The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research, and was expanded for inclusion in The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

A three-time batting champion, five-time All-Star, and seven-time Gold Glove winner — not to mention an excellent base runner — Larry Walker could do it all on the diamond. Had he done it for longer, there’s little question that he’d be en route to a plaque in the Hall of Fame, but his 17 seasons in the majors were marred by numerous injuries as well as the 1994–95 players’ strike, all of which cut into his career totals.

Yet another great outfielder developed by the late, lamented Montreal Expos — Hall of Famers Andre Dawson, Vladimir Guerrero, and Tim Raines being the most notable — Walker was the only one of that group actually born and raised in Canada, though he spent less time playing for the Montreal faithful than any of them. He starred on the Expos’ memorable 1994 team that compiled the best record in baseball before the strike hit, curtailing their championship dreams, then took up residence with the Rockies, putting up eye-popping numbers at high altitude — numbers that, as we’ll see, hold up well even once they’re brought back to earth.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

They don’t make ’em like Roy Halladay anymore. An efficient sinkerballer at the crossroads of changing patterns of usage, his statistics, compiled in a career that ran from 1998 to 2013, look like numbers from another planet, or at least a bygone era, when viewed from today’s vantage. Consider, for example, that in an age of pitch counts, times through the order concerns, and increasingly specialized bullpens, all major league starters combined for 42 complete games in 2018, and 59 in 2017. Halladay — “Doc,” after Old West gambler, gunfighter and dentist Doc Holliday, lest the pitcher’s link to a dusty past escape anyone — had 67 for his career, 13 more than the next-highest total in that 16-year span, by Hall of Famer Randy Johnson (who completed an even 100 in a career that stretched from 1988-2009), and 29 more than the active leader, CC Sabathia. Halladay needed fewer than 100 pitches in 14 of those compete games, five of which were completed in under two hours. The last time any pitcher threw such a game was in 2010.

Halladay’s other numbers, which testify to his elite run prevention and value, are impressive as well, outdoing just about every active pitcher except Clayton Kershaw. Alas, our distance from those numbers is intensified by tragedy, because his whole life is now past tense. Just over a year ago, on November 7, 2017, Halladay crashed his Icon A5 light sport airplane into the Gulf of Mexico while flying solo. The toxicology report, published two months later, found that he was impaired by high concentrations of the morphine, opiates, and Ambien in his system. All of that seems foreign as well, given the model of control he appeared to be during his heyday.

It wasn’t always that way, though. The extraordinarily economical style that enabled Halladay to go the distance so frequently, to throw as many as 266 innings in a season, and to throw at least 220 in a season eight times — three more than any other pitcher in this millennium — owed to an exceptionally humiliating season. In 2000, five years removed from being a first-round draft pick, the 23-year-old righty was pummeled for a 10.64 ERA in 67.2 major league innings, still the worst mark for any pitcher with at least 50 innings in a season. He was demoted all the way to A-ball the next season, where, as Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci documented, minor league pitching coach Mel Queen spurred him to change from an over-the-top delivery that was so methodical Queen nicknamed him “Iron Mike,” in reference to the popular brand of pitching machines.

Queen instructed Halladay to switch to a three-quarters delivery, to speed it the hell up, and to shift his repertoire from a four-seam fastball/curve combination to a sinker/cutter combo, “two pitches that appeared the same to the hitter, except one would break late to the left and one to the right,” explained Verducci. The result: fewer deep counts and strikeouts, and one of the game’s highest groundball rates. Halladay’s improved command and late-career addition of a split-fingered fastball pushed his strikeout rates higher; four of his five seasons with at least 200 strikeouts came from 2008 onward, in seasons where he averaged 242 innings.

While those heavy innings totals — particularly the 1,007.1 he threw between the regular season and postseason from 2008-2011 — may have hastened Halladay’s departure from the majors at age 36, his body of work is exceptional. Though he never led his league in ERA, he finished second three times and placed in the top five seven times — remarkable, given that he only qualified for the title eight times! He led his league in WAR four times, and had four other top-five finishes, including one in a year that he threw just 141.2 innings due to a broken fibula. He made eight All-Star teams, and won Cy Young awards with the Blue Jays in 2003 and the Phillies in 2010, making him just the fifth pitcher to claim the award in both leagues. In that magical 2010 season, he not only threw a regular season perfect game (against the Marlins on May 29), but became just the second pitcher to throw a postseason no-hitter, doing so on on October 6, in the Division Series opener against the Reds.

Though the brevity of Halladay’s career left his traditional statistical totals rather short, his advanced stats frame a solid Hall of Fame case, particularly as the era of the workhorse starter fades, and the shape of his career stands in marked contrast to the other pitchers on the 2019 ballot. He may not have been viewed as an automatic, first-ballot choice before his early demise, but if he’s elected this year, he wouldn’t be the first candidate to gain baseball immortality in short order after the hard fact of human mortality was underscored.

Born on May 14, 1977 in Denver, Colorado, Harry LeRoy Halladay III was groomed to be a pitcher by his father, Roy Jr., a similarly strapping commercial pilot. He grew up in the nearby suburbs of Denver, first Aurora and then Arvada, in houses with basements big enough to allow him to throw baseballs indoors, into mattresses hung on the walls, during the snowy winter months. Roy Jr. even made sure that their Arvada home had a basement that could accommodate a regulation 60’6″ distance, and soon a pitching machine and a tire to throw through. Roy III became known for his combination of velocity, command, dominance, and “the meticulous quietness with which he went about his game,” as childhood friend Robert Sanchez remembered in 2017. “Roy was a third-grader who could play like a middle-schooler, but he never lorded his gifts over anyone. He and his father knew he was special in ways no one else would become, but they didn’t say it.”

