Hall of Fame’s Modern Baseball Committee Votes Today

Early this evening, shortly after 8:00p ET on MLB Network, the results of the “Modern Baseball” Hall of Fame vote will be announced. Today at the Winter Meetings in San Diego, 5 former General Managers, one owner, 4 long-time media members and 6 Hall of Fame players are meeting to discuss 10 candidates for Cooperstown. These 16 men comprise what’s known as the Eras Committee.

The Eras Committee, which for decades was known as the Veterans Committee, is tasked with electing players who were overlooked on the writers’ ballot and also with inducting managers, pioneers or executives. The Modern Baseball ballot focuses on individuals whose primary impact on the game of baseball was from 1970-1987.

There are 10 nominees for the 2020 Modern Baseball ballot. Two of them are appearing for the first time on the Eras Committee ballot: Boston Red Sox outfielder Dwight Evans and Detroit Tigers second baseman Lou Whitaker. New York Yankees Catcher Thurman Munson, who passed away 40 years ago, appeared on three Veterans Committee ballots in the 2000’s but this is his first appearance on the modern iteration, the “Modern Baseball” ballot.

There are 7 nominees who are returning from the 2018 Modern Baseball ballot. Highlighting the list is Cardinals and Brewers catcher Ted Simmons, who came one vote short of the Hall of Fame two years ago. There are 5 other players returning from 2018: Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres first baseman Steve Garvey, Atlanta Braves center fielder Dale Murphy, right fielder Dave Parker (whose best years were with the Pittsburgh Pirates), and left-handed starting pitcher Tommy John, best known for his years with the Dodgers and Yankees and for the surgery that bears his name. The 10th man on the ballot is former MLB Players Association chief Marvin Miller.

Earlier this week, the Hall revealed the names of the 16 committee members tasked with evaluating the 10 candidates.

The 16 Members of the 2020 Modern Baseball Committee

• Hall of Fame players: Dennis Eckersley, George Brett, Rod Carew, Eddie Murray, Robin Yount, Ozzie Smith
• MLB executives: Dave Dombrowski, Sandy Alderson, David Glass, Walt Jocketty, Doug Melvin, Terry Ryan
• Longtime media members: Bill Center, Tracy Ringolsby, Jack O’Connell, Steve Hirdt

Here are a couple of interesting notes about the 2020 Modern Baseball Committee. First, 7 out of the 16 members were also on the 2018 Committee, which inducted Jack Morris and Alan Trammell to the Hall of Fame and conferred 11 votes to Simmons. The 7 “repeat” members are Eckersley, Brett, Carew, Yount, Alderson, Glass and Hirdt.

Additionally, this panel is a little odd in that there are only 7 members of the Hall of Fame on it. None of the living Hall of Fame managers (Tommy Lasorda, Whitey Herzog, Joe Torre, Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa) are on the panel, nor are Hall of Fame executives Pat Gillick or John Schuerholz. (Lasorda is 92 while Herzog is 88 so it’s not surprising to see neither on the panel). Tracy Ringolsby is in the Hall of Fame in the writers’ wing. He doesn’t have a plaque in the main Hall.

La Russa, of course, was famously on last year’s “Today’s Game” Committee that unexpectedly elected Harold Baines to Cooperstown (more on this later). In this piece, I’ll be taking a look at any links (significant or small) between the 10 nominees and the 16 members of the committee that will vote on them. As we saw with La Russa, Jerry Reinsdorf and Baines last year, these links can be significant. If a player has a passionate advocate on the committee, that can go a long way towards getting him into the Hall of Fame.

It should be noted, however, that none of the six executives on the committee have obvious links to any of the candidates in the way that Reinsdorf and La Russa clearly had with Baines. This might be a coincidence or it might be the Hall of Fame’s way of reacting to last year’s controversy.

The Executives on the Modern Baseball Committee

Here is some background information about the non-players who are on the Modern Baseball Committee. Five of the six executives are former General Managers, mostly NOT within the 1970-87 era which frames the 2020 Modern Baseball Ballot.

• Sandy Alderson got his first job as a General Manager with the Oakland Athletics in 1983. He was a mentor to his eventual successor Billy Beane. After leaving the A’s, Alderson worked for the Commissioner’s office before working for the San Diego Padres and New York Mets.
• Dave Dombrowksi got his first GM job in 1988 with the Montreal Expos. He’s since been in charge of the Florida Marlins, Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox, having recently been let go by the BoSox.
• Walt Jocketty also began his career with the Athletics, where he worked for 13 years. He didn’t become a MLB General Manager until 1994, with the St. Louis Cardinals. He was fired after the 2007 season. He’s been with the Cincinnati Reds in various executive roles since then.
• Terry Ryan was a scout with the New York Mets until he became the Minnesota Twins’ scouting director in 1986. He became the team’s GM in 1994. He spent most of the next two decades with the Twins. He’s been a scout with the Philadelphia Phillies for the last 3 years.
• Doug Melvin was the assistant GM with the Baltimore Orioles from 1987-93 before getting his first GM gig with the Texas Rangers in 1994. He’s best known for his years with the Milwaukee Brewers.

