Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Garry D Howard's Reasoning is as bad as his ballot

I don't know why I'm finding this years Hall of Fame results so hilarious. I should probably just follow Matthew Carruth's lead and say "who cares, place is a joke." However, I could not pass this up. The Journal lays out how their writers voted. Each writer also gives their rationale. Dubious is a compliment, especially for Garry D. Howard, who clearly does not take his vote seriously at all. A ballot, with reasoning like this, should get a man banned from the BBWA:

GARRY D. HOWARD

Andre Dawson, Rickey Henderson, Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire, Jim Rice

Comment: Henderson made me smile every time he played; McGwire should be in the HOF, but he's facing a writers' backlash. Give all the credit to HOF Joe Morgan for this Rice vote, since Morgan single-handedly talked me into it. Morgan noted that Rice's peers felt he was one of the best hitters during a pitchers era and he was also an eight-time all-star with a career .298 average over 16 seasons. And since the main thing against the man for this Bronxite was that he played for the Boston Red Sox, I got over it. Still love Donnie Baseball.

Not a single reason is actually related to baseball, other than quoting stats that show Jim Rice to be incredibly average.

Pathetically ignorant fool submits terrible ballot for Hall of Fame. News at 11.

14 comments:

Chris said...

Man I hope the veterans committee puts Santo in just to see you lose your mind lol

E.S.K. said...

Santo probably deserves it (especially compared to some other guys now in there), that is just me being a dick.

PaulNoonan said...

Wow, that's awful. Don Mattingly? Really? Good lord. It's hilarious that Joe Mrogan talked him into that, especially since if anyone asks Joe Morgan his opinion about the Hall of Fame on a JoeChat he always takes the fifth because he's on the committee and doesn't want to appear biased. Yet here he is openly campaigning for a guy.

I propose that we all start referring to Greg Brock as the most feared hitter of his era, just to see if we can get him in the hall of fame. Greg's line drives looked like they injured the outfield walls they were hit so hard, consarnit.

PaulNoonan said...

Note, by the way, that Bill Windler is smart.

(Full disclosure: I am friends with Bill's son, and he taught me how to play strat-o-matic when we were kids, which is really all you need to know.)

E.S.K. said...

Yeah but...Alan Trammel?

PaulNoonan said...

I would direct you to Jay Jaffe's JAWS system:

"Which brings us to Alan Trammell, who most certainly does have a real case for the Hall, if nowhere near the support he deserves. He spent 20 seasons as a Tiger, 15 of them as their regular shortstop, arriving in late 1977 along with Lance Parrish and Jack Morris, and debuting in the same game as Lou Whitaker, his regular middle-infield partner through 1994. He excelled both at the plate and in the field, led the World Champion 1984 Tigers in WARP (10.2; he was also the World Series MVP), and should have been the AL MVP in 1987, when he went .343/.402/.551 with 28 HR and 105 RBI, losing the vote to 47-HR outfielder George Bell. According to WARP, he was five wins better than Bell (9.7 to 4.7), though Roger Clemens (11.2, with a 20-9, 2.97 ERA, 256-K season) and Wade Boggs (10.4, off of a .363/.461/.588 year with 24 HR and 108 RBI) topped them both.

Trammell not only clears the JAWS standards by a wide margin, his score is better than all but five of the 20 shortstops in the Hall of Fame: Honus Wagner (117.5), Cal Ripken (89.7), Arky Vaughan (84.5), Robin Yount (83.9), and Ozzie Smith (83.3). Three of them were contemporaries, and while Trammell is a step below that trio in WARP, that's mostly a function of late-career playing time. He holds his own as far as EQA and fielding within that group:


Player EQA BRAR BRAA FRAA Career Peak JAWS
Ripken .283 742 353 108 113.6 65.8 89.7
Yount .285 739 366 52 104.7 63.0 83.9
Smith .261 353 18 388 105.7 60.8 83.3
Larkin .291 584 320 164 98.9 62.6 80.8
Trammell .282 526 242 154 93.6 56.5 75.1I've thrown in Barry Larkin, who reaches the ballot next year and who may well face a similar level of indifference from the voters, whose expectations for what constitute a great shortstop have been altered by the Alex Rodriguezes and Derek Jeters of the last decade and a half. That's an issue for another day, and it shouldn't detract from Trammell's case. Overall, his peak score ranks 12th among shortstops, his career score ranks ninth, and his JAWS score ranks eighth. That's a Hall of Famer."

steveegg said...

My question is, Who gets Garry's ballot slot when the local paint-catcher goes under?

E.S.K. said...

Yeah but Paul, nobody FEARED Trammel, and we all know that is all that matters.

PaulNoonan said...

Plus Paul Molitor and Alan Trammell shared a Topps rookie card. Which is pretty awesome.

I love the "most feared" thing. Forget making Greg Brock the most feared. Let's make Mike Felder the "peskiest" or something like that.

PaulNoonan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
E.S.K. said...

Honestly, Paul, I find it real hard to place a value on short stops of the 80's. I know JAWS has him in easily, but I just do not see Ozzie Smith as having a Hall of Fame career.

Of course, I'd have no problem if we went 4 or 5 years without admitting anyone and purging the unworthy. Make the damn thing mean something again.

PaulNoonan said...

My point was only to show that there is a legit case for Alan Trammel.

E.S.K. said...

I appreciate it, because I have not heard that case made before. I still wouldn't vote him in, but I definitely respect Windler's card more than the others at the Urinal.

ahren said...

i wouldn't go as far as calling bill windler "smart", but he at least had some good genes to pass on...

we actually worked on his ballot together quite a bit-- we always do. there are certainly some debatable choices (and non-choices) on it.

basically, we trade trammell for john and agree strongly on the rest. i'm the strong proponent of trammell-- he's basically robin yount, but missed more PT during his career (which definitely counts against him). on the other hand, he stayed at SS the whole time (which is a plus for him). there're certainly reasonable arguments for keeping him out, and it's an issue on which i think reasonable people can amicably disagree...

knowing garry personally... i'm biased obviously cuz i love the guy... that said, i can guarantee he puts more effort into his ballot than his little blurb would let on. my guess is that the glib little take is intended to entertain and open up discussion. i disagree with his ballot obviously-- we've had some serious jim rice arguments in the past-- but i know he takes it very seriously.