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Statistically, Andy Pettitte has a very similar case to CC, albeit without the CYA, but with four more rings, and he hasn't gotten any traction in his HoF ballots, hovering around 10-13% or so for four years.
But with that said, I think you're right: CC will sail in, maybe in the second or third year.
Nelson Cruz in an interesting case. There have been 35 players in history with at least 450 HR, 1000 R, 1300 RBI, and a 130 OPS+, and among them, 25 of those are in Cooperstown or are not yet eligible but considered shoo-ins (Miggy, Pujols), many on their first ballot.
The others are Bonds, A-Rod, Raffy, MannyB, Sheff, Canseco, Carlos Delgado, Crime Dog and Nelson Cruz.
Cruz of course was implicated in the Biogenesis scandal in 2013, so he may receive less support than others might (the taint of PEDs may be why Pettitte is getting less support than he might otherwise have been expecting as well) but it really is pretty amazingly elite hitter's company he's keeping.
The Hall currently has about 270 players, from about 130 possible birth years (1850 to 1980), which is about twenty per decade.
This list here has six locks, six "better than 50-50s", and ten longshots, totalling 22 for the decade. So to maintain standards, and there's no reason not to, the longshots or their equivalents should get in. The problem is, the lower the bar goes, the more similar are the candidates just inside and just outside.
Just two beefs (which is incredible for an article with so much data and so many opinions): In what universe are Joey Votto and Zach Greinke not locks for the Hall of Fame? Come on, Joe. They're locks.
You left out Aníbal Sánchez from 1984! He had a pretty good career - 27 WAR, a no-hitter, two World Series appearances, one title (as one of the fun characters on the 2019 Nationals), and almost a playoff no-hitter (7 2/3 in Game 1 of the 2019 NLCS against the Cardinals). He definitely deserved a mention.
Aníbal Sánchez has 27.1 career rWAR/30.9 fWAR. Look it up. I don’t really like fWAR for pitchers because it focuses too much on what should have happened rather than what actually happened.
Also, would've liked more thoughts on Johan Santana. At his peak - short though it may have been - he was the undisputed Best Pitcher in Baseball, and as good as any number of Hall of Famers who had lengthier careers/better counting stats, but maybe at their best couldn't quite touch a guy like Santana.
Buster Posey at his peak was 1000% a better catcher and player than Molina, who yes, was outstanding in his prime as well. Sorry Cards, fans. We know you'll just be the belligerent-ass Packer Fans of Baseball regardless of whether or not we agree with you.
Thanks for including Pablo Sandoval. Won’t argue his numbers are HoF. And we won’t see any Beantown fans. He may have been/remains the BEST bad ball hitter in MLB in last 20 years. Didn’t follow in 90s as closely but suspect he would be best then too. Including V Guerrero (who, comic to say, preserved more plate - zone discipline). Countless times Sandoval stretched his maligned tummy* across home plate to swat a hit — often a HR — on balls a pitcher thought thrown safely out of reach. At 3rd base his cat quickness and athleticism called to mind Belushi**. A joy to watch bc one never knew what was going to happen … esp the pitchers. ANYTHING could. If not honored in HoF, then perhaps in a dictionary. See below.
*unencumbered by a tucked in jersey, if memory serves
**see the skits and films. “Belushi” should be in dictionary for equal parts ballet + athlete. I.e. “belushi -.noun, often attributive. be lu shi \ buh Loo shee . 1. fleshy, rounded, exceptionally graceful & uniquely quick athlete. Recent examples, see ‘Pablo Sandoval’”
For me, the 1984 "what might have been" has to be Lincecum. From 2007 through 2010 he was a force of nature. This little guy with floppy hair throwing absolute lightning bolts.
Not a Dodger fan, but Justin Turner not in HoF screams E Coast bias. The Dodgers — YoY — have been the best team in baseball for some time. And it starts not with aging HoF Kershaw, but with HoF Justin Turner.
Surely you jest. He's 37, has just 33 bWAR, made the all-star team only twice, never led the league for even one season in any category. Most of all, his counting stats will take him out of the running. I don't think there's much left of Turner's career, and he has fewer than 1300 hits, fewer than 700 RBI and runs. Only twice in his carer has he played more than 135 games. This man has been a good hitter for the Dodgers, but my goodness. He is far, far away from the Hall of Fame, by any measure you could name.
