Reminder - Only One is in the HOF

Well Deserved

Curt Schilling should have been joining him.

Quotes for Today

Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.

"Risk is what's left when you think you've thought of everything." - Carl Richard

"I'm not an investor. I like to make technologies real that I think are important for the future and useful in some sort of way." - Elon Musk

"To infinity and beyonnnnddddd." - President Joe Biden

"Companies should have to get shareholder permission to take political stances." - Glenn Reynolds

"Anyone want to see if we can't get a MAGA event scheduled in Atlanta for the date of the ASG?" - Curt Schilling

"Every battle is won before it is fought." - Sun Tzu

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Serious question - if the Democrats use the 25th Amendment on the basis of President Biden being non compos mentis to make Kamala Harris the President - would that invalidate all of Biden's Executive Orders? Some of them? Need a ruling on this... Very cool... Would 100% support any baseball writer who submits a blank Hall of Fame ballot permanently losing their voting rights... Re-watched Charlie Wilson's War and it holds up pretty well which should not be surprising since it stars Tom Hanks and Phillip Seymour-Hoffman, and was directed by Mike Nichols with the screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. This was the last movie Mike Nichols directed before he passed... Every pitcher with 3,000 or more strikeouts who is eligible has been elected to the Hall of Fame except Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling. Clemens is being kept out because of steroids but there's no valid reason to keep Schilling out - and no because you don't like his politics is not a valid reason...

2020 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

Here's who I'd vote for (in order of my level of support):

- Derek Jeter - no brainer

- Curt Schilling - I've made the case for Curt Schilling and the Hall of Fame in the past. Suffice it to say that Schilling is 15th all-time in strikeouts and every player ahead of him (except Roger Clemens) on that list is in the Hall. Schilling is being punished for his politics.

- Omar Vizquel - 11-time Gold Glove winner. He was basically the equal of Ozzie Smith (but without the back-flips).

- Larry Walker - Former MVP and 7-time Gold Glove winner. He suffers from people biased against Coors Field but he was as good a hitter as Edgar Martinez and as good a fielder as Dwight Evans. He's a Hall of Famer.

- Todd Helton - his career batting numbers are comparable to George Brett. He's easily one of the Top 10 First Basemen of all-time and perhaps the Rockies greatest player ever.

- Jeff Kent - Former MVP and all-time leader among second basemen in HR. Wasn't exactly likable which I think has hurt his Hall chances.

My feeling is that the steroids guys traded their eligibility for the Hall of Fame for the bigger paychecks they received for their cheating ways. They cashed those checks and did those steroids - so tough luck that's the bargain they made.

Curt Schilling and the Hall of Fame

This past week four new members were voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame; Mariano Rivera, Edgar Martinez, Roy Halliday and Mike Mussina.

Not making the cut was Curt Schilling who garnered 60.9% of the vote (75% is needed for induction). What bothers me is I truly believe Schilling was kept out of the Hall because of his politics and his personality.

Now don't get me wrong - I think Schilling can be a real horse's ass but this isn't supposed to be a personality test. This is supposed to be an honor earned for on the field performance and I believe Schilling earned that honor for his deeds in both in the regular and in the post seasons.

Schilling is one of only 16 players in MLB history to have over 3,000 strikeouts. Of the pitchers in the 3,000 K Club - all of them are in the Hall of Fame. Except Curt Schilling and Roger Clemens who is being black balled for another reason *cough*steroids*cough*. Membership in the 3,000 K Club normally equals induction but not for Schilling. Why? Because some writers don't like his politics.

In terms of playoff performance - he was one of the best when it came to the biggest games. Schilling went 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA in 12 post season series. In winning 3 World Series titles - Schilling was named co-MVP in one and had the legendary "bloody sock" postseason heroics in another. (For comparison sake - Mike Mussina went 7-8 with a 3.42 ERA in his postseason pitching opportunities.)

Schilling had three 20-win seasons. He went 22-6 in 2001 and 23-7 in 2002 for Arizona. Both of those seasons he finished 2nd in Cy Young voting to teammate and future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson who went a combined 45-11 with 706 strikeouts in those two seasons. In 2004 Schilling went 21-6 for the Red Sox but again finished 2nd in Cy Young voting. That year Johan Santana also went 21-6 for the Twins but had a better ERA and more K's than Schilling. You have to wonder if Schilling had won just one Cy Young award if it would have been too hard for voters to justify excluding him.

I've made the argument that Schilling's three 2nd place seasons were better than the three seasons that won Jim Palmer his Cy Young awards.

