An Overdue Post

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. (Man, I bet my Latin-speaking, old-time Catholic mother is proud right now.)

I abjectly apologize for not only failing to post anything for a long, long time, but for also failing to post anything that explained why I would be MIA. My bad. Without further ado, a few catch up thoughts:

• Me and the family were in Disney World for more than a week, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, as you would expect. It was hot as blazes, really humid, it rained every afternoon from 2:30 to 4:00, the lines were long and everything you bought cost at least 50% more than it should have, and were had a blast anyway. The experience of seeing your kids' faces when they enter the Magic Kingdom, or when they meet Snow White, or get off their first roller coaster that goes upside down is worth every stinkin' penny.


• One of the days we were there, we drove over to Tampa-St. Pete to catch a Red Sox/Devil Rays game. It's my second dome, and I'll say this; they try hard. There's a great scoreboard with great information provided on it, the sound system is outstanding, the seats were pretty inexpensive, and the views were outstanding. And I still hated it. Playing a baseball game indoors just plain sucks.


• One other note; the parking situation at Tropicana Field is the worst I've ever experienced at a major league stadium. We got to the freeway exit for the stadium, with the dome in plain site about 200 yards away, at about 5:45 for a 7:10 game. We barely got to our seats in time to see the first pitch. That's nearly an hour and a half from highway exit to seat, for those of you counting. With a decent opponent in town, the Trop's few parking lots filled up quickly, and not being quite far enough into the downtown area to have other parking facilities close by, people were stuffing their cars into any space they could find. I followed a line of cars into an empty field about a mile from the stadium that was used, at least in part, by homeless people who sheltered themselves under the one available tree. That's where we parked, and that's where we had to go to get our car after the game, in a dark, somewhat industrial area of St. Petersburg. In the rain. Wake up, St. Petersburg. If you're going to force people to watch baseball indoors, and you don't have a decent public transportation system to allow people to ride instead of drive, then the least you could do is spring for sufficient parking. As it is, you're sending the clear message that you never expect to draw more than 20,000 fans on a regular basis, because you've clearly made no plans to handle the traffic.


• On a note far more in keeping with the intent of this site, I was very pleased to see the changes to the voting process for the Veterans' Committee that were outlined by the Hall of Fame. Not only did they separate the voting process for managers, executives, umpires and the like, a step that was long overdue and may finally result in some worthy inductions from those groups, but they weakened the power of the BBWAA in the process. Those groups will now be screened by a committee consisting mostly of Hall of Fame members, executives and historians, with only a few veteran writers involved. On top of that, the veteran players on the ballot will not only be fewer, creating a greater chance for a 75% majority necessary for election, but the voting will only be done by Hall of Fame players, specifically excluding the Ford Frick and J.G. Taylor Spink award winners who used to be part of the process. In other words, no more BBWAA doing the voting. A BBWAA-appointed overview committee will still be determining most of the ballot, but now a committee of six Hall of Fame players will appoint five others to the ballot. Overall, these changes lessen the power of the BBWAA, always a good thing, while making it more likely that deserving players, executives, umpires and the like will finally be elected. Sounds like a win-win to me. Kudos to the Hall of Fame for taking action.

That's it for now. I'm currently working on a more in-depth analysis of voting patterns on the Hall of Fame ballots. A cursory look at a half-dozen ballots from the early 1980s leads me to believe that there are some severe, documentable biases in the BBWAA's voting patterns, as hinted at in my last post. It's a somewhat tedious process to get all of the data into a format that lends itself to detailed analysis, so please be patient. I believe the results will be well worth the wait.

Quick Analysis - 1981 Hall of Fame Ballot

I've been trying to figure out how to make it clear that the BBWAA really doesn't do that good a job in the Hall of Fame voting. A lot of people seem willing to give them a free pass, as if their mistakes are few and successes many, and I'm simply not willing to follow along. To me, being awake enough to recognize that you should put a checkmark next to the likes of Mike Schmidt or Tom Seaver when your ballot arrives in the mail is not something terribly praiseworthy. I could do that, my 11-year old could do that, and I think, given a rudimentary understanding of the sport of baseball, most human beings could do that. I'd much rather grade these guys' performance based upon how well they vote on the cases that aren't so crystal clear.

That thought led me to decide to do some retroactive spot checks of the BBWAA's performance on past Hall of Fame ballots. I wanted these checks to be pretty simple. I don't want some new, proprietary statistical formula, or a catchy acronym. I just want a simple reality check on whether or not the BBWAA's votes, as a body, generally tracked with player performance.

To do that, I needed a couple of simple things. First, I needed the annual vote totals, which are handily available on the Hall of Fame's website. (Though, I must say, the elimination of every players voting history from their new web design is somewhat vexing.)

Second, a needed a standardized performance measurement of some kind. I decided to use WARP3 scores as the performance measure, for no other reasons than that they are internet-accessible and standardized. It's not perfect measure by any means, and can be downright misleading as just a flat, rolled-up number. But all I'm looking for is something that will be directionally correct, not precise to the nth degree. I just need a basic hammer to drive a basic nail, not a Paslode IMCT Impulse Cordless Framing Nailer.

So, in short, here's what I did. I picked a random Hall of Fame ballot (1981 in this case) and ranked every player on it by total votes received and WARP3 score. Then I subtracted their rank in the voting from their WARP3 rank to get a basic delta that would show me whether or not they were overrated or underrated by the BBWAA. Like I said, nothing too complex here.

For instance, the top guy on the ballot was Bob Gibson, with 337 votes. He also had the top WARP3 score, 119.8. So, subtracting his voting rank (1) from his WARP3 rank (also 1), he scores 0, meaning he was rated by the BBWAA exactly where he should be. Congratulations writers, you have past your first (and easiest) test. Now for some more results:

Underrated Players

Bill Mazeroski - 3 WARP rank minus 20 vote rank = -17
Luis Aparicio - 5 WARP rank minus 18 vote rank = -13
Dick McAuliffe - 21 WARP rank minus 33 vote rank = -12
Sam McDowell - 22 WARP rank minus 33 vote rank = -11
Leo Cardenas - 16 WARP rank minus 27 vote rank = -11
Vada Pinson - 13 WARP rank minus 23 vote rank = -10
Richie Ashburn - 2 WARP rank minus 11 vote rank = -9

I'll stop there because I don't think many people care about Lindy McDaniel and Claude Osteen.

There are at least a couple noticeable trends. The heavy defense, weak offense guys don't seem to do too well. Mazeroski scored as well as he did in WARP almost entirely due to remarkable defense, something the writers seemingly couldn't care less about. Moreover, there isn't a single genuine power hitter in the group. Pinson had a touch of pop, but he was essentially a singles and doubles hitter his whole career, and without a string of batting titles the voters apparently decided he should reside with the rest of the banjo hitters near the bottom of the ballot.

Also, note that most of these guys played the bulk of their careers in the Rust Belt. Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, and Cincinnati aren't exactly teeming with sportswriters who will stuff the ballot box for the local guys on the ballot. Chicago (Aparicio) and Philly (Ashburn) have a few more scribes who might be willing to pad the total of their readers' favorites, but apparently not for a pair of leadoff hitters whose teams never won the big one.

