John, I just don't understand the Dave Parker pick. All of his stats point to "no" regarding the Hall, but since you've had some dreamy nights in the late 70's, you think those moments put him over the top. Him being the "most feared hitter in the NL" is the same argument that people are using for the induction of Jim Rice and to a lesser extent, Jack Morris (Morris' case has boiled down to one damn game). I'd be embarrassed with that pick, actually. When advocates for a player fail to prove his greatness with numbers, they fall back on cherry picking stats or on feelings, which are not measureable, nor should they be. There are reasons why people are making fun of the BRAA.

Also, .323 OBP is an IMMEDIATE no for Dawson. No one should get extra credit for being injured. Why should they? Him being regulated to the DH should have made him concentrate on being a better hitter. I'll qualify myself by being a Cub fan who loved to watch him play (he should NOT have won MVP in 1987).

If all your picks were put in, the Hall of Fame would have lowered their standards which is an injustice to the deserving players who are enshrined. I expected better from a writer of BP.

John, as has become increasingly apparent with the results of recent seasons, both the results of awards voting and postseason appearances are poor proxies for actual greatness. We should know better in this day and age. Chase Utley was much better than the fifteenth most valuable player in the NL this year, Nate McLouth was not one of the three best defensive outfielders in the NL, Joe Mauer is more valuable than Justin Morneau, Derek Jeter should not get credit for his Gold Gloves.

John,

I'm interested in how you weighed the context of the ballot. This is Jim Rice's last year on the ballot, and if his credentials were enough to warrant serious consideration, then shouldn't the fact that this is Rice's last attempt put him above names like Cone, Baines, Dawson and Parker? It's not like these guys won't be there next year. As a fan of Rice, I'm very disappointed in your ballot, but I look forward to your thoughts on how this went into the decision making process.

Eric

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me that the Chisox/Mets deal is a possibility. Jenks/Dye would provide so much to this team, and if they can make the deal work without trading a core player or top pitching prospect (like Niese), I'd give Chicago anything else they want to make this happen.
A lineup of Reyes, 2B, Wright, Beltran, Dye, Delgado, Church, C, P looks great to me.

FWIW- my standard for "PED users for the Hall" would be: If the player was found to be using them while they were explicitly illegal and tested for- no vote. Otherwise, vote on the merits.

So much wrong with your Hall of Fame analysis.

1. Gold gloves as a measure of defensive talent? And as a counterweight to a miserable OBP for Andre Dawson?

2. Personal memories as a counterweight to a lack of production for Dake Parker.

3. Using pitching in eight postseasons as a point in favor of Cone when he was just lucky to play on some really good teams (not that he didn't pitch well mind you).

4. Saying we shouldn't penalize DHs for the position they play. We shouldn't outright penalize them, but we should factor in that they accumulate no defensive value whereas fielders actually do. If a DH puts up incredible hitting stats that compare favorably to the combined hitting+fielding of another player, they're a Hall of Famer. Baines certainly is not in that category.

Those are four bad arguments to push four marginal players into the Hall, further diluting the talent pool and making it more likely further marginal players will be included in the future.

"I'm not a judge, juror, or jailor. I'm just a baseball writer." Very cool. But you shouldn't admit that you're open to having your mind changed by a good argument by a non-insider. You can get your ballot revoked for that kind of behavior.

John - appreciate you explaining your reasoning behind your ballot, but a ballot that includes Baines, McGwire, Parker and Dawson - and not Jim Rice, is just flat out very seriously flawed. Parker perhaps being the most outrageous in that his prime years were the same era as Rice's prime years, and their numbers are not comparable. Whether intentional or not, BaseballProspectus has become the leader of the anti-Rice movement and I just don't get it. To remind, and borrowed from the Red Sox PR dept:

Rice ranked among the top five in AL MVP voting in 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1983, and 1986. He is the only player to finish among the top five in AL voting at least five times between 1963-2005. He is one of 16 major leaguers to place among the top five in MVP voting at least six times. Of the 12 Hall of Fame-eligible players on this list, 11 are in Cooperstown, including eight who were elected on the first ballot. Rice is the only exception.Rice is one of only 10 players to lead a league in runs, hits, home runs, and RBIs over a 14-year span. He and Rafael Palmeiro are the only players to accomplish the feat who are not in the Hall of Fame. Among the eight Hall of Famers on this list, five were elected on the first ballot.Rice is one of 14 players to post four or more seasons of 200 hits and 100 RBIs. Among the retired players on this list, only Rice and Steve Garvey are not in the Hall of Fame.From 1975-86, Rice was the most dominant player in the AL. During that stretch, he led the league in 12 categories and ranked among the top five in two others. He led the league over that period with 350 home runs, but unlike most sluggers of his day, he ranked fourth with a .304 batting average. He collected the most hits over that period and also ranked first with a .520 slugging percentage. He legged out 73 triples, including 15 in 1977 and 1978.

