Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1154: Orioles Angst and Cooperstown Questions

Episode Date: December 27, 2017

With Jeff Sullivan on vacation, Ben Lindbergh brings on The Ringer’s Deputy Editor (and Binge Mode co-host) Mallory Rubin to talk about the Orioles’ bleak, in-between offseason and her wishes concerning Manny Machado. Then Ben talks to The Ringer’s Zach Kram and the Cincinnati Enquirer’s C. Trent Rosecrans about BBWAA Hall of Fame voting patterns, […]

You can take it, you can make it, these streets can be tough for them to see. But to know your idols burning, can't you see they're acting for you? Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs who is on vacation, as I hope many of you are. I also hope you're all having happy holidays. It's a good time to be a person, a bad time to be a podcast host. There is absolutely nothing happening in baseball right now. Jeff is very smart to schedule his vacations at this time, but the podcast must go on. And it really has come a long way since a year ago at this time when Jeff was on vacation, I believe, in the same place he is visiting now. That was during the interregnum, the same place he is visiting now. That was

during the interregnum, the change in co-hosts from Sam Miller to Jeff. There was a lot of uncertainty. We were switching sites, switching co-hosts after years and hundreds and hundreds of episodes with Sam. No one knew for sure that this podcast would retain the appeal that it had had before. And fortunately, I think it has. Most of you who were with us then are still with us. Many of you have joined us in the last year. It's been very gratifying, so I'm in a much more sanguine state of mind about the podcast during this late December dead period than I was at the same time last year. So just like last year, I am going to enlist the aid of some friends to get me through Sullivan's travels. So over the next couple weeks, it'll be me and a rotating cast of co-hosts and guests.

Today I'm getting some help from my colleagues at my day job at The Ringer. I'm crossing the streams here. So later in this episode, my colleague Zach Cram, as well as Cincinnati Inquirer reporter C. Trent Rosecrans, will join me to talk about the Hall of Fame and Hall of Fame voting and Trent's ballot and Zach's research about the BBWA voting patterns. I figured if we're going to do a Hall of Fame episode, A, it should be this week when ballots are about to be due, and B, it should be while Jeff is away. He won't regret missing the Hall of Fame episode. Not that I'm much of a Hall head at this point either, but

desperate times. But before that, I'm going to bring on my favorite Orioles fan and the person I've probably worked with most closely over the past four years or so, going back to our Grantland days. So this is normally a pretty family-friendly podcast, but I make no promises that that will be true of the next few minutes because I'm about to talk about the Baltimore Orioles with my dear friend, esteemed editor, and beloved Binge Mode co-host Mallory Rubin and asking Mal to keep it PG while talking about the Orioles would be like asking Manny Machado to give up his glove and DH so kids cover your ears Mallory welcome to the

podcast wow quite an intro Ben thank you thank you for having me I will I will try my best not to curse though it will not be easy I want the full ringer slack Thank you. Thank you for having me. I will try my best not to curse, though. It will not be easy. I want the full Ringer Slack experience, the Ringer MLB Slack channel, which is just pure Maury's id responding to Orioles news. Not that there's been a lot of that this winter.

Yeah, exactly. You're going to need a more thoroughly branded explicit label on this episode if that's what you want. Yeah. So I thought of you this week because I was reading about how Zach Britton might be the savior of the Orioles rotation. Of all people, the guy who has a ruptured Achilles and is out for at least half the season maybe could be converting back to the starting rotation. And that just seemed like a very Orioles bit of news this winter because

I'm going to just read you a complete list of Orioles offseason transactions. And don't worry, this will not take long. So on November, November 22nd, the Orioles traded for 25 year old Oakland A's outfielder, Jacob Brugman. On December 14th, they signed another 25 year old, in this case, career minor leaguer, Michael Kelly, who has a 5-6-9 ERA at AAA to a major league contract for some reason. And that's it. We're done. That was the whole list. So I'm leaving out some waiver claims and rule five picks and minor league free agent signings. But basically that's it. And there are things on the Orioles transaction page that aren't even transactions. For instance, on December 7th, Kevin Gossman changed his number from 39 to 34. That is a transaction apparently.

Maybe the number 39 was the only thing holding him back. I don't know. But just in case that wasn't his only problem, the Orioles could probably still use another starter so how has it been to follow the orioles this offseason are you pumped for 2018 ben i just like to note as your editor that you know facts and accuracy are important and you presented me you introduced me as your dear friend, and then you just aggressively attacked me for three and a half minutes. And that's just a mischaracterization of the situation. It was true when we started this conversation.

It may no longer be true. That's right. It was true. It was true when we started this conversation. How has it been to be an Orioles fan? Not great, Ben. Not great. If I can channel my Mad Men voice. Not great, Ben. my fault. No one's telling me to believe. No one's asking me to believe. And yet I continue to believe. And then I continue to suffer these deep, long-rooted, emotional crashes.

Yeah. Thanks to Dan Duquette and Peter Angelus. I mean, you mentioned Britain. So let's just start there. I don't actually know, other than trying to trade your generational superstar, what could be a more damning indictment of the state of the franchise than saying the closer who's an impending free agent and is out with a ruptured Achilles might be the solution for the starting rotation that you've been looking for. these might be the solution for the starting rotation that you've been looking for. That's actually like on the hinge. Now, in the interest of transparency and candor, I should tell you and your listeners that I've spent the better part of half a decade actively campaigning, at least in my head and in my mind and in my heart, for that written to return to the rotation. This is actually something I wanted for a really long time because it never quite made sense to me that

they were so willing to concede that a lefty who throws 97, basically one of the holy grails in the game, that it just wasn't worth trying again to see if they can make it work. And particularly because if you look back at his initial

