I like the last line. Look, formerly anti steroid voters will think of a reason for voting for him or somehow negating his test because they like him, and they did not like Bonds or Clemens. That is straight out the only reason.
I have seen many of these voters write essays on why they didn't vote for someone who wasn't linked to steroids at all, claiming their own steroid suspicion for reasons like they were too big (Like Frank Thomas - but he had a good smile and they liked him). I have seen them use both the idea that they were too good late in their career AND the idea that they broke down early used as evidence of steroid use for players they don't like. I have heard people said that someone's hat size went up (So did Griffey's, but he has a good smile and we loved him, so his is not the same)
Bonds and Clemens were well liked and are perhaps penalized more because they were great already and the writers don't like them. Ortiz will not be penalized because he has a good smile and we like him. If you vote for a steroid guy you like and not the ones you don't like (or even make up reasons out of whole cloth why a player with no link might have been a steroid user and an excuse for not voting for them) using that as your self righteous reason, then you are not trying to protect some sort of sanctity of the game, you are a self righteous jackhole. In the end, writers vote for players they like, in many cases ignoring the skill level of the players, using the steroids as as a way to be sanctimonious when they want to, and ignoring it when they want to. They are mostly hypocrites.
No PEDS in the HoF. There is not a better example for those who come after than to have some astounding record breakers on outside looking in. And the question asked into time immortal; ‘hey dad/mom, how come so & so is not in the HoF?’
I have spent more hours of my life writing and thinking about the Baseball Hall of Fame (which is sad, perhaps, when you think about it because I do not have a vote, will never get one, and frankly have an audience of maybe 10 people who also lack the vote). Here are my thoughts on PED users below if you care to read:
I said it in the article and I will say it again: voting against PED users feels self-righteous to me. It feels noble to deny them induction. Perhaps it is, for different reasons. Certainly Barry Bonds beating his wife is ignoble. Roger Clemens potentially raping Mindy McReady is rather crappy of him, and I do not even need to get into what Curt Schilling has been up to since his retirement. Joe probably said it best: these guys simply do not DESERVE the honor of being a Hall of Famer. To me that's understandable, but then people should just call it like it is and avoid this handwringing.
Comparing Bonds beating his wife, Clemens committing rape to you being butt hurt over Schillings tweets and business ventures is the epitome of self righteousness. But youre in a safe space here to post such utter nonsense.
Youve lumped those three players in to a group and use Joe to say those three DO NOT deserve to be in. One a cheater wife beater. One a cheater and rapist... then Schilling who didnt cheat but whose actions are so horrendous you deem them unworthy of typing.
Joe has masters he has to serve so he cant vote for Schilling, what's your excuse for involving him with Bonds and Clemens?
How about you rephrase your original comment to not compare rape and wife beating to mean tweets? Dont need to pour through your sanctimonious articles to read your bullshit reasons for including someone with a spotless baseball record woth two of the games biggest cheaters.
Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, and even Schilling are all jerks.
No one likes them. All the contortions over PEDs and the like are simply ways to find justification for "This guy is a jerk, and I don't want him in the Hall."
You're not seeing those mental gymnastics that much with Big Papi, because he's LIKEABLE.
And there's similarly not the same level of volume with A-Rod, because while he might be a jerk, he isn't shying from the public eye. He's there on FOX Sports, not off hiding somewhere. And in fairness, much of the perceived jerkishness was a fabrication by the NY tabloid press (especially when he just couldn't manage to carry them over the line into the World Series - like there weren't 24 other players on the team).
I come down on the side of DHs being worthy HOF candidates if they are incredibly good hitters, as players such as Edgar Martinez and David Ortiz are. However it confuses me that a similarly talented hitter but poor defensive player such as Gary Sheffield could be so strongly penalized simply because his team couldn't hide him as a DH.
It appears Joe is going to bring up this same point with comparing Ortiz and Sheffield. Just comparing Sheffield to Edgar, sheffield leads in bbrefs owar 81-67 as well as in WPA 60-44.
Besides the obvious huge negative defensive value Sheffield had, there's also the steroid allegations and the fact that he was kind of a jerk. It would be absolutely insane if he gets in without first Barry Bonds getting in. Personally, I would like them both in.
I see a clear distinction between Sheffield and Bonds (and others).
Tom Verducci said it better than I can:
"Sheffield is the only star I know who, as an active player, without provocation admitted to using steroids; he did so in a 2004 SI story I wrote. Why would he make an admission? Because, he told me, he had testified under oath that he had been duped into using them.
"Sheffield said he told the BALCO grand jury the previous year that Bonds arranged for him to use 'the cream,' 'the clear' and 'red beans,' which prosecutors identified as steroid pills from Mexico. Sheffield, however, said he was told the substances were legal arthritic balms or nutritional supplements.… When he later learned that the BALCO products were steroids, he told me, 'I was mad. I want everybody to be on an even playing field.'
"That’s it; we have no evidence that ties Sheffield to steroids other than those several weeks before the 2002 season when Sheffield lived at Bonds’s home. Even during that 2002 season, when players were resisting the idea of steroid testing, Sheffield spoke out in favor of it [see here], saying, 'I would like to see testing. I mean you see how much guys are using it. Unless you’ve got something to hide, you won’t mind testing, right?'"
