Friday, January 07, 2011

JUST WHEN YOU THINK WE'RE AT THE BOTTOM

...Neyer finds a way to get us lower.

I was going to stop reading him for a while, because I wasn't getting any insight into the sport from him. Alas, another writer mentioned Neyer's new "solution" to Hall of Fame voting, so I was forced to read his column.
This is a beauty: Rob claims that in the next two or three years, there will be 21 "HOF worthy" candidates on the list. Since voters can only vote for 10 at one time, some candidates will be unfairly discriminated against, simply because of the mathematics involved. Of course, Rob assumes that because HE thinks these players belong in, they automatically belong in, so he wants to open up the ballot so all of his choices get in. I've seen his list. Here are some players he calls "outstanding Hall of Fame candidates."
Curt Schilling: 216 wins and a red magic-marker colored sock
Pedro Martinez: 219 wins and 141 hit batsmen in 2800 innings. (Greg Maddux hit 137 in 5000+ innings)
Larry Walker: 383 HRs and 2100 hits
Mike Piazza: 427 HRs and 1300+ RBIs and an inability to throw out base-stealers
and finally this one that Rob calls "terribly underrated"
Kenny Lofton. Kenny Lofton? "Underrated"? Yeah, lets make room for him.

Of course there are some worthy names on the list such as Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, ignoring the problem of the admitted and suspected PED users, like Bonds, Clemens and McGwire.

Instead of increasing the number that can be included on a ballot, we should lower the number and we might not get players like Tinker, Evers and Chance (not to mention Mazeroski) into the Hall next to people who truly belong like Mays, Aaron and DiMaggio.

I doubt we'll ever see Neyers name in the Media section of the Hall.

CP-

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