The Baseball Hall of Fame Asserts its Authority
December 26, 2022
Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Hunter S. Thompson
Institutional Override
The People that run the Baseball Hall of Fame (basically the Clark Foundation and Major League Baseball) have a difficult problem. The voters primarily in charge of electing former baseball players into their shrine are not under their direct control. Does the Nobel Committee let someone else tell them who to give their prizes and money to? But the Baseball Hall of Fame [BHOF] allows the members of the Baseball Writers Association of America [BBWAA] to have the first crack at electing any player to their shrine. The advantages of doing this are obvious. The BBWAA generates a ton of free publicity for the BHOF as it debates the merits and demerits of potential BHOF inductees. Since the BBWAA is a separate organization, the BHOF also gets the added illusion of impartiality. The modern rule of publicity (all publicity is good publicity, only lack of publicity is bad) reigns. The disadvantage of this arrangement is that the BBWAA has a habit of doing one thing that the BHOF simply cannot allow. The BBWAA occasionally gets on its moral high horse and refuses to elect any player. This has happened 3 times in the last 25 years [1996, 2013, and 2021]. The high point of the BHOF’s year is when the crowds come to celebrate the annual induction ceremony. The Hall literally needs to induct someone each year. Does a hotel owner in Florida or the Caribbean close his establishment when the winter tourists flock to town? The BHOF has a simple and elegant solution to this problem. In addition to the annual elections of the BBWAA, the BHOF itself also annually elects some other players through the BHOF’s Veterans Committee. Like any institution, the BHOF needs to be able to put its fat thumb on the scale.
Settling for Second Best
This dichotomy, that baseball players are being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by 1) the BBWAA and 2) the BHOF itself, has existed since the very first election. In that initial 1936 election, the Writers voted to elect players from the 20th Century. The Hall of Fame appointed a Veterans Committee to elect players from the 19th Century. Eventually, the BBWAA elections focused upon the players that became eligible each year. These players were given 15 years at first to be elected by the BBWAA (eventually shortened to 10 years in 2014). There was also a five-year waiting period to make sure they did not unretire. The Veterans Committee also adapted. It was eventually limited to voting on the leftovers from the BBWAA elections. As the years rolled by, this process eventually ensured that the Veterans Committee would always elect the lesser qualified, those players ignored by the BBWAA. As the Veterans Committee evolved, it selections were filled with lowlights (the election of virtually all of the unqualified players in the Baseball Hall of Fame, especially in the 1960s & 1970s) and highlights (the belated elections of the very over-qualified Negro League superstars). Beginning in 2022, the Veterans Committee was tasked with electing three different groups of candidates who have not been elected by the BBWAA. The first is Players active primarily since 1980. The second is non-players (executives, managers. and umpires) active primarily since 1980. The third is players and/or non-players active primarily before 1980. These 3 groups will be considered annually on a rotating basis. In other words, Group One gets considered for induction in 2023, Group Two for 2024, and Group Three for 2025; before this sequence begins all over again.* Which brings us to the recent election of Fred McGriff by the BHOF Veterans Committee.
*Because the Baseball Hall of Fame has once again set an exact year rather than a moving time frame [i.e. exactly 1980 rather than 40 years ago], these 3 groups will inevitably need to be, eventually, changed once again.
The Hall of Fame Elects Fred McGriff
On December 4th, 2022, the BHOF Veterans Committee selected Fred McGriff from the group of players active primarily after 1980 who had been retired for five years and were no longer eligible for BBWAA election He will be inducted on July 23, 2023 into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The procedure used to elect him was straight forward. A BHOF Screening Committee of 10 to 12 members (primarily from the BBWAA) selected 8 players that fit their post-1980 criteria for the ballot. The Veterans Committee [VC], consisting of 16 members also appointed by the BHOF, considered whether any of these eight former players were worthy of induction. Each of these 16 VC members was allowed to vote for 3 candidates. A player receiving 12 votes (75%) was elected to the BHOF. Both Committees reportedly have the Baseball Commissioner and the Head of the Clark Foundation present (though non-voting). Although this procedure is transparent, the process itself is so cloudy that its almost opaque. Who was selecting these Committee members? Why were these 8 players on the ballot selected? It is obvious that the BHOF (i.e. Major League Baseball) was in total control of the process. The only question was: Would they act appropriately? It was quickly apparent that the answer was: Not at all. The 8 players selected by Screening Committee were an odd group, to say the least.* There were 3 players who had already been rejected by the BBWAA because of accusations of steroid use; and yet another player rejected because of the possibility that he would embarrass the Hall of Fame. Three of these 4 players had fallen off the BBWAA ballot just the previous year [2021] when their 10-year eligibility expired. The remaining four players consisted of 2 men whose careers were cut short by injuries [Mattingly & Belle], one man whose career burned out early as he was also injured [Murphy], and one player who had a full career and seemed well qualified: Fred McGriff.