Among this group of underrated players, the BBWAA only changed their tune about Aparicio, and his case is genuinely strange. Aparicio first appeared on the ballot in 1979 and received a healthy 28% of the votes cast. The next year he improved a bit, to 32%. Suddenly, with the 1981 ballot, his support dropped like a rock, with over 60% of his prior supporters deciding he was no longer worthy of their vote. This same kind of inexplicable drop ultimately doomed Luis Tiant’s candidacy a few years later, but apparently the voters decided Aparicio was worth saving. In 1982, he got all of his previous supporters back, and then some, collecting over 40% of the vote and ultimately being elected in 1984. In fact, eleven of the seventeen players who received more support than Aparicio on the 1981 ballot still appeared on the 1984 ballot and Aparicio passed every single one of them, getting the highest vote total of any player that year. What this means, among other things, is that in 1981 there were 120 voters who thought Nellie Fox was a Hall of Famer but that Luis Aparicio wasn’t, and just three years later that gap had swung completely the other way, with 95 voters casting their ballots for Aparicio but not Fox. In other words, 215 voters suddenly changed their minds about the relative position of the two men in baseball history. And they wonder why people question them.

One more note on the guys who were underrated in 1981. I don’t, in any way, believe that Dick McAuliffe or Sam McDowell belong in the Hall of Fame. But I do know that Sam McDowell was just as good a pitcher as Lew Burdette or Roy Face or Don Larsen. Better in some cases. All of those guys got significant support, ranging from 23 to 48 votes, begging the obvious question as to how guys of that caliber got a few dozen votes while McDowell didn’t get any. Same goes for McAuliffe. He wasn’t a Hall of Famer on his best day, but he was a solid shortstop whose 64.8 career WARP3 score stands very nicely with the group of Ted Kluszewski (59.3), Harvey Kuenn (59.1), Elston Howard (58.2) and Roger Maris (56.6). The fewest votes any of those guys got was Kluszewski’s 56, yet McAuliffe got shut out entirely.

Speaking of some of those guys…

Overrated Players

Roger Maris – 28 WARP rank minus 12 vote rank = +16
Don Larsen – 35 WARP rank minus 21 vote rank = +14
Elston Howard – 26 WARP rank minus 14 vote rank = +12
Harvey Kuenn – 24 WARP rank minus 13 vote rank = +11
Gil Hodges – 11 WARP rank minus 3 vote rank = +8
Lew Burdette – 25 WARP rank minus 18 vote rank = +7

(Note: I skipped over two guys, Glenn Beckert and Gates Brown, who each received one vote and were therefore technically overrated using this system. In the grand scheme of things, those two stray votes really aren’t in focus here. Whether or not writers should be casting spare votes in the direction of guys who no one really sees as a Hall of Famer is a topic for another day.)

What a shock, the three most overrated guys on the ballot were all Yankees. Skip a spot and you get a Brooklyn Dodger. Flabbergasting, isn’t it?

In all seriousness, this will be a very interesting trend to follow as I look at additional ballots. Maris and Larsen both have unique claims to fame outside of playing for IBM, err, I mean the Yankees, so their respective vote totals could be expected to receive boosts. That’s not really the case with either Howard or Hodges. They were very good players on very good teams, but neither had that single signature accomplishment or record that would garner them extra votes. I think the likelihood is that they were just more publicized than guys who were similar to them, almost certainly because they played the bulk of their careers in New York. The only other player on the ballot who could be identified either completely or mostly with a New York team was Thurman Munson, and though he wasn’t wildly overrated, he did, in fact, place a bit higher in the voting (16th) than his WARP score (18th) warranted.

One ballot is far too small a sample to draw any conclusions, but there are already a few things that need to be tracked. It will be interesting to see if a player’s style of play (slap hitter versus power hitter, or power versus finesse pitchers, for instance), or the number of years they’ve been on the ballot, prove to be significant factors in their levels of support. The most disturbing possibility is that there could be geographic bias on the ballot. It’s not as if anyone is surprised that players from New York get more votes. There’s simply more writers from there, ergo more voters who saw them play. On top of that, New York teams have historically played more games on television, giving their players more exposure to the writers that do the voting. A boost in their vote totals isn’t a shock in any way.

But what does that indicate? To me, it begs the question about whether or not the voting process should be changed. Each vote cast is supposed to be done objectively, with the writers chosen specifically because they saw more ballgames and therefore had more information at hand to render an objective opinion. The presence of any kind of bias means that the writers’ objectivity is compromised. If the writers really are throwing unwarranted support toward players they simply saw more often, at the expense of equal or better players in smaller markets, doesn’t that mean the process is broken? Isn’t the presence of any bias in the voting process, geographic or otherwise, an indicator that the writers can’t be objective, and therefore shouldn’t be voting?

Looey, Catfish and Kitty

When I was a kid, Luis Tiant was a god in Boston. Despite playing in a town with a vast array of problems with race relations at the time, Luis had no trouble making the people of Boston embrace him. It didn’t matter that he was a dark-skinned Latino, he had enough style and charisma to overcome all that, charming the pants off even the most ardent racists in Southie. From his whirlybird delivery, to his shimmying glove when he came set from the stretch, to his monster cigars during post-game interviews and the shifting nature of his birthday, Looey was utterly beloved in that town.

Character aside, it should be remembered that Tiant was a damn good pitcher, too. His 1968 season in Cleveland was one of the finest in terms of raw numbers in the history of the sport; 21-8, 264 strikeouts, a league-leading 1.60 ERA and nine shutouts. Denny McLain’s monster year prevented Luis from not only winning the Cy Young but also from receiving a single vote, but he was tied for fifth in the MVP voting while playing for a team the finished more than 16 games out of first place, and that speaks volumes for his performance.

Only wicked arm trouble and prehistoric sports medicine allowed Luis to come to Boston, where he become both famous and utterly critical to the success of the late ‘70s Red Sox, a club that was stacked with offensive talent and always finding itself one pitcher short of the playoffs. In his first full year with the club, 1972, Tiant was their best pitcher, and would be for five straight years. In three of those, 1973, 1974 and 1976, he was also their best overall player, leading a club that was above .500 every year, and would win one pennant and miss the playoffs on the season’s final day another two times.

In his only post-season appearance in Boston, Tiant was masterful. He started four games and the Sox won all of them, with Tiant himself going 3-0 with a 2.65 ERA. He threw a complete game three-hitter to open the 1975 ALCS and followed that up with a complete game, five-hit shutout against the Big Red Machine to open the 1975 World Series. The legendary rumor about his Game Four win had him throwing 163 pitches, and he was the starter in the epic Game Six as well. Very few players have won the World Series MVP Award in a losing effort, but Looey was one of them.

Tiant did all of this despite being, by some accounts, well into his 40s in his final seasons in Boston, and despite playing in one of the more harsh environments possible for a pitcher – Fenway Park before the press box was expanded. The park factors in Fenway during Tiant’s seven full seasons there were 105, 105, 106, 108, 111, 111 and 109, meaning it was not only a hitters’ park but one of them more severe hitters parks in history. Despite that, Tiant never posted an ERA higher than the overall league average, and was generally 20% or more better than average, even winning his second league ERA title in 1972. He was, without question, an outstanding pitcher.

