Cooperstown 2013: The Hall Of None

From MLB.com NEW YORK — The most highly debated election for entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame ended Wednesday without a new inductee. For the first time since 1996, eligible members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America … Continue reading →

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2013 MLB Hall Of Fame Announcement Open Thread

Announcement on who, if anyone, gets inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer at 2 p.m. ET, 1 p.m. CT on MLB Network at MLB.com

Our coverage of the Hall of Fame can be found in this story stream:

2013 Hall of Fame Induction and the Houston Astros - The Crawfish Boxes

If Craig Biggio or Jeff Bagwell are elected, we are going to attempt to have an Astros Afterburners podcast at some point after the announcement (I'll update this post with a time if we decide to do so).

As we wait for the results of the Hall of Fame ballot here are some exit ballot results of ballots made public by writers. Both Biggio and Bagwell are among the top vote getters, giving us some hope for a happy moment in Cooperstown this summer.

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Did You Know

Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell played together for more seasons than any other pair of teammates in major league history.  Starting in 1977, the pair played together through the 1995 season.

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My hypothetical Hall of Fame ballot2013 edition

[...]

Read The Full Article:
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MLB Hall of Fame 2013: Larry Walker and home/road
splits

One of the things about Hall of Fame voting season that’s really irked me lately is the lack of support for Larry Walker, whose case has been summarily dismissed on the basis of his home/road splits. Walker played most of his career (10 of 17 seasons, to be exact) with the Colorado Rockies, and his numbers were accordingly inflated. There’s no denying that. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more friendly offensive environment than Coors Field during the Steroid Era. In assessing Walker’s candidacy, it’s important to look at his statistics in this context. I have no problem with that.

I do, however, have a problem with the common methodology that many Hall of Fame voters employ in dealing with this. Rather than look at park-adjusted figures, which are easily accessible through sites like Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs, writers take a different approach to this issue: looking at home/road splits. Walker’s home/road splits, in particular, exhibit a fascinating symmetry:

Home: 1.068 OPS

Away: .865 OPS

Overall: .965 OPS

Now, the question becomes what to make of this. For a lot of voters, the away numbers seem to represent "neutralized" numbers -- what the player’s stats would be without park factors getting in the way. That appears to be the implication in Scott Miller’s reasoning, for example:

Larry Walker: Very, very good player. I'd take him on my team. But his home/road splits during all of those Rockies seasons in Coors Field were so uneven.

I have a few problems with this, and they are as follows:

-- The league, as a whole, tends to hit better at home than on the road. In 1997 -- inarguably Walker’s best offensive season -- National League hitters posted a .762 OPS at home, and a .726 OPS on the road. This means that with most hitters, isolating their road splits will lead us to undervalue their overall contributions. And over a full career, it gets to the point where these hitters are severely undervalued.

-- Road splits themselves are not "neutral." Let’s look at Walker’s 2001 season, for example. While other NL hitters’ road splits will get a slight boost from whatever time they spent in Coors Field, Walker's will not. As a member of the Rockies, Walker instead spent a lot of time on the road in parks like San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, where he had 79, 67, and 62 plate appearances, respectively. These were three of 2001’s five most pitcher-friendly parks, according to FanGraphs’ park factors. So while Walker’s home stats are certainly inflated by park factors, we see the opposite effect -- to a lesser extent -- with his road stats.

-- Home/road splits vary for reasons other than park factors.

-- The voters are inconsistent in applying this methodology. I’ve seen home/road splits cited countless times in arguments against Larry Walker’s case for the Hall of Fame, but rarely if ever have I seen them cited in discussions of Jeff Bagwell’s candidacy. If you’re going to whip out home/road splits in dismissing the case of a hitter who spent a lot of time in a hitter-friendly park, why not do the same with a guy who spent a lot of time in a pitcher-friendly park?