This post caused me to pull up Mark McGwire's stats, as basically the only HoF caliber PED user to admit and apologize for using steroids. There's an interesting discussion that could be had about what his admission did to his HoF chances, and whether that's what we think *should* have happened. It's likely that had he put up the same career without steroids, McGwire would have been a no-doubt Hall-of-Famer. His black ink/JAWS/etc. are right about at the average of HoF first basemen, and his fame/intangibles would have been immense. At the same time, if steroids had even a moderate effect on his performance, then without them he would have had little chance at the Hall.
But what jumped out at me on McGwire's baseball-reference page was his fielding in '98. Due to his record-breaking hitting, this was McGwire's best season by WAR, at 7.5, despite a career-worst -16 fielding component. However, McGwire's range factor was the BEST in the National League that year. I know that RF is imprecise, but how is that massive discrepancy possible?
(On Fangraphs, his '98 WAR is 8.5, and his fielding component is still a career-worst)
1. Alex Rodriguez also admitted and apologized for PED use.
2. Range Factor for a 1B includes all putouts -- simply catching the ball thrown by another infielder. In 1998, he lead the NL in putouts but he wasn't in the top ten in assists, mostly plays where he ranged to the side then tossed to the covering pitcher. I don't see a way to break down the data to individual fielders, but the Cardinals as a team were below average in 363 and 361 double plays, just slightly above average in 3U putouts, and 2nd overall in putouts on force plays. And McGwire's lead in RF/G was miniscule, 0.04 plays over Travis Lee.
DH is a position and it takes a player who creates negative value (usually) in the field away and allows them to be valuble.
Pitchers cant hit. DHs usually cant field. Do we ding AL pitchers who suck at hitting for not hitting at all due to the DH? Should an NL pitcher who cant hit have that held against them?
AL pitchers are basically Designated Pitchers. Should they have to be Walter Johnson level great to be considered HOF?
Pitchers hitting are not comparable. No one ever dings a bad hitting pitcher. Hitting well as a pitcher has never prolonged a career. It simply does not matter.
DH's receive a very heavy WAR penalty. It would take a very bad fielder at a position considered a weak defensive position to equal it.
A pitcher’s hitting is such a small fraction of his worth, good or bad. There are 27 outs in a game, and a typical batter only gets 4 plate appearances, so a pitcher’s pitching value is about seven times higher than his hitting. This scales for shorter games too, since a three inning pitcher still has to get 9 outs and may only get a single at bat.
Exactly. A part time player who plays only 6 or 7 innings every 5 days and doesnt contribute with the glove or bat, not really a complete ball player. Then you AL pitchers who dont do anything but pitch. DH doesnt sound so bad.
Let's do a little math. The fundamental "unit" if you will of baseball is the Plate Appearance. Every play begins with a batter stepping up to the plate - and we are instantly in a one-on-one situation: the Pitcher vs. the Batter. Every "plate appearance" by a batter is also a "batter faced" by the pitcher. Right?
In a typical start (say, five innings these days), a pitcher will face somewhere around twenty batters - four batters per inning. They do that every five days. In that same five day period, a starting player will have maybe 20 plate appearances.
Interesting how that works out! A hitting player will step up to the plate about the same number of times that a pitcher will face a batter!
Don't forget, once the pitcher lets go of the ball, they instantly become a fielder.
So.... who contributes more over the course of a month? A season?
Does looking at our current Hall really indicate to you that cheating bars the entry of otherwise great players? Sure, Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe don't make the cut, but after that you have spitballers, corked bat users, sign-stealers, amphetamine users, you name it. Hell, as Joe points out, there are almost certainly steroid users in the Hall right now.
In my mind, enough of Canseco's once-ridiculed claims about PED use in MLB have been vindicated that we as fans have to seriously consider the possibility that his 75% number is essentially on the money. Even if it's off a bit-- 65%, say, or even 55%-- that would still mean a majority of MLB players were using at the time. Do you REALLY think that your favorite star from that era is clean? How about your second-favorite? Keep going down the list, and let me know when you think the cheaters start cropping up.
The only difference between Bonds and these players you watched is that he was already an inner-circle guy before he started using, and as a result, his post-PED play was so otherworldly that he was scapegoated for the entire scandal that the league ignored and tacitly endorsed for years. Hell, his drug use didn't even come out with a failed test; it was the result of a years-long investigation by media.
If even the supposed face of PED use didn't get caught by MLB's dragnet, how can we take the "clean record" of so many other guys seriously? The truth is that we can't. The only totally "consistent" vote for a ballot from this era is a completely empty slate or one that contains at least some PED guys. You can quibble with individual dudes for other reasons, like their decision to keep using after MLB cracked down or off-the-field allegations of DV, but barring known PED users AS A CLASS from the Hall while still taking this era's "clean" players at face value just doesn't seem defensible, given what we know.
Bonds was not an in circle guy before. Youre using lazy things other people said, that doesnt make it true. Just because other cheaters made it in doesnt mean new ones get a free pass either.
In 1920 you would have let the White Sox of the hook because players had thrown games before.
Its baseballs own fault. Everyone knew cheating with PEDs was wrong and it carried a many potential risks leagally and for their legacy. If Gaylord Perry started doctoring the ball to the level of 42 wins and 400 k's im sure he would be banned.
Once Bonds Mcgwire and Sosa took it to absurd game ruining levels and broke the game, sorry game over.
Yup some slipped in some arent going to. But lets not punish people who cheated cause others didnt get caught. Great logic.
After telling me Bonds was a shoe in before he used,any other oft repeated nonsense you want to thrown in that is lie.
