My 2010 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

The BBWAA and the Hall of Fame will announce the 2010 induction class on Wednesday, January 6th. There are 26 players on the ballot, including 15 players who are appearing for the first time. Unlike last year, no one is in their 15th and final season of eligibility. Dave Parker is on for the 14th time and four other players have reached double-digit years.

The Hall of Fame is an emotional thing, one which leads writers and fans alike to argue passionately for their favorite candidates. That's a great thing. What's not a great thing is that there are a lot of fans who submit much better ballots than the writers, who are the only ones whose votes count in real life.

Last year Jim Rice made the Hall of Fame in his last year of eligibility. Anyone who read my three previous Hall of Fame ballot articles knows that I think this was a mistake. Actually, I don't think it is really a close decision, either. I think there are 15-20 guys on this year's ballot who I would enshrine before Rice. My main concern is not Rice himself, who won't be the worst player in the Hall of Fame. Instead, it opens up the argument - if Rice, why not (fill in your favorite sub-borderline candidate).

Simply put, the mistakes of the past (Rick Farrell? Chick Hafey? Jim Rice?) should not be the bar by which current candidates are judged. That inevitably leads to a slippery slope where everyone who ever enjoyed an All-Star campaign suddenly has a Hall of Fame case. Now that Jim Rice is elected how do you keep out Juan Gonzalez? Then Larry Walker looks like a slam dunk. And if Walker breaks the Colorado barrier, then how soon before Ellis Burks and Dante Bichette are chosen?

I am not a "Small Hall" guy. I think there are plenty of candidates worth enshrining into the Hall of Fame. I would just rather that the deserving players go in. The BBWAA has already missed the boat on great players like Ron Santo and Lou Whitaker. It's too bad that they are on the outside while others like Rice are in.

So, here I present my 2010 Hall of Fame ballot. I have voted for eight people, including five holdovers and three first-year candidates.

Roberto Alomar - For 14 seasons, Alomar was a star both at the plate and in the field. And then he got traded to the Mets and became old overnight. But I'm not going to hold that against him today. Among 2B, Alomar is fourth all-time in steals (474), seventh all-time in runs (1508), 11th all-time in AVG (.303), 13th in SLG (.443) and 16th in OBP (.371). Just from an offensive point of view, Alomar is one of the top 15 2B in MLB history.

But he moves up even further once we consider defense. A 10-time Gold Glove Award winner, Alomar handled all of the balls hit to him and had a very good arm. Unfortunately, we do not have UZR of plus/minus for his career. Because of the makeup of the Blue Jays pitching staffs, his RF numbers look below average. But once he joined the Orioles, we see his RF numbers improve immediately to above average, fitting in with our observations.

The only reason Alomar may not get elected in his first shot is if the voters penalize him for the "spitting incident". Alomar spit on umpire John Hirschbeck after a disputed called third strike. Alomar claimed that the umpire had uttered a racial slur and some have speculated that Hirshbeck might have made a reference to Alomar's sexual preference.

But the two publicly apologized to each other prior to a game the following season. Both have done charity work together and it appears on the surface that there are no hard feelings on either side. It would be a shame if voters kept him out over this one incident.

Bert Blyleven - I remember reading a baseball card back during Bert's career which suggested he could become the first pitcher with 4,000 strikeouts. He "only" got 3,701, the fifth-best mark of all time. Then there's the 4,970 innings, which ranks 13th all time. Then there's the 60 career shutouts (9th) and 287 wins (26th). Plus he had one of the best curveballs of all time. For a tremendous article on Blyleven's Hall case, check out this Rich Lederer article.

Andre Dawson - A Rookie of the Year winner and an MVP, Dawson had a great career despite suffering through serious knee pain which robbed him of his once-great speed. He came up as a five-tool center fielder but eventually moved to right field because his knees couldn't handle the demands of center any more. Dawson was also hurt tremendously by his home park when he was with the Expos, which had a well-known lousy artificial turf surface. Additionally, his home park really kept down his stats. Here are his home/road splits from 1977-1986:

AB R H HR RBI AVG
HOME 2697 406 720 95 384 .267
AWAY 2846 413 835 130 447 .293

An important thing to remember is that most ballplayers perform better in their home park.

Dawson was so eager to leave Montreal that he signed a blank contract following the 1986 season with the Cubs and went on to earn the MVP Award in his first year on natural grass.

Dawson played two years at the end of his career with the Red Sox, years when I lived in Boston and had season tickets. He was just a shell of his former self, but I likened it to seeing an old Blues legend like BB King. Sure, I might not be seeing him in his prime, but I could tell my kids I saw Andre Dawson play.

Barry Larkin - Injuries kept Barry Larkin from putting up an even stronger Hall of Fame case but what he did is plenty good enough to earn him a ticket to Cooperstown. A nine-time Silver Slugger Award winner, a three-time Gold Glove Award recipient and the winner of the 1995 National League MVP Award, Larkin did it all on the field and was hands down the best SS in the National League for a decade or more.

