MLBRT 2/1/2024

The questions and discussion…  

1) There aren’t any MLB teams that could not benefit from the starting pitchers… a list that includes World series hero Jordan Montgomery, reigning NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Clay Kershaw (all coveted left-handers), as well as Michael Lorenzen, Mike Clevinger and Zack Greinke… still available through the present free agent market. With that through in mind…

In your opinion what is the hold up with these starters… why  haven’t they been signed by a MLB team?   

While it’s strange that the top pitchers haven’t been signed yet, I think it’s a mixture between commanding too much money and teams liking to wait right before the start of spring training to finalize their pitching moves and grab these players.

We’ve seen in the past several seasons that a lot of moves happen a week or two before spring training starts. And some of these players are older. Blake Snell is the biggest question mark on the list, especially since he’s coming off of the season that he’s coming off. But these players will be signed, despite the age and questionability by some of them (Kershaw, who likely is going back to the Dodgers, and Greinke are up there in age). All these pitchers will be signed to a team come the start of the season, but it’s going to bring them down in money, and it’s going to be fast right before Spring Training begins. 

My guess is that all of these pitchers have some sort of drawback to how they are perceived by the GM’s of the various MLB teams and in that regard those GMs are reluctant to pony up the money/years that the agents of these pitchers are looking for in any contracts they ultimately negotiate for their clients.

As the regular season draws near and the teams begin to sort out their starting rotations I think many of these pitchers will wind up being signed to either fill out a rotation that is found to be lacking in quality starters or as insurance/add depth to their rotations in the inevitable circumstance of an injury happening during the season. Whether teams will overpay in some sort of sense either in years and/or money to acquire one or two of these pitchers will in all likelihood be something that will occur but for the most part I think outside of Snell and Montgomery if any of these pitchers are still unsigned as spring training is drawing to a close and the regular season is about to begin the asking price their agents are looking for will come down somewhat and they will eventually find a team to play for in 2024.  

2) The results are in, and the Baseball Writers have selected Adrian Beltre, Tod Helton and Joe Mauer as the newest members to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in July.

What are your takeaways from the latest Hall of Fame vote by the Baseball Writers including your opinions regarding the players they elected as well as who they might have snubbed? Why?  

I agree with the new Hall of Famers. They all had great careers. Beltre was a lock to make it, Todd Helton had a fantastic career, even though he did have the advantage of playing his entire career with the Colorado Rockies and having a nice lift-off to get him the hits and home runs that he had, but he also hit away from Coors Field. Joe Mauer was one of the best, if not, the best catcher during his time as a Minnesota Twin before he made the switch to first base after concussions forced him there, where he struggled for the ending of his career. They all are well deserving of the Hall of Fame.

I believe there was one snub this go-round though, and that was Billy Wagner. He had MVP votes in two seasons and finished top-10 in Cy Young voting in two seasons as well. Finished his career with 422 saves, 1196 strikeouts to 300 walks, 2.31 ERA and an ERA+ of 187. He was one of the dominant closers of all-time, and he deserves a nod to the Hall of Fame. He even dominated to the very tail end of his career, posting 37 saves for Atlanta in 2010 with a 1.87 ERA and a sub-1 WHIP as well. I couldn’t believe he didn’t get in, so I expect him to be voted in next year. 

Beltre had a cold stone Hall of Fame career in my opinion and was a lock to be elected on the first ballot as far as I am concerned so he was no surprise and deserved to be elected by the Baseball Writers on the first ballot.   

Helton? Meh. Decent player and a guy I though was borderline but overall I can accept he got voted into the Hall.

Mauer? To me he was a surprise. The so-called counting stats were very lacking, and his peak was very short lived. In my opinion he was no lock to be elected into the Hall so the fact he got in on the first ballot is kind of a shock.

My other take aways are…

First… that the Writers screwed Gary Sheffield. Sorry but a guy who walked more than he struck out, had over 500 HRs and had 1600-plus RBIs and runs scored is a Hall of Famer. In fact arguably should have already been in the Hall within his first three years on the ballot. Yeah he was mentioned in the Mitchell Report, which was never supposed to be made public, but he never tested positive ever during his career and he had always said he never used. If that is why some of the Writers neglected to include him on their ballots then maybe they shouldn’t have a vote at all. Again Sheffield got screwed.

