I guess I am first in to hope that Alomar is rightfully elected in his second year of eligibility. For now though I must say that I'm thrilled the Hawk finally made it in. I don't think I could have accepted a HoF with Jim Rice in it and Dawson on the outside looking in.

Too bad about Robbie - BUT -

Congrats to the Hawk - I wonder what he could have achieved IF he's kept his knees healthy.

Hawk is a marginal choice. He was a great player for 4 years, and had some good years after that.  He was a significantly lesser player than Reggie Smith, who also started his career in center and then moved to right later on, and Jimmy Wynn, but you could do (and the Hall has done) worse.  Like last year.

It does look like Blyleven and Alomar will be inducted.  The support for Larkin is heartening, but the lack thereof for Raines and Trammell is not.  The support for Jack Morris is strange; you can make a somewhat plausible argument that he is the best starting pitcher on the ballot other than Blyleven, even though any kind of statistical analysis would have him noticeably behind Appier, and it is true that starting pitchers are under-represented.  Nonetheless, Morris had 39.5 WAR in his career, according to Rally, a little behind Jim Rice.  I guess that he was feared in the same way...

The BBWAA will always, it seems, undervalue OBP.

Good thing that David Segui got a vote. Glad to see that everyone took their responsibilities seriously.

Wow, so close for Robbie.  Quite interesting to see how tight the vote was though on some of the holdovers.

So next year we can say for certain that Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar get in (hard not to gain 1.3% year over year at this point). 

Jack Morris gained 8.3% and is likely to sneak in during the 2012 election (his last shot really with the killer 2013 ballot next)
Barry Larkin being over 50% year one makes him a lock to get there, probably in 2012 after Roberto gets in.
Lee Smith gained 2.8% and probably won't have the momentum to get there via the writers.
Edgar Martinez getting 36.2% was better than expected.  I suspect he'll make it eventually assuming he survives the 2013/2014 mess.
Tim Raines made serious gaines of 7.8% but has a loooong road ahead - shame as he was better than Tony Gwynn who some writers keep saying was an obvious pick (walks + hits for Raines > walks + hits for Gwynn)
Mark McGwire moved up 1.8% - the steroid taint is strong and leads one to fear the mess in the steroid ballot of 2013 (Bonds/Clemens/Sosa/Piazza with Palmeiro almost certainly still around)
Alan Trammell moved up 5%, major move when you are as low as he was. I suspect Larkin did this as people noticed just how good Trammell is.
Fred McGriff getting 21.5% is a major surprise - I thought voters would be a lot harder on him.  He actually has a shot.
Don Mattingly gained 4.2% for some reason
Dave Parker, Dale Murphy, and Harold Baines gained 0.2% each.

I thought Andres Galarraga would get the 5% but was just 5 votes shy (22 total votes).
One has to wonder who David Segui bribed to get his vote :)

In the end I can live with Alomar and Blyleven waiting a year as no one was knocked off who I felt shouldn't be (liked Galarraga but he isn't a HOF'er).  It seems the anti-steroid crowd is still going strong though which suggests the expected mess in 3 years will be just as ugly as feared with 6 guys clogging the process for a long time (getting over 25% of the vote, leaving no more than 4 potentials to get in each year with many being knocked off quickly).

One does wonder how to get those *(#&! writers who don't notice that Raines is better than any other outfielder on the ballot and that he was better than Gwynn to see it and vote for him already.

Does the Hawk go in as an Expo?

Hell yes. Dawson was elected on the basis of his accomplishments as a 'Spo, despite his controversial '87 NL MVP as a Cub.

Congrats to Dawson.  Would like to see Blyleven, Alomar, Raines, Larkin, McGriff get in.

As John said, there are some positives to take from this vote, such as that Blyleven and Alomar should go in together in 2011.

Jeff Blair's article today on the Hall was disappointing (aside from pointing out how Raines has been criminally overlooked), especially concerning his Hall of Fame voting process.

Waiting another year for Alomar sucks.  Cheek FINALLY getting in would ease the pain a bit, but I was so looking forward to Alomar going in this year.  I probably would have started looking at hotels now.  Never been to cooperstown and plan on making my first visit when he goes in.  In the grand scheme of things the extra year of waiting isn't too bad, but he deserves it now as several idiots stated he is a hall of famer but I'm not voting for him anyway because he is not a first ballot hall of famer.

