John Fay Abstains from HOF Voting to Avoid Casting Votes for Bonds and Clemens

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by Brutus

There are over 700 members in the association, but I don't know how many abstained and how many simply didn't cast a ballot.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...rticleid=19298

569 people who took part in the Hall of Fame voting this year let's say there are 750 voters

that would be a large amount who abstained, if there are 700 that's still a large number

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by Plus Plus

I don't know if this was a mistake or not, but Mo Egger said on his show today that Fay told him that he turned in a blank ballot.

I think there is a definite chance that some people didn't realize that turning in no ballot and turning in a blank ballot were two very different things; this suspicion came more to light after hearing Nate Silver talk on ESPN's First Take this morning, and bring up the fact that a lot of the members of the BBWA don't even follow baseball closely or primarily write about baseball any longer (WOY, I'm sure you can discuss this further).

...and yet another reason to reevaluate the process.

JP on BP wrote:

The requirements to be eligible to vote for the Hall of Fame are that someone must either be, or had been, a member of BBWAA for 10 continuous years. There is nothing wrong with that on the surface, but there is a problem once you dig deeper and find that a number of 10-year members haven’t written about baseball regularly for years. Furthermore, some haven’t stepped foot in a ballpark in years and others don’t even follow the game anymore. They continue to vote because they see receiving a ballot every December as a status symbol.

In 1998, 473 ballots were cast. Last year there were 573 — an increase of more than 21 percent. Are there really 100 more qualified voters now than there were 15 years ago?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/sp...st-change.html

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by westofyou

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...rticleid=19298

569 people who took part in the Hall of Fame voting this year let's say there are 750 voters

that would be a large amount who abstained, if there are 700 that's still a large number

Agreed. I guess what I meant to say is that out of those 150-200 that didn't cast a ballot, I don't know how many of them didn't cast one as a political statement and how many just 'didn't get around to it this year.'

[Chip R]

Originally Posted by westofyou

A lot

Not necessarily. You are taking stimulants. One is more powerful than the other but they are both stimulants.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by Chip R

Not necessarily. You are taking stimulants. One is more powerful than the other but they are both stimulants.

1965 Maxwell House vs Dexedrine

I know which one I'd be after

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by Chip R

Not necessarily. You are taking stimulants. One is more powerful than the other but they are both stimulants.

It's like M2 said... one only maximizes a player's reaching potential, the other increases potential.

[RedsBaron]

Originally Posted by jojo

I'm specifically asking you to articulate your argument.

I normally ask for payment of a retainer first.
I haven't made a firm argument on what to do with PEDs users are up for election to the HOF. I do believe that PEDs users will eventually be elected and once that happens the argument to keep them out will collapse. At this point I am leaning towards accepting the argument to make a distinction between on field performance and all character issues--ban and suspend players, but if they compiled the numbers hold your nose and let them in.

[Chip R]

Originally Posted by Brutus

It's like M2 said... one only maximizes a player's reaching potential, the other increases potential.

Yes, but one is steroids and the other is greenies. What I'm saying is except for degrees of stimulation, there isn't a difference between caffeine and greenies. One makes you wide awake the other makes you really wide awake. Either way you are chemically altering your body in order to play.

[AtomicDumpling]

Originally Posted by M2

You just listed the pretty much the whole, pathetically small pile of what we know about PED use in baseball. The Mitchell report was a cursory overview. Game of Shadows is a great book, but it's mostly about a single guy. Canseco didn't play for every team in MLB. You're taking a sliver of information and acting like those are all the bad guys, when it is just as possible reporters either willfully or blithely ignored rampant PED use in every clubhouse in MLB. I can't do a LOT more research and neither can your nor anyone else, because the media allowed this go on right under their noses.

The point is you don't know squat about this. For all you know, MLB had 30 dirty teams. There's a handful of guys who've been caught or admitted use, or been directly implicated by teammates or clubhouse personnel. Everything else, and that pretty much encompasses most of what you've typed on this subject, is speculation.

I showed that the "squat" I know about this is infinitely greater than what you know. At least my squat was accurate instead of myth.

