Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 329: The Debate About Buying a Hall of Fame Vote

Episode Date: November 14, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss Deadspin’s offer to purchase a Hall of Fame vote.

Only two things that money can't buy, and that's true love and homegrown tomatoes. Good morning and welcome to episode 329 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg. 329 is a significant number to me because that's what George Brett won the 1990 batting title with. Huh. That's okay. A number that... Not that significant to me. Big role in baseball history.

So we're going to talk today about... Hi, Ben. How are you? Hi. Okay. Good. We're going to talk today about Deadspin's Hall of Fame vote-buying plan. Did you read this? Yes. So Deadspin, Tim Marchman of Deadspin wrote a post today sort of bemoaning the sad state of Hall of Fame voting,

which others have bemoaned, But he and Deadspin are not content to simply complain about it. They have a plan. So I'm going to start reading. I'm going to read, I guess, three paragraphs. So this is because the Hall of Fame ritual has become more than anything else a way for an electorate dominated by neo-Puritan scolds, milquetoast, hand-wringers, and straight-out dimwits to show how high its standards are by telling people like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza, and Curt Schilling that they're just not good enough. What was meant as a way to honor great ballplayers is now an annual exercise in vigorously insulting them and thereby asserting the power of the baseball writer.

The Hall of Fame season should be about great careers brilliant moments the historical record and the memory of strong winning play not about some a-hold from the schenectady herald pollinator agonizing about how he just can't know whether or not some player is tainted by the scourge of drugs and that just makes him feel but so it goes the sensible thing to do would be to just stop paying attention to this raging trash fire but we don't think that's enough we're going to see some small symbolic bit of power and turn it over to the public. We're going to buy a Hall of Fame vote. So they have asked the 500 or so members of the BBWA who have a vote to get in touch with them and name their price. I don't know if they're, yeah, and name their price. The options are anonymous or not. Keep the money or donate it,

whatever you want to do with it. They don't care. They're not interested in motives. They simply want to, I guess, play spoilers in a way. And so I have a few questions for you about this. And before I ask you what you think of it, do you think anybody is going to take them up on it? How confident are you that one of the 500 will actually not just send them an email? I could see somebody sending an email and saying $750,000. But what are the odds that somebody in good faith will actually try to get money out of this? I would be surprised if anyone did, I think. Right?

Yeah, I don't think anyone would. I mean, there are people every year who mail in a blank ballot or they just refuse to vote or whatever, and then, of course, they write a column about how they did that and how agonizing it was and how they just didn't feel like they could could weigh in because of how complicated it all is but um i can't really imagine anyone anyone selling the vote because it i don't know it feels well i haven't really thought about it

much but my sort of initial gut feeling about it was that it would be sort of unethical in a way well yeah i think i mean you would get absolutely crushed uh i think if you did it uh publicly yeah um and and i don't i think that even people who like are amused by this and are like uh you know like happy that deadspin is is doing this I think even those people would sort of crush the writer who actually took them up on it. I mean, it's one thing for Deadspin to put this out there and say the system's a farce. It's another to be a guy who's actually getting profit off of this privilege.

I just don't think it would play well. And I think that even if you kept it anonymous, I mean, BBWA would presumably be able to spot it, be able to figure it out. I mean, it's presumably Deadspin is going to publish the names on the ballot. It would be easy for the association to figure it out. And certainly anybody whose job was at a, you know, at a newspaper or anything, and almost everybody with the BBWA comes from a non-anarchist organization, and those organizations would all basically terminate you if you actually tried this.