* The 8 players were: Albert Belle, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Dale Murphy, Rafael Palmeiro and Curt Schilling.
The Fix Was In
The results of the 2023 Baseball Hall of Fame election certainly seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Sportswriters Jay Jaffe and Joe Posnanski both pretty much predicted that McGriff’s election was inevitable before the vote. It was. McGriff received all 16 votes. Every member of the Committee voted for him. If someone was suspicious that the election was rigged, they would not have to do much to construct a plausible conspiracy theory. The reasoning behind McGriff’s election was as old school as possible. If not for the games canceled during the 1994-1995 strike, McGriff would have hit over 500 home runs. For many years, 500 career HRs and 3000 hits had equaled automatic election to the BHOF (pro-rating for those lost games, McGriff would have finished with 510 HRs). This was very similar to the last Veterans Committee election from this group of players in 2019. In that election, the Veterans Committee had elected Harold Baines, using the argument that the strike years of 1981 and 1994-95 had denied Baines the chance to amass 3000 hits and guaranteed his automatic election (however pro-rating Baines for those three years does not get him to 3000 hits, just 2965). So just exactly what did the BHOF Veterans Committee accomplish with their 2022 election for the 2023 inductions? First, they once again got to thumb their nose at modern mathematical analysis by using the traditional measurements of 500 HRs and 3000 hits. Second, they broadcast that, going forward, steroid-tainted players would find no comfort in their selections. Bonds, Clemens, and Palmeiro will almost certainly not be on the next ballot as these three players did not even receive enough votes for their totals to be announced (Albert Belle, who had such breath-taking anger management problems that he might as well have been on steroids, is probably also included in this group). Third, the Committee also got to elect a man that it felt the BBWAA had given short shrift: Fred McGriff.
* Belle’s Anger Management problems have continued since his Baseball career ended. All things considered, his inclusion on the 2022 VC ballot may be even odder than the inclusion of the steroid-tainted players.
The Worthiness of Fred McGriff
In 2025, the BHOF Veterans Committee will once again vote on the pool of post-1980 players. It is very likely that the three other players who had their vote totals announced [Don Mattingly 8, Curt Schilling 7, Dale Murphy 6] will be on that ballot. In fact, the elections of Mattingly and Murphy are probably inevitable now. Schilling, if he can convince the BHOF that he will not cause a controversy with his induction speech, will also possibly be elected. But there is always the possibility that the BHOF will wait for Schilling to shuffle off this mortal coil before posthumously electing him. He may be the one man alive whose Baseball Hall of Fame chances would geometrically increase if he died. However, none of these assumptions answer the interesting questions of: 1) Was Fred McGriff actually worthy of election to the BHOF; and 2) Who should have been on the eight man ballot that resulted in his election? In a previous post, the Lowest Common Denominator system for membership in the BHOF was proposed. This system used the most widely accepted modern statistic for measuring whether a baseball player’s career was BHOF worthy [website Baseball Reference’s Wins Above Replacement formula, aka bWAR]. Currently, with the election of McGriff, there are 341 people in the BHOF [269 as players, 40 as executives or pioneers, 22 as managers, and 10 umpires]. Of these 269 players, 28 played primarily in the Negro Leagues and (unfortunately) cannot be compared directly with the 241 players from the traditional Major Leagues. There are also three players among the top 241 players by bWAR who were not elected as players (Charles Griffith & Al Spaulding as executives/pioneers and Joe Torre as manager). In other words, by this system, the Baseball Hall of Fame should contain the top 244 eligible players by bWAR.* Fred McGriff is the 245th ranked eligible player by Baseball Reference’s WAR calculations. You cannot straddle the line any closer than that.
