The Hall of Fame induction ceremony takes place today, Sunday afternoon at 1:30 PM. Three players considered non-cheaters, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and Frank Thomas receive a plaque in the hall, as well as managers Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre (although you could argue Torre is going in for his complete baseball career, as he was a very good player). I don’t know why Maddux was not elected unanimously. Given the high run era in which he pitched, Greg might very well be the greatest pitcher of all time. Glavine was more of a number accumulator, blessed to be a good pitcher on a very good team. Tom also was a reverse lefty during his great years, doing a great job of limiting the offense of right-handed batters. Thomas was a right-handed Ted Williams, hitting for average, drawing a ton of walks, and hitting for power. Over his career, he was a .300/.400/.500 player.
Torre had limited success as a manager before joining the Yankees. He hit New York at the right time, as the building of Bob Watson and Gene Michael bore fruit. He was the buffer, taking all the heat from the owner and the press, allowing his professional players to function without distraction. He was one of the great personnel managers of all time.
Cox, too took over the Braves at exactly the right time. Blessed with a GM who knew how to constantly let go of a weak player and replace him with a stronger one, Cox guided the Braves to one of the most dominant streaks in NL history. In the case of Cox and Torre, synergy between the manager and GM led to great results on the field.
La Russa, may be the most controversial pick. His record certainly deserves induction, but he managed players at the heart of the steroid scandal, and his titles in Oakland were certainly tainted by players juicing. Why he gets a pass and his players don’t is beyond me. Either he knew about what was going on and ignored it, or he simply was willing to take the wins. Of course, La Russa’s election comes from a committee made of former players, who might be more forgiving of PED transgressions than the writers. It might be a while, therefore before players with the taint get in.
“Accumulator” seems to be a bit of an uncharitable view of Glavine, at least in terms of how pitchers have classically been viewed–he did have five twenty win seasons (compared to say, Sutton’s one and Phil Niekro’s three with a lot of losses thrown in each time). Of course, the main reason Mike Mussina did so poorly in the vote this year is that apparently people simultaneously think he was an accumulator (holding that opinion about Mussina is evidence that one is incompetent to hold a job commenting on MLB) and that he failed to reach 300 wins (because he declined to, ahem, “accumulate” after winning 20 games in his final season).
And speaking of Frank Thomas, who’s definitely either the 1st or 2nd best DH ever, and people who should be in the Hall, it’s incomprehensible that Edgar Martinez (also the 1st or 2nd best DH ever) has been hovering around 35% in the votes. There’s just no reason for that besides prejudice against a position that’s existed for almost half a century now.
M. Scott Eiland » I like Glavine, but he strikes me as someone whose Hall of Fame case is a bit context driven, sort of the opposite of Bert Blyleven. I have a probabilistic model of game scores. It predicts won-lost-ND records based on game scores. It predicts Glavine at 267-232 instead of 305-203. (It also predicted Blyleven at 309-204.) So if Glavine is not playing for the Braves for most of his career, we probably have a big argument about him rather than a slam dunk elections.
David,
I agree about LaRussa. His wins certainly should bear the same asterisk that anyone suspected of PED use should.
It’s not unlike the current War on Drugs. Someone gets caught with an ounce of Marijuana, they might get two years in jail, in some places, much more. Banks get caught laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money, they get a slap on the wrist.
Once you’re at the top, the simple reality is that you are just so much less likely to ever get in trouble for wrongdoing. It’s those on the way up, or stuck in the middle that never seem to avoid the “rule of law” that people in LaRussa’s position avoid.