The last name of the baseball executives on the committee is David Glass, the longtime owner of the Kansas City Royals. He took over the club in 1993 after the death of founding owner Ewing Kauffman. Technically, Glass is a former owner, having just concluded a sale of the club to Cleveland Indians vice chairman John Sherman last month.

The Media Members on the Modern Baseball Committee

Here are the bios of the four media members on the panel:

• Jack O’Connell is the secretary-treasurer of the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America). He’s covered MLB since 1980, mostly as a New York area writer, covering the Mets from 1980-88 and the Yankees from 1989-99. He is also the chairman of the BBWAA Historical Overview Committee, which actually chose the 10 nominees for the Modern Baseball ballot.
• Tracy Ringolsby is a Spink Award winner, making him technically a Hall of Famer, the only one on the committee who isn’t a former player inducted to Cooperstown. He is a longtime columnist for Baseball America and previously the Rocky Mountain News. Ringolsby, known for his ever-present cowboy hat, won the Spink Award in 2005.
• Bill Center has been a columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune since 1967. He started covering the Padres in 1983. He’s also a former president of the BBWAA.
• Steve Hirdt is the current Executive Vice-President of the Elias Sports Bureau. He’s written a column for ESPN the Magazine entitled “Do the Math.”

An Analytically Minded Committee?

If there’s one general conclusion that can be drawn from the non-player members of the Modern Baseball Committee, it’s that it might be more analytically-minded than the Eras Committees of recent years. I say this because there are five members who have been high-ranking MLB executives in the past decade, as analytics have permeated all 30 teams’ front offices.

Among the writers, Hirdt can be relied on to look closely at the numbers. Bill Center has voted for sabermetric “darling” candidates Mike Mussina, Edgar Martinez and Larry Walker in recent years and refers to WAR in columns. Ringolsby also refers to WAR in his columns; in 2019, on his BBWAA ballot, he voted for Martinez, Walker, and Mussina as well as sabermetric favorites Scott Rolen, Todd Helton and Billy Wagner.

As for O’Connell, I can’t really divine his views other than to note that the Historical Overview Committee (over which he is chairman) nominated two favorites of the analytics community, Lou Whitaker and Dwight Evans.

I should also note that Dennis Eckersley, an analyst for Red Sox games on NESN, is aware of the value of advanced metrics.

The Veterans Committee is Now the Modern Baseball Committee

In all of its forms, what today is called the Eras Committee has elected 171 men to the Hall of Fame: 100 MLB players, 30 executives, 23 managers, 10 umpires and 8 Negro League players. (An additional 26 Negro League players, pioneers or executives have been inducted by committees designed specifically to honor the Negro Leagues).

Here’s how the vote for the Modern Baseball ballot will work. The panel of 16 voters will be tasked with voting for up to 4 out of the 10 candidates. In order to be elected to the Hall, a candidate needs 12 votes (75%). The 16 members of the committee will meet the Winter Meetings in San Diego and the inductees (if any) will be announced this Sunday, December 8th.

This piece will take a brief look at the 10 candidates on the Modern Baseball ballot, listed alphabetically (by last name). For each player, we’ll show some basic statistics, some advanced ones, their accolades and history of Hall of Fame voting. If you’re not familiar with WAR (Wins Above Replacement), OPS+ (ballpark and era adjusted OPS) or ERA+ (ballpark and era adjusted ERA), please visit the Glossary. There are also links to in-depth pieces about the Hall of Fame credentials for each of the 10 candidates.

Before going through each name, I’ll just put this out there: each and every one of these ten men are more worthy of the Hall of Fame than many others who are already enshrined (mostly from the first half of the 20th century). All nine players listed had excellent careers and Miller should have been inducted a long time ago.

Some of these players were better than others but not a single one would be an “embarrassment” to the Hall. The challenge for the 16 voters will be to determine which men are the four most worthy of the immense honor.

This is an update of the article posted originally on November 4th when the nominees were announced.

