The Official Hall Of Fame Ballot of This Team Makes Me Drink

As winter approaches, so does another yearly tradition: arguing about who should get voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame now that the ballots are out.

The Hall of Fame electorate is entirely comprised of members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA). Sadly, some of these voters are clearly very out of touch with the game or use the honor and privilege of having a ballot to make a spectacle of themselves. Consider, for example, the case of noted sabermetric-disbeleiver Murray Chass, who submitted a completely blank ballot in 2017 in part to (literally) to spare ceremony induction attendees the "horrible thought [of making] people sit through 10 speeches in the hot July Cooperstown sun." The man is literally the sports-writer equivalent of somebody who believes the earth is still flat.

While I don't have an official ballot, I do write about baseball sometimes- I'd venture to say that I know more about the game than Mr. Chass and I'm certainly a more qualified voter than he is. Sorry Murray.

Anyways, I thought I'd try to take my shot at making one. The Hall of Fame, despite the connotations implied by the word "fame", is not the Hall of Popularity. However, it also isn't the Hall of Stats- there are plenty of players who are not in the Hall of Fame who are objectively better than those that are.

For me, the building of my ballot was guided by both quantitative and qualitative factors, and while I did not completely ignore the latter, the former was definitely something I put more stock into. In particular, a player's individual Wins Above Replacement statistic (i.e., how many wins a player contributed to his team over the course of his career) was the biggest factor in my decision-making and my justification for some of my more controversial choices. I'm proud to say that my voting methodology would probably throw Mr. Chass into an incomprehensible rage.

With that said: let's get to my ballot.

The Official This Team Makes Me Drink Hall of Fame Ballot

1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Mariano Rivera
4. Curt Schilling
5. Mike Mussina
6. Larry Walker
7. Roy Halladay
8. Edgar Martinez
9. Andruw Jones
10. Scott Rolen

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are probably the two most controversial candidates on this list, but my decision to vote for them reflects uncomfortable, but necessary truths: 

• Bonds and Clemens never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs during their playing careers.
• There are people in the Hall of Fame who used performance-enhancing drugs to gain a competitive edge- in particular, amphetamine use was widespread among baseball players in the second half of the 20th century. Hell, Babe Ruth even once injected himself with sheep testicle extract in one hilariously ill-fated attempt to gain a competitive advantage, which resulted in a stomach ache that kept him out of the Yankees' lineup that day.
• Finally, steroid and other PED use among baseball players was simply a reality of the 1990s and 2000s- and as the Washington Post's Barry Svrluga puts it: the purpose of the Hall of Fame is to tell the story of the game of baseball, not write a hagiography of it. The Hall of Fame is sadly not solely filled with exceptional human beings like Tony Gwynn- indeed, it honors figures from perhaps the most unsavory epoch of the game's history: the game's first Commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was unwilling to integrate the game during his tenure and therefore was perhaps most directly responsible for prolonging the game's shameful exclusion of African American players, was elected to the Hall in 1944 and remains there to this day. 

Steroids or not, Bonds' accomplishments speak for themselves- he's both the all-time career and single-season home run king, he's got 7 MVPs, 14 All Star game appearances, 8 Gold Gloves, was a member of the 40-40 club... I could go on. We all know that Bonds was one of the most feared players of all time, but what's even more impressive is the fact Bonds is perhaps the most complete player of all time. He not only excelled in hitting- but he was also an elite defender and base-stealer. Again, PEDs or not- he was supremely talented at literally everything. With a Fangraphs WAR of 164.4, Bonds is almost 100 wins above the next closest position player on the ballot, and second only to Babe Ruth in career WAR- he is, without hyperbole, one of the absolute greatest of all time. I mean, you could genuinely make a case that Bonds is better than Ruth, when you consider that Bonds played against pitchers that could throw far faster than anybody Ruth ever faced. 

Clemens too, is not lacking in the credentials department. The Rocket was simply the most dominant pitcher of his era. Like Bonds, advanced metrics like WAR make Clemens' case a slam dunk. At 133.7 wins above replacement on Fangraphs, Clemens is the best pitcher of all time. I mean, he was better by WAR than Cy Young, who they named the best-pitcher award after- and I'd bet if it wasn't for the steroid controversy, they would've named it the Clemens Award by now.

Bonds and Clemens were, by far, head and shoulders above not only their contemporaries they share the ballot with, but also 99% of those actually in the Hall of Fame. The two were the gold-standard for baseball achievement in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s- three whole decades. Simply put, they set the tone of their generation, and if they aren't in the Hall of Fame- the entire concept of what a Hall of Fame should be collapses. If Bonds and Clemens aren't in the Hall of Fame, nobody from that era should- not Gwynn, not Griffey, not Maddux, nor anybody else. 

Mariano Rivera was the best closer of all-time, and with a Fangraphs WAR of 39.7, he's the best reliever of all time. While he won't be the first unanimous selection to the HOF (as some have speculated), now that Trevor Hoffman- who had nowhere near a statistically sound case as Mariano has- is rightfully in the Hall of Fame (sorry Keith Law), Mariano's path to the Hall should be a cakewalk. 