I don't like to dwell on the thinking that must be behind some of the HoF ballots because it is so frustrating, but it is more difficult to ignore in these days of overcommunication from a lot of these writers who have a vote.  Recently one bozo said he didn't vote for Alomar because he wasn't a "first ballot Hall of Famer" (as if there were such a thing) and he didn't vote for Dawson because he had failed to get enough votes over several years.   Doesn't this clown see that if everyone thought like he does, almost no player would ever get in?

Cheek FINALLY getting in would ease the pain a bit, but I was so looking forward to Alomar going in this year.

I almost hope Cheek doesn't get it this year, so he go in next year with Alomar. It would have be nice for the first player wearing the Jays cap to go in with Toronto's legendary broadcaster.

Note that I said almost. Cheek needs to go in, as soon as possible.

The writers are turning the Hall of Fame into a joke.  That a 3/4 majority think that Andre Dawson should be in the Hall of Fame when far superior players languish outside is a shame. 

Careful, everyone.  All this criticism of the BWAA is seriously upsetting Richard Griffin.

I think the portion I most savoured was his indignation over the allegation that writers take only five minutes to fill out their ballot, which he finds personally insulting (although apparently it is within bounds to make ugly insinuations that unspecified personal issues merit making Robbie Alomar wait another year to be enshrined).  Although in fairness to Griffin, it may be true that no writer spends five minutes on their ballot; Jeff Blair today confessed it only takes two minutes to fill out his.

In any event, a pox on all their houses.

 

Five of Dawson's ten most similar hitters are in the Hall:  Billy Williams, Tony Perez, Al Kaline, Ernie Banks and Dave Winfield.

The others are Dave Parker, Harold Baines, Luis Gonzalez, Dwight Evans and Gary Sheffield.

Baseball Reference tracks a Power/Speed index where Dawson ranks seventh all-time behind Bonds, Henderson, Mays, ARod, Bonds and Morgan.  (There are 3 members of the 400hr/300sb club:  Barry Bonds, Willy Mays and Andrew Dawson.)

His Adjusted OPS+ through his age-37 season was 123.  For reference, that would put him at around .855-860 in a neutral park in 2009.  (He tailed off to 119 over four more seasons.)

The writers are turning the Hall of Fame into a joke.

The real scandal is what passes for a Veteran's Committee. Asking Hall of Famers to vote on Ron Santo is also asking them to give up part of their income and give it to Ron Santo. Surprise - they've so far chosen not to.

I don't understand at all the reasoning behind purposefully omitting somebody on the first ballot that you know you are going to vote for later.

As mentioned in the Star, once a player is voted in, they are in, so why bother delaying?

If anything, it makes those writers who do delay their vote on purpose seem like jackasses. Only truly great players deserve the honor of receiving a particular writer's vote on the first ballot? What kind of egotistical rule is that? Since the players can actually fall off the ballot if they don't get enough votes, it's actually pretty flippant and petty for a writer to exclude a player that they know is deserving.

Luckily, there appear to be enough writers who vote earnestly from year one to prevent somebody truly deserving from falling off of the ballot immediately.

It's all pretty screwy. There are certainly voters who carefully consider everything and have reasons for what they do, even if they're probably wrong. And then there are people who vote for Eric Karros and David Segui for the Hall of Fame. And someone voted for Pat Hentgen - one of my all-time favourite Blue Jays, but not at all deserving of the Hall of Fame.

Jay Mariotti explains how to take your HOF ballot seriously.

As a UK based Canadian Baseball fan I find the whole HOF machinations remarkable.

I love the Jays and baseball but I find it tremendously hard to get wound up about a vote carried out amongst the press (with the arbitrary qualification of 10 years service time) in order to be awarded a place in a somewhat contrived institution known as the Hall of Fame.

Over here - football/ soccer is king and it's as old as, well, the (now) snow covered hills.

The game drips with history from the World Cup wins of 1966 through all the great players that have laced up their boots to the superstars of today. People's accomplishments are measured by caps, championships, goals and the respect of peers. 

There is no Hall of Fame - and I can't imagine there ever will be.  It would seem so contrived as to be un imaginable. I respect all the arguments and thought that goes into people debating entry here - I just think it's interesting that it seems to means so much to people.

Why is there such stock placed in an institution which could be described as eccentric at best and self -indulgent at worst? Is it a cultural thing - a desire for hsitory and tradition in what is still a young country?

 

Dawson is one of  the least deserving people among the people that are deserving on the ballot. Did that make sense?

