Writing in his annual BASEBALL BOOK after the '94 strike, Bill James iden-
tified four players whose Hall of Fame chances he felt had been most adversely
affected by the shortened season: David Cone, Jimmy Key, Will Clark, and Gregg
Jeffries. His reasoning was that they were all marginal candidates in the midst
of career years (or, in Clark's case, a return to form), and that by season's
end they would have positioned themselves as having a credible shot at
Cooperstown.
Even at the time, I thought he was wrong about Cone. The strike actually
helped Cone, I thought, by stopping the season at a point where it was hard to
make a logical case for anyone other than him winning the Cy Young. The vote
was probably closer than it should have been--Cone edged Key 108-96--but he did
win, and who knows whether he would have been overtaken by either Key or Randy
Johnson had the season been played out. So even though the strike did cost Cone
a few career wins and a 20-win season, the Cy Young that it guaranteed him was
a better-than-even tradeoff in terms of his HOF resume.
With the benefit of hindsight, I imagine James would agree that in the
end, the strike didn't much affect the chances of the other three, either. Key
and Clark remain borderline candidates after their retirement--Key better than
borderline, Clark a lot less--and whatever they would have done for the remain-
der of '94 wouldn't have made much difference either way, including a Cy Young
for Key. Jeffries declined rapidly after '94, and he was out of baseball by the
time he turned 33. The timing of Jeffries' deterioration makes it tempting to
wonder if the strike had some deeper cataclysmic affect on him that went beyond
the 60 lost games, but I don't know what that would have been.
Ever since James's comments, I've gotten into the habit of looking at each
season as a kind of market indicator on various players' HOF chances. (If
you've ever been silly enough to get caught up in card collecting, a world in
which a player's entire being eventually rests on whether or not he makes it
into Cooperstown, you'll appreciate that "market indicator" is meant in the
literal sense.) By July, as I scan the newspaper's stats page every Tuesday,
I'm guided by an awareness of which players have solidified their HOF candida-
cies, who's in trouble, who's on cruise control, who's barely hanging on, and
who may be warranting a serious look for the first time. It's like each name
is shadowed by little arrow in the margin, pointing up, down, or sideways.
Some thoughts on the 2001 season:
WHO HAS IMPROVED HIS HOF CHANCES THE MOST THIS YEAR? Jim Thome. Statisti-
cally, Thome had the foundation of a HOF career going into 2001--233 HR at age
30, four 100-run and 100-RBI seasons each, excellent career SA and OBA, and a
surviving mainstay on one of the three best teams of his era--but it had all
been accomplished in the shadow of Belle, Ramirez, and the rest of the Indians'
revolving big-name cast. But he's going to come out of 2001 with a) an excel-
lent chance at 500 HR (somewhere around 285 at age 31), b) a 50-HR season (not
the benchmark that it was 10 years ago, granted, but still a formidable
plateau), c) a possible MVP (though I'm pulling for Alomar myself), and d) a
career OPS (on-base + slugging) that was already in the Top 20 of all time and
now moves into the Top 15. If he can continue playing well for another seven or
eight years, I'd say his HOF prospects are very good.
I don't think anyone else has broken through as convincingly as Thome,
although I can see a few cases where 2001 has gotten some players back on
track. Juan Gonzalez seemingly had room to spare on his HOF resume going into
this season, and to that extent his bid for a third MVP is just another excla-
mation mark to a career that was already a lock. But after his desultory year
in Detroit--similar to his falloff in '94, the key difference being he was 30
last year instead of 25--I sensed he was at a potentially critical juncture; if
he had not come back healthy this year, or if he had struggled through another
off-year, I could see where it might have been the beginning of a slow drift
into Canseco-like instability. Barring catastrophe, though, Gonzalez again
looks like a first-ballot cinch.
Craig Biggio has rebounded well from his shortened 2000 season, and it
again appears that he'll get some overdue attention with induction into Coo-
perstown. He's doing most everything he was doing year-in and year-out before
last year's injury: he's going to finish the year with a .300 average, 100+
runs, and 20 HR, and the Astros look to be going to the postseason. He's not
hitting as many doubles as he used to, and he doesn't run anymore, but he's
probably about 85-90% of the way back. If he can keep going for another two
seasons at this level, he should be fine.
