A Little About Hall Of Fame Voting

The results for this year's Baseball Hall of Fame voting are supposed to be released Wednesday. Right now, there doesn't seem to be anyone regarded as a sure thing to be elected. The returning options are going to need to make some jumps in voter support, which they may or may not be able to manage. Of the new choices, the whole steroid issue is causing a lot of discord. Nothing I can do about that, it'll sort itself out eventually.

There was another aspect of the voting I've been turning over in my head. One of the things people use when discussing a player's qualifications are awards they won, or didn't win, if it's a case against voting for them. MVPs, Cy Youngs, Gold Gloves, etc. Seems reasonable. If a guy won the award for Best Pitcher 5 times, then he's probably pretty damn good, right?

The first time I can remember it bothering me was around when Jim Thome reached 500 HRs, and the debate about him as a Hall of Famer started up. Someone (might have been Tom Verducci at SI) mentioned Thome had never won an MVP, and had only finished in the Top 5 once (2003). The theory was, this might be held against him, because how great could he be if he was never perceived to be that valuable?

It should have been obvious before then, but I realized that's hardly fair. MVP is something writers vote on, and it may or may not reflect the reality. Miguel Cabrera won AL MVP this year. I think Mike Trout deserved it, but it's on Carbrera's resume now. People can point to it to argue in his favor.

It's a question of when perception becomes the reality, or maybe for when people can't tell the difference. We thought he was the most valuable player, so we gave him the MVP, and he must be a Hall of Famer because we gave him that MVP.

Put another way: Derek Jeter is, defensively, a terrible shortstop. Great hitter, but lousy with the glove. But he has 5 Gold Gloves, which are supposed to be awarded for defensive excellence. In reality, they're more often awarded to big name players who hit well, which explains Jeter and the one Rafael Palmerio won in '99, when he only played 28 games at first. In theory, though, it's about defense. There will undoubtedly be people who will point to Jeter's Gold Gloves as evidence he's a good shortstop. Even though he had no business winning them.

Anyone who has followed baseball for any period of time can point to awards they feel were given to the wrong player. Randy Johnson should have won the '04 NL Cy Young. Tim Raines or Ozzie Smith should have won the '87 NL MVP. Brendan Ryan should have won the 2012 AL SS Gold Glove (and the 2011 one, and possibly the '09 and 2012 NL Gold Gloves). You probably have your own, or you disagree with mine.

The point is, with the awards, we don't assess the players on what they did, so much as how we perceive it. Writers didn't think Jim Thome was valuable, so he didn't win an MVP award. How relevant is that to Thome's actual contributions? Thome hit 52 HRs and walked 122 times in 2002 whether the voters thought he was the 7th most valuable player in the American League or not. Their voting has no impact on his results, but it will be allowed to impact how they assess his career. Which makes the whole thing feel more like an ego trip for the sportswriters. I know, sportswriters engaged in stroking their own egos with displays of symbolic power? Unheard of.

Maybe it takes some of the fun out of it to only look at the raw stats, and remove the stories from it. Then you don't get to talk about Jack Morris throwing 10 innings a World Series Game 7. It might also eliminate some of the starry-eyed nostalgia and sanctimony, but I consider that a bonus. Besides, it's said you can make numbers say anything you want. There has to be some entertainment to be had trying to pick through the numbers to find ones that fit your argument, be it pro or con. Point to their phenomenal hitting on the second Thursday of the month, in nighttime road games! .370 batting average, with 43 home runs across their career? Not even Babe Ruth can say that! Because he didn't play night games? Sssh!