Dwight Evans (RF): 20 Years in Major League Baseball

• Red Sox (1972-90), Orioles (1991)
• Career: .272 BA, .370 OBP, .470 SLG, 385 HR, 1,384 RBI, 2,446 Hits
• Career: 127 OPS+, 67.1 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 3-time All-Star, 8 Gold Gloves, 2-time Silver Slugger
• HOF vote: max 10% on 3 BBWAA ballots, 1st time on Vets/Eras ballot

This is the first time that Evans has been given a shot at the Hall of Fame via one of the Eras Committee ballots. Evans was the ultimate late bloomer, at least offensively. During the 1970’s, Evans was usually just the fifth or sixth best offensive player on his own team, best known early in his career for his howitzer of a right arm, which was responsible for 61 assists from right field from 1975-79.

Often called “Dewey,” the right-handed hitting Evans broke out offensively in 1981, when he led Major League Baseball in all three slash line categories (BA, OBP, SLG) in the first half of the season. Unfortunately, Evans’ career-best season was interrupted by the long player’s strike. His bat cooled off after the strike ended but his superlative first half still propelled him to a 3rd place A.L. MVP finish. For the rest of the 1980’s, Evans was by far Boston’s most productive hitter and one of the top batters in the entire game.

Evans was easily overlooked by Hall of Fame voters because one of his greatest assets offensively was his ability to draw a walk. He reached base 4,007 times in his career, an impressive total but not one with the sex appeal of 500 home runs or 3,000 hits. When his turn came for the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) ballot, his lack of traditional counting stats clearly outweighed his 8 Gold Gloves.

Evans’ Links on the Modern Baseball Committee

There is one obvious link to Dwight Evans among the 16 members of the Modern Baseball Committee. That link is Dennis Eckersley, Evans’ teammate with the Boston Red Sox from 1978-84. Eckersley was there to witness Dewey’s transformation from a defensive specialist into one of the game’s most feared bats. Additionally, the Hall of Fame starter turned reliever really studies the game as a current NESN analyst. He’s aware and likely sympathetic to the positive analytics (WAR, OPS+, fielding metrics) that favor Evans’ candidacy.

As for other members of the panel, Dave Dombrowski was a member of the Red Sox “family” in recent years but he wasn’t there when Evans was playing. A minor factor to consider is that, among the Hall of Fame players who will be voting this Sunday, this is a American League friendly panel. Besides Eckersley, there’s George Brett, Robin Yount, Rod Carew and Eddie Murray. Brett, Yount and Carew played exclusively in the A.L. while Murray spent the first 12 years of his career in the Junior Circuit.

Finally, if my hypothesis that this will be an unusually analytics-friendly Eras Committee is correct, that will be to Evans’ benefit. Given the strength of this ballot and that he was a late-bloomer, I still consider Evans to be a long shot but a possible inductee.

For more on Evans’ Cooperstown Cred, please take a look at this piece.

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Steve Garvey (1B): 19 Years in Major League Baseball

• Dodgers (1969-82), Padres (1983-87)
• Career: .294 BA, .329 OBP, .446 SLG, 272 HR, 1,308 RBI, 2,599 Hits
• Career: 117 OPS+, 38.1 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 1974 NL MVP, 10-time All-Star, 4 Gold Gloves, 1 World Series ring
• HOF vote: max 43% on 15 BBWAA ballots, 4th time on Vets/Eras ballot

Garvey was the Iron Man before Cal Ripken. With the Los Angeles Dodgers, from September of 1975 to July of 1983, he played in 1,207 consecutive games, the fourth longest streak of all time. During his playing career, he was the kind of player that most people assumed would be in the Hall of Fame. He got 200 hits six times, over 100 RBI five times, won an MVP and was a 10-time All-Star. He debuted on the Hall of Fame ballot in 1993 and got 42% of the vote. Normally an opening salvo that high would result in a plaque in Cooperstown but Garvey never got any traction thereafter.

Garvey was a player who had the tendency to shine when the lights were brightest. He was the NLCS MVP twice and the All-Star MVP twice as well.

Greater awareness of statistics beyond hits and batting average have likely hurt Garvey’s chances, both with the BBWAA and the Veterans Committees. From 1974-80, when he averaged 201 hits per season, he only walked 38 times per year.

Garvey’s Links on the Modern Baseball Committee

Steve Garvey hardly has any tangible links to members of the Modern Baseball Committee. There are no former teammates on the 16-member panel. Veteran writer Bill Center of the San Diego Union Tribune covered the Padres during Garvey’s years with the team. I tried researching whether Center voted for Garvey when he was on the BBWAA ballot and could not find any evidence either way.

