playPassan: Bonds not getting HOF nod is 'a true shame' (1:12)
Barry Bonds should be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame according to Jeff Passan. There is a time and a place for this.
The Baseball Hall of Fame has a new class after the votes were counted. David Ortiz was the only one of the four who failed to make the 75% cutoff point in their final year of eligibility to be in the Hall of Fame.
What does this mean for the Hall of Fame? They are here to break it down.
What do you make of David Ortiz getting into the Hall of Fame after his first year on the ballot?
I probably would have voted for him. His 541 dingers are a strongavatar for the duration of his excellence, even though 500-plus homers is no longer an automatic ticket. His career WAR lags because of his lack of positional value, but that is an ephemeral thing that I would hate to make an argument to. Only 34 players have ever created more runs than his job was to create. If not for non-playing factors, every one of those 34 would not be in the Hall. The designated hitter has been an actual job in baseball for nearly 50 years, and Big Papi did it better than anyone. He is the all-time leader in postseason win probability added. It is clearly a Hall of Fame. The fact that a lot of the voters were like Ortiz didn't hurt his cause.
The eye test and common sense should have a say in these evaluations, even in an era of numbers. 65 retired, eligible players who are not in the Hall of Fame were not included in Ortiz's career WAR. It felt like a Hall of Famer. He meant to such a storied franchise, how he came through on the grandest stage, and how he helped define his era. If you add the 541 home runs, the.931 OPS and the 1,832 runs created, you can see that the Hall of Fame career was put together by the man. It should be easy for other candidates. It should not require congeniality.
This vote at this time is a big win for the power of personality, even though David Ortiz had a first-ballot Hall of Fame career. The way for a first-ballot election was paved by the affability and post-retirement broadcasting gig of Ortiz. It would have been a safer bet to assume that he would have to wait at least a year to get elected, given his link toPEDs and the general lack of trust in the current group of voters.
He deserved it because he was one of the best postseason performers and one of the most dominant hitters of his era. The logic used by some of the writers to justify voting for Ortiz while not voting for others who have reported links toPEDs was amusing. It seems that his popularity and likability made a difference in his decision to enter the Hall.
Other than Ortiz, who is the biggest winner from this year's voting results?
Scott Rolen added enough support that he looks like a shoo-in, perhaps as soon as next year. I would give him the biggest winner nod for those under the threshold.
Gonzalez thinks that Scott Rolen, Todd Helton and Andruw Jones should be in next year, with Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa all coming off the disabled list. There are at least five years remaining on the ballot for Rolen, Helton, and Jones, who have made steady enough progress to make one.
The players who fall off the ballot this year will give a boost to the other players in the 60 percent range. The careers of players who return to the ballot as the top vote-getters see their careers undergo a reconsideration that almost always works in their favor. Rolen and Helton are in a good place now that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling are out of the picture.
In his fifth year of eligibility, Scott Rolen made enough progress that he will gain election someday.
Who is the biggest loser from this year's voting results?
It's gotta be Schilling. It was stunning and predictable that you dropped so far from 71% in your next-to-last year on the ballot.
He went from 49.1% of the vote last year to 23.9% this year. In December of 2020, after several ballots had already been completed, the estranged wife of Vizquel alleged that he physically abused her. The White Sox terminated their relationship with Vizquel after a civil action was filed accusing him of sexually harassing a batboy. His case is about disturbing off-the-field behavior. He was seen as a borderline Hall of Famer before this became public, and now it is clear that the BBWAA will never induct him.
Alex Rodriguez is poised to take over the role left by Bonds and Clemens. He will be the guy with the historic career who watches his vote totals inch up year after year as younger and more forgiving voters enter the process, but in the end, he will be yet another victim of his own arrogance. Rodriguez would have been the biggest winner from this year's results if either of them made it in.
The writers did not vote for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens for the Hall. The rejection of two of the most accomplished players of all time, while other users have been honored, is going to look silly in the future.
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling are now off the ballot. Do you think they will eventually get in through the Hall of Fame's Today's Game committee -- and, if so, when?
Yes, eventually. It's possible that Bonds and Clemens won't live to see it. It will seem absurd that players with those numbers should not be in the Hall of Fame, because time will change the lens through which future committee members view their mitigating factors. I believe that the way in whichPEDs will be looked at in the future will be very different from the way they are now. It is difficult to say what his relationship is with former players and others in the game who make up the majority of those committees. I think the relationship is better with the media.