 

The point beign that he DOES deserve a spot in the hall, but there are anumber of people who deserve to go in more than he does, like Alomar. Like Raines. Like Blyleven. Like McGwire.

r romero vaughan:
my cynical take is that it drives the twin industries of merchandise and tourism. there's dollars in the hof, maybe not many... i have no idea. but it's like they say about guys, they'll wade through...etc etc.. not family friendly.

I'll echo everyone's puzzling over this "1st ballot" non-sense.

The only reason I can come up with is that voters like the trivia question, "Name all the 1st ballot HoFers"...

Anybody curious about the whys and wherefores of the Hall of Fame could do no better than to read Bill James's excellent book on the subject. It was originally called The Politics of Glory but seems to have been retitled Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?

It was the fans and media who came up with this first ballot non-sense.  We're not satisfied with just saying "these are the greatest of all time".  We have to further analyze.  We want tiers.  We say "these are the first ballot guys - the greatest of the greatest".  Naturally, some writer respond to this.  If you want tiers - they oblige.  They say, "I know this guy's going in, but lets not put him in that 'inner circle' because he didn't quite do things the 'right' way.  Fans and media eat up things like 'inner circle' and 'right way' and 'first ballot HOFer', so a good portion of the BBWAA obliges.

It's a vote, people are entitled to vote for the greatest of the greatest as they see fit.  There's 500 some odd voters - which stat heads should appreciate - to increase sample size.

In the end, they usually get it right.  How many are in the Hall?  How many are there that shouldn't be?  How many aren't there that won't be?

How can you not be encouraged with the education of the electorate over Blyleven over the years?  How can you not wonder why it was needed?  Hopefully, the Raines education will bear similar fruit.

Shall I summarize the Hall's work? We'll use career WAR, on the understanding that there are some difficulties with peak-heavy players, catchers and relievers. 

For position players, there are 34 players with more than 80 WAR, 32 eligible plus A-Rod and Bonds.  The last three are Clemente, DiMaggio and Gehringer.  If you can't get these right, you haven't spent very long thinking about it.  The Hall has got these right. There are 20 position players between 70 and 80 WAR, 13 of whom are eligible.  The Hall has got all of them, save for Bill Dahlen.  These were not particularly difficult, the last three being Fred Clarke, Johnny Bench and Johnny Mize.  Between 60 WAR and 70 WAR are the players who mostly belong.  The Hall seems to get about 75% of these right- missing so far in the 65-70 range are Whitaker, Grich and Santo, along with many in the 60-65 range like Reggie Smith.   Between 50 and 60 WAR are the players who mostly do not belong, and the Hall gets at least 25% of these wrong, mostly on the inclusion side (Harry Hooper, Tony Perez).  Below 50 WAR, the Hall has made a significant number of obvious inclusion errors (Combs, Manush, Jim Rice, Brock, Kell, Bottomley, Hafey, Kelly, Lindstrom).

For pitchers, there are 21 pitchers with more than 80 WAR, 18 eligible plus Maddux, Unit and Clemens.  The last three are Clarkson, Jenkins and Roberts.  The Hall has got them all except Blyleven (who looks like he will go in next year). Between 70 and 80 WAR, there are only six pitchers, three eligible old-timers, Don Sutton and Pedro and Mussina.  The writers deserve credit for enshrining Sutton.  Between 60 and 70 WAR, there are 15 pitchers and these are the interesting ones (Schilling, Glavine, Reuschel, Feller, Drysdale, Mullane, Brown, McCormick, Hubbell, Marichal, Smoltz, Palmer, Rusie, Bunning, Tiant). The Hall has got about 75% of these right so far.  Between 50 and 60 WAR are players who mostly do not belong and the Hall gets at least 25% of these wrong, mostly on the inclusion side (Rixey, Coveleski). Under 50 WAR, the Hall has made a significant number of obvious inclusion errors (Hoyt, Grimes, Pennock, Chesbro, Catfish, Sutter). 

If I was to summarize, it would be this.  With the coming inclusion of Blyleven, the Hall will have all the lead-pipe cinches.  It misses about 15% of the next group, who really should be fairly easy (Dahlen, Grich, Santo, Whitaker, Reuschel).  It is completely hit-and-miss on the ones who should be near the line, on either side.  But, there are many more obvious inclusion errors than obvious exclusion errors and some of these have been recent (Sutter, Rice, Catfish).  In the result, about 10-15% of the Hall consists of players who were considerably lesser players than an equivalent number who have not been admitted. 