As noted above regarding Dwight Evans, this panel is tilted towards the American League among the Hall of Fame players who are committee members. Of the players, only Ozzie Smith played for a long time against the Dodgers/Padres first sacker. The one other small link is that Dennis Eckersley was a member of the 1984 Chicago Cubs, against whom Garvey had the greatest game of this career (Game 4 of the NLCS).

Still, given the fact that Garvey has never gotten anywhere in previous appearances on these ballots, the lack of an obvious advocate and my hypothesis that this will be a more analytically minded panel than normal, I would consider him to have virtually no chance at being a Hall of Famer in 2020. He had an excellent career but he’s not one of the four best on this ballot.

For more on Garvey’s Cooperstown Cred, please visit this piece.

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Tommy John (SP): 26 MLB Seasons

• Indians (1963-64), White Sox (1965-71), Dodgers (1972-78), Yankees (1979-82), Angels (1982-85), Athletics (1985), Yankees (1986-89)
• Career: 288-231 (.555), 3.34 ERA
• Career: 111 ERA+, 62.1 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 4-time All-Star, 2 runner-ups in Cy Young voting
• HOF vote: max 32% on 15 BBWAA ballots, 4th time on Vets/Eras ballot

While he was pitching, I never felt that John was a Hall of Fame pitcher but I never expected him to pitch until he was 100. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration but thanks to his bionic arm (and the career-saving surgery that still bears his name), John pitched until the age of 46. His 288 wins are the most for any 20th century pitcher who is not in the Hall.

Because he pitched throughout the 1970’s, John’s career record looks relatively inferior because the decade was filled with high-inning hurlers who passed the 300-win threshold. I’m not sure he’s in the top four on this list but Tommy John deserves a Hall of Fame plaque.

John’s Links on the Modern Baseball Committee

Although Tommy John is best known for his years with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he spent the last 11 years of his career in the American League so the “A.L. bias” I noted in the Garvey comment doesn’t apply. John does have one former teammate on the committee, Rod Carew. The good news is that John and Carew were teammates with the California Angels from 1982-85. The bad news is that Carew witnessed a pitcher who went 24-32 with a 4.40 ERA.

For whatever it’s worth, the left-handed John held left-handed hitting George Brett to a .220 BA with just 1 HR and 5 RBI in 53 plate appearances. On the other hand, three other members of the committee hit over .300 against John: Eddie Murray hit .333 with a .979 OPS against John; Robin Yount hit .306, while Carew also hit .333 while they weren’t teammates.

John has the third highest WAR among the playing candidates on the ballot but that’s a result of playing 26 years. Other analytics don’t favor him. Like Garvey, John has been on these ballots three times before and gotten no reported support. I would not expect anything to change this year.

For more on John’s Cooperstown Cred, please visit this piece.

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Don Mattingly (1B): 14 MLB Seasons

• Yankees (1982-95)
• Career: .307 BA, .358 OBP, .471 SLG, 222 HR, 1,099 RBI, 2,153 Hits
• Career: 127 OPS+, 42.4 WAR
• 1985 AL MVP, 6-time All-Star, 9 Gold Gloves, 3-time Silver Slugger
• HOF vote: max 28% on 15 BBWAA ballots, 2nd time on Eras ballot

I grew up in New York City and was a fan of the cross-town Mets and the Boston Red Sox but that didn’t stop me from having immense admiration for the great first baseman on the New York Yankees. Donnie Baseball was one of those young players who looked like an absolute no doubt first ballot Hall of Famer. From 1984-1989, he was one of the top players in the game. Unfortunately, back woes slowed Mattingly down and he was not the same player in his final six seasons. Mattingly retired after the 1995 season, shortly after his 34th birthday.

Two years ago, I felt that Mattingly was the kind of popular player that might do very well with committee members that just vote on instinct and whether they considered someone a Hall of Famer while they were playing. He didn’t get any recorded support, however, while Jack Morris and Alan Trammell sailed into the Hall.

Mattingly’s Links on the Modern Baseball Committee

There are no former Yankees among the six Hall of Fame players on the 2020 Modern Baseball Committee, nor are there any former Yankees executives. There is Jack O’Connell, who covered the Yankees from 1989-99. Unfortunately for Donnie Baseball, O’Connell was covering the Mets during Mattingly’s best years.

As noted in the previous sections, five of the six ex-players on the panel are mostly from the American League so that could be a slight help. Still, the Yankee first baseman’s case is weak on counting stats and analytics. I consider him a major long shot again and would be shocked if he joins Derek Jeter on stage with the Hall of Fame Class of 2020.

Mattingly’s six-year peak, while superb, was not “all time great” superb. For me, he’s not one of the top four candidates on this list. For more on Mattingly’s Cooperstown Cred, please check out this feature.