Edgar Martinez and Rafael Palmeiro have strengthened what were fairly
solid HOF bids already. Statistically speaking, both are having subpar years by
their own standards: Edgar will likely finish with his lowest batting average
since '94, while Palmeiro's season will join '97 as his least productive in the
past decade. But just in terms of bulk numbers, they both keep piling it on:
another .300/20 HR/100 RBI season for Edgar, another 40 HR and 100 RBI for
Palmeiro. Maybe even more important to Martinez is the fact that, Ichiro not-
withstanding, he is finally the Mariners' resident superstar, and in a season
where it just happens that they're going to win 110 games. If Seattle continues
their dominance in the postseason, Martinez's candidacy will be that much
stronger.
Mariano Rivera is starting to look more and more credible. He'll finish
this year with 210 saves before he turns 32, giving him a pretty good shot at
400 if his arm holds up (with a pitcher, a little like saying if he continues
to jump out into traffic without getting run over). His career E.R.A. may drop
below 2.60. But impressive stats are commonplace with relievers--statistically,
you could probably make almost as good a case for Rob Nenn (exactly one day
older than Rivera), who has a higher E.R.A. but an extra 50 saves. Rivera's
edge is that I keep thinking they're going to have to induct at least a couple
of core Yankees from the late '90s dynasty, and past Jeter, Rivera's emerging
as the next best candidate. I'm still not sure how history will view Bernie
Williams, who held his ground this year; coming out of the era of gargantuan
offensive numbers, Williams will probably suffer in the end for being too
well-rounded and not eye-catching enough in any one of the big Triple Crown
stats. I've seen Pettitte's name put forth by New York-based writers, but his
surprising staying power aside, I just don't see a Hall of Fame career taking
shape.
Fred McGriff and Jose Canseco may have done the bare minimum to revive
their fading chances, which is essentially to buy themselves the two more years
they each need for a shot at 500 HR. McGriff was having a very good season in
Tampa Bay, but he's struggled since joining the Cubs; for the year he should
end up somewhere around .285/25/90, leaving him with 440 HR at age 37. I'd be
surprised if there's another 60 HR left in him, but if he's playing full-time
somewhere next year, he's still got a shot. Canseco, meanwhile, has been play-
ing well across town; he'll finish with 460 HR with a year's jump on McGriff,
so his chance of reaching 500 would seem somewhat better if he can hook up with
somebody for next year. I'm not sure it matters, though; Canseco could very
well end up being the first guy to hit 500 HR and not get elected anyway. If
it happens, he won't be the last.
WHO HAS HURT HIS HOF CHANCES THE MOST THIS YEAR? In the space of a year, I
think it's easier to help your chances than hurt them. Anyone who goes into the
season as a decent-or-better HOF candidate is already putting together a career
that should be able to withstand an off-year. Especially with players in mid-
career or earlier, there's always time to bounce back--again, Gonzalez's 2000
and 1994 seasons being good examples. So I wouldn't make too much of Frank
Thomas's write-off season at 33; he did so much so early in his career, he just
needs to get back in the lineup in 2002 and put in another four or five reason-
ably productive seasons. (Thomas is managing to turn a ten-lap lead into a
photo finish. At the time, I didn't think his two MVPs would ultimately have
much bearing on his future stroll into the HOF, not when it looked like he'd be
going in as competition for Ruth and Williams as the most statistically impos-
ing hitter ever; it now looks like those two MVPs might actually save his
candidacy in the end.)
Having said that, I think there are three or four guys who took a hit this
year. The most obvious--though you may have forgotten about him already, not
having played a game in 2001--is Albert Belle, whose chances for the HOF went
from probably 90% to something approaching nil. Coincidentally, in the year
of Kirby Puckett's induction, Belle was forced into retirement at a point
virtually identical to Puckett. If you compare the two, their batting lines
give a huge advantage to Belle. But the '90s weren't the '80s in terms of
offensive levels, Albert surely wasn't Kirby in the public relations depart-
ment, and Belle will instead join Joe Jackson as the greatest hitter not in
Cooperstown.