Justin Turner got too late of a start to have any chance. His first season where he was any good, more than 1 WAR, was his age 29 2014 season. That makes this only his 9th season of being good, but he’s 37 and as a result not that good anymore. He has never been great, never had more than 6 bWAR, so there’s not really a short-but-spectacular argument to be made either. Better than Raul Ibanez, not as good as Jose Bautista, but similar career shapes.
Also, for whatever reason, HoF cases tend to more or less ignore postseason stats except for Number of Championships Won. All of those postseason heroics count for something but not enough.
Just a fun note that the Phillies, while not having formally retired them, have quite conspicuously taken Rollins', Utley's, and Howard's numbers all out of circulation since they left the team. Each also got a formal "retirement" ceremony in 2019, without the jersey retirement. (They did trot a #35 out there this year, for the first time since Hamels left.) The Phillies are one of those teams that historically conditioned jersey retirement on HOF induction, which is funny for obvious reasons. An exception was made very recently for Dick Allen, who was dying and of course came a hair's breadth away from HOF induction on multiple occasions. My expectation is all 3 will have their number retired at some point, but the team wants to wait and see what happens with Utley's and Rollins' candidacies first, which is why they had the diluted ceremony 3 years ago instead. Me—I'd prefer they just retire their jerseys now, so we can all enjoy it rather than delay the inevitable. For what it's worth, and I love them both dearly, but Utley is the clear HOFer to me over Jimmy.
I find it interesting that Joe thinks Cole Hamels might get his jersey retired but not Jimmy Rollins or Chase Utley. Or did Rollins and Utley not get that designation since he did a deeper dive into them? Still, for that year, he said no one would.
I think the idea is that if you fit into a higher category then you don't get mentioned in a lower one. Since both guys are in higher categories as hall of fame chances they don't get mentioned again (See the King Felix comment where he mentions it specifically).
Joe mentioned Grady Sizemore as a "what could have been". I saw Sizemore hit one of the longest home runs, in my opinion the longest, I have ever seen in Kansas City. The 1973 All Star game was my second game, and Bench's home run in that is often mentioned as one of the longest. I also saw Bo's home run that is also mentioned. Somehow Sizemore's home run went almost unnoticed, but for my money, it is still the longest I have seen there.
A baseball fan friend of mine always bring up the forgettable Shane Andrews, who played 3rd base for the 90's Expos. Whenever I hear longest homeruns, I'm reminded of Shane blasting one out in Ottawa when he played for the AAA Lynx. Looked like that thing traveled 500 feet, at least that's what my mind wants to remember.
I am admittedly biased, but I think David Wright could have just has easily been the "What could have been" for that year. You could argue he was on a HOF track until 2 things happened A) CitiField opened with ridiculous dimensions, especially to RC, which was a sweet spot for DW at Shea which hurt his numbers for a few years til they moved fences in and B) he injured his back, developed spinal stenosis and had to retire much too young.
I think Yadier Molina might be the most overrated player in my time of watching baseball (well, maybe Garvey in the 70's, but he didn't make it.) This is partially because of the rabid and loud Cardinal fanbase that think he is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and say so constantly, (I mean, Joe actually moved the guy up so he didn't have to hear from them) and partially because of the quirky Fangraphs framing number that they base their WAR on. (and take WAR away from pitchers to do it)
However they do it (and Fangraphs looks at zero plays to do their defensive ratings. UZR, which is used for the other positions, is one third 1970s and earlier fielding percentage and one third 1980s style range factor, with the other third depending on the position) it made Yadier Molina, in their eyes, the greatest fielder in MLB history. He had a 48.3 DEF number in 2010, which is the highest I have seen. (Molina's fangraphs page has a red banner - I have not seen a colored banner on anyone else's page) In the Carlos Gomez season Joe mentioned in the article, he had a +29 DRS (they actually look at plays for that) his DEF number for Fangraphs was only 25.2. I looked at a lot of famous defensive players and was unable to find any players approaching that. Ozzie Smith's best year was about 83% of that, and Molina is also ahead of him (and everyone else in history) in career DEF number. This is despite the fact that Molina's starting pitchers that year were remarkably close to their career averages in walks and K's. 2.7 walks and 6.2 Ks per nine in their career, 2.9 and 6.4 in 2010.
