You Always Remember Your First Time

[MFS62]

There are 18 first time names on the 2025 Hall of Fame Ballot.

Later

[metirish]

I voted for King Felix , Ichiro and Tulowitzki


I probably need to look closely at Tulowitzku numbers , but i think he s close?

EDIT , totally didn't see CC there , voted for him too

[ashie62]

Ichiro only

[Lefty Specialist]

Only one of these is a first-timer, and yes it's Ichiro.

[G-Fafif]

I'm the Grandy vote. Damned if I'll let him be shut out.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

I looked at Felix Hernandez' stats and they weren't as eye-popping as I expected them to be. Some great numbers, to be sure. But not what I'd expect of a first-ballot hall-of-famer.

[MFS62]

I'm the Grandy vote. Damned if I'll let him be shut out.

Even Roger Maris had a career BA of .260.
Grandy's was below .250 (.249)
I looked, was surprised(shocked, actually), then went elsewhere with my votes.
Later

[Frayed Knot]

Ichiro, and I'm going to ponder over King Felix and C.C.


His acceptance speech will be the first time most of the baseball world will ever hear Suzuki.
Reportedly his English was always better than he let on but only in close quarters.
He remained a cypher to the public for his entire career.

[kcmets]

I joined the landslide and voted Ichiro only.

(Curtis Granderson retired? I need to catch up on some stuff.)

*This post brought to you by Itchypussy Motors*

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

For the guys returning on the ballot, with last year's percentage:

Billy Wagner | 73.8% | Enters 10th-and-final year on ballot
Andruw Jones | 61.6% | 8th year
Carlos Beltrán | 57.1% | 3rd year
Álex Rodríguez | 34.8% | 4th year
Manny Ramírez | 32.5% | 9th year
Chase Utley | 28.8% | 2nd year
Omar Vizquel | 17.7% | 8th year
Bobby Abreu | 14.8% | 6th year
Jimmy Rollins | 14.8% | 4th year
Andy Pettitte | 13.5% | 7th year
Mark Buehrle | 8.3% | 5th year
Francisco Rodríguez | 7.8% | 3rd year
Torii Hunter | 7.3% | 5th year
David Wright | 6.2% | 2nd year

I can't imagine Wagner getting so close and not making it this year. Would love to see Beltran make a big jump. They'll probably make him wait another year or two, which is silly. Would love to see Wright stay on the ballot to they can keep looking at his career. But it could very well just be Ichiro and Wagner going in this year from the writers.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Would love to see Beltran make a big jump. They'll probably make him wait another year or two, which is silly. Would love to see Wright stay on the ballot to they can keep looking at his career.

I guess your rule is that if you were a Met, you could engineer one of the most disgraceful cheating scandals in sports history and still get into the HOF. Because you were a Met! And what do you suppose they'll discover about Wright that they don't already know? A secret stash of 200 HR's that he's been secretly hoarding from the public?

[TransMonk]

I joined the landslide and voted Ichiro only.

Same.

[metsmarathon]

i voted for ichiro, cc, and felix.

ichiro is a slam dunk.

cc is a little harder, and felix is a stretch, or maybe not. but hear me out.

felix had a great start to his career, and then was felled by injuries and overuse. fangraphs says he topped out at 54 WAR. that's damned good. he hit 50 WAR by 28. that's phenomenal! if he quit at 30, due to a catastrophic injury, he'd sail in. instead he stuck around and tried to make it work until it couldnt. and that hurts his case.

cc stuck around a bit longer, figured out how to be effective after injury changed him, finishing with 65 WAR. that's 10 more than sale, 20 more than cole or degrom, 30 more than wheeler, nola.

if cc isn't a hall of famer, then after verlander, kershaw, grienke, and scherzer get in, we may never induct another starter into the hall of fame. maybe sale, or maybe cole, if either of them can stick around for a long time, but that's gonna be it. for a while.

are we really, truly, about to enter a time when there are no future hall of fame starters plying their trade? i don't think so. i think the scale needs adjusting.

i was tempted to vote pedroia, because a vote for pedroia is a vote for wright. they have very, very similar hof cases overall. i think they're both just short, but not by too terribly much. they both should get in (along with felix) via the (imaginary) puckett clause.

[Edgy MD]

I too went with Ichiro, CC, and Felix.

Three guys who could spend the rest of their lives without a last name and still flourish.

[Bob Alpacadaca]

Wright's secret stash of homers is right there with Wagner's secret stash of saves that will suddenly get him in after 10 years on the ballot. Baseball writers seem to let candidacies develop over time, which is why a player has 10 years on the ballot and not just one. But you know that. We understand the real reason for your post.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Wright's secret stash of homers is right there with Wagner's secret stash of saves that will suddenly get him in after 10 years on the ballot. Baseball writers seem to let candidacies develop over time, which is why a player has 10 years on the ballot and not just one. But you know that. We understand the real reason for your post.

We understand the real reason for your post.