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Halladay’s dominance continued through high school, when he perfected a knuckle curve to go along with a 93-94 mph fastball. At Arvada West, where he also played basketball and ran cross-country, he was a three-time first team All-Conference and All-State selection, and two-time league and state MVP. He led his team to the Class 6A state championship in 1994, and never lost a game in the state of Colorado. He eschewed the showcase circuit of club ball and travel ball, choosing instead to work with his high school coaching staff, his father (who was still catching him in the basement during his prep years), and a man named Robert “Bus” Campbell, a local legend who coached or scouted 115 pitchers who reached the majors, including Hall of Famer Rich Gossage and All-Stars Jay Howell, Mark Langston, Brad Lidge, and Jamie Moyer.

Campbell was 69 years old and scouting for the Blue Jays when he began mentoring the 13-year-old Halladay, so it wasn’t surprising that the team chose him with the 17th pick of the 1995 draft (nine picks after Todd Helton, who himself would leave his mark on Colorado baseball and debut on the 2019 ballot). Bypassing a scholarship to the University of Arizona, he signed for a $895,000 bonus and began his professional career by striking out 48 in 50.1 innings in the Gulf Coast League.

After a big age-19 season at High-A Dunedin in 1996 (15-7, 2.73 ERA, 6.0 K/9), Halladay was ranked 23rd on Baseball America‘s Top 100 Prospects list in the spring of 1997. He scuffled at Double-A Tennessee and Triple-A Syracuse that year, but after a stronger showing at the latter stop in 1998, the 21-year-old righty made his major league debut on September 20 of that year, throwing five innings of two-run ball with five strikeouts against the Devil Rays. A week later, he no-hit the Tigers for 8.2 innings before Bobby Higginson’s pinch-homer spoiled the party, though he hung on for a 2-1 win.

After placing 12th on Baseball America’s list in the spring of 1999, Halladay spent the entire season in the majors, making 18 starts and 18 relief appearances. His 3.92 ERA (125 ERA+) in 149.1 innings earned him a three-year, $3.7 million extension, but his 5.36 FIP and 82-to-79 strikeout-to-walk ratio were ominous portents of things to come. In 2000, the AL’s highest-scoring season since 1936 (5.30 runs per game), Halladay struck out 44 and walked 42 in 67.2 innings while being torched for a record-setting 10.64 ERA. He couldn’t straighten out in two stints at Syracuse, and after scuffling in the spring of 2001, was sent back to Dunedin. Far from the spotlight, Queen helped Halladay adjust his mechanics to get away from a fastball that was 97 mph but “straight as a string,” and provided a tough-love challenge to the pitcher’s mental approach that he termed “vigorous leveling.” A book purchased by wife Brandy Halladay, The Mental ABC’s of Pitching by sports psychologist Harvey Dorfman — whom Halladay would meet in 2002 — keyed further changes in his mental approach. As Brandy told Verducci in 2010:

“[Dorfman] really taught Roy to focus on one thing at a time. When he gave up a hit, he learned to think about the next hitter. He helped him deal with those mental stumbling blocks every person has to deal with. The book and [Dorfman] helped his pitching career, our marriage, the way we looked at life in general…. It absolutely saved his career.”

After stops at the Blue Jays’ top three minor league affiliates, Halladay returned to the majors. Though cuffed for six runs by the Red Sox in a first-inning relief appearance on July 2, he struck out 10 Expos without a walk in his first start five days later, and finished the year with a 3.16 ERA (and 2.34 FIP) in 105.1 innings. That set the stage for a breakout season, during which Halladay went 19-7 with a 2.93 ERA (157 ERA+) and AL bests in innings (239.1), home run rate (0.4 per nine) and WAR (7.3). He made his first All-Star team but was ignored in the Cy Young voting; Barry Zito (23-5, 2.75 ERA, 7.2 WAR) won.

Halladay avoided the mistake of not winning 20 games the next year, going 22-7 with a 3.25 ERA (145 ERA+). He cut his walk rate in half, to a microscopic 1.1 per nine while leading the league in starts (36), innings (266), complete games (nine), K/BB ratio (6.38) and WAR (8.2) and striking out 204 batters. Again an All-Star, he took home the AL Cy Young, receiving 26 out of 28 first-place votes.

Halladay signed a four-year, $42 million extension in January 2004, but a shoulder strain and a comebacker-induced fractured left fibula limited him to 40 starts and 274.2 innings over the next two seasons, cutting into his effectiveness in the former, though he did make the AL All-Star team and rack up 5.5 WAR (in just 141.2 innings) in the latter, good for third in the league and the seventh-best total of his career (thus part of his peak score). Returning to a full workload in 2006, he remained healthy over the remainder of his run in Toronto, aside from brief stints on the disabled list for an appendectomy (2007) and a groin strain (2009).

As Verducci reported, in 2007 Halladay improved his command to the point that he could throw his signature cutter and sinker to both sides of the plate. “You see two different pitches coming at you the same speed from the same release point,” the Orioles’ Brian Roberts told Verducci, “but you don’t know which way it’s going to break. Think how hard that is to hit.”

Over the 2006-2009 span, Halladay averaged 32 starts, 233 innings, seven complete games, a 3.11 ERA (142 ERA+) and 5.5 WAR. He won 20 games in 2008, led the league in innings that same year (246), and in complete games three times (twice with nine). He made three All-Star teams, starting for the AL in 2009; placed among the league’s top five in WAR three times in that span, with a high of 6.9 (second) in 2004; and placed among the top five in Cy Young voting all four years, including second behind future teammate Cliff Lee in 2008.