Since Fangraphs somehow believes Molina is the greatest defensive player at any position in the history of the game (and even among Cardinals fans, they are probably alone in that) it is no big surprise that his WAR there is so much different there.
Even before reading this article, I had his best career comp as Jason Kendall, with the biggest difference being that Molina spent his career with one team. BR has Kendall third, behind AJ Pierzynski and Benito Santiago.
I am sure he will be a Hall of Famer. I am equally sure he does not belong.
Fangraphs adding catcher framing to their WAR from 2002-present has created such a mess for historical comps because it only benefits one select group of players, of which Molina's career happens to fit in almost perfectly. What bothers me the most about it is the idea of "Oh, well when you add in framing, suddenly his WAR doesn't look out of place among HOF catchers" while ignoring that absolutely no HOF catchers had the benefit of their framing numbers being included so if everyone had it, odds are pretty strong that everyone would just shift up a bit and Yadi (and McCann and Martin, although no one really talks about them) would still fall short.
as a lifelong SF Giants fan, i agree that Pablo and Posey (and Longoria) may not deserve HoF inclusion, but the case for Lincecum and Cain is a bit more nuanced- Tim was unhittable, and threw 2 no-nos, Matt pitched the only perfect gsme in Giants history...
while we're at it, the exclusion of Barry Bonds is a true travesty; even before the PED years, he already had put up a HoF-worthy career, and he only illegally bulked up to answer the obviously cheating Sosa and McGuire...
I keep coming back to this, in comments and conversations and debates and maybe sneaking references into karaoke versions of "Talkin' Baseball": WAR does not do catchers justice. The position and pitcher player floor for WAR ought to be somewhere between 55 and 70; for catchers, let's say 40 to 55. To a lesser extent the same for pure DHs*, only completely differently in that they must be judged against other offense and penalized for lack of defense. But. SOMEBODY HAS TO CATCH. And. SOMEBODY IS GOING TO* DH.
Mauer, Molina, and Posey are all should-be Hall of Famers. That is all.
*assuming the team on which they played had the DH available
Statistically, Andy Pettitte has a very similar case to CC, albeit without the CYA, but with four more rings, and he hasn't gotten any traction in his HoF ballots, hovering around 10-13% or so for four years.
But with that said, I think you're right: CC will sail in, maybe in the second or third year.
Nelson Cruz in an interesting case. There have been 35 players in history with at least 450 HR, 1000 R, 1300 RBI, and a 130 OPS+, and among them, 25 of those are in Cooperstown or are not yet eligible but considered shoo-ins (Miggy, Pujols), many on their first ballot.
The others are Bonds, A-Rod, Raffy, MannyB, Sheff, Canseco, Carlos Delgado, Crime Dog and Nelson Cruz.
Cruz of course was implicated in the Biogenesis scandal in 2013, so he may receive less support than others might (the taint of PEDs may be why Pettitte is getting less support than he might otherwise have been expecting as well) but it really is pretty amazingly elite hitter's company he's keeping.
The Hall currently has about 270 players, from about 130 possible birth years (1850 to 1980), which is about twenty per decade.
This list here has six locks, six "better than 50-50s", and ten longshots, totalling 22 for the decade. So to maintain standards, and there's no reason not to, the longshots or their equivalents should get in. The problem is, the lower the bar goes, the more similar are the candidates just inside and just outside.
Just two beefs (which is incredible for an article with so much data and so many opinions): In what universe are Joey Votto and Zach Greinke not locks for the Hall of Fame? Come on, Joe. They're locks.
You left out Aníbal Sánchez from 1984! He had a pretty good career - 27 WAR, a no-hitter, two World Series appearances, one title (as one of the fun characters on the 2019 Nationals), and almost a playoff no-hitter (7 2/3 in Game 1 of the 2019 NLCS against the Cardinals). He definitely deserved a mention.
27 WAR? No he didn't
Aníbal Sánchez has 27.1 career rWAR/30.9 fWAR. Look it up. I don’t really like fWAR for pitchers because it focuses too much on what should have happened rather than what actually happened.
Also, would've liked more thoughts on Johan Santana. At his peak - short though it may have been - he was the undisputed Best Pitcher in Baseball, and as good as any number of Hall of Famers who had lengthier careers/better counting stats, but maybe at their best couldn't quite touch a guy like Santana.
