Four New Hall of Famers
The Baseball Writers’ Association (BBWAA) voted to elect Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio to the Hall of Fame today. Full results are up on the BBWAA website currently.
For the pitchers, it was their first time on the ballot. For the first time in history, three first-ballot pitchers made it on the same ballot. That may say something about how voters are struggling with the steroid era — there are some great hitters still remaining on the ballot who have struggled to make the required 75% because of the taint of drugs in their numbers (some even without a tangible report attached to their names).
Our leaderboards love the new inductees. Randy Johnson shows up as fifth all-time in Wins Above Replacement, with Pedro Martinez coming in at 16th. The two also rank one-two in strikeout percentage among pitchers with at least 2000 innings. That Pedro did it at his stature makes it all the more remarkable, but listen to him talk about pitching and it all makes sense.
The John Smoltz argument is a tricky one, but once you give him credit for both starting and relieving — as Jay Jaffe did in a well-thought-out article — he does much better. As it was on our leaderboards, Smoltz is top 15 in strikeout percentage all time among pitchers with 2000 innings. And if you add wins to saves (strange, but the Hall voting often takes strange turns), Smoltz is a top-ten pitcher in that category among those with 2000 innings.
Craig Biggio is a unique entrant into the Hall of Fame himself. While there will be some debate about which hats certain entrants will wear, the debate for the former Astro might surround which glove he’d wear. With over 300 games played at catcher, second, and in the outfield, he’d have a healthy decision on his hands. All that positional versatility added up to a modest WAR total (84th overall), but with 3060 hits on his ledger and 285 hit by pitches (second overall), Biggio met some great benchmarks.
Congratulations to the new entrants to the Hall of Fame!
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Thanks for the write-up Eno.
Many writers have persuasively argued that giving credit to Smoltz for pitching in relief effectively penalizes other guys (e.g., Schilling and Mussina) who very likely could have been dominant for one or maximum two innings, but were instead deployed as starters who pitched many more innings and therefore were more valuable to their respective clubs vis-a-vis a limited use guy like Smoltz.
I envision next year Griffey Jr., Piazza, and one of the following three guys will be elected:
Raines
Schilling
Bagwell
I think all of the above guys plus Mussina, Trammell, and Edgar Martinez should be inducted next year, but this is the first year in 60 years that four guys have been elected and I’d expect next year the writers will revert to no more than three inductees.
Just conjecture on my part of course.
I think it will be Griffey and Piazza only. More than two guys is actually fairly uncommon.
Yeah but the depth and quality of current ballots is even more uncommon.
You know what I can’t help thinking after reading the results?
Smoltz is now in the HoF, and preceded by Maddux and Glavine.
Chipper Jones will get in, and I think Andruw Jones will eventually get there as well.
If you’re a Braves fan, I’d imagine you’re happy about that but also disappointed as you think about the fact that you had five HoFers on the same team for a significant period of time (eight years or so all five played together?), but only won one championship.
They dominated the NL East division for 14 years in a row, that’s for sure, but I’m not sure that provides the appropriate amount of solace.
I think Andruw Jones is going to have a tough time. The guy’s post peak crash between 2009 and 2012 was so long that it’s really easy for people with short memories to forget how awesome he was for a ten year stretch before that.
Also, judgmental people will point to Jones’ dramatic career dropoff as evidence that he did steroids.
Because if your production was above average into your 30s, you obviously did steroids to sustain it.
And if your production went down by more than expected, you obviously did steroids and then stopped.
We will apparently only bless the players who followed the exact aging curve that we expect. Drr.
Bat – I’m sure the folks in Seattle who had Johnson, Griffey and ARod would have been thrilled with that one championship.
Same thing would hold true for the Buffalo Bills, among others.
Edmonds (60WAR) is a solid candidate, moreso from the SABR side, and Hoffman is #2 in saves all time. He’ll get in sooner or later.
I love Edgar, and agree he belongs in the HoF, but he’s going to require the veteran’s committee to get him in years from now. There’s zero chance he gets in next year: his support is just 25% this year, and it’s been dropping not rising (it was almost 36% last year). He’s going to be off the ballot altogether soon, and then it’ll be a long wait for that wrong to be righted (hopefully while he’s still alive).