Halladay had signed a three-year, $40 million extension in January 2006, covering the 2008-2010 seasons. But for all of his strong work, the Blue Jays remained in a competitive rut, unable to overtake the powerhouse Yankees and Red Sox, not to mention the upstart Rays; they hadn’t finished fewer than 10 games out of first place since 2000, and hadn’t returned to the postseason since winning their second straight championship in 1993. In what proved to be his final season, general manager J.P. Ricciardi explored trading Halladay at the July 31 deadline in 2009. Talks with the defending champion Phillies, reportedly centered around pitchers Kyle Drabek and J.A. Happ and outfielder Domonic Brown, did not come to fruition, and Philadelphia instead traded for Lee, who helped them return to the World Series (they lost to the Yankees).

Incoming Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos revived the talks with the Phillies, and on December 16, 2009, traded Halladay for Drabek and two other prospects, catcher Travis d’Arnaud and outfielder Michael Taylor. As part of the deal, Halladay agreed to a three-year, $60 million extension covering 2011-2013. That same day, the Phillies traded Lee to the Mariners for three prospects in a separate deal.

After escaping the AL East and moving to the non-DH league, the 33-year-old Halladay turned in the best season of his career, going 21-10 with career bests in ERA (2.44, third in the NL), ERA+ (167), strikeouts (219) and WAR (8.6), that last figure led the league as did his win total, his 250.2 innings, his nine complete games, four shutouts, 1.1 walks per nine, and 7.3 K/BB ratio. On May 29, 2010, he retired all 27 Marlins he faced, striking out 11 and completing the 20th perfect game in major league history.

After helping the Phillies win 97 games and their fourth straight NL East title, Halladay made history in his first taste of postseason action. Facing the Reds in the Division Series opener, he yielded only a fifth-inning walk to Jay Bruce and completed just the second no-hitter in postseason history, after Don Larsen’s 1956 World Series perfect game.

The Phillies’ sweep of the Reds meant Halladay didn’t start again for 10 days. When he did, in the NLCS opener against the Giants, he was touched for a pair of solo homers by Cody Ross as well as two additional runs in a 4-3 loss. He pitched six solid innings of two-run ball at AT&T Park in Game 5, sending the series back to Philadelphia, but the Giants advanced with a Game 6 win. Halladay’s consolation prize was a unanimous Cy Young win that placed him in the company of Gaylord Perry, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, and Roger Clemens as pitchers to win the award in both leagues (Max Scherzer has since joined the club).

With Halladay, homegrown Cole Hamels and mid-2010 acquisition Roy Oswalt already in the fold, the Phillies responded to their early exit by re-acquiring Lee via a five-year, $120 million deal, producing a rotation for the ages. Indeed, despite the offensive nucleus of Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, and Chase Utley in decline, the team won a franchise-record 102 games and a fifth consecutive division title in 2011. Halladay set new career bests with 8.8 WAR (the NL high), a 2.35 ERA (second, but with a league-best 163 ERA+), and 220 strikeouts (third). With a 19-6 record, he could have easily won a third Cy Young, but Kershaw’s 21-5 mark with a 2.28 ERA and 248 strikeouts captured the voters’ attention, and Halladay had to settle for second place.

He made two strong starts in the Division Series against the Cardinals, allowing three runs in eight innings in their Game 1 victory and then just one run in eight innings in Game 5. Alas, that run — produced by back-to-back extra-base hits to start the first inning — proved to be the game’s only score. The Phillies were eliminated on Chris Carpenter’s three-hit shutout.

Aside from a 1.95 ERA in five April starts in 2012, it was downhill for Doc thereafter. Roughed up for a 6.11 ERA in May as his velocity diminished, he spent seven weeks on the disabled list with a strained latissimus dorsi and only briefly returned to form. Over his final eight starts, he was lit up for a 6.20 ERA and an uncharacteristic 1.4 homers per nine. He was even worse in 2013, with four disaster starts (more runs than innings) out of his first seven, though his eight-inning, one-run performance against the Marlins on April 14 gave him career win number 200. Diagnosed with a bone spur in his shoulder as well as a partially torn rotator cuff and fraying in his labrum, he underwent surgery on May 16. He returned in late August, a remarkably quick turnaround, and had spots of superficial success, but left his final start after just three batters, unable to push his fastball past 83 mph.

In December 2013, Halladay signed a one-day contract with the Blue Jays and announced his retirement, citing major back issues including two pars fractures, an eroded lumbar disc, and pinched nerves. Changes in mechanics had transferred the stress to his shoulder, he could no longer pitch at the level to which he was accustomed, and he wanted to avoid fusion surgery — all understandable choices, particularly for a father of two.

Halladay had largely receded from view when the jarring news of his death in a plane crash broke. As testimonials to his playing career, his tireless work ethic and hischaracter poured in from around the industry, so did calls for him to appear on the 2018 ballot. A Hall of Fame and BBWAA rule enacted after the special election of the late Roberto Clemente in 1973 allows a deceased candidate to bypass the five-year post-retirement waiting period, but he can’t appear on a ballot until at least six months after his death. Hence, Halladay’s eligibility is on the same schedule it would have been otherwise.

If Halladay were to be elected in amid the aftermath of his passing, he wouldn’t be the first player to do so. As I noted in the introduction to this series, Roger Bresnahan and Jimmy Collins (both elected in 1945), Herb Pennock (1948), Three-Finger Brown (1949), Harry Heilmann (1952) and Ron Santo (2012) were all elected shortly after their respective demises.

