It’s that time of year again: Hall of Fame ballot time.
This year marked something of an evolution for me, in more ways than one.
First, I voted for nine players, easily the most I’ve ever had on a single ballot. I believe my previous high was five.
Secondly, this marks the first time I voted for players I have strong reason to believe were PED users.
Some general thoughts and then, a player-by-player explanation/rationale:
• I’ve always been a “small Hall’’ voter – that is, I believed that only the very best of the best belonged in Cooperstown. My general rule of thumb was: if I had to think long and hard about a particular candidate, that alone was reason enough not to vote for him.
I haven’t really changed my stance or lowered my standards. But I now feel as though I was being too rigid in my thinking. That contributed to my voting for two players I had resisted voting for in the past.
In the recent past, I scoffed at the suggestion of some colleagues who complained that restricting ballots to a maximum of 10 was too limiting. Too limiting? That was absurd to someone who had never gone over the half-way point on his ballot.
Now, however, I can see their point. I doubt I’ll ever have to make the decision to exclude someone for whom I want to vote – I’m at nine this time because I’ve changed my mind on some players who had been eligible for several years. But you never know.
• The biggest shift in my ballot involves voting for players whom I’m reasonably certain used PEDs during their career.
In the past, I deliberately avoided doing so, reasoning that these players knowingly and deliberately cheated to improve their performance. (And please, no arguments that we don’t know whether PEDs improved performance. Look at the homer numbers during the PED era. To deny the impact of PEDs is to reject logic).
However, I never made it a crusade of mine. I never wagged a finger at a fellow voter or attempted to influence the votes of others. Each voter must compile his ballot as he or she sees fit (Don’t get me started on the ridiculous practice of “grading’’ ballots, as if this were an entirely subjective exercise. This is a Hall of Fame ballot, not the SATs – there are no absolutes).
I still have qualms about voting for players linked to PEDs. I reject the notion that “everyone did it,’’ because, quite frankly, not everybody did it. But it’s now reasonable to assume more players benefited from PEDs than we previously understood.
But a host of factors went into changing my mind.
1) For too long, Major League Baseball looked the other way on PEDs, so it’s not the responsibility of voters to retroactively correct their inaction.
Baseball basked in the glow of the 1998 home run race, led by two players who were known to have used PEDs, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Both players were on the ballot – Sosa remains. It’s not the job of the BBWAA to do what MLB wouldn’t.
2) A number of managers and executives, fully aware of the PED use in the game, have since been enshrined in Cooperstown. How can they be voted in, while we bar the players who helped make them successful?
Tony LaRussa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre were all elected (albeit by the latest iteration of the Veteran’s committee; managers and executives are not eligible for the BBWAA ballot), as was former commissioner Bud Selig. I believe all four to be worthy, but it’s the height of hypocrisy for the players who played for them – or in Selig’s case, under him – to be excluded.
3) The Hall of Fame isn’t some sacrosanct institution. Rather, it’s a museum that reflects baseball history. This isn’t a morality play. Goodness knows, there are racists, scoundrels and others who skirted the rules (good morning to you, Gaylord Perry). To believe otherwise is to ignore the obvious.
4) Precisely because the Hall is first and foremost a museum, it tells the history and story of the game. And for good or ill, PEDs were a significant part of the game from, say, the late 1980s through the first decade of this century. That can’t be ignored by failing to include some players who may have utilized PEDs.
At some point, it becomes impossible to tell the story of Major League Baseball for a period of about 20 years without recognizing that PEDs were part of the game.
5) PED use didn’t begin with steroids. For decades, players routinely ingested “greenies’’ (amphetamines) or other stimulants which provided energy and enabled players to play and perform when they otherwise would be exhausted from travel, hot weather and general fatigue. And while “greenies’’ didn’t distort the record book or impact individual statistics in the way that steroids or HGH did, they were undoubtedly, and by definition, performance-enhancing drugs.
Now that that’s out of the way, here are the players on my ballot.
THE NEWBIES (first-time eligibles):
Chipper Jones: A no-brainer for me. One of the best third basemen in history, and one of the game’s finest switch-hitters, Jones is one of nine players in baseball history to average .300 or better, compile an OBP of .400 or better, a slugging percentage of .500 or better and hit 400 or more homers. The other eight: Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Mel Ott, Stan Musial, Manny Ramirez, Babe Ruth, Frank Thomas and Ted Williams. Case closed.
Jim Thome: Thome was a supreme slugger and stands eighth on the game’s all-time home run list with 612 and is fifth all-time in at-bats per home run. He hit 40 or more homers six times and is one of four players with 500 or more homers, 1,500 or more runs scored, 1,600 or more RBI and 1,700 or more walks.