His politics aside, Curt Schilling had a Hall of Fame caliber career and deserves to be enshrined in Cooperstown. He's one of the 20 best pitchers of all time by WAR (79.8) and was instrumental in ending the Curse of the Bambino- enough said. 

Like Schilling, Mike Mussina is one of the 20 best pitchers of all time by Fangraphs WAR (82.2). While perhaps he wasn't the absolute best, he was really good, for a really long time- in an era of supercharged offense no less. I mean, if your main knock on him is that he didn't win a Cy Young, you should lose your vote- Moose has a slam dunk candidacy, and I hope he gets in soon.

Larry Walker gets knocked by some voters for playing his best seasons in hitter-friendly Coors Field, which is a profoundly foolish take- give the man credit for what he actually did on the field. Like Mussina, Walker was really good for a really long time, and its unfortunate that the Hall of Fame electorate hasn't acknowledged his career- he got only 34.1% of the vote last year.

Sadly, Roy Halladay will not be around to witness his induction into the Hall of Fame after passing away last year, which is profoundly heartbreaking because he was a Hall of Fame person as well. Hallday was one of, if not the most, dominant pitchers of the 2000s-early 2010s, and had his career not been cut short by injury, he probably could still be pitching today- he was that good. While some writers may ding him because he "only" had 203 pitching wins (imagine thinking pitching wins are a meaningful indicator of pitcher talent LMAOOOOOOO), I'd imagine that he's a pretty safe bet to be elected on his first ballot, which is something he is totally deserving of.

This is Edgar Martinez's last year on the BBWAA ballot. While I'm sympathetic to his case, I'm by no means casting him a sympathy vote- there's no way he should've had to wait this long to be inducted. With a Fangraphs WAR of 65.5, he's had a career that is comparable to fellow Hall of Famers Tony Gwynn, Craig Biggio, Alan Trammel, and Ernie Banks, so there is more than ample precedent for a player of his ilk to be selected to the HOF. Besides, he just "feels" like a Hall of Famer to me- he's beloved by Seattle denizens, and for good reason: the Mariners were a frequent subject of relocation rumors in the mid-90s; Martinez is credited with essentially saving baseball in Seattle after hitting a game-winning double to win the 1995 ALDS. This galvanized widespread fan support for the Mariners in the process, which helped get a new stadium built. I don't think it's a stretch to say that he's "Mr. Mariner" in the same way that Tony Gwynn is "Mr. Padre". 

Andruw Jones only got 7.3% of the vote last year. While Jones is among the top five position players by Fangraphs WAR (66.9) on the ballot this year, he almost certainly will not get elected to the Hall of Fame through a BBWA vote, and is in danger of falling below the 5% threshold and getting dropped from the ballot altogether. During his roughly 10-year tenure with the Braves, Jones was more or less one of the very best outfielders in the game. Frequently compared to Willie Mays, he paired his exceptional offensive skill with Gold-Glove caliber defense in center field, and was worth 7 or more wins three times. Like Martinez, Jones' career Fangraphs WAR is comparable to Gywnn, Biggio, Trammel, Banks and many other Hall of Famers. Unfortunately, Jones' candidacy falls victim to not qualitatively "feeling" like a Hall of Famer- in retrospect, perhaps the most damming blow to his candidacy came after the "lazy" label became permanently affixed to Jones when he showed up to Spring Training with Dodgers overweight and unmotivated- after a signing a hefty contract no less! It also probably didn't help his that performance more or less fell of a cliff too- Jones was never again the same player he was in Atlanta. This, combined with Jones' failure to live up to the absurdly-lofty Willie Mays comparisons, has likely fatally and irreparably damaged his candidacy.

I'd imagine that a common justification for not voting for him would be that Andruw Jones was a flameout who was never as great as he could've been. Yes, Andrew Jones was a flameout. Yes, Andruw Jones was also never as great as he could've been. Those are both true, but there's one other important thing: Andruw Jones' career was was pretty damn great as it was- imperfections and all. He he was essentially Mike Trout before Mike Trout was a thing- and it's often been said that if Trout quit playing the game today, he'd be a Hall of Famer: Jones' Hall of Fame candidacy is basically a test of that hypothesis. 

Like Jones, Scott Rolen is also in danger of being dropped off future ballots after getting only 10.2% of the vote in his first year on the ballot. While not an all-time top 10 third baseman by career Fangraphs WAR, Rolen amassed nearly 70 wins above replacement during his playing career and clearly exceeds the threshold set by other Hall of Fame members who were elected with lower lifetime numbers. Indeed, Rolen is above Hall of Fame third basemen Paul Molitor and Harmon Killabrew, and while there are some dumb takes out there, his candidacy is strong. 

So that's my ballot! I decided to vote for the maximum 10 allowed, because I believe that all ten of these guys I picked were deserving of entering Cooperstown. There were some hard people I decided to leave off- Todd Helton, Andy Pettitte, and Gary Sheffield were all deserving, and if I actually had a vote, I would probably vote for them next year.

Well anyways, if you think I should be given Murray Chass's ballot, send an email to the powers that be at info@bbwwa.com. If you disagree with any of my picks, you're probably Murray Chass himself, and Murray, we should definitely have a chat- leave me a comment so we can get in touch!