Lee Smith and Harold Baines elected to HOF

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CardsofSTL
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Re: Lee Smith and Harold Baines elected to HOF

Post by CardsofSTL »

InvincibleCakeEater wrote:Baines
.289 .356 .465 .820
384 HR
MVP votes in 4 seasons
6 time All Star
1 Silver Slugger
Skillet Glove


Random dude (in 5 fewer seasons)
.283 .341 .492 .833
386 HR
MVP votes in 5 seasons
3 time All Star
1 Silver Slugger
Skillet Glove


Random dude is...
[SHOW]
Aramis Ramirez
That's future Hall of Famer Random Dude to you

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InvincibleCakeEater
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Re: Lee Smith and Harold Baines elected to HOF

Post by InvincibleCakeEater »

Here's a fun comparison from a random dude that played 17 years, was also a RF, and retired the same year as Baines.

Baines 162 game average
.289 .356 .465 .820
22 HR
93 RBI
74 Runs
164 H
28 2B
2 SB
2CS

Random dudes 162 game average
.288 .363 .470 .833
22 HR
100 RBI
82 Runs
166 H
36 2B
11 SB
6 CS

Random dude is...
[SHOW]
Paul O'Neill

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JoeMcKim
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Re: Lee Smith and Harold Baines elected to HOF

Post by JoeMcKim »

Since Lee Smith is probably going to be wearing a Cubs hat on his Baseball HOF plaque he might not automatically go into the Cardinals team HOF. So just because he's in THE hall of fame now he still isn't in the Cardinals hall of fame yet.

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Jocephus
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Re: Lee Smith and Harold Baines elected to HOF

Post by Jocephus »

12:04
Tim: What does it say about the Veteran’s committee that one of their members simply could not act like an adult on national TV when discussing their decision to include Baines? To me it says they can’t attempt even the pretense of objectivity, further hurting their credibility among the public.

12:09
Jay Jaffe: Yeah, I haven’t read the full transcript of La Russa’s comments but what I’ve seen was an embarrassment.

This applies less to La Russa than to Jerry Reinsdorf, but here’s one weird trick the Hall of Fame could do to increase the credibility of the small committees: PROHIBIT ANY EMPLOYER FROM BEING ON A COMMITTEE WHERE HE CAN VOTE FOR HIS EMPLOYEE. Second to that, make the committee large enough (maybe double in size?) with enough neutral parties (i.e., journalists and actual historians) that somebody as closely linked as a player’s ex-teammates and managers is forced to abstain from the vote on that particular candidate. It does not seem too much to ask, and yet it apparently is.
12:12
Beetlejuice: Should TLR be included in any future veteran’s committee votes after that ridiculous outburst on MLBN the other day? He thinks he is the be-all end-all in baseball knowledge and it hurts the Hall’s brand to have him associated with them.

12:15
Jay Jaffe: Again, that was an embarrassing moment. I’m still mad about it. When you consider TLR’s previous shots across the bow AND the presence of Joe Morgan himself on that committee, it seems apparent that the Hall is trying to send a very anti- analytical message to the rest of the baseball world about its process.

Spider John
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Re: Lee Smith and Harold Baines elected to HOF

Post by Spider John »

TLR said something about those in uniform being a better judge of talent than those who haven't. Does that mean we can't tell if we have a leak in our roof because we're not roofers?

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CardsofSTL
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Re: Lee Smith and Harold Baines elected to HOF

Post by CardsofSTL »

Bat boys wear uniforms

I loved Tony when he was the Cardinals manager but he's always a prickly SOB when someone calls him out on his shildt. He's always been one to play favorites, sometimes that's ok. McGwire as hitting coach for example. But when you slide your boys into the HoF then it's going too far.

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Big Amoco Sign
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Re: Lee Smith and Harold Baines elected to HOF

Post by Big Amoco Sign »

Tony killed the Diamondbacks organization. He's awful at player evaluating.

Baines should not be an HOFer. I love Baines too. But before Bonds? Seriously?

Do the Basketball HOF thing and just go by "You mattered? You're in" and call it a day. Baseball writers are the most condescending bores on planet earth. The voting system sucks.

Gashouse
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Re: Lee Smith and Harold Baines elected to HOF

Post by Gashouse »

Big Amoco Sign wrote:Tony killed the Diamondbacks organization. He's awful at player evaluating.
Didn't he call Pujols the greatest player he's ever coached after Pujols' rookie year? He probably got that one right.

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33anda3rd
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Re: Lee Smith and Harold Baines elected to HOF

Post by 33anda3rd »

The HOF is a joke. It's too insular, with the writers on one side and the old-school committee on the other. It's like how the Emmy, Grammy and Academy Awards are a joke--the industry rewarding itself--when it comes to these committee inductions. It's fine for putting in managers and front office guys and scouts and announcers but for players it's just silly.

Forget Random Dude, on this year's Era Committee ballot they had Albert Belle, Will Clark, Orel Hershiser.

Baines: 289/356/465, two top-10 MVP finishes, none of them in the top 8, 38.7 rWAR
Belle: 295/369/564, five top-10 MVP finishes, three of them in the top 3, 40.1 rWAR despite retiring at age 33 due to hip injury that clouded his greatness
Clark: 303/384/497, four top-10 MVP finishes, all of them in the top 4, 56.5 rWAR in 3K fewer PA than Baines needed to get 18 less rWAR

The 10 best seasons from these players:
1989 Clark 8,6 rWAR
1998 Belle 7.1 rWAR
1995 Belle 7.0 rWAR
1988 Clark 6.7 rWAR
1994 Belle 5.7 rWAR
1996 Belle 5.7 rWAR
1991 Clark 5.2 rWAR
1993 Belle 4.7 rWAR
1984 Baines 4.3 rWAR
1987 Clark 4.2 rWAR

Now toss in Hershiser who won a Cy, finished top 4 in three other years, went 59 innings without allowing a run once, posted five seasons with an ERA of 3.06 or less, had 51.6 career rWAR, a World Series MVP in a series where he had a 1.00 ERA in two starts against LaRussa's juiced-up Bash Bros, and two LCS MVPs (one with a 1.09 ERA and one with a 1.29 ERA).

The pecking order here is:
1. Hershiser
2. Clark
3. Belle
4. Smith
5. Baines

That the VC picked Baines and Lee Smith over the other three is a clear sign that we should more or less stop taking the Baseball HOF at all seriously, if we hadn't already stopped a half-dozen years ago.

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33anda3rd
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Re: Lee Smith and Harold Baines elected to HOF

Post by 33anda3rd »

Gashouse wrote:
Big Amoco Sign wrote:Tony killed the Diamondbacks organization. He's awful at player evaluating.
Didn't he call Pujols the greatest player he's ever coached after Pujols' rookie year? He probably got that one right.
How many HOF-ers did LaRussa manage? Rickey, Pujols, the undeserving Baines, the relief pitcher Eckersley, we won't count Smoltz since that was back-end career relief work. It's really just a question of if Rickey or Pujols was the greatest player TLR coached, not a terribly tough decision to make. Not like if you're Pinella and there's A-Rod, Griffey Jr, Big Unit, Ichiro. When Barry Larkin is like the 5th-7th greatest player you've coached and you make a statement like "Alex Rodriguez was the greatest player I ever coached" you're saying something. Tony making that obvious statement doesn't do much to counterbalance the player personnel mistakes he made due to his love affair with grit n' grind guys who Played The Game The Right Way.

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