As the BBWAA prepares to announce its newest class of Hall of Fame inductees, we asked our staff to fill out their own ballots using the list of players eligible for enshrinement in Cooperstown. Forty ballots were submitted, so players needed to garner at least 30 votes to earn a Baseball Prospectus nod to the Hall, and to notch at least two votes to remain in consideration next year.
Under BBWAA rules—namely, the 10-player voting limit—our 2015 Hall of Fame class features eight players. (The number of ballots on which each player appeared and the percentage that number represents are in parentheses.)
- Randy Johnson (39, 97.50%)
- Pedro Martinez (39, 97.50%)
- Jeff Bagwell (36, 90.00%)
- Barry Bonds (35, 87.50%)
- Roger Clemens (34, 85.00%)
- Mike Mussina (34, 85.00%)
- Mike Piazza (34, 85.00%)
- Tim Raines (34, 85.00%)
Among the players scrapped from consideration next year were Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, who each received only one vote (2.50%).
To see just how restrictive the 10-player limit is in a year in which the list of eligible players is teeming with potentially worthy names, we gave each of our voters the option to tack additional players onto their ballots. The impact was significant: It made all the difference for four down-ballot hopefuls and kept four of the endangered alive.
With the cap lifted, Curt Schilling added seven votes (36, 90.00%), Craig Biggio picked up nine (35, 87.50%), and Alan Trammell doubled his vote total, from 16 to 32 (80.00%). John Smoltz surged an astounding 21 votes, from 10 to 31 (77.50%). Each of these increases was sufficient for the players to earn their plaques, as far as we're concerned.
Edgar Martinez, who garnered support from only 15 voters with the 10-player ceiling, came just one vote shy of induction (29, 72.50%) with the restriction lifted.
Meanwhile, Gary Sheffield and Sosa—who were mired down the list at one vote under BBWAA rules—rose to eight votes, well more than the two needed to remain under consideration. Jeff Kent, who failed to appear on a single ballot, drew six votes when the balloting was opened up. Finally, Fred McGriff, who had one vote with the 10-player ceiling, got the additional one he needed to secure a spot on the ballot for induction in 2016.
You can view each staff member's ballot, and the full results, by navigating the tabs in the spreadsheet embedded below.
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Con: "Only 219 Wins! Fewer than Jerry Reuss", "Only two 20-win seasons!", "Aside from his 1993-1994 stint with the Padres, he was terrible!", "He can't be unanimous because reasons!"
Pro: Duh, of course he should be in.
He'll get in, but with a percentage that makes you scratch your head. I suspect at least a few "Back in my day!" writers will overlook him.
First, the gamesmanship theory a la Kevin Gaussman. Second, if you have a fundamental view that the Hall is for excellence over time and you think his career was simply too short. He has 1/2 - 2/3 the IP of the guys in the Hall. You'd likewise argue against Koufax, Schilling, and others with short careers. Not saying I agree with it, but it's a reasonable way to view things.
1) The gamesmanship of Matt Sussman. Right or wrong that he has to make a choice is dumb.
2) That Smoltz and Biggio don't get in with the 10 limit while in the public vote they're going to finish 3rd and 4th or 5th and almost certainly get in. And that feels legit to me. If you look past PEDs, there are 8 slam dunk Hall of Fame players on the ballot. And then there's a pretty good argument that Smoltz and Trammell aren't the two best remaining players. Yet Biggio gets a lot of support for the magic 3000 hits and Smoltz gets votes... I guess because Braves.
3) There are four guys with what appears to be middling support who get in or come close when ballots are extended.
I suspect the reason we don't see this in reality is a combination of group think (everyone votes for Smoltz and Biggio) and enough people omit Bonds, Clemens, and to a lesser degree Bagwell and Piazza, allowing them to vote for the top 13 or 14 players.
Of course as one commenter said, if we just put all those guys in last year or the year before, we wouldn't have this logjam.
Hoping the actual results put 5 guys in with Bagwell very, very close.
As for Sosa ... I just think it's tough to say he's one of the top 10 guys on the ballot. He's an extended ballot guy for me. So he's worthy IMO, just not as worthy as at least 10 others.
