Rob

That's a fair take and pointing out a legitimate problem with the way these character allegations are being handled by a number of voters. Of course, I never understood why he was getting the support he received before the allegations...

So because racists were in the Hall then, we should elect modern racists now. Because Roger Clemens already made a lot of money, we shouldn't feel icky about giving him more? The existing circumstances are sunk costs. We can't do anything about them the same way we can't do anything about Harold Baines and Bill Mazeroski being undeserving candidates. But we aren't intentionally diluting the talent-pool by letting Magglio Ordonez and Elvis Andrus in there, along with every other comparable player. No. We evaluate each candidate on the merits. And part of that evaluation includes the character clause, and thinking about whether or not we should be rewarding these people for their behaviors. Let's not kid ourselves. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and a whole bunch of other awful people will no-doubt make it to the Hall of Fame one day. I see no reason it has to be while they're alive to profit from it. Until then, if you want a register of the greatest players of all time, check out the fangraphs career leaderboard.

And your indignation is righteous? "There are already a lot of awful people in the HoF" is just the baseball equivalent of "it's always been done that way, so why do we need to change it?" It's a bad-faith argument. Look at each decision in a vacuum. You're talking about bestowing the highest honor in the sport upon these people -- an honor that comes with significant monetary and influential value. Fans pay more for an autograph by a Hall of Famer. They see "MLB Hall of Fame" in a twitter bio and they respect that person's opinion more. And your argument is that because there are other awful people in the Hall, voters are "self-righteous horsefeathers trying to play God" when they hesitate to bestow more money and influence on these people? That's some nonsense if you're being honest with yourself. Ty Cobb being a racist 100 years ago is not a good reason to give money and influence to Curt Schilling today. The pearl-clutching over cheating gets to me a bit too, but there are legitimate reasons to utilize the character clause when dealing with truly awful people. Clemens is accused of grooming a child (and perhaps worse). A child who later killed herself. Voters aren't being self-righteous horsefeathers trying to play God if that's the reason they're uncomfortable giving him money and fame -- they're just being decent human beings.

Oh yeah, the inconsistency within tiers bugs the hell out of me. Players in the same boat should be treated the same way unless there's some sort of differentiating factor. As far as to whether it should matter or not, I'm still undecided to be perfectly honest. Up above I posted my pretend ballot. You'll note I still voted for A-Rod and Manny, in addition to guys like Sosa. Steroids alone wasn't enough to scare me off of any player. But I had room for all of them on my ballot because I was leaving off guys like Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, and others for reasons outside of the diamond. Even those abusers and racists, I'm okay with them getting in eventually [there's plenty of equally-vile players already in] -- but I don't want any of them profiting off the Hall of Famer label in their lifetime. I'd prefer their inductions be posthumous. The ones that really drove me nuts were guys like Piazza and Bagwell that were never connected to steroids but we had to hear endless and baseless speculation of whether they were or weren't on them at the time, and writers making voting choices on gut calls. That was beyond stupid. But we're largely past that and dealing with confirmed cases nowadays -- so I wont get my knickers in a bunch either way with it so long as the voters are being consistent.

There are a lot of potentially interesting and deserving candidates. Albert Belle, Will Clark, Orel Hershiser, Joe Carter, Mark McGwire, Kevin Brown, David Cone, Chuck Finley, Dwight Gooden, Al Leiter, Brad Radke, Bret Saberhagen, Curt Schilling, Fernando Valenzuela, David Wells, Javy Lopez, Mark Grace, Fred McGriff, John Olerud, Rafael Palmeiro, Mo Vaughn, Chuck Knoblauch, Robin Ventura, Matt Williams, Jose Canseco, Juan González, Kenny Lofton, & Bernie Williams. Unfortunately, I anticipate another logjam at this level. There's really no debate on McGwire, Sosa, and Palmeiro until Bonds and Clemens are in. And there isn't much hope for guys like McGriff, Lofton, and Bernie Williams getting a real debate until the better players ahead of them are in. I have to imagine it's just too hard to vote for the 7th best player on the list when you've already decided not to vote for the guys ahead of them. Pitching could be more interesting. Kevin Brown, David Cone, Dwight Gooden, etc... That said, I'm 100% predicting the Veterans immediately elect Schilling. A bunch of rich old dudes? Most of them probably would have liked his posts if they knew how to tweet. Hell, they might even induct George W. Bush while they're at it just to make a point.

I still think treating players and failed tests from the pre-testing era differently is perfectly defensible. (1) The tests weren't really failed. Normal testing gets retested to verify results. MLB just went with the first test on these. (2) We really don't know who failed those tests. Reporting of Ortiz and Sosa could be erroneous. And there could be a bunch of other names on that list that haven't leaked. (3) Doping wasn't really against the rules at the time (4) The owners were implicitly encouraging the doping to sell tickets (5) It sounds as though the doping was truly ubiquitous at the time, so there's no real issue comparing them against their peers. Of course, nowadays it's completely different. There's due process on testing. Results are published. It is against the rules. MLB is trying to crack down on it. And the testing ensures that current players largely aren't doing it -- so the cheaters are getting an actual edge from it. I can 100% understand how you could vote for Bonds / Clemens and leave A-Rod off your ballot. Or vote for Ortiz but leave Manny off.