So there are a lot of people who are voting who aren't working for an organization really anymore, who are like longtime members but barely go to the park or anything like that. It's just hard for me to imagine the profile of the guy or woman who would take them up on this. The only person I could conceivably see doing it would be someone who's very old and doesn't need access and doesn't have much to lose. And those guys aren't reading Deadspin and they're BBWA members, they have jobs that need access that you couldn't do your job if you were a reporter and you couldn't get access. So it's hard to imagine the profile. Now, I asked Tim this. I said, you know, you can't possibly think you're going to get somebody, can you? I mean, it's fun, but like realistically, you're not going to get anybody. it's fun but like realistically you're not going to get anybody and he says he's quite confident they will get multiple offers which makes me think that he might already have a reason to

believe that like like it could be that somebody has uh told him before he published that he would do it or something i don't know i mean it's he was he was so confident though that it made me wonder what he knows that i don't know well if you're if you're going to do one of those stunt columns that that people do every year the attention getting columns about how you're not voting or whatever you can't vote for anyone because of the peds and you don't know what went on i guess this would be the ultimate way to get clicks and get attention. It just seems like if you did do it openly, I feel like your vote would be stripped probably or it just wouldn't count. I would, you know, this is, I doubt this is something that the BBWA wants to happen and have there be precedent for. there be precedent for so i i would imagine that that they would move pretty quickly to to disallow this in some way or kick you out of the organization or strip you of your vote or

something uh so right i mean this is it's not it's not the u.s constitution i mean they they would just right they would just chuck it right i mean they there was a little mini controversy a few years ago when players started having clauses in their contract where even one vote for an award would trigger a bonus. And people started noting that, you know, a player could very easily bribe a reporter to throw a third place vote at him. And, you know, the player gets 25 grand and the writer gets 2,500. And, you know, that, so BBWA or whoever handles the, I guess, actually, I think baseball ruled those out, I believe. And so anyway, yeah, you're right.

I mean it's not like – And there are outlets that don't permit their writers to vote for awards. To vote for – Like The Times doesn't. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Partly because it's a conflict of interest. So once you actually start profiting off it, then – Yes.

Like literally profiting off it, it would be – Okay, so I don't know this, but my guess is that the origin of this is actually – I suspect the origin is from about two years ago when Tommy Craggs of Deadspin wrote a piece. I guess you could say an admiring piece of one of the craziest ballots that's ever been submitted. And this ballot was Jack Morris, Edgar Martinez, Tino Martinez, Don Mattingly, and B.J. Surhoff. And this piece is linked within Marchman's piece and and rather than just simply say like this is an absurd ballot which you know it pretty much was uh blilemon and by the way didn't didn't make that ballot um uh tommy said uh and you know what i love this ballot this there's a wonderful bug house comedy

to this ballot this is a ballot that eats crowns i look at this ballot and i hear tuba music it is a great big shrinking shrieking monkey cage of a ballot and I hear tuba music. It is a great big shrieking monkey cage of a ballot. And I love it because that is exactly what the Hall of Fame deserves. There is a tone that is consistent between that piece and this project. And so I wonder if you think that once you allow, as many do, that the Hall of Fame voting is broken and perhaps the Hall of Fame itself is broken or perhaps the BBWA voting system is broken. Is this the appropriate way, do you think, to protest it? And I've gone back and forth on that today. Is this better than indifference?

Indifference works pretty well for me, I feel like. I don't know. I didn't have a problem with it. I was sort of amused by it. I don't expect anything to come out of it. I would be surprised. I'm surprised that Tim is so confident about it. I don't know. I mean, the people who are reading this and appreciating this kind of, I think, already regard the Hall of Fame voting as broken and are the same people complaining about crazy ballots and grandstanding and showboating and all of that. So I don't think it changes anyone's mind, really.

