UMFan83

Just posting because jersey is the only one to post in this thread in about 5 weeks and I'm concerned that he's lonely in here.

I agree. Don’t punish a team for signing someone. Eliminate the stupid small market picks and turn them into compensatory picks for losing someone of note. The Cardinals getting competitive advantage picks is definitely in my top 5 most irritating things in baseball. The fact that the entire NL Central besides the Cubs get picks drives me nuts, especially because the Cubs arguably don't use their competitive advantage of being a rich large market team often enough.

blah blah blah Kapman, but if true I guess it explains why the list isnt expanding now that Poles is on board.

In other NFC North news... lmao

Waiting for Poles' call

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. Sure we can, we can delegitimize the HOF because its not a true representation of the best players in baseball. It's a museum for players who meet whatever moving goalposts a group of journalists deem worthy. Why should we give it any relevance when they elect one player who tested positive for steroids in 2003 on the first ballot and not another one whose numbers arguably surpass the former? I'm not aware of any crimes Sosa committed. He was a jerk to teammates so now he doesn't get into the hall of fame? Santo didn't get in until he was dead despite clear HOF worthy numbers because he was mean to his opponents? It sounds like a kindergarten class taking away a toy because a kid was mean to another kid. Yes I'm moving away from the Clemens discussion because I clearly cant get you agree there, but its all part of this arbitrary system of judgment that results in a Hall of Fame that does not include several of the most prominent players in history. I don't see this level of high and mightiness in any of the other HOFs out there. Bill Laimbeer and Dennis Rodman are in the basketball HOF, there was no coordinated effort from stodgy basketball journalists keeping them out. Only baseball with its manufactured self-importance feels the need to arbitrate its museum of best players this way.

As much as I'm meh on Caldwell, I like hearing that

Here is the formula they use: WAR - (20 x Number of PED implications) + cumulative rating of niceness or jerkiness to journalists - (2 x alleged crimes committed) + (10 x number of Tony LaRussa's who liked) - number of boomboxes teammates smashed. The new weighted WAR is compared to the rest of the HOF to determine worthiness

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. Are you suggesting that Roger Clemens isn't already rich and famous? I care about the HOF being a register of the greatest players of all time. If Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens (and several others) aren't in there, it has no credibility to me. Call it the Hall of Great Baseball Players Who Are Good People Except The Bad People That Are Already In Here. If you want to put the shitty people's plaques in the bathroom stalls and/or put giant disclaimers on their plaques mentioning their shittyness that's fine by me. I doubt Clemens is going to go out and try to profit from being a Hall of Famer if it says right on the plaque that he's a piece of horsefeathers. I really don't need a bunch of journalists playing God and determining who meets their standards of shittyness, especially when those standards are not applied fairly (not just the old racists, talking about the floating standards of PED users).

Yeah I'm torn on the character thing. On one hand its hypocritical to call out the HOF for not being a true representation of the greatest players ever but then start excluding players. But at the same time, the racists and abusers make me sick. I'd lean towards keeping them in but "memorializing" them by detailing their faults on their plaque for all to see.

But here's the thing... Clemens and Bonds might have been gigantic horsefeathers, but they didn't even break any rules by using HGH (no MLB rule against it 'til 2011) or steroids (no rule against them til 2005) and neither one tested positive for anything at any point while playing. Even if you want to lop off their stats from 2005 til the end of their careers, Bonds still hit over 700 HRs with a BA over .300 and Clemens had well over 300 wins and 4000 Ks. Gaylord Perry was an admitted cheater. Amphetamine use was everywhere during the 60s and 70s. Fergie Jenkins was once banned from baseball (overturned later) because of cocaine possession. Nobody cared about people using PEDs until they decided they did. The BBWAA is a joke. Yeah people on twitter are also citing the "character clause" when there are proud racists, cheaters and domestic abusers in there. Just a bunch of self-righteous assholes trying to play God

They should at least get Daboll in the building. They'd be doing a disservice if they don't I have a feeling Poles mentioned some names that he’d be interested in hiring during his 1st interview and Daboll wasn’t on that list. I could be wrong but we’ve heard nothing about any other candidates in a while

So who picked up Eberflus from the airport tonight? Who is the McCaskey version of Todd Ricketts?

Ok what the hell

Sums it up

Quotes from noted big football fan George McCaskey

Official now

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. That’s fine but we’re also talking about inconsistent between players with very similar circumstances like Ortiz/Sosa. Some will say Sosa was a borderline HOF or his peak was too short or whatever but if Ortiz is first ballot, Sosa should be in To your point though, I don’t think it should matter at all. However they accumulated their numbers, they were accumulated and it’s a museum to honor the best most dominant players in baseball history. If they got caught during the testing era they will serve their suspensions as per the rules just like players that may have been caught with corked bats or using foreign substances. Or like others have mentioned been charged with violent crimes. There are so many names now that aren’t in the HOF that I can no longer take it seriously as a measuring stick of the best players in baseball history. Someone should create another HOF and enshrine all the current HOFers then add Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, Rose, Sosa, Manny, Albert Belle, ARod etc

The other thing that bugs me is that they aren't even consistent in punishing steroid users. David Ortiz was named as one of the ~100 players to test positive for PEDs in 2003. It was the only time he tested positive or was caught in connection to PEDs. Sammy Sosa was named as one of the ~100 players to test positive for PEDs in 2003. It was the only time he tested positive or was caught in connection to PEDs. One is a first ballot HOFer, the other is off the ballot with less than 20% of the vote. Sosa had a higher career WAR (though are close) and played a defensive positon his entire career. I guess the argument was that 2003 was before David Ortiz was really David Ortiz and 95% of his production came after that test while Sosa's career took off after his alleged PED test. But in this case you are making assumptions. You are assuming Sosa started doing steroids between 1996-1998 and was caught in 2003. You are assuming Ortiz got caught in 2003 and never used PEDs again. It's just all so stupid....when you put Harold Baines in the HOF but keep out guys like Bonds and Clemens (and McGwire and Sosa, etc etc) the honor loses all credibility imo

He was a repeat offender, so he got punished twice and thus had half the votes

We've probably given up on Daboll at this point but

Not that I ever expected Sammy to get voted in, but sad to see him drop off the ballot. Really hope these committees see things differently than the voters did. Sammy not be close to the level of Bonds and Clemens but without penalizing for steroids he should be in there.

I'm sure the thought of making the playoffs with 80 wins was in Jeds mind when he gutted the team last summer. Not to say he was aiming for it as the ultimate goal, but figuring a couple of acquisitions and we could be in the hunt for the playoffs as early as next year.