Tuesday, November 28, 2006

No-brainer


Best news I've gotten all week: Dante Bichette is on the 2007 Hall of Fame Ballot.
DANTE BICHETTE: 1st year on the ballot… Played 14 seasons… Led National League in hits, home runs, RBI, slugging percentage and extra base hits in 1995; his .340 average was third in the NL… Finished second in the NL MVP voting that year, behind Barry Larkin… Named to The Sporting News Silver Slugger team in 1995…One season with 40-plus home runs, three seasons with 30-plus home runs and eight seasons with 20-plus home runs…Nine consecutive seasons of 30-plus doubles and five consecutive seasons of 100-plus RBI… Six seasons batting .300 or better, with a career average of .299… Named to four All-Star teams (1994-96, 1998)… One NL Division series (1995): batted .588 with 10 hits, including three doubles and a home run, in 17 LDS at-bats.
Think anyone will vote for him? (If so, is that grounds for getting kicked out of the BBWAA?)

Update: as of now, 374 voters in ESPN's poll think he should get in. Hopefully most of them are smartasses like me. Man, I wish I had more time to keep voting until he gets the required 75%.

8 comments:

  1. Think anyone will vote for him? (If so, is that grounds for getting kicked out of the BBWAA?)

    Its possible someone would vote for him. Do you remember when Jim Deshaies was on the ballot and very publiclyu campaigned just to receive one vote. He had a website and was going around giving interviews saying how he would be honored to have just one vote. And I think he got a couple. The writers defended their positiobn saying basically it was not that they thought he was worthy, but acknowledged that he had a good career.

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  2. Speaking of the HOF….

    Last night I could not sleep and started thinking about active current players and the HOF.

    Specifically, two questions – which active players if their careers ended today, would be the most definite to get voted in – that is with out doing a single thing more.

    In order, I came up with:

    Clemens
    Johnson
    Maddux
    Griffey
    Manny
    A-Rod
    Pedro
    Glavine
    Jeter
    Bonds (obviously there are some issues here or he would be number one)

    For the record, my next ten would be as follows (and they all may very well get in). Am I missing anyone?

    Piazza
    Rivera
    Biggio
    Pudge
    Bagwell
    Schilling
    Trevor Hoffman
    Smoltz
    Frank Thomas
    Sheff


    Which led me to my next thoughts. In my top ten, I have 5 pitchers and 4 more in my top 20. And after those guys, there may be very, very few pitchers getting elected to the HOF in the next 20 years. With the 5 man rotations, pitch counts and the related frailty that goes with it, along with the resounding NO given to relief pitchers given by voters, it is going to hard for pitchers to accumulate the counting stats (wins, Ks, CG, even IP) that will allow them to stack up against prior inductees – and that is often how the voters look at it – hey, Don Sutton won 300 games and every other 300 game winner is in, lets vote for him. And while there are (in my mind) lots of good young hitters (Pujols, Howard, Wright, Cabrera, Tex, Sizemore), the list of pitchers is slim. For perspective, Johan, Oswalt, Carpenter, Sabathia, Bonderman, Halladay have 00 career wins or less. And Zito has 102. so they all have a long way to go. So guys will only get in with the argument – hey I saw Halladay/Johan pitch and they were HOF pitchers. That plus Cy Youngs will help. After that list above, is Mussina with something like 239 wins as number 5 on the active list. Good Lord. Solid. Good. But a HOF? Hell no, but he will get some consideration for finishing with over 250 wins.

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  3. That's a good list; though I'd put Rivera a bit higher (between Pedro and Glavine). Others at least worthy of consideration are Thome, Chipper Jones, and JuanGone. (Though the media loves Mussina, so who knows.)

    What about players who have retired but aren't eligible yet? Rickey's the obvious one; are there any others?

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  4. I agree, Rivera probably belongs in the top 10. But I think most of the guys in that top 20 will make the Hall, so the top 10 just some speculation. And Pedro may actually hurt his chances the longer he sticks around.

    I think Thome and Chipper need to keep counting. And Juan Gone is a good call. He probably would have been 21st on my list. 2 MVPs 400 HR, but I think he may fall a bit short. He may be one of the steroid sluggers. But he could hit. And field (for a while).

    You actually raise a good point. It could be a few lean years (assuming that you have Tony Gwynn and Cal as locks for this year). Ricky is a lock, but beyond that you have a bunch of All-Stars that likely won't make it - Mark Grace and Edgar Martinez are the names that will get the most discussion. McGriff should be a fun discussion when that happens, as well (not sure when).

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  5. "You actually raise a good point."

    as in

    "Congrats, you finally wrote something that isn't stupid."

    Thanks man!

    Anyway, kidding aside, those lean years may be good news for folks like Andre Dawson, Jim Rice, Lee Smith, Bert Blyleven...

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