Thursday Bantering: BBB Hall of Fame Poll results

I’m having a slow day. I bought home a bad cold from our holiday and between that and some jet lag I don’t feel like doing anything today.

But, while sitting feeling grumpy, I thought I’d look at out Hall of Fame polls. We ran 22 polls, skipping 13 players who were on the ballot (11 of those received no votes from the Writers, I was hoping Vernon would have gotten one mercy vote).

The Writers voted 4 into the Hall. We would have voted in 5. BBB and the Writers agreed on Halladay, Rivera and Martinez (though we didn’t give Rivera 100% of the vote, but somehow Doc didn’t get 100% of the vote either). We would have put in Walker (yay) and McGriff (also yay). Mussina just missed out on our poll.

Of interest to me, we, like the Writers, wouldn’t have voted Bonds and Clemens in, but they did better in our polls. I also find it of interest that they received different vote totals. I would have thought that if you would vote for one, you would vote for the other, but Bond had 6% more of the vote than Clemens (I see I have a typo in his name in the table). Maybe it is because Clemens is hated more here.

The biggest differences between us and the Writers?

• We had McGriff at 80% yes, Writers 39.8%. He was a Blue Jay so we are allowed to like him more, but I do think he is deserving of the Hall.
• Walker go 94% with us, 54.6% with the Writers. The Writers are wrong on this one. But I think there will be a big time campaign for him before next year’s vote.
• Helton got 68% of the vote on BBB, just 16.5% by BBWAA.
• We like Kent more than the Writers, 43% here, 18.1 Writers.
• Manny Ramirez had 58% here, 22.8 there. Part of it might be the Writers’ only being allowed to vote for 10. We were also much higher on Rolen (59% to 17.2). I think Rolen is one of their bigger mistakes.
• They like Vizquel better (42.8% by the Writers, 29% us). I don’t see the argument for him. He was good defensively, but not all-world. And he played a long time but his peak bWAR was 6.0 (he didn’t have another season above 4.0 bWAR).
• Sammy Sosa got 25% in our poll, 8.5 by the Writers. I don’t agree with the argument that if you vote for Bonds/Clemens you have to vote for Sosa. Bonds was one of the best players in the history of the game. Clemens is a top 10 all-time pitcher. Sosa? He hit a lot of home runs. But he wasn’t one of the top players in baseball history (ranks 131st among position players in bWAR). And that was with PEDs. Before then, he was a fourth outfielder type.

I figured Doc would go into the Hall with a Blue Jays cap.

But, the reaction on Twitter has been way over the top. It is like Blue Jays fans think they knew Roy better than his wife and kids.

Yes, Doc said that he wanted to go into the Hall as a Blue Jay. But then he was talking to Blue Jays media at the time. We don’t know if he framed his answer for his audience. And, of course, we don’t know if he changed his mind before his death.

To me, I think it should be Brandy’s decision. She’s made it, it should be respected.

I totally dislike people making wild guesses on way she’s made her decision. A lot of the complaints seem, at least, slightly sexiest. She doesn’t owe us an explanation.

And I hate how Phillies and Blue Jays fans are fighting on Twitter, each saying ‘he loved us best’. Maybe let’s just appreciate that he’s going the Hall and not get worked up about anything else.

It is a good thing that the next time I go to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Roy Halladay’s name will be there. And, since it will be, I will make a point of getting there.

I keep wishing the Jays would get go after Bryce Harper. I know it isn’t going to happen, but he would look good in a lineup with Vlad and Bo. He’s young. We seem a little short on outfield prospects. And we don’t have much for salary commitments, as things stand.

I know the team would like to wait until they are short of their needs before hitting the free agent market. When the rebuild is finished, we might find out we have greater needs in other places so the team would like to keep as much financial flexibility as possible. I understand that.

But.....it isn’t all that often you can pick up a 26-year-old on the free agent market. And a potential star at that. Well, potential star is the wrong term, he is a star, he could go on to be a Hall of Fame type player.

Of course, all that really means nothing if Harper wouldn’t consider playing for the Jays. Or if it would take a substantial overpay to get him to come to Toronto. I’m sure he (and his agent) would like the Jays to get in on him, if only to drive up the price. I guess there wouldn’t be anything wrong with driving up his price, if causes another team to be out on some player in the future who they Jays might like. But, I doubt the front office would want to waste their time if he wasn’t interested.

I could understand if Harper didn’t want to be part of a rebuild (which, let’s face it, isn’t guaranteed to work). Signing him would accelerate the rebuild, but you would have to convince him to be part of it.

I think odds are so low that it is hardly worth thinking about, other than it would be pretty exciting for those of us at BBB. But Mark, Ross, if you wanted to get me something for my birthday......Harper comes in my size.