Put it in the general thread, but it should have probably gone here. Results are in: David Ortiz elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. No other inductees. ETA: Vote Totals David Ortiz 307 (77.9%), Barry Bonds 260 (66.0), Roger Clemens 257(65.2), Scott Rolen 249 (63.2), Curt Schilling 231 (58.6), Todd Helton 205 (52.0), Billy Wagner 201 (51.0), Andruw Jones 163 (41.4), Gary Sheffield 160 (40.6), Álex Rodríguez 135 (34.3), Jeff Kent 129 (32.7), Manny Ramírez 114 (28.9), Omar Vizquel 94 (23.9), Sammy Sosa 73 (18.5), Andy Pettitte 42 (10.7), Jimmy Rollins 37 (9.4), Bobby Abreu 34 (8.6), Mark Buerhle 23 (5.8), Torii Hunter 21 (5.3), Joe Nathan 17 (4.3), Tim Hudson 12 (3.0), Tim Lincecum 9 (2.3), Ryan Howard 8 (2.0), Mark Teixeira 6 (1.5), Justin Morneau 5 (1.3), Jonathan Papelbon 5 (1.3), Prince Fielder 2 (0.5), A.J. Pierzynski 2 (0.5), Carl Crawford 0, Jake Peavy 0. Sucks that Joe Nathan fell off the ballot without any real debate. That's one of my big problems with the way the voters have been punishing obviously deserving candidates like Bonds and Clemens -- the backlog has let quite a few people who aren't Bonds/Clemens level of godly get lost in the shuffle, even though they might be deserving on the merits.

David Ortiz elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

Holy horsefeathers he raped and killed a 1 year old? People like this really test my stance against the death penalty. It is repugnant beyond belief. My youngest is the same age his victim was, and I just want to cry thinking about it. However, it still isn't enough to get me to rethink my stance on the death penalty. As far as I can tell, he's maintained his innocence. And juries certainly can reach the wrong judgment. In my mind, it's never worth the risk to take a life that might (however unlikely) be innocent. The death penalty, if used at all, should be reserved for those who proudly announce and wear their guilt like a badge of honor, totally unrepentant for their awful deeds. All that said, I'm just heartbroken by how awful this is. That poor child...

He's probably the only one on the 2016 team with a shot at sniffing the HOF unless Bryant goes on a 5-year binge of MVP-level play. There are plenty of other options. Ross could manage his way in. Zobrist is a tiny white grinder who the veteran's committee might love if they ever figure out stats. John Lackey's career isn't that dissimilar for Lester's. Bryant or Aroldis Chapman could still get there on the merits. Rizzo and Hendricks seem the type of guys who might rack up enough longevity to fool a veteran's era committee. The path is harder to see for guys like Baez, but there's still some slight chance he pops off enough to make it happen. But honestly, there's a guy who was on that team who has what is probably a better case than any of those other guys, including Lester. Everybody forgets about it, but Joe Nathan threw two innings for us that season.

I don't think we can use the Harold Baines test. It was an awful choice, positively awful. But if we lower the bar that low, the Hall of Fame will double or triple in size. Baines had the same career fWAR as Aramis Ramirez and Placido Polanco. He's behind Ryan Zimmerman, Alfonso Soriano, Gary Gaetti, Miguel Tejada, Ray Lankford, Chuck Knoblauch, David Justice, and Reggie Sanders(!). Do we really think all of those guys should be Hall of Famers? On the pitching side we're looking at Brad Radke, Jose Rijo, Bob Welch, Derek Lowe, Dan Haren, A.J. Burnett, John Lackey, and Jake Peavy all having had more career value than Baines. I liked those guys, but not a one of them is a deserving Hall of Famer. Lester was better than any of those guys. But let's have the evaluation be about whether he's deserving or not compared to the other decent pitching selections -- not whether he's better than one of the worst Veteran's Committee selections.

The luxury boxes usually have some primo appetizers. That toasted ravioli is the horsefeathers.

On that note, a lot of people aren't going to care remotely about things like the #1 pick. This isn't the NBA or NFL where that person might be your star player within a year or two. MLB prospects spend forever in the minors, and have a high attrition rate of washing out before ever making it to the big show. The generational can't-miss #1 draft picks like Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, and Bryce Harper are the exception as far as coming up and contributing quickly. Even most #1 draft picks need 2-3 years of seasoning in the minors and a couple seasons to adjust at the big league level -- if they ever do manage the task.

That only further incentivizes the owners to put up a team that's shooting for the low end of the playoffs. Squeak into the playoffs and maybe you get lucky and rattle off a few wins to rack up that sweet playoff cash. Barely miss the playoffs and you end up with a top draft pick. We'd see the Cubs aiming for 81-85 wins every single year, and never trying to put together a top-tier team. It would depress salaries across the league even more than the expanded playoff structure would do on its own. Hard pass.