Fans of Luis Tiant weren’t terribly surprised that he wasn’t elected to the Hall of Fame on his first ballot in 1988. He wasn’t one of those automatic immortals who would sweep in without objection. Still, the only pitcher on the ballot to outvote him was Jim Bunning, and by garnering over 30% of the voted on his first ballot, things looked pretty promising for his ultimate election. Up until that 1988 ballot, every single player except one who garnered 30% of the votes cast on his first appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot was ultimately elected. The overwhelming majority of them were elected by the BBWAA, with the rest being inducted by the Veterans’ Committee. Maury Wills was the lone player who failed to have either body induct him.

In such cases, the typical scenario was for the player to get a healthy percentage on his first try on the ballot, with that serving as a signal of sorts to other writers that maybe they should reexamine the players’ qualifications. Over the next few years, more and more writers would shift their stance and cast votes for the player, whose support would steadily increase until they either were voted in outright, or had so much support and publicity by the time they fell off the ballot that they were shortly elected by the Veterans’ Committee.

With Tiant, there was absolutely no reason for anyone to expect this scenario to change. Just the year before, the BBWAA had elected Catfish Hunter, a contemporary of Tiant’s who posted extremely similar career statistics:

Hunter – 224 wins, .574 winning percentage, 2012 strikeouts, 42 shutouts, 3.26 ERA, 104 ERA+
Tiant – 229 wins, .571 winning percentage, 2416 strikeouts, 49 shutouts, 3.30 ERA, 114 ERA+

Hunter had started on the ballot in 1985 with nearly 54% of the votes cast. That was a much better start than Tiant, but it was easily explained by the fact that Hunter played much of his career for outstanding, high-profile teams that won five World Series. On top of that, Hunter had won a Cy Young Award in 1974, barely outvoting Fergie Jenkins, so his Hall of Fame case looked a bit better on its surface. In truth, it was Tiant who actually had the better career, given the difficult pitching conditions in the home parks he played in. This is reflected in the respective career WARP3 scores of the two men; 98.0 for Tiant, 70.7 for Hunter. (In fact, in Hunter’s Cy Young season of 1974, Tiant actually had the better WARP3 score – 10.6 to 10.1). But none of that was discussed back in 1988. At the time, the fact that Looey got a few less votes than Hunter his first time out and might take a bit longer to be elected was perfectly understandable.

What made no sense at all was what happened on the following year’s ballot.

When the 1989 Hall of Fame voting results were announced, Luis Tiant was no longer the second-best pitcher on the ballot, in the voters’ eyes. He trailed not only Bunning in the final voting, but also newcomers Gaylord Perry and Fergie Jenkins. That’s not too shabby, though, since both men won over 300 and would be elected in the near future. Unfortunately, Tiant also trailed newcomer Jim Kaat, and found himself tied with Roy Face and Mickey Lolich, two players he had easily outvoted the prior year. In fact, no player on the ballot saw a bigger drop in his vote total than Luis Tiant, whose support dropped from 132 votes to just 47. An astonishing 85 voters, nearly two-thirds of Tiant’s supports, suddenly decided that he was no longer worthy of their vote.

Okay, said the Tiant supporters, let’s not panic. A lot of good players were eligible for the first time, maybe this was just a temporary glitch. Within the next couple of years, Jenkins and Perry would be elected, the theory went, and Tiant’s support would come back. His route to the Hall might be a bit longer, but he’d still get there. There was still reason to hope.

At least, there was until the 1990 voting results were announced, and Tiant’s support had dropped yet again. It dropped even further in 1991, to just 32 votes, or 7.2%, and never really recovered. While his totals crept back up a bit over the years, they generally lingered around 12%, topping out at 18% on his last year of eligibility.

Meanwhile, Jim Kaat jumped onto the ballot in 1989 at nearly 20% and never really saw his support change at all. It dropped to 14% at one point, and rose to over 29% at another, but for the most part Kaat saw his yearly support stay within a couple of percentage points of the 20% where he started. He never once reached a level of support that could match the nearly 31% Tiant collected in his very first year on the ballot, and yet he outvoted Tiant in every single one of the 14 years they appeared on the ballot together.

Why? Your guess is as good as mine. During their respective primes, Kaat was never considered as good a pitcher as Tiant. Thanks to his longevity, plus the fact that Tiant, despite great numbers in the minor leagues and Mexican League, didn’t get to the big leagues until he was 24, Kaat won 54 more total games than Tiant, but 36 of those extra wins came in prime number-padding time, when Kaat was as an ineffective starter and long reliever after he passed his 38th birthday. Pretty much every other number favors Tiant:

Winning Percentage: Tiant, .571; Kaat, ,544
Shutouts: Tiant, 49; Kaat, 31
ERA: Tiant, 3.30; Kaat, 3.45
ERA+: Tiant, 114; Kaat, 107
WARP3: Tiant, 98.0; Kaat, 94.4

Now, in truth, I don’t really think Luis Tiant should be in the Hall of Fame. His career really only compares well to existing Hall of Famers like Hunter, who are borderline themselves. But I know Tiant was better than the likes of Jim Kaat and Tommy John, pitchers who amassed higher win totals by throwing a half-dozen mediocre-to-bad seasons in their geriatric years, and were otherwise inferior to Tiant in every way. Yet both of them handily outvoted Tiant in Hall of Fame voting, results that paint a stark portrait of the BBWAA’s inability to figure out what makes a good pitcher and what doesn’t.

Even more interesting to me is the massive drop in support Tiant suffered after his first season on the ballot. No player had ever received that much support on his first ballot appearance and then suffered such a steep decline in his vote total. Part of the funky result can be blamed on an untimely influx of better pitchers onto the ballot, starting with Jenkins and Perry, and continuing with Jim Palmer and Tom Seaver and Phil Niekro and Steve Carlton. Following established BBWAA voting practices, lesser lights like Kaat and John and Don Sutton stole even more votes, so it’s pretty clear there was never any real chance that Tiant would be elected.

Still, I’d love to ask some of those 85 voters who dropped him from their ballots after just one year exactly what the hell they were thinking. Didn’t a player as good and as charismatic as Luis Tiant deserve a little better?

A Re-Focused Blog

Never let it be said that I can't take coaching.

One of the criticisms leveled at this site, and therefore at me, has been that many of the posts focus on some relatively esoteric aspects of the BBWAA's various voting failures. Aren't there more important things to write about, the criticism goes, than whether or not Phil Rogers casts a couple of biased votes at the bottom of an otherwise strong Hall of Fame ballot?

Well in retrospect, yes, there are. I have been trying to demonstrate in this site's first few months that the BBWAA's failures as so numerous that they run the full gamut of impact, from the obviously egregious (Alan Trammell losing the 1987 MVP award; Ron Santo's exclusion from the Hall of Fame) to the nuanced (Gerry Fraley's pitiful list of absent Hall of Famers). Their failures, in other words, aren’t limited to the occasional mishap, but are rather of a systemic nature, impacting an enormous percentage of baseball’s year- and career-end honors. I will continue my effort to make that issue clear, and can’t promise that I won’t still post about some comparatively obscure issue from time to time.