"but I find it odd that there seems to be NOBODY at BP who considers this issue as relevant while a large proportion of baseball fans of good will (including myself, to be honest) do consider it relevant."
Welcome to the arrogancy that is Baseball Prospectus.
This entire self-flagellation over Clemens and Bonds is only relevant to those who still continue to ignore PEDs. For those willing to write-off the cheaters, a 10-man ballot is more than enough.
You are quick to pick up on the degree of group-think reflected in these numbers which are such a distortion from the reality which we will see from a wide and diverse voting group next week.
Look for the article here which will ridicule the consensus which will no doubt differ from the enlightened intelligentsia of Baseball Prospectus.
Seems like the older guys wouldn't give a hoot much like JFK got a pass from the press on womanizing but Clinton didn't, but they seem to hate the Roiders.
It's a rabbit-hole that never ends, even it you avoid the question of 'who else was using that we don't know about'.
The penalties for ped use are so ridiculously lenient that having your whole career besmirched and being precluded from the recognition of being voted into the HOF is the only effective deterrent.
Then your second paragraph totally negates the first one by revealing how committed you are to playing the judgmental card.
Except that doesn't stop Olympians or pro-cyclers at all (nor does the NCAA officially removing wins/championships seem to dissuade recruiting and eligibility shenanigans). If 50+ game bans aren't enough to dissuade people, HOF ineligibility sure as heck won't either. Doesn't mean you have to like them or vote for them or anything, but don't think that's any sort of meaningful deterrent.
Good observation JohnnyB.
I've always thought that the reason the sabr community, especially here at BP, doesn't want to include PEDs in the discussion is that they render PECOTA a house of cards.
The comps are essentially worthless (the wrecked data sets for 20 years you mention) and without PECOTA much of the analysis here is compromised at best, corrupted at worst.
Seems pretty logical and obvious but you'll only get shouted down as a dissenting opinion here.
So the arguments fall into the following categories
1. Who cares about statistics ? Interesting response on a baseball prospectus website
2. I drink coffee, so I don't care ( everyone does it argument ) and its corrolary - Ty Cobb was a racist
3. I don't know who else cheated massively so I won't penalize the obvious cheaters
4 I don't want to think about this, so I wont
I would vote Clemens and Bonds in if I had a ballot, simply because both were the best in baseball before they were assumed to be using. They remained the best in the game while using. And if the assumption is that PED usage was so rampant and that so many were using, then that means they didn't gain any real advantage (since 'everyone' was using)...and they were still *that much better* than their contemporaries.
Regardless, I think it breaks down to a fairly simple observation, at least in my mind. The HoF is, more than anything else, a museum to the game of baseball. The Steroid Era happened, just as the era of excluding African-American players happened....yet we still acknowledge the players from that era who may not have ever seen a field if African-Americans had been allowed to play.
The Hall is a museum that records the history of the game. To pretend the Steroid Era didn't happen is to ignore the history of the game. IMHO.
I put PEDs in the same category as pitchers who doctor the ball. MLB can (and should) police it as they see fit, but at the end of the day, what happens on the field is what happens on the field and no hypotheticals should replace that, just as we don't give the World Series Trophy to the team with the best adjusted-third-order-Winning-Percentage.
Gambling and match-rigging are different, I think, because they involve players being in positions where they aren't necessarily trying to win. That is unacceptable.
Please spare us your self-righteousness please.
Lastly, in the future back up your opinions with some facts.
I don't know enough about the 'greenies' era to comment, but I believe you're correct on that issue. I've heard they were so widely used that teams would spike the coffee in the clubhouse. Don't know if that's true either, but read it somewhere.
You know what would happen to the baseball HOF if all the PED users were voted in? Nothing.
Love these types of discussion! Good work!
Don't hide behind weasel words and comments like "I don't care if they took peds,".
If you vote for Bonds you are saying "Baseball players should take peds if it will improve their performance".
If that's what you really feel then it's time to be honest and admit it.
1) They played during the post-strike era when it was clear that MLB itself was in effect condoning the use of PEDs by deliberately looking the other way while luring fans back with increased offensive output;
2) "Condone" means "to disregard or overlook," or (as per the OED) "approve or sanction (something), especially with reluctance (from the Latin condonare, "refrain from punishing")."