stretch with the organization when he was a starter, this might not be necessarily borne out with facts and data then, but you know what the eye test told me? It told me that Zach Britton was good and that he was basically broken by Mark Reynolds playing third base behind him. When you're a sinker baller and you're throwing ground balls and Mark Reynolds is your third baseman and can't field that's a problem and it actually genuinely did seem like a problem for him and i just thought

i thought they should give it another shot so at the most basic level i'm not actually opposed to that it's just like okay he's out he's gonna come back maybe around the all-star break they seem to think he can come back before i don't really really understand that. I'm not a scientist or surgeon, but that seems like extremely aggressive to me. Regardless, let's say he comes back even in July. That is the time coming off Achilles surgery to push the physical boundaries of what he's been used to. And then like, what are they trying to do? Like the absolute worst conspiracy theorist take I have is that they're attempting to basically sabotage his production ahead of free agency so that they can sign him a more favorable term. I don't know. They don't seem to think they can bring anyone back. frustrating to me is they just don't seem to think they have a chance of resigning him, which at least on the financial side, I don't understand. That's choice. You know,

if you don't want to spend the money that it takes, that's choice. But also you're the team that gave Chris Davis north of $160 million. So managed finances a little better, I guess. Right. Yeah. And according to this report, Britain isn't even campaigning to return to the rotation. He doesn't want to. It's just he wasn't adamant about resisting this move, apparently. That's the closest he comes to actually endorsing it. Why would he want to at this point, right? I mean, he's well into his career. He's not a young prospect anymore. He's proven that when healthy, at least, because he was not healthy at any point last season. When healthy healthy he's one of the elite closers in the game and now look at the state of the contracts like if you're an elite closer you're an elite reliever period you can cash in you don't need to be a starter

to make a ton of money so what exactly benefits him about even trying that i fail to see from his perspective how that's worth it unless he's been carrying this like deep desire to still be a starter other than that other than some sort of emotional appeal that I don't know will like find its mark. Why would he want this? And most of the Orioles stories this off season that have not concerned Manny Machado have been about things that the Orioles haven't done, like extended Jonathan scope,

for instance, or pursued Shohei Otani in any way. So not that they were going to get him, but still no effort, no attempt to get him. But you mentioned Manny. So let's talk about Manny briefly. I know this is a sensitive subject for you. And you were recently photographed in the wake of hearing that Machado would not be traded, drying your eyes. I don't know whether they were tears of joy and relief or just tears of emotional strain because of the weeks of rumors, but is there no part of you-

All of the above. Yeah. Is there no part of you that, because now the rumors have resurfaced already shortly after being declared dead. There are more recent reports that they aren't really dead. So is there a part of you that just wants to rip the bandaid off and say, he's going to go, we might as well get this over with while we can actually get something back for him? No, there's no part of me that feels that way. And here's why. I don't have faith in the organization to get the right return, period. So without being able to occupy that headspace, even for a second, it is impossible for me to rationalize how this is a

good thing. I can understand how for other teams it would be a good thing, how for other fan bases it would be a good thing. But look, this is an oversimplification, of course. I admit that up front. However, indulge me for a second. What is the point of trading a superstar or even just of trading a really, really, really good player like an all-star it's to rebuild effectively and to try desperately to get a prospect who if you do everything right and if you are fortunate and if things break your way might one day be as good as manny machado so if you already have manny machado what are you fucking doing ah there it is i couldn't i'm sorry i tried so hard as advertised you could beep it out if you need to i will not

i would do no such thing he's not 32 you know he's he's 25 still he is an elite player in every respect and if they would ever just move him to shortstop full-time, he'd be even more valuable than he already is. I don't have any concerns about the fact that he had a down season this year. I think he'll bounce back. How am I, as someone who's watched the Orioles for my entire life, supposed to be excited about the fact that they're chasing two elite pitching prospects? When have they last developed two elite pitching prospects? Do you know how much emotional energy I've invested in Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman? And Hunter Harvey, for that matter. I may or may not own Hunter Harvey on an AL only, keeper league. I won't confirm or deny.

You know, I basically look at it this way. Manny is the kind of player you try to build your franchise around for a decade they have that and they seem so certain in their lack of ability to secure him long term in their lack of either willingness to spend what it's going to take which again i just don't understand or and his lack of interest in resigning which is certainly like a little more painful it's less frustrating because it's not something the team can control but it's been certainly like that's a shitty feeling as a fan yeah and instead of just doing whatever is necessary to secure that future they're going to trade him and the only thing worse than the prospect of trading the guy that you think is going to be like you know not not i don't use the cal example to say that they're the

same player but basically the face of the franchise for two decades like the guy that you saw when he came up and was as good as advertised that he'd be that guy and they're going to get rid of him. And the only thing that's worse is they're not going to get a good return. I just know it. They're not like, I actually think that even though the basic logic is that you get more for in return for a full season of Manny than you would moving them at the deadline. And you know, the other team's only going to get a couple months.

Two things. One, I have to assume that their highest odds of getting a good return is another team being desperate and that's more likely to happen if that team is in a pennant race which happens at the deadline so if it's going to happen i would rather happen then also because they wouldn't be totally punting on at least trying to contend this year like every year we go and saying the orioles are going to be bad and are going to be like a fourth place year. Like every year we go in saying the Orioles are going to be bad and are going to be like a fourth place team. And then every year for the last, you know,

they made the playoffs three of the last six years. They've found a way to remain relevant. I certainly don't have like a ton of faith in this particular roster to do that, but you never know. The recent history is at least on their side of surprising by remaining somewhat in it. So see if that can happen one more time, right? Before you know you're not

going to resign him and that window closes forever. And if you're not in it, then move him when another team is maybe desperate and willing to give away more, or at least to give away as much as it would have at the beginning of the year when you were going to botch the deal anyway. They don't know how to assess prospects. They don't know how to assess talent as well as some of these other teams. Like I look at every deal the White Sox make right now and I say, they know what they're doing. They're trying to be the Astros and the Cubs and go all in on a prospect-centric rebuild. I don't feel that way about what the Orioles are capable of doing. And the other thing is they seem always to be lost sort of in the middle. Again, a strategy

