Considering the candidacies of four former St. Louis Cardinals on the 2011 Hall of Fame ballot.
Over on the main The Cardinal Nation site on Sunday, the feature article was from friend and fellow SABR member Bill Gilbert. It handicaps the chances of the former Major League Baseball players on this year’s Baseball Hall of Fame ballot using Bill James’ Win Shares.
Four ex-St. Louis Cardinals are among the 33 names competing for votes, but Gilbert forecasts that none of the four will be elected into the Hall of Fame in 2011. Two are holdovers in Mark McGwire and Lee Smith and two are first-timers, Larry Walker (pictured upon his induction into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame) and Tino Martinez.
Let’s look at each of the four.
Mark McGwire
By all measures, McGwire would seem to have the on-field credentials for Hall election. Voters have been torn over his candidacy due to the steroids issue and that may continue indefinitely.
Big Mac’s admission last winter that he used steroids in an attempt to recover from injury during his playing days but his denial that those substances boosted his on-field performance did not help his standing with the voters. In fact, he was one of the few players on the 2010 ballot whose support dropped from year to year. McGwire garnered approximately 23.5 percent of the vote in both 2008 and 2009, but slipped to just under 22 percent approval in 2010.
With no significant new revelations about the steroids era this past year, one might look at any uptick or downturn in McGwire’s 2011 votes to be a reflection of feelings over his return to the game. He is of course heading into his second season as the Cardinals hitting coach. At the time of 2010 balloting, there was still considerable concern over the media circus that might ensue over McGwire’s baseball re-entry. That was handled without significant incident and has died down to almost nothing since.
Lee Smith
Smith was one of the dominant relievers of any era, though his then-record of 478 career saves is downgraded by some as being a by-product of the evolution to the one-inning specialist.
Until another former Cub-Cardinal, Bruce Sutter was inducted after tossing just 1,042 career innings, no pitcher with fewer than 1,700 frames had made it to Cooperstown. Smith finished with 1,289. At this point, only five in the Hall are considered to have been primarily relievers – Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers, Dennis Eckersley, Goose Gossage and Sutter.
Smith’s voting support has slowly crept up into the upper 40 percent range, but is far away from the 75 percent needed for induction. Despite being eligible to remain on the ballot until 2017, he is going to need a much more aggressive push of support to make it.
Larry Walker
Walker is an interesting case. Gilbert’s Win Shares score places him third among first-year candidates behind Rafael Palmeiro and Jeff Bagwell and just ahead of John Olerud. Gilbert sees Walker securing more than the five percent of the vote needed to remain on the ballot, but fall short of the needed 75 percent for induction.
The former MVP (1997) has three Silver Slugger Awards, was a five-time All-Star and owns seven Gold Gloves, yet his Hall candidacy seems in a gray area.
Of the ten players listed at Baseball-Reference.com as having the closest career similarity to Walker, only four are in the Hall. They are Duke Snider, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Mize and Chuck Klein. On the other hand, two of the top four are Walker’s former teammates, Ellis Burks and Moises Alou, players seemingly destined to land in the Hall of the Very Good, not Cooperstown. Contemporaries in the top ten include some other borderline candidates, Vladimir Guerrero, Edgar Martinez and another duo of ex-Walker teammates, Jim Edmonds and Todd Helton.
As a point of comparison, Martinez garnered 36.2 percent of the vote in 2010, his first year of eligibility.
Tino Martinez
Needless to say, Tino Martinez is a celebrated New York Yankee who found himself in St. Louis for two unhappy late-career seasons, 2002 and 2003. Having been a very good player during four World Championships with New York means Tino may pick up a handful of recognition votes, but his numbers, including 339 home runs, are not Hall-worthy. Interestingly, among those in Tino’s top ten similarity scores is another former Cardinals and Yankees first sacker, Jack Clark.
Bios of all 33 candidates can be found at the Baseball Hall of Fame website. Results of the 2011 vote taken by 10-plus year members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America will be announced on January 5 and winners will be enshrined on July 25 in Cooperstown, New York.
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Don’t think any of these guys will make the HoF.
Mac had a claim and at one time seemed a lock, but the PED stuff will likely keep him from entering the pearly gates. I’m OK with that, so long as every other PED-implicated player gets the same treatment… guys like Bonds, A-Rod, Man-Ram, Clemens, etc. There should be no double standards. If one is kept out for that reason then all should be kept out.
If anything, Mac deserves credit for admitting PED use when he really didn’t have to, and for refusing to lie (by essentially pleading the 5th) to Congress during their PED dog and pony show. He could have wagged his finger at the committee like Rafael Palmiero, but he didn’t, and I respect him for that. Although it shouldn’t necessarily be viewed that way, I always took his ‘pleading the 5th’ to be a tacit admission anyway.