"Baseball is a nine man game"
"Yankees win with home grown talent"
Man is there an original thought here? Just admit you dont see a problem with PEDs or you arent smart enough to figure the situation out, so you givee up and parrot Joe.
Leaving aside the rest of this, your evaluation of Barry Bonds' pre-steroids career is bad enough that I'm not sure how to respond. By 1999, Bonds had a triple slash of .290/.411/.556, won 3 MVPs, and accumulated 99.6 WAR. Oh, and he was also the only member of the 400/400 club (a distinction he still holds to this day). You can dispute the "inner circle" part I suppose, but saying that career is anything less than a "shoe-in" only makes sense if you let your knowledge of what comes afterwards color your perception of the career I just laid out.
You can choose not to buy that all you want, but most credible investigations into Bonds' cheating put that as the starting date based on all the evidence we have available. You need some pretty strong proof beyond "I just don't like the guy and am working backwards from that" if you want to challenge that consensus. When did you think Bonds started cheating, out of curiosity, and why have you arrived on that date as your clear answer?
As a follow-up, if Bonds wasn't a clear HoF talent before steroids, why didn't more steroid players reach his heights? Like I wrote earlier, tons of guys were using. None of them came particularly close to what Bonds did, and I don't think you can even begin to explain that discrepancy if you restrict your answer to only include "his drugs were just better."
From what I know about Bonds and the truth there is no such thing. I have no idea when he started cheating. I put a cloud on him from ASU till the end of his career.
Bonds managed to avoid crippling injuries to a better extent than many other PED players. Wether thats luck, genetics or better drugs IDK. AROD was able to largely avoid them as well and it took a suspension to slow him down.
Other players did reach his heights. Caminiti had an absurd MVP season but was also drinking and using other drugs that led to his death. Sosa hit 60 home runs 3 times (Bonds only once) McGwire of course hit 70 before injuries derailed him. Sheffield was able to hit 500, Palmereio able to hang around enough for 500 and 3000. Ramirez had suspensions derail him.
Bonds was able to cheat, not sustain injury or suspension.
Regarding Bonds, the statement that he never failed a drug test is wrong. He tested positive for amphetamines in 2006. You may not remember because the reaction to this news was a collective yawn. Nobody cared.
If Bonds or Clemens or whoever only tested positive for amphetamines, they'd currently be 1st ballot HoFers who received 99.8% of the vote
But steroids are different. That's probably the issue we all have to resolve. I personally think they are different because they call into question the legitimacy of the sport. Is what we are seeing real? The same goes for gambling, which calls into question whether we are seeing a true competition or not.
Another good write up Joe. I too am tired of the yearly debate. Now how many years before they are eligible for veteran committee election? At least that won’t be an annual affair.
And one correction. Didn’t Rodriguez basically admit that he used steroids when he accepted his year long suspension. So he and McGuire make a club of 2?
Counterpoints to Joe's DH take: it's not an elective position. If the DH is available, a player is going to be a DH. If there was no designated hitter in the American League, you better believe whatever team David Ortiz played for would have shoehorned him in at first base or even some corner outfield position once in awhile, and how much of a hit would that be to his overall WAR considering he's already penalized as a DH? Same with Edgar. (One other thing: how many full-time DHs do we really talk about, anyway? Edgar Martinez and David Ortiz, these days Nelson Cruz, who will probably fall just short of the HoF... the other DH-only guys just didn't have long enough careers. Think Billy Butler. There just aren't that many. But I digress.)
Then, hitting in baseball is NOWHERE NEAR as peripheral as kicking in football. Nobody writes analytically-minded "teams should almost never try to get a hit" articles along the lines of "teams should almost never punt". And kicking field goals is important, sure, but to me it's like hitting singles, and even if a team had a almost-never-kick-a-field-goal philosophy - someone want to run the math on expected points for a team that never tries a FG and never punts, touchdowns or death? Radical, man! Anyway. Yeah, someone has to kick off, but that's the only time a team NEEDS a kicker. Not saying teams don't want a good field goal kicker, but hitting in baseball is everything on offense, as opposed to kicking in football.
Last, what do you call the greatest middle relievers of all time? You don't call them anything because immediately they either turn into a starter or a closer, so I like that analogy even less than kicker in football. And so, I don't penalize DH types hardly at all. Rather, they just don't get the boost in HoF argument that an Andruw Jones or for that matter an Ozzie Smith might get. There ya go.
Let's agree that any team (other than the Twins and Mariners for whom such an assumption is counterfactual) would have put him somewhere on the field. Can we assume continued health? We know that the last few years as his Achilles turned to ashes he basically couldn't move at all. Force him to move around even if just to receive throws from his infielders and what happens?
And what does Hall of Fame DH Harold Baines need to do to get some respect from you?!?! :)
All I can say is that he'd have been atrocious at first base on defense at the end of his career. But hey, it's Big Papi, and a .900 OPS stays on the field no matter how bad the defense is. Just make sure the rest of the field knows how to throw really accurately (and make sure your right fielder knows how to field grounders).
Harold Baines! Haha his election works for me. A "professional hitter" AND a designated hitter.
Sorry I wasn’t clear. I know his bat would be good enough to be on the field even with really bad D. I just wonder if adding fielding to his physical duties would have tipped him from hurt but playing to simply too hurt to even hit.
Ahh... yeah I suppose that's a counterfactual which will remain exactly that. Good question. One thing though: I can't think of too many times a first baseman has been injured while playing defense. Actually, none come to mind, although I'm sure it's happened.
Dodgers 1B Max Muncy missed the playoffs this year following a collision at the base.