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Marvin Miller: Executive Director of the MLB Players Association (1966-1982)

• Executive Director of the MLB Players Association (1966-82)
• Oversaw the dismantling of the reserve clause, which kept players bound to their teams in perpetuity
• Secured rights for players to salary arbitration and free agency
• During his tenure, the average MLB salary rose from $19,000 to $241,497

If the Hall of Fame has space for former commissioners and executives, it should have a space for Marvin Miller. Every player earning millions or tens of millions of dollars to play a child’s game today owes a bit of that salary to the work that Miller did back in a day when baseball players were legitimately underpaid.

Miller has been on different versions of Veterans Committee ballots eight times before and he’s always fallen short. Reportedly, his support has been mostly from the Hall of Fame players; his detractors have mostly been from among the MLB executives on those committees. Miller died seven years ago at the age of 95, about two years after he finished just one vote shy of induction into the Hall of Fame.

I don’t really like it that he’s on the same ballot as players who were members of the union while he was its Executive Director because it makes the math harder for any of those players to make the cut. The Hall of Fame should keep players separate from managers and executives. He deserves to be in the Hall but he deserved to be inducted while he was still alive. All of the players on this ballot except for Thurman Munson are still living and would feel an immense amount of pride if they were to get the Hall call.

Miller’s Links on the Modern Baseball Committee

Given the fact that there is only one ex-owner (David Glass) on the 16-member Modern Baseball panel, this might be Marvin Miller’s best shot at getting a plaque in the Hall of Fame. Let’s assume that all 6 Hall of Fame players cast a “yes” for the man who helped make them millions of dollars. If that happened, he would still need 6 out of 10 votes among the executives and media members.

If we also assume, for the sake of argument, that Miller were to get a “yes” from the media members (O’Connell, Center, Ringolsby, and Hirdt), he would need 2 votes from the 6 executives. I would expect Glass to be a “no.” Could Miller get two positive votes from the rest (Dombrowski, Alderson, Ryan, Jocketty, and Melvin)? Maybe, maybe not. These five men were not GMs when Miller was in charge of the player’s union. The question is whether they vote in solidarity with owners they may have worked with in the past who were bitter about their adversarial relationship with the union chief.

Then there’s this: as I note in this piece, Miller (before his death) and his family (after it) have expressed a desire that he not be inducted posthumously. Will that matter to the committee members? Who knows? What I do know for sure but the composition of this panel seems like the most potentially friendly to the union chief in his nine times on the ballot.

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Thurman Munson (C): 11 MLB Seasons

• Yankees (1969-79)
• Career: .292 BA, 113 HR, 701 RBI, 1,558 Hits
• Career: 116 OPS+, 46.1 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 1976 A.L. MVP, 7-time All-Star, 3 Gold Gloves, 2 World Series rings
• HOF vote: max 15.5% on 15 BBWAA ballots, 4th time on Vets/Eras ballot

On August 2, 1979, a little over 40 years and 3 months ago, Munson died in a plane crash in a plane he was piloting. I was, at the time, 12 years old and did not have much experience with death. Although I was a Mets and Red Sox fan, I was growing up in New York City and the Yankees were the big deal in town. Munson had been on my TV screen dozens of times in the previous regular and postseasons. His loss impacted me profoundly.

While he was playing, I felt that Munson was an obvious Hall of Famer. He was one of the biggest stars of the game. I wondered what more he might have accomplished on the diamond had he lived. I’ve learned later that Munson was truly on his last legs and it’s questionable whether he had any effective years left. It doesn’t matter. For what he had already accomplished, in my view, Thurman Munson deserves a spot in the Hall of Fame.

My opinion, however, is clearly in the minority. He never got more than 15.5% of the vote on the BBWAA ballots. Three times in the early 2000’s (2003, 2005 and 2007), Munson was on ill-conceived Veterans Committee ballots that had dozens of candidates and in which every living Hall of Fame member voted. He never received more than 6 votes in elections that required at least 60 to be elected.

Munson’s Links on the Modern Baseball Committee

As with Don Mattingly, there are no obvious links on this committee to Thurman Munson. There are the five A.L. players on the panel who witnessed his excellence before his death in ’79. George Brett in particular, as a member of the Kansas City Royals, may have great respect for the Yankees catcher. Munson hit .339 in the three ALCS matchups between the Yankees and Royals from 1976-78. Additionally, Brett recently remembered that Munson covered him in a pileup scrum (protecting him from cheap shots) during the famous Game 5 brawl in 1977 that started after a hard slide by Brett into Graig Nettles at 3rd base.