On the position player side, the major problems seem to be a lack of understanding of statistics and of the importance of the defensive spectrum.  With regard to pitchers, the major problem seems to be a lack of understanding of statistics. 

It seems like the recent ballots have shown a rebellion to the stat crew via the writers.  Rice, Sutter, Dawson were not 'stathead' choices by any stretch.  They'll add in some 'stathead' choices like Blyleven with reluctance but it takes a lot (see Tim Raines vs Tony Gwynn - many writers see Gwynn as a HOF lock but Raines as a non-HOFer which is just bizarre). 

In a previous generation Lou Whittaker and Alan Trammell would've been locks imo as the center of a champion team and for the story (teammates for all but one extra season for Trammell iirc).  Rice was pure rebellion against the statheads who pushed against him (the FEAR).  Catfish and Sutter were 'good story' based.  In about 10 years things will get a bit more logical as more older writers stop voting and more new writers start.  Still, I'd love it if Jeff Blair would actually spend more than two minutes on his ballot.

Nice summary, Mike - though a Magpie data table would be more pleasing to the eye.

Two questions:  1)  On the surface, I can't see how WAR accomodates differences in eras - Dawson played in a bit of a "dead-ball" era.  2)  I can't see any UZR for Dawson, so how does WAR capture his defensive value?

 

 

3)  WAR doesn't seem to consider stolen bases and caught stealings.  Is it that hard to do?

4)  WAR also doesn't account for runs saved due to an outfielder's arm.

I suppose many writers see the newer (enlightening) statistics as something of a threat.  After all, the thing that separates them as a group from the rest of us is that they have each spent at least ten years getting paid to write about baseball games and players, so we assume that they have seen a lot of games in person. They like to think that there is no substitute for such first-hand observation. Most of us have learned that objective, scientifically calculated measurement is likely to yield more accurate results than anecdotal evidence, but the writers are not us.

 Thanks to you who have pointed out that the BBWAA has in the end  recognized most of the right people. It helps me to put up with the ignorant comments from some of the individuals therein.

1)  On the surface, I can't see how WAR accomodates differences in eras - Dawson played in a bit of a "dead-ball" era.  2)  I can't see any UZR for Dawson, so how does WAR capture his defensive value?

I know that WAR accounts for era by adjusting for the level of the "replacement" player, which would likewise move with the era, in the same way that OPS+ does.  Defense from what I've read is more challenging in the pre-UZR days, but is estimated through play-by-play data and other techniques as well in the deeper past. Perhaps not as good as UZR on a year-to-year basis, but likely reliable over the course of a career. I think baserunning is incorporated as well, at least as far as SB/CS (which are easy to figure out, although the value of a steal does change slightly according to the run scoring environment). And I don't recall if outfielder arm is incorporated in the estimates at this point. See this article for more.

Why is there such stock placed in an institution which could be described as eccentric at best and self -indulgent at worst? Is it a cultural thing - a desire for history and tradition in what is still a young country?

R Romero Vaughan’s question is fascinating, to me anyway.

Americans love badges, patches, gadgets, all sorts of paraphernalia, decorations, etc. as outward demonstrations of one’s nature and status. Remember the fuss over lapel-pins during the election run-up? Ever seen a New York cop,  or virtually any U.S. soldier,  or a run-of-the-mill Boy Scout?  They carry about pounds of gadgetry and doo-dads,  all of them essential to their work, of course.  New York cops, in fact, suffer disabling back injuries from all their gear (about 40 pounds of it).   Similarly the Hall of Fame is a place; you can go there and see things, sometimes even touch them.   It’s as if the Yanks don’t trust such intangibles as mind and memory:  they want to see the actual stuff, to make sure.  Remember Harry Truman’s celebrated assertion that, being from Missouri, he needed to be shown.  The Yanks have a long history of anti-intellectualism.  It’s thriving today, as seldom before.   I’ve been to Cooperstown, several times.  It’s charming, both in its location and in its evocation of past glories and past times.   It’s also a very shrewd marketing of  nostalgia.  We’re all awe-struck grade-schoolers again when we enter  The Hall.  I remember the first time I visited,  and saw that the hall of the plaques actually is shrine-like.  Ye gods!    The Hall of Fame is quintessentially American.  It manifests some of their most appealing qualities, and some less appealing ones, too.  Worth a visit.

