Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees Announced on Wednesday

A fun list:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1169776-mlb-ranking-the-10-greatest-knuckleballers-of-all-time

I thought I knew a fair amount about baseball history, but I never realized how good Bob Purkey was, and I never knew that the 1945 Senators featured four knuckleballers as starting pitchers.

yahooyahoo said:

That's the sad part.  Clemens and Bonds were HOF players before they went on the juice.  However, their massive egos got in the way.

Robert_Casotto said:

Bonds and Clemens are HOF players,  period, end of sentence.  You're telling me no one else was on Juice?  More like no one else was any good on juice.  

So you knew when they crossed the line?. Neither of them has copped to it, except obliquely, yet conventional wisdom has established that they were clean through the late 1990s. I don't get that.

And they both belong in the HOF.

I don't know when they crossed the line but both were at the peak of their sport by their mid-20s and had won multiple awards before leaving their first team.  Bonds physical transformation in his 30s was the most obvious clue, his body completely changed.  If you look at photos and video of him as a Pirate it's like a different person than the Giants player.

Roland said:

yahooyahoo said:

That's the sad part.  Clemens and Bonds were HOF players before they went on the juice.  However, their massive egos got in the way.

Robert_Casotto said:

Bonds and Clemens are HOF players,  period, end of sentence.  You're telling me no one else was on Juice?  More like no one else was any good on juice.  

So you knew when they crossed the line?. Neither of them has copped to it, except obliquely, yet conventional wisdom has established that they were clean through the late 1990s. I don't get that.

And they both belong in the HOF.

Stoughton said:

DaveSchmidt said:

Congrats to Junior and to the pride of Phoenixville, Pa.

Junior was born in PA as well, but might not even be the best hitter from his tiny town.

Stan Musial  (I'm a western Pa. boy.)

the guy who voted for garrett andersen proves it's a broken process.

I wouldn't have voted for him but he is in the top 100 all-time for hits and RBI.  It's not completely out of left field (pun intended).

Robert_Casotto said:

the guy who voted for garrett andersen proves it's a broken process.

I have no idea if this is evidence of anything, but Clemens