Munson has never been on one of these small Eras Committee panels before so there is no track record to point to. Given the sentiment about this being the 40th anniversary of his passing and the neat symmetry of posthumously electing one Yankee captain (Munson) with a living legend (Jeter) in 2020, I wouldn’t bet against Munson getting support on this committee.

For more on Munson’s Cooperstown Cred, please enjoy this piece originally published on the day of the 40th anniversary of his passing.

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Dale Murphy (CF): 18 MLB Seasons

• Braves (1976-90), Phillies (1990-92), Rockies (1993)
• Career: .265 BA, .346 OBP, .469 SLG, 398 HR, 1,266 RBI, 2,111 Hits
• Career: 121 OPS+, 46.5 WAR
• 2-time NL MVP, 7-time All-Star, 5 Gold Gloves, 4-time Silver Slugger
• HOF vote: max 23% on 15 BBWAA ballots, 2nd time on Eras ballot

Murphy’s story is essentially the same as Mattingly’s story.

In their primes, if you asked 100 baseball writers whether Dale Murphy or Don Mattingly were future Hall of Famers, you probably would have gotten nearly 100 positive responses for both. Unfortunately, after the 1987 season (which included the last of his 7 All-Star appearances), Murphy’s offensive numbers fell off dramatically. As a player who was functionally finished as a productive offensive player after his 32nd birthday, he fell short of many counting stats that BBWAA voters like.

Murphy’s Links on the Modern Baseball Committee

As it is with Steve Garvey, Dale Murphy was exclusively a National League player. That leaves Ozzie Smith and (briefly) Dennis Eckersley as the only players on the Modern Baseball Committee who witnessed Murphy in his prime. Murphy would have greatly benefited from the presence of Bobby Cox, Joe Torre or Phil Niekro on the committee.

Murphy was very well liked and respected, one of the ultimate “good guys” among players. I’d be happy to see him rewarded for his peak performance. Whether he’s one of the top four on this list is a tougher question. It’s a great list of players. If my hypothesis about this committee being unusually analytically minded is correct, Murphy’s not going to make it.

For more on Murphy’s Cooperstown Cred, please click on this piece.

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Dave Parker (RF): 19 MLB Seasons

• Pirates (1973-83), Reds (1984-87), Athletics (1988-89), Brewers (1990), Angels (1991), Blue Jays (1991)
• Career: .290 BA, .339 OBP, .471 SLG, 339 HR, 1,493 RBI, 2,712 Hits
• Career: 121 OPS+, 40.1 WAR
• 1978 NL MVP, 7-time All-Star, 3 Gold Gloves, 3-time Silver Slugger, 2 World Series rings
• HOF vote: max 24.5% on 15 BBWAA ballots, 3rd time on Eras ballot

As it was with Garvey, Mattingly and Murphy, Dave Parker is one of those players who absolutely looked like a future Cooperstown inductee in his early years on the diamond. With 2 batting titles and an MVP trophy in 1978, the 6’5″ Cobra looked like a no doubt Hall of Famer.

In 1979 at the Kingdome in Seattle, Parker made one of the most famous throws in the history of the All-Star Game. With two outs and the score tied at 6 in the bottom of the 8th inning, Graig Nettles hit a single to right field. Brian Downing raced from 2nd to try to score and Parker threw a strike to home plate to throw him out. The N.L. won 7-6 in 9 innings. A few months later, Parker won his first World Series title with the “We Are Family” Pittsburgh Pirates.

With the exception of a renaissance campaign in 1985, Parker was never the same player again after 1979 and thus fell quite a bit short on some milestones that might have put him into Cooperstown already.

Parker’s Links on the Modern Baseball Committee

The Hall of Fame version of Dave Parker played with the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1975-79 and with the Cincinnati Reds from 1985-86. A lesser version of Parker was Dennis Eckersley’s teammate with the Oakland Athletics in 1988-89. Sandy Alderson and Walt Jocketty were with the A’s during those years. So the Cobra has some people who know him from that time in his career. But those weren’t the years that made him a potential Hall of Famer. He hit .255 in 1988-89 with a 96 OPS+ and 0.6 WAR.

Parker hasn’t gotten much support in the previous two times he’s been on these ballots. Given the strength of the other candidates, I don’t see him getting anywhere this year either. He’s not one of the best four players on this list, in my opinion.

For more on Parker and his Cooperstown Cred, I invite you to take a look at this feature.

