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Yeah, I love Pudge and he's a tossup for best catcher of all-time but I'm 96% sure that he used steroids.

But he's also still a no-brainer HOFer.

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I think it'll definitely help him that he wasn't named in the Mitchell Report.

I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't get in on first ballot, but he'll get in by year 2, IMO.

Bagwell at 85.7% with 24.9% of the ballots known. Looks like Griffey Jr. and Piazza are locks. Raines still in play, as well.

Mussina, Schilling and Edgar Martinez have made good year over year improvements to put them in good position for next year. Hoffman with a strong debut. Of course, they will have a new crop to contend with on the next ballot.

so who are going to be the group of writers that don't vote for Griffey? You know there will be some.

There will be some that think players should "wait their turn" on the ballot. Not sure who they might be.

If any do it, it would not be because Jr. Is not deserving.

yeah I know. I always find those guys to be such jackasses.

Baseball HOF Ballot Tracker

We are 8 days out from the official results!

With an estimated 25.3% of all ballots now known, here is the current ranking:

Ken Griffey, Jr - 100% (+/- 0% from last post)
Mike Piazza - 91.2% (+0.2%)
Jeff Bagwell - 86.0% (+2.7%)
Tim Raines - 82.5% (+3.0%)
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Trevor Hoffman - 63.2% (-2.2%)
Curt Shilling - 61.4% (+6.3%)
Mike Mussina - 57.9% (+6.3%)
Edgar Martinez - 50.9% (-1.7%)
Barry Bonds - 50.0% (+0.0%)
Roger Clemens - 49.1% (-0.9%)
Alan Trammel - 48.2% (+0.8%)
Lee Smith - 30.7% (-2.6%)

Bagwell and Raines continue to give themselves some breathing room. Both Schilling and Mussina have received massive support as of late.

Something to note. Of the 114 ballots cast so far, 106 are returning voters from 2015. Bagwell has received 90 of those 106 votes. Since he has gained 17 votes this year among returning voters, that means he has been listed on over half (17 of 33) of the ballots cast that did not include his name in 2015. If this trend continues to the non-public ballots cast last year, he would be listed on 74% of the non-public ballots in 2016.

28% of all ballots known. Current ranking:

Ken Griffey, Jr - 100% (+/- 0%)
Mike Piazza - 89.7% (-1.5%)
Jeff Bagwell - 83.3% (-2.7%)
Tim Raines - 80.2% (-2.3%)

Hoffman is closest of the non-qualifiers at 64.3%, but would need to be on 79.3% of the remaining ballots to make it. If I'm not mistaken, Wagner hits the ballot next year. It's going to be interesting to see how voters compare Wagner and Hoffman. Personally, I wouldn't put either in the Hall, but based on this year's vote total, it looks like Hoffman will make it eventually. Do voters look strictly at save totals (602 vs 422), or do they go deeper into the stats which paint a more favorable comparison for Wagner?

Wagner is this year. He's at <10%.

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Wagner is this year. He's at <10%.

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Ah, missed that. Thanks. I'm kind of surprised by the difference in votes, so far, between Hoffman and Wagner. It really looks like the saves totals will be key. Francisco Rodriguez is another one that will be interesting, but will most likely get the same treatment as Wagner. I would expect him to reach 500 saves, but certainly don't see him as a HOFer either.

Well three sh**ty ballots became public today:

1) Mark Herrmann: Griffey & Piazza
2) Steven Marcus: Griffey & Hoffman
3) Paul Sullivan: Griffey, Raines, & Smith

When the average number of voters finds 8-10 players worthy of the hall, and you can't come up with more than 2 or 3...

The peen known as Murray Chass upped the ante on thin ballots. He voted for Griffey and that's it. I guess his Big Chief pencil broke after that and he couldn't whittle a point on the nub that was left so he licked the stamp on the envelope, dropped it in the mailbox at the old folks home and called it a day.

Bonds, Schilling, Mussina, Raines, and Trammell all deserve it. None of them will make it.

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Bonds, Schilling, Mussina, Raines, and Trammell all deserve it. None of them will make it.

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I don't think Mussina is a HOFer and I don't think its all that close. Just because you can win 19 games with a 4.81 ERA doesn't mean you're in. He only had 1 full season of sub 3.00 ERA and his best WHIP year was 1.067. For comparison that would be 10th best in 2015 alone.

Tim Raines:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/raineti01.shtml

Rickey Henderson, for comparison:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/henderi01.shtml

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Bonds, Schilling, Mussina, Raines, and Trammell all deserve it. None of them will make it.

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I don't think Mussina is a HOFer and I don't think its all that close. Just because you can win 19 games with a 4.81 ERA doesn't mean you're in. He only had 1 full season of sub 3.00 ERA and his best WHIP year was 1.067. For comparison that would be 10th best in 2015 alone.