[M2]

Originally Posted by AtomicDumpling

I showed that the "squat" I know about this is infinitely greater than what you know. At least my squat was accurate instead of myth.

You listed stuff we all know and it adds up to extremely little. Literally tip of the iceberg.

[AtomicDumpling]

Originally Posted by Dom Heffner

Amphetamines didn't produce the offensive output we saw. Absolutley, positivley nothing of the sort.

To compare an "upper" with drugs that altered players physical appearance and increased muscle mass...you're not playing fair. Again, look at the number of 50 homer seasons during this era: more than all of baseball history combined. You used to blame the parks, pitching...funny, same parks, same pitching, not so many 50 homer seasons. Funny how that works out.

You can throw your head in the sand and talk about Gaylord Perry or how we don't know who was doing it and who wasn't...

I would say it's safe to say that Bonds and Clemens used, wouldn't you?

I agree that amphetamines are a much less egregious form of cheating than steroids, but I disagree that steroids "produced the offensive output we saw". You can explain the number of 50 homer seasons by simply looking at the size of the players. Players are simply much, much bigger today than they were for the first 100 years of major league baseball -- and very little of that size is due to steroids. Players lift weights nowadays. They have personal trainers and complex workout regimens to improve every facet of their core strength, flexibility and speed. They eat a much healthier diet, not only when they reach the majors but as kids too, which helps them grow up much bigger than their parents and grandparents. They have better coaching. And they benefit from improved medical and surgical techniques to get them back to full strength after an injury. Compare that to prior decades where players drank and smoked in the clubhouse, ate junk food and held real jobs in the offseason instead of working out and practicing. When a player got injured the only cure was time -- no surgery or medicine or rehab. Baseball players were told that lifting weights would hurt their bat speed. It is a different world today. The average player is 6-7 inches taller now than back in the 1930's and 40's. Ballparks are smaller. It is no surprise at all that home runs are more common in today's game.

Even in the 1970's players were so much smaller and weaker than today. As Joe Posnanski wrote in his book The Machine, there was a running joke in the Big Red Machine clubhouse that nobody ever used the brand new Nautilus weightlifting equipment that was put there for them to work out on. Some players used the occasional dumbbell and did some stretches before practices and games. That was it. Ted Kluszewski was considered a giant in his day but now there are dozens of players bigger than he was.

Another point to realize is that run scoring in the major leagues began to decline BEFORE the use of steroids even reached its peak. The height of the steroid era is considered to be the years 2001-2004 when more players were juicing than ever and was just before baseball began testing and suspending players for using PEDs in 2005. But scoring reached its highest level in 2000 and has been steadily declining ever since. That does not correlate with the commonly-held perception that steroids usage caused scoring to skyrocket. In actuality, scoring was plummeting while PED usage was booming. Yet people still want to believe that steroids lead to excessive scoring.

The average player is bigger today than during the height of the steroid era. Players today are bigger, stronger, faster and more athletic than ever before in history, yet scoring is lower than it was in several prior eras.

Baseball Prospectus has written extensively (especially in their recent book Extra Innings: More Baseball Between the Numbers) on the topic and has largely concluded that the effect of steroids on scoring has been drastically overblown. Scoring was elevated, but not at a historic rate at all. Home runs were higher than ever, but they concluded that smaller ballparks, bouncier baseballs, denser bats, a smaller strike zone and team expansion were all bigger factors than PEDs when it comes to home run rates.

The biggest reason that people get so upset about the PEDs era is because they feel the cheating re-wrote the record books and fundamentally changed the game, but that notion just doesn't match up with the facts. Yes, the game changed a lot -- but it wasn't due to steroids.

I don't condone the use of PEDs. Those players were cheating and they deserve to be punished. They should have been punished years ago when they were still playing. Punishing them now by denying them induction to the Hall of Fame is a cynical slap on the wrist as far as I am concerned. If baseball truly had a problem with PEDs they would have put a swift stop to it 25 years ago when the problem first became apparent in the 1980's. Getting all holier-than-thou at this late point is a total sham.

[AtomicDumpling]

Originally Posted by M2

You listed stuff we all know and it adds up to extremely little. Literally tip of the iceberg.

You just want to argue without adding anything to the narrative of the thread.