Rally's WAR (Dawson is at 56.8) includes an OFarm (Dawson was +32 runs for his career).  The batting runs include (I believe) adjustments for stolen base efficiency and frequency, as almost all estimators do.  They are adjusted for era, as they are compared with averages for the era.  There is, however, an issue about positional adjustments for each era (Dan Rosenhek and Rally have a disagreement about shortstop/third base positional adjustments in the seventies, for instance). 

The biggest issues are the undervaluing of relievers (Rivera is under 50 WAR) and catchers (Campanella, Cochrane, Hartnett...all look like they should be out). 

Oh, yeah, and defence is done by Total Zone.  It is quite reliable for the retrosheet era, but if you are (for instance) trying to decide about the defensive peaks of Tris Speaker or Ty Cobb, it is pretty much a guess.

There are some oddities.  For instance, if you look at Willie Mays,  TZ has him as a good but not great centerfielder in his 20s, but then a great one in his early 30s.  By the way, TZ loves Devon White's defence in Toronto from 91-93, and makes him an integral part of the team's success during those years. 

Thanks for the rundown on those questions.

Dawson becomes the 10th ranked hitter (according to Rally's WAR) debuted in the 70's to make the Hall.  10 per decade seems about right, though 16 per decade seems a bit excessive for overall Hall size.  [Asterix notes not inducted.]

1. Ricky Henderson
2. Mike Schmidt
3. George Brett
4. Robin Yount
5. Paul Molitor
6. Lou Whitaker*
7. Alan Tramell*
8. Eddie Murray
9. Gary Carter
10. Ozzie Smith
11. Dwight Evans*
12. Keith Hernandez*
13. Buddy Bell*
14. Willie Randolf*
15. Dave Winfield
16. Andre Dawson

HoF has been a total joke for years. Jim Rice was the last straw for me.

Long live the Hall of Merit!

I see Doc is three 6 WAR seasons away from Drysale and Palmer country.

Kevin Brown is in the same territory (66 WAR) and should be on the ballot next year.

 

If you want to look at this seriously, take a gander at the Hall of Merit threads on Primer.  The regular contributors (names such as John Murphy, Dan Rosenhek, Joe Dimino, OCF, Chris Cobb) are generally thoughtful and seasoned observers of baseball who take the whole question of honouring baseball's best to heart.  Others with specialized knowledge of Negro Leagues and baseball history pop in. 

JoePo just had a long blog post comparing the Hall of Merit to the Hall of Fame.

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/12/28/the-hall-of-merit-and-fame/

I don't really agree with Joe Po on one thing.  The Hall of Merit contains, as far as I can tell, no egregious errors among any of the 20th century choices.  I might agree or disagree with some of them (and might be persuaded that I am mistaken), but none of them are off to the degree that Rice or Hunter are. 

None are worse then say Hunter, but the Hall of Merit is much bigger then my personal Hall.  Will Clark, Willie Randolph, Graig Nettles, Bret Saberhagan?  Way too big for my taste.  I'd take their process over the BBWAA's though.

If Jay Mariotti (who left his blank ballot) believes without bias that there are no candidates worthy of being enshrined into the Hall of Fame, that's his opinion and I can accept that decision, even if I don't agree.

What makes me far more annoyed with the voting process is the minority group of writers who feel that their job isn't just to vote who gets in, but when they get in. The idea that this minority has decided to make Alomar and Blyleven sweat before they get in is silly--it's an abuse of what they were asked to do which is simply decide who should get in and who shouldn't. Same thing with Ricky Henderson and the non-unanimous vote.

fyi: an interesting background article on the Alomar-McGriff trade mentioning some things I hadn't heard before, e.g. the Padres were willing to give up Alomar for Fernandez because they figured it was easier to find a second-baseman than a shortstop, Gillick had a history with Alomar before the trade, McGriff was the favorite player of Gillick's wife, etc.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/sports/baseball/06trade.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Thanks for the link, Stephen T.  Good read!

Does anyone else think that morris' performance for us in the 92 world series hurts his hall chances? Up until then he could also lay claim to one of the greatest postseason performers ever. But after 2 losses in the ws and the infamous "the braves are in trouble" quote he became just a very good one.

Jim, the Hall of Merit decided at the beginning to aim for the same number of members as the Hall of Fame.  So, on the margins you end up with players like Will Clark.  It is not well known, but Clark had a much higher peak than Rice and a much more valuable career. 