But I’m more talking about general wear and tear, not specific dramatic injuries. Or said differently, who are the 6’3” 265# NL players or AL not at DH with any career post 32?
To me, the argument against Bonds, Clemens etc. has nothing to do with them being cheaters per se or that they broke cherished records while allegedly cheating or that they wrecked baseball. It has to do with the authenticity question -- what would their numbers be without the use of PEDs? What do their numbers actually mean? It is hard enough comparing players of different eras without the PED issue (i.e. starting pitchers and wins, complete games, strikeouts etc. given the changing nature of the game). PEDs make such already difficult (but fun) comparisons essentially impossible. You (Joe) correctly state that the HOF is supposed to be reserved for those who can surmount the harsh and judgmental questions -- length of career, peak vs. counting stats, win enough games, role of post-season etc. The PEDs guys have taken the conversation away from such questions. I look forward to the day when the PED guys are off the ballot -- whether in the HOF or not (although I assume this will continue via debates about whether the various committees should vote in the PED players) -- and the questions you raise are what we are all debating once again.
I don’t interpret what Joe said about all the gauntlets one has to get thru to get elected to the HOF the way you do. You think - and think that Joe thinks- the HOF is supposed to work that way. I interpret his post as saying that this is the way it works (in my mind it certainly is), not that it should work that way. Not sure if Joe would agree with that.
Just to be clear, I wasn't saying - nor did I intend to say that Joe was saying -- that a player needed to affirmatively surmount all of the questions Joe raised to make the HOF. Rather, I intended to say that these are the questions the voters -- and non-voting fans - generally asked in considering the players' candidacies pre-PEDs. I look forward to those days again when questions of cheating and its impact are no longer part of that debate.
I read something earlier this winter that pointed out that Ortiz basically admitted to failing an amphetamine post-testing because he was complaining about how frequently he gets tested and apparently the way testing was negotiated via the CBA, players can only be tested a certain number of times unless they fail a test for amphetamines, which the first failed test doesn't get released and just results in the player getting a slap on the wrist and more frequent testing and the second failed test is what results in the suspension a la Carlos Ruiz back in the day.
don't follow. i have no idea what you're referencing, never saw anything re ortiz and greenies. so if he was doing greenies, he was doing roids? be good if you could dig up that source...
i do really like him. and will believe any accusation re roids about any superstar of that era. and the shit he said to shaunessy was nonsense. but he certainly doesn't "basically admit" to doing greenies. he's just wildly exaggerating his testing frequency. what we know is: he failed the test tests, the ones the commissioner said were unreliable. and we know of no other test, for any substance, that he failed.
So Bonds and Clemens are denied enshrinement because they did something that was not illegal, was tacitly encouraged, was done by many other players (we assume), and made them better players (or at least get better results), but somehow now impinges on our sense of "what's right."
By that logic every pre-1947 Hall of Famer should be out because they never had to face Satchel Paige or pitch to Josh Gibson. It wasn't their fault, it wasn't illegal, and everyone did it but it still impinges on my sense of "what's right." For goodness' sake let them in and kill the debate.
I can see both sides. More than just steroids, Bonds and Clemons are being punished (rightly or wrongly) for using them to break the game. Other likely steroid users didn’t streak as brightly in their later years as Bonds or Clemens, and don’t draw the wrath of fans as much. Most people still don’t remember how many HRs Bonds hit as a sacred number like 714 (or later 755) was.
well, it was illegal. it wasn't yet against the rules of baseball, which are not laws. just like greenies weren't -- likely consumed by 90% of the post-50s players in the hall. but unsubscribed PEDs were illegal. why do you think these guys were jabbing each others' asses in bathroom stalls? it's a weird distinction, pre or post belated MLB and MLBPA action. there were cheating. they knew they were, owners, selig, all players and journalists knew what was going on. the onion slicing is nuts. either the character clause means something, or the hall should do away with it.
Well murder isnt banned in baseball specifically either. If Bonds started using his bat to decapitate opponents, I guess its a gray area and merely frowned upon. .
The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel is strictly prohibited. Major League players or personnel involved in the possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance are subject to discipline by the Commissioner and risk permanent expulsion from the game…
This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids or prescription drugs for which the individual in possession of the drug does not have a prescription.
I like the last line. Look, formerly anti steroid voters will think of a reason for voting for him or somehow negating his test because they like him, and they did not like Bonds or Clemens. That is straight out the only reason.
I have seen many of these voters write essays on why they didn't vote for someone who wasn't linked to steroids at all, claiming their own steroid suspicion for reasons like they were too big (Like Frank Thomas - but he had a good smile and they liked him). I have seen them use both the idea that they were too good late in their career AND the idea that they broke down early used as evidence of steroid use for players they don't like. I have heard people said that someone's hat size went up (So did Griffey's, but he has a good smile and we loved him, so his is not the same)
Bonds and Clemens were well liked and are perhaps penalized more because they were great already and the writers don't like them. Ortiz will not be penalized because he has a good smile and we like him. If you vote for a steroid guy you like and not the ones you don't like (or even make up reasons out of whole cloth why a player with no link might have been a steroid user and an excuse for not voting for them) using that as your self righteous reason, then you are not trying to protect some sort of sanctity of the game, you are a self righteous jackhole. In the end, writers vote for players they like, in many cases ignoring the skill level of the players, using the steroids as as a way to be sanctimonious when they want to, and ignoring it when they want to. They are mostly hypocrites.