Second… why the hell is Billy Wagner not in the Hall yet? And they have just one more year to correct that mistake in not electing him into the Hall because next year is Wagner’s tenth. Let’s hope he doesn’t meet Sheffield’s fate from this year’s ballot.    

3) CBSSports.com writer Matt Snyder has a column called Snyder’s Soapbox where he delves into his viewpoints on various MLB issues. In one of these columns he opines about “Why players who ‘compiled’ stats shouldn’t be disregarded in Hall of Fame.” You can read all about his opinion at the following link: https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/snyders-soapbox-why-players-who-compiled-stats-shouldnt-be-disregarded-in-hall-of-fame-discussions/.

What is your opinion on his opinion regarding “statistical compilers” in MLB and why they deserve to be included into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Valid or invalid or somewhere in-between? Why?

I think players who compile stats should still be in, because it’s not like basketball or football where you can just keep running it up and keep adding point totals or yardage totals with no regard for winning. In baseball, if you’re pitching, nobody is going to be giving up and allowing you to just strike them out to “pad” your stats. Same with hitting. No pitcher is just going to allow you to crank home runs or crank out shots into gaps in order to pad stats. Baseball just doesn’t have that, especially with the nature of the sport. So yes, if you recorded 3000 hits, you are a lock for the Hall of Fame. If you hit close to 500 home runs, yes, you are a lock for the Hall of Fame. If you have five MVP awards, but no playoff appearances, you still deserve the Hall of Fame. It’s just the way it is. Baseball, each game and each at-bat, is incredible impressive whether you strike out a hitter or if you hit a single. Players who hit over .300 for their career is incredible. That’s only three hits for every ten at-bats. If you have a sub-3 ERA, that means that you allowed less than three runs per nine innings pitched. So to compile stats isn’t like a different sport, it’s an impressive feat that should be rewarded with the ultimate trophy a baseball player can achieve to celebrate career success. 

In his article Snyder makes the point that players who “complied” their stats had to have played in MLB a lot of years to have had the opportunity to  compile those stats and that in itself is a significant accomplishment. To be able to last that long in a very tough game that very few ever get to perform within at the major league level when most players that make the majors are lucky to last a few years if not just for the proverbial “cup of coffee” when they make the Bigs. And to me that says it all…

So, yes, if a player can last 15 to 20 years in MLB and can compile the numbers that puts them among the top players in the counting stats… e.g., 3,000 hits, 500 HRs, 1500 RBIs for hitters and 3000 strikeouts and 250 to 300 wins for pitchers… to have ever played the game then they are deserving of having the voters select them to be in the Hall and have a plaque hanging on the wall of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

4) Turning back to the issue of free agency…

Along with pitchers Montgomery and Snell, third baseman Matt Chapman and outfielder/first baseman Cody Bellinger are also still unsigned. These players are all repped by agent Scott Boras.

What are your thoughts regarding Boras’ tactics of taking his clients so deep into the off-season? Why?

And overall what is your opinion regarding Boras and his effect on MLB? Why?  

I’m not the biggest fan of Boras taking his clients this deep into the off-season. I feel like you would want to lock up your players as quickly as you can, but gauging the market is an important tactic as well. You don’t want to get your player a contract that’s significantly under what a player who isn’t as good or as established as your client got. You don’t want to go way over the market and screw up everything else either, especially for other players that you represent. So I understand waiting until the time is right, but with spring training coming up in a month, I think it’s time to get players signed to teams and ease up on some negotiations.

Boras is one of the best agents in baseball, and gets his clients big contracts. So I trust his tactics, and I think that he is good for baseball players and good for their pockets. He brings in more money, bigger contracts, and locked in deals. He’s looking out for the players’ best interests and I see nothing wrong with that. Now for teams, I think that he has some agendas to force teams to spend more money, but with the amount of revenue or wealth that the owners bring in, why not take it from them and give to the players who make those organizations the wealth. 