Yeah...I'm kind of surprised to see this kind of article posted here and not, say, on ESPN or anywhere else on the internet. Baines? He's Rusty Staub or Al Oliver, except he didn't even bother *trying* to play in the field for most of his career. If you're so "liberal" that you'd put all three of THOSE guys in, you shouldn't get a vote.

Parker? First, it's impossible to justify including Parker but not Rice. And second, it's really hard to justify including either one and not Lynn, Evans, Murphy, Allen, Belle, Frank Howard, and about 20 other guys who did all the same things those two guys did better than they did. Again, people have differing opinions about how inclusive the Hall should be, and that's fine, but if you really want to include ALL of those guys, you're trying to create a wholly different institution and probably shouldn't be involved with the shaping of this one.

No need to even touch why a "liberal" voter would leave Trammell off (or have left Raines off for even one year -- kudos on coming around on him and voting for McGwire, though, I guess).

I think one can actually make a rational argument for Cone (though you can also argue against him quite forcefully without going outside his own generation at all, and only three SPs whose careers started after 1910 pitched so few innings, and they were all terrible choices). I'd just like to see it actually made. His ERA+ is impressive and all, but so is Saberhagen's and Steib's and Key's and Appier's. The argument can start there, but definitely doesn't end there.

I respect your opinions and reasons for voting for each player. To me, that's part of the fun in the offseason, debating over Hall of Fame quality players. But I don't know how you start talking about a player with "he was a decent but not great ballplayer" (Baines) and then proceed to vote for him.

That's why hundreds of people get to vote for the Hall. Some writers will remember players fondly because they got to watch them play every day. While I disagree with the choice of Parker, I get it.

From a phillies fan born in '71, Andre Dawson (mostly as an Expo but a little bit as a Cub) scared the hell out of me everytime he came to the plate. I would've sworn he was capable of hitting a five-run homer. No other opposing player could match the fear he brought to me as a fan. On that completely objective measure, he'd have my imaginary vote.

Wow - Baines, Raines, Cone and Parker but not Rice? Hard to justify.

As a member in good standing of the Hall of Merit, I salute your approach to liberalism in Hall of Fame voting. After all, it is a Hall of FAME, not statistics. The Hall of Merit tries to use a more statistically based framework for voting and different voting methods to reach a Hall size equal to that of Cooperstown.
If you have not yet submitted your ballot, and are intent on voting for the 8 you mentioned, I urge you to reconsider Rice and Trammell before submitting. Rice was to the AL what Parker was to the NL. And Rice did it for longer and without that drug-slough in the middle. Trammell was simply an amazing shortstop who is unfairly overshadowed by Ripken and Ozzie Smith - similar to how Mussina was great, but not quite Clemens or Maddux.
My two cents.

I'm with you on not only ALL your picks, but in your frame of thought on the Hall in general, John. I think MLB Hall standards (compared to other major sports) are generally too strict, and voters also seem to have difficulty making distinguishments between players from different eras. I think most of us WANT to see our favorite "very good" to "excellent" superstar-level players from every generation in the Hall, besides just the ones who are no-brainers (Ripken, Carlton, Gwynn, etc).

IN ADDITION though, I like all the guys in your Seriously Considered for induction as well, except MAYBE Lee Smith and Donnie Baseball. I ALSO want to add Ron Santo. Why he's not in already is amazing to me. (Veterans Committee, GET ON THE STICK already!)

A question: how much emphasis do you put on (a) position, and (b) longevity? I ask because I'm intrigued by your selection of Parker and Baines, but not Trammell, whose shorter career and slightly worse numbers are (at least partly) made up for by his positional advantage.

"He pitched in eight postseasons" is really a contributing factor for voting for someone to be in the Hall of Fame? Just being on a playoff team eight times?

you say Rickey is the only first-timer on the ballot getting your vote John....but ian't Coney is a first-timer too? Remember he was delayed a couple years because of that one game comeback with the Mets....