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Ted Simmons (C): 21 MLB Seasons

• Cardinals (1968-80), Brewers (1981-85), Braves (1986-88)
• Career: .285 BA, .348 OBP, .437 SLG, 248 HR, 1,389 RBI, 2,472 Hits
• Career: 118 OPS+, 50.3 WAR
• 8-time All-Star, 1980 Silver Slugger
• HOF vote: 3.7% on 1 BBWAA ballot, 4th time on Vets/Eras ballot

Ted Simmons may be the sentimental favorite on the 2020 Modern Baseball ballot simply because he fell a single vote shy of a Cooperstown plaque in 2018 on the ballot that elected Morris and Trammell. However, 9 of the 2018 committee members will be different this year. There’s no guarantee that 11 votes for Simmons will turn into 12 or more next month. Still, the members will certainly be aware of Simmons’ near miss which might influence the voters not to torture the guy any more.

While he was playing, I never thought of Simmons as a Hall of Famer but I was comparing him to Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Gary Carter, and Munson. Simmons had the bad luck of playing at the same time as three of top four catchers in MLB history, at least according to WAR (Wins Above Replacement). Simmons’ WAR is 10th best all-time and only Ivan Rodriguez has more than Simmons’ 2,472 hits among catchers.

Simmons was a really good player but the BBWAA had no use for him. He only lasted one year on the ballot. He does have a lot of support in the sabermetric community which seemingly broke through to the panel that voted on his candidacy two years ago.

Simmons’ Links on the Modern Baseball Committee

Ted Simmons has a lot going for him on the 2020 Modern Baseball Committee. The first thing is those 11 votes two years ago; there are 7 people who were on the 2018 committee who are also on the 2020 committee. So he’s clearly got at least some votes “banked.” Certainly, one of those “banked” votes belongs to Robin Yount, Simmons’ teammate in Milwaukee and a member of both the 2018 and ’20 committees.

Although Ozzie Smith arrived in St. Louis two years after Simmons departed, one might also assume that Ozzie would be in Simmons’ corner as a member of the Cardinals “family.” Ditto for Walt Jocketty. Given that the committee members will be made aware of how close Simmons came to getting a Cooperstown plaque two years ago, I think there will be a strong sentiment to push him over the finish line this time.

For more on Simmons’ Cooperstown Cred, please take a look at this.

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Lou Whitaker (2B): 19 MLB Seasons

• Tigers (1977-95)
• Career: .276 BA, .363 OBP, .426 SLG, 244 HR, 1,084 RBI, 2,369 Hits
• Career: 117 OPS+, 75.1 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 5-time All-Star, 3 Gold Gloves, 4-time Silver Slugger, 1 World Series ring
• HOF vote: 2.9% on the 2001 BBWAA ballot, 1st time on Vets/Eras ballot

This is Whitaker’s first time on the Modern Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. Because his career WAR (75.1) is the highest for non-Hall of Famers among all 20th century position players not tainted by scandal or PEDs, Whitaker is a popular candidate in the analytics community.

In July 2018, I saw Whitaker on Main Street in Cooperstown, New York, signing autographs with Darryl Strawberry. This was the weekend that Whitaker’s longtime Tigers’ teammates (Jack Morris and Alan Trammell) were inducted into Cooperstown. Whitaker and Trammell played more games together at the keystone than any other double-play combo in baseball history.

Whitaker’s Links on the Modern Baseball Committee

Lou Whitaker does not have any former teammates or managers on the 2020 Modern Baseball Committee. What he does have going for him, like Simmons, is that there are seven repeat members from the 2018 panel that voted Trammell and Morris into the Hall. Remember also that this particular committee is likely to be more receptive to sabermetrics than most of the past. Whitaker has by far the highest WAR of the 9 players on the ballot.

There’s also this: somehow Trammell being in the Hall of Fame without Whitaker seems like something is misaligned in the universe. Trammell without Whitaker is like peanut butter without jelly or Tom without Jerry. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this year’s Modern Baseball Committee feels that gravitational pull to put Whitaker into Cooperstown. I would consider Sweet Lou to be the second most likely 2020 nominee next to Ted Simmons.

For more on Whitaker’s Cooperstown Cred, please take a look at this feature.

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Unscientific Hall of Fame Predictions

Finally, just to provide material in which to mock me, I am going to share some unscientific predictions about which (if any) members of the 2020 Modern Baseball ballot will be elected to the Hall of Fame. These percentages add up to 190%, which means I am predicting two inductees, the same as it’s been the last two years. It also means that I consider it more likely that there will be only one nominee than that there will be three. That’s just how the math works without any clear-cut, obvious candidates from which to choose.

Anyway, here we go!