While it may see some what antithetical for an agent to  wait as long to get a player/client a deal as Boras sometimes tends to do his track record of success speaks for itself.

As for Boras himself as somewhat kind of obnoxious as he can be with his “know-it-all” demeanor and his legendary books that he creates detailing his clients accomplishments as well as their talents and abilities Boras’ job is to work to get his clients… the players who hire him… the best possible deal he can get for them.

While there are times he isn’t successful with his strategies his successes far outnumber his misses. The bottom line is that he is very good at his job and like it or not Boras works for his clients the players and not the owners and sorry not we the fans either. And whether people like it or not if he s chasing the highest amount of moolah he can get from some billionaire owner he is doing it because that is what that player wants him to do.

Plus if anything Boras is pro-labor as it as he reps the players.. aka the workers in MLB… who are the force and reason behind why we fans come out to the games and spend our money to buy tickets, refreshments, souvenirs and other baseball related paraphernalia that creates the billions of dollars that the owners share in every season since most of us fans are worker ourselves (albeit on much lesser level) we should be supportive of what he is doing for his clients.

In the end Boras owes the players who hire him to do the best possible job he can do and the overwhelming majority of the time he does exactly that.

So I have no problem with him for doing his job to the best of his ability.

5) The latest Hall of Fame vote shows that PED suspended players Alex Rodriquez and Manny Ramírez similar to Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, who were never suspended but often were associated with PED use, are not going to be voted into the Hall by the Baseball Writers.

Do you ever see a time when players who have PED associations and/or suspensions are eventually allowed into the Hall? Why or why not?  

I think that they will get in via the Era Committee votes.

That was an important era in Major League Baseball, and even though they did take some substances that provided advantages to them, it didn’t play for them. PEDs didn’t put in the work to be as good as they were. It didn’t put them in the gym. It didn’t put them in the cage. It didn’t put them on the mound and make them throw with accuracy, make them swing with great timing, it didn’t do the work that these players did. Yes, it made them be able to work out non-stop and get bigger, stronger and faster than others. But it didn’t get them to the point of putting the stats on their scorecards that they put up.

They also were playing against a lot of other players who were participating in them, so was the playing level fair across the board? Was it fair for some, and unfair for others? Does it make every player who played in that time who didn’t get accused or caught more impressive? Those are the questions you have to ask, and I feel like all the players who put up automatic Hall of Fame numbers will get in one day. And they might wait until they have passed away until they put them in the Hall of Fame, so they don’t get the “satisfaction” of being inducted into the Hall of Fame. But the agenda the writers have, as a collective, against Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, is sad and shouldn’t be set. Put these players in the Hall of Fame. They deserve it.

Bonds was the best hitter of all-time, arguably. Clemens was one of the best pitchers of all-time with seven Cy Young Awards. Manny Ramirez was a home run machine. Alex Rodriguez had a great career, even before PEDs. Bonds was great before the stats and was going to be a home run and stolen base machine before the PEDs. Clemens was a shutdown ace before the PEDs. Put them in the Hall of Fame. I firmly believe they’ll end up in Cooperstown via the Era’s Committee one day, but it might be a couple decades of time before it happens. 

Eventually I think there might be a time when down the road some committee or another looks at these players’ careers and decides that they are deserving of being in the Hall. It very well might happen after the majority, if not all of them, have died but it will most likely occur.

Once upon a time I was firmly in the camp that any player who ever did PEDs especially if they were suspended, should not be elected into the Hall. And to some degree I still have that attitude especially with a player such as Alex Rodriguez who regardless of how damn good he was had to repeatedly thumb his nose at the game and was not only a repeat offender but lied constantly and consistently to the point he was libelous against various people involved on all levels of MLB. I have a lot more respect for Bonds who just most times simply said, “no comment” and walked away.

But my attitude is now this…  I think they should be let into the Hall… even if they aren’t elected during their time of eligibility… but where it is warranted… where there is proof and not some allegations but proof they used and/or they suffered a suspension or even two… put a notation on their plaques, along with their accomplishments in MLB, that they were associated with a confirmation of PED use and/or were suspended because they failed a test and were guilty of using PEDs.

Extra Innings…