like that requires foresight and planning and a commitment over a long period of time. They just re-signed Mark Trumbo. They just re-signed Chris Davis. They're shelling out deals, just not the right ones. They're spending money, just not effectively. So they're always going to be caught. That's my concern, is that they're always going to be caught between these two poles of existence, where in the game today, you either need to go all in and tank, or you need to be willing to spend and to try to do what the Yankees and the Dodgers and teams like that are doing. And they're not really committed to either approach. So how are they ever going to compete? And also, this is the simplest way I can say it. Manny Machado is my favorite player. The Orioles are my favorite team. The idea of my favorite team

trading my favorite player? No, that's devastating to me. I don't want that to happen. Yeah. I mean, they've waited too long either to maximize the return in trade. If they wanted to do that, if they thought we're done, we have to rebuild and start over, then they should have gotten rid of him and jumpstarted that process years ago. Or if they had wanted to try to keep him and extend them and sign him long term, that is also something that they would have had a much better chance of doing years ago. So they're in this weird spot now where you feel like they should get something for him, but it's too close to free agency to keep him and too close to get that much for him. So at this point, maybe just for the sake of you and your fellow fans, just give you one more season to savor of Manny, even if there's not much else to enjoy around him.

Thank you. I appreciate you abandoning logic and reason and giving me that just for a moment. They also obviously should extend scope. I just don't know what they're doing. Like, again, unless they're committing fully to not spending for a while, but that doesn't seem likely.

The other thing is, again, because I'm not rational here, I freely admit I am not a rational party in this sense. I can't help but look at the non-baseball factors, you know, the friendships, the bonds. So Manny and Scope are like best buds. They love playing together. And when I saw those reports that the Orioles were going to extend scope, my first thought was not actually, oh, delightful. They're going to lock in a relatively speaking

reasonable contract based on what the reports were at the time for a really good young player, a really good middle infielder who hits for power and plays solid defense. This is great. Also, my main thought was, he's Manny's best friend. This means Manny's going to sign here forever. My life is great also my main thought was he's Manny's best friend this means Manny's gonna sign here forever my life is great this is wonderful and for literally 30 seconds until

the next tweets came in that were basically like this is wrong just don't listen to this none of this is true I allowed myself to dream and it was beautiful here's the flip side of that when I saw that Yonder Alonzo was going to the Indians, I was like, oh, shit. That's Manny's brother-in-law. That's literally family. If you look at Manny's Instagram, it's all pictures of Yonder Alonzo. Like, this is not good.

Maybe he is going to go to Cleveland. This is terrible. And for a really long time, I had assumed he would go to Miami because he's a Miami guy. His players weekend nickname on his jersey was Mr. Miami, which made me want to like just drown in my own tears. But obviously, the only good thing that's happened from my perspective for the Manny situation here is that I think we can safely eliminate the Marlins. That's probably true. So that's the only thing I'm hanging on to.

Yeah. All right. So over the next couple of months, then, is there anything you want the Orioles to do other than not trade Manny Machado? Is there anything they can do at this point? Like, is there a most Orioles free agent that they could sign at this point? Because it always happens. Like, every February, Dan Duquette signs, signs like the least exciting free agent you could possibly imagine I don't know who that guy would be this year for the Orioles but there's always that like extremely Orioles guy who ends up on

this roster and it's like the biggest move of the winter but it is very uninspiring so I don't know what you know what that is this year good question I don't know what that is this year. That's a good question. I don't know who that is this year. There's really no one I want them to go after. I mean, in my moments of true indulgence, I allowed myself to think, oh, what if they tried to sign you, Darvish,

and actually tried to go after a pitcher and then also tried to sign Manny and really tried to build a contender? Wouldn't that be incredible? But obviously that's not going to happen. And certainly if there's any, any, any, any prospect of them actually attempting to make a competitive offer for Manny, I basically don't think they can spend any money.

So I'm actually weirdly for the first time in my life as a fan hoping they don't sign anyone because I want them to conserve every cent just so I can allow myself. It's willful delusion. Just so I can allow myself. It's willful delusion. Just so I can allow myself a few more months of thinking, oh, oh, maybe they're saving up so that they can go after Manny. This is great. I saw someone saying the other day, I can't remember if it was in the office or in our Slack, that somehow Vargas needs to end up on the Orioles at some point in the next few years.

Because that just seems like the absolute peak Duquette move. Yes, definitely. But, you know, I mean, I just, I honestly don't, I don't know what the rotation looks like at this point. It's just, I still have not given up on Bundy or Gaussman, which might be the greatest sign yet of how unhinged I am as a fan. More of a sign than anything I said in the last 10-15 minutes um but you know there's just there's just really not a lot in the rotation to even like allow

yourself to think might turn well though you know monday looked good last year for a few months yeah you really did gossman had a pretty good second half and he's got a new number now. So, yeah. That's right. I wonder if he's still eating like numerous packs of powdered donuts before every start because it's possible. And I say this is the world's greatest junk food lover. It's a day when you expected to be relaxing at home with Halo, your lovely cat. And suddenly I'm imposing on you to talk about the Orioles, which is never a pleasant subject. So I thank you for doing that. I love talking about the Orioles. I spent my whole life waiting for a reason to talk about the Orioles. So thank you. And rest assured, Halo was here with me the whole time. All right. You can catch Mallory on Binge Mode every week. I'm looking forward to the Orioles Binge Mode episode. I'm assuming that's in the works at some point. Maybe if they ever do something. Don't rule it out. I won't. Mallory, thank you. It's been a pleasure. I hope we're still friends. Always been. Always. Thanks for having me.