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If Messina didn't play in NY

No one would even know his name

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Bonds, Schilling, Mussina, Raines, and Trammell all deserve it. None of them will make it.

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Of that list, I'd only vote in Bonds and Raines.

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Bonds, Schilling, Mussina, Raines, and Trammell all deserve it. None of them will make it.

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I don't think Mussina is a HOFer and I don't think its all that close. Just because you can win 19 games with a 4.81 ERA doesn't mean you're in. He only had 1 full season of sub 3.00 ERA and his best WHIP year was 1.067. For comparison that would be 10th best in 2015 alone.

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If Messina didn't play in NY

No one would even know his name

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I wouldn't go that far, but yes.

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Bonds, Schilling, Mussina, Raines, and Trammell all deserve it. None of them will make it.

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I don't think Mussina is a HOFer and I don't think its all that close. Just because you can win 19 games with a 4.81 ERA doesn't mean you're in. He only had 1 full season of sub 3.00 ERA and his best WHIP year was 1.067. For comparison that would be 10th best in 2015 alone.

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You have to put Mussina's totals into perspective. In 2000, pitching in the AL East, his 3.79 ERA has behind only Martinez's 1.74 ERA and a steroid using Clemens' 3.70 ERA. He finished in the top 10 in ERA in the AL per season from 1997 to 2001. For reference, in 2002, 6 pitchers in the AL had an ERA better than 3.00; 2002 was also the start of Mussina's decline at age 33 even though he did continue to find ways to win (possibly because he moved to the Yankees).

I don't want to sound like WAR is some end all, be all to stats, but I do think it generally does a great job of aggregating all the data that various other individual stats tries to say and puts them in a generally appropriate context for comparison. I say that as I'm about to make an entirely WAR-based argument. For my purposes, I'm using baseball-reference's WAR calc (bWAR).

I don't think Mussina is the best pitcher of the era or anything like that, but he was a really good pitcher for a very long time. 82.7 career bWAR with 10 of 18 seasons of 5 WAR or better, including his last season. I hate the Yankees, and especially did so during the era he played for them, but his success or notoriety is not Yankee-biased. Any pitcher who averages 34 starts a year over 18 high quality seasons is going to get serious consideration without regard to the uniform.

Just comparing his 82.7 career WAR to other notable pitchers who played in the same era:
John Smoltz 66.5
Greg Maddux 104.6
Tom Glavine 74.0
Roger Clemens 139.4
Pedro Martinez 86.0
David Cone 61.7
Kevin Brown 68.5
Andy Pettite 60.8
Curt Schilling 79.9
Randy Johnson 102.1

That's every pitcher who had a career spanning anywhere from the mid 80s through the present with a career WAR greater than 60. He's 58th overall among all players ever in WAR, with the surrounding players on the list being Adrian Beltre, Griffey, Nolan Ryan, Pedro, and Rod Carew.

With all that context, I don't know how you say the Moose doesn't belong.

I believe the Hall of Fame is about the overall body of work, not any one year of particular statistical achievement. I also believe that he pitched throughout the entirety of one of the toughest periods of statistical achievement for pitchers and his merits need to be evaluated with this in mind. I'm certainly willing to acknowledge flaws in the calculation of WAR, but as an all encompassing statistic of the overall value of a player, it is the closest thing we have. Mussina has a higher career rWAR than the likes of Bob Gibson, Jim Palmer, Bob Feller and Carl Hubbell, as well as over fifty other hall of fame pitchers. He surpassed a rating of 5.0 rWAR ten times in his career, which I would argue indicates longevity of greatness.

It would appear that squirrel beat me to the punch while I was researching. I didn't mean to be redundant. The only thing I would add to his post is that I believe WAR is the one statistic that you can argue against various time periods and that Mussina stacks up against the best of all time and not just the best of his generation.

Now that the mlb writer voting block have released their ballots, we can add the following to the WTF list:

Hal Bodley: Griffey, Piazza, McGriff
Marty Noble: Griffey, Kent

There are a few others with just 5 to 7 names checked off

With an estimated 34.7% of all ballots now known, here is the current ranking:

Ken Griffey, Jr - 100%
Mike Piazza - 86.5%
Jeff Bagwell - 79.5 %
Tim Raines - 78.2%
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Trevor Hoffman - 62.2%
Curt Shilling - 59.0%
Mike Mussina - 53.2%
Barry Bonds - 49.4%
Roger Clemens - 48.7%
Edgar Martinez - 46.2%
Alan Trammel - 45.5%
Lee Smith - 30.8%
...
Billy Wagner - 9.6%
...
Garret Anderson - 0.6%
Nomar Garciaparra - 0.6%

Who the hell voted for the last 2?

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Garret Anderson - 0.6%
Nomar Garciaparra - 0.6%

Who the hell voted for the last 2?

