Jon Heyman: Hall of Fame voter

Jon Heyman voted for Don Mattingly over Jeff Bagwell. In his tweets Heyman mentioned that he was the best player in baseball for 3-4 years.  He also mentioned that he votes for greatness at one point rather than being good for a number of years. We should also mention that he voted for Jack Morris, as well. So, while I am inspired by Ken Tremendous and FJM, I will look at his ballot and reasoning. 

"4. Don Mattingly: Some will argue this is geographic bias. But if anything, it's greatness bias. I like players who were great for a little while a lot more than those who were merely very good forever. He didn't last forever because of a bad back I suspect was earned twisting his 185-pound body into a power hitter. Some of his total numbers aren't overwhelming, but they look a lot like those of Kirby Puckett, an obvious Hall of Famer. Was maybe the best player in the game for three straight years (he won the Sporting News Player of the Year 1984-86) and also was one of the two greatest fielding first basemen of all time. A lot of greatness there."

Well, first we would like to say that by winning the Sporting News Player of the Year award does not necessarily make you a Hall of Famer.  Here are a few winners of that award who do not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.  Johnny Allen (1937), Johnny Vander Meer (1938), Spud Chandler (1943), Marty Marion (1944), Bob Turley (1958), Roger Maris (1961), Maury Wills (1962), Danny McLain (1968), Ron Guidry (1978), Fernando Valenzuela (1981), George Bell (1987), Orel Herschiser (1988), Kevin Mitchell (1989), Albert Belle (1995), Ryan Howard (2006).  This does not even include players like Ken Boyer, Al Rosen, Phil Rizzuto, Bill Mazeroski, Don Drysdale, Lou Brock, Joe Torre, Gary Sheffield, Rafael Palmeiro, and Sammy Sosa.  These players all have had their Hall of Fame candidacy debated.  Well not entirely for Rosen.

Secondly, Mattingly did not win the Sporting News Player of the Year award from 1984-1986.  He won it once in 1985.  Ryne Sandberg won it in 1984 and Roger Clemens won it in 1986.  Jeff Bagwell won the same award in 1994.  See the paragraph above for a small list of the players who have won the award once or click here to see te past awards.  If Heyman is implying that Mattingly was the best player from 1984-1986 because he won tha award for three straight years, he is dead wrong.  He won it once. 

Third, Mattingly finished in the top 10 for rWAR four times 1984-1987.  That is pretty good.  Bagwell did it from 1994-1999 including two times leading his league in rWAR.  I am not saying that WAR is the end-all of stats but if you're going to say that Mattingly was the best player in baseball for 3-4 years, you should at least consider Bagwell to be the best during his 6 year reign.

Fourth, we'll look at briefly the argument between Mattingly and Puckett.  It doesn't matter how similar their numbers are.  Puckett was a centerfielder and a pretty good defensive center fielder.  If Puckett was able to combine hitting as well as Heyman thinks Mattingly hit while playing a harder defensive position then Puckett would be much more valuable and thus better deserving of the Hall of Fame.  But we'll look at Mattingly vs. Puckett.  Mattingly: .307/.358/.471 127 OPS+.  Puckett: .318/.360/.477 124 OPS+.  Puckett was not really considered a power hitting centerfielder but yet somehow Mattingly is considered a power hitting first baseman?  My head hurts.  Mattingly should have to be a much much better hitter than Puckett in order to be worthy of the Hall of Fame, which just isn't true. 

According to rWAR, Mattingly had four All-Star caliber seasons and 0 MVP seasons.  Bagwell had 9 All-Star caliber seasons and 3 MVP seasons.  Yet somehow, Heyman has delusioned himself into thinking Mattingly had a lot of greatness.

I will not argue with Heyman about the fielding.  However, I think it is extremely unlikely that Mattingly was one of the two greatest fielding first basemen of all-time.   

Here is what Heyman said about Bagwell.

"7. Jeff Bagwell: The percentages (.540 slugging, .408 on-base) are worthy, and that he won only one Gold Glove and one MVP may have been a matter of timing and the era. Also gets points for uniqueness; not many huge first basemen could run like him (202 stolen bases, 100 runs in eight seasons). Still thinking about it.    "

Somehow, despite that Bagwell won the important award Heyman likes to quote, the Sporting News player of the year award, as many times as Mattingly did but there is no greatness for Bagwell. Apparently Bagwell wasn't great....

Bagwell's career OPS+ was 149, Mattingly topped that 3 times.  Bagwell topped it 6 times.

Batting average: Mattingly finished top 10, 5 times including one time leading the league.  Bagwell finished top 10, 3 times. 

On-base percentage: Mattingly finished top 10, 2 times.  Bagwell finished top 10, 8 times. 

Slugging percentage: Mattingly finished top 10, 5 times.  Bagwell finished top 10, 6 times led the league once.

OPS: Mattingly finished top 10, four times, led the league once.  Bagwell finished top 10, seven times, led the league once.

OPS+: Bagwell finsihed top 10, five times, led the league twice.  Bagwell finished top 10, nine times, led the league once.

I can go on for awhile.  However, there is no possible world where Bagwell is not as great as Mattingly.  No reasonable person can come to this conclusion.

