Yankees on the 2023 Contemporary Baseball Era HoF Ballot
Earlier this month the Baseball Hall of Fame released the 2023 Contemporary Baseball Era ballot. This is their latest iteration of a veterans committee designed to give former players a second chance at enshrinement. The eight-man group up for election is a star-studded cast that includes some former Yankees.
Don Mattingly was a Yankee lifer and spent the maximum 15 years on the conventional ballot voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA). His share of the vote steadily declined over that time, but he's a player that was, and still is, adored by his contemporaries.
Soon after Mattingly's run on the BBWAA ballot, the rules were changed to a maximum of ten years of eligibility. Roger Clemens spent a full 10 years on the ballot. However, he would have been a first-ballot slam dunk had it not been for the steroid controversy that defined the end of his career. In contrast to Mattingly, he spent only a brief portion of his career with the Yankees and his Hall of Fame support grew over time, coming within 10% of the 75% needed for election in his final year.
We'll also say a few words about Fred McGriff. He technically never wore Yankee pinstripes, but was drafted by the Yankees in 1981 before being traded as a minor leaguer prior to the 1983 season. Like Clemens, he spent 10 years on the BBWAA ballot, and his support was as steady as his playing career was over that time, but still well shy of the threshold needed for election.
Now, these three will have their cases re-opened and examined by a special 16-member committee comprised of current Hall of Famers, MLB executives, and media members. If at least 12 of the committee members give the thumbs up on any player, they will earn a plaque in Cooperstown next summer.
Here we'll take a close look at the Hall of Fame credentials for each player to gauge their chances of election. To help give perspective, the JAWS (Jaffe Average WAR Score, developed by Jay Jaffe) value for the player is given in addition to the the average Hall of Famer's JAWS at the player's position. JAWS is a Hall of Fame rating system based on WAR that incorporates both career and peak value. If you're interested in learning more about this, click here.
Don Mattingly - 1B, JAWS: 39.1, HoF JAWS: 53.8
As my reserve first baseman in The New York Yankees All-Time All-Stars, a full profile on the career of Donnie Baseball can be found there. Here, we'll focus solely on his Hall of Fame case and where it stands heading into this weekend's election.
From about mid-way through the 1984 season until right around 1989, Don Mattingly was widely considered to be on the short list of players who could stake a claim as the best in baseball. There are plenty of players currently in the Hall of Fame who were never a part of that conversation even for a single season, let alone six in a row. As such, Mattingly's case for Cooperstown begins, but also sadly ends, with this fact.
During that six-year sprint, Mattingly made six All-Star Game appearances, took home an AL batting title, was named the AL MVP and finished in the top seven three other times. He also led the majors in doubles for three straight years, tied the record for consecutive games with a home run, and set the record for most grand slams in a season. His ability to control the strike zone while hitting for a high average with a significant amount of power drew comparisons to Stan Musial, a baseball god and first ballot Hall of Famer. To top it off, Mattingly was as slick as they come at first base and earned five Gold Gloves during this period. His eventual enshrinement alongside Musial seemed to be a foregone conclusion.
.jpg)
That all came to a screeching halt in 1990 when chronic back injuries Mattingly had developed a few years prior worsened and forced him to the disabled list for a significant portion of the season. When he did return to the lineup he could no longer hit the ball with the same authority that he did pre-injury. Unfortunately that would remain true over the final six seasons of his career. Still a serviceable hitter, the masher who feasted on major league pitching returned only in brief spurts over this time.
All was not lost for Mattingly during these lean years. He earned another four straight Gold Gloves and admirably served as Yankee captain from 1991 through 1995 while the team slowly worked its way back to respectability. In his final season he also got his first taste of playoff baseball. He played like a man determined to will his team to victory, hitting .417 with a home run and six RBI's in a thrilling series against the Mariners. Alas, the Yankees came up a bit short for their captain who retired at just 34 years old.