That first sentence in the the third paragraph should of course say that Bonds and Clemens were not liked.
No PEDS in the HoF. There is not a better example for those who come after than to have some astounding record breakers on outside looking in. And the question asked into time immortal; ‘hey dad/mom, how come so & so is not in the HoF?’
I have spent more hours of my life writing and thinking about the Baseball Hall of Fame (which is sad, perhaps, when you think about it because I do not have a vote, will never get one, and frankly have an audience of maybe 10 people who also lack the vote). Here are my thoughts on PED users below if you care to read:
https://www.coveringthecorner.com/2021/12/16/22840085/the-bbwaa-is-getting-morality-mostly-wrong
I said it in the article and I will say it again: voting against PED users feels self-righteous to me. It feels noble to deny them induction. Perhaps it is, for different reasons. Certainly Barry Bonds beating his wife is ignoble. Roger Clemens potentially raping Mindy McReady is rather crappy of him, and I do not even need to get into what Curt Schilling has been up to since his retirement. Joe probably said it best: these guys simply do not DESERVE the honor of being a Hall of Famer. To me that's understandable, but then people should just call it like it is and avoid this handwringing.
Comparing Bonds beating his wife, Clemens committing rape to you being butt hurt over Schillings tweets and business ventures is the epitome of self righteousness. But youre in a safe space here to post such utter nonsense.
I don’t think they’re comparable and never said they were
Youve lumped those three players in to a group and use Joe to say those three DO NOT deserve to be in. One a cheater wife beater. One a cheater and rapist... then Schilling who didnt cheat but whose actions are so horrendous you deem them unworthy of typing.
Joe has masters he has to serve so he cant vote for Schilling, what's your excuse for involving him with Bonds and Clemens?
How about you read my articles and find out for yourself instead of jumping to conclusions?
How about you rephrase your original comment to not compare rape and wife beating to mean tweets? Dont need to pour through your sanctimonious articles to read your bullshit reasons for including someone with a spotless baseball record woth two of the games biggest cheaters.
RTFA(s) or please go away I’ll even link one for you
https://www.coveringthecorner.com/2021/12/20/22817564/final-ballot
I think I've figured it out.
Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, and even Schilling are all jerks.
No one likes them. All the contortions over PEDs and the like are simply ways to find justification for "This guy is a jerk, and I don't want him in the Hall."
You're not seeing those mental gymnastics that much with Big Papi, because he's LIKEABLE.
And there's similarly not the same level of volume with A-Rod, because while he might be a jerk, he isn't shying from the public eye. He's there on FOX Sports, not off hiding somewhere. And in fairness, much of the perceived jerkishness was a fabrication by the NY tabloid press (especially when he just couldn't manage to carry them over the line into the World Series - like there weren't 24 other players on the team).
Counterpoint: Jack Morris is also a jerk, but he was voted in
Great piece! Let me know if you need a testimonial for The Jimmy Rollins Experience. That guy made my Phillies tick!
It’s interesting that there is very little discussion of Rafael Palmeiro in this context.
I come down on the side of DHs being worthy HOF candidates if they are incredibly good hitters, as players such as Edgar Martinez and David Ortiz are. However it confuses me that a similarly talented hitter but poor defensive player such as Gary Sheffield could be so strongly penalized simply because his team couldn't hide him as a DH.
It appears Joe is going to bring up this same point with comparing Ortiz and Sheffield. Just comparing Sheffield to Edgar, sheffield leads in bbrefs owar 81-67 as well as in WPA 60-44.
Besides the obvious huge negative defensive value Sheffield had, there's also the steroid allegations and the fact that he was kind of a jerk. It would be absolutely insane if he gets in without first Barry Bonds getting in. Personally, I would like them both in.
I see a clear distinction between Sheffield and Bonds (and others).
Tom Verducci said it better than I can:
"Sheffield is the only star I know who, as an active player, without provocation admitted to using steroids; he did so in a 2004 SI story I wrote. Why would he make an admission? Because, he told me, he had testified under oath that he had been duped into using them.
"Sheffield said he told the BALCO grand jury the previous year that Bonds arranged for him to use 'the cream,' 'the clear' and 'red beans,' which prosecutors identified as steroid pills from Mexico. Sheffield, however, said he was told the substances were legal arthritic balms or nutritional supplements.… When he later learned that the BALCO products were steroids, he told me, 'I was mad. I want everybody to be on an even playing field.'
"That’s it; we have no evidence that ties Sheffield to steroids other than those several weeks before the 2002 season when Sheffield lived at Bonds’s home. Even during that 2002 season, when players were resisting the idea of steroid testing, Sheffield spoke out in favor of it [see here], saying, 'I would like to see testing. I mean you see how much guys are using it. Unless you’ve got something to hide, you won’t mind testing, right?'"
This post caused me to pull up Mark McGwire's stats, as basically the only HoF caliber PED user to admit and apologize for using steroids. There's an interesting discussion that could be had about what his admission did to his HoF chances, and whether that's what we think *should* have happened. It's likely that had he put up the same career without steroids, McGwire would have been a no-doubt Hall-of-Famer. His black ink/JAWS/etc. are right about at the average of HoF first basemen, and his fame/intangibles would have been immense. At the same time, if steroids had even a moderate effect on his performance, then without them he would have had little chance at the Hall.
But what jumped out at me on McGwire's baseball-reference page was his fielding in '98. Due to his record-breaking hitting, this was McGwire's best season by WAR, at 7.5, despite a career-worst -16 fielding component. However, McGwire's range factor was the BEST in the National League that year. I know that RF is imprecise, but how is that massive discrepancy possible?