Our Hall of Fame votes

I know we posted who we would vote for already, but we'll post it again here. This way there is no confusion about who we are voting for, for our very few readers.

In
1. Jeff Bagwell
2. Edgar Martinez
3. Mark McGwire
4. Larry Walker
5. Alan Trammell
6. Barry Larkin
7. Tim Raines
8. Rafael Palmeiro
9. Fred McGriff
10. Dale Murphy

If Jack Morris gets in today, I will be very sad. I'm hoping Larkin gets 75% of the votes.

The Hall of Fame Ballot part 1

Here at RCIAAS, we would like to announce our excitement that Ron Santo finally got into the Hall of Fame.  We also would like to say that for every Hall of Fame ballot, we would vote for tha maximum of 10 people as long as they were close to being worthy of being enshrined.  We would like the players who are close to being Hall of Fame worthy to be investigated further, so that the best players can finally be enshrined. Without further ado, we present the RCIAAS Hall of Fame ballot.

1. Jeff Bagwell- It's sad to say that Bagwell wasn't elected into the Hall of Fame on his first ballot.  Accordint to the Hall of Fame score, that we use, with 38 being a Hall of Famer, he got a 56.43.  Of course, our Hall of Fame score is based primarily around using WAR, both Fangraphs version and Baseball Reference's version.  Hopefully, most of you accept the basic premises of WAR, but if not, we'll break it down even more.
Pro: Triple slash of .297/.408/.540 with an OPS+ 149.  Those are fairly impressive career numbers.  He had 6 seasons with a batting average of .300 or higher.  He had seven seasons of OBP of .400 or higher.  He had 10 seasons of .500 SLG % of .500 or higher and two seasons of a slugging percentage of .600 or higher.  He had 9 seasons of OPS of .900 or higher.  He had six seasons of OPS+ of 150 or higher.  Look at his 1994 season, just look at it. 8.9 rWAR,  .368/.451/.750, that's nearly Ruthian or Bondsian.  Just a fantastic season and a great career. If you want to compare him with the other players in his league well, here we go.  3 top 10 finishes in Batting Average, 8 top 10 finishes in On-base percentage, 6 top 10 finishes in slugging percentage, 7 top 10 finishes in OPS. He led the league 3 times in runs scored, once in total bases, doubles, RBI's, and walks. He led the league once in OPS+ with a total of 9 top 10 finishes (including every year from 1993-2000).  He also stole a total of 202 bases.  According to the standard of 5 WAR being all-star caliber, he had 8 all-star caliber seasons and three MVP caliber seasons.
Cons: PED accusation, although never linked once during his playing career, there have been rumors from journalists that Bagwell used PED's.  Even though there is no justifiable evidence.  His counting numbers are not there, finished short of 500 homeruns (at 449) and never led the league in home runs.  Despite numerous players hitting 50 home runs in a season, Bagwell never did. He also only made one World Series and didn't exactly light the world on fire during the post-season. He only made four All-Star teams.

2. Edgar Martinez- 46.6 RCIAAS HOF Score.  10 All-Star caliber seasons.
Pro's: .312/.418/.515 with a 147 OPS+.  11 seasons with a .300 batting average or higher.  He had 11 seasons with a .400 OBP or higher.  He had 9 seasons with a Slugging Percentage of .500 or higher.  He also had 9 seasons with OPS of .900 or higher.  In addition, he had 9 seasons with an OPS+ of 150 or higher. 
He finished top 10 in rWAR in four seasons.  He finished top 10 in batting average seven times, leading the league in average twice.  He finished top 10 in on-base percentage 11 times, leading the league three times. He finished top 10 in slugging percentage six times.  He finished top 10 in OPS eight times, leading the league once.  He led the league once in runs scored, doubles twice, RBI's once, and OPS+ once.  He finished top 10 in OPS+ 9 times including (1995-2001). 

Cons: He was a designated hitter.  The Mariners didn't win the World Series.
 
3. Mark McGwire- RCIAAS HOF score: 46.41. All-Star caliber seasons: 8. MVP caliber seasons: 1.
Pro's: Homeruns, lots of them, 583 to be exact. He led the league 4 times in home runs and 1 more time that he led the major league while being traded from one league to the other.  Triple slash: .263/.394/.588.  One full season of .300 batting average or higher.  He had 5 full seasons with .400 OBP or higher.  He had seven full seasons of .500 slugging percentage or higher.  He had six full seasons of .600 slugging percentage or higher.  He had seven full seasons of .900 OPS or higher, including 5 seasons of 1.000 or higher.  He had seven full seasons of 150 OPS+ or higher.  He had two seasons of 200 OPS+ or higher.  He finished top 10 in rWAR four times. 
He had four seasons of top 10 in OBP including leading the league twice.  He had 8 top 10 finishes in slugging percentage and led the league four times.  He led the league in OPS twice and finished top 10 seven times.  He led the league once in RBI's.  He led the league twice in walks.  He had 6 top 10 finishes in OPS+ and led the league four times.
Cons: Admitted PED user.  He also was a bit injury prone so his counting stats are a little lower than they would be if he was healthy for his entire career. He wasn't exactly the best fielding first baseman.  Despite his prolific slugging, he never won the MVP award.