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Garret? Plaschke

Nomar? Bob Ryan

Bagwell is going to be real close. He's up almost 20% year over year in released ballots. If that holds across the board that will put him right at 75%. I have a bad feeling he just misses by like 3-5 votes.

Bagwell and Raines trending down, along with the common pattern that unreleased ballots tend to reduce most players totals, doesn't bode well for them at all. I figured they needed to be comfortably above 80% on the public ballots to make it.

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Bagwell is going to be real close. He's up almost 20% year over year in released ballots. If that holds across the board that will put him right at 75%. I have a bad feeling he just misses by like 3-5 votes.

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Even if B**** is just short then this is a huge win for him. Biggio went from not close to missing by 2 (?) votes to an easy win. With Bagwell he was never close and trending the wrong direction at one point. didn't think he had a shot. If he's in the 70%+ range then I think there will be a big push to get him in either next year or maybe the year after depending on how close and who is coming up for vote.

Just think us 'stro fans could go from 0 HOfers last year to two in just a couple of years.

If writer includes Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, Jeff Kent, Larry Walker, or Edgar Martinez on their ballot and not Barry Bonds...they are a hypocrite. It is time that we all stop pretending that steroid usage was limited to a few bad apples. Almost everyone was using. I personally would vote for Bagwell, but in what world is he a hall of famer and not Bonds. I said the same thing last year about Biggio.

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If writer includes Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, Jeff Kent, Larry Walker, or Edgar Martinez on their ballot and not Barry Bonds...they are a hypocrite. It is time that we all stop pretending that steroid usage was limited to a few bad apples. Almost everyone was using. I personally would vote for Bagwell, but in what world is he a hall of famer and not Bonds. I said the same thing last year about Biggio.

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While I agree to an extent, Bonds is the most obvious user ever. The others have a cloud of possibility, but I don't believe any major smoke.

Lets talk about Jeff Kent. To me he should be a in due to the position he played.

Here is where he stands all time for 2nd basemen.

#1 HR (377)
#3 RBI (1518)
#4 Doubles (560)
#6 OPS (.855)
#12 Hits (2461)
#12 Runs (1320)
#18 WAR (55.2) <--- lower than I expected
#27 WAR7 (35.6) <--- lower than I expected

And while I am looking, lets take a look at B**** and where he stands with other 1Bs.

#11 Runs (1517)
#27 Hits (2314)
#15 Doubles (488)
#14 Home Runs (449)
#15 RBIs (1529)
#20 SBs (202)
#16 OPS (.948)
#6 WAR (79.6)
#5 WAR7 (48.2) <--- ahead of 17 others HOF 1Bs.


WAR7 is WAR for their best 7 seasons

With the latest few ballots, Bagwell creeps back over the 80% mark.

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If writer includes Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, Jeff Kent, Larry Walker, or Edgar Martinez on their ballot and not Barry Bonds...they are a hypocrite. It is time that we all stop pretending that steroid usage was limited to a few bad apples. Almost everyone was using. I personally would vote for Bagwell, but in what world is he a hall of famer and not Bonds. I said the same thing last year about Biggio.

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Huh? Bonds is an admitted user.

It's not hypocritical to vote out known users and let in those you just suspect.

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If writer includes Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, Jeff Kent, Larry Walker, or Edgar Martinez on their ballot and not Barry Bonds...they are a hypocrite. It is time that we all stop pretending that steroid usage was limited to a few bad apples. Almost everyone was using. I personally would vote for Bagwell, but in what world is he a hall of famer and not Bonds. I said the same thing last year about Biggio.

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While I agree to an extent, Bonds is the most obvious user ever. The others have a cloud of possibility, but I don't believe any major smoke.

Lets talk about Jeff Kent. To me he should be a in due to the position he played.

Here is where he stands all time for 2nd basemen.

#1 HR (377)
#3 RBI (1518)
#4 Doubles (560)
#6 OPS (.855)
#12 Hits (2461)
#12 Runs (1320)
#18 WAR (55.2) <--- lower than I expected
#27 WAR7 (35.6) <--- lower than I expected

And while I am looking, lets take a look at B**** and where he stands with other 1Bs.

#11 Runs (1517)
#27 Hits (2314)
#15 Doubles (488)
#14 Home Runs (449)
#15 RBIs (1529)
#20 SBs (202)
#16 OPS (.948)
#6 WAR (79.6)
#5 WAR7 (48.2) <--- ahead of 17 others HOF 1Bs.


WAR7 is WAR for their best 7 seasons

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When someone actually lays out Bagwell's numbers, it is clear to me that any writer who takes the position that he should not be a hall of famer simply because of his numbers (which many do state) should have voting privileges revoked.

Here is an interesting article

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseball-hall-of-fame-is-stuck-in-the-60s/