Brad, I am almost certain that you are right about that last point. The Today's Game committee is made up of 16 members, with the voting body changing each time, with the next meeting coming in December 2022. The voting body for a given year would determine the chances of Bonds, Clemens and Schilling being considered in perpetuity. If there is one group that has been more strict withPED users than BBWAA members, it is the former players. I don't think Bonds or Clemens will get in soon.
The causes of players whose contributions exceed their statistics have historically been taken up by the Today's Game committee. It tends to give more weight to factors such as clubhouse presence and perceived clutch performances. The PED era will change that, as committee members will have the chance to look beyond the intangibles and judge the players on their merits. All three will make it, but it will feel a bit sad.
The general perspective of a lot of the living Hall of Famers has changed over time, so it is likely that Bonds and Clemens will be inducted through the vote of a special committee. They could be honored together, and their speeches will be must-watch.
Sometime in the future, Curt Schilling will be in the hall of fame. His career performance is worthy of election.
What does just one player getting voted in a year after nobody got in say about the current state of the Hall of Fame voting process?
It needs to change. I feel like we need more voters. There are just more viewpoints. I think the idea of taking a yes/no count for each player on the ballot is a good one. The player is in if he gets 75% in the yes category. It would prevent future backlogs, where voters have to figure out how to use their 10 slots if they think there are more than 10 Hall-worthy candidates.
Gonzalez said that the BBWAA is twisting itself in knots trying to measure morality on an issue. Many have made the point that the Hall of Fame probably hasPED users in it, and it is a valid one. The process of figuring out how it impacted their careers in an era when the sport failed to properly police the issue has produced a lot of inconsistencies. Players should be judged based on their era. The BBWAA has not done that.
Even when the voters get it right, it is still arbitrary and doesn't always make sense. Most of the Hall of Fame careers on the ballot were compiled during the PED era. At this point, it is clear that a large portion of that era will not be included in the Hall of Fame. It has been my contention that players who are eligible to be on the ballot, if they are found to have used performance enhancing drugs, should be judged solely on their performance on the field. Baseball writers should stop being morality police and stop engaging in the cap-size/muscle mass guessing game, and let the game deal with its history. The idea that an entire era can be policed retroactively and speculatively doesn't feel sustainable, as there are undoubtedly steroid users who have avoided detection and speculation well enough to gain entry to the Hall.
The writers are still confused about how to handle steroid-era candidates. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens may not be on the ballot next year, but the writers will define the Hall's morality for years to come, even if they don't report on it. It is not a good place for a journalist to be.
Which one player's vote total is most surprising to you?
Joe Nathan got little support at the back end of the ballot. I have written about how deserving Billy Wagner is, mostly because if we are going to put relief pitchers in the Hall of Fame, then I don't see how he isn't above the line. He is in his seventh year on the ballot. It would have been nice to have enough time to make his case. Most of the arguments you can make are about Nathan. I think voters overlooked Nathan completely.
Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod can now be presented as a counter if one makes the case that the BBWAA has softened onPED users. In their first year on the ballot, Roger and Barry received 37.6% and 36.2% of the vote, respectively. Even though his career statistics were cartoonish, Rodriguez got less than nine years later.
I expected the totals to go down when Schilling told the world he no longer wanted to be considered, but he still got a majority of the votes. I never thought I was watching a Hall of Fame player, but Kent's achievements -- most homers by anyone at his position, anMVP, nearly 2,500 hits -- are the type that usually draw more than 30% of the vote. Scott Rolen and Kent have different vote totals compared to their careers.
The low vote total was for Sammy Sosa. The writers applied a very different standard to Sosa than they did to other players who have already been in the Hall of Fame.
Based on this year's results, do you think anyone will get in on next year's ballot?
Scott Rolen has a chance. We will see after that. It will be interesting to see how much of a Astros penalty Carlos Beltran will have to pay in his first year on the ballot, as Andruw Jones and Todd Helton will get a lot of scrutiny from analysts in the build up to the vote.
Carlos Beltran has a legitimate shot, but his involvement means we will replace the use of steroids with scrutinizing the prevalence of sign stealing. Yaaay. I wonder if Scott Rolen, Todd Helton and Andruw Jones will get in next year because they don't have any baggage. The last time the BBWAA voted three non-first-timers into the Hall at the same time, it was 1984 and it was a long shot.
The Rolen train has been speeding up over the past few years, and I think it will reach its destination next year. It feels like he is on the same path, but he will have to wait at least another year for the momentum to build to 75 percent.
The analytic community supports Scott Rolen and Andruw Jones and they may be making speeches next year.