I doubt that you understand. The reason for my post is that David Wright is not a Hall of Famer. He was already done --- toast -- by his age 31 season, four years before he would officially retire, after having already missed large chunks of almost two seasons even before that. He had the talent and the character to make the HOF and was on a HOF trajectory for the first few seasons of his career. But he lacked luck. Injuries demolished whatever chances he once had of Cooperstown enshrinement.

Career WAR (49.2) Average HOF 3B (68.4)
JAWS (44.3) Average HOF 3B (55.8)

But if youse wanna turn this into a Romper Room festival of giddy posts where every Met supposedly belongs in the HOF because they're Mets, go ahead. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. Ring around the rosey. Pocketful of poseys. Yay!

[whippoorwill]

Sabathia

[The Hot Corner]

I went with Ichiro. CC Sabathia is the only other one on the list that I gave serious consideration.

It is the Hall of Fame, it is supposed to represent greatness and sustained excellence. I personally feel the HOF has been watered down by the inclusion of too many good, but not great players.

[Edgy MD]

Six All-Star Games for CC. Fifty-nine WARs. Three thousand strikeouts. A Cy Young Award. A bunch of 230+ inning seasons as that mark became increasingly rare.

That's not a peanut-butter sandwich. It's not quite Greinke, but hes breathing the same air.

[metsmarathon]

here's a fun question...

if a player was the best pitcher in the league over a 10-year period, meaning, topping the cumulative WAR leaderboard for a period of 10 consecutive seasons, would you think that player sufficiently good to be considered a hall of famer? ten years is a long time. and to be the top performer at a position over that decade...? wow, right? and... it also accounts for shifts in usage and gameplay and all that because instead of comparing, say, roy oswalt to pud galvin, you're looking at gooden vs clemens vs maddux, etc.

for the record, the current leader in this regard is max scherzer, with 47 fWAR from 2015-2024. pretty darned good! in fact, if we look at the top five, we'll see the following names in order: Cole, DeGrom, Kershaw, Sale. not a bad group! i dare say, the logic tracks. 1957-66? boom sandy koufax. 67-76? lookie there, tom seaver. 1900-09? cy young. i could go on...

anyways... if i brute force it and look at some 10-year periods in the middles of their careers... what do you think i find?

well, if i look at the number on e guy for each 10 year period from 1980-89 thru 2015-24, i get the following names:

max scherzer (4x 12-21:15-24)
clayton kershaw (5x 07-16:11-20)
.
.
roy halladay (3x 01-10:03-12)
randy johnson (7x 93-02:95-04 ; 97-06:00-09)
pedro martinez (1x 96-05)
greg maddux (4x 89-98:92-01)
roger clemens (7x 82-91:88-97)
nolan ryan (2x 80-89:81-90)

these all look like clear hall of famers, antics and PEDs aside. who could possibly question those names, right?

oh.. right. the gap.

sorry.

felix hernandez (2x 05-14:06-15)
cc sabathia (1x 04-13)

felix was also in the top five in four other decades: (#4 04-13, #3 07-16, #4 08-17, & #5 09-18)
cc was top five in five other decades (#3 01-10, #2 02-11, #2 03-12, #4 05-14, & #4 06-15)

it is very rare for non hall-of-famers to appear in this list. notable players with repeat appearances include kevin brown (6) bret saberhagen and dwight gooden (5) and roy oswalt (4)

i'm certainly tempted to look at earlier dates, but i do have a life. i'll consider adding to my table in the future.

but the point is, that it would be a noteworthy omission to consider the best pitcher for a given decade to be NOT a hall of famer. moreso to do it twice.

it's worth stating that i was not expecting the results to be quite so stark. i'm half-tempted to expand my research into other positions around the diamond. but again, that takes time and effort.

[MFS62]

Nice work.
Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

Good work. I would guess that Seaver also was tops for '68-'77 and '69-'78.

[Edgy MD]

The argument for Jack Morris was always about 91% "He had the most wins in the 1980s."

That wasn't exactly irrelevant, but yeah, find me a better bottom line than pitching wins, and apply the same standard to all 10-year periods, whether or not they began with a 0 and ended with a 9, and then we're talking a more sensible business.

[metsmarathon]

seaver was tops from 67-76 thru 70-79, so four such decades, and was top five in four others for eight total.

jack morris placed 2nd in 79-88, and was also 3rd in 80-89, 4th in 82-91, and 5th in both 78-87 and 83-92.

bert blyleven, on the other hand, was 1st three times from 71-80 thru 73-82, and was top five in eight others for thirteen total. yeah... it should not have taken 14 years for him to get voted into the hall.

clemens showed up the most, as far as i can tell, fifteen times. that son of a bitch.

[Cowtipper]

This is assuming I could vote for as many as I wanted. Kinsler, Sabathia, Suzuki, McCann.

If I couldn't vote for as many as I wanted and had to limit my ballot to 10 names, probably just Suzuki and maybe Sabathia.