* In the previous post of this formula, any players still in their 10-year eligibility period for the BBWAA vote for the BHOF were excluded. This choice has been reconsidered. Now, all players are eligible as soon as the 5-year waiting period from the end of their career is over.
Who Should Have Been on the List?
By the bWAR formula, the 2022 Veterans Committee should have probably considered the following 8 post-1980 eligible players: 1. Curt Schilling [59]*, 2. Lou Whitaker [73], 3. Kenny Lofton [103], 4. Graig Nettles [107], 5. Kevin Brown [110], 6. Dwight Evans [112], 7. Willie Randolph [120], and 8. David Cone [145]. By bWAR, all of these 8 players were more highly qualified for the BHOF than Fred McGriff. There are several other players (Rick Reuschel, Bobby Grich and especially Buddy Bell) whose careers could have qualified as either pre-1980 or post-1980 players (depending on the whims of BHOF) who also could have been considered. McGriff, depending upon who is included in the post-1980 bucket, would have been about 20th on the bWAR list of post-1980 eligible players. In fact, Schilling is the highest ranking eligible non-Hall of Famer in the post-1980 period outside of the steroid accursed careers of Barry Bonds (4th) and Roger Clemens (8th). This certainly does not mean that McGriff was not a worthy Hall of Famer. The bWAR formula probably underrates big bats like McGriff in favor of players with golden gloves to sell. It also almost surely underrates relief pitchers, catchers, and those players with short careers but very high peaks. On the other hand, it definitely overrates any 19th Century pitchers primarily active before 1893 and all players with long careers but no high peaks. All that being true, there is still no reasonable explanation for the 8 players selected by the BHOF Screening Committee for the BHOF Veterans Committee to consider for 2023 election other than the scales were tilted. It will be interesting to see which players get picked from the same post-1980 player pool for the next induction from this group in 2026.
* Each player is followed by his number on the bWAR eligibility list.
Addendum #1
One of the very odd things about the post-1980 player Veterans Committee 2022 election was the fact that Alan Trammell was one of the 16 Committee members who voted for Fred McGriff. Trammell, of course, is linked forever in baseball history with his long-time Detroit Tiger teammate Lou Whitaker (in the old days, they would have been called keystone partners). Trammell and Whitaker are reportedly good friends. After Curt Schilling, Lou Whitaker was the highest rated post-1980 eligible player by bWAR who should have been under consideration by this Veterans Committee. Could Trammell not have put in a good word for his supposed dear friend? It’s just odd.
Addendum #2
In 2023, another Veterans Committee will consider post-1980 non-players for 2024 induction into the BHOF. This blog may comment on that election. Or perhaps just ignore it. In 2024, yet another Veterans Committee will consider pre-1980 players and non-players for 2025 induction into the BHOF. Once again, there will be 8 candidates under consideration. In a perfect world, this list of 8 men would probably be all or almost all Negro League players, led by Grant Johnson & Dick Redding. However that is quite unlikely. Hopefully, by that time, this blog will have developed its top 100 list of Negro League stars and be able to populate such a list in a well-thought-out order. But the BHOF will probably once again shift through the bargain box of already discarded candidates. By the bWAR formula, the top 8 would be: 1. James McCormick [68], 2. Bill Dahlen [72], 3. Bobby Grich [84], 4. Tony Mullane [116], 5. Buddy Bell [118], 6. Luis Tiant [119], 7. Reggie Smith [127], and 8. Ken Boyer [141]. Removing the 19th Century guys, you get: 1. Bobby Grich [84], 2. Buddy Bell [118], 3. Luis Tiant [119], 4. Reggie Smith [127], 5. Ken Boyer [141], 6. Tommy John [150], 7. Sal Bando [152], and 8. Willie Davis [157]; Honorable mention: 9. Wes Ferrell [167], 10. Sherry Magee [173].