People have argued that Schilling is "trending" towards induction next year. But that doesn't give the people who voted against him simply because they don't like his politics or personality a pass. Besides what if politics gets even more divisive in 2019? Seems like that's going to be the case. More reason for these self-righteous voters to double-down on not voting for Schilling.

It isn't fair. It isn't right. It it casts shame not on Schilling but on the baseball writers who vote and on the the Baseball Hall of Fame itself.

2019 Hall of Fame Ballot

Picking 10 names from that list is difficult. I'd break my choices into two categories; "No Doubt" and "Had to Think About It but Yes."

Here's my picks:

No Doubts:

Mariano Rivera, Fred McGriff (long been a supporter of the Crime Dog), Curt Schilling, and Larry Walker (people forget how crazy good he was)

Had to Think About It But Yes:

Roy Halladay (sentiment will make his selection easier but is his case actually better than Curt Schilling's?), Mike Mussina (but only after Schilling gets in - Schilling was the better pitcher who is now being punished for being a crazy uncle), Omar Vizquel (guy had 11 Gold Gloves and was every bit the fielder as Ozzie Smith).

That's only 7 choices but that's all I'd feel comfortable with.

As far as steroids guys like Bonds and Clemens - my view is these guys did steroids to get paid which they did handsomely. They knowingly sacrificed their chances to make the Hall for the opportunity to make millions with big contracts. That's the choice they made and they got paid. And now that's all they should get.

Player Comparison

Here's a Player Comparison for your consideration - both players are starting pitchers.

Player A - 239 W / 3.69 ERA / 3343.1 IP / 2862 SO / 61.0 WAR
Player B - 216 W / 3.46 ERA / 3261.0 IP / 3116 SO / 79.6 WAR

The only real advantage Player A has over Player B is in wins but what if I told you Player B also had 22 saves while Player A had none? How about if I also told you that Player B was a monster in the playoffs  going 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA while Player B was a pedestrian 10-6 with a 4.20 ERA? Game, set and match to Player B - right?

Well Player A is CC Sabathia who has been recently touted as a  potential Hall of Fame player when he retires. Player B is Curt Schilling who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but many of the same people touting Sabathia haven't voted for him.

Schilling is 15th all-time in strikeouts and every player ahead of him (except Roger Clemens) is in the Hall of Fame. Schilling is 26th all-time for WAR and every player ahead of him (except Clemens and Mike Mussina) are also in the Hall of Fame.

The whole process has turned into a joke!

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- The day a young Big Papi showed me - and his teammates - how to handle sexual harassment. I bet Ortiz probably doesn't remember this act of kindness. He probably figured that it's just the way men - real men - are supposed to act.

 - My guess is that Chuck Yeager is probably more proud of this than even of breaking the sound barrier. Read the book Yeager to fully understand the circumstances behind this great achievement.

- Heh heh

- My idea of great art

- Oral Sex in the Bible

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- I agree 100% with Brian Kenny on Curt Schilling

- File this under "you have to be F'n kidding me!" FDA may ban ice cream sprinkles.

- Tom Brady's restructured contract is a Win-Win for him and the Patriots.

- Soldier's wedding had to be moved so Obama could play golf.

- Put me in the camp that doesn't think North Korea was behind the Sony hack

Player Comparison

Here's a Player Comparison between two pitchers

Player A: Age 30 / Height 6'4" / Weight 240 / GS 252 / IP 1596
Player B: Age 31 / Height 6'5" / Weight 205 / GS 191 / IP 1510

I use different ages for two reasons - Player A was born in January while Player B was born in November also Player B basically lost a season to the 1995 Player's Strike. I consider the players to be fairly similar in body types and pitching styles (though Player A is a lefty and Player B a righty).

The reason I think this is a pertinent Player Comparison is because Player A is Jon Lester and the Red Sox may be considering signing him to a six-year deal. Player B is Curt Schilling who averaged 217 innings pitched in the next six years after his age 31 season. I happen to think six years is a good risk on Lester.

I don't buy that Schilling was just 205 pounds though.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Given Curt Schilling's views on evolution - I wonder if he thinks it was God's will his video game company went bankrupt too... There's Farmer's Markets where farmers sell their produce. Why not Hunter's Markets where hunters can sell their excess game meat like venison?... I've long said that JFK would not be welcome in today's Democrat Party... Happy 74th birthday to Red Sox favorite Luis Tiant. If Catfish Hunter is in the Hall of Fame then Looie should be too... Some cool homages to Arthur Conan Doyle in Sherlock.. Why do they say "hike" before snapping the ball in football? What are they "hiking"? Seriously this little language nugget is bugging me... Neil Gaiman talks about one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes of all-time... Oversized Load would make a great title for a biography of Peter North...

