Call of the mild

This year's Hall of Fame ballot is not one of the most appealing in history. Of the newcomers, only one player - Tim Raines - deserves serious Hall consideration, and I'm not sure Rock is worthy either. (His key attribute was his ability to get on base, which he did at a .3854 clip, but that puts him behind guys like Rusty Greer and Dave Magadan. His 123 OPS+ isn't top 250 all-time and rates him with other "good but not great" semi-stars like Ted Kluszewski, Bill Madlock and Kirk Gibson. His 1,571 runs scored is a strong number and nearly everyone ahead of him is in the Hall or will be, but, as we all know, runs are partly dependent on your teammates anyway, and besides that's the only stat in which Raines can credibly be called an immortal.)

So let's look at the guys who are taking another turn on the ballot and hoping they were nice enough to Woody Paige to earn his vote. (Order alphabetical.)

Harold Baines

The Case For: Baines may never have been great, but he was very, very good for a very, very long period of time - his OPS+ was 108 or better every year between 1981 and 1999, and in all but two of those years it was over 110. It's hard to be an above-average player for that long, especially when you play more than half your games at DH and nearly all of the rest in right field. Baines also has 1,628 RBI; nobody with more has ever been kept out of the Hall, though Rafael Palmeiro (1,835) will be an interesting case in a few years.

The Case Against: Baines was never great. Despite well over 10,000 plate appearances and more than 1600 games spent as a DH, he couldn't get to 3,000 hits, and was just a .289 career hitter. When he did play the field, he was a mediocre fielder at the third-least important defensive position. All those RBIs can't hide the fact that RBIs are a terrible way to judge a guy's prowess as a hitter.

Verdict: Baines is one of those almost-but-not-quite kinda guys. If he'd been even 10% better, he might have been a first-ballot type like Paul Molitor, or at least a guy who trickles in after three or four years. But as it stands I think he's on the outside looking in.

Bert Blyleven

The Case For: Aside from Ron Santo, there may not be a bigger injustice in the Hall's history than Blyleven. With 3700+ Ks and a 3.31 career ERA, he'd have coasted in if he could just have gotten to 300 wins. But he played for a lot of bad teams and finished his career 287-250, and all those losses don't look so good when you fell short of the historic milestone that voters love. But Blyleven was a horse - he pitched nearly 5,000 career innings, ranking him 13th all time, and did so with an ERA more than half a run better than league average. Blyleven's career matches up favorably with no-doubt HOFer Steve Carlton, who had 244 losses, a higher WHIP than Blyleven, and a lower ERA+ (115 to Blyleven's 118). Of course, Lefty had 329 wins and more Ks, so let's not go nuts. But Blyleven's resume is exceedingly solid.

The Case Against: The usual anti-Blyleven arguments are (a) that people who support his candidacy are just statheads who never saw him pitch and (b) that he was never a dominator. Blyleven spent much of his career pitching for teams no one saw - the Twins of the early 1970s, the Indians of the early 1980s - so that doesn't help, although one thing I will say is that while he pitched for two World Series champions - the 1979 Pirates and 1987 Twins - he didn't really distinguish himself much in either of those seasons. Having been the ace on a WS champion would fire more people up for his candidacy; just ask Jack Morris. That said, Blyleven was 5-1 with a 2.47 ERA all-time in the postseason.

Verdict: I may be a stathead who never saw him pitch, but the stats don't lie - fifth all-time in Ks, the same career ERA+ as Warren Spahn, and tons of top five and top ten finishes in major statistical categories. Just because audiences in the 70s and 80s were looking for something else doesn't mean we should keep punishing Blyleven now that we know better.

Dave Concepcion

The Case For: He was a good fielding shortstop for teams that won a lot.

The Case Against: He couldn't hit worth a lick. Concepcion's OPS+ was 88, which for a shortstop in the 70s is pretty embarrassing. His career OBP was .322, and the only thing he ever led the league in was grounding into double plays (21 in 1983). If Concepcion is ever inducted it will be a good day for dynasties and chumminess but a bad day for anyone who really cares about what the Hall of Fame stands for. (And please don't embarrass yourself, should you wish to defend him, by pointing to other guys who are mostly in for their fielding. (a) Brooks Robinson hit better than league average for his position; (b) Ozzie Smith stole 580 bases and was a better fielder; (c) Bill Mazeroski might have been the greatest fielding 2B of all-time, while Concepcion was not the greatest SS, and anyway entry to the Hall should not be determined by the worst guy who managed to get in.)

The Verdict: Out, although you can bet Joe Morgan will find a way to get him in eventually.

Andre Dawson

The Case For: This is a really tough one, because how can you not love the Hawk? He hit 438 home runs; knocked in almost 1600; and between 1980 and 1990 his OPS+ was over 130 in seven of 11 years. He was also a decent fielder despite bad knees.

