Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Simon, McGriff was a pretty good fielder. I'm not a big stat person because you can turn them around to fit any preference. But you are right about Dawson in center. In his prime, he could get them.

 

If you have all of these (I'm not sure where you are getting them), why not list for his whole career? Seems kinda arbitrary to pick it up in 1983.

Also, such things don't take into account the fact that some players are simply better at home regardless of how the park plays (see my example of Wandy Rodriguez. And if you are going to try to tell me that Houston's current home is a pitcher's park, we might as well stop even bothering because your head is so far up your calculator that you are beyond hope.)

 

Simon:
Calm down, young fool.
McGriff was a heck of a player. Run the numbers.

 

You can't compare McGriff and Dawson using raw numbers. Different eras, different positions.

 

Exactly my point Rick.

 

It's not like they were that far apart. Their careers overlapped from '86-'96 (though Dawson was well past his prime toward the end of that). It is not out of line at all to draw some comparisons.

The problem with what froggy posted is he cherry picked the stats he chose to use and failed to acknowledge that McGriff had his prime in a more offense-friendly time. For one thing, he completely ignored stolen bases. The combination of power and speed was one of Dawson's strengths in the first half of his career and he ended up with 314 steals. He has a huge advantage in that area over a base-clogger like McGriff.

 

I don't understand why having high standards is mean spirited. It's not about ego, it's about standards. As for your second point, I agree, if they aren't good enough the first time, they aren't good enough, period. Your third point is comparing apples and oranges. Besides, who would submit a blank ballot in a presidential election? Apathy and laziness are the problems there, plain and simple.

Just to be clear, I'm not defending all who turn in a blank ballot. Some of them are egotistical assholes. But I can see the argument, and in some ways, agree with it.

 

I don't agree with all the screeching about not voting for a guy first ballot. I don't think it's necessarily about holding the first ballot sacred. I think that voters often like more distance than five years to judge a guy's career. I know that might seem silly nowadays when so much statistical information is available at a keystroke, including cross-comparing eras, but old habits die hard. A lot of voters probably feel that they can't objectively measure a man's career just five years hence, the same way historians urge distance before evaluating a presidency.

 

It's respecting the idea of the Hall of Fame. And, again, they give you a vote to apply your personal standards to a group of wholly subjective criteria, which has nothing to do with ego.

It's not saying the Hall is wrong. You can respect others' votes while still guarding your own.

 

You do realize there are voters who won't list any player on their ballots during that player's first year of eligibility, right?

 

The fact that there is some degree of subjectivity in the voting isn't an automatic justification for doing whatever you please. It needs to in some way resemble the institution as it stands.

Not voting for Dawson is holding a high standard. Not voting for anyone in this class is getting a boner about how pure the game is when you are around to defend it.

 

Yes, I acknowledge that there are some voters who see that as the Hall Within the Hall. And I also think there are plenty that also want to mull it over a little while longer before deciding.