Linky Links

Stuff I fund interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Curt Schilling for the Hall of Fame? I say yes based mostly on his 3,000 plus K's and his post season performance.

- Nice profile of BC's Andre Williams. I have to think Williams sudden Heisman chances will help get the Eagles into a higher profile Bowl game.

- Speaking of good profiles - here's one on ESPN's John Clayton one of the hardest working men in football.

- Cool - excellent photo of the Seattle skyline above the fog.

- Good point - why should it be called an RJ45 port?

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Alex Rodriguez's actions this season seem like the actions of a man laying the foundation for an insanity plea... Heh heh - the Royal baby introduced to the public... Andy Pettitte just passed Sandy Koufax on the all-time strikeout list but it took Pettitte 912 more innings to do it. Meanwhile Pettitte now has 719 fewer K's than Curt Schilling in basically the same number of innings... George HW Bush shaves his head in support of the son of secret service agent. It should be recalled that George and Barbara lost their first daughter Robin to childhood leukemia. History will be kind to this good man... With NASCAR going to NBC from ESPN - will Brad Daugherty now start doing more college basketball games for the Mothership?... From now on I am going to intriduce myself as a "minor celebrity" - Chris Lynch Minor Celebrity. Who is to argue the point? I may even have cards made up... Peter King did a Reddit AMA (ask me anything). I really hope someone asked him how many NFL coaches have a foot fetish. He'd have to answer at least one...

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

I wonder what the updated Vegas odds are of Roger Clemens getting voted into the Hall of Fame. I remember during the summer it was 4-1 that he'd get in on the first ballot and 7-4 that he'd get in on the second ballot.The guy would obviously be a 100% lock without the steroids allegations. It will be interesting to watch... Tom Brady is operating at a level this season that few quarterbacks in history have reached yet he gets very little MVP recognition because we've come to expect this from Brady. Brady is simply unbelievable. Enjoy him while you can... Probably shouldn't write this but I can't be the only person who quietly suspects that film maker Ken Burns may secretly be a woman - can I?...  Bad management - not unions killed Hostess... Interesting stat from SI's Stewart Mandel; of Notre Dame's 12 wins - 9 came against bowl eligible teams. Alabama only had 5 such wins and Georgia just 4... Didn't realize this but Curt Schilling actually had a higher career WAR (76.9) than Jeff Bagwell (76.7). Not reading anything into that - just that it surprised me... The next fuck I give about the Jets "Fireman" Ed will be the first.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Just saying but on day when Tom O'Brien leads NC State to a huge upset over Florida State - Boston College loses to Army. BC should have paid the man when they had the chance... The Princess Bride cast reunites for 25th year anniversary of movie's release...  I know Notre Dame won big against Miami but I still hope they drop in the polls just as retribution for those awful helmets they wore last night...  I love Terry Francona and him taking Indians job shows he'd rather be Teddy Roosevelt's "man in the arena" than a critic on the sidelines at ESPN. Good for him!... It will be very interesting to follow this story. Phil Ivey wins 7.3 million British pounds over 2-nights but casino is refusing to pay... Pop-tarts are a gateway food to diabetes... History nuggets: When Admiral Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manilla in 1898 - he only lost 1 US sailor. To heat-stroke... Apple was just 90-days away from bankruptcy when Steve Jobs returned to company he helped found. When you think of it that way - the story of what Jobs did with Apple is even more incredible...  Terry Francona returns to Fenway Park as the manager of the Indians on May 23rd... Remember Halloween shoppers - Elmo died for your sins... People claim that Barack Obama is not bipartisan but I think him creating jobs only in states with Republican governors disproves that... Always wondered if Pink Floyd song One of These Days was influenced by the theme to Dr. Who or vice versa... I wonder if Curt Schilling is going to try to replace Mark Grace as TV analyst on Diamondbacks games. I'm guessing Schilling could use the money and he was a World Series hero for Arizona... Seriously - do Democrats think David Axelrod is helpful? I can't see him convincing undecided voters of anything except possibly the fact that Axelrod looks like an unsuccessful child molester...

