Rosenthal's HOF Picks and Mine -- Trammel, Schilling and Mussina

Mine, from an earlier blog:

Griffey
Trammell
Bonds
Clemens
Piazza
Bagwell
McGwire OR Sosa
Schilling
Mussina
Martinez OR Hoffman

Rosenthal's MVP Ballot:

Bagwell
Bonds
Clemens
Griffey
Hoffman
Martinez
Mussina
Piazza
Raines
Schilling

Notes:

Our lists are essentially the same, except that I chose Trammell and McGwire (or Sosa) and Rosenthal left those guys completely off his ballot. He chose Raines, who I left off my ballot for reasons explained in my blog, linked above. He also chose Edgar Martinez AND Trevor Hoffman, while I was only willing to choose one of those guys, because a) Martinez essentially pinch-hit 4 or 5 times a game (even David Ortiz has played the field more--and better--than Edgar) and because b) Hoffman essentially pitched one inning every three days or so, on average. In other words, these guys were specialists who simply didn't play as often as everyone else.

Alan Trammel, a shockingly underappreciated player (by me, too, until recently, and still by Rosenthal), played the field, every game, at a high level for a very long time, and was one of the top shortstops ever, according to JAWS. Even better than Jeter, and other HOF shortstops. His numbers (below the JAWS stats) show that he was better than your average HOF shortstop.  In other words, he should be a HOF shortstop. (You should view his stats at baseball-reference.com, here.)

That means more to me than a guy who pinch hits a few times a game and never fielded. And you can't say that Martinez played his position well, and it's not his fault he didn't play the field as a DH...except that Edgar Martinez was a truly awful defensive player, to a very heavy, negative degree (look at his page at baseball-reference.com). He was so bad that, yes, he was a DH because he couldn't field, not because everyone else was already on the field and you had to hit him somewhere. The Mariners correctly kept him off the field because he was a defensive liability, to the tune of over -9.7.  That's bad. And Hoffman? His heaviest workload as a closer was in 1996, when he pitched 88 innings. (You can see his baseball-reference page here.)

Overall I'm okay with Rosenthal's picks. I'd rather he have chosen Trammel over Raines, but as I mentioned in my blog entry about my picks, I feel Raines is HOF worthy as well. But not as much as Trammel. Sportswriters have dropped the ball on Trammel for the 15th (and, alas) last time. But I'm confident the Veterans Committee (or whatever it's called now) will fix that wrong in a hurry.

Lastly, baseball-reference.com's JAWS says that Curt Schilling is the 27th best starting pitcher in baseball history, and way ahead of the HOF average pitcher. And Mike Mussina is 28th!!!

Next HOF Vote

The following players will be on the next HOF ballot:

Moises Alou
Jeff Bagwell
Armando Benitez
Craig Biggio
Barry Bonds
Sean Casey
Roger Clemens
Ray Durham
Eric Gagne
Tom Glavine
Luis Gonzalez
Jacque Jones
Todd Jones
Jeff Kent
Paul Lo Duca
Greg Maddux
Edgar Martinez
Don Mattingly
Fred McGriff
Mark McGwire
Jack Morris
Mike Mussina
Hideo Nomo
Rafael Palmeiro
Mike Piazza
Tim Raines
Kenny Rogers
Curt Schilling
Richie Sexson
Lee Smith
J.T. Snow
Sammy Sosa
Frank Thomas
Mike Timlin
Alan Trammell
Larry Walker

Other players eligible on the ballot are:

Moises Alou
Armando Benitez
Sean Casey
Ray Durham
Eric Gagne
Luis Gonzalez
Jacque Jones
Todd Jones
Paul Lo Duca
Hideo Nomo
Kenny Rogers
Richie Sexson
J.T. Snow
Mike Timlin

The players passed over by the BBWAA for the HOF for at least fifteen years, who are now eligible this year via the Expansion Era Committee (formerly known as the Veterans Committee), and the managers and executives now eligible for the HOF, are:

Dave Concepcion
Bobby Cox
Steve Garvey
Tommy John
Tony La Russa
Billy Martin
Marvin Miller
Dave Parker
Dan Quisenberry
Ted Simmons
George Steinbrenner
Joe Torre

That's a lotta names.  I'll cover them, their stats, their HOF worthiness, and their HOF chances in the upcoming blogs here.  Feel free to pipe in now or then for your favorite (or least favorite) player. 



This might be one of the best ballots ever in the sport, all of them very good, many of them borderline great, and many of them jumping over that line into actual greatness.  The sheer quality of players here makes the list also one of the hardest ever to vote on, and PEDs is the monkey wrench into the whole system that might keep a few HOF-worthy players out permanently, even though they were never actually convicted by MLB for ever using them.