2012 BBWAA Hall of Fame Ballot

[jfg]

I'm not quite sure how Jeremy Burnitz and Brad Radke even get on the ballot and Albert Belle is nowhere to be found.

I guess I'm alone on Mattingly. I think there needs to be a human element to the hall as well, otherwise why vote? Why not just let computers select the players? I don't think his fame came from being the only good Yankee. It helped, but I wasn't a Yankees fan, my friends weren't Yankees fans, ESPN wasn't around (or at least on enough TVs) to tell everyone he was awesome because he was a Yankee. He was just somebody everybody liked watching and he was really good. Other than McGwire, there is no other player eligible that had the universal appeal of Mattingly. That has to count for something.

[Skin Blues]

That people liked watching him (not sure how you quantify that) has an impact, but not nearly enough to make up for the massive skill and production shortcomings.

[Tavish]

I'm not quite sure how Jeremy Burnitz and Brad Radke even get on the ballot and Albert Belle is nowhere to be found

Belle isn't on the 2012 ballot. He didn't get enough votes in his second appearance (2007) to get put back onto the next year's ballot.

[jfg]

I think massive is an overstatement. You act like he was just an average player which is not the case.

[Skin Blues]

You can't just say that and not back it up. Placing in the top 15 of your league's MVP vote is not very convincing. His numbers just don't stack up, not even close. Not just because of his short career. Even if you pro-rate it over 20 years he still comes up short. And that's assuming he maintained his prime production into his 40s, which is more than generous.

[jfg]

Almost all of the Hall of Fame predictors have him as a borderline candidate, Baseball Reference's Hall of Fame Monitor has him as a lock.

[Element]

IMO, anyone who votes McGwire should also be voting for Raffy. If you're going to go there you might as well go all the way.

[Tavish]

Almost all of the Hall of Fame predictors have him as a borderline candidate, Baseball Reference's Hall of Fame Monitor has him as a lock.

Other locks with same or higher HoF monitor scores:
Todd Helton
Gary Sheffield
Larry Walker
Miguel Tejada
Bernie Williams

How many of those do you think are HoF locks?

[Skin Blues]

I'm talking about merit. The same HOF monitor lists the far superior Tim Raines as having a snowball's chance in hell. The bulk of his allure is a high batting average which might look good on a baseball card but is not important in a baseball sense. He has a lower career OPS than guys like Reggie Sanders and Matt Stairs. And he only played until he was 34, so presumably that would have gotten worse. This coming from a comparatively unimportant defensive position. He was popular. He had a high batting average. Those aren't reasons to put a guy in the HOF, but obviously a lot of people disagree with that.

[Pogotheostrich]

IMO, anyone who votes McGwire should also be voting for Raffy. If you're going to go there you might as well go all the way.

Not for me. I never thought of Raffy as the best 1-2 first basemen in any given year. He was really good for a really long time and that isn't enough for me.