2019 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

Holy shit, who the fuck watching baseball in the 1980s and 1990s ever thought baines was a HOFer?

 

Every reference I ever heard to Baines and Hall of Fame was something like, "Great hitter, but he won't get in because he's a DH." This one shocked me, and I loved Harold Baines. Led the league in slugging once. Six All Star selections. The definition of Very Good. Maybe even Great. But not Timelessly Great.

 

Now I know how they got in. A 16-person committee in which Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf was a major player.

 

Lee Smith was also in that first generation of closers who really seemed to define the position, and I think that counts for something. Even though a handful of other guys had tremendous success -- Willie Hernandez and Steve Bedrosian both won Cy Youngs, and Hernandez won an MVP award as well -- Smith, Gossage and Bruce Sutter are the three guys of that era who immediately jump to mind when you think of closers.

 

The guy played for 21 years and never got to 3,000 hits. Is there such a thing as an anti-compiler?

 

Yeah, but they're mainly found in the NL in the form of full-time pinch-hitters. I almost think this vote has been taken to troll Bonds et al. It's really gotta hack them off. On the same ballot: Albert Belle, whose Hall-worthy numbers were offset by a hint of steroids and a full-on contempt of virtually everything resembling a human.

 

Harold Baines is in and Dale Murphy is not? What a ridiculous Hall.

 

Murphy 2 MVPs, top 10 in 2 other years. Might be the only multiple MVP excluded from the Hall.
Baines top 10 twice, one 10th and one ninth. That's it. No comparison.

 

For the record, Murphy wasn't on this ballot (nor was another egregious HOF omission dear to my heart, Lou Whitaker). This subset was the "Today's Game" grouping, which is supposed to be players who made their main impact from 1988 to the present. Others on this ballot were Albert Belle, Joe Carter, Will Clark, Orel Hershiser; Davey Johnson, Charlie Manuel and Lou Piniella as managers and George Steinbrenner, for assholes.

 

Amazing that four of the five you mention pitched for the Cubs and three of them made their MLB debuts there

 

Murphy will be on next year's ballot, the Modern Game one, which was last year's: the holdovers should be Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Marvin Miller, Murphy, Dave Parker, Ted Simmons, Luis Tiant with two spots open due to the election of Morris and Trammell.