In 17 games in the post-season, Larkin posted a .338/.397/.465 line. In the 1990 World Series, he batted .353 and had a .950 OPS as he helped the Reds to a shocking win over the A's. Unlike Alomar, Larkin played his entire career with one team and should pick up bonus points for his loyalty to the Reds organization.

Fred McGriff - For the past few years, Dawson has been my most controversial pick (steroids aside). This year I think McGriff takes over that mantle. McGriff's numbers do not appear to stack up, especially compared to other slugging 1B in the Hall of Fame. But for the time when he was active, McGriff was consistently one of the top power hitters in the game, even if his totals seem small overall.

Seven consecutive seasons, McGriff finished top five in the league in OPS, including a first-place finish in 1989. In those same seven years, McGriff finished in the top four in HR each time, including two first-place finishes. Not merely a slugger, McGriff finished in the top four in OBP four consecutive seasons.

Unfortunately, people gloss over his seven-year peak and focus on the end of his career, when he vetoed a trade to a pennant contender and also appeared to hang on just to reach 500 career HR. I think that is a poor way to judge things. Is a seven-year peak good enough? I think it is. And it's not like McGriff has no career length to bolster his case. He played for 19 seasons.

McGriff amassed 326 Win Shares (more on these below), one more than Ozzie Smith and 44 more than that feared slugger Rice. A lot of people are supporting Edgar Martinez and McGriff bests him by 21 Win Shares. I think he's got a much better case than the typical fan realizes.

Mark McGwire -In his first two years on the ballot, McGwire received 128 votes. Lat year, McGwire pulled only 118 votes. Will writers continue to boycott Big Mac to show THEY are doing something about the alleged crisis of steroids? Will writers come around now that his refusal to talk about the past seems more of a distant memory?

Many writers promised to revisit McGwire in the future. Has enough time gone by for this to be his year? Probably not, although it will certainly be a good sign for his candidacy if he at least starts picking up a few votes every year.

I have no problem if someone wants to keep McGwire out because of the PED accusation. But I think those who say he did not have a Hall of Fame career are both wrong and are using revisionist history. When Gwynn, McGwire and Ripken retired following the 2001 season, everyone talked about what a great Hall of Fame class it would be with the three of them. Anyone who claims otherwise was incredibly silent at the time.

The two most important stats for offense are on-base percentage and slugging. McGwire led the league in OBP twice and SLG four times. He was a 12-time All-Star, a Rookie of the Year, a Gold Glove Award winner and he's eighth on the all-time home run list. That's a Hall of Famer, despite what revisionists might say.

Tim Raines - I already laid out the case for Raines in this article. To summarize, Raines was neck and neck with Mike Schmidt as the best player in the National League from 1981-1987, was an above-average defender in left field who would have been a center fielder if not for the presence of Andre Dawson and one of the greatest leadoff hitters and base stealers of all time.

Alan Trammell - Most people saw Cal Ripken as a slam dunk Hall of Famer and Trammell as not being Hall worthy. Let's compare them:

AVG/OBP/SLG
Ripken 276/.340/.447
Trammell 285/.352/.415

Trammell played 20 seasons and Ripken played 21 seasons. Trammell played in a more pitcher-dominated era, although their careers overlapped many years. Trammell won four Gold Gloves and Ripken won two. Trammell had 236 steals while Ripken had just 36 with 39 caught stealings. Trammell batted .333 with a .404 OBP and a .588 SLG in the playoffs and was a World Series MVP. Ripken batted .336 with a .411 OBP and a .455 SLG mark in the playoffs.

Now Ripken's a slam dunk because of the streak but why does Trammell have to be on the outside? Ripken was more durable and had more power, but Trammell got on base better, was a better defensive player and was faster. I think Ripken's durability made him a more valuable player, but the overall difference between the two was not that great. I don't think the line for Hall shortstops should be drawn at Alan Trammell.

Ripken was the dominating shortstop of their era, but how does Trammell compare with another Hall of Fame shortstop - Ozzie Smith? Bill James came up with a stat called Win Shares, which puts all of a player's accomplishments (offense and defense) for a year into a single number. Let's compare Ozzie, Trammell and Ripken and their best 10 seasons:

Ripken - 36.7, 35.3, 33.7, 27.7, 25.6, 25.4, 25.4, 23.1, 22.3, 20.9
Smith - 32.9, 25.2, 25.2, 24.7, 24.2, 23.7, 23.4, 22.3, 20.4, 20.3
Tram - 35.1, 29.2, 28.6, 26.2, 25.6, 22.8, 20.5, 16.7, 16.2, 15.8

Ripken is clearly the best of the three, but Trammell has a higher peak than Smith. Trammell's durability problems limited him to seven big seasons (over 20 win shares) but five of those were over 25. I think he has both enough career peak and enough career length for the Hall.

I had eight players on my ballot. I expect that far fewer players will be elected this year. My guess is that we see three players elected in 2010 - Alomar, Dawson and Blyleven. Last year Dawson received 67 percent of the vote while Blyleven had 62.7 percent. My guess is that Blyleven will be right around the 75 percent needed. If he doesn't get it this year, he will make it in 2011, his 14th season on the ballot.