Park factors are imperfect, but if your goal is to adjust for ballpark effects, they’re a much better route than home/road splits (for the reasons I’ve outlined). The neutralized stats on Baseball-Reference have Larry Walker at a career .909 OPS. That’s significantly better than his road OPS of .865, and over the course of a 17-year career, this makes a world of difference. By my own crude back-of-the-napkin estimations, treating the .865 OPS as the "true" Larry Walker -- instead of the .909 OPS -- costs him about 15 wins. In other words, it’s reckless and irresponsible. Walker should be a no-brainer for the Hall of Fame -- there’s no question in my mind that he’s got the combination of peak and longevity to meet Hall of Fame standards. But sadly, this gross misapplication of home/road splits is putting a sizable dent in his Hall prospects.

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Baseball Hall of Fame 2013: What constitutes
'cheating' in baseball

You've probably heard by now that today is induction day for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Around the internet, newspaper sports pages, and water coolers, people are discussing which players should be in the Hall of Fame, and which ones shouldn't. This year, with the inclusion of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens on the ballot -- two players dogged by performance-enhancing drug suspicion / evidence through their careers -- the argument that "Player X should not be in the Hall because he used PEDs" is louder and more vehement than ever, it seems.

When a player uses a substance banned by Major League Baseball, they immediately get labeled a "cheater", someone who breaks the rules of the game in order to give themselves or their team an unfair advantage. But many players have done this over their careers ... many of whom are in the Hall of Fame. By their own admission, both Hank Aaron and Mike Schmidt have used "greenies" ... amphetamines that are considered performance-enhancing drugs. Players like Gaylord Perry threw spitballs, a pitch deemed illegal by the rules of the game.

These players don't seem to be considered with the same type of venom as Bonds and Clemens, both of whom will likely not reach the Hall this year. But aren't these players, by definition of the term, "cheaters" as well?

What makes a player a "cheater?"

I'd like to throw a few hypothetical situations your way. And I'd, honestly, love to hear reasoned opinions on them. I'm keeping an open mind.

Player A uses a banned, performance-enhancing substance once, over the course of his entire professional career. (No explanation is given as to why.) Is this player a cheater in your eyes? Does he deserve to be kept out of the Hall of Fame as a result?

Player B uses a banned, performance-enhancing substance consistently, over the course of his entire professional career. (No explanation is given as to why.) Is this player a cheater in your eyes? Does he deserve to be kept out of the Hall of Fame as a result?

My opinion on this is pretty straightforward. Knowing what I know, and not knowing any reasoning behind the use of the drug (Was it accidental? Was it to come back from injury rather than truly improve performance? What kind of drug was it?), I say that Player A "cheated," and that Player B is a habitual "cheater."

As for the Hall of Fame discussion, well, I'm of the opinion that performance trumps all. If it happened on the field of play, it counts. So I'd say both have the right to be in the Hall of Fame ... but Player B deserves that his cheating (if proven or admitted) be recorded on his plaque, and as part of the public narrative about his career. The line "Yes, Player A won four MVPs or whatever, but he cheated to do it," is good enough for me.

Is it more acceptable when a player only cheats once, than when he makes it a consistent part of their career? Twice? Where's the line? Is it motive?

Let's try another line of reasoning.

Player A, a pitcher, uses an banned substance (vaseline) on a baseball in order to affect the ball's flight, but just once over the course of his entire professional career. (No explanation is given as to why.) Is this player a cheater in your eyes? Does he deserve to be kept out of the Hall of Fame as a result?

Player B, a pitcher, uses a banned substance (vaseline) on a baseball in order to affect the ball's flight, and does so consistently over the course of his entire professional career. (No explanation is given as to why.) Is this player a cheater in your eyes? Does he deserve to be kept out of the Hall of Fame as a result?

The only substantive difference that I see here, is that instead of "cheating" by changing their own body, the player is "cheating" by changing the objects used in the game. In both instances, the players are breaking rules instituted by major-league baseball. As such, I use the same reasoning I used in the previous example, where Player A isn't considered a "cheater" so much as someone who "cheated once", and Player B gets labeled a habitual cheater.

Here's an absolutely REAL example.

Player A, Hall of Famer George Brett, violates an MLB rule by using too much pine tar on his bat during the July 24, 1983 game against the New York Yankees. Is this player a cheater in your eyes? Does he deserve to be kept out of the Hall of Fame as a result?

