The Hall of Fame still gets it wrong

Arguing over the Hall of Fame is one of the most enjoyable and frustrating things imaginable.  There are no standards, no rules, just eighty years of maddeningly inconsistent voting history that can be twisted in every way imaginable.  Arguing over Oscar and Emmy winners is fun, but if Hugh Laurie doesn’t win an Emmy for House that doesn’t really impact Jon Hamm’s chances for winning for Mad Men in 2015.  If Lee Smith gets into the Hall of Fame then every closer with a descent Save total will be getting votes for the next two decades.

No one should have a problem with who got in this year.  Randy Johnson was such a lock than anyone who didn’t vote for him should have their voting rights revoked (although the probable reason was that he was such a lock that some voters decided to support more marginal candidates than an obvious winner). Pedro Martinez’s counting stats are a little low, but his peak dominance puts him in the Sandy Koufax “no one could touch this guy for six years” category.  John Smoltz was a dominant starter and an effective closer for three seasons, and was helped by the indication of teammates Maddux and Glavine last year (they are this century’s Tinkers/Evers/Chance). And Craig Biggio missed by just two votes last year, had 3,000 hits, played three elite defensive positions, and had excellent power numbers for a top-of-the-order hitter, including hitting more doubles than Henry Aaron.

Of course the main problem is who did not get in.  The best hitting catcher in baseball history is still on the outside looking in, but the good news is that Mike Piazza looks primed to make it next year (I'd be more upset if not for the fact that even Joe Dimaggio had to wait four ballots to get in).  And to make an old argument, Jim Kaat has seventy more wins than Smoltz but isn't in the Hall, which makes no sense to me as the whole point of baseball is to win games.

The player who garnered a lot of support than I didn’t understand was Mike Mussina.  One stathead on the MLB network supported Mussina’s case by citing his park-adjusted ERA, meaning that he looked at Mussina’s hypothetical career in a hypothetical neutral ballpark and based on his hypothetical performance wanted him inducted in the reality Hall of Fame.  Look, I am a stathead myself, I have a graduate degree that involved serious stat theory and even did my master’s thesis using baseball statistics.  Statistics can help provide context, telling us how much to discount Larry Walker’s stats due to playing in Denver, or how much the Astrodome hindered Jeff Bagwell.  But the HoF is supposed to acknowledge REAL accomplishments.  The criteria for entry shouldn’t be reduced to the players with the highest Wins Above Replacement in a park-neutral environment, but who excelled on the playing field.

My second problem with Mussina’s candidacy is that it is the Hall of FAME.  Who is Mike Mussina?  Did he win any Cy Young awards?  No.  Did he win any Game seven’s in the World Series?  No.  Was he the ace of one of the greatest pitching staffs ever?  No.  I read an analysis that argued that Reggie Jackson shouldn't be in the HoF because he had a low batting average and wasn't really that good of a hitter; but he’s REGGIE JACKSON, the Straw That Stirs the Drink, the guy who hit three homers in a World Series game. When I hear the name Mike Mussina I draw a blank.

Bill James wrote a book entitled What Ever Happened to the Hall of Fame? That included several alternate paradigms for determining who belongs in the HoF, and my favorite was, “Can you write the history of baseball during that player’s career and NOT mention him?”  Mussina doesn't meet that criterion for me (as an aside, neither does Rafael Palmeiro, who has 500 homers, 3,000 hits but started exactly one All-Star game in a 20 year career).

I saw a few debaters say they “re-evaluated” the careers of players like Carlos Delgado and discovered they were under-appreciated in their careers because of new statistical measures like base running efficiency.  That’s nice, but the point of the Hall of Fame is not an objective analysis of worth, but a celebration of who had an impact on the sport.  Unless someone discovered Delgado batted in 300 more base runners than he was credited with, it isn't going to affect my vote (if I had one).  I will concede that Delgado, who has the 28^th best career slugging percentage of all time, deserved to get more than 3.8% of the vote his first (and last) time on the ballot.

I find the criteria that carry the most weight with me was how the player was perceived during his career. How many All-Star games did they start (adjusting for old fogeys being voted in automatically when they don’t deserve it)? How did they fare in MVP or Cy Young voting?  How big of a deal was it when they left one team to join another?  Finding hidden jewels using advanced sabermetrics is fine, but ultimately not what the Hall of Fame is about.