…

Going strictly by his traditional stats, Halladay does not appear to be a particularly strong choice for the Hall. While there are 12 starters enshrined who pitched fewer than 3,000 innings (one of whom, Monte Ward, spent a good chunk of his career at shortstop), Pedro Martinez is the only one who’s been elected since Sandy Koufax in 1972. Save for a one-game cameo by Dizzy Dean, only two others, Bob Lemon and Hal Newhouser, even pitched after World War II, and both were done by the late 1950s. As a three-time Cy Young winner and a member of the 3,000 strikeout club, Martinez faced little resistance from voters, receiving 91.1% in 2015. He joined fellow 2015 honoree John Smoltz — also a member of the 3,000 strikeout club — as just the second and third starters elected with fewer than 300 wins since 1992.

Halladay finished well short of both 300 wins (203) and 3,000 strikeouts (2,117), with “only” two Cy Youngs. Where seven of the 10 pitchers with three Cys have been elected (all but Roger Clemens and the still-active Kershaw and Scherzer), only three of the nine two-timers have been elected, namely Bob Gibson, Tom Glavine, and Gaylord Perry. Of the rest, Corey Kluber and Tim Lincecum are still active, but none of the other three besides Halladay — Denny McLain, Bret Saberhagen, and Johan Santana — ever received even 5% of the vote. Santana went one-and-done just last year, though with just 139 wins and 1,988 strikeouts in 2,025.2 innings, it’s understandable why voters didn’t give him the time of day, particularly on a crowded ballot.

Halladay has better career numbers than Santana, and in some regards, better numbers than the other starters on the ballot who will draw consideration. While his win and strikeout totals can’t match those of Clemens, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte, or Curt Schilling, his run prevention was superior to all of those besides Clemens. He never won a season ERA title, but his career 3.38 mark — even with his brutal 2000 season and a 5.73 mark after his 2012 shoulder strain — is 10th among pitchers with at least 2,500 innings since 1980. Five of the nine ahead of him are in Cooperstown, led by Martinez at 2.93. Adjusting for park and league scoring levels, his 131 ERA+ at those same cutoffs is fifth, behind Martinez (154), Clemens (143), Johnson (135), and Greg Maddux (132), all enshrined save for the Rocket. He’s ahead of Schilling (127), Mussina (123), and Pettitte (117), not to mention Smoltz (125) and Glavine (118), as well as Justin Verlander (126), the active leader. Kershaw (159) has only 2,096.1 innings, well short of this particular cutoff.

Halladay’s command and control were part of that. Even despite his early struggles, his career 3.58 strikeout-to-walk ratio is in a virtual tie with Mussina for fifth since 1893, when the pitching distance was set at 60’6″. Only Schilling (4.38), Martinez (4.15), Greinke (3.82), and Saberhagen (3.64) were better in that regard. Three times, he finished with fewer walks than games started, his stated goal for any season. Seven times he walked fewer than 2.0 batters per nine while qualifying for the ERA title.

Despite his shortages of innings and strikeouts, Halladay stands tall relative to his peers with regards to the advanced stats. His score of 127 on Bill James’ Hall of Fame Monitor, a metric that gives credit for awards, league leads, milestones and postseason performance — things that historically have tended to appeal to Hall voters — is 127, where 100 is a likely Hall of Famer and 130 is “a virtual cinch.” More than five years removed from his final pitch, his 65.2 WAR from 2001 onward is the highest total of the millennium, though Verlander (63.8), Sabathia (62.2), and Zack Greinke (61.5) have closed the gap. His 62.6 WAR over the course of his brilliant 2002-2011 stretch — 6.3 WAR per year, even given his injury-shortened 2004 and -05 — is 12.2 more than the second-ranked Santana. His overall total of 64.3 WAR is about nine wins shy of the Hall standard for starters (73.4), but he still outranks 29 of the 63 enshrined, including 300-game winner Early Wynn, 1960s star Juan Marichal, Yankees dynasty staple Whitey Ford, and strikeout whizzes Dazzy Vance and Jim Bunning. More tellingly, his total is ninth among pitchers who debuted since 1973 — 25 years before he did — behind Clemens, Maddux, Johnson, Martinez, Mussina, Schilling, Smoltz, and Kevin Brown, all of whom beat him to the majors by at least six years and, with the exception of Martinez, threw at least 500 more innings.

Via his seven-year peak score, Halladay’s 50.6 WAR surpasses that of the average Hall starter (50.3) and ranks 40th all time, ahead of 33 of the 63 enshrined; just four above him (Johnson, Maddux, Martinez and Clemens) debuted since 1973. Of those who debuted after, only Kershaw (49.6), Greinke (47.3), Scherzer (47.2), Verlander (46.2), and Santana (45.0) are with seven wins — one per year — of that peak score.

Halladay’s 57.6 JAWS isn’t as high as Schilling’s (64.1, 27th all-time) or Mussina’s (63.8, 29th), but it’s still eighth among that post-1973 set. He’s 43rd all-time, 4.3 points below the Hall standard but ahead of 32 enshrinees, with a career/peak/JAWS line that closely resembles Marichal (63.0/51.9/57.5), who needed 757.2 additional innings to get there. Among active pitchers, Kershaw (57.1), Greinke (56.5), and Verlander (54.8) could overtake Halladay as soon as next year, but having spent the past 12 months scrutinizing all of their cases, they appear to be on their way to Cooperstown as well.