The Case Against: Do those really sound like Hall of Fame credentials? People like to say "he hit 400+ home runs back when it still meant something!" of guys like Dawson, but Dawson played until 1996 and aside from his 49 in 1987, he never topped 32 - even in the 80s, this only gave him four top-five finishes in the league, which isn't all that impressive for a guy whose biggest credential is supposed to be that he was a good power hitter. While he had all those 130-and-up OPS+ seasons, that's not as impressive as it sounds when you play right field - in Dawson's MVP year of 1987, his OPS+ in right was 130; Darryl Strawberry, playing the same position for the Mets, had an OPS+ of 162. More importantly, Dawson's biggest claim to fame is his big 1987 and yet it's easy to make a case that he's one of the worst MVP selections of the last 25 years, as I did some weeks ago. The career .323 OBP is also pretty bad for a power hitter - aside from Dave Kingman, everyone within spitting distance of Hawk on the all-time home run list puts him to shame in the OBP department.

The Verdict: Dawson is kind of a poor man's Dave Winfield - guys who were never the best, but who put up decent stats for a number of years. Hawk's problem is that none of his stats are as good as Dave Winfield's, and if Winfield hadn't reached 3000 hits he'd probably have been a borderline Hall candidate too. Hawk had injury issues, but as either Rob Neyer or Keith Law (or maybe both) said, you can't just give him credit for games he didn't play and assume how much more he could have done. He didn't. Sorry, Hawk, I just can't.

Goose Gossage

The Case For: Helped pioneer the concept of the shut-down reliever. Had more than 300 saves back when that number meant something. Career ERA+ of 126. Four top-five Cy Young finishes as a reliever. Probably as good as Bruce Sutter, and he got in.

The Case Against: The problem with someone like Gossage is it's hard to quantify a lot of his contributions, forcing us to rely on nebulous things like "Seeing him come into a game was scary" and other anecdotal evidence filtered through 20 years of memory. His ERA and WHIP lag behind Rollie Fingers and Sutter's, and just how many relief pitchers can get in from one time period?

The Verdict: Every sport has positions that get underrepresented; offensive linemen are criminally underrepresented in Canton, for example. Relief pitchers are easy to overlook because it's a newer concept and because the concept got so ludicrously overspecialized so quickly, so the purists disdain the position. But the position nevertheless exists, which I think means you have to start asking yourself what qualifies a relief pitcher for enshrinement, and not whether relief pitchers should be in at all. And if you're asking the former question, it seems difficult to keep out one of the gems of relief pitching's Golden Age.

Tommy John

The Case For: 288 career wins; no post-1900 retired player has more and isn't in. Has a famous surgical procedure named for him.

The Case Against: This isn't the Sports Medicine Hall of Fame. John's ERA and WHIP numbers are uninspiring, the latter rather damning since he didn't issue many walks. If Blyleven was never dominant enough then John shouldn't sniff election; pitching until he was 46, he may be the ultimate compiler, and he still couldn't compile 300 wins. Even for a non-strikeout pitcher, his total - less than one every other inning - is still low.

Verdict: There are worse pitchers in the Hall than John, but that isn't and shouldn't be a criterion for election. He's out.

Don Mattingly

The Case For: Career .307 hitter! OPS+ of 127! Won the MVP in 1985! Yankee!

The Case Against: Few players inspire the kind of blind loyalty in fans that Mattingly does despite not being that great. Mattingly basically had three stellar years (1984-1986) and three more decent ones (1987-1989), but he was pretty much done at age 29. If he'd had two more years like his stellar ones and three or four more like his decent ones, he'd be worth considering. As it is, he didn't, and his overall numbers are kind of pathetic for a first baseman, even in the 80s. (In 1988, Mattingly hit 18 home runs in 144 games. A first baseman.)

The Verdict: Not even close. He probably shouldn't even still be on the ballot; it's because he was a career Yankee and the media liked him. If he gets in, Mark Grace should start writing his own induction speech.

Mark McGwire

The Case For: 583 home runs. .394 career OBP. 162 career OPS+. Unquestionably the most feared hitter of his time.

The Case Against: .263 hitter. Almost certainly used steroids.

The Verdict: McGwire's candidacy may pave the way for others of the Steroid Era to be passed over. By the numbers he's Hall-worthy, and even if you assume he did steroids - was he the only guy who did steroids? Few others even approached his totals during his career. And he still stood head and shoulders above the rest of the league in an era of increased offense - the only modern first basemen in the Hall with higher OPS+es than McGwire are Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx. I realize the point of trying to make a statement but given the inability to ever be sure exactly who was on what and exactly when and exactly how much their numbers were affected, you should just consider the man's numbers and McGwire should be in.

Jack Morris

The Case For: 254 wins. More wins than anyone in the 1980s. Game 7 of the 1991 World Series.

The Case Against: 105 career ERA+. WHIP of nearly 1.30. Never came very close to a Cy Young, if you're into that sort of thing.