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Some day soon Josh Hamilton's life will be immortalized by a Country and Western song. There may even be a whole CD of ballads about Hamilton... Would the Mets do a Johan Santana for Clay Buchholz swap? The Mets would get a young pitcher under control for years and also shed a tremendous amount of cash. The Red Sox would get an ace under contract for at least this season and next... Donald Trump should legally add an "O" to the end of his name to make his "brand" more appealing to Europeans. Besides I just like the idea of calling him Donald Trumpo... In June of 2006 - Barack Obama was a 30-1 shot to win the 2008 Democratic Presidential Nomination. That would have been a good bet... Stunt Custard would be a good name for a band (or a fantasy football name)... Curt Schilling should have put it on the Underhill's bill... Airport taco should be slang for something - or it could be a good fantasy football name...

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Gordon Edes pointed out in a Tweet that Tim Wakefield did not mention either Theo Epstein or Terry Francona in his retirement speech. Supposedly Wakefield was not a real big fan of Francona because Tito pulled Wakefield from the rotation. I wouldn't be surprised if Wakefield doesn't blame Francona for not breaking the Red Sox record for wins... Watched Cedar Rapids last night. I thought it was a great movie. Then again - after watching Crocodile Dundee for the first time I was convinced it was the best movie ever made... 11 Brilliant Lifehacks. Some very cool ideas here... I knew that Shaefer is the one beer to have when you are having more than one but who knew that Shaefer was the top selling beer in Puerto Rico during the 70's and 80's?... For some perspective on Curt Schilling's overall career consider that Roy Halladay would have to have about 200 strikeouts a year for the next 6 seasons to match Schilling career strikeout mark... Keith Olbermann seems to be like one of those old world gods who ceased to exist if you stopped worshiping them... Meet a black guy in Aspen. Improv Everywhere's latest prank. I thought it was pretty funny.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

OK I'll say it! President Obama reaches out to Palin supporters... John Lackey has a 6.11 ERA. That's hard to fathom. Andrew Miller has a 5.27 ERA. Well that's understandable since he was considered a reclamation project (can we say a failed reclamation project at this point?). Tim Wakefield has 4.95 ERA. I wonder what he must think when he gets skipped in the rotation and has to watch Lackey and Miller make starts... For Wire fans - wonderful interview of McNulty and Freamon... The trade for Adrian Gonzalez may work out to be a better value for the Red Sox than even the one-sided trade that netted them Pedro Martinez. The main reasons I say this is because Gonzalez seems made for Fenway Park and because the team has him under contract for 8-years while Pedro only played 7-seasons in Boston. It should be noted that Pedro averaged 6.8 WAR per year in his Red Sox career (that's why he's a Hall of Famer). If Gonzalez can average 6.8 WAR he'll have won multiple MVP awards... 10 people who switched careers after age 50 with great success... For no reason whatsoever I am going to try and replace the word "hello" with "ahoy" in my everyday vocabulary... I find it interesting that Baseball-reference.com lists Curt Schilling as the most similar pitcher to Pedro Martinez... I'm a complete sucker for any videos of people wearing those flying squirrel wingsuits.

Joe Posnanski

The always interesting Joe Posnanski has a post up looking at Hall of Fame pitchers through the prism of which year they were born. It is a great read but I do have one nit to pick with the article.

He started off by talking about the round numbers that normally denote a Hall of Famer. For pitchers he notes 300 wins and 3,000 strikeouts. He then says the following:

And the players coming with 300 wins or 3,000 Ks will all sail into the Hall of Fame with the possible exceptions of Clemens (and any other pitcher deemed to be PED stained) and Schilling (who has 3,000 Ks but only 216 wins which makes him borderline).

Emphasis added because I thought only people like Joe Morgan not people like Joe Posnanski thought that wins and losses were the measuring stick for a pitcher's greatness.

The seeming hypocrisy regarding Curt Schilling pops up later in Posnanski's post in the advocacy of Billy Pierce:

He [Billy Pierce] only won 211 games in his career, and his 3.27 ERA, while good on its own, doesn’t really do him justice (his 119 ERA+ is better than Steve Carlton or Nolan Ryan).

Wait - Schilling has that supposedly magic number of 3,116 strikeouts but is borderline because he has just 216 wins. That's 5 more wins than Billy Pierce in a similar number of innings pitched (3,261 for Schilling vs 3,306 for Pierce). And if you want to talk about ERA+ then Schilling's 128 is better than Pierce, Steve Carlton and Nolan Ryan along with Jim Palmer, John Smoltz, Juan Marichal, Bob Feller and Don Drysdale among others.

EDIT: Per Joe - he is on record as supporting Curt Schilling when he comes up for election. I was probably just reading too much into things (as usual)