I don't think that it will change the BBWA's voting process or anything like that. I don't—it's hard to imagine it affecting change. Yeah, that's, I think—I think that's true. Yeah, that's I think, I think that's true. It is hard to imagine, even if you allow 10 people to take this up, I don't see what the outcome is. I don't think it turns the award into, you know, the voting into a farce any more than, you know, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens being left out already, you know, might seem to. I mean, if you think that Bonds and Clemens are being left out appropriately, then you don't think it's a farce at all. But I mean, a lot of people do, and that does more than, you know, a sort of gimmick stunt ballot would.

than a sort of gimmick stunt ballot would. I don't know if there is a way of seizing power, but this doesn't... Again, it's hard for me to imagine what this would do. It doesn't feel like it would be shocking, exactly. I guess if 75 people voted feel like it would be shocking exactly. I guess if 75 people voted, maybe it would be shocking and it might shock the system. But if one person did it, the problem is, I think the reason that Deadspin is in a little bit of a tough spot if it wants to make a bold statement or get somebody to make a bold statement, is that the Hall of Fame voting is just, it's all individuals trying to make crank statements.

I mean, there's always somebody who's like turning in some crank ballot to, you know, to protest something or to make some bigger statement. I mean, there's still people who write in Pete Rose. It hasn't gotten Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame, for instance. I mean, this 500 people, one voice, no matter how cranky, is easily kind of cast aside. And so, like, if you imagine that some prominent writer sells his vote for $3,500 or whatever, besides being a little bit of fun, I don't see, like like how it scares anybody into action i guess i wonder what deadspin would pay for this i'm kind of curious i do too i do i've also wondered what deadspin would pay for it i've also wondered what deadspin's ballot will be do you think deadspin's

ballot is the ballot that uh the most people would actually want to see elected. Are we going to see a ballot with Bonds, Clemens, BGO, etc.? Or is this ballot all Lenny Harris? It's just Lenny Harris and I don't even know who else. Yeah, maybe just a parody ballot or something. Yeah, I don't know. know who else yeah maybe just any parody ballot or something yeah i don't know i the only way that i can imagine this really changing is if just people stop reading the the articles that people write about their ballots every year and i can't imagine that happening because

people love reading those things and complaining about them and blogging about them and tweeting about them either that or if there's such a deadlock every year that we see what happened last year where no one gets in and the Hall of Fame, you know, starts suffering financially because no one comes to the museum and no one comes to the induction ceremony because they're forced to like reelect, you know, elect people from the 19th century who no one cares about. If that happened repeatedly, then I would imagine that the hall just out of a sense of self-preservation would, you know, maybe take the vote away from the writers and come up with some other way to do it. But I don't really imagine that things will get to that point because there

are just so many deserving players stuffed up on the ballot at this point, that there are enough who are sort of free of any sort of steroid whispers that they're going to get in, and people will be happy, and people will go see them and spend the weekend in Cooperstown, and the system will continue, I think. the system will continue, I think. Do you think that if Maddox and Frank Thomas get elected from that generation, do you think it breaks the fever a little bit and kind of clears the way for more players from that generation? Because there is a weird nobody from the era contingent of voters.

And once people from that era are in in then it becomes a lot harder to be intellectually consistent you know like if you're saying Maddox is from that era but uh he's in and but Biggio's from that era and he can't be in right I mean especially especially Frank Thomas I feel like because he's a gigantic got the same numbers as Bagwell gigantic home run hitter who's played during this PED era, and he's never been connected to anything. But, right, if you're going to say that he definitely didn't do anything, then, I mean, you can't really be consistent. There's no way to prove that he didn't.

You could look at Frank Thomas, and, I mean, he was always a big guy, obviously. But if you wanted to say the same things about Frank Thomas that people say about Bagwell or any other big slugger from that period, you could. So, yeah, maybe that helps a little bit. I don't know. helps a little bit i don't know guys like you could actually you could actually say you could say anything you want about anybody because apparently nobody has editors anymore as it is that's true um yeah i don't know guys like as like maddox and glavin i i guess you could draw some distinction between them and just the big hulking guys, even if you shouldn't draw that distinction, because we know that not every PED user is some giant who looks like Bonzer McGuire,