All right. We're going to take a quick break. I'll be back with another Ringer colleague, Zach Cram and Trent Rosecrans to talk about the Hall of Fame. The balance of the bullet, the choice is up to you. The balance of the bullet, tell me what you're going to do. The sword of the pen can't be held by the man. So I am joined now by my colleague at The Ringer, an editor, a writer, ace fact checker, Zach Cram, making his first appearance on the podcast, although he uses it as a sleep aid, I know, at night. Hello, Zach. Hello. I think sleep aid is perhaps the wrong impression, but I love to listen.

I'm happy to have people listen to it, however they want to listen to it. If they find our voices soporific and sleep-inducing, that is perfectly fine with me. And we're also joined en route to Atlanta in the car by C. Trent Rosecrans, who covers the Reds for the Cincinnati Inquirer and has recently released his Hall of Fame ballot. Hey, Trent, how are you? I'm great. Thanks. Yeah, and you've been responding nonstop to people tweeting at you about your Hall of Fame ballot. Not the kindest comments in every case, although it was posted in the Effectively Wild Facebook group to great acclaim.

People are very approving of your ballot, but our audience probably a little bit different from your typical Twitter follower. So we'll get into that in just a second. I want to have Zach summarize his research briefly because Zach wrote an article just before Christmas at the Ringer and it's called Baseball Hall of Fame Voting is Broken, but Not in the Way You Think. And this article and Zach's research surprised me and I think surprised him when he did it, because for the past few winters, I've been thinking and probably repeating and others have too, that the BBWA voting has changed, that BBWA voters have not adjusted their standards to account for the fact that there are more players in baseball today. And so if you're going to keep the percentage of elected and inducted players constant, then you have to let more players in as the player pool grows. And that hasn't really happened, but it's actually for a different reason than I've been thinking and that a lot of people have been

thinking and Zach showed why. So Zach, now that I've sort of spoiled your finding, can you describe what is exactly leading to the decreasing percentage of players being inducted into the Hall of Fame? Yeah, like you said, I was a little surprised when I discovered the results myself. Like probably everyone who follows the Hall of Fame debates closely has seen those graphs of percentage of Hall of Famers by decade, and that it's been a pretty steady downward progression since about the 1920s or 30s. But I discovered that that is essentially entirely attributable to the presence of the Veterans Committee. And if you strip out everyone elected by the Veterans Committee and its various iterations, there's a pretty consistent trend throughout history of about 1% of all players being elected

to the Hall of Fame. It's actually 0.9%. And if you look at, for instance, all players born in the 1960s decade, if you assume that Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman will be elected by the BBWA, which is fairly likely, then the 1960s decade is also at 0.9%. And the big explanation for that downward looking graph is the Veterans Committee, Jack Morris and Alan Trammell, who are going to Cooperstown next summer because of the Veterans Committee are the first VC electees to play at all after 1974. Whereas basically every decade before then has been picked over and prodded and all of its potentially eligible candidates have basically

been inducted if they have any sort of chance. Part of that is because of cronyism. The years that Frankie Frisch was on the Veterans Committee are notorious for having a lot of the worst Hall of Famers ever. But even beyond them, a lot of sort of what we would consider now borderline candidates were elected, but not by the BBWA. So it seems like this sort of disconnect between what the BBWA think is the standard Hall of Famer versus what the Hall of Fame Museum with its veteran committee and all its other machinations think is a standard Hall of Famer are pretty disparate. And that sort of explains why we see this downward progression. And it's a bit of a fallacy to think that the BBWA has tightened its standards over the years. So it just looks like it has because we're looking at this at a

moment in time. If you looked at this decades later after the Veterans Committee or whatever it's called now has had time to do its work, then maybe the percentages would look closer to the historical norms or maybe not. Maybe because there are fewer abuses of that system than there used to be, there will be fewer players elected as a result, but not because people just haven't adjusted to what baseball looks like now, just because the system has changed and maybe there hasn't been enough time for the percentages to kind of come into line. make sense. And Trent is an example of a BBWA voter who has been pretty forthcoming with his votes. And on his most recent ballot, he's using all 10 spots. So Trent, I'm just going to read out your ballot here in alphabetical order of surname. So it's Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Vlad Guerrero, Chipper Jones, Edgar Martinez, Mike Messina, Manny Ramirez, Kurt Schilling, Jim Tomey, and finally, Larry Walker. And I can't argue with anyone that you've chosen

there. I think my ballot, if I had one, I don't yet, would look a lot like yours does. Can you walk me through how you prep for this? And how many years have you had the ballot? And how has your process changed, if at all? You know, I really haven't. I've only had it four years. This was my fourth time voting. And I've kind of, you know, I think in my first column, I said, you have to deal with it. You have to have a cop out. And this is the cop out that I am most comfortable with, which is basically I rank them. And because we are only allowed by the hall, the BBWA asked to have more than 10 choices, we were denied.

Because that's the way it is, I just rank them and I draw a line after 10. And if I feel all those are worthy, I rank all the worthy players, I think, and draw the line at 10 and then check off those first 10. That first year, I was like, wow, maybe I should game the the system and say Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson are going to get in. Why don't I vote for somebody else that I think is worthy that may fall off? But then I'm like, you know what? I'm the jerk who didn't vote for Pedro Martinez or Randy Johnson. And that was really kind of where I settled on this course of action or this particular way to do it.

And so I have a nice notebook that I use every year. I write down my research. I do, you know, comments. I read a lot of things. I revisit it every year. I revisit those rankings. And then I just kind of start all over again and write them down one through probably 13 or 14.

