as a reporter? Were you one of the ones doing the criticizing? Or were you one of the many who were silent on the subject?"

 

If the players who played during the era are barred from the HoF, the reporters who failed to cover the story and/or actively engaged in whitewashing the issue should be banned from voting on it.

[Sammy Sofa]

Yeah, I unfortunately had the Score on as I was getting ready for work and they had Barry Rozner on and he was even more insufferable than ever. Of course he was using this as an opportunity to just trash Sosa left and right, and he kept talking about the negative reaction to nobody being in like he was stunned people couldn't understand how the voters were doing the "right thing;" like these hacks are being all noble and altruistic and doing their part to help "heal baseball" FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU.

[Banedon]

Yeah, I unfortunately had the Score on as I was getting ready for work and they had Barry Rozner on and he was even more insufferable than ever. Of course he was using this as an opportunity to just trash Sosa left and right, and he kept talking about the negative reaction to nobody being in like he was stunned people couldn't understand how the voters were doing the "right thing;" like these hacks are being all noble and altruistic and doing their part to help "heal baseball" [expletive] YOU.

 

Did you catch Rozner interviewing Heyman on that show and them collectively being aghast that anyone would even consider these steroid era losers.

[javy knows my name]

Heyman, too? Should I not be surprised by this?

[jersey cubs fan]

http://deadspin.com/5974837/jon-heyman-just-cant-make-up-his-mind-about-barry-bonds

 

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18b2suykp0ujijpg/original.jpg

 

In April of 2011, baseball writer Jon Heyman wrote a column titled, "Why Barry Bonds Belongs In The Hall" for SI.com.

 

I leaned for months toward disregarding their obvious steroid ties and voting for Bonds and Clemens, arguably the best position player and pitcher over the past 40 years (at least by what they did on the field). But ultimately, I just couldn't do it. At least not this time.

 

The more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to celebrate their careers. Not yet, anyway.

 

More to the point, I didn't want to reward the cheats.

[OleMissCub]

Did Schilling deserve twice the votes that McGriff got?

 

I have a hard time evaluating Schilling's place in baseball history

[javy knows my name]

Did Schilling deserve twice the votes that McGriff got?

 

I have a hard time evaluating Schilling's place in baseball history

 

Evaluating/caring

[SouthSideRyan]

Did Schilling deserve twice the votes that McGriff got?

 

 

Probably.

[champaignchris]

Did Schilling deserve twice the votes that McGriff got?

 

I have a hard time evaluating Schilling's place in baseball history

If BR's Similarity Scores are to be believed...

 

The two most similar players to Fred McGriff were Willie McCovey and Willie Stargell.

 

The two most similar players to Curt Schilling were Kevin Brown and Bob Welch.

[Clem Fandango]

To be fair to Schilling he did rack up a ton of K's, had an amazing K/BB rate during his peak years, and had it not been for some pretty historic seasons by Randy Johnson and Johan Santana, would've probably won 3 Cy Young awards

[Sammy Sofa]

Yeah, I unfortunately had the Score on as I was getting ready for work and they had Barry Rozner on and he was even more insufferable than ever. Of course he was using this as an opportunity to just trash Sosa left and right, and he kept talking about the negative reaction to nobody being in like he was stunned people couldn't understand how the voters were doing the "right thing;" like these hacks are being all noble and altruistic and doing their part to help "heal baseball" [expletive] YOU.

 

Did you catch Rozner interviewing Heyman on that show and them collectively being aghast that anyone would even consider these steroid era losers.

 

I KNOW. I was getting so mad over a dumb radio show because they were acting so high and mighty over an issue that THEY WERE ALL BASICALLY INVOLVED IN. Rozner kept emphasizing how this was some kind of nefarious secret, like the reporters and writers had no clue what was going on.

[SouthSideRyan]

Did Schilling deserve twice the votes that McGriff got?

 

I have a hard time evaluating Schilling's place in baseball history

If BR's Similarity Scores are to be believed...

 

 

They aren't.

[shnsajax]

Astro's fans now claiming Biggio's 97 season was better than Cabrera last season.

[Sammy Sofa]

Astro's fans now claiming Biggio's 97 season was better than Cabrera last season.

 

So?