I don't think that's the same thing as saying "Baseball players should take PEDs if it will improve their performance." It's more like saying "While I wish no one had ever taken PEDs, or that baseball had actively sought to discover and punish those who did without allowing it to run rampant, I understand and am willing to forgive PED usage during that time," the same way some voters forgive pre-enforcement amphetamine usage, or carving the baseball, or corked bats.
It's not a position I'm pleased to have, or one I have come to without any thought on the matter. If I could truly identify those who did and didn't use with some degree of certainty, and it was a pretty small percentage of players that did use, then I'd probably be far more willing to argue against those players because I would know their career numbers may well be unfairly inflated compared to the vast majority of their peers. But I don't know that, and probably never will, which leaves me these options:
(a) picking and choosing to exclude admitted or accused users or players with a suspicious career arc, knowing that I may well still be voting for players that used or against players that didn't;
(b) excluding everyone from that era, since they may have been a user, knowing that I may well be voting against players that were clean; or
(c) admitting I don't have a clue who really did or didn't use, and disregard steroids altogether in my decision.
None of those options taste like pumpkin pie, but for me (c) tastes the least like sewer rat since I'd rather punish no one than punish the innocent or treat many players who may have committed the same sin unequally. There's too much uncertainty for me to go with (a) or (b).
If that's "condoning", so be it. We can talk again when a player like Braun, whose major league career is entirely post-enforcement, comes up for a vote.
Thanks for the considered response. Option c is just too convenient I'm afraid.
We all know who we are talking about here, and its unfortunate that the two players involved (Bonds and Clemens) were so talented that they would have walked into the HOF without Peds but now must be used as an example to others and never allowed in.
Most officials chalked it up to weight training. Whether that was a convenient curtain to hide behind, I don't know, but it certainly wasn't the training staff and team doctors medicating these guys.
And I still don't get what's wrong with penalizing "only the few". That's how the real world works. some people lie, rob and steal and get caught and others don't. It doesn't mean you conclude that the behavior is ok. What is it about Palmeiro, Bonds, Clemens, Petitte, Sheffield, McGwire that you don't know?
if you want to say that you don't have the goods on bagwell, piazza, biggio, thomas, etc, that seems perfectly fine.
and finally, it seems that this group of writers could find a statistical way to show which players are likely to have been roiders. you have data before and after the roid cycle, you have enough data on players who did use and how it impacted their performance and aging curves, shouldn't you be able to model who is likely to have used based on performance outside the norm?
MLB "leaped" into action by unilaterally implementing drug-testing. On minor leaguers. In 2001. With the need for four failed tests to lose a full season. It took many more years for public pressure to bring MLB and the MLBPA kicking and screaming to anything resembling an effective enforcement regime.
Up to and during that time, I personally believe many, many players used. Some of them because they didn't care; some of them because they saw others using and felt they needed to in order to compete. If I had been a player in 1998 and saw how users were going unpunished, and how I might be at a competitive disadvantage if I didn't use, I'd like to think I still wouldn't use. But, frankly, I'm not sure that I wouldn't, so I personally would feel hypocritical chastising those who did. Here's what Helling said in 1998: "It's one thing to be a cheater, to be somebody who doesn't care whether it's right or wrong. But it's another thing when other guys feel like they have to do it just to keep up. And that's what's happening." I agree with him.
So what I don't know about Palmeiro, Bonds, Clemens, Pettitte, and Sheffield is whether they would have used without already knowing so many of their peers were using. And I probably will never know that. And as I said before, that's what makes me willing to overlook usage by players during that particular time. I can respect why others wouldn't make that exception and say that cheating is cheating regardless of the circumstances, but that's why I continue to "vote" for Bonds and Clemens. When these discussions come up for post-enforcement players like Braun, I may very well draw a completely different conclusion.
To your last point, while the lack of exact information on who used and when they used makes it harder, I totally agree that you could model careers in such a way that you can identify which players were more likely to have taken steroids. That information wouldn't change my "vote," since my vote isn't based on a denial of usage or a denial that usage may have increased productivity, but it might for others.
I'm not trying to convince anyone that they're wrong for thinking admitted or proven PED users should be banned from the Hall; that's a perfectly reasonable and acceptable position. Just trying to explain why my position is different.