While that last trio of pitchers isn’t done, there are no givens when it comes to shoulders, elbows, and backs. What Halladay accomplished before his body told him it was time to quit pitching was remarkable, and unique for his time. Mussina and Schiling aside, Hall of Fame voters aren’t going to see his like for awhile. He belongs in the pantheon of all-time greats, and hopefully, the BBWAA electorate recognizes that with the same efficiency that was the hallmark of Halladay’s career.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2014 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research, and was expanded for inclusion in The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Unlike 2014 Hall of Fame honorees Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine or 2015 honoree Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina didn’t reach 300 wins in his career. Nor did he ever win a Cy Young award, in part because a teammate practically stole one out of his hands on the basis of superior run support. For as well as he pitched in October, his teams never won a World Series, because even the best relievers sometimes falter, to say nothing of what happens to the rest of them.

Though lacking in those marquee accomplishments, Mussina nonetheless strung together an exceptional 18 year career spent entirely in the crucible of the American League East, with its high-offense ballparks and high-pressure atmosphere. A cerebral pitcher with an expansive arsenal that featured a 93-mph fastball and a signature knuckle-curve — and at times as many as five other pitches — he not only missed bats with regularity but also had pinpoint control.

Mike Mussina, Wicked 85mph Knuckle Curve. ? pic.twitter.com/9aiYm9tVIE

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) November 15, 2018

In a prime that coincided with those of the aforementioned pitchers — as well as 2015 inductees Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz and ballotmates Roger Clemens, Roy Halladay, and Curt Schilling — “Moose” never led the AL in either strikeouts or ERA, but he ranked in the league’s top five six times in the former category and seven times in the latter. He earned All-Star honors five times and received Cy Young votes in eight separate seasons across a 10-year span, at one point finishing in the top five four times in five years. He even did a better job of preventing runs in the postseason than he did in the regular season, though it wasn’t enough to put his teams over the top.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research, and was expanded for inclusion in The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

All Edgar Martinez did was hit — the statement is almost entirely true in both the literal and figurative sense. Even after adjusting for his high-scoring surroundings, Martinez could flat-out rake. A high-average, high-on-base percentage hitting machine with plenty of power, his numbers place him among the top 30 or 40 hitters of all time even after adjusting for the high-offense era. Martinez played a key role in putting the Mariners on the map as an AL West powerhouse, emerging as a folk hero to a fan base that watched Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, and Alex Rodriguez lead the franchise’s charge to relevancy, then skip town for more lucrative deals. But while Griffey and Rodriguez were two-way stars at key up-the-middle positions and Johnson a flamethrowing ace, Martinez spent the bulk of his career as a designated hitter. In that capacity, he merely put a claim on being the best one in baseball history.

More than 40 years after it was introduced — in the most significant rule change since the AL adopted the foul strike rule in 1903 — the DH continues to rankle purists who would rather watch pitchers risk injury as they ineptly flail away (Bartolo Colon excepted). In 2004, Paul Molitor became the first player elected to the Hall after spending the plurality of his career (44% of his plate appearances) as a DH, while a decade later, Frank Thomas became the first elected after spending the majority of his career (57% of his PA) there. By comparison, Martinez took 72% of his plate appearances as a DH, while David Ortiz — whose 2016 victory lap spurred plenty of Hall of Fame discussion — took 88%.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is the first part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2018 Hall of Fame ballot. It has been adapted from The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Nobody closed the door like Mariano Rivera. The wiry, unflappable Panamanian not only set the all-time record for saves (652), he prevented runs at a greater clip relative to his league than any other pitcher. Yet neither of those accomplishments capture his brilliance in October. During Rivera’s 19-year-career, the Yankees missed the playoffs just twice, and for all of his regular season dominance, he was even better when the stakes were the highest, helping the Yankees to five championships. He was the last man standing on the mound an unprecedented four times, securing the final outs of the World Series in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009.

Rivera did all of this while relying almost exclusively on one pitch, a cut fastball discovered almost by accident in 1997, his first year as closer. Even when batters knew what was coming — and at speeds as high as 98 mph in his younger days, it was coming fast — they could rarely predict its sideways movement well enough to make hard contact. If they connected at all, they often broke their bats. Teammates and opponents marveled at the success of the pitch, while writers placed it in the pantheon of great signature offerings, alongside Nolan Ryan’s fastball, Roger Clemens’ splitter, Sandy Koufax’s curve, Steve Carlton’s slider, Pedro Martinez’s changeup, and Hoyt Wilhelm’s knuckleball.

Debates have long raged over how to value relievers and determine their fitness for the Hall of Fame, no small task given that just six are enshrined, as much for their roles in shifting the paradigm for closers as for the numbers they racked up. Yet Rivera’s case shuts those debates down like they’re opponents trailing by three runs in the ninth inning of a playoff game. He’s so far ahead of the field on so many levels that one could argue he’s the lone reliever outside the Hall worthy of entry, and as the top newcomer on the 2019 ballot, he’ll likely become just the second reliever to gain first-ballot entry, after Dennis Eckersley (2004).

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There’s often a bit of weirdness on the fringes of the annual BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot, and 2019 entry, unveiled on Monday, was no exception. What transpires on those fringes rarely has any bearing on who will wind up on the podium in Cooperstown next July, joyously thanking families, teammates, and coaches. But with the news of the ballot’s arrival still fresh, and with the Very Serious Business of analyzing the top candidates a task best suited for after Thanksgiving, it’s worth considering the margins for a few moments.

Because the ballot’s release is a Big Deal to yours truly, writer of more words about the Hall of Fame on an annual basis than just about anybody with a claim to sanity, I had Monday’s article, “The Big Questions About the 2019 BBWAA Hall of Fame Ballot,” ready to go in advance of the Hall’s 12 pm ET official press release, save for the final total of candidates and the list of first-timers. While the official rules make anybody who played at least 10 seasons in the majors and has been retired for five seasons eligible — anybody who’s not on baseball’s ineligible list, that is, or has not otherwise exhausted his eligibility — not everybody who meets those requirements actually lands on the ballot. That’s because there’s a stage that involves some subjective choices by the BBWAA Screening Committee, a six-member panel that puts the ballot together.