That said, I don’t want to dwell upon every single questionable BBWAA vote. Did Bruce Sutter get a Cy Young Award in 1979 when Phil Niekro probably had a better year? Yeah, I think so. But Sutter was awfully good that year, there was no slam dunk, Cy-worthy season by any other pitcher, and Niekro pitched for an atrocious team and lost twenty games, so you won’t find me tilting at that particular windmill.

Instead, I will make every effort in the future to focus on those voting results that clearly represent failures of the process. Pete Vuckovich’s 1982 Cy Young Award is a good example. I don’t think many people would have had much problem with that award going to Bill Caudill or Dave Stieb or Dan Quisenberry or Rick Sutcliffe or a few other pitchers who turned in solid performances that year. The problem arose because one subset of the BBWAA labeled Pete Vuckovich the best pitcher in the league, over a couple of dozen pitchers who were demonstrably better, while another subset decided that Vuckovich wasn’t even the most valuable pitcher on his team. That kind of result is the hallmark of a horribly broken process, and will continue to get my attention.

Moving forward, I will also make every effort to be clear that I believe there is room for differing opinions in the debate. I have never meant to imply that the views I express here are absolutes, and any BBWAA result that runs counter to them must therefore be in error. Reasonable, intelligent people often come to perfectly acceptable opposing conclusions. As long as the reasons for the difference are explained, particularly when it’s clear that genuine effort is put into the process, you won’t see me complaining. For instance, I will not criticize Jayson Stark or Joe Posnanski on this site, despite the fact that I don’t agree with some of their Hall of Fame ballot choices. Both men demonstrate obvious passion for the game, its history and the awards process, while also making it clear that they are open to both differing opinions and alternate methods of evaluating players. In short, they take their voting responsibilities seriously, and therefore I won’t haggle with the ultimate results of their efforts.

Now, whether or not “effort” was put in by the guys who decided Bartolo Colon was the best pitcher in the American League in 2005, that’s a different story…

Slings and Arrows

There's nothing quite like being called "horrible" and "pedantic" to brighten your day.

At some point earlier today, my last article about Phil Rogers was posted over at The Baseball Think Factory, where it was promptly skewered by that site's regular members. One poster, who bravely chooses not to reveal his name, age, occupation, education, or anything else about his personal background or qualifications other than his painfully lengthy attempt at a pithy screen name, was particularly harsh, calling the article;

"The saddest, most pity-inspiring "forest for the trees" sort of nitpicking."

Given the studious anonymity of the source, I have to admit that I wasn't terribly shattered. And, I must say, the decision to focus on the shortcomings of the messenger instead of the message itself doesn’t really seem to be in keeping with the spirit of any site that calls itself a "think factory".

That said, I'm grateful to whoever decided to post the link to my piece, regardless of the criticisms leveled, because it furthers my ultimate goal. See, I'm not in this for money. I have not made, and probably never will make, a single dime from any writing. As I've said before, I'm amply compensated in my career of choice, a career I have no desire to leave unless I finally manage to buy the right lottery ticket. I don't want to be famous, either, since I knowingly possess a face for radio and a personality ill-suited to spewing politically correct pabulum in public.

I'm also not trying to become a professional writer, and readily acknowledge that I don't write as well as most, and probably all, of the BBWAA members that I criticize. If anyone cares to read through all of my prior posts, you will note that I make no criticisms of anyone's writing or phraseology or whatever. I've confined myself to an assessment of their logic in matters related to evaluating baseball players.

And that's the point. Sling as many criticisms about my writing style, or my admittedly spotty attempts at statistical analysis, as you would like. That's all quite alright with me as long as it results in people actively beginning to discuss the BBWAA's qualifications for voting for post-season and career-end awards, in far more depth than is currently the case.

In exchange for that outcome, I'm perfectly content to serve as a target of convenience for a few 21-year olds and computer nerds who would rather criticize others than take the responsibility to publicly offer anything on the subject themselves.

Case Study - Phil Rogers

It’s a bit hard to come by BBWAA members who are writing up their Hall of Fame thoughts this time of year, so please pardon the delay in getting another case study written up. I’ve resorted to digging up articles on past votes for this one.

Phil Rogers, the national baseball writer for the Chicago Tribune, is today’s example of BBWAA logic. A couple of years ago, he wrote a very nice column in support of Andre Dawson’s Hall of Fame case for ESPN. Last year, he lent his views on the ballot to ESPN again, checking off the following names:

Tony Gwynn
Cal Ripken
Goose Gossage
Andre Dawson
Jim Rice
Jack Morris
Bert Blyleven
Alan Trammell
Harold Baines

Now, under normal circumstances, I would be loathe to criticize any voter who threw his support toward Gossage, Rice, Blyleven and Trammell, four guys who I think are clearly deserving of election but have been under-supported for years. But there’s something screwy about Rogers’ ballot that simply cries out for criticism, so here goes.

First let’s deal with Dawson. I have personally stated in the past that I would vote for Andre Dawson, not because he’s terribly qualified for the Hall of Fame under ideal conditions, but because a series of hideously bad selections in the past have left Dawson in the position of being better than nearly half of the right fielder who currently carry the label “Hall of Famer”. Note the following career WARP3 scores:

Andre Dawson – 108.8
Tommy McCarthy – 33.8
Elmer Flick – 92.3
Sam Rice – 83.2
Kiki Cuyler – 86.5
Harry Hooper – 93.0
Ross Youngs – 59.1
Sam Thompson – 94.6
Chuck Klein – 79.0
Enos Slaughter – 104.2

That’s nine, count ‘em, nine Hall of Fame right fielders who had lesser careers than Andre Dawson, so I’m not at all opposed to voting for him. That said, I hard a hard time with anyone who voted for Dawson but then didn’t vote for Dave Parker. While it’s true that Parker’s WARP3 score falls far short of Dawson’s (85.8), it’s still right in there with the Kiki Cuylers and Sam Rices of the baseball world. More importantly, since Rogers and most other writers could care less about such new-fangled stats as WARP, is the fact that Parker fares very nicely against Dawson when the traditional numbers are compared. Here are their respective 162-game averages:

At-Bats – Parker, 615; Dawson, 612
Runs – Parker, 84; Dawson, 85
Hits – Parker, 178; Dawson, 171
Doubles – Parker, 35; Dawson, 31
Triples – Parker, 5; Dawson, 6
Home Runs – Parker, 22; Dawson, 27
RBI – Parker, 98; Dawson, 98
Steals – Parker, 10; Dawson, 19
Walks – Parker, 45; Dawson, 36
Strikeouts – Parker, 101; Dawson, 93
Batting Average – Parker, .290; Dawson, .279
On-Base Percentage – Parker, .339; Dawson, .323
Slugging Percentage – Parker, .471; Dawson, .482
OPS+ - Parker, 121; Dawson, 119

Umm, aren’t these guys pretty close? Granted, Dawson was a far superior defender, and he obviously has all of the character points in his favor in this debate, but it’s a much closer argument than you’d think. I have personally waffled back and forth on both guys, and I usually come to the conclusion that Dawson gets a sympathy vote due to all of the crappy right fielder already in the Hall, while Parker’s coke habit prevents him from being granted the same courtesy, but minus that factor I would vote the same for each. It would be nice if someone in Rogers’ position would take the time to explain why he voted for Dawson but not Parker. You know, maybe put in a little bit of effort. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

This is particularly true when the voter in question handed in a ballot that included a vote for Harold Baines. Using Parker as the foil again, the Baines vote looks like nothing but a blatant case of a hometown writer throwing a guy a bone.