And, you know, at that point it's like splitting hairs and those are hairs that don't need to be split. Yeah. You've got a lot of Twitter replies based on your feed, just people saying, well, why this guy and not that guy? And your response is like, well, he's better. It's like, I, I ranked them and he was better than that other guy. So that's why it's simple. But I guess a lot of those people are obviously asking about the controversial candidates who are maybe not going to get in because of stuff they did that has nothing to do with their stats. No one disputes the stats stuff. But as you're mentioning, you could talk about gaming the ballot. And I guess you could have done that

this year with someone like Scott Rowland, for instance, who, you know, I would probably see as a Hall of Famer and I'm guessing you might too, but just wasn't one of your top 10. Do you know how deep you would have gone beyond that 10 if you had had the ability to do so? I don't know how deep. I know that Scott Rowland was number 11 on my list and, you know, I covered Scott Rowland and, you know, you talk about a lot of those intangibles and I saw those, you know, firsthand people talk about leadership. I, you know, I, I believe it exists and it's hard for me to say whether Scott Rowland had more of that than say Larry Walker or Vladimir Guerrero, but I know he had it from what I saw straight up. But yeah, you know, I probably could have gone, you know, I think ultimately Trevor Hoffman probably is.

And he's probably like, I think I had him and Billy Wagner 15 and 15A on my list because I can't separate either one of those two. And if I was going to vote for Trevor Hoffman and I think in an unlimited ballot, I might because I'm a pretty big hall guy. So apparently, as you can guess, I couldn't vote for Trevor Hoffman and not vote for Billy Wagner, because quite honestly, they're so similar. And I think Wagner might have been better.

Zach, you're a big Hall guy too, right? Like if you had a ballot in any sense. I think I'm actually not sure quite how big a hall guy I am. I'm not sure if I would have even voted for 10 this year, because luckily for me, I have not had to introspect and, you know, determine if I would vote for someone like Bonds or Clemens or Ramirez who had, you know, the taint of performance enhancing drugs. So I leave that up to Trent and everyone else who has to make that kind of decision. I think Zach makes a great point because there really is a difference when you sit down and check off those marks. And every year I always hear people like, oh my God, it's still a mail-in ballot and kind of derive that. But I actually

really like that because I do that list and I write it out and I make sure I don't mess up the check marks several times before I finally do it in ink. And I don't know, there's something about that makes you take that step back. And like Zach, I think Zach has the right idea. I think everybody has to figure it out for themselves. And it's easy to say in a vacuum, well, of course I'd vote for Sandy Sosa or Larry Walker or whoever, but until you sit down and do it, it's really difficult. I mean, I'm not breaking rocks or anything, really difficult, but it's an interesting mental art exercise. And that final bit of

checking it off is something that, I don't know, I kind of feel a weight on my shoulders until it's announced. Yeah. And so the ballots are due on Sunday. They have to be mailed by Sunday, Yeah. And so the ballots are due on Sunday. They have to be mailed by Sunday, the 31st. And just looking at Ryan Thibodeau's ballot tracker, it looks like based on the early returns, roughly a quarter of the ballots are known. And it looks like Chipper and Tomei are probably going to get in on their first ballot. And then Vlad Guerrero has an excellent chance to get in on his second. And then everyone else is kind of borderline. It looks like Trevor Hoffman is going to be right around that threshold again. And so is Edgar, who seems to be picking up some votes.

And same for Mike Messina. So it might just be a three-player class, but it will be a pretty strong class regardless. And maybe someone else will sneak in there. So Trent, I know you've probably had to explain your stance on the PED guys every year that you've done this. And I'm sure it hasn't changed all that much since the first time. But do you want to run through that again? And I guess whether you see any distinction based on your ballot, it looks like you probably don't. from the pre-testing, pre-punishment era and say Manny Ramirez who tested positive and was suspended. And I know that some people use that as kind of a dividing line and say, well, if you were doing it in the anything goes era, then I'm not going to penalize you. But if you kept doing it after, then you deserve to be punished, but you still have Manny on there. So you're clearly in the performance over PDs category camp,

which is fine, which is probably where I'd be too. But how did you end up there? Yeah. And it was one of those funny things where my first year was the first year that Palmeiro was not on the ballot. And so I got to push that. And I still don't know, at that time I might've made a different decision. But at the time, four years ago in my first ballot, I basically just said, you know what? I don't know who was using and who wasn't. All I know is the record of what happened on the field. And if, you know, Major League Baseball is still going to say

that Barry Bonds holds the record, and Barry Bonds still has, shoot, you know, it tells you something that I can't, I can tell you how many home runs everybody else has off the top of my head, but I can't tell you Barry's. But if they're going to still recognize it, then that's all I know. I don't know how many of those home runs came off guys who were using the exact same thing.

I'm sure that there are plenty of those home runs, and there are plenty of strikeouts that came against guys using it. And in the end, I just basically said, I don't know everything. What I do know is what happened on the field. And so I kind of fell back to that. And like I said, you know, it's kind of a cop-out, but I don't think there's a way that isn't. You have to take that one step from what is logic in your mind to actually putting it into place. And I think there is a little tiny leap of faith there. What I did with Manny Ramirez is honestly, I just said, you know what, again, he did what he did. And he served the sentence, you know, should I serve double jeopardy? The guy served the sentence.

Yeah. Unlike maybe someone like Palmeiro who served the sentence and didn't get back in, Manny still got back in, still did whatever. You know, I don't know exactly where that line is. At the end, what it came down to is Manny Ramirez was really good at hitting the baseball. Somebody the other day said, well, he's a one-dimensional player. I said, yeah, but I'll take that if that one dimension is crushing baseball. He hit a 996 OPS for his career, and I think it was like a 156 OPS plus. I don't have it written down here.

