OT - Maddux, Thomas, Glavine voted into Hall of Fame
Maddox received 97.2% of the votes, followed by Glavine with 91.9% and Thomas with 83.7%.
Craig Biggio fell just short of the 75% threshold, garnering 74.8%, two votes shy. In his 15th and final year, Jack Morris fell of the ballot with 61.5%. In between was Mike Piazza at 62.2% in his second year.
January 8th, 2014 at 2:35 PM ^
January 8th, 2014 at 2:36 PM ^
Morris not making it, his last chance on the ballot I might add, is crap. I love basball, but geez...
January 8th, 2014 at 2:37 PM ^
Got it, thanks.
January 8th, 2014 at 2:37 PM ^
I hate to be that guy, but does Jack Morris really have the numbers to get into the HOF? I'm honestly inclined to think no, Trammel on the other hand has a case.
January 8th, 2014 at 2:45 PM ^
I heard something about that he'd have the higest ERA of any pitcher in the HOF.
January 8th, 2014 at 2:46 PM ^
I think it's easier to make a case for Morris's exclusion than his inclusion. Personally I think, based on who's in already, that Alan Trammell has a better case than Morris. (That said, anyone who says "but his ERA!" should be forced to defend Harmon Killebrew's .256 batting average.) However, I've been rooting for Morris and I hope (and rather expect) the veterans' committee will put him in. The writers basically gave the middle finger to the '84 Tigers.
January 8th, 2014 at 2:59 PM ^
instead of Detroit and Minnesota, he'd already be in the HOF. Same with Trammell.
January 8th, 2014 at 4:54 PM ^
with numbers not dissimilar from Morgan's and without the protection of the Big Red Machine lineup (although comfortable in front of Trammell).
January 8th, 2014 at 3:49 PM ^
Obviously you have to take conditions into account--like ballpark and era. ERA+ is a far better measure than ERA. But preventing runs is the very essence of a pitcher's job and ERA comes much closer to assessing a pitcher's value than any peripheral stat like BA does for a hitter.
January 8th, 2014 at 4:25 PM ^
Listening to Detroit sports talk, I got the impression that the writers hate Morris because he wasn't very friendly to them and didn't like the media, so they're sticking him.
January 8th, 2014 at 4:45 PM ^
Because playing nice with others should be the criteria for going to HOF...
/smh
January 8th, 2014 at 4:54 PM ^
If Glavine is in Morris should be, too. Otherwise you're saying that wins are the most valuable pitching stat, which is utter horseshit.
January 8th, 2014 at 2:40 PM ^
Baseball Reference has the full ballot listing here - LINK - and SBNation has the results - HERE
Glavine, Thomas and Maddux were all in their first year on the ballot. I still find it remarkable that Greg Maddux was not a unanimous selection, but that's just me.
Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza and Jack Morris were the next three, with Biggio falling mere tenths short of 75%.
January 8th, 2014 at 3:05 PM ^
There have been so many now I've struggled to keep track to some degree. But haven't at least some of Biggio, Piazza, and Bagwell (guys that finished above Bonds in %) linked at least through sources about PEDs? Maybe I'm confusing names here.
And as much as I'd like to see Edger Martinez get in, I find it hard to justify with only being a DH (though there are certainly players that hardly constituted as better field players that are in the HOF based on their batting).
January 8th, 2014 at 3:52 PM ^
Timothy Kurkjian was on M & M stating that he knew of other voters that refuse to vote for any player from the PED era. If for no other reason that's why Maddux wasn't a unanimous vote.
Personally I wouldn't have voted for Greg Maddux because his brother Mike looks like he uses shoe polish on his moustache. :)
January 8th, 2014 at 4:59 PM ^
at this point there is enough evidence that everyone was using that holding to a hard line about not letting PED users into the hall is just idiotic.
January 8th, 2014 at 2:42 PM ^
January 8th, 2014 at 2:42 PM ^
January 8th, 2014 at 2:51 PM ^
January 8th, 2014 at 2:44 PM ^
Greg Maddux was my favorite pitcher growing up. I appreciated how he wouldn't try to over-power dudes, but rather used pitch placement to his advantage. Humble dude too. Congrats to Glavine and Thomas as well.