Here are the 162-game averages again:

At-Bats – Parker, 615; Baines, 567
Runs – Parker, 84; Baines, 74
Hits – Parker, 178; Baines, 164
Doubles – Parker, 35; Baines, 28
Triples – Parker, 5; Baines, 3
Home Runs – Parker, 22; Baines, 22
RBI – Parker, 98; Baines, 93
Steals – Parker, 10; Baines, 2
Walks – Parker, 45; Baines, 61
Strikeouts – Parker, 101; Baines, 82
Batting Average – Parker, .290; Baines, .289
On-Base Percentage – Parker, .339; Baines, .356
Slugging Percentage – Parker, .471; Baines, .465
OPS+ - Parker, 121; Baines, 120

Sorry Phil, but on a day-by-day basis, Dave Parker was just a better player than Harold Baines, and I haven’t even mentioned the fact that Baines was an absolute defensive nightmare for the vast majority of his career while Parker was a Gold Glover for a while. (Well, I guess I just did.) Sure, Baines wins the character battle again, but by enough to qualify for the Hall of Fame when a clearly better player, Parker, doesn’t make Rogers’ personal cut list? I don’t see it.

Even if you think Parker is a bad example, which he is to a degree, then consider Rogers’ omission of Dale Murphy. Again, these are 162-game averages:

At-Bats – Murphy, 592; Baines, 567
Runs – Murphy, 89; Baines, 74
Hits – Murphy, 157; Baines, 164
Doubles – Murphy, 26; Baines, 28
Triples – Murphy, 3; Baines, 3
Home Runs – Murphy, 30; Baines, 22
RBI – Murphy, 94; Baines, 93
Steals – Murphy, 12; Baines, 2
Walks – Murphy, 73; Baines, 61
Strikeouts – Murphy, 130; Baines, 82
Batting Average – Murphy, .265; Baines, .289
On-Base Percentage – Murphy, .346; Baines, .356
Slugging Percentage – Murphy, .469; Baines, .465
OPS+ - Murphy, 121; Baines, 120

Now throw in Murphy Gold Glove defense at a prime defensive position, his back-to-back MVP awards (by the way, Baines’ top finish in the MVP voting was 9th in 1985), and his legendary stellar character and it’s pretty clear that Dale Murphy was a much better baseball player than Harold Baines. The only thing he lacked was longevity, but had he gone the DH route like Baines, who’s to say Murphy couldn’t have played just as long as Baines did?

So why do Andre Dawson and Harold Baines appear on Phil Rogers’ Hall of Fame ballot while Dave Parker and Dale Murphy do not? Easy, Dawson and Baines played huge chunks of their careers in Chicago, and that’s Phil Rogers’ town. He’s out beating the drum for their admission to the Hall of Fame for the simple fact that he knows them, he likes them, he saw them play a lot, and therefore he’s decided they should be in Cooperstown despite the fact that he passed over extremely similar players on the same ballot.

Well, if Rogers is voting for these guys out of sheer familiarity and nothing more, hasn’t he just hung an enormous “I’m not objective” sign around his neck? And, if so, isn’t he a walking, talking example of why the baseball writers shouldn’t be voting in the first place?

Rock Over Brock - Elect Tim Raines to the Hall of Fame

I am happy today. I'm happy because it's a beautiful day, my wife and kids are healthy, we live very comfortable, active, interesting lives, and have loving friends and family. There are a lot of other reasons, but those are the big ones.

Those, plus Jeff Pearlman's article on ESPN.com. That gorgeous thing (the article, not Jeff Pearlman) moved my happy meter more than anything I've read in a long, long time.

The thrust of Pearlman's article is that Tim Raines, while more than qualified for the Hall of Fame when he comes up for election for the first time next year, is likely to be passed over due to the arbitrary nature of the BBWAA's voting process. Sound familiar? With the exception of his kind comments about Lou Brock, I don't think there's a word of Pearlman's article that I disagree with, so I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome him into the clan of believers in the BBWAA's incompetence.

I won't elaborate much further on the article here, because Pearlman did such a good job that I'd rather you read it yourself, but I will add a few points about Raines that need to be stressed. I will begrudgingly use the Lou Brock comparison Pearlman makes, mostly because it paints the BBWAA into a corner since they elected Brock on his first appearance on the ballot. In truth, Brock was vastly overrated, and I'd much rather show that Raines compares well to some of the more elite left fielders in the Hall. But Pearlman has already laid the foundation, and since the voters will almost certainly slot Raines in with Brock for comparison anyway, it makes sense to walk in their shoes in this case.

Looking at these guys side-by-side, as Pearlman does, sure makes Raines look like a viable candidate. Looking at them a bit more closely, we find that Raines was actually significantly better than Brock. For example, with both men being leadoff hitters, their primary job was to reach base. Do you know how many times each did, by hit or walk?

Brock - 3784
Raines - 3935

Despite totaling about 400 fewer hits, Raines more than makes up for it by walking nearly twice as often as Brock, allowing him to hold a substantial lead in times reaching base. We knew this from the variance in their on-base percentages, .385 for Raines .343 for Brock.

In reality, the gap between them is even larger. When their career stats are neutralized, it allows us to account not just for ballparks and run-scoring environments, but also for Raines' lost time from the strike-shortened seasons. Extrapolating out the 1981, 1994 and 1995 seasons allows us to see that the two careers project to essentially the same number of games - 2607 for Raines, 2621 for Brock. And once that is done, it reveals that Raines was even better than his unadjusted stats indicate. Here's their adjusted totals for times on base:

Brock - 3841
Raines - 4186

Suddenly the gap between them, which already favored Raines, grows from 4% to 9%. Here's what happens to their on-base percentages:

Brock - .354
Raines - .406

A 12% margin in favor of Raines is now 15%. The same goes for slugging percentage, which was a 4% margin in favor of Raines:

Brock - .455
Raines - .484

Now it's a 6% gap. And remember, these are neutralized numbers. These gaps have nothing to do with Brock playing in the famously run-depressed 1960s and therefore having a disadvantage. In truth, that wouldn't matter much anyway because while Brock's leagues generally scored about 4% fewer funs than Raines' in their respective primes, Raines played in ballparks that produced about 3% less scoring than Brock's, making it a near wash.

No, Raines was just a better hitter, and as Pearlman correctly pointed out, he was a better base stealer too, with only a reduced number of attempts caused by the changing nature of the game keeping him from passing Brock's career total. At the success rate he established for his career, had Raines attempted as many steals as Brock he would have totaled 1065 steals, roughly 14% more than the record-setting number Brock amassed.

On top of that, Raines played vastly better defense. While Brock played one of the worst defensive left fields in memory (96 Rate, -72 FRAA), Raines was an above average defender (102 Rate, 39 FRAA), who had a string of years in the 1980s where it would have been fair to consider him for a left field Gold Glove (if such a thing existed beyond Carl Yastrzemski and Barry Bonds).