The man crushed baseballs, and that's a pretty valuable skill. Yeah, and I guess it works both ways when it comes to ignoring certain things or not factoring in certain things about these players. I've seen people responding to you on Twitter, asking, questioning how you could vote for Curt Schilling, who obviously has been a very unpleasant person in his post-playing life, but that really isn't directly related to what he did on the field. And I guess you could say that's in his private or public life. Post-playing career has even less to do with his performance than what Manny or Bonds or Clemens did during their careers as far as PDs. So, you know, it's another step removed, I guess. But if you're going to use the character clause to keep someone out, then I guess it works both ways. And you're

clearly comfortable putting Schilling in there, as I would be also, as little as I like the guy. He was a heck of a pitcher. Yeah. I mean, he's the line I usually use is Curt Schilling is what people think Jack Morris was. You go back and look at his postseason. You look at what he did over a certain amount of time. Everybody talks about what Jack Morris did in the postseason.

And it's like, well, you know, look at what Curt Schilling did. He was twice the pitcher in the postseason as Jack Morris. Jack Morris, who was also, you know, sexual harasser of a representative of the Hall's board of directors, thought that steroid guys shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame. And you wrote that the closest you came to making a change in your voting philosophy was not voting at all. We've seen a couple people publicly say

that Morgan's letter made them decide not to vote. Did you come close to actually making that decision yourself? And what went into that kind of determination? I did. You know, the question is, is like, I just feel like the hall sometimes has been disingenuous. They tell us, oh, vote how you want, except we say, okay, well, we would like to vote more. You tell us to vote like we want, but yet you put this limitation. They turned down the, what I thought didn't go far enough. When the BBWA, Jay Jaffe was part of this committee that asked for 12 instead of 10. It's kind of a baby step. And I said, no. This last year, the BBWA said, listen, we would like all the ballots to be made public.

And the Hall said, no. They lowered from 15 years to 10 the length of a player on the ballot. In all this, it seems like it's to try to keep out the steroid players, but yet they say, oh, no, it's not. And then you have Joe Morgan using a list curated by the Hall of Fame, using his title for the Hall of Fame and saying, don't vote for these guys. And we asked the hall and the hall goes, no, no, no, that's just Joe. It's just one person. And to try to blackmail us into a certain thing saying, oh, nobody's going to show up. It just rubbed me the wrong way. But quite honestly, in the end, I really enjoy doing this

as much as I enjoy defending it every year. I think that's a great part of the process. And it's a part of what I enjoy about the whole thing. I grew up making those arguments and my arguments growing up weren't as, I don't, they were much different than what I hold now. And I kind of enjoy it and it's fun. And in the end, I chose me over anybody else. And that's probably a selfish and childish way to make a decision. But in the end, that's kind of what I did. It seems to relate a lot back to the disagreements between the Hall of Fame itself and the writers, like with the piece I wrote last week, where you have this sort of tiered balloting system

of the BBWA has first dibs on whether they elect you or not, but they're stingy. And if you're on the border, the BBWA might not elect you. And then years, maybe decades down the road, you'll end up possibly getting a Veterans Committee election. But that greatly increases the chance that it'll be a posthumous election. And that is something no one wants. It happened to Ron Santo recently. And Jack Morris and Alan Trammell were actually the first Veterans Committee inductees since 2001 who are still living. And it seems like the Hall of Fame, if they want a bigger hall like they seem to with the Veterans Committee, they should probably let

the writers know that they should relax their standards as opposed to endorsing this tiered system that increases posthumous elections. Yeah, I'm okay with it, honestly. I don't think that, trust me, Ben, you've been to BBWA meetings, I believe, at the winter meetings. This isn't a group that I'm going to put complete and total trust in. These are some of my best friends and people I really like. But, you know, try getting 75% of any group

to agree where to go for dinner, much less who is worthy of a Hall of Fame. I like the oversight. I like the, you know, as much as I don't think Jack Morris longs, I'll take Jack Morris to get Alan Trammell in. The writers got Alan Trammell wrong. And I'm very happy that Alan Trammell is going to get in. And I'm also very happy that it didn't take as long as it did for Ron Santo. And so I have always, it doesn't bother

me at all. Again, I'm a big Hall guy. So the more the merrier for me, you know, it's a good party. Yeah. You mentioned just how wide the range of opinions inside the BBWA is about ballots, about players. Do you attempt to persuade anyone of anything at this point or have you given up on that now? No, I honestly, I'm kind of a believer in one man, one vote. If somebody asked me, I'll talk to them. You know, I'm probably higher on Larry Walker than anybody I know. Yeah. Or any of the other voters. Like, you know, I'd put him in, I think he was either four or five on my list this year. I just, I think Larry Walker is one of the greatest all-around players of my lifetime. And I, you know, I don't think he's going to get in, but I can't see myself running a campaign for

Larry Walker. I don't know the guy. And even if I did, I can't see myself doing that. There are very few, I talk to a couple of players every now and then that I still hold to, but I'm not going to go leading a campaign for anybody. I just don't feel comfortable with that. I feel comfortable with my one vote and letting it count for one 400th or whatever it is. Yeah, there isn't really as much of a concerted campaign behind anyone right now, at least not quite at the level of Bly Levin or Raines. And maybe that's just because the guys who should be in or who a lot of people feel strongly should be in are not quite at the end of their eligibility yet. So there's no need to make that kind of push yet. But someone like Mike Messina, certainly, I feel pretty strongly about. A lot of people do too. And maybe Edgar gets that kind of bump too.

But a lot of the other guys just haven't quite come to the point yet where they need Jonah Carey or someone else to take up that mantle and really push everyone on it because things are trending at least in the right direction. So was there anyone else on your ballot whose name you checked with a little more relish than some of the others just enjoying getting to support them because you enjoyed watching them as players, because you like them as people, because you think that they're just extremely well-qualified and maybe have been snubbed a bit? And was there anyone below that number 10 spot that you had a tough time leaving off? I think both of those were, you know, I've already kind of mentioned it's Larry Walker

for those that I, every year I start at the back because I enjoy checking off Larry Walker first, because I believe in Larry Walker that much. And to not check Scott Rowland was tough. I think he's totally worthy, but he came in at 11 and I had one balance where he came in at 10. And in the end, it just, it came down to that. And it was, it was difficult. And I hope that Scott Rowland gets in. I really do.

