WASHINGTON — It’s the most awful time of the year again. Yes, that time when baseball writers, with nothing better to do, descend into heated, self-affirming arguments about who should and shouldn’t be memorialized in a small museum in upstate New York.
Sure, I have opinions about who had a better career, just as every fan and observer of the game does. But if anything has become clear through the logjam of possible inductees into the National Baseball Hall of Fame that has amassed over the last few years, it’s that the process is broken. Some writers with votes clearly don’t understand how to value players, or, worse, don’t care. Some just seem to want to watch the world burn.
In the end, the only validation anyone gets from “their guy” getting in is the knowledge that enough of the voting populace values baseball players in the same general way. It’s the value of a viral tweet, which is to say nothing at all, other than a fleeting ego stroke. The only people that really should care are the players themselves, people whose legacies rest in the hands of those who cover them for a living.
That’s why I’m not interested this year in debating whether or not any of the players eligible for the Hall of Fame are or aren’t worthy, or in giving you my own personal list. Rather, what I’m here to do today is to debate whether or not the arguments for these players’ worthiness are themselves worthy of inclusion.
And, oh boy, we’ve got some truly hot, steaming arguments this year leading into Wednesday’s Hall of Fame class announcement.
So, with no further delay, I present to you the Hall of Fame Argument Nominees of 2018:
Uncontroversial, and obviously correct. PEDs were illegal, understood to be form of cheating by everyone,& had a direct, dramatic, positive effect on performance. Players like Bonds, who were HOFers even w/out the juice should be in, players like McGwire, who were not, should not https://t.co/sHOOcAGRpY
— Max Kellerman (@maxkellerman) December 28, 2017
Hoo baby, this had a chance to be an all-timer. It’s fundamentally as unsound an argument as you could possibly compile. Imagine appointing yourself arbiter of not just who took performance-enhancing drugs, but of the extent to which the drugs made each individual better at the very specific set of skills that comprise the sport of baseball. “Players like Bonds,” the greatest baseball player in 50 years and possibly ever “should be in, players like McGwire” — a great power hitter who would have zero shot at the Hall based on any of his non-home run numbers — “should not.” It’s a take simultaneously lightning-hot in its hubris and so facile in its follow through that it’s hard to even know where to start to dispute it.
Verdict: Leave it for the Veterans Committee
(The writer has since deleted this tweet, but Awful Announcing saved a screencap for posterity.)
Oh, Bruce. Bruuuuuuce. The war on WAR has taken heavy casualties on both sides, but Bruce Jenkins has picked up his arms to fight it with one hell of a straw man.
I don’t recall anyone calling Tom Verducci, a 57-year-old with a full head of TV anchor hair, a fossil. He’s a particularly interesting choice for this argument, though, having invented his own stat — the Year After Effect (dubbed the “Verducci Effect” by Baseball Prospectus) — to try to explain why young pitchers break down after heavy workloads the year before. Except the fortitude of that stat hasn’t held up under scrutiny.
WAR, on the other hand, has. This list would correlate pretty well with most people’s ideas of the top ballplayers of all time, regardless of what stats they prefer. WAR is far from perfect, as its creators happily admit, but it does a generally good job of not simply identifying which players are valuable, but helping us see through our inherent biases in the way we judge the game.
To summarily dismiss it because a bunch of, uh, “seasoned” baseball writers can’t understand it, call it dirty names, or threaten to use a form of torture condemned by the UN against it is what the kids call a self-own.
Verdict: Sub 10-percent threshold, falls off ballot
(WARNING: Strong language)
Hi. Curt Schilling is a fucking sad excuse for a human and it disgusts me that he’s on the hall of fame ballot. Do not @ me on this you fuckos. 💁🏻
— Christina Cola (@poprocksandCola) January 9, 2018
This take brings plenty of hustle and passion, but doesn’t really address the fact that Curt Schilling is on the Hall of Fame ballot because Curt Schilling was a very good baseball pitcher. Yes, there’s a “morals clause” in Hall of Fame voting, which is what has kept Pete Rose out for his gambling and, of course, both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens for their (alleged) steroid use.
Yes, Schilling’s words and actions since retiring have been odious at best, costly to taxpayers and maybe indicative of a lot worse than that. But he didn’t do any of those things while he was pitching, and he did put up very strong numbers while winning three rings and a World Series MVP.
Oh, and back to Clemens for a minute. Along with The Rocket, Schilling is one of just three pitchers with 80+ WAR, 2,500+ strikeouts and a career ERA+ of 120 or better not to be in the Hall of Fame (Mike Mussina is the third). He’s 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA in 19 postseason starts. His career strikeout-to-walk rate is 4.38, better than Clayton Kershaw, or Max Scherzer, or Pedro Martinez, or Greg Maddux (or any other pitcher who has ever lived, save for four).
You may think Curt Schilling is an awful person, but you can’t make a good argument against his Hall of Fame candidacy and certainly not his existence on the ballot.
Verdict: A fan favorite, but falls off the ballot after a couple years
I’ll try to say this nicely. The day I look at dWAR when doing my Hall of Fame ballot, to compare current players to inductees, is the day you’ll know the Schulmans had the first known lobotomy in family history.
— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) December 27, 2017
Whooee, yes, let’s do it, let’s keep doing it. Let’s keep fighting WAR because we don’t understand it. Really make your way down this thread to appreciate all of it. “You might as well have computers vote.” “It’s not the Hall of Stats.” “It’s better to use no stats than junk stats.”
Yes, friends, Hank is here to tell you that his “eye test is just as good as dWAR.”
This take isn’t just saying that Omar Vizquel is good enough to be in the Hall of Fame (he’s not). It’s Henry Schulman saying that Henry Schulman, a baseball writer you may well never have heard of unless you lived on the West Coast, has an eye for true talent so keen it cuts through hard, unbiased data amassed for the specific purpose of providing an objective measure of defense.
Did I mention that Vizquel played for the Giants, the team Schulman covers, for four years late in his career? Did I mention Vizquel’s OPS+ for those four years was 75, only slightly worse than his career OPS+ of 82 (or 18 percent worse offensive production than league average)? Did I mention the stat Schulman is disparaging, defensive WAR, is one of the few that really makes a good case for Vizquel to be considered for the Hall?
If Jenkins’ anti-WAR screed was get-off-my-lawniness actualized in tweet form, Schulman’s is the equivalent of “old man yells at cloud.”
Verdict: Enough old-school writers appreciate its grit and hustle to get it over the top
Joe Morgan’s letter convinced me of just one thing: As the Hall of Fame tries to warp the vote, it’s time for me to give up my ballot. Column: https://t.co/iNVQuaH4sM pic.twitter.com/T40S6ku0IP
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 23, 2017
Shut it all down, kids. This is the only first ballot Hall of Fame-worthy Hall of Fame argument. It’s the BBWAA equivalent of a rock star committing suicide on stage. It’s the termination of Hall of Fame arguments, which can only be admired from afar and have statues built in its memory. Future generations will scoff in disbelief that it ever even occurred if we fail to memorialize it.
In fact, just make this the lone exhibit, shut the doors and let’s never speak of the Hall of Fame again.
No, really, please. Let’s never speak of the Hall of Fame again.