To appear on the ballot, a player must be nominated by any two of the six members of that committee. That’s a mere formality for all of the obvious candidates, but it becomes a coin toss the further down the list you go. Historically, the worst slights probably belong to three-time Gold Glove winner and two-time All-Star Willie Davis, who racked up 60.7 WAR (Baseball-Reference version, which I’m sticking with for all things ballot-related) in an 18-year career that spanned from 1960-1979 and included a 1977-1978 detour to Japan that put him out of sight and out of mind, and Negro Leagues-turned-Brooklyn Dodgers staple Jim Gilliam, who accrued 40.7 WAR from 1953-1966.

That pair is hardly alone. Among recent examples, in 2014, outfielder Shannon Stewart (24.9 WAR from 1995-2008, highlighted by a fourth-place finish in the 2003 AL MVP voting) was left off the ballot, while his former Twins teammate Jacque Jones (11.6 WAR from 1999-2008) was included. That same year, Esteban Loaiza (23.0 WAR from 1995-2008, highlighted by a second-place finish in the 2003 AL Cy Young voting) was on the outside, while Armando Benitez (17.0 WAR from 1994-2008, highlighted by a cheap shot that set off an infamous brawl between the Orioles and Yankees in 1998) was on the inside. Yes, Jones had more homers than Stewart in less playing time, and yes, Benitez had more saves than Loaiza had wins, but none of them had a chance at actually being elected. It was completely arbitrary who among them received the honor of being on the ballot.

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On Monday, the Baseball Writers Association of America released its 2019 Hall of Fame ballot, with 15 holdovers — led by Edgar Martinez, who received 70.4% of the vote last year — joined by 20 newcomers including the late Roy Halladay, Todd Helton, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera. In all likelihood, this will be the sixth year in a row the writers elect multiple candidates, something that hasn’t happened since their run of six straight years from 1951-1956. Already, the 16 players elected from the past five cycles exceeds the record of 13 elected in either of the two overlapping five-year spans within that earlier stretch. And once again, this will be a fairly top-heavy ballot; the five holdovers who have received at least 50% of the vote could prevent some of the candidates further down the ballot from gaining momentum.

Over the next six weeks, I’ll profile all 35 candidates, either at length or more in brief, examining their cases in light of my Jaffe WAR Score (JAWS) system, which I’ll be using to break down Hall of Fame ballots in an annual tradition that’s on the verge of earning its drivers’ license. The series debuted at Baseball Prospectus (2004-2012), then moved to SI.com (2013-2018), and now I’m excited to bring it here to FanGraphs. The candidate profiles will begin next week; today I’ll offer a quick look at the biggest questions attached to this year’s election cycle.

First, it’s worth reviewing the basics. To be eligible for election to the Hall of Fame via the BBWAA ballot, a candidate must have played in the majors for parts of 10 years (one game is sufficient to be counted as a year in this context), have been out of the majors for five years (the minors or foreign leagues don’t count), and then be nominated by two members of the BBWAA’s six-member screening committee. Since the balloting is titled with respect to induction year, not the year of release, the current slate of players will have last appeared in the majors in 2013. Each new candidate has 10 years of eligibility on the ballot, a reduction from the 15-year period that was in effect for several decades; the 2017 ballot marked the final one for Lee Smith, the last candidate grandfathered into a longer run. To be elected, a candidate must receive at least 75% of the ballots cast, and in this case, they don’t round up; 74.9% won’t cut it. Likewise, candidates who don’t receive at leasts 5% of the vote fall off the ballot and can then only be considered for election by the Today’s Game Committee, an entirely separate process — but not until what would have been their 10-year run of eligibility expires.

The voters, each of whom has been an active BBWAA member for 10 years and is no more than 10 years removed from active coverage, can list as many as 10 candidates on their ballots, a number that’s become a point of contention in recent years given the high volume of qualified candidates. In 2015, the Hall tabled a BBWAA proposal to expand to 12 slots (I was on the committee that recommended the change). Last year, the third since the Hall purged the rolls of voters more than 10 years removed from coverage, 422 ballots were cast, 20 fewer than the year before and 127 fewer than in 2015.

Last year, acting on a motion its membership voted to accept in December 2016 by an overwhelming 80-to-9 margin, the BBWAA planned to begin publishing every voter’s ballot, similar to what the organization does with its annual awards. Only when the ballots were mailed did voters and the general public discover that the Hall’s board of directors had rejected the proposal. Voters may still reveal their ballots prior the announcement, as 57.6% did last year; you can track the reported ballots via Ryan Thibodaux’s Ballot Tracker if you want. Voters can also check a box on the ballot to authorize the publication of their choices via the BBWAA’s website two weeks after the election results are revealed. Ballots must be postmarked by December 31, with the results to be announced on MLB Network on January 22, and inductions to take place next July 21 in Cooperstown, New York.

The 35 candidates, with the newcomers in italics:

Rick Ankiel, Jason Bay, Lance Berkman, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Freddy Garcia, Jon Garland, Travis Hafner, Roy Halladay, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, Ted Lilly, Derek Lowe, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Mike Mussina, Darren Oliver, Roy Oswalt, Andy Pettitte, Juan Pierre, Placido Polanco, Manny Ramirez, Mariano Rivera, Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling. Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa, Miguel Tejada, Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner, Larry Walker, Vernon Wells, Kevin Youkilis, Michael Young

In a cool new feature we’ve added, you can see the career statistics of the candidates in sortable tables, one apiece for hitters and pitchers. And yes, Ankiel — who spent as an outfielder after wildness ended his pitching career — is in both. He’s the most surprising inclusion on the ballot, particularly as he’s been reportedly mulling a comeback. That’s a story for another day, though.