Last year a full 10 names were submitted on the ballot for 50% of the voters.
The previous high in any year was 23%.
So for the previous 75 years of baseball, the imposed limits were perfectly adequate (and even acceptable for 50% of the voters last year).
The reason we have a backlog now is that a host of PED users have been passed over by a majority of the voters that others still cling to.
Without consideration of PEDs, those players would ALREADY be in the Hall (given the few admissions in the past 5 years) and 10 votes would be more than enough to consider the other candidates this year (just like it has been for the entire past history of the Hall).
It seems the frustration by those who continue to campaign for PED users (and inability to accept the views of the majority of the current voters) has lead them to suggest a different set of rules that would allow them to bang their drum.
1. Steroids have no effect upon performance.
2. The effect of steroids can't be quantified.
3. Even if the effect of steroids could be quantified on an individual basis, there is no way to quantify the effect across MLB.
4. Even if we could quantify the effect across MLB, the numbers of users is so small that its not worth worrying about.
5. Even if the numbers of users was large enough to make a difference, both pitchers and hitters were users, so the effect is a wash to the game.
6. Even if steroids did have an effect on the game, isn't it better for the game if we just turn the page and move on?
7. Who Cares?
Some of the postings cover many of these issues.
I guess Russell has finally worked though all of the other arguments to reach
"I don't care"
As least he is one BP writer who has made some progress in his own admissions.
And if I was coming up on a contract negotiation where tens of millions of dollars were at stake, perhaps even hundreds of millions, I would have used, too.
And for all of you goody-two-shoes who swear you would not get your fingernails dirty even if it might mean tens of millions of dollars to you, I call 99% of you self-deluded liars.
Okay. All of the holier-than-thou moralists can begin bashing me now, but in your hearts you know I speak the truth..
Steroids were against the rules (... yes, they were controlled substances and were against the rules unless prescribed by a doctor (which in this case they weren't)).
Some players took them (illicitly). The rules weren't enforced. Then, according to the current narrative, more players took them. Until longstanding records were being shattered, and the legacy of our national pastime was being tarnished.
Every industry has its darker unsavory side. Usually that side of the industry is punished when it exposed to the light. Criminals are prosecuted. Recognition and accomplishments are withdrawn. Even in sports (at least sports other than modern baseball), this is true. Think Lance Armstrong, NCAA recruiting violations, etc. Very few baseball players have been subject to that same scrutiny.
But the HOF is an honor bestowed AFTER the fact. To individuals. By a collective group of individual professionals whose livelihood is based on the people being recognized. And who are responsible (to some degree) of creating the narrative that defines the legacy of the sport.
I hold myself to the highest professional and personal standards, and II expect the writers casting ballots to do the same. I expect a vast majority of them are, within the context of their own perspectives on the issue.
I don't think I could vote for Bonds and Clemens, if I had a vote. I don't find (my perception of) their behavior and their presumed choices to be worthy of the enshrinement. Others I'm less sure about. But tomorrow I might change my position, to allow my opinion to be swayed by a persuasive and well-reasoned argument, either for Barry and Roger, or against other suspects. A voters job in this circumstance is to pass judgment on the players. I don't think it's an easy choice, and as a fan, I try not to pass judgment on the writers who cast those ballots.
- If you let everyone in based on their stats and accomplishments alone, then you are screwing the guys who stayed clean (PEDs CAN work; look at Bonds' baseball card). Taken to its logical conclusion, ARod must be elected to the HOF. I feel a need to shower just typing that.
- If keep you only the most the most likely/egregious offenders (we all know who) out but let in guys who there is some question on (Ortiz, Bagwell, Piazza, etc), well, you will be right on some and wrong on others and therefore be making wrong calls.
- If you paint a broad brush ad keep everyone with some question out, well, you will be keeping some guys who did not use out.
Letting everyone in PEDs or no is the cleanest solution in that you do not have to make hard (and in many cases inaccurate) decisions about who used and who did not use, and I think that intellectual clarity entices folks in the analytic community. But it's still wrong.
Because all the answers are wrong. Which makes the HOF was a casualty of the steroid era. What a crying shame.