(On Fangraphs, his '98 WAR is 8.5, and his fielding component is still a career-worst)
1. Alex Rodriguez also admitted and apologized for PED use.
2. Range Factor for a 1B includes all putouts -- simply catching the ball thrown by another infielder. In 1998, he lead the NL in putouts but he wasn't in the top ten in assists, mostly plays where he ranged to the side then tossed to the covering pitcher. I don't see a way to break down the data to individual fielders, but the Cardinals as a team were below average in 363 and 361 double plays, just slightly above average in 3U putouts, and 2nd overall in putouts on force plays. And McGwire's lead in RF/G was miniscule, 0.04 plays over Travis Lee.
DH is a position and it takes a player who creates negative value (usually) in the field away and allows them to be valuble.
Pitchers cant hit. DHs usually cant field. Do we ding AL pitchers who suck at hitting for not hitting at all due to the DH? Should an NL pitcher who cant hit have that held against them?
AL pitchers are basically Designated Pitchers. Should they have to be Walter Johnson level great to be considered HOF?
Pitchers hitting are not comparable. No one ever dings a bad hitting pitcher. Hitting well as a pitcher has never prolonged a career. It simply does not matter.
DH's receive a very heavy WAR penalty. It would take a very bad fielder at a position considered a weak defensive position to equal it.
A pitcher’s hitting is such a small fraction of his worth, good or bad. There are 27 outs in a game, and a typical batter only gets 4 plate appearances, so a pitcher’s pitching value is about seven times higher than his hitting. This scales for shorter games too, since a three inning pitcher still has to get 9 outs and may only get a single at bat.
Exactly. A part time player who plays only 6 or 7 innings every 5 days and doesnt contribute with the glove or bat, not really a complete ball player. Then you AL pitchers who dont do anything but pitch. DH doesnt sound so bad.
Let's do a little math. The fundamental "unit" if you will of baseball is the Plate Appearance. Every play begins with a batter stepping up to the plate - and we are instantly in a one-on-one situation: the Pitcher vs. the Batter. Every "plate appearance" by a batter is also a "batter faced" by the pitcher. Right?
In a typical start (say, five innings these days), a pitcher will face somewhere around twenty batters - four batters per inning. They do that every five days. In that same five day period, a starting player will have maybe 20 plate appearances.
Interesting how that works out! A hitting player will step up to the plate about the same number of times that a pitcher will face a batter!
Don't forget, once the pitcher lets go of the ball, they instantly become a fielder.
So.... who contributes more over the course of a month? A season?
The gymnastics Joe has to do to justify voting for these guys is Olympic level. He could simply state he doesnt care if players cheated.
Now if they mean tweeted or got accused of hitting a woman but never charged hed really have a tough time.
Its like he has cancel culture masters standing behind him as he writes now.
Does looking at our current Hall really indicate to you that cheating bars the entry of otherwise great players? Sure, Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe don't make the cut, but after that you have spitballers, corked bat users, sign-stealers, amphetamine users, you name it. Hell, as Joe points out, there are almost certainly steroid users in the Hall right now.
In my mind, enough of Canseco's once-ridiculed claims about PED use in MLB have been vindicated that we as fans have to seriously consider the possibility that his 75% number is essentially on the money. Even if it's off a bit-- 65%, say, or even 55%-- that would still mean a majority of MLB players were using at the time. Do you REALLY think that your favorite star from that era is clean? How about your second-favorite? Keep going down the list, and let me know when you think the cheaters start cropping up.
The only difference between Bonds and these players you watched is that he was already an inner-circle guy before he started using, and as a result, his post-PED play was so otherworldly that he was scapegoated for the entire scandal that the league ignored and tacitly endorsed for years. Hell, his drug use didn't even come out with a failed test; it was the result of a years-long investigation by media.
If even the supposed face of PED use didn't get caught by MLB's dragnet, how can we take the "clean record" of so many other guys seriously? The truth is that we can't. The only totally "consistent" vote for a ballot from this era is a completely empty slate or one that contains at least some PED guys. You can quibble with individual dudes for other reasons, like their decision to keep using after MLB cracked down or off-the-field allegations of DV, but barring known PED users AS A CLASS from the Hall while still taking this era's "clean" players at face value just doesn't seem defensible, given what we know.
Bonds was not an in circle guy before. Youre using lazy things other people said, that doesnt make it true. Just because other cheaters made it in doesnt mean new ones get a free pass either.
In 1920 you would have let the White Sox of the hook because players had thrown games before.
Its baseballs own fault. Everyone knew cheating with PEDs was wrong and it carried a many potential risks leagally and for their legacy. If Gaylord Perry started doctoring the ball to the level of 42 wins and 400 k's im sure he would be banned.
Once Bonds Mcgwire and Sosa took it to absurd game ruining levels and broke the game, sorry game over.
Yup some slipped in some arent going to. But lets not punish people who cheated cause others didnt get caught. Great logic.
After telling me Bonds was a shoe in before he used,any other oft repeated nonsense you want to thrown in that is lie.
"Baseball is a nine man game"
"Yankees win with home grown talent"
Man is there an original thought here? Just admit you dont see a problem with PEDs or you arent smart enough to figure the situation out, so you givee up and parrot Joe.