I've always felt that had Blyleven spent the # of years that he'd pitched with the Twins as a Yankee instead - he'd have been watched that much more often by that many more people and been a first ballot shoo-in. All you youngsters out there that think of him as an announcer and have never seen him pitch should see get some video of that jaw-dropping curveball that could always be counted on and never ceased to amaze.

How can anyone vote for Rice, Baines or Parker, But not Dwight Evans?

Or Alan Trammell

"a player's finish in MVP voting is a very poor proxy for actual impact and value."

what????

The real problem with the HOF is there's too much emphasis on this longevity stuff...Baine's line is kind of sucky. As long as we're letting every tom, dick, and harry in, since, after a half cent, they got about 2500 hits, give me Rice. Yea, he didn't retire 5 years ago after a half cent, but at least he did something.

Add me to the list of people who can't understand voting for Baines while not voting for Rice. I'd be perfectly happy if you voted for neither of them, but if you take Rice's career and then add a little less than 1680 at bats of hitting .245 with two home runs and a .282 slugging percentage you get to Baines's final numbers. Can that dismal performance really transform a player from a non-Hall of Famer to Hall worthy? And on this one, at least, there can't be any argument for hidden defensive or base running contributions.

I'm all for informed liberalism, but when you lower the standards for the HoF, you end up with the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. I'll never forget last year's inductees, who were...well, I have no idea. Enshrinement there means little outside of Canton, as far as I can tell. Baseball's HoF should be reserved for the truly great, not the decent or above-average. Incidentally, Dwight Evans was as good a candidate for the HoF as Tony Perez and Dave Parker. Yet he did not receive the 5% necessary to stay on the ballot for a second year. It would be great if the "1970's Golden Years of Baseball" votes would get off of Parker and Concepcion and the other above-average guys. Same for Garvey and Donnie Baseball, For me, it's Blyleven, Henderson, Raines, Rice, and McGwire.

gjhardy is right, there have been too many borderline Hall-of-Famers already, and this year I'd take it a step further. Only Rickey is truly Hall-worthy out of this group, and frankly it just seems right for Rickey to be inducted by himself. If we start reaching for guys like Baines, Rice, Evans, Parker etc. I shudder to think of all the above-average guys currently playing who will all-of-a-sudden look Hall-worthy.

I'd vote against McGwire for his negative impact on the game, frankly.

I am so happy that many of you view a players DEFENSIVE ABILITIES as being very important! A player like DICK ALLEN is more deserving than HAROLD BAINES because he played a position!
I grew up watching JIM RICE, I feel he's a HOFer...He was 1 of the most dominate of his time! His numbers were great until the JUICERS of the last 15(or so) years!
BLYLEVEN and JACK MORRIS too! Of course HENDERSON! I feel Rickey is 1 of the greatest ever! Again, if it wasn't for the JUICING OF BONDS Rickeys numbers would all that much better! I can't wait to hear him talk!
You all make great points! p.s. Raines is a year or 2 away!

Uggh. John, you're going to set liberals back another generation with MVP voting like that, not that I'll have a problem with that. :-)

I'll touch upon just one of our choices, but I have issues with a few. Voting for Baines and using Molitor as justification is poor. Yes, both accumulated quite a bit of ABs at DH, but Baines was a DH for much longer because that's all he could do for the bulk of his career, which is why he appeared in far more games as a DH than he did defensively. The opposite is true of Molitor, who played far more games defensively than he did as a DH. The comparison gets even worse for Baines since Molitor played the bulk of his defensive games in important infield position, including 2B, 3B and SS, and when he did play the OF, he was a CFer. He played every defensive position except for catcher, providing extra value to his manager and his team. Baines was one-dimensional. Molitor was just the opposite of that. He was fast and an excellent base runner, stealing more than 500 bases in his career and at a very high percentage. He was receiving MVP votes at 22 and at 39. He also finished his career with more than 3,000 hits and a BA over .300. Baines did not.

Molitor was a complete ballplayer whose career was extended because he could DH. Harold Baines was a fine hitter, but he was a DH. I can see voting for a player he was basically a DH. Frank Thomas was one of the best right-handed hitters I've seen. He belongs, even though he's been mostly a DH. Edgar Martinez was more a DH than any of the players mentioned, and I'd give him serious consideration, too. Baines? No way.