Mo Vaughn and Harold Baines, who were pretty marginal candidates anyway,
are both close to officially dead. Vaughn will presumably be back next year,
but he'll be 34 and still sitting at 299 HR. He's got a decent shot at 400-450,
but that won't be worth anything down the road. Harold won't be back, so he'll
finish about 100 hits shy of the 3,000 that, as with Canseco, might not have
put him in anyway.
Among guys who actually played this year, I sense that Mike Mussina took a
step backwards. He's pitched pretty well: his numbers aren't all that different
from Clemens'--better SO/BB ratio, comparable E.R.A. and H/9--but Roger has
gotten all the run support, giving him a 17-1 record as opposed to Mussina's
12-10. And that's the point: in signing with the Yankees, I thought that it
would have been Mussina having the flashy season where his W-L record exceeded
his (generally excellent) peripheral stats, that it would have been him going
22-4 and finally winning a Cy Young. He's not out of the running yet--he'll go
into 2002 with 160 wins at age 33, and a career winning pct. still close to
.650--but he's going to need a couple of those flashy seasons soon; he hasn't
won 20 even once.
WHO'S ON CRUISE CONTROL AT THE MOMENT? Everybody else, I guess. Cruise
control is a good thing. Griffey, Piazza, Bagwell, and Pudge all had varying
degrees of subpar years, but they're in anyway, so I can't see that 2001 will
make any difference. Ditto, to a lesser extent, Glavine. I'm sure some people
would go with Alomar over Thome as this year's breakthrough candidate, but only
if you haven't been paying attention. Alomar's been a leading HOF candidate for
years, and the biggest question remaining with him at this point is how high
he'll end up on the all-time hits list; eighth, I'd say, behind Yaz but ahead
of Molitor. (Alomar also has a reasonable chance to become the first second
baseman ever to total 5,000 career bases; he rates a 28% chance using James's
"Favorite Toy" formula, and a 47% chance of eclipsing Hornsby's current record
of 4,712.) Luis Gonzalez, Curt Schilling, Moises Alou, Shawn Green, and Jason
Giambi have all been terrific this year, but I still don't see any of them as
even longshots yet--Giambi, maybe. As for the two Colorado guys, Walker and
Helton, I'm sidestepping them altogether. I just don't know how much weight
future HOF voters are going to give to the freakshow aspect of Coors Field.
2300 AB into his career, Todd Helton is sitting on the fourth-highest slugging
average in history, behind only Ruth, Williams, and Gehrig; at home he's like
an even better version of Ruth, on the road his career stats are close to Fred
McGriff's. So I don't know what standard a player who spends a substantial part
of his career in Coors will be held to--Galarraga will be the first test case a
few years from now. Mind you, if you spend half your career as Babe Ruth and
half as Fred McGriff, obviously you're in.
In THE POLITICS OF GLORY (1994), James compiled a year-by-year chart of
how many future Hall of Famers were then active; from 1946 through 1968, the
normal figure was about 30 players in any given year. Using that as a barom-
eter, here are my 30 from this year's pool:
PITCHERS -- Clemens, Maddux, Johnson, P. Martinez, Glavine, Rivera;
POSITION PLAYERS -- Piazza, I. Rodriguez, McGwire, Bagwell, Palmeiro,
Thomas, Thome, Helton, Alomar, Biggio, Ripken, Larkin, Jeter, A. Rodriguez,
Garciaparra, C. Jones, Henderson, Gwynn, Bonds, Griffey, Sosa, Gonzalez,
Ramirez, Guerrero.
HITTER -- E. Martinez.
I cheated--I've got 31. I'm deferring to the widespread assumption that
Larkin's as good as in. I've always thought that the large amount of time he's
lost to injuries will make his case shakier than suspected, and I might be in-
clined to reserve that spot for someone out there just starting to make a case
for himself: Albert Pujols, Tim Hudson, somebody like that. One of the monthly
card magazines recently ran their own projections and had John Franco as a sure
thing...huh? 400 saves or not, has Franco ever been included on anyone's short-
list of the game's premier pitchers? If Franco gets in, I'm personally going to
lock myself to the front gate at Cooperstown (they don't actually have a front
gate, but work with me here) until they also make room for Tom Henke.