The Verdict: Let's face it: Morris' backers want him to be in because he pitched a ten-inning complete game in the World Series. If that's all it takes, why is Don Larsen still out? The fact of the matter is Morris was a slightly above-average pitcher (105 ERA+! Do you know how many pitchers in the Hall have an ERA+ that low? The answer is two) who pitched for a lot of good to great teams, boosting his win totals. From 1979 to 1993, the key 15-year portion of Morris' career, his teams won 90 games six times and only finished under .500 twice. It'd be easy to use that to call Morris a winner, but it's equally easy to say that he got pretty darn lucky as far as the team around him, since you clearly can't attribute 90 wins to one starting pitcher, especially when his ERA+ is usually mediocre. A perfect example is 1992 - Morris went 21-6 for a Toronto team that won 96 games, but Morris himself had a 4.04 ERA (102 ERA+). There's a reason that, despite going 21-6, he finished a distant fifth in the Cy Young voting. Morris' playoff numbers, usually cited to prove how clutch he was, aren't even that good - 7-4, 3.80, not bad but hardly dominant. To the best of my knowledge no one has yet been inducted based on a single game; Morris shouldn't be the first.

Dale Murphy

The Case For: 398 home runs "when it still meant something." Back-to-back MVPs in 1982 and 1983. Power-hitting center fielder who could also field. Good guy, or something.

The Case Against: Career OPS+ of 121, not that great for a power hitter. .265 batting average. Kind of boring.

Verdict: When evaluating borderline candidates like Murphy, it's important to consider how they measure up in their eras. OPS+ is a good way to do that, since it takes into account a player's position (and their relative worth there as a hitter), among other things. 121 isn't bad, but it would be at the low end among HOF outfielders, and of the post-war OFs with numbers that low, Richie Ashburn is the only one who doesn't have 3000 hits, while Murphy has a mere 2,111. I suspect you'd see Murphy's picture if you looked up "borderline" in the dictionary. And he certainly fails the old Bill Simmons "Let's scalp tickets tonight - Dale Murphy's in town!" test, no? I gotta think he's a not-quiter, especially if Andre Dawson is.

Dave Parker

The Case For: 2700 hits, nearly 1500 RBIs. Won an MVP in 1978.

The Case Against: I think both Dawson and Murphy are ahead of Parker in the queue, so if they're not in, forget it. 121 OPS+, which again is good but unspectacular. Career derailed a bit by cocaine, although he played until he was 40 so that's not much of an excuse.

The Verdict: Not an immortal.

Jim Rice

The Case For: Rice seems to be gaining steam because of his 382 home runs ("back when it still meant something, you guys! Totally!") and the idea that he was somehow the most feared hitter of his time (roughly 1975-1986). His OPS+ was 128 and his career slugging number was .502.

The Case Against: Another guy right on the border. For a supposedly dominant power hitter, Rice had only one 40-homer season, and while homers were down in the 80s he hit his 46 in 1978, the year after George Foster hit 52. It wasn't exactly unprecedented. More damningly, Rice's home park was Fenway, and his home/road splits are kind of a joke: .320/.374/.546 at Fenway vs. .277/.330/.459 everywhere else. Add to this the fact that he was a mediocre OF who spent a quarter of his career DHing and it's pretty rough.

The Verdict: Red Sox fans who swear Rice should be in think he's not because he was gruff with the media. I think he's not because he just wasn't that good. In fact, if you look at the stats, his numbers are awfully similar to his fellow Boston OF Dwight Evans (385 career HR, 127 OPS+), and while Rice's are better, it's not by that much. Evans lasted three years on the ballot and never topped 10.4% of the vote.

Lee Smith

The Case For: Career saves leader when he retired (478). 3.03 career ERA (131 ERA+). Struck out nearly a batter an inning.

The Case Against: Saves? Who gives a shit? Smith, along with Dennis Eckersley, was one of the first few guys to embody the modern closer's role, where often only one inning was required. This alone makes him inferior to guys like Sutter and Gossage in the eyes of many voters (though Smith had a better ERA+ than Gossage and pitched more career innings than Sutter). He's also not seen as "dominant," though his 8.73 strikeouts per nine innings is 12th all time, more than a strikeout per 9 ahead of Sutter and Gossage.

The Verdict: Smith had a good long career as a closer. But he wasn't as good as Dennis Eckersley (did you know Eck's ERA+ in 1990 was 606? Holy fucking shit!). If you can justify putting in two 70s/80s closers and two 80s/90s closers, Smith should get in; his stats are strong enough. I guess it depends on whether the voters think closers are worth it. Two great players per position per generation doesn't sound ridiculous at first, but if that position is closer? I think Smith is going to end up just out.

Alan Trammell

The Case For: 110 OPS+ as a shortstop before shortstops (except Ripken) turned into sluggers. Great fielder. Sometimes a really great hitter, like when he hit .343 in 1987.

The Case Against: 110 OPS+ isn't that great. Very inconsistent hitter; just .285 career despite some big seasons.

The Verdict: Trammell wasn't as good a fielder as Ozzie Smith, though he was very good, and he didn't have the Wizard's speed. But he was a much better hitter, and may be getting unduly punished just because there are already two 80s shortstops in the Hall. Relative to his position, though, it's hard to argue that Trammell doesn't look like a HOFer.

If I had a ballot, I'd vote for Blyleven, McGwire and Trammell, and probably Gossage and Smith. Seems like a reasonable five.