Being merely an average first baseman for the final half of Mattingly's relatively brief career did virtually nothing for his case as a Hall of Famer (see table below for how steep his decline was in terms of WAR). His 42.4 career WAR falls well short of the 66.8 average WAR of enshrined first baseman. While his impressive peak helps close that gap when it comes to JAWS, he's still well below the standard at first base in that respect.
Had Mattingly stayed at a superstar level another year or two and mixed in a couple of above average seasons before his decline, he likely would have been voted into the Hall by the BBWAA. In reality, he never garnered more than the 28.2% of the vote that he received in his first year of eligibility.
Three years ago, Mattingly got his first second chance at the Hall of Fame as one of the candidates voted on by the Modern Baseball Era Committee. In a vote that resulted in a trip to Cooperstown for Ted Simmons and Marvin Miller, he finished towards the bottom of the pack. The Hall of Fame reported him as receiving "3 or fewer" votes from the 16-member committee.
This year, Mattingly's chances are looking much better. The Contemporary Baseball Era Committee includes seven Hall of Fame players, most of whom have spoken publicly about their disdain for players that have been accused of using steroids in the late 90's and early 00's. Mattingly, of course, is not one of those players and has the old school appeal that these guys eat up. In addition to those seven former players, there are two executives on the committee with ties to Donnie Baseball.
Kim Ng was the assistant general manager for the Dodgers while Mattingly was on the coaching staff and she served as general manager of the Miami Marlins for the last two years of his managerial stint there. Paul Beeston is President Emeritus of the Toronto Blue Jays, who just hired Mattingly to be their bench coach. That's nine potential votes with just three more needed from the other seven members of the committee. Let's keep our fingers crossed for the Hit Man.
Roger Clemens - Starting Pitcher, JAWS: 102.5, HoF JAWS: 61.4
If pitchers are to be judged based solely on what they accomplished on the mound, Roger Clemens is undoubtedly one of the greatest all-time. Pitching in an era that became progressively more advantageous for hitters, he remained a dominant force past age 40. The questionable method by which he was able to accomplish such a feat will forever put a dent in his legacy and makes his Hall of Fame case a complicated one.
Clemens was a hometown hero at the University of Texas and was drafted by the Red Sox in 1983. He made his major league debut a year later and by 1986 he was named both the Cy Young Award winner and MVP of the American League. At 23 years old, he was just getting started.
From 1986 through 1992 Clemens' numbers - standard or advanced - are staggering. Across those seven seasons his average year included 19 wins, 239 strikeouts, and a 2.66 ERA which was good for a 160 ERA+. With uncommon control for a power pitcher, he added two more Cy Young Awards and totaled 58.1 WAR during this period. That total alone would surpass the career marks of Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax, Whitey Ford, and Catfish Hunter, among others.
Clemens' production tapered off a bit over the next three years as his relationship with the Red Sox began to deteriorate. In 1996 he had what seemed on the surface a sub-par season as his record sat at just 10-13. However, his 7.7 WAR - second best among AL pitchers - indicates that he was a victim of circumstance. A free agent at season's end, the Red Sox chose not to re-sign the 34-year old Clemens coming off a losing season when he had a standing offer of four years and $40 million from the Toronto Blue Jays.
With the Blue Jays, Clemens was more dominant than ever. In 1997 and 1998 he won the AL Triple Crown by leading the league in wins, ERA and strikeouts. He also earned back to back Cy Young Awards, the fourth and fifth of his career. At 36 years old he could stake a claim to being the greatest pitcher of all-time and was still going strong. Yet something was missing from his eye-popping credentials.
To this point in his career, Clemens' teams had made the playoffs four times, but never won the World Series. Clemens himself was conspicuously underwhelming during these series with just one win in nine starts and was embarrassingly ejected from the decisive game of the 1990 ALCS against Oakland. Seeking to exorcise his playoff demons, he desired a trade to the New York Yankees and got his wish when David Wells, Graeme Lloyd, and Homer Bush were sent to Toronto in exchange.
