This ballot counts for nothing except the Hall of Fame in my head. I’d vote for:
Tim Raines
Bert Blyleven
Rich Gossage
Alan Trammell
Mark McGwire
That’s it. Post your hypothetical ballots – remember, yours count as much as mine does! – in the comments.
I feel most strongly about the first three names on your list, but I have to admit that I would probably go with the same list you did with the possible exception of Trammell.
Tim Raines
Bert Blyleven
Rich Gossage
Alan Trammell
Mark McGwire
Pete Rose (as a player, obviously)
Mark McGuire deserves to be in tHOF as well as the other HGH/Roids users. (Clemens Bonds and etc)
I’m really upset the Mitchell Report withheld someones name. IMO the Report is about 2% of the names who used HGH/Roids.
Raines
Blyleven
Trammell
Gossage
Trammell really needs to be in.
Tim Raines
Rich Gossage
Bert Blyleven
Shawon Dunston…
Yeah…
Jack Morris,Gossage and Byleven.
Zach: That would imply that around 4300 big leaguers have used steroids or HGH. I’m going to take the under on that.
In no particular order: Blyleven, McGwire, Trammell, and Raines.
Rob – out of curiosity, why no Gossage?
I’m glad to see most folks are on the Raines bandwagon. I hope he at least gets around 50% as a first-timer; he’ll pick up some steam from there, and he’ll get the votes of the writers who don’t vote for first-timers.
In what ways does evidence of a player’s use of illegal performance-enhancing substances affect the way you vote? If actual proof (although it’s already pretty obvious) came out that McGwire used HGH or steroids would you still vote for him? Would you still vote for Bonds and Clemens, despite their use? If so, what about more borderline canditates who, if not for using PED’s, probably wouldn’t even be worthy of HOF discussion?
I’m all for Raines (inspired by the great Posnanski post last week), Blyleven, McGwire and Gossage, but I’m not sure about Trammell. I’ll admit I’m too young to have known who he was as a player – although I would say that also works to my advantage in not being biased for Jim Rice. Anyway, a quick ESPN search got me a couple Neyer pieces about Rice and his clear statistical shortcomings, but I haven’t been able to find anything similar for Trammell, besides a paragraph by Stark about why he DIDN’T vote for Trammell – his main argument being his “10 seasons he ranked below an ‘average’ player of his time” due to OPS+. Is the argument for him based on defense, or perhaps in comparison to other SS like Ozzie Smith?
McGwire, Rice, Gossage, Blyleven, Raines…
Would anyone think twice about Andre Dawson?
My ballot would look like this:
Mark McGwire
Goose Gossage
Tommy John (thanks to surgery)
Pete Rose (write in)
Joe Jackson (write in)
Jose Canseco (write in)
Close but no cigar:
Andre Dawson
Bert Blyleven
Tim Raines
Jim Rice
Canseco but no Dawson? Whaaa?
Canseco was a more dominant player. Dawson’s OBP and SLUG percentage are not HOF worthy. Dawson was definitely a better person and probably loved the game more.
There’s no justification for putting Jackson in. He was a willing participant in a scheme to throw the World Series.
Keith, was he a willing participant, or just afraid to come forward? I honestly do not know, but I thought he hit .375 in the 1919 world series. Pretty gaudy numbers, if they are correct.
He was willing – he did hit .375 for the series, but his hitting was concentrated in the games the Sox were “allowed” to win, and he made a number of crucial misplays in the losses.
When did he come out and say he was willing? Is it documented?
I don’t believe Jackson ever denied it. He accepted the bribe (although he only got 1/4 of what he was promised), and testified under oath that he’d done so.
The late Doug Pappas wrote a good short piece on Jackson’s guilt for Boston Baseball in 1999.
Rock, Blyleven and Gossage. In my made up vote, I am only allowed to vote for three! However, Rice, Trammell and McGwire would round out my top six.
Keith – obviously you do not care about the steroids/HGH issues in fantasy voting, but would you if/when you had/have an actual vote? You must think it would be difficult to pan through the 4,300 users who are now conveniently admitting this week they used the supplements. Another note, how is this a “classy” move? I have not seen you say this, but most people/media members are labeling these players as “men” this week for coming forward. I love the repetitious line, “I used it until I realize I was making a mistake”! Hilarious. They were caught, and now have egg on their faces. Let’s just hope it isn’t egg from KFC chickens, as they may test positive for more substances.