Now, on to the big questions…

Will Rivera be the first unanimously-elected candidate?

Probably not. Even outside of our current, ultra-polarized political scene, getting hundreds of baseball scribes of all shapes and sizes to agree on any player has proven to be an impossible task. In the 71 times the BBWAA has voted (excluding special elections, more on which momentarily), there’s never been a unanimous selection — not for Babe Ruth (95.1% in 1936), Willie Mays (94.7% in 1979), Hank Aaron (97.8% in 1982), or Greg Maddux (97.2% 2015). The highest share of the vote came in 2016, when Ken Griffey Jr. received 99.3%; all but three of the 440 voters included him on their ballots.

None of those three voters published their ballots or came forward to explain their reasoning, likely because they didn’t want to face the resultant firestorm of criticism. To understand why, one need only go back a few years to see the blistering responses received by Dodgers beat writer Ken Gurnick of MLB.com in 2014 for only voting for Jack Morris, and refusing to vote for Maddux or any candidate “who played during the period of PED use,” or by Twins beat writer Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press in 2015 for leaving Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez off — both were locks anyway — to find room for Walker and Alan Trammell. As in so much else in life, the public doesn’t reward nonconformity, even or especially when it’s a matter of conscience.

Some observers, including this scribe, thought that if the Hall allowed the BBWAA to follow through with its plan to publish every ballot, it might increase the chances of a player running the table, with Rivera a strong possibility given his accomplishments as the all-time saves leader, as an incredible postseason performer who closed out four World Series, and as a public figure with a sterling reputation. But with naysayers still able to cloak themselves in anonymity, unanimity seems less likely, and that’s on top of the fact that some voters may be philosophically opposed to including relievers in the Hall — even the best in baseball history.

Will Halladay’s death lead to his election?

Before his tragic death in a plane crash in November 2017, Halladay appeared to have a solid but not overwhelming case for Cooperstown. Perhaps not a player who would be elected on the first ballot, but one with a very good chance of getting there eventually. On the one hand are the modest wins (203), strikeouts (2,117), and innings (2,749.1) totals, and on the other the eight All-Star selections and two Cy Youngs, a perfect game, and the second postseason no-hitter in history. From a JAWS standpoint, his 64.3 career WAR (the Baseball-Reference version, which I’ll use throughout this series) is a bit short of the standard for pitchers (73.4), but his 50.6 peak WAR is bit above (50.1) — and higher than holdovers Mussina (44.6) and Schilling (48.7), both of whom had longer careers (with higher JAWS), topped 50% last year, and appear to be on the pathway to eventual election.

As anyone who has studied the history of the Hall of Fame in depth can tell you, one uncomfortable reality about the collision between human mortality and baseball immortality is that death may work in a candidate’s favor. Apart from Roberto Clemente, who was elected when the BBWAA took a special vote in March 1973, just two months after he died in a plane crash, several other players have been elected in the short period after their demise, including Roger Bresnahan and Jimmy Collins (both elected in 1945), Herb Pennock (1948), Three-Finger Brown (1949), Harry Heilmann (1952) and Ron Santo (2012). My educated guess — and really, this is still just a guess — is that on a ballot that already has enough darkness, voters will focus on the positives surrounding Halladay and elect him in short order.

Is this finally the year for Martinez and Mussina?

Back in 2015, Martinez (27.0% in his sixth year) and Mussina (24.6% in his second year) were both a far cry from election, but with five holdovers elected in that timespan since (along with four newcomers), the pair are now the top returnees. Martinez, who has posted double-digit gains in each of the past three cycles, fell just 20 votes short of election last year. Mussina, with two years of double-digit gains out of three, received 63.5%.

The situation is rather urgent for Martinez, who’s in his 10th and final year of eligibility, but does appear to have a good chance to join Red Ruffing (1967), Ralph Kiner (1975), Jim Rice (2009), and Tim Raines (2017) as candidates elected in their last go-round; in fact, he’s 0.6% ahead of Raines’ “pace.” Since the voters returned to annual balloting in 1966, 19 out of 20 candidates who received at least 70% of the vote and had eligibility remaining were elected the following year, with Jim Bunning the exception; he received 70.0% in 1987 (his 11th year of eligibility), then 74.2% in 1988 before slipping to 63.3% in 1989. He couldn’t get back to 75.0% via the writers, but the Veterans Committee elected him. For what it’s worth, the VC also came to the rescue of two other candidates who made bigger jumps into the 70-something range but fell short in their final year, namely Nellie Fox (74.7% in 1985) and Orlando Cepeda (73.5% in 1994). Still, it would be a great thing to see Martinez, the most potent DH in history (and an adequate third baseman before that) gain entry via the writers, particularly as the Hall’s 2015 rule change unilaterally reduced his remaining eligibility from nine years to four.

As for Mussina, in the big picture, he’s clearly trending towards election, but historically speaking, it might not be imminent. Since 1966, just one of the three previous candidates with a percentage within five points of Mussina’s in year five, Luis Aparicio (67.4% in 1983), was elected the following year; both Andre Dawson (61.0% in 2006) and Tony Perez (65.7% in 1996) needed four more years. What’s more, of the 19 times a candidate received somewhere between 58.5% and 68.5% — again, within five points of the Moose — at any point from year three to year seven, just four times was that candidate elected in the next year, with Aparicio, Eddie Mathews (from 62.4% in 1977 to 79.4% in 1978) and 300-game winners Early Wynn (from 66.7% in 1971 to 76.0% in 1972) and Phil Niekro (from 68.3% in 1996 to 80.3% in 1997) the only ones getting in. The average gain of those 19 was just 4.2 percentage points; six actually lost ground. That said, all of this took place during the period when candidates had 15 years on the ballot and voters were generally filling in far fewer names, so progress was slower. Still, it seems more likely that Mussina falls short of 75.0% this time around.