but you could if you're the kind of person who's just sort of making up PED connections out of thin air anyway. You could say he doesn't look like one of those types, which maybe would be harder to say about Thomas or Tomei or someone like that. All right. So last question. Tim has, in the past, he has sort of, I forget the term he used for it, but he's criticized a sort of particular breed of baseball fandom whereby everything gets distilled into, you know, a very kind of utilitarian question of whether, you know, player X is better than player Y. And one of the examples he gives for this is, you know, people who really, you know, bash Omar Vizquel as a non-Hall of Famer instead of just sort of appreciating what Omar Vizquel was. And it made me think that, as he points out in this,

the power play in this scenario for the writers is presumably saying no. They don't get power so much from saying yes. Now, obviously, they do try to, you know – there's a type of voter who's trying hard to say yes to Jack Morris. But it seems like over the past five or ten years, it has been so much more about expressing your power through saying no. And in a way, it feels like the sabermetric fan also takes a certain pride in or joy in saying no to certain players to saying you know to sort of snarking on players more than lifting them up and and saying no to certain hall of famers rather than saying yes and again there are some they say yes to but do you think that there's something consistent between like us and them in this kind of cold-hearted desire to kill men's dreams well you have to say no at some point right i mean that has to be that has to be an integral

part of this process because if you don't say no then you're you're cheapening the the achievement right i mean you can't most of the people on the ballot had pretty impressive careers. They played for a long time, but if you want the Hall of Fame to be something special, then you, you have to draw these distinctions between the very, very best of the best and, and the really, really good players, right? So it always kind of comes down to this guy belongs and this guy doesn't, unless it's, I mean, if it's a true no doubt guy, like, like a Maddox or someone, no one's really saying no, except for the crazy people who think that no one can get in on the first ballot, which I've never understood that at all. I mean, that's just, I can't even imagine what the rationale for that is.

I guess it's that previous, no doubt, people were not first ballot All-Famers. So we just keep perpetuating the mistake of not putting in the best players ever because previous generations of voters kept out also best players ever for no particular reason. So that I don't understand. But if it's someone like Maddox, then it's clear he's one of the very shortlist best pitchers ever. You can celebrate his pinpoint command or whatever you want to talk about. But at some point, you have to have a cutoff. And then it does kind of become

pointing out people's flaws and i don't i mean to me i don't mind that so much because theoretically it could be kind of a way to to educate people or expose people to advanced stats right if it's one of those cases where a guy has really gaudy superficial numbers, but you can say, oh, but look at the park he played in and the era and he didn't walk or he didn't get on base or whatever. And you can kind of use it as an object lesson or you can do it the other way too. If it's someone like Reigns or, you know, anyone who maybe doesn't have the counting stats that people traditionally look for, but added value in all these other ways, you use them as an example of why these things matter. So I don't mind that.

I think there is inherently a negative aspect to it and an impulse to it, but I think there has to be. There has to be. My favorite, maybe my favorite tweet of all time, and I've spent up to 20 minutes up to three times trying to find it, and I've yet to find it. So somebody could make me extremely happy and probably get mentioned on this show if you find it. But it was by Adam Jones, and somebody had asked him if so-and-so was a Hall of Famer, and Adam Jones says, everybody is. We're all great. Everybody should was a hall of famer and adam jones says everybody is we're all great everybody should be a hall of famer so find find that tweet people somebody find it yeah that's all right yeah uh all right uh good sounds good all good and i i should note that i mean tim archman is if if not my favorite baseball writer, he's one of my three favorite. And at times I say he's my favorite, but there are times I say one of two other people is my favorite.

And so just to be consistent, he's a top three guy for me. And the very fact that he thinks this is a good idea has me seriously questioning my own instincts. So it wouldn't surprise me if I wake up tomorrow feeling the opposite alright that was it tomorrow's email show podcast at baseballperspectives.com please email we like emails and we'll answer them all you

you have to know that that's an awful topic for us I mean it's not an awful topic for the world but for us it's an awful topic right do you have to know that not one I would particularly enjoy but I think probably other people would be more interested in it yeah but when do we serve the community um