All of this adds up to a massive difference between the respective WARP3 scores of the two men:

Brock - 87.4
Raines - 132.3

It would be fair, given the rules for voting, to downgrade Raines for his cocaine history, particularly the lurid tale of him carrying his crack vile in his pocket during games. But if the BBWAA collectively feels that Lou Brock was a first-ballot Hall of Famer, then they should ultimately elect Raines as well, because his long-resolved personal problems can't erase the enormous difference between his production and that of a man already considered an immortal.

Injustice: How the BBWAA Screwed Alan Trammell

“Injustice - An act that inflicts undeserved hurt. Any act that involves unfairness to another or violation of one's rights”.

- Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

The full definition of injustice mentions rights, and laws, and issues far more weighty than baseball, and rightly so. It’s a heavy word, not one to be wantonly thrown around in a world where it can be applied far too frequently. If you can find a synonym for “injustice lite”, I’m all ears.

Lacking that, there really isn’t any other word that applies to how Alan Trammell has been treated by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Unless, of course, you go vulgar and say he’s been screwed. That works for me.

What makes Trammell’s case particularly troubling is that the BBWAA has inflicted a double whammy on him. He is currently eligible for election into the Hall of Fame, but has burned through six years of eligibility without cracking 100 votes in any election, or collecting even 20% of the votes cast. For a variety of generally unknown but surely moronic reasons, the BBWAA doesn’t seem to think that Alan Trammell belongs in the Hall of Fame. One of those, sadly and ironically, involves the double whammy I mentioned. Specifically, Trammell’s lack of an MVP award on his resume is seen as a negative, despite the fact that he very much deserved one and it was yet another BBWAA foul-up that denied it to him.

Let’s deal with the MVP issue first. Here are the top-10 vote-getters for the 1987 American League MVP, along with their WARP3 Scores for that season and their team’s win total:

George Bell - 9.2; 96
Alan Trammell - 13.2; 98
Kirby Puckett - 7.6; 85
Dwight Evans - 7.8; 78
Paul Molitor - 8.3; 91
Mark McGwire - 9.0; 81
Don Mattingly - 9.1; 89
Tony Fernandez - 10.1; 98
Wade Boggs - 13.1; 78
Gary Gaetti - 5.0; 85

What’s that old Sesame Street song? “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things does not belong…” You can say that again, Big Bird.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon, or someone who cares all that much about the so-called “modern” baseball statistics that have become popular, to recognize that Alan Trammell was the best player in the American League in 1987. Forget WARP for a minute and note simply that Bell and Trammell had nearly identical OPS marks (.957 for Bell, .953 for Trammell), meaning they had essentially the same value as hitters even before you consider Trammell’s obvious plusses, like the fact that he posted his offensive numbers in a Tiger Stadium that suppressed scoring by 4% that year while Bell played in an Exhibition Stadium that increased scoring by 2%, meaning that their respective OPS+ marks clearly favor Trammell (155 to 146). Using the most basic formula around for Runs Created, Trammell scores higher than Bell, 133 to 129. What this means is that a team comprised of all Alan Trammell’s could expect to score 8.7 runs per game in 1987, while a team of all George Bell’s would score 7.8, nearly a full run less. And then there’s the little fact that Trammell was, you know, a shortstop, and a pretty good one (106 Rate, 8 FRAA) while George Bell was just an average left fielder (101 Rate, 1 FRAA).

Or how about the fact that Trammell was infinitely better than Bell in September and October as their two teams battled each other to the last day of the season for the division title? Bell was no slouch in those final weeks of the season (.308/.379/.530/.909), but those marks were distinctly lower than his performance for the rest of the year, and they paled in comparison to Trammell (.417/.490/.677/1.167). Read that last stat line again. Alan Trammell, a shortstop, batted .417 and slugged .677 from September 1st through the end of the season in 1987. That stretch included seven games head-to-head against Bell’s Blue Jays, games in which Trammell also hit .417, while slugging .667. Not surprisingly, the Tigers won four of those seven games, including 3-game sweep on the season’s final weekend, to win the division by two games. For the year, Trammell hit .340/ .446/ .723/ 1.169 against Toronto, while Bell hit just .294/ .379/ .431/ .810 against Detroit. Every single so-called “clutch” stat went on favor of Trammell:

2 outs, runners in scoring position: Trammell - .937 OPS; Bell - .832 OPS
Late & Close situations: Trammell – 1.087 OPS; Bell - .951 OPS
Game Tied: Trammell – 1.012 OPS; Bell - .894 OPS

I’ll stop there before I get into severe overkill range. By now it should be obvious to anyone who follows baseball that Alan Trammell out-classed George Bell by a long, long way in 1987. The only player in the league who came close to Trammell’s performance was Wade Boggs, and he played for a team with a losing record, one that finished 20 games behind Trammell’s Tigers.

And yet, thought the voting was close, Trammell was denied the MVP. Only a voting body as screwed up as the BBWAA could fail to give the MVP to the league’s best player when he also happened to play on the league’s best team.

Okay, that’s bad. It’s unfair, or unjust, if you will. Trammell deserved better, and most people who study the game will gladly tell you so. But the BBWAA didn’t stop there. No, they decided to compound their mistake by holding it against Trammell now that he’s eligible for the Hall of Fame. Think for a second; how many players have won the MVP as a shortstop? Damn few. In fact, here’s the entire list:

2003 - Alex Rodriguez
2002 - Miguel Tejada
1995 - Barry Larkin
1991 - Cal Ripken (HOF)
1983 - Cal Ripken (HOF)
1982 - Robin Yount (HOF)
1965 - Zoilo Versalles
1962 - Maury Wills
1960 - Dick Groat
1959 - Ernie Banks (HOF)
1958 - Ernie Banks (HOF)
1950 - Phil Rizzuto (HOF)
1948 - Lou Boudreau (HOF)
1944 - Marty Marion
1925 - Roger Peckinpaugh

That’s it. Just fifteen awards to thirteen players in the history of the award. Of those thirteen, five are already in the Hall of Fame, one certainly will be (ARod), two others will have great cases once they’re eligible (Tejada and Larkin), and two have been proposed as serious candidates for decades (Wills and Marion). Only three shortstops have won an MVP and really don’t have any case for being in Cooperstown, and those three, frankly, either had the fluke year to end all fluke years (Versalles), or just plain didn’t deserve their awards (Groat, who didn’t even have the best WARP3 score on the Pirates, and Peckinpaugh, whose 4.1 WARP3 score was 11th on the 1925 Washington Senators. You may want to read that again.)