Being a shitty person isn't enough to warrant keeping somebody from the Hall of Fame, given the quality of many of the already-enshrined individuals. However, I see little reason to reward people for their awfulness in a way that let's them profit on it by going to conventions and ratcheting up their price to sign a baseball because they're a Hall of Famer. If you're a domestic abuser (Bonds, Vizquel, Jones), potential pedophile/groomer (Clemens), or just a generally awful and racist piece of trash (Schilling, Kent), then I think you should get the presumptive Pete Rose treatment and only end up enshrined posthumously. And while I don't care about steroids from the guys who were abusing them with the implicit permission of the owners to do so -- such as Bonds and Clemens -- I've yet to decide how I think best to handle those busted for using steroids after that date came and went. I'm inclined to think A-Rod was a Hall of Famer anyways... but Manny is a close call, even if it only impacted his counting stats. So my ballot: Abreu Helton Ortiz Rodriguez Rolen Sheffield Sosa I think all of those are deserving inductees [sosa gets in largely for overall contribution to renewing the popularity of the game rather than his numbers, which would come up short on their own]. For my final three votes, I'd play a bit of triage by keeping Manny's candidacy on the board to evaluate later. Probably toss one at Joe Nathan for the same reason. For the final one I'm torn. I don't think there's a deserving candidate left on the board, as all of these guys are Hall of Very Good. Closest to deserving might be Papelbon, but Nathan was better and I see Nathan as a pretty weak candidate, honestly. So I think I just toss my final vote at Tim Lincecum as a "I know you're not getting in, but thanks for all the fun" vote.

I still hate Lou Piniella for ruining him. Hill was a young lefty with a crazy curve coming off a very solid season. But Lou had absolutely no interest in letting him work out his control issues on the field. Every time he'd walk a single batter, Lou would start warming somebody up in the pen. Nobody in their right mind could have ever thought putting that kind of pressure on a kid going through some control issues could be helpful.

Yeah, I sincerely doubt we hear much movement on this until at least late January. The owners are motivated to cut off paychecks and wait for players to get antsy and put pressure on the union. The union is motivated to use the threat of missing games to force the owners' hands. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see this drag out til March or April, even. I hope we all enjoyed the hot stove season we got, as it's going to be a while before it picks back up.

Precisely. There's really no such thing as an absolutely terrible short-term contract. Worst case scenario is a minor wound.

Interesting to see the deal frontloaded -- even if only marginally so. It may signal they're thinking about adding significant payroll in 2024.

On the topic of how to fix these series and resolve some of the draw-happiness of them, I saw a suggestion I kinda liked. Namely, you play the tiebreakers first. That way the onus is clearly on one of the players to push a bit harder for wins. If, for instance, Magnus had won the tiebreakers, I imagine we'd see Nemo pushing a bit harder. Could be interesting. Of course, the downside in that situation is that Magnus would really only want and need draws. So he would never need to push offensively very hard. But still, I think it might be preferable to the status quo. I just feel like the classical chess championship should be decided while playing classical chess rather than rapid or blitz.

Jed - “We are targeting velocity this off-season.” Also Jed - “We claimed Wade Miley and are targeting Marcus Stroman.” It’s not like Stroman is bad. But his velocity is nothing to write home about, and if we do manage to grab him it’s not like teams are getting a big difference in looks from our front three.

I don't think so, because I do think the DH is a certainty in some form. Gomes can start 60-80 games and get more PT than the average backup, Willson can start 80 and DH another ~50 times to give him 500 PA, and you still have lots of DH at bats that need to be taken by someone. Plus Frazier is a 1 year/1.5 million dollar upside pickup, his utility doesn't live or die with him getting a full time workload. Also, best laid plans always go awry, someone will get hurt or be surprisingly good/bad, this level of redundancy is far from overkill with as much as is still to be sorted out on the position player side. Also, maybe they'll trade Willson! That possibility existed before Gomes and still exists now. I just don't think it clearly points the arrow in that direction(or the opposite). I think it shifted the needle slightly simply because they marginally increased Willson's value by taking the best remaining FA option off the board. Trading for Willson is doubtlessly more appetizing when you're staring at the spectre of Robinson Chirinos being possibly your next best bet as a starting catcher next season. That said, I agree with your assessment that on this team, as currently constructed, there's certainly room for both. So this move doesn't exert a lot of pressure for subsequent moves.

I don't understand how he's as bad afield as he is. Is he just taking esoteric routes, a la Gary Sheffield?

I am sure they are fine with that, given the production they got out of that contract. Quite possibly the best result from a mega-deal in MLB history.

If half the teams in baseball are making the playoffs, lots and lots of owners [notably the Ricketts] will settle for trying to be just good enough to squeak in and never put up a top-tier payroll even if they can support one. Because once you have that many teams in playing short series, it's just a crapshoot who advances. If I'm the players union, I'd be fighting that like hell. No reason to disincentivize spending.