Leaving aside the rest of this, your evaluation of Barry Bonds' pre-steroids career is bad enough that I'm not sure how to respond. By 1999, Bonds had a triple slash of .290/.411/.556, won 3 MVPs, and accumulated 99.6 WAR. Oh, and he was also the only member of the 400/400 club (a distinction he still holds to this day). You can dispute the "inner circle" part I suppose, but saying that career is anything less than a "shoe-in" only makes sense if you let your knowledge of what comes afterwards color your perception of the career I just laid out.
Oh he only cheated since 1999? I dont buy that. So he was Juan Gonzalez at that point. How did that turn out?
You can choose not to buy that all you want, but most credible investigations into Bonds' cheating put that as the starting date based on all the evidence we have available. You need some pretty strong proof beyond "I just don't like the guy and am working backwards from that" if you want to challenge that consensus. When did you think Bonds started cheating, out of curiosity, and why have you arrived on that date as your clear answer?
As a follow-up, if Bonds wasn't a clear HoF talent before steroids, why didn't more steroid players reach his heights? Like I wrote earlier, tons of guys were using. None of them came particularly close to what Bonds did, and I don't think you can even begin to explain that discrepancy if you restrict your answer to only include "his drugs were just better."
From what I know about Bonds and the truth there is no such thing. I have no idea when he started cheating. I put a cloud on him from ASU till the end of his career.
Bonds managed to avoid crippling injuries to a better extent than many other PED players. Wether thats luck, genetics or better drugs IDK. AROD was able to largely avoid them as well and it took a suspension to slow him down.
Other players did reach his heights. Caminiti had an absurd MVP season but was also drinking and using other drugs that led to his death. Sosa hit 60 home runs 3 times (Bonds only once) McGwire of course hit 70 before injuries derailed him. Sheffield was able to hit 500, Palmereio able to hang around enough for 500 and 3000. Ramirez had suspensions derail him.
Bonds was able to cheat, not sustain injury or suspension.
His article is about the gymnastics.
Regarding Bonds, the statement that he never failed a drug test is wrong. He tested positive for amphetamines in 2006. You may not remember because the reaction to this news was a collective yawn. Nobody cared.
If Bonds or Clemens or whoever only tested positive for amphetamines, they'd currently be 1st ballot HoFers who received 99.8% of the vote
But steroids are different. That's probably the issue we all have to resolve. I personally think they are different because they call into question the legitimacy of the sport. Is what we are seeing real? The same goes for gambling, which calls into question whether we are seeing a true competition or not.
Steriods are worse than gambling.
Not to mention that Bonds admitted taking steroids, albeit unknowingly.
Bonds did not admit to taking steroids.
I've said this before, but taking PEDs has never been a problem in MLB. The problem was created when the science behind PEDs got too good.
Of course he did. There were many stories about it at the time, like this one- https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/lawyer-bonds-didnt-know-he-used-steroids/2011/03/22/AB5TcUIB_story.html
Another good write up Joe. I too am tired of the yearly debate. Now how many years before they are eligible for veteran committee election? At least that won’t be an annual affair.
And one correction. Didn’t Rodriguez basically admit that he used steroids when he accepted his year long suspension. So he and McGuire make a club of 2?
And didn't ARod cop to taking in Texas?
Counterpoints to Joe's DH take: it's not an elective position. If the DH is available, a player is going to be a DH. If there was no designated hitter in the American League, you better believe whatever team David Ortiz played for would have shoehorned him in at first base or even some corner outfield position once in awhile, and how much of a hit would that be to his overall WAR considering he's already penalized as a DH? Same with Edgar. (One other thing: how many full-time DHs do we really talk about, anyway? Edgar Martinez and David Ortiz, these days Nelson Cruz, who will probably fall just short of the HoF... the other DH-only guys just didn't have long enough careers. Think Billy Butler. There just aren't that many. But I digress.)
Then, hitting in baseball is NOWHERE NEAR as peripheral as kicking in football. Nobody writes analytically-minded "teams should almost never try to get a hit" articles along the lines of "teams should almost never punt". And kicking field goals is important, sure, but to me it's like hitting singles, and even if a team had a almost-never-kick-a-field-goal philosophy - someone want to run the math on expected points for a team that never tries a FG and never punts, touchdowns or death? Radical, man! Anyway. Yeah, someone has to kick off, but that's the only time a team NEEDS a kicker. Not saying teams don't want a good field goal kicker, but hitting in baseball is everything on offense, as opposed to kicking in football.
Last, what do you call the greatest middle relievers of all time? You don't call them anything because immediately they either turn into a starter or a closer, so I like that analogy even less than kicker in football. And so, I don't penalize DH types hardly at all. Rather, they just don't get the boost in HoF argument that an Andruw Jones or for that matter an Ozzie Smith might get. There ya go.
Let's agree that any team (other than the Twins and Mariners for whom such an assumption is counterfactual) would have put him somewhere on the field. Can we assume continued health? We know that the last few years as his Achilles turned to ashes he basically couldn't move at all. Force him to move around even if just to receive throws from his infielders and what happens?
And what does Hall of Fame DH Harold Baines need to do to get some respect from you?!?! :)
All I can say is that he'd have been atrocious at first base on defense at the end of his career. But hey, it's Big Papi, and a .900 OPS stays on the field no matter how bad the defense is. Just make sure the rest of the field knows how to throw really accurately (and make sure your right fielder knows how to field grounders).
Harold Baines! Haha his election works for me. A "professional hitter" AND a designated hitter.