The big Hall/small Hall question is one purely of taste. 

Does anyone else think that morris' performance for us in the 92 world series hurts his hall chances? Up until then he could also lay claim to one of the greatest postseason performers ever. But after 2 losses in the ws and the infamous "the braves are in trouble" quote he became just a very good one.

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it has hurt his Hall chances at all. Morris supporters point to at least two, and often all three, of the following points when voting for him.
1. He was the best pitcher of the 1980's, in their opinion.
2. He was a big-game and postseason pitcher.
3. He pitched a lot of innings.

Almost every Morris supporter mentions his big game ability in reference to the 1991 World Series, and particularly game 7. They never mention the 1992 World Series and, not surprisingly given the mindset of many of these analysts, they fail to recognize Blyleven had two strong postseasons for World Series Champions.

I think that the voters who would be persuaded either way by a couple of games in one postseason almost uniformly vote for Morris because 1991 in so prominent in their memories. I believe the voters who look at the stats and conclude Morris was a good pitcher, but not close to a Hall of Famer are not the kind who would change their mind if he had a strong postseason in 1992. They are the kind who would change their mind if his ERA was, perhaps, 50 points lower.

Maybe there are a couple of voters who regard 1992 as the difference, but I think the number is minimal and probably non-existent. The only way 1992 could have made a difference, in my mind, is if he had duplicated 1991 and won 3 games with an ERA around 1. Maybe then it might have changed a few minds.

Unsurprisingly, there are some very good articles up at Baseball Analysts and Hardball Times following up on the HOF vote.

In Lederer's article, he looks at the best pitcher in baseball for each five year interval over the past 50 years.  Stieb was there five times.  Halladay is the most recent leader.

Over at Hardball Times, Sean Smith had the same idea yesterday as I did, let's track Wins Above Excellence, where seasonal WAR's in excess of 3.0 are totalled to give more weight to "greatness" over prolonged "goodness".  He did it through a limited look at Dawson and two contemporaries.

It's kind of startling that Halladay is only there once. I guess those two injury-shortened seasons really hurt him.

I don't really agree with Joe Po on one thing.  The Hall of Merit contains, as far as I can tell, no egregious errors among any of the 20th century choices.  I might agree or disagree with some of them (and might be persuaded that I am mistaken), but none of them are off to the degree that Rice or Hunter are.

More disturbing to me is that the HoF has glaring omissions in the form of Trammel and Raines (I'll asume that Alomar and Blyleven eventually get in). Anyone who saw them play over the course of their careers (as I did) has to be off their tree to think they weren't better than Kirby Puckett or Jim Rice.

The HoM will NEVER exclude anyone as good as Rock Raines. Never. In My view he is one of the 50 best players of all time.

They are really two sides of the same coin.  Admitting Rice while excluding Raines would be an example of the 10-15% of obvious errors that I referred to earlier. Raines remains my favourite player, so I understand how one might take great offence at that particular error.

As for Rich Lederer's fine article and the RSAA chart,  Halladay only appears once on the rolling five year RSAA chart because (a) the competition in Johan Santana was tough, and (b) Halladay had three years of ineffectiveness/injury mixed in there (2000, 2004, 2007). RSAA does not fairly reward seasonal durability incidentally; Johan Santana's best 5 consecutive seasons end up as better than Sandy Koufax's for this reason.  To get durability accounted for accurately, you need to use WAR.

That article by Lederer is fantastic. I suspect if Halladay makes 30+ starts the next couple of year he will maintain his position. Lincecum's got to put in at least another two years before he gets his name up there.

Mike I also wanted to ask you what you think about the famous "Tinkers to Evers to Chance" selections?

It's funny.  Tinker, Evers and Chance are all at 48-49 WAR for their careers.  Tinker was a below-average hitter, but a very good fielder.  Evers was an above-average hitter and a very good fielder.  Chance was a very good hitter and a good fielder, as well as the manager of those great Cubs' clubs of a century ago.  The Hall of Merit took a pass on all three.

For myself, I see them about the same way that I do Bernie Williams.  At his peak, a great player and at the core of a great club, but without enough career value to merit induction on that basis.  I don't really have a problem with the decisions of either the Hall of Fame or the Hall of Merit.  I don't really know how good their defence was.  I don't know how much to weight Chance's managerial contributions.  If Tinker and Evers had been corner outfielders whose contribution was primarily offensive or if Chance had not been a manager, I would probably have felt differently.