I don't think he's in danger of, you know, there's a guy like Kenny Lofton, I think, was fell off way too soon. When you look at Kenny Lofton compared to everybody else at his position and his time, that's what, you know, everybody brings up guys who fell off too quickly. And I think Lofton is a guy that doesn't get enough mention for that. So with Walker, I think he's kind of on the border. I would probably vote for him. But if you said you wouldn't, I understand. But you probably have him ranked higher than I would. Is it that you just prioritize the peak more than the long term value? Or do you think that he satisfies both requirements? I think he satisfies both requirements. And really what it comes down to for me is the all-around player. I don't know that there's anyone who is better.

If you go down to those five tools, who is great at all five tools, as great at all five tools as Larry Walker. I was actually talking to a former player last night because I put on my Facebook, my personal Facebook page, my ballot, and also on my professional one. But on my personal one,

there was a little debate and a former player, and he noted that he thinks he might, when it's all said and done, have played with the most Hall of Famers ever. He had 10 that are already in, and I counted another 12 that could get in,

that were his teammates. And he said, Larry Walker is the best player he ever played with. And he played with 10 guys who are already in the hall of fame yeah you kind of wonder whether he's just getting dinged even more than he should because of the core's years or whether it's just the injuries and the lack of longevity which is a fair critique but yeah i think he did enough still to satisfy the conditions, whatever they are. So that's, yeah, he's, I don't know that he will get enough support, but maybe he's the next guy who people at least lament when he falls off the ballot one of these years.

What about someone like Sheffield or Sosa? Again, you didn't necessarily need to make a determination on these guys because they weren't in your top 10, but they're in that range of Walker and Guerrero, maybe a cut below. But a lot of people see them as Hall of Famers. Certainly during their careers, they were seen as Hall of Famers. And it comes down to PD stuff, but also some non-PD critiques of their play. So how do you evaluate those guys? They're right there in that mix for me. And Fred McGriff as well. I have a former player who, in retirement, we've become pretty good friends. He actually just called today. We finally got to

see Star Wars and we always talk Star Wars. And he called me before voting and wanted to ask me about McGriff and if I was voting for McGriff and how I should and putting things together. And, you know, I think there's him, Sheffield, so many of those guys, even Sosa. Sosa is one of those where the high peak, maybe he's a tick below me for so many other guys. But, you know, yeah, you just look at that ballot and there's so many great players. I think I think Eric Sheffield certainly in there. Jeff Kemp is a guy that I think you can make an argument for. And honestly, while I dislike the rule of 10, it saves a heck of a lot of work for me every year. Right. Yeah, I do wonder whether this is going to get easier one of these years, whether we're going to ever get this glut of candidates off the ballot,

or obviously that might've happened already if the ballot had been expanded a bit, but that hasn't happened. And of course, there are going to continue to be PD guys coming onto the roster, at least for another couple of years. So that'll only increase the crowd. So I don't know, do you foresee a time anytime soon when there will be more agreement about the ballots or fewer cases where guys are being excluded for this PD related reason? Or do you think we're stuck with this for a while? We're stuck with it at least through when Bonds and Clemens are still on the ballot because, you know, while they're really the lightning rods and they're the best case scenario or worst case scenario, however you wish to look at it, that their numbers are

off the chart worthy. I think on the Facebook group the other day, there was a fun fact about Barry's, Fonz's, like however many, you know, peak war was more than Ken Griffey Jr. in his total. And, you know, these are just ridiculous numbers. And until those guys are off, it's still going to be cluttered because you have enough people like myself who are going to say these guys are worthy. What could change in the future is I always bring this up as well, is that the voting public or body changes every year, especially with the new rules. So I think when we kind of get through that cycle, people who haven't covered baseball for a while,

when you get into another cycle and you get more guys, I know I saw on Ryan Thibodeau's tracker today as we record this, Mark Carrigg, guys like Mark, some of these other guys that, you know, are a little more progressive, it might change there in a couple of years, but I don't see it anytime soon. Yeah. The fun fact that you were just alluding to was that Bonds, if you take away all seven of his MVP seasons, he still has a total of 90.3 career war, which is about seven more

than Ken Griffey Jr.'s whole career. I think that was a Ryan Spader fun fact. But yeah, that's Bonds for you. We have a whole episode. If anyone wants a whole episode worth of Bonds fun facts, you can go back to episode 762 and hear a whole episode of those. But Zach, I know you had a question. Or more a response to something Trent was saying, which is that Bonds and Clemens are maybe the lightning rod, the greatest examples. But I think going forward, whenever you're making determinations about the most extreme

players in the sports history, like I found the top 1%, maybe the top 2% of all players, it's always going to involve navigating those cases at the extremes and how much credit and demerits to give people. those cases at the extremes and how much credit and demerits to give people. Like with the Larry Walker and Coors effect, you know, my thinking is sure Walker might have been affected, you know, in a positive way by Coors, but he was still the best there. Or a case like Edgar Martinez, where yeah, he didn't have to play the field, but he was still the best at his position or Billy Wagner. I agree with Trent that if anything, he was probably better than Trevor Hoffman at everything besides his save totals. He pitched 16 seasons and had an

ERA of three or higher just once. So sure, he might have been a relief pitcher. And that is maybe a generous case for him. But he was still one of the best in the world at it. And I think it's a matter of getting, like you said, 75% of the electorate to agree on anything that involves navigating extremes is going to be difficult. And going forward, maybe the steroid case gets resolved, but we're still going to have cores, we're still going to have designated hitters. If anything, the pitching is getting even more specialized, and that'll just introduce even more problems when Clayton Kershaw might retire with 220 wins. Obviously, he'll be a Hall of Famer if he retires tomorrow. But what about the lesser guys from this era?