Sorry I wasn’t clear. I know his bat would be good enough to be on the field even with really bad D. I just wonder if adding fielding to his physical duties would have tipped him from hurt but playing to simply too hurt to even hit.
Ahh... yeah I suppose that's a counterfactual which will remain exactly that. Good question. One thing though: I can't think of too many times a first baseman has been injured while playing defense. Actually, none come to mind, although I'm sure it's happened.
Harmon Killebrew ruptured his hamstring reaching for a throw in the 68 All Star Game.
Cliff Floyd?
Dodgers 1B Max Muncy missed the playoffs this year following a collision at the base.
But I’m more talking about general wear and tear, not specific dramatic injuries. Or said differently, who are the 6’3” 265# NL players or AL not at DH with any career post 32?
To me, the argument against Bonds, Clemens etc. has nothing to do with them being cheaters per se or that they broke cherished records while allegedly cheating or that they wrecked baseball. It has to do with the authenticity question -- what would their numbers be without the use of PEDs? What do their numbers actually mean? It is hard enough comparing players of different eras without the PED issue (i.e. starting pitchers and wins, complete games, strikeouts etc. given the changing nature of the game). PEDs make such already difficult (but fun) comparisons essentially impossible. You (Joe) correctly state that the HOF is supposed to be reserved for those who can surmount the harsh and judgmental questions -- length of career, peak vs. counting stats, win enough games, role of post-season etc. The PEDs guys have taken the conversation away from such questions. I look forward to the day when the PED guys are off the ballot -- whether in the HOF or not (although I assume this will continue via debates about whether the various committees should vote in the PED players) -- and the questions you raise are what we are all debating once again.
I don’t interpret what Joe said about all the gauntlets one has to get thru to get elected to the HOF the way you do. You think - and think that Joe thinks- the HOF is supposed to work that way. I interpret his post as saying that this is the way it works (in my mind it certainly is), not that it should work that way. Not sure if Joe would agree with that.
Just to be clear, I wasn't saying - nor did I intend to say that Joe was saying -- that a player needed to affirmatively surmount all of the questions Joe raised to make the HOF. Rather, I intended to say that these are the questions the voters -- and non-voting fans - generally asked in considering the players' candidacies pre-PEDs. I look forward to those days again when questions of cheating and its impact are no longer part of that debate.
I read something earlier this winter that pointed out that Ortiz basically admitted to failing an amphetamine post-testing because he was complaining about how frequently he gets tested and apparently the way testing was negotiated via the CBA, players can only be tested a certain number of times unless they fail a test for amphetamines, which the first failed test doesn't get released and just results in the player getting a slap on the wrist and more frequent testing and the second failed test is what results in the suspension a la Carlos Ruiz back in the day.
willie mays and the purple juice. pull down his plaque.
I, uh, don't think I said anything like that. Just pointing out that it's likely more than one failed test for Ortiz
and amphetamines weren't banned until 2006
don't follow. i have no idea what you're referencing, never saw anything re ortiz and greenies. so if he was doing greenies, he was doing roids? be good if you could dig up that source...
I honestly have no idea what your point is at this point other than you really like David Ortiz and just think he's the swellest, but he's the story, which includes Ortiz saying in 2009 that he gets tested a lot. I know math may be tough but 2009 is after 2006: https://awfulannouncing.com/2015/dan-shaughnessy-fires-back-at-david-ortiz-actually-makes-compelling-argument.html
i do really like him. and will believe any accusation re roids about any superstar of that era. and the shit he said to shaunessy was nonsense. but he certainly doesn't "basically admit" to doing greenies. he's just wildly exaggerating his testing frequency. what we know is: he failed the test tests, the ones the commissioner said were unreliable. and we know of no other test, for any substance, that he failed.
So Bonds and Clemens are denied enshrinement because they did something that was not illegal, was tacitly encouraged, was done by many other players (we assume), and made them better players (or at least get better results), but somehow now impinges on our sense of "what's right."
By that logic every pre-1947 Hall of Famer should be out because they never had to face Satchel Paige or pitch to Josh Gibson. It wasn't their fault, it wasn't illegal, and everyone did it but it still impinges on my sense of "what's right." For goodness' sake let them in and kill the debate.
And every Negro Leaguer should be kicked out for not facing Cy Young and Babe Ruth? Wasnt their fault but still.
I can see both sides. More than just steroids, Bonds and Clemons are being punished (rightly or wrongly) for using them to break the game. Other likely steroid users didn’t streak as brightly in their later years as Bonds or Clemens, and don’t draw the wrath of fans as much. Most people still don’t remember how many HRs Bonds hit as a sacred number like 714 (or later 755) was.
well, it was illegal. it wasn't yet against the rules of baseball, which are not laws. just like greenies weren't -- likely consumed by 90% of the post-50s players in the hall. but unsubscribed PEDs were illegal. why do you think these guys were jabbing each others' asses in bathroom stalls? it's a weird distinction, pre or post belated MLB and MLBPA action. there were cheating. they knew they were, owners, selig, all players and journalists knew what was going on. the onion slicing is nuts. either the character clause means something, or the hall should do away with it.
Well murder isnt banned in baseball specifically either. If Bonds started using his bat to decapitate opponents, I guess its a gray area and merely frowned upon. .
It was against the rules of baseball in 1991.
The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel is strictly prohibited. Major League players or personnel involved in the possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance are subject to discipline by the Commissioner and risk permanent expulsion from the game…
This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids or prescription drugs for which the individual in possession of the drug does not have a prescription.
exactly