2018 Veterans Committee HOF ballot (Modern Era)

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Who would you vote for?

Steve Garvey
1
1%
Tommy John
8
9%
Don Mattingly
9
10%
Marvin Miller
11
13%
Jack Morris
7
8%
Dale Murphy
5
6%
Dave Parker
1
1%
Ted Simmons
26
30%
Luis Tiant
2
2%
Alan Trammell
18
20%
 
Total votes: 88

Gashouse
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Re: 2018 Veterans Committee HOF ballot (Modern Era)

Post by Gashouse »

I'm surprised by the lack of votes for Marvin Miller. He helped usher in free agency, which had a big impact on the game. I'm curious about arguments against him.

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Swirls
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Re: 2018 Veterans Committee HOF ballot (Modern Era)

Post by Swirls »

Gashouse wrote:I'm surprised by the lack of votes for Marvin Miller. He helped usher in free agency, which had a big impact on the game. I'm curious about arguments against him.
He has a better case for it than Jack Morris or Tommy John.

jagtrader
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Re: 2018 Veterans Committee HOF ballot (Modern Era)

Post by jagtrader »

My first thought was no one on this list was better than Edmonds. Except maybe prime Mattingly or prime Murphy. Neither had a better career.

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Famous Mortimer
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Re: 2018 Veterans Committee HOF ballot (Modern Era)

Post by Famous Mortimer »

I seem to recall when he was alive, and being given pathetic numbers of votes by the same people who he'd cost millions of dollars, that Miller asked to no longer be on the ballot. He is 100% deserving of being in there, though.

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IMADreamer
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Re: 2018 Veterans Committee HOF ballot (Modern Era)

Post by IMADreamer »

John, Mattingly, Simmons, Trammel, Murphy.

jagtrader
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Re: 2018 Veterans Committee HOF ballot (Modern Era)

Post by jagtrader »

This isn't Veterans Committee but Vizquel has been named on all seven ballots so far and I have headache.

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JoeMcKim
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Re: 2018 Veterans Committee HOF ballot (Modern Era)

Post by JoeMcKim »

jagtrader wrote:This isn't Veterans Committee but Vizquel has been named on all seven ballots so far and I have headache.
Is Vizquel that much less HOF worthy then the Wizard? Both are double digit gold glovers and I would imagine that Vizquel's offensive stats hold up very well against Ozzie's. I mean I would put Ozzie in ahead of Omar but it's not that big of a gap.

After looking at Ozzie and Omar's offensive stats, Omar has 400 more career hits and 200 more career runs and a higher career batting average. There is little to no argument to say that Ozzie is a HOFer but Omar isn't. You can't have it both ways.

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Joe Shlabotnik
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Re: 2018 Veterans Committee HOF ballot (Modern Era)

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

JoeMcKim wrote:
jagtrader wrote:This isn't Veterans Committee but Vizquel has been named on all seven ballots so far and I have headache.
Is Vizquel that much less HOF worthy then the Wizard? Both are double digit gold glovers and I would imagine that Vizquel's offensive stats hold up very well against Ozzie's. I mean I would put Ozzie in ahead of Omar but it's not that big of a gap.

After looking at Ozzie and Omar's offensive stats, Omar has 400 more career hits and 200 more career runs and a higher career batting average. There is little to no argument to say that Ozzie is a HOFer but Omar isn't. You can't have it both ways.
How many back flips did Omar do?

There's your difference right there.

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InvincibleCakeEater
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Re: 2018 Veterans Committee HOF ballot (Modern Era)

Post by InvincibleCakeEater »

JoeMcKim wrote:
jagtrader wrote:This isn't Veterans Committee but Vizquel has been named on all seven ballots so far and I have headache.
Is Vizquel that much less HOF worthy then the Wizard? Both are double digit gold glovers and I would imagine that Vizquel's offensive stats hold up very well against Ozzie's. I mean I would put Ozzie in ahead of Omar but it's not that big of a gap.

After looking at Ozzie and Omar's offensive stats, Omar has 400 more career hits and 200 more career runs and a higher career batting average. There is little to no argument to say that Ozzie is a HOFer but Omar isn't. You can't have it both ways.
For a quick and dirty..

Omar - 45.3 WAR
Ozzie - 76.5 WAR

Ozzie was an other worldy defender.

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Kincaid
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Re: 2018 Veterans Committee HOF ballot (Modern Era)

Post by Kincaid »

Regarding Ozzie vs Vizquel:

I would still give the edge offensively to Ozzie since his numbers are better relative to his era than Vizquel's and because he was a much better baserunner. Other than his abysmal second season at the plate, Ozzie was never quite as much of a hole in his lineups as Vizquel was in some of his seasons, and Ozzie had an extended period from the mid-80s to early-90s where he was roughly a league average hitter, which was a level Vizquel never maintained for more than a year or two.

You could make a case that they weren't that different as hitters, though, and that Vizquel's below-average bat just played worse to his era than Ozzie's (though Ozzie would still have a significant edge in baserunning). Defensively, though, just saying they were both great and leaving it at that undersells just how great Ozzie was.

Total Zone (which is the metric Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs use to estimate defense for years before UZR/DRS is available) rates Ozzie over 100 runs better on defense than Vizquel (+239 runs above an average SS for Ozzie vs +134 for Vizquel).

To get an idea where that gap comes from, we can look at how many plays each made in the field. Range factor (assists+putouts per 9 innings) is kind of a crude measure, but just to get a general idea, Ozzie made 5.22 plays per 9 innings over his career, compared to a league average shortstop making 4.78. Vizquel made 4.62 plays per 9 innings over his career at SS, compared to an average of 4.61. Again, this is kind of a crude measure since it just uses innings as a proxy for fielding opportunities, but that's a huge gap. That's an extra half a play every game for roughly 20 years.

Getting a little more precise, using Retrosheet's PBP files, we can find that when Ozzie was at short, he fielded about 13.6% of all balls in play for outs. Vizquel fielded about 12.3% of balls in play for outs. With over 70,000 balls in play over their careers, that is a similarly huge gap.

Some of that might be that more hitters hit the ball to SS when Ozzie was playing, but not enough to cover that big a difference, especially over 20 years. And Total Zone is essentially taking that same PBP data that shows Ozzie fielded 13.6% of BIP for outs, looking at the details for what fielder fielded every ball in play, and using that to get an estimate of how many opportunities each fielder had based on which part of the field every hit went to. And after doing that, Ozzie still comes out way ahead.


Vizquel's glove may have been good enough to keep him an above average player for a long time, which is remarkable given his offensive output, but it was never going to carry his bat enough to elevate him to one of the best players in the league. Ozzie's defense was legitimately good enough to do that.

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