Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Players like Alomar and Jeter are why the HOF should randomly elimanate candidates unless they tested positive. I don't recall Mac testing positive.

 

He's a tough one. How much do you throw out? Do you also have to figure in getting caught with a corked bat?

Just how much do you take down Sosa or McGwire?

They make for an interesting comparison just by the numbers. Sosa has 26 more home runs and 243 more RBI. He hit for a higher average, but McGwire has a much better career OBP and slugging percentage. The biggest edge Sosa had is speed. He had two 30-30 seasons and 234 steals for his career. McGwire was a base-clogger.

Sosa has one MVP award. McGwire has a World Series ring.

If you take steroids out of the discussion, who is more deserving?

 

So Rodriguez should be eliminated?

 

I think if you take steroids out, it's no to both McGwire and Sosa.

If you take streroids away from Bonds -- as much as I hate him -- he already had a Hall of Fame career before '98. The other two didn't.

 

As someone who came of age as a baseball fan watching the National League in the early 1980s, I'm disheartened by the lack of support Raines has gotten/is getting.

Seems like it's being held against him that he wasn't quite as great as Rickey Henderson, but the reality is that he just might the second-best leadoff hitter of the last 50 years and was a damn-near unstoppable base-stealer in his prime (84.6 percent success rate in his career, as opposed to 80.7 for Rickey). The Rock also made seven straight All-Star teams and finished in the Top 10 in the MVP balloting three times.

That's a Hall-of-Famer in my book.

 

I don't have the same background as you, but I'm also surprised at his lack of support. A lifetime on-base of .413 is pretty impressive, considering he played 23 seasons and 2,502 games. When you throw in the steals, that's just gravy. Although, since I wasn't really old enough to see him play in his prime, I'm curious about why he played almost all of his games in left field as opposed to center. That does cut down on his positional value a bit, since you have to compare him more to left fielders, who generally have more power, than center fielders, which seem like more comparable players.

 

Getting to this late, but I don't think Martinez's case is really strong, and I am an advanced stats guy. He had 12 full seasons, plus 92 games in 2002. I would evaluate him against first basemen - The Mariners never really used him there, only 28 career games, but if you're a DH I think you should be evaluated against other DHs and 1B. I think Bagwell is going to be a borderline HoF choice for many, and he had better numbers than Martinez to me.

 

People for whom Bagwell is a borderline choice should not be allowed to vote.

 

Some people can't get past the 449 home runs for a power hitter in his era. Of course, those people forget the 202 steals, including two 40-30 seasons, and the outstanding defense.

 

Can we stop with the ERA BS. Can we all agree that a majority of players were using something. So don't look at the numbers look at whether they were on of the best players of there era. You can't pick 5 years here when you think he was using and go with ten you think he wasn't. Has it not been proven that we have no Fucking clue if, when and how long players have used. if they dominated they dominated and it was as much a level playing field as any other era we've seen.

 

Some of the time Andre Dawson played center. Raines played CF in 1984 when Dawson switched to RF.

After '84, Raines moved back to LF and players like Herm Winningham, Mitch Webster, Otis Nixon and Dave Martinez played CF.


Obviously before 1984, Dawson was the reason. Not really sure why he didn't keep CF after 1984.

 

I didn't mean that as a steroid comment. Just that he played in a time with the balls flying out for a number of reasons.