Andruw Jones: I suspect this might be one of my most controversial choices, but I believe him to be worthy. True, after a strong first decade that saw him on a trajectory to Cooperstown, Jones dropped off precipitously and became a journeyman player in the second half of his career. But in his first nine seasons (1998-2006), only Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez had a higher average WAR (6.1). He won 10 Gold Gloves and for a period of nine years, he saved 192 runs above average in the field, 58 runs more than the next-best player in all of baseball. Add in 434 career homers and that’s enough for me.
HOLDOVERS (players I voted for in previous years):
Vladimir Guerrero: Guerrero was a terrific offensive performer with an incredibly powerful – if somewhat erratic – throwing arm. I place a lot of weight in MVP finishes, and Guerrero won one award and three other times had Top 4 finishes in his league. To be considered one of your league’s top four players four different times in your career suggests dominance.
Curt Schilling: Each year, it gets harder to like Schilling for the way he treats people who disagree with him -- politically and otherwise. But I would never let that impact my voting. His win total (216) may be a little light, but there’s no denying his brilliance on the mound. He has the best strikeout-to-walk ratio of any pitcher after 1900 and his post-season performance (11-2, 2.23 ERA) speaks volumes.
CHANGE-OF-HEART (players I previously didn’t vote for):
Mike Mussina: For years, I regarded Mussina as a very, very good starting pitcher, but one who fell just shy of being Hall-worthy. I focused too much on what Mussina failed to do (he never won a Cy Young Award, didn’t finish with 300 career wins and only once won 20 games in a season), and not enough on what he achieved. Pitching in the powerful AL East for his entire career (which is to say, pitching against mighty lineups in hitter-friendly ballparks) and at the height of the PED era, Mussina was remarkably consistent and durable. And he benefits from some new metrics, including a career WAR of 83.0 that is better than exactly two-thirds of the starting pitchers already enshrined in Cooperstown.
Edgar Martinez: Like Mussina, he was a near-miss for me for many years, and perhaps unconsciously I held it against him that he was mostly a DH and lacked the power numbers usually associated with that offense-only position. But Martinez had a career .933 OPS and his career OPS-plus of +147 means he was almost 50 percent better than the average hitter.
THE PED GUYS
Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds
There’s no need to go over the obvious qualifications, but let’s dispense quickly with the highlights: Clemens won an astounding seven Cy Young Awards and Bonds won an equally amazing seven NL MVP awards.
Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that. Bonds admitted to using “the clear” and “the cream,’’ though he insisted he didn’t know that both were illegal. Clemens has stubbornly refused to acknowledge any use, though there’s actual, anecdotal and circumstantial evidence to suggest otherwise.
But just try and tell the story of baseball from 1986 through 2007 without including Bonds and Clemens. The former was unquestionably the best position player of his era, and the latter could lay claim to being the best starter in that same period.
If I really wanted to rationalize, I could make the case that each player was already Hall-worthy before their suspected PED use began. But that’s a slippery slope, and I’ll continue to evaluate each future candidate with PED suspicion on a case-by-case basis.
TOUGHEST OMISSIONS
Trevor Hoffman: Only one reliever in the history of the game has more saves than Hoffman (601). But he led the NL in saves just twice and there’s a case to be made that Hoffman was more a “compiler’’ than he was dominant all-time great. In the modern game, saves are converted somewhere between 85-to-90 percent of the time, which devalues his career total. Add in his poor postseason performance (blown saves in the 1996 NLDS, 1998 World Series and 2007 tie-breaker) and it gets even harder to make the case.
Omar Vizquel: While Vizquel won 11 Gold Gloves at shortstop, other defense metrics suggest he wasn’t nearly as spectacular as we were led to believe. His .688 career OPS isn’t helping to put him over the top, either. He had one season in 22 in which he finished in the top 20 of MVP voting and was never elected an All-Star.
THE MANNY-BEING-MANNY OMISSION
Having detailed my change-of-heart with Clemens and Bonds, you may be wondering why I chose to leave off Manny Ramirez, since his numbers suggest he's obviously worthy and may well be the game's preeminent righthanded hitter over the last 30 or so years.
As I stated earlier, I'm taking these PED issues on a case-by-case basis. Clemens and Bonds allegedly began their PED use well before MLB had instituted a testing system. That doesn't entirely excuse their use, but it does put it in somewhat of a different light.
Ramirez, by contrast, failed multiple tests. With a clear program in place and penalties established, Ramirez took PEDs anyway. That shows a willful disregard for the rules. If Ramirez didn't care, why should I care about him and his legacy?
And here is Joe McDonald's ballot:
Since many of you have asked, here's my HOF ballot. It's an honor to have a vote. pic.twitter.com/Nuxsog7HDo
— Joe McDonald (@JoeyMacHockey) December 28, 2017