• Ted Simmons: 65%
• Lou Whitaker: 40%
• Marvin Miller: 25%
• Thurman Munson: 20%
• Dwight Evans: 15%
• Dale Murphy: 15%
• Don Mattingly: 3%
• Tommy John: 3%
• Steve Garvey: 2%
• Dave Parker: 2%

We’ll find out this evening if any of these 10 luminaries will gain the ultimate honor of a Cooperstown plaque.

This is the end of this piece as it relates to the 2020 Modern Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. The balance of the feature, repeated for posterity from what was posted on November 7th, shares a brief history lesson of what’s happened with these committees in recent years as well as a look at the calendar of future Eras Committee.

 

The recent history of the Eras/Veterans Committee

In its history, the Veterans Committee has inducted a couple of dozen players who really are not worthy of a plaque in Cooperstown. Bill James (in his landmark 1995 book The Politics of Glory) and Sports Illustrated’s Jay Jaffe (in his excellent book, released two years ago, The Cooperstown Casebook) go through a great amount of detail about some of the unworthy players (almost all of whom played in the first half of the 20th century). We won’t cover all of that ground today but, suffice it to say, there was a lot of cronyism in the 20th century versions of the Veterans Committee.

A noted earlier, cronyism criticism returned last December when Harold Baines was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Eras Committee panel that included his former manager with the White Sox and A’s (Tony La Russa), Chisox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and former Orioles teammate Roberto Alomar. Some of the words or headlines used in reaction to Baines’ election were “joke,””inexplicable,” or “embarrassing.” The outcry was fueled by Baines’ low WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of 38.7. When I wrote about it, although I acknowledged the controversy of the decision, my headline was “Don’t Hate: Celebrate.”

The selection of Baines was not the Eras Committee’s finest choice but at least, in the last two years, they have in fact elected real, living baseball players into the Hall of Fame. Tigers’ teammates Morris and Trammell were inducted into the Hall with the Class of 2018, followed by Baines and Lee Smith in 2019. (Incidentally, the election of Morris was also widely criticized because he too had the audacity of having a low WAR. I vehemently disagreed with the naysayers).

The point of my boring story is that, prior to the election of Morris and Trammell, the various incarnations of the Veterans Committees failed to elect a single living player since Bill Mazeroski in 2001. That was a gap of 17 years without any player on the dais in Cooperstown to give the speech of a lifetime except for those elected by the BBWAA.

The only players to be inducted between 2002 and 2017 were Joe Gordon (in 2009), Ron Santo (in 2012) and Deacon White (in 2013). Gordon’s induction came 31 years after his death. The election of Santo was bittersweet, in that he passed away in December 2010, one and half years before his induction. This was after Santo had appeared on 16 BBWAA ballots and 4 Veterans Committee ballots without getting the Hall call. As for White, he was a 19th century star who passed away in 1939.

The 2015 Golden Era Fumble

One of the biggest unintentional fumbles came in the 2015 vote, when the Golden Era Committee (tasked to look at players from 1947-1972) really laid an egg and produced groans from the assembled media when it was announced that no player had been granted a Cooperstown plaque. The groans were magnified with the news that Dick Allen and Tony Oliva had fallen one vote short (with 11 votes each) and that Jim Kaat had gotten 10 votes out of the needed 12. Maury Wills got 9 votes and Minnie Minoso, the Cuban-born player whose MLB career was delayed a few years by the slow pace of integration, earned 8 votes.

The 2015 shutout revealed a flaw in the process. Because the players on all of these Eras Committee ballots were not inducted by the BBWAA, they are by definition second-tier candidates. There’s nothing wrong with being a second-tier Hall of Famer; there are over 100 such players already in the club. The problem is that the members of the 16-person committee are limited to 4 selections each and with 9 or 10 players who are all kind of in the same second-tier bucket, the votes can get split and and then everyone falls just a bit short.

Fortunately, the math didn’t stop the elections of Morris, Trammell, Smith or Baines. However, until the Hall of Fame implements a run-off or second ballot system, the horror show of five men falling one to four votes shy of Cooperstown remains a possibility.

The Future of the Eras Committees

To wrap up, here’s how the schedule of Eras Committees lays out for the next six years:

• Class of 2021: Golden Days Era Committee (players from 1950-1969)
• Class of 2021 (also): Early Baseball Era Committee (players before 1950)
• Class of 2022: Today’s Game (1988 and beyond)
• Class of 2023: Modern Baseball (1970-87)
• Class of 2024: Today’s Game (1988 and beyond)
• Class of 2025: Modern Baseball (1970-87)
• Class of 2026: Golden Days (1950-1969)

The good news is that are many upcoming opportunities for previously overlooked players who played in the second half of the 20th century to get another chance at the ultimate honor in sports.

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on Twitter @cooperstowncred.