January 8th, 2014 at 2:45 PM ^
I wanted to be Frank Thomas when I was a kid. Tight end for Auburn, first baseman for the White Sox... I used to love watching him hit.
January 8th, 2014 at 3:54 PM ^
I used to help in the volunteer office at the U. of Chicago Hospital, and Thomas was a frequent visitor at the pediatric unit. A lot of athletes and celebrities do stuff like that for the PR value but Thomas was great with the kids and clearly loved being there for them. He was, by far, my favorite of the celebrity visitors. Seemed like a really, really good guy.
January 8th, 2014 at 3:54 PM ^
Could have been had he been exclusive to baseball after going pro.
January 8th, 2014 at 2:54 PM ^
January 8th, 2014 at 2:55 PM ^
Along the HoF vein, I hope that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens never get voted in. I was listening to ESPN on the radio at lunch and Bram Weinstein and J Coachman were talking about how if you took 20% of their production away (conservative by their estimation), to account for the advantage that PED's afforded them, they still had Hall numbers.
Doesn't matter!!!
The bottom line is that they cheated. I don't care that a large portion or the majority of the sport was using PED's. I understand it's going to be a HUGE mess in the future to try and identify players who cheated. There will probably be players who cheated but just never got caught being inducted into the Hall, and that's a shame. Just make sure Bonds, Clemens, and A-Rod don't get in, voters.
January 8th, 2014 at 3:06 PM ^
To make a quasi-counter point. Pete Rose's exclusion from the Hall of Fame is stupid, IMO.
January 8th, 2014 at 3:20 PM ^
January 8th, 2014 at 3:31 PM ^
From the standpoint of affecting games, I think Rose's gambling is less offensive than Bonds and Clemens' PED's. I believe it's more likely that Bonds and Clemens, through PED's, won extra games and got extra hits/HR's and W's/K's due to the PED's than the Reds, with Rose putting money down on them, won more games than they deserved to.
I quasi-agree, but rules are rules. Sorry, Pete, you should have waited for the anonymity of sportsbook.ag.
January 8th, 2014 at 5:01 PM ^
If a guy nicks the ball or corks his bat he's cheating, but trying to win (in a charmingly old-school and risky fashion). If a guy uses roids he's cheating and trying to win ( in a far more effective and dirty manner). If a guy is betting on baseball, particularly his own team, he's calling into question whether what the fans are watching is real. Is he really trying to win? If baseball is really just pro wraslin' then I guess the wraslin' is more exciting.
Rose should never, ever, sniff the Hall of Fame.
January 8th, 2014 at 3:21 PM ^
I think this comes down to what (or who) a hall of fame is for. Is it for the players or the fans? Is it primarily a way to honor greats, or primarily a history museum? I think it should be the latter, so I'm in the camp of letting guys in regardless of transgressions if they were significant enough historically. In the hall, note (perhaps prominently) what those transgressions were.
January 8th, 2014 at 5:02 PM ^
Bob Gibson cheated, too, but nobody seems to give any shits about that. Weird
January 8th, 2014 at 2:57 PM ^
ERA and WHIP were on the high side, but 250+ wins, 4 World Series, Ace of 3 different staffs (Tigers, Twins, Jays), finished Top 5 in the Cy Young race multiple times, one no hitter, high strikeout rate and possibly the greatest game ever pitched in baseball history, Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. Glavine had more wins than Morris and a better ERA, but Morris was a better big-game pitcher who threw with more power. I'd take Maddux over both, but would take Morris over Glavine if I needed to win a World Series game.
The real travesty isn't that Morris didn't get in this year, it's that he didn't get in LAST year when the baseball writers didn't vote a single player in. With Glavine, Maddux and Thomas on the ballot this year, it was going to be tough for Morris to get in on the last try. But he belongs in the Hall unless we're pretending the 12 year period from 1981-1993 didn't exist.