And how about those ultra-polarizing candidates, Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling?

Speaking of darkness on the ballot, I wrote over 400 words about this trio, all of whom are in their seventh year of eligibility. But you know what? The debates surrounding them — which concern connections to performance-enhancing drugs for Bonds and Clemens, and the post-career conduct of Schilling — will suck up much of the oxygen in the coming weeks while making everybody surly. So while I promise that I’ll fully explain what’s happening with this trio down the road, today, I’m going to skip the tea leaves and instead mention a few other noteworthy newcomers. You’re welcome.

And those newcomers?

From a traditional standpoint, the one who stands out is Pettitte, with his 256 wins, five World Series rings and several postseason records. With last year’s Modern Baseball Era Committee election of Jack Morris, owner of a career 3.90 ERA, Pettitte’s 3.85 mark would no longer be the Hall’s highest, though of course he stands up much better relative to his league’s averages, with a 117 ERA+ to Morris’ 105. That said, Pettitte ranks just 91st in JAWS (47.2), well below the standard for pitchers (61.8), not to mention the aforementioned trio of Schilling (64.1), Mussina (63.8) or Halladay (57.5), and he’s got the additional burden of having been mentioned in the Mitchell Report for using HGH. No candidate has overcome that yet.

From an advanced statistical standpoint, the newcomer who stands out the most is Helton, who’s ranked 15th at first base in JAWS (61.2 career WAR/46.5 peak WAR/53.7 JAWS, versus the average Hall first baseman’s 66.8/42.7/53.9). While WAR contains adjustments for park and league that bring his Coors Field-inflated numbers back down to earth, that hasn’t been enough for Walker, who’s 10th among right fielders. And where Walker won three batting titles and an MVP award, Helton won just one batting title and was never MVP. While I think he’s worthy of a spot in Cooperstown, he’ll face an uphill climb.

Who stands out further down the ballot?

It will be very interesting to see which direction the support of Vizquel goes. The 11-time Gold Glove winner, whose comparisons to Ozzie Smith simply aren’t supported by the advanced stats on either side of the ball, received 37.0% in his debut. Of the 10 modern (post-1966) candidates within five points of him on either side, four are still on the ballot (Bonds, Clemens, Martinez, and Schilling), while five were elected (Jeff Bagwell, Hoyt Wilhelm, Gossage, and Mathews by the writers, Bunning by the VC). Only Steve Garvey, who received 41.6% in his 1993 debut, remains outside, as does the just-out-of-range Smith (42.3% in 2003), to these eyes the top candidate on the Today’s Game ballot.

Two other 2018 debutantes, the JAWS-supported Andrew Jones (7.3%) and Scott Rolen (10.2%), need to get out of no-man’s land quickly lest they become afterthoughts or worse, slide off the ballot. And at this point, the returns for Walker (34.1% in his eighth year) and Fred McGriff (23.2% in his ninth) are more about setting themselves up for a better outcome via the Today’s Game committee down the road, as Trammell — who didn’t top 37% until his 15th year on the ballot (40.9%) — did before being elected by the Modern Baseball committee last year.

Do you get to vote yet?

Alas, no. I’m about to begin my ninth year of BBWAA membership, which means that I’m two years away from getting an official ballot. As with previous years, after cycling through profiles of all of the candidates, I’ll fill out my virtual ballot to illustrate the hard choices voters must make. And, in a new wrinkle at FanGraphs, so will you, via a cool, crowd-sourced feature we’re cooking up behind the scenes.

Obviously, there’s a whole lot more to be said about all of these candidates, the burning questions that surround them, and the ones I’ve dodged. We’ll get to those all in due time, I swear.

This post is part of a series concerning the 2019 Today’s Game Era Committee ballot, covering executives, managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas on December 9. Use the tool above to read the introduction and other installments. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com and Baseball Prospectus. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Over the course of his 18-year career, Lee Arthur Smith was consistently considered to be one of the game’s top relievers. Physically intimidating — officially listed at 6-foot-5, 220 pounds but reported as big as 6-foot-6, 269 pounds — and mellifluously middle-named, Smith pitched for eight teams, earned All-Star honors seven times, led his league in saves four times (and finished as runner-up in four other seasons), and placed as high as second in the Cy Young voting. He passed Jeff Reardon on April 13, 1993, to grab the all-time saves record and held it at 478 until September 24, 2006, when Trevor Hoffman finally surpassed him.

When Smith retired in 1998, just two relievers had been elected to the Hall of Fame: Hoyt Wilhelm (1985) and Rollie Fingers (1992). Since then, that number has tripled via the elections of Dennis Eckersley (2004), Bruce Sutter (2006), Rich Gossage (2008), and Hoffman (2018), with Mariano Rivera poised to join them via the 2019 BBWAA ballot. Smith appeared to be on track to join that company, debuting on the 2003 ballot at 42.3% and inching his way to 50.6% by 2012, his 10th year of eligibility. But over his final five years of eligibility, he got lost in a deluge of polarizing, high-profile candidates whose continued presence on the ballot made it tough to find room for Smith. By 2014, his share of the vote was down to 29.9%, and he never got back to 35%.

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