The Pine Tar Game is a pretty interesting situation. Brett broke a rule, but in the end, was not penalized for doing so. Does he qualify as a "cheater," despite Lee MacPhail's assertion that Brett didn't violate the spirit of the rules or deliberately alter the bat to improve the ball's distance factor? I think most people would argue "no, George Brett wasn't a cheater."

So, uh, what's the spirit of the rule to not use performance-enhancing drugs? Ostensibly, I assume it's to prevent a player from gaining an unfair advantage ... to deliberately alter a player's physiology to improve performance.

So ...

Player B, New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte, violates an MLB rule by using HGH in 2002 to (reportedly) recover from an injury faster -- NOT to improve performance. Is this player a cheater in your eyes? Does he deserver to be kept out of the Hall of Fame as a result?

Well, Lee MacPhail asserted that Brett didn't violate the spirit of the rules, and in some ways, one could say that Pettitte didn't either. I mean, if we take Pettitte at his word, the same way we would take Brett at his, then the two incidents are similar, right?

Now let's get weird.

Player A, a catcher, violates one of baseball's express, written rules by blocking home plate to prevent a runner from tagging the plate and scoring a run. (No explanation is given as to why.) Is this player a cheater in your eyes? Does he deserve to be kept out of the Hall of Fame as a result?

Okay, so Player A is, by definition, "cheating" here. He violates a rule of the game in order to earn a competitive advantage. The "problem" here, is that the rule is not enforced. This behavior is accepted by those who play and watch the game. So one could, in fact, label nearly all catchers "cheaters," if one were so inclined. And this is a behavior that directly affects play on the field. So is it really that different than the example above?

The thing is, "cheating" in baseball is rampant. In fact, cheating in every sport is rampant. I mean, that's why there are fouls in basketball, penalties in football and hockey ... to prevent rule-breaking and to punish those that do. Baseball is no different.

I think we need to be frank with ourselves as to what we consider "acceptable" cheating and what we consider "unacceptable cheating" ... and why we consider certain events more respectable or better than others. I'm not saying there aren't substantive differences between, say, PED usage and doctoring a baseball, but I don't think these differences should go unsaid.

We can afford to be rational and objective about this, rather than just defaulting to arguments based on morality and ethics. Those arguments have their place too, but there's room for this one as well.

[Edited: It must be noted that Rob Neyer's Baseball Nation piece here touches on these issues as well, and I think it's excellent.]

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2013 MLB Hall Of Fame: Roger Clemens, Houston
Astro

As much as it pains me to admit it, I am a Roger Clemens fan.

It feels good to get that out, and I encourage the hidden Clemens fans among you to step forward and to admit it.

Maybe it's because I've been watching old episodes of Lost on Netflix lately, but I feel like it was my destiny all along to be a fan of the man known as Rocket.

See, Roger Clemens and I share a lot of history. He was born in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio. In 1977 - the year of my birth - he moved to Texas. I guess there just wasn't room for the both of us in the Buckeye State.

In 1984, I began my first season of Little League. Okay, it wasn't actually Little League - we didn't have Little League in my little suburb. It was the Huber Heights Youth Baseball League. The year I made my baseball debut, a young 21-year-old pitcher named Roger Clemens made his debut for the Boston Red Sox.

In 1999, I moved to New York City, and so did Roger Clemens, who began plying his trade for the New York Yankees the same year.

Then, in 2004, at the age of 41, Clemens came out of an abbreviated retirement to pitch for the Houston Astros, my favorite team. That season, he was named the starter for the NL in the All-Star Game and won the second Cy Young Award in the history of the Houston Astros franchise.

The following season, as I made the move to the west coast, Clemens helped lead Houston to their first-ever World Series, in part by entering the deciding game in the NLDS in the 15th inning as a pinch hitter, then throwing out of the bullpen for the second time in his entire career - and the first since his rookie campaign in 1984.

If that wasn't enough to tie Clemens to the Astros, his son Koby was drafted by the team in 2005 and played in the Astros organization through the 2011 season. In 2011, when Clemens pitched for the independent Sugar Land Skeeters and contemplated coming out of retirement once again, it was his hometown Houston Astros who were mentioned most as his potential destination.