Is Max Scherzer a Hall of Famer if he retires with 200 wins but four Cy Young Awards? And it's going to be a constant reinterpretation of what constitutes a Hall of Famer in an evolving game. Yeah, we have Roy Halladay next year. And I think that will be an interesting case. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we talked about that briefly earlier this winter when he died, just that he could be kind of a guy who opens doors for other pitchers just because I think he is accepted fairly widely as a deserving Hall of Famer. But if he gets in, then that sort of lowers the counting stats, at least in certain categories that you need to be in there just because of the era he pitched in. And of course, he was an extreme workhorse by

the standards of his era, but even by the standards of 20, 30 years ago, he was not. So if he gets in, as I think he should should and he will, then maybe that makes people think twice about some other guys too. So I hope that that happens. So Trent, I wanted to, while you're on, ask you to plug the podcast series you did this year because it's evergreen and it's the winter. And I know people are starved for baseball and are looking for things to listen to. And I know that a lot of people in our Facebook group have happened across Great American Dream, the series you did this year. So for people who haven't yet, tell them what they've been missing. Yeah, Great American Dream was actually was born kind of in a very similar space to where I am right now.

My wife and I driving, and just kind of a year in the life of a minor leaguer. And not just one minor leaguer, I focused on one, Shed Long, second base prospect for the Reds, who had a great season the year before and had a very good season this year, started in high A, moved on to double A, had some injuries. But telling not just his story, but the universal story of the minor leagues and kind of using Shed's experience as a jumping off point, whether it's about Latin players and what they face. And, you know, imagine I talked to, you know, this guy Julio Murillo,

who's now the translator for the Reds. But Julio was 18 years old from Venezuela and stuck in Billings, Montana, barely spoke any English. And that is something that is a huge part of the minor league experience. Something as silly as how Shedd was trying to find a place to live. He had one day to find a place to live and ended up with four roommates. And all these other kind of stories. There's a great one that I really enjoyed doing about the 1988 Vermont Mariners.

I talked to several members of that team, which seems kind of random, but one of them was Ken Griffey Jr. One was Brian Price, the Reds manager now. And the other was Nez Balelo, who you may know as now as Shohei Otani's agent. But all those guys were together and just kind of this thread of the lifelong bond that this does. So it's a 12-part series focused on Shed Long. Talk a lot with Shed. He was fantastic. And it was really fun. And it's something that hopefully somebody might want to listen to if they're interested in baseball and they have to find a way to get through until February. Yeah, I would encourage everyone to do that. And yet again, we've succeeded in having someone who covers the Reds on,

and we have not talked about the Reds. So I don't know. What would we talk about? I guess the Jared Hughes signing. The Jared Hughes signing. I would actually probably rather write about, on the Christmas Eve paper, or Christmas Day paper, not only was my Hall of Fame column on the front of the sports section, on the front the uh whole paper was my story on kenner toys and yeah i was just reading that yeah that was fun yeah it was uh very good yeah i just wanted to plug that story as well because i know there's a certain segment here yeah we could probably do a whole episode length star wars conversation too but i'm i'm doing that on another podcast later this week, so I probably shouldn't do that. But yeah, that was fun. You co-wrote a story about the Christmas of 1977 and Kenner action figures weren't ready yet. So there was just a pre-order, essentially an IOU for kids who wanted Star Wars toys, but couldn't have them yet, which was sort of a precedent setting thing in the toy industry. So that was a fun story too. It's nice to be able

to write about Star Wars when there's no baseball going on. I've certainly had that experience lately. So did you like The Last Jedi? I've seen it three times and I've liked it better each time and now I love it. Yeah. Yeah. I feel the same way. We appreciate your coming on and your dealing with the Twitter trolls who hate your ballot. I like your ballot. I think most of my listeners like your ballot. So stay strong. And it's been a pleasure. And you can find Trent on Twitter at ctrent and of course, writing in the Cincinnati Inquirer. Thank you, Trent. Thank you. And thank you, Zach. And speaking of great articles, that was a reallyer. Thank you Trent. Thank you and thank you Zach and speaking of great articles that was really a good one that you wrote and I really enjoyed that. Thank you so much. Great talking to you. Yeah, thanks Zach and hope you can

find something else to lull you to sleep tonight. Thanks and have a great rest of the holiday week. Alright, you can find Mallory by the way on Twitter at Mallory Rubin, and you can find Zach on Twitter at Zach Cram. That's Zach with an H. Also, if you're just catching up on his work, he wrote a great oral history retrospective story on backyard baseball

in October. I know a lot of you love that game. So if you missed that article, do check it out. You can support this podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who've already pledged their support include Paul Kaczynski, Jeff Silver, Jeff Roberts, Tony, and Mike Cahill. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. I know Trent's in there. He's pretty active too.

You can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. And you can send your questions and comments for me and Jeff or whoever's filling in for Jeff at podcast at Fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system. Thanks as always to Dylan Higgins for editing assistance. And thanks to all of you who wrote and commented and tweeted about the Johnny O'Brien episode we published last week. That was as wonderful for us as it was for a lot of you. If you missed episode 1153 in the pre-Christmas rush, make sure you go back and give it a listen because it's a lot of fun.

And if you are interested in hearing my Star Wars thoughts, I'll have an episode of Achievement Oriented up this Friday talking about The Last Jedi with Jason Concepcion. And I already have more of a retrospective oral history narrative podcast about the lean years of Star Wars between the original trilogy and prequel trilogy. That's up now at the Ringers Channel 33 podcast feed. And I and someone else or someone's else will talk to you very soon. Just like you broke mine when you said we was part

He told you lies, oh it's your turn to cry, cry, cry Now that Larry said goodbye to you