In short, a shortstop who wins the MVP has a 50/50 or better chance of being elected to the Hall of Fame, and an even greater chance, something like 80% of receiving considerable support for election. Consider Marty Marion next to Trammell, for instance:

Games – Trammell, 2293; Marion, 1572
At-Bats – Trammell, 8288; Marion, 5506
Runs – Trammell, 1273; Marion, 602
Hits – Trammell, 2365; Marion, 1448
Doubles – Trammell, 412; Marion, 272
Triples – Trammell, 55; Marion, 37
Home Runs – Trammell, 185; Marion, 36
RBI – Trammell, 1003; Marion, 624
Steals – Trammell, 236; Marion, 35
Walks – Trammell, 850; Marion, 470
Batting Average – Trammell, .285; Marion, .263
On-Base Percentage – Trammell, .352; Marion, .323
Slugging Percentage – Trammell, .415; Marion, .345
OPS+ - Trammell, 110; Marion, 81

While it’s fair to note that Marion was an outstanding defender, much better than Trammell, who was good himself, the gap in their offensive abilities and longevity is just too enormous. (And no, Marion doesn’t get any missing wars years as credit. He played throughout all of the WWII years, with his MVP coming in one of them, 1944.) Trammell obviously had the better career. And yet…

Highest HOF Percentage – Marion, 40%; Trammell, 18%

All together now…huh? Are you beginning to sense my frustration? Just wait, I’m not done yet. Check out Trammell against Maury Wills:

Games – Trammell, 2293; Wills, 1942
At-Bats – Trammell, 8288; Wills, 7588
Runs – Trammell, 1273; Wills, 1067
Hits – Trammell, 2365; Wills, 2134
Doubles – Trammell, 412; Wills, 177
Triples – Trammell, 55; Wills, 71
Home Runs – Trammell, 185; Wills, 20
RBI – Trammell, 1003; Wills, 458
Steals – Trammell, 236; Wills, 586
Walks – Trammell, 850; Wills, 552
Batting Average – Trammell, .285; Wills, .281
On-Base Percentage – Trammell, .352; Wills, .330
Slugging Percentage – Trammell, .415; Wills, .331
OPS+ - Trammell, 110; Wills, 88

A few differences, like the fact that Wills was a much better baserunner/stolen base guru than either Trammell or Marion. Plus Wills played in Dodger Stadium in the 1960s, one of the more inhospitable places for a hitter in all of baseball. Still, he had no power, didn’t draw walks, didn’t play terribly long and was a really mediocre defensive shortstop most years (101 Rate, 15 FRAA). So, once the differences are taken as a whole, it’s still really clear that Trammell had the better career. Clear to everyone but the BBWAA that is…

Highest HOF Percentage – Wills, 41%; Trammell, 18%

I’m beginning to see a pattern. Apparently that MVP award carried a lot more weight than it should, to the point of providing significant boosts to the Hall of Fame vote totals of most of the shortstops who received one. Hell, the BBWAA went so far as to list both Marion (68.8 career WARP3) and Wills (81.6) on the Veterans’ Committee ballot, apparently under the delusion that each is one of the top-25 veteran players not currently in the Hall of Fame. They were deemed more worthy than Bill Dahlen (135.1) and Jack Glasscock (107.2) and Stan Hack (104.1) and Dick Bartell (103.7) and Rusty Staub (101.9) and Bert Campaneris (98.6) and Bob Johnson (98.1) and Lave Cross (97.9) and Bob Elliott (97.1) and Billy Pierce (93.7) and Jimmy Wynn (92.7) and Jimmy Ryan (92.1) and Heinie Groh (91.8) and Ken Singleton (90.2) and Norm Cash (89.7) and Reggie Smith (89.5) and Willie Davis (89.3) and Sherry Magee (87.1) and Jake Daubert (81.6) and Buddy Myer (81.6) and Sal Bando (81.1). I’m sure there are others I’m missing, but hey, why should I knock myself out researching guys who the BBWAA has clearly forgotten?

While guys like Marion and Wills apparently enjoy vastly better reputations than they deserve, Trammell is getting little HOF support despite the fact that he more than measures up to the Hall’s and BBWAA’s standards for shortstops. This isn’t some borderline case of a guy who might be a touch better than the two or three worst guys in the Hall of Fame. Trammell could actually raise the standard in some regards. At worst, he’s an average Hall of Fame shortstop. Once all of the numbers are neutralized to account for different run-scoring eras and home ballparks, here are the average career offensive numbers for a Hall of Fame shortstop, along with Alan Trammell’s:

Games – HOF, 2338; Trammell, 2385
At-Bats – HOF, 8809; Trammell, 8769
Runs – HOF, 1349; Trammell, 1395
Hits – HOF, 2543; Trammell, 2595
Doubles – HOF, 428; Trammell, 453
Triples – HOF, 116; Trammell, 57
Home Runs – HOF, 120; Trammell, 199
RBI – HOF, 1160; Trammell, 1130
Walks – HOF, 891; Trammell, 939
Steals – HOF, 291; Trammell, 255
Batting Average – HOF, .289; Trammell, .296
On-Base Percentage – HOF, .358; Trammell, .364
Slugging Percentage – HOF, .403; Trammell, .429

Don’t look now, but it would appear that Alan Trammell’s career would be a very fine fit among Hall of Fame shortstops. Not that the BBWAA cares. To them, he’s apparently missing that one extra thing, the thing that would make him stand out.

That thing they screwed him out of in 1987.

The Santo Debacle

Hearken back to late February, if you will. The groundhog had failed to see his shadow a few weeks earlier, supposedly an omen that an early spring would find us this year. Pitchers and catchers had been in camp for 10 days or so. Manny Ramirez showed up early, sporting a few red dreadlocks and doing Manny things once more. There was labor peace, and the various clubs around baseball were fat with cash. Even the dregs of the sport looked upon the upcoming season with hope.

And yet, a dark day found its way into the lives of true baseball fans nonetheless.

The Veterans' Committee had spoken.

Ron Santo wouldn't be getting the call. Again.

I will not re-hash yet again the details of the Veterans Committee's idiotic balloting system. I've killed enough brain cells on that one, thank you very much. But I would like to spend a few moments today in debunking one foolish myth put forth by several BBWAA members after this year's VC voting results were announced.

That is, of course, the ridiculous notion that the Committee's failure to elect anyone, far from being an indictment of the system, was actually an affirmation of the quality of work the BBWAA has collectively put forth in past elections. Rather than try to explain their twisted logic, I will let one of the purveyors of this tale tell it in his own words:

"The purpose of the Veterans Committee is not to elect players but to correct oversights that might have been committed in the 15 years a player was under consideration for enshrinement by veteran members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Instead of a slight to any former player, the Veterans Committee not electing any players would seem to mean the BBWAA voters did their job and elected those who belong.

Truly, who better to decide the merits of a player possibly overlooked for Hall of Fame induction than the men who played against him or with him and who are in the Hall of Fame?"

Those, ladies and gentlemen, are the words of Tracy Ringolsby, the man whose Hall of Fame voting practices I pilloried in my last post. He threw a few other nuggets into that column as well, including the claim that he respects any process that requires 75% of the voters to agree. Sadly, he omits to discuss whether or not his stance on that matter would change if the voters in question were clearly unqualified to vote in the first place.

Ringolsby was not the only BBWAA member to express this view. He was joined by

Hal Bodley, Mike Bauman and various other crotchety old farts who happily trumpeted the result as affirmation of their own worth and voting aptitude. They nearly soiled themselves in their various efforts to write the first BBWAA version of Sally Field’s infamous “You really like me!” speech.

All of this self-congratulation made me slightly ill, particularly since I didn’t find a single column by a BBWAA member that stated the obvious alternate conclusion, namely that the continued exclusion of Ron Santo from the Hall of Fame is proof positive that the BBWAA is a failure as a voting body.