Buster Posey at his peak was 1000% a better catcher and player than Molina, who yes, was outstanding in his prime as well. Sorry Cards, fans. We know you'll just be the belligerent-ass Packer Fans of Baseball regardless of whether or not we agree with you.
Thanks for including Pablo Sandoval. Won’t argue his numbers are HoF. And we won’t see any Beantown fans. He may have been/remains the BEST bad ball hitter in MLB in last 20 years. Didn’t follow in 90s as closely but suspect he would be best then too. Including V Guerrero (who, comic to say, preserved more plate - zone discipline). Countless times Sandoval stretched his maligned tummy* across home plate to swat a hit — often a HR — on balls a pitcher thought thrown safely out of reach. At 3rd base his cat quickness and athleticism called to mind Belushi**. A joy to watch bc one never knew what was going to happen … esp the pitchers. ANYTHING could. If not honored in HoF, then perhaps in a dictionary. See below.
*unencumbered by a tucked in jersey, if memory serves
**see the skits and films. “Belushi” should be in dictionary for equal parts ballet + athlete. I.e. “belushi -.noun, often attributive. be lu shi \ buh Loo shee . 1. fleshy, rounded, exceptionally graceful & uniquely quick athlete. Recent examples, see ‘Pablo Sandoval’”
For me, the 1984 "what might have been" has to be Lincecum. From 2007 through 2010 he was a force of nature. This little guy with floppy hair throwing absolute lightning bolts.
Not a Dodger fan, but Justin Turner not in HoF screams E Coast bias. The Dodgers — YoY — have been the best team in baseball for some time. And it starts not with aging HoF Kershaw, but with HoF Justin Turner.
Surely you jest. He's 37, has just 33 bWAR, made the all-star team only twice, never led the league for even one season in any category. Most of all, his counting stats will take him out of the running. I don't think there's much left of Turner's career, and he has fewer than 1300 hits, fewer than 700 RBI and runs. Only twice in his carer has he played more than 135 games. This man has been a good hitter for the Dodgers, but my goodness. He is far, far away from the Hall of Fame, by any measure you could name.
Justin Turner got too late of a start to have any chance. His first season where he was any good, more than 1 WAR, was his age 29 2014 season. That makes this only his 9th season of being good, but he’s 37 and as a result not that good anymore. He has never been great, never had more than 6 bWAR, so there’s not really a short-but-spectacular argument to be made either. Better than Raul Ibanez, not as good as Jose Bautista, but similar career shapes.
Also, for whatever reason, HoF cases tend to more or less ignore postseason stats except for Number of Championships Won. All of those postseason heroics count for something but not enough.
Just a fun note that the Phillies, while not having formally retired them, have quite conspicuously taken Rollins', Utley's, and Howard's numbers all out of circulation since they left the team. Each also got a formal "retirement" ceremony in 2019, without the jersey retirement. (They did trot a #35 out there this year, for the first time since Hamels left.) The Phillies are one of those teams that historically conditioned jersey retirement on HOF induction, which is funny for obvious reasons. An exception was made very recently for Dick Allen, who was dying and of course came a hair's breadth away from HOF induction on multiple occasions. My expectation is all 3 will have their number retired at some point, but the team wants to wait and see what happens with Utley's and Rollins' candidacies first, which is why they had the diluted ceremony 3 years ago instead. Me—I'd prefer they just retire their jerseys now, so we can all enjoy it rather than delay the inevitable. For what it's worth, and I love them both dearly, but Utley is the clear HOFer to me over Jimmy.
I find it interesting that Joe thinks Cole Hamels might get his jersey retired but not Jimmy Rollins or Chase Utley. Or did Rollins and Utley not get that designation since he did a deeper dive into them? Still, for that year, he said no one would.
I think the idea is that if you fit into a higher category then you don't get mentioned in a lower one. Since both guys are in higher categories as hall of fame chances they don't get mentioned again (See the King Felix comment where he mentions it specifically).
This is true, but Joe didn't do this consistently. There were a few mentioned high up who were also mentioned in the jersey retirements.
Joe mentioned Grady Sizemore as a "what could have been". I saw Sizemore hit one of the longest home runs, in my opinion the longest, I have ever seen in Kansas City. The 1973 All Star game was my second game, and Bench's home run in that is often mentioned as one of the longest. I also saw Bo's home run that is also mentioned. Somehow Sizemore's home run went almost unnoticed, but for my money, it is still the longest I have seen there.