During the balance of that period, the only starting pitchers in baseball better than Morris were Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan. Dave Stieb, Brett Saberhagen, Fernando Valenzuela, Doc Gooden, Mike Scott, Dave Stewart and some other guys all had better individual years along the way. But none of them could sustain that excellence the way Morris and Clemens did. Clemens and Ryan were clearly a couple notches above Morris, but I find it impossible to believe that no other starting pitchers from that era should be considered Hall of Fame worthy. Jack Morris was one of the best of that era and should be recognized accordingly.
January 8th, 2014 at 4:24 PM ^
January 8th, 2014 at 5:08 PM ^
But in that Game 7 against Atlanta, Morris came the closest a pitcher can come to winning a game by himself. He pitched 10 full innings without giving up a single run. The pitcher can't win games by himself because he's not responsible for producing runs, but if he holds the other team to zero runs for a full game you have to figure he's contributed pretty significantly to the win.
I know that Morris is definitely a borderline candidate and I would never put him in the same category as guys like Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, etc. But he was still one of the best pitchers of his era, and that era seems to be way under-represented in the HOF. It's like the voters insist on punishing the Steroid Era players for cheating, but then simultaneously punish the Pre-Steroid Era players for not having the gaudy stats of the players in the Steroid Era who cheated. Which one is it, guys?
January 8th, 2014 at 4:49 PM ^
...."And that wasn't just in one unforgettable World Series game in 1991. It was in start after start, for 18 seasons. These are Verducci's numbers, not mine -- but I refuse to ignore the fact that, from 1979 to 1992, Morris racked up 18 percent more innings than any other pitcher in his sport. And made it through the eighth inning 45 percent more often than any other pitcher in his sport."
Morris was a beast. Also, how is Maddux NOT a unanimous pick? Who the hell left him off the ballot?? Shameful
January 8th, 2014 at 3:05 PM ^
Dan LeBatard selling his vote to Dedspin for their readers to vote on?
http://deadspin.com/revealed-the-hall-of-fame-voter-who-turned-his-ballot-1496558341
Interesting to say the least.
January 8th, 2014 at 3:21 PM ^
LeBatard didn't sell his vote - he volunteered to vote as directed by Deadspin.
But to answer your question, I think that it was an interesting form of protest. I was all for it.
January 8th, 2014 at 3:32 PM ^
They added an update to the story:
[Update: Dan wants to make clear that he insisted on not getting anything for his vote.]
I also thought it was a good thing. I know he is worried about being stripped of future votes, but it was a great way to prove a point.
January 8th, 2014 at 3:21 PM ^
Frank Thomas was my favorite player growing up as a White Sox fan, still the only baseball jersey I have ever owned.
January 8th, 2014 at 3:39 PM ^
Ozzie Smith got in with something like 92% of the vote on his first ballot. Any voter that voted for Smith and hasnt managed to vote for Alan Trammell for 13 years is a complete horses ass, and should be voting for the National Backflip Hall of Fame.
Tram was a vastly superior offensive player to Smith, and while not quite his equal with the glove, it was way closer than the gulf that separated them with the bat.
January 8th, 2014 at 4:03 PM ^
entering the HoF this year, does John Smoltz complete the Atlanta Trifecta next year?
January 8th, 2014 at 4:32 PM ^
January 8th, 2014 at 4:57 PM ^
This is why I have a hard time taking the BBHOF seriously - I love Maddux and Thomas and both deserve to be in, but at no point during Glavine's run did I think "that's a dominant starter who should be a first-ballot HOF". And Biggio not getting in and Morris falling off the ballot are also ridiculous.
January 8th, 2014 at 6:03 PM ^
My favorite argument. "I didn't think he was a first ballot HOFer."
I've never understood how people can take their personal observations of baseball players outside of statistical analysis so seriously. What percentage of Tom Glavine's career appearances did you witness either in person or on TV? Unless you're a Braves fan, I would guess that we're probably talking maximum maybe two or three games a year? Do you really think that based on observing well under 10% of his career appearances, whether you thoughg he was that dominant is remotely relevant?
January 8th, 2014 at 7:03 PM ^
You watched your home market team (if you had one), WGN and the WhiteSux / Cubs, or TBS with the Braves.
January 8th, 2014 at 7:36 PM ^
January 8th, 2014 at 7:34 PM ^
January 9th, 2014 at 2:13 AM ^
This whole HOF thing is rediculous.