As it turns out, Mark wanted to admit his PED use during those hearings, a fact disclosed by the committte chairman (Tom Davis) last year. But before he’d do so, his lawyer was trying to get the committee to grant him immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony. They refused. In that over-heated atmosphere, I can understand why he (or anyone) would choose to exercise their Constitutional rights to avoid legal process.
The others were implicated by testing or some other disclosure, not by admission, tacit or outright. Palmiero was given a free pass but Clemens is being prosecuted, as is Bonds. To me, that puts Mac a cut above.
The saddest part of the whole sordid affair is the downfall of the snitch, Jose Canseco, who played ball last year for the Laredo Broncos, and independent minor league club here in Texas. I guess that’s a step up from getting beat up and knocked out by a 60 year-old guy while fighting for money… but not much. My favorite memory of him is when that ball hit off his head and went over the fence for a HR. It just doesn’t get any better than that.
Tino… no way. Walker… nope, and despite his time in StL, I’ll always see him as a Rox. Smith has an argument, but I don’t buy it… too much Cubness for my tastes.
HBT-i agree about the part judging Bonds and the others the same way MM was hung out to dry.I think when Aroid retires the ESPN shills and the NY writers will be slobbering all over themselves about Aroid HOF bid.MM took more crap than anyone IMO.
MM took more crap than anyone? You just can’t be that naive.
I’m not really certain that MM is a HOF candidate imo. Bonds, Arod, and even Palmeiro are to me. Mark is borderline in my mind.
RCW-did the media harp on Aroid when he fessed up about his early use.Palmeiro? Bonds refuses to admit he uses anything but the clear .Clemens refuses to say.Who else has come out and admitted?
I’d be willing to bet every player used something whether it be steroids or amphetamines or some other drug that helped them focus, add strength, or remain energetic. I have no problem with any of it.
There is a show on either HBO or Showtime called Bigger, Faster, stronger where the maker goes around and talks to different parts of society and asks them do they take any type of drug to help them in their work. All the way from fighter pilots to people in an orchestra. Every one of them took some sort of drug to make them better at what they do.
At the end of the program they play a quote from Patton.
“Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.”-Patton
In other words in every facet of life in American society people do whatever they can in order to win at life. I don’t think a baseball player taking steroids in order to help him be a better player is out of the ordinary.
Let me further clarify, I don’t believe baseball cared if baseball players did whatever in order to play the game back then hence I don’t care about what they did.
Today is another story. Rules are in place now to curb such stuff so I would have a problem with someone caught using today moreso than the players who used during the steroid era.
One of my High school chums went on to the Naval academy…became a captain……..he said that during the stress times in the Mediterranean, the pilots would have to sit in the ready planes for hours on deck……….jacked out of their minds………naval issue black beauties……..standard procedure. The movie Top Gun was made about those scenario’s.
Why Palmeiro over McGwire, RC?
RCW- i don`t count Canseco because he is nothing but a attention whore or fame junkie in my opinion.A traveling circus.
An early indication will be this year as Palmeiro comes up, but maybe not much of one since that seems even more cut and dried than McGwire due to the view that Raffy was lying. Before we ever get to A-Rod, the path will be clearer when Bonds and Clemens become eligible in a few years. It is a tough problem for the writers.Getting 75% of any group of people to agree may be difficult.
Forget those guys. I’m still mad that Curt Flood isn’t in the HOF.
He may be out for the same reason Marvin Miller is out. It may take another generation before that changes.
More importantly maybe is this weeks court decision disallowing any evidence taken that implicated players in the 400…… Palmero is history……… MM maybe in 15yrs by committee. It will be Bonds that sets the standard………..if they go for it, others may follow. Someone hitting 70 straight up wouldn’t hurt.
It has been ten years since anyone has even hit 60, Bonds in 2001 (73).
It isn’t likely………….maybe someone discovers a secret blend of undetectable roots and berries……..
None of those guys has a shot at it except by veterans committee. At one time McGwire would have had a shot based on more than 500 career home runs. But too many voters got upset about steroid use.
I hope it (steroids) doesn’t keep Barry Bonds out. To me he is a no doubt first ballot Hall of Famer.
Agree with crdswmn, Curt Flood deserves it more than any of the players on Brian’s list.
Marvin Miller should have been in 20 years ago. Maybe he and Flood could be inducted the same year, (not likely but it would be very poetic) .
Palmeiro would be in based on his stats but the alleged lying goes against him with most voters for now.
My first baseball blog post.
http://opinionated2themax-takeittothebank.blogspot.com/2010/12/gang-that-couldnt-play-straight.html
I will soon be out of work!
Like I said, funny guy.