A baseball fan friend of mine always bring up the forgettable Shane Andrews, who played 3rd base for the 90's Expos. Whenever I hear longest homeruns, I'm reminded of Shane blasting one out in Ottawa when he played for the AAA Lynx. Looked like that thing traveled 500 feet, at least that's what my mind wants to remember.
I am admittedly biased, but I think David Wright could have just has easily been the "What could have been" for that year. You could argue he was on a HOF track until 2 things happened A) CitiField opened with ridiculous dimensions, especially to RC, which was a sweet spot for DW at Shea which hurt his numbers for a few years til they moved fences in and B) he injured his back, developed spinal stenosis and had to retire much too young.
I think Yadier Molina might be the most overrated player in my time of watching baseball (well, maybe Garvey in the 70's, but he didn't make it.) This is partially because of the rabid and loud Cardinal fanbase that think he is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and say so constantly, (I mean, Joe actually moved the guy up so he didn't have to hear from them) and partially because of the quirky Fangraphs framing number that they base their WAR on. (and take WAR away from pitchers to do it)
However they do it (and Fangraphs looks at zero plays to do their defensive ratings. UZR, which is used for the other positions, is one third 1970s and earlier fielding percentage and one third 1980s style range factor, with the other third depending on the position) it made Yadier Molina, in their eyes, the greatest fielder in MLB history. He had a 48.3 DEF number in 2010, which is the highest I have seen. (Molina's fangraphs page has a red banner - I have not seen a colored banner on anyone else's page) In the Carlos Gomez season Joe mentioned in the article, he had a +29 DRS (they actually look at plays for that) his DEF number for Fangraphs was only 25.2. I looked at a lot of famous defensive players and was unable to find any players approaching that. Ozzie Smith's best year was about 83% of that, and Molina is also ahead of him (and everyone else in history) in career DEF number. This is despite the fact that Molina's starting pitchers that year were remarkably close to their career averages in walks and K's. 2.7 walks and 6.2 Ks per nine in their career, 2.9 and 6.4 in 2010.
Since Fangraphs somehow believes Molina is the greatest defensive player at any position in the history of the game (and even among Cardinals fans, they are probably alone in that) it is no big surprise that his WAR there is so much different there.
Even before reading this article, I had his best career comp as Jason Kendall, with the biggest difference being that Molina spent his career with one team. BR has Kendall third, behind AJ Pierzynski and Benito Santiago.
I am sure he will be a Hall of Famer. I am equally sure he does not belong.
Molina is Jim Sundberg plus better teammates. That’s not an insult. Sundberg was a very durable and good defensive catcher.
Fangraphs adding catcher framing to their WAR from 2002-present has created such a mess for historical comps because it only benefits one select group of players, of which Molina's career happens to fit in almost perfectly. What bothers me the most about it is the idea of "Oh, well when you add in framing, suddenly his WAR doesn't look out of place among HOF catchers" while ignoring that absolutely no HOF catchers had the benefit of their framing numbers being included so if everyone had it, odds are pretty strong that everyone would just shift up a bit and Yadi (and McCann and Martin, although no one really talks about them) would still fall short.
as a lifelong SF Giants fan, i agree that Pablo and Posey (and Longoria) may not deserve HoF inclusion, but the case for Lincecum and Cain is a bit more nuanced- Tim was unhittable, and threw 2 no-nos, Matt pitched the only perfect gsme in Giants history...
while we're at it, the exclusion of Barry Bonds is a true travesty; even before the PED years, he already had put up a HoF-worthy career, and he only illegally bulked up to answer the obviously cheating Sosa and McGuire...
I keep coming back to this, in comments and conversations and debates and maybe sneaking references into karaoke versions of "Talkin' Baseball": WAR does not do catchers justice. The position and pitcher player floor for WAR ought to be somewhere between 55 and 70; for catchers, let's say 40 to 55. To a lesser extent the same for pure DHs*, only completely differently in that they must be judged against other offense and penalized for lack of defense. But. SOMEBODY HAS TO CATCH. And. SOMEBODY IS GOING TO* DH.
Mauer, Molina, and Posey are all should-be Hall of Famers. That is all.
*assuming the team on which they played had the DH available
Love this!!