Hall of Fame balloting
Here’s this year’s Hall of Fame ballot:
•Dave Parker
•Bert Blyleven
•Dale Murphy
•Jack Morris
•Don Mattingly
•Andre Dawson
•Alan Trammell
•Lee Smith
•Mark McGwire
•Harold Baines
•Tim Raines
•Roberto Alomar
•Kevin Appier
•Ellis Burks
•Andres Galarraga
•Pat Hentgen
•Mike Jackson
•Eric Karros
•Ray Lankford
•Barry Larkin
•Edgar Martinez
•Fred McGriff
•Shane Reynolds
•David Segui
•Robin Ventura
•Todd Zeile
I’ve spent a lot of time criticising everybody else’s Hall of Fame votes, but I’ve never told you who I’m voting for. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’ve decided that I’ll be voting for nobody at all, since the BBWAA won’t let me. For some reason, they don’t take me seriously.
Zinged!
Okay, okay, I know. I know what you mean. Who would I be voting for if I were allowed to?
Let’s start with the definites. I would definitely vote for Blyleven, McGwire, and Raines. Blyleven was an extremely good pitcher who never hit the utterly meaningless and artificial team-dependent milestone that is the 20-win season. Mark McGwire was a completely unreal hitter, who hit 49 home runs and slugged .619 his rookie year (it’s true: look that shit up if you don’t believe me!), well before he was on the juice. And, hey, for reference? I don’t give two shits about the juice. Rock Raines was insanely good at baseball, posting a .309 career EqA and stealing 808 bases at an 85% success rate, which, for my money, makes him the best base-stealer of all time.
My almost list? Smith, Martinez, and McGriff — they were all very good, but not quite selling it to me. I’m on the fence, though; it probably wouldn’t take a whole lot of a push to convince me for any of them. Martinez in particular I’m right on the edge with; he was an awesome hitter, but he didn’t play defense, and I’m still undecided about that. McGriff wasn’t quite as good a hitter, but he did play the field; unfortunately, he wasn’t that good at it. Smith is a pretty-good reliever with a quite nice 131 ERA+ and 3.88 DERA, but, on the other hand, his WHIP is only 1.256 and his peripherals aren’t stellar (0.6 HR/9, 3.4 BB/9, 8.7 K/9).
And I would return my ballot with a big “FUCK DAVE PARKER” written on it. Because: HA HA DAVE.