For the next five seasons Clemens pitched in the playoffs every year. While being far from the dominant pitcher the Yankees thought they were getting, he was good enough. He won the World Series clincher over the Atlanta Braves in 1999 and added another victory over the Mets in a successful 2000 Fall Classic. That 2000 run also included a one-hit, no-run, 15 strikeout gem over the Mariners in the ALCS. Mixed in were a handful of October duds, but by 2003 he had two World Series rings and four AL pennants to show for his work.
Roger Clemens came to New York in search of a championship ring.Keith Allison/Wikimedia CommonsDuring the regular season Clemens approached ordinary in pinstripes after being otherworldly for so long. His ERA in five seasons with the Yankees was more than a full run worse than his combined mark in Boston and Toronto and even his sixth Cy Young Award in 2001 was suspect. It owed more to his favorable run support and won/loss record than truly great performance (see the Mike Mussina chapter in The New York Yankees All-Time All-Stars for more detail on this).
After a brief retirement, the Houston Astros convinced Clemens to pitch again close to home. For three seasons he pitched miraculously for a man on the wrong side of 40. In 2004 he earned his seventh Cy Young Award and his 7.8 WAR the following year helped Houston reach the World Series, albeit in a losing effort.
Fluidly transitioning in and out of retirement, Clemens pitched partial seasons for the Astros in 2006 and the Yankees in 2007. Still an effective pitcher, he decided to call it a career at age 45 following his last Yankees stint. His Hall of Fame candidacy should have been an open and shut case, but his reputation would be tarnished forever immediately following his last retirement.
In December 2007 the Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball was released and Clemens' name was peppered throughout. Brian McNamee - Clemens' personal trainer who was also employed by the Yankees for a time - revealed in the report details on the steroids he personally injected Clemens with starting in the late 1990's.
In the court of public opinion, this revelation called into question a significant portion of the big Texan's career. Clemens became an even better pitcher at an age that most hurlers begin to decline rapidly. It's not unreasonable to think that his success at an advanced age was made possible by copious amounts of steroids. Rather than admit any fault or wrongdoing, he fought back hard against the allegations.
For years Clemens engaged in legal battles as part of a desperate attempt to salvage his legacy. In the end, he was never formally found guilty of anything, but also didn't change any minds. Despite his steadfast insistence that he's innocent, there are few people in the baseball world, if any, that believe he never used steroids to enhance his performance.
When it comes to BBWAA voters for the Baseball Hall of Fame, they have certainly held the allegations against Clemens. He earned 354 career victories, is third all-time with 4,672 strikeouts and 139.2 WAR and has an ERA+ that ranks in the top ten all-time among starting pitchers. With that unparalleled résumé he garnered less than 40% of the vote in his first three years of eligibility.
Yet in 2017 there was a distinct shift in the BBWAA's stance on Clemens. That year more than 50% of the voters included him on their ballots. It's no coincidence that 2017 was the year Bud Selig was elected to the Hall of Fame. As the commissioner of baseball for the majority of Clemens' career, Selig turned a blind eye to steroid use and didn't implement formal testing and penalties for positive results until it publicly reached a fever pitch. If he's a Hall of Famer, it's less defensible to keep out any players that may have taken advantage of his incompetence.
That argument aside, it's reasonable to make the point that Clemens' steroid use gave him a competitive advantage over non-users, especially as he got deeper into his career. It may have even allowed him to keep a roster spot over pitchers that avoided steroids in the name of good sportsmanship. However, if history tells us anything about Hall of Fame voting, it's that a player creating and maintaining an unfair competitive advantage does not disqualify them for enshrinement.
Cap Anson was one of baseball's first superstars before the turn of the century. He was without doubt the most influential figure in baseball for a time, and willfully used that influence to ensure that baseball became and remained racially segregated. Those efforts caused a competitive imbalance in baseball that lasted more than 50 years, yet his plaque is celebrated in the Hall of Fame to this day.