To be sure, Clemens isn't the longest-tenured former Astro on the Hall of Fame ballot for 2012. He threw fewer than 8,500 pitches for Houston. But his 2004 and 2005 campaigns rank among the greatest seasons in history for pitchers in their forties. Though the richest of his glory years were spent in revered baseball cities like Boston and New York, Clemens' mark on the Houston Astros during the twilight of his career cannot be diminished.

So while most fans will envision Clemens in pinstripes, or gracing the pitchers mound in Fenway Park, I will always think of him as a Houston Astro. Because destiny, it seems, had it in mind all along.

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Larry Walker and home/road splits

One of the things about Hall of Fame voting season that’s really irked me lately is the lack of support for Larry Walker, whose case has been summarily dismissed on the basis of his home/road splits. Walker played most of his career (10 of 17 seasons, to be exact) with the Colorado Rockies, and his numbers were accordingly inflated. There’s no denying that. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more friendly offensive environment than Coors Field during the Steroid Era. In assessing Walker’s candidacy, it’s important to look at his statistics in this context. I have no problem with that.

I do, however, have a problem with the common methodology that many Hall of Fame voters employ in dealing with this. Rather than look at park-adjusted figures, which are easily accessible through sites like Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs, writers take a different approach to this issue: looking at home/road splits. Walker’s home/road splits, in particular, exhibit a fascinating symmetry:

Home: 1.068 OPS

Away: .865 OPS

Overall: .965 OPS

Now, the question becomes what to make of this. For a lot of voters, the away numbers seem to represent "neutralized" numbers -- what the player’s stats would be without park factors getting in the way. That appears to be the implication in Scott Miller’s reasoning, for example:

Larry Walker: Very, very good player. I'd take him on my team. But his home/road splits during all of those Rockies seasons in Coors Field were so uneven.

I have a few problems with this, and they are as follows:

-- The league, as a whole, tends to hit better at home than on the road. In 1997 -- inarguably Walker’s best offensive season -- National League hitters posted a .762 OPS at home, and a .726 OPS on the road. This means that with most hitters, isolating their road splits will lead us to undervalue their overall contributions. And over a full career, it gets to the point where these hitters are severely undervalued.

-- Road splits themselves are not "neutral." Let’s look at Walker’s 2001 season, for example. While other NL hitters’ road splits will get a slight boost from whatever time they spent in Coors Field, Walker's will not. As a member of the Rockies, Walker instead spent a lot of time on the road in parks like San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, where he had 79, 67, and 62 plate appearances, respectively. These were three of 2001’s five most pitcher-friendly parks, according to FanGraphs’ park factors. So while Walker’s home stats are certainly inflated by park factors, we see the opposite effect -- to a lesser extent -- with his road stats.

-- Home/road splits vary for reasons other than park factors.

-- The voters are inconsistent in applying this methodology. I’ve seen home/road splits cited countless times in arguments against Larry Walker’s case for the Hall of Fame, but rarely if ever have I seen them cited in discussions of Jeff Bagwell’s candidacy. If you’re going to whip out home/road splits in dismissing the case of a hitter who spent a lot of time in a hitter-friendly park, why not do the same with a guy who spent a lot of time in a pitcher-friendly park?

Park factors are imperfect, but if your goal is to adjust for ballpark effects, they’re a much better route than home/road splits (for the reasons I’ve outlined). The neutralized stats on Baseball-Reference have Larry Walker at a career .909 OPS. That’s significantly better than his road OPS of .865, and over the course of a 17-year career, this makes a world of difference. By my own crude back-of-the-napkin estimations, treating the .865 OPS as the "true" Larry Walker -- instead of the .909 OPS -- costs him about 15 wins. In other words, it’s reckless and irresponsible. Walker should be a no-brainer for the Hall of Fame -- there’s no question in my mind that he’s got the combination of peak and longevity to meet Hall of Fame standards. But sadly, this gross misapplication of home/road splits is putting a sizable dent in his Hall prospects.

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Wednesday Rockpile: MLB HOF Voting Revealed
Today, No Inductions Expected

For those of you who are sick of hearing about the Baseball Hall of Fame, it will all be over soon. There's some Rockies-specific stuff at the bottom of the post. For the rest of you, let's have a brief chat about the Hall. There's been quite a kerfuffle about this year's ballot, which is largely rooted in the PED issue -- but also in a number of flaws inherent to the Hall of Fame process like the limit on the number of players that can be voted for and the fact that many in the BBWAA haven't been around baseball for years. There's also the fact that the electorate has an objectivity problem.

