2023 Baseball Hall of Fame Class

Agreed. Our beloved upstate roadside attraction needs a new and better selection process.

As I've suggested, if the Hall of Fame is important, take the vote away from journalists and give it to historians.

If not, just have Bill James scribble five names on a paper napkin from the Doubleday Cafe every year.

 

OK?

A golden glove and an underrated bat: Here's what makes Scott Rolen a Hall of Famer

 

Shameless Cardinals homer stanning a former Cardinal is the least-surprising thing ever. But he’s not wrong.

 

Much like the 1972 Dolphins toast the last unbeaten to fall each year, I picture a group of "dirty" Hall of Famers, whom the voters mistakenly decided were clean, having a steroid party every year the Hall vote is announced.

 

Do they invite the drunks, the assholes and the ones who were just hopped up on greenies? (If so, that’d be a big damn party, likely)

 

Thought experiment: would we think of Scott Rolen differently if he'd played for one team his entire career?
He never signed a big free-agent contract with another team; instead, he was traded from the Phillies to the Cardinals to the Blue Jays to the Reds. I'm not sure it should make me think this way, but that somehow lessens his career in my eyes. How many HOFers got flipped three times for prospects (and Troy Glaus)?

 

Halls of Fame should have one criteria...does the person fill in the blank in this sentence?

"Martha, load up the kids, ______________ is coming to town today!"

 

76.3 %

Does Rolen get in if other players from the steroid era aren't kept out?

 

Beltran is being punished for being on the 2017 Astros

 

My thoughts exactly. How can decisions be made on the basis of morality when nobody can agree on where the line is drawn?

 

I don't have a huge issue with Rolen being in the Hall - to me, he's Hall of Very Good (honestly, he was Troy Glaus with better defense, less pop and a few extra years to compile -- I always confused the two of them anyway and they were even once traded for each other straight up), but I guess he's better than some who are already in, at least if you take defense into account. My issue is him getting in before Murphy, Lou Whitaker, Andruw Jones, Don Mattingly and, honestly, Dwight Evans, who put up better offensive numbers in an era of less offense and doesn't seem to be getting the same extra consideration for his defense in arguably the toughest RF to play in the entire league.