The Four Flavors of Hall of Fame ballots
Along with Bill of Rights Day, the Winter Solstice, and Rickey Henderson’s birthday, December is Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot month. It’s that time of year when avid fans of the Baseball Hall of Fame can religiously track the voting on Twitter through Ryan Thibodaux’s BBHOF Tracker. As the publicly-available ballots come streaming in, we get a peek into the mind of some BBWAA members.
Jeff Blair submitted a four-person ballot that includes Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, David Ortiz, and Alex Rodrguez, but no Manny Ramirez, who Blair had voted for previously. As noted in the tweet, Blair “decided against [Ramírez] this year because I’m one of those voters who casts a small ballot and I wanted to make room for A-Rod.” Keep in mind that voters can choose up to 10 players so, apparently, Jeff Blair’s self-imposed “small Hall” ballot limit is four.
A few writers have taken Curt Schilling off their ballots after voting for him previously, which may have been a result of Schilling tweeting his support during the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol last January 6 that resulted in the deaths of five people, including a U.S. Capitol police officer. The heroic Schilling “bloody sock” game now seems so long ago. As of Thursday, December 16, Schilling was second in lost votes to Omar Vizquel, who is facing a lawsuit accusing him of sexually harassing a former Birmingham Barons batboy, and has lost 8 votes from returning voters.
The controversial duo of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are in their final year on the BBWAA ballot. They’re so inextricably linked that it’s always fascinating to see people who vote for one but not the other. So far, there are two such writers this year. Jon Heyman voted for Bonds but not Clemens, while Sadiel Lebron voted for Clemens but not Bonds.
Lebron’s ballot raised some questions. He voted for Bobby Abreu, Roger Clemens, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, David Ortiz, Andy Pettitte, Manny Ramírez, Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling, and Sammy Sosa. As some people in the comments wondered, how do you vote for Clemens, Ramírez, and Sosa, but not Bonds? Lebron responded by saying, “just want to give Sosa the chance to go to the Veterans Committee.. Bonds will get enough votes to go that route..”
This year’s ballot includes four players on their 10th and final ballot, along with 12 new arrivals. There are six players with 500 or more homers and five pitchers with 200 or more wins. With 30 players on the ballot and a maximum of 10 votes to use, some BBWAA members will have difficult decisions to make. Add into the mix the various opinions of the 400 or so baseball writers casting their votes and we will likely see plenty of thought-provoking ballots over the next few weeks.
With that in mind, here are four theme-based flavors of Baseball Hall of Fame ballots:
The All Sinners Ballot
This ballot brought to you by the shrug emoji, for the voters who throw their hands in the air and put an X next to all the high-profile villains. This includes the PED-tainted players, the insurrection supporter, the sexual-harassing/accused domestic-abuser shortstop, and Roger Clemens, who is tarnished by both PEDs and a relationship with singer Mindy McReady that she confirmed began when she was 15.
Bonds, Clemens, A-Rod, and Manny!
Sosa and Sheffield, David and Andy!
Add in some Schilling and Omar Vizquel
and the whole lot of them can go straight to Hell
Admittedly, it’s not like the Hall of Fame is filled with saints. There are racist players and racist owners enshrined. Ball Four and books like it have revealed the less-than-faithful behavior of many married players. Amphetamine use was rampant for decades in the big leagues. And before pitchers found “sticky stuff,” there was Vaseline, thumbtacks and nail files. There are Hall of Famers in all of the aforementioned groups.
The All Saints Ballot
As far as I know, Torii Hunter and Mark Buehrle and Jimmy Rollins and some other players on this ballot are good guys, but do we really know? Steve Garvey was Mr. Squeaky Clean until he wasn’t. Kirby Puckett was a big, lovable, ball of joy on the field but we found out later he wasn’t so lovable off the field at times. Ultimately, we don’t really know what goes on in a player’s private life, so the All Saints Ballot will remain blank, at least until Dale Murphy makes it on one of the Era Committee ballots.
The Prickly Personalities Ballot
This one is limited to the players not already on the All Sinners ballot who would also be appropriate for this ballot, namely, Barry Bonds (just ask Jim Leyland—NSFW), Curt Schilling, and Roger Clemens, who famously fielded part of Mike Piazza’s broken bat and flung it at Piazza as he ran to first, shocking umpires so much that they didn’t even think to throw Clemens out of the game at the time. In the linked video, Clemens can be seen saying, “I thought it was the ball,” and not one person thought to ask him, “Okay, but why would you throw the ball at the guy running to first? That doesn’t make any sense either, Roger.” It’s seriously one of the strangest things ever seen during a World Series game.
This trio of prickly personalities are guys who rubbed others the wrong way, like Jeff Kent, who had his moments with teammates on multiple teams, but had his biggest scraps as a teammate of Barry Bonds on the Giants. Both were named on this Bleacher Report list of Most Despised Teammates in Major League History (Kent is #10, Bonds #17). Along with their numerous verbal confrontations, they got into a shoving match in the Giants dugout in June of 2002.
Another dugout fight came courtesy of another guy on this list, Jonathan Papelbon, who went after Bryce Harper as a member of the Nationals. He was suspended for four games, which was added to the three games he had just received for intentionally beaning Manny Machado. He wasn’t a favorite of Philly fans either.
A.J. Pierzynski was like the mosquito bite of baseball players. He was annoying in relentless small doses over a long period of time, whether it was running over the pitcher’s mound on his way off the field after making an out or kneeing his trainer in the private parts after taking a shot to his own. As the story goes, after Pierzynski took a foul ball to the grapes, trainer Stan Conte ran out to ask him how he felt and Pierzynski said, “Like this” and delivered a knee to Stan’s man parts.
Pierzynski’s manager with the White Sox, Ozzie Guillen, summed it up perfectly: “If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less.” The highlight of Pierzynski’s career, for player’s who hated him, was when Michael Barrett slugged him in the face after a home-plate collision.
The All JAWS Ballot
JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score system) was created by Jay Jaffe, current writer at FanGraphs, as a way to determine a player’s Hall of Fame worthiness in comparison to the players already enshrined. It uses a combination of the player’s career WAR (per Baseball-Reference) and 7-year peak WAR. The players checked on this ballot are at or above the average JAWS number of the Hall of Fame players at their particular position and are considered Hall of Famers by the JAWS standard.
Barry Bonds is the #1 left fielder by JAWS and it’s not particularly close. The only position player in baseball history with a higher JAWS is Babe Ruth. Manny Ramírez is #10 on the JAWS list for left fielders, which is just above the average for Hall of Fame left fielders, so he joins Bonds on the ballot among the outfielders eligible.
Roger Clemens ranks third among starting pitchers, behind Walter Johnson and Cy Young and ahead of Pete Alexander and Lefty Grove, all of whom played many decades before Clemens. Curt Schilling also makes the cut, ranking 28th among starting pitchers in JAWS.
Álex Rodríguez is another slam-dunk, ranking as the #2 shortstop of all-time by JAWS, behind only Honus Wagner. Scott Rolen slots in at #10 among third baseman, between Hall of Famers Paul Molitor and Edgar Martinez (considered a third baseman for JAWS purposes).
Finally, there’s Todd Helton, who is listed just below the average of 22 Hall of Fame first basemen, but whose 54.2 JAWS is identical to that average, so that’s good enough for me.
Tune in soon for the sequel: Four More Flavors of Hall of Fame Ballots.