Both Dave Studeman of the Hardball Times (realistic) and Dave Cameron of Fangraphs (fantasy) have some suggestions to improve the Hall of Fame. Until that time though, we're stuck with the Hall we've got.

I'm fond of filling out Hall of Fame ballots, not really with the hope that some BBWAA member will read it and change their mind, but more because it's fun to look back with a shred of objectivity at the players on the ballot. I have a very specific method that I explained in my ballot from last year, and I'll be using it again this year:

1. The player has to raise the HOF median per the rWAR/WAE/WAM* bullseye method. For position players, that total is 58.0/23.3/3.7, while the median HOF pitcher has a score of 57.2/25.6/5.2. Basically, Hall of Fame pitchers provide less value over their careers, but their peak performance is higher. rWAR got re-tooled this year, so the numbers on each player will be slightly different than last year.

* rWAR -- B-Reference WAR; WAE -- Wins Above Excellence, found by totaling up the surplus WAR in any given season in which a player accrued over 3 WAR; WAM -- Wins Above MVP level, found by totaling the surplus WAR over 6 WAR in one season; For example, Troy Tulowitzki's 2009 would be scored 6.3/3.3/0.3

2. A position player needs to exceed at least two of the bullseye metrics, while a pitcher needs to exceed at least one and come close in another. In the 2012 ballot, no pitcher comes close -- especially old school writer favorite Jack Morris. PS: Todd Helton passes muster on this HOF test at the moment (58.4/23.9/6.3), which if nothing else makes me happy.

3. Dominance within era is very important to me, as I feel that 2-3 dominant seasons are more impactful than several good ones. That is why it is 2/3 of the formula (WAE/WAM) is dominance-related.

4. The bullseye method accounts for peak excellence as well as longevity, but it doesn't take into account postseason excellence, integrity/character, and other factors that muddy the waters of HOF voting considerably. The Hall of Fame is a baseball museum that should include the best players from all eras. Those other factors should only be used in borderline cases.

Without further ado, here's who would make my 2012 HOF ballot, in descending order of merit by rWAR/WAE/WAM:

1. Barry Bonds (158.1/94.5/42.1) -- Bonds is the 2nd greatest player in history and the greatest player from any of our lifetimes. Yes, he was a jerk and yes he used PEDs, but to leave him out of the Hall would be...silly.

2. Roger Clemens (133.1/67.4/25.3) -- See Bonds, Barry. Regardless of what you think of Clemens, he was the best pitcher of the modern era by just about any measure.

3. Curt Schilling (76.9/33.1/6.3) -- Curt Schilling was really good -- and he was even better in the postseason, which pushes him ahead of...

4. Jeff Bagwell (76.7/34.4/5.9) -- Bagwell surpasses each bullseye metric and doesn't have a real steroid issue, though some writers still find one. To be honest, it's hard for me to take anyone who doesn't have Bagwell in the Hall seriously -- he's head and shoulders above anybody else on the ballot.

5. Larry Walker (69.7/26.4/5.2) -- The strength of Walker's candidacy using this metric surprises even me, as he meets/exceeds every bullseye metric. That and his status as a Rockie make him a pretty easy pick for me. It's a real shame that his candidacy hasn't gotten more consideration, but I believe and hope that Walker is a very good candidate in the next few years for a resurgence as the way writers look at statistics continues to evolve.

6. Alan Trammell (67.1/25.4/3.1) -- An underrated defensive shortstop (career 22 defensive WAR) with superficially unimpressive offensive statistics who also performed well in the playoffs, Trammell is basically the same player statistically as the already in Barry Larkin, except his peak was slightly better.

7. Kenny Lofton (64.9/25.1/2.7) -- Lofton will probably fall off the ballot this year after just one year, and that's a shame given the extreme quality of his career and all-around excellence of his game.

8. Tim Raines (66.2/21.5/2.3) -- Besides being very efficient at stealing bases, Raines might be the second greatest leadoff man in recent history. He just had the misfortune of playing at the same time as the best, Rickey Henderson. Struggles with cocaine have likely hurt Raines in the past, but I'd love to see him inducted.

9. Craig Biggio (62.1/21.1/3.9) -- Biggio was closer to the boundary than you might think, but his dominant 9.3 win 1997 pushes him over the top.

10. Edgar Martinez (64.4/26.1/1.3) -- Martinez is right on the edge due to his career's late start and the fact that he was a DH his entire career. He's got fantastic offensive numbers though (as a DH should, I suppose) with a career .312/.418/.515 triple slash, and that puts him over the edge.

Notables that didn't make the cut:

Mike Piazza (56.1/21.1/3.3) -- a great hitting catcher yes, but not much of a catcher

Rafael Palmeiro (66.1/19.6/0.5) -- compiler whose value stats not as impressive as counting stats due to poor defense

Mark McGwire (58.7/20.4/1.6) -- see Palmeiro, Rafael

Sammy Sosa (54.8/22.6/4.4) -- actually has a stronger Hall case that McGwire/Palmeiro by this method due to crazy 10.1 win 2001 season

Jack Morris (39.3/9.8/0.0) -- not close

It's a crazy good ballot this year, with 10 players who would raise the Hall median if they were enshrined, and it's going to get even crazier next year because only Biggio has a real shot to get elected this year.

Other Hall of Fame Links

Chris Jaffe of the Hardball Times predicts vote percentages for every player. Larry Walker languishes at 17% and Kenny Lofton doesn't roll over.

Joe Posnanski has 3 worthy articles:

1. His Hall of Fame ballot, with detailed notes on every player on the ballot

2. On Nostalgia and the Baseball HOF

3. Some notes on what initial HOF voting %s have meant historically

Dan Moore of Viva El Birdos makes a case for Larry Walker in the HOF

Rockies Links -- as promised

Troy Tulowitzki plans to play for the US in the WBC this spring. It will be a good test to see if he is truly injury free. Given the fact that I don't expect Colorado to be contenders this year, it will be nice to see at least one of our players play in a tournament.

Thomas Harding writes about the versatility of Jordan Pacheco, with notes that Pacheco's catching load may be expanding next year. That's good news, because Pacheco is at his most valuable behind the plate.

Andy Behrens of Yahoo Fantasy breaks down some Rockies players in 2013

And finally, MLB paid a Canadian tourism company $1.2 million for the Rockies.com domain name.

Off-Topic.

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2013 Baseball Hall of Fame: PEDs, Responsibility,
and Context

In college, for my senior thesis, I wrote a philosophical paper titled "What Would You Have Done: the Role of Empathy in Assessments of Responsibility". As you can likely deduce, I argued that before we make a judgment about someone's moral responsibility for an act, we should try to empathize with the person. In doing so, we acquire more information about their mental state and the context in which performed the action, which can only improve the accuracy of our assessment.

Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk made a similar point about players who took performance enhancing drugs:

If you take seriously the ethical and moral choices players made, you have to appreciate the context in which those choices were made. Yes, some players probably sat back and said "hell, I wanna hit more homers." But many more likely felt the pressure to take steroids to save their jobs or solidify their careers with the full knowledge that their clubs would reward the performers and punish the non-performers, with no questions asked about the provenance of that performance whatsoever.

If I understand him correctly, Craig is not trying to absolve these players of their responsibility. Even for those players who felt strong pressure from their ballclubs to take or continue to take steroids, we may still examine their situations and conclude that they are responsible.

But, Craig argues, we cannot simply ignore the "context in which these choices were made." As with any moral judgment, the action itself is not sufficient to make a moral judgment. Not only must we consider the context of the action, but the mental state of the person who committed it.

Do I blame Bonds, McGwire, and the like for taking steroids? Yeah, probably. I do believe that they had a choice, and I believe they made the wrong choice (ethically). However, to simplify the choice to "Should I take steroids or not?" without considering the factors that led to, and influenced, that decision, is rash and unhelpful. There is no correct answer here (well, maybe there is, but we don't know it), and one is perfectly justified in blaming or absolving these players. However, as Craig argues, we must do so with a careful examination of all the factors involved.

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