I’ll get into Santo’s qualifications in a minute, but first let’s state the obvious. Once all non-voters are considered, people like historians, sabermetricians, the general public, etc., the overwhelming majority of baseball fans consider Ron Santo to be a Hall of Famer, yet he isn’t because two extremely small, non-representative groups don’t agree with that view and happen to be the parties who control admission. That simply has to be somewhat embarrassing for the sport, doesn’t it? When the sport’s most hallowed honor is denied to someone that the majority of fans and baseball researchers feel is qualified, it lessens the meaning of the award. Why bother having it if it isn’t awarded to the people who deserve it?

Without getting into all of the performance metrics that prove, to anyone with a rational brain in their head, that Santo is abundantly qualified for induction, let me instead make just a couple of comparisons that illustrate how foolishly inconsistent the BBWAA’s stance is in this case.

When Ron Santo first appeared on the ballot in 1980, here is how he ranked among all Hall-eligible third basemen in the history of the sport:

Games: 2nd
Hits: 5th
Home Runs: 2nd
RBI: 2nd
Runs: 7th
Extra-Base Hits: 2nd
OPS: 2nd
Runs Created: 2nd
Slugging: 2nd
Total Bases: 2nd
Walks: 4th

Now, combine that with his 5 Gold Gloves, and it’s really, really difficult to make a case for leaving Santo out of the Hall of Fame. But let’s say, just for a moment, that the BBWAA was correct in passing him over. Let’s say that the standards should be so high that someone who ranked in similar fashion to Santo at his position should be kept out of the Hall. In that case, I wish some BBWAA member would tell me why Jimmie Foxx was elected:

Foxx’s ranks at 1st base in 1980 (Santo’s first year on the ballot):
Games: 5th
Hits: 5th
Home Runs: 2nd
RBI: 2nd
Runs: 2nd
Extra-Base Hits: 2nd
OPS: 2nd
Runs Created: 3rd
Slugging: 2nd
Total Bases: 2nd
Walks: 3rd

Hmmm. Looks pretty much the same, doesn’t it? In other words, Ron Santo ranked among third baseman almost exactly the same as Jimmie Foxx ranked among Hall-eligible first basemen.

This is not an isolated case. For instance, here’s a second baseman with similar credentials:

Charlie Gehringer’s ranks at 2nd base in 1980 (Santo’s first year on the ballot):
Games: 4th
Hits: 5th
Home Runs: 5th
RBI: 3rd
Runs: 2nd
Extra-Base Hits: 2nd
OPS: 2nd
Runs Created: 4th
Slugging: 2nd
Total Bases: 4th
Walks: 2nd

If anything, Gehringer’s ranks among his peers were actually a touch worse than Santo’s. Then there’s a certain shortstop…

Joe Cronin’s ranks at shortstops in 1980 (Santo’s first year on the ballot):
Games: 10th
Hits: 8th
Home Runs: 2nd
RBI: 3rd
Runs: 11th
Extra-Base Hits: 2nd
OPS: 2nd
Runs Created: 5th
Slugging: 1st
Total Bases: 3rd
Walks: 5th

…whose ranks were clearly worse than Santo’s. Or how about one of the greatest center fielders ever?

Tris Speaker’s ranks at center field in 1980 (Santo’s first year on the ballot):
Games: 3rd
Hits: 2nd
Home Runs: (Too low to mention, Dead Ball Era and all)
RBI: 3rd
Runs: 3rd
Extra-Base Hits: 3rd
OPS: 6th
Runs Created: 3rd
Slugging: 9th
Total Bases: 3rd
Walks: 3rd

I guess what I’m trying to say is this; If Tris Speaker had been on the BBWAA’s ballot in 1980 instead of Ron Santo, would Speaker have been elected? Or how about Foxx, or Cronin or Gehringer? These are the types of very fair questions the BBWAA has set itself up for by failing to elect Ron Santo, because Santo clearly stood among his peers at his position in the same light as Speaker stood among center fielders, or Foxx among first baseman, etc. Santo was, arguably, the second-best third baseman to have played the sport up to that point (with Eddie Mathews clearly having been the best). And yet, for some really, really stupid reason, the BBWAA not only didn’t elect him, but they gave him so few votes that he was dropped from the ballot.

That begs the kinds of question I just asked, plus another; Is third base somehow less important that first base? Of course not. In fact, it’s demonstrably more important given the defensive skills necessary to play there. And yet the BBWAA happily inducted Jimmie Foxx as soon as their early glut of great players was cleared enough for him, and Foxx clearly didn’t stand any better among his peers at first than Santo did among his peers at third.

On top of that, the BBWAA voted in lesser lights as well, men who clearly had no claim to being the second- or third- of tenth-best player at their position. I mean, was Willie Stargell considered one of the top three or four left fielders in the history of the sport when he was elected in 1988? That would be a hard argument to make, considering that Ted Williams and Al Simmons and Stan Musial and Billy Williams had already been elected by the BBWAA and Ed Delahanty was already enshrined as well, having never appeared on a BBWAA ballot.

Or how about Al Kaline? Was he one of the five greatest right fielders ever when he was elected on the first ballot the same year Santo first appeared, 1980? Of course not. Babe Ruth, Mel Ott, Paul Waner, Harry Heilman and Roberto Clemente were all already elected by the writers and were all arguably better, and that doesn’t even get into clearly better players like Sam Crawford who was a Veterans’ Committee selection, or Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson, who were retired at the time and just awaiting first-ballot induction.

And when we turn to Santo’s own position, third base, we find an utterly ridiculous voting pattern. Did you know that in 1980, when Ron Santo first appeared on the BBWAA ballot, they had elected the grand total of TWO third basemen to the Hall of Fame? Eddie Mathews, who clearly deserved it, and Pie Traynor, who is questionable at best. And, by 1980, the BBWAA should have known that. All they had to do was compare Traynor, who played in a prolific period for all hitters, to Santo, who played in a prolific period for all pitchers.

Pie Traynor’s ranks at third base in 1980 (Santo’s first year on the ballot):
Games: 8th
Hits: 2nd
Home Runs: (Too low to mention)
RBI: 4th
Runs: 6th
Extra-Base Hits: T-6th
OPS: 9th
Runs Created: 9th
Slugging: 10th
Total Bases: 5th
Walks: (Nowhere near the top-25)

It’s painfully obvious that Ron Santo was the better baseball player. He completely outclassed one of the only two third basemen who had been elected by the BBWAA at the time he came up for a vote, this was clear even using the most common statistics of the day, and yet he not only wasn’t elected, but was dropped from the ballot and remains on the outside looking in to this day.

The BBWAA needs to face the fact that omitting Santo will always be one of the voters’ dumbest acts. The current Veterans Committee, which, by the admission of at least one of its members, Mike Schmidt, is motivated to keep membership exclusive, has in no way validated this mistake, whether Ringolsby and his minions want to admit it or not. They can go on claiming anything they want, but that won’t make it so.

The fact is that the baseball writers effectively decided to keep the third base equivalent of Jimmie Foxx or Tris Speaker out of the Hall of Fame, and now some of them are desperately grasping at any possible excuse to make that act look like anything other than what it actually is.

A mistake.