In order:
Gossage
McGuire
Raines
Trammell
Dawson (i’m a cub homer, deal with it)
Jackson and Rose should not be allowed in. Gambling and affecting outcomes of games in a negative fashion has to be the worst type of crime against the game. At least with roids and other junk you’re trying to heighten your performance.
Gambling is worse because it destroys the contest. You might have had a fair idea Bonds took something but most watched his big at bats. Yet if you cannot be sure if one player/team is trying then you are not watching a contest and only morons want to watch that – the WWE do contrived better than baseball players.
Jackson hitting .375 when he and his mates had agreed to blow the series shows him up as an even lower form of life than his cohorts. He showed them up knowing they would lose and he’d have his money. I think he must have been well past the love of the game at that point.
Since we don’t know how much steroids actually help baseball performance, and all available evidence says that HGH doesn’t help athletic performance, I think the only safe route is to forgo using PEDs as a criterion for exclusion. I’d vote for Bonds, Clemens, and Sheffield, to name three who’ve been implicated at some point in this whole (media-fueled) scandal.
In light of these now-proven allegations, I wonder if Morris and Rice will get more respect. Their declines are in line with the physical limitians of the human body as it reaches presidential age(35). And I wonder why people give more respect to Trammell than Jack Morris. If pitching is more important,or at least as important, then he gets the royal shaft. His 3.90 era would be much lower had he pitched in a stadium such as Shea. I remember Juan Gonzales griping about the fact Comerica Park was vastly different to the The Tiger Stadium he had known& loved as a hitter. But somehow sportswriters forget that fact.
I love how PEDs all of a sudden make a hitter better. What a joke. It gives you strength. You still have to hit the ball, have patience, pitch recognition…
I’d have to go with …
Blyleven
Gossage
Rice
Raines
McGwire
Keith, I am somewhat baffled as to why you do not think steroids help baseball performence, when I think there is compelling evidence that they have aided athletes in most types of athletic competition. They can make you run faster,( Ben Johnson), and can make you stronger, ( the 1976 East German olympic swimmers who were clearly tricked ). Both skills would be beneficial to baseball players. Add that to the fact that most of these players improved after age 32, I would argue that the evidence is overwhelmingly the opposite of your position. Not trying to be combative, please do not take it that way.
Two guys not mentioned above that I’d love to see inducted (and Keith, if you could explain why there is seemingly no chance for these two I’d appreciate it):
Dale Murphy (if Dawson is considered, I’d think Dale would have to be also)
Will Clark (in my opinion the best 1B of his era)
Keith: Gossage was simply an oversight. (In my defense, I was seven when he last pitched.) When I made up my fake ballot last year, I didn’t include him, but I was probably thinking of, and unfairly influenced by, his ’89-to-’94 whirlwind tour.
Raines
Gossage
Trammell
McGwire
Mattingly
Goose Gossage (a dominant closer when it actually required you to break a sweat)
Tim Raines (great lead-off hitter – why is his past cocaine use more troubling than Paul Molitors?)
Bret Blyleven (pretty good + longevity = HOF)
Andre Dawson (power + speed + defense. Low OBP, but if that doesn’t HELP others for the HOF, it shouldn’t hurt him here)
No:
Trammell (I find his non-PED era stats underwhelming)
McGwire (Power was his only tool and it might have been aided by PEDs)
Rose (Gambled on baseball [on his team, no less]. Lied, lied, and lied about it.)
Barry – Trammell’s case is based as much on his defense as his offense, although his bat was very good for a shortstop of that era. BP has Trammell’s career Fielding Runs Above Average at 113; for comparison, Omar Vizquel is at 99, Cal Ripken at 113 (in 700 more games), and Dave Concepcion at 124.
Gossage
Raines
Blyleven
Keith… if you really question how much steroids helps player performance, can you explain WHY they took them? They like zits all over their back and shrinking testes? They having trouble getting ladies, so they need to look better?
I’m curious… would you vote for Palmeiro?
Going by what my JAWS system – which compares a candidate’s career and peak Wins Above Replacement Player totals against the same of the already enshrined players at his position – says:
Raines
Trammell
Blyleven
Gossage
By the system, McGwire has the peak value but is slightly short on career value relative to other HOF 1B. I’m not going to bother opening the can of worms in this forum regarding the steroid issue, but I do think that the system’s split decision hints at an important point: McGwire’s peak was probably helped by performance-enhancing drugs, but they were also the likely factor in curtailing his career.
Blyleven
Dawson
Gossage
Murphy
Raines
Trammell
And I’d write in Lou Whitaker.
Blyleven
Gossage
Raines
McGwire