Roger Clemens is far from a perfect person, but he is unquestionably one of the greatest pitching talents to ever enter the baseball world. For better or worse, the story of baseball is incomplete if he's not a character in it. He belongs in the Hall of Fame. This is an idea the BBWAA gradually warmed up to but never fully embraced. Clemens' share of the vote topped out at 65.2% last year, his tenth and final one on the BBWAA ballot.
The Hall of Fame's inclusion of Clemens - and Barry Bonds for that matter - on this year's veterans committee ballot so soon after their BBWAA eligibility ended seems purposeful. Typically, players will only be considered by a veteran's committee after some time has passed since their stint on the conventional ballot and they can be viewed from a fresh perspective. It's pretty clear that the Hall of Fame is including them now, while they have virtually no chance at getting elected by curmudgeonly veterans, so that they can keep them off of subsequent ballots for years to come. At least they can claim they tried. Clemens will still be on the outside looking in after this vote.
Fred McGriff - 1B, JAWS: 44.3, HoF JAWS: 53.8
In a nickname Hall of Fame, Fred McGriff would be a first-ballot inductee. His last name was close enough to McGruff - everybody's favorite 80's PSA character - that he was dubbed Crime Dog. That fact alone should make you a big fan of McGriff, but we'll dig into some of the details of his playing career anyway.
It didn't take long for the Yankees to regret trading McGriff away once he made it to the big leagues. In four full seasons with the Blue Jays, he hit for a very healthy 154 OPS+ on a .278/.390/.531 slash line and averaged 31 home runs per year. Prior to the 1991 season, Toronto shipped him to San Diego in a blockbuster trade that brought back Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter.
While his former team went on to win back to back World Series titles, McGriff continued about his business with metronome-like consistency. While the Padres toiled in mediocrity, he continued to shine and latched on with a winning team in the summer of 1993 when he was traded to the Atlanta Braves. Two seasons later he earned the World Series ring he missed out on with Toronto, and by the late 90's he was one of the most respected players in the game. He was named an All-Star in three straight seasons as a Brave and earned All-Star Game MVP in 1994.
In the seven seasons McGriff split between San Diego and Atlanta, his production was eerily similar to his stellar run in Toronto. He posted a 135 OPS+, a .289/.376/.517 slash line, and averaged another 31 home runs per season. At age 34, he returned to his hometown of Tampa, FL to play for the expansion Devil Rays, where they hoped he could continue to be one of the most reliable bats in baseball. Crime Dog didn't disappoint, playing at an All-Star level even as the team around him struggled mightily.
Much like his Crime Dog counterpart McGruff, Fred McGriff was always swinging for the fences.Airman Kenna Jackson/Wikimedia Commons/Public DomainMcGriff's last year as a regular was spent with the Chicago Cubs who were looking to piece together a contender with veterans in 2002. While the Cubs' plan didn't work out, McGriff did hit 30 home runs for the tenth time in his career. In those twilight years with the Devil Rays and Cubs, he put up numbers that should look familiar: an OPS+ of 126, a .290/.378/.498 slash line, and 28 home runs per season. Add it all up and McGriff totaled 2,490 hits and 493 home runs for his career. Great numbers, but just shy of thresholds that typically get a player into the Hall of Fame.
There are a few other reasons that McGriff never surpassed even 40% of the vote on the BBWAA ballot. He was never truly elite, finishing in the top five of his league's MVP voting only once. He had the look of a superb athlete but was also a below average baserunner and despite being featured in this legendary commercial he was a poor fielder.
On the flipside, you can make the case that McGriff made up for those shortcomings by being a team-first player and avoiding any kind of steroid controversy in an era that was littered with them. His remarkable consistency over a long career is also something to behold. There's room in the Hall of Fame for those who merit a lifetime achievement award (e.g., Eddie Murray), and that's why he has an excellent chance at getting elected by the Contemporary Baseball Era committee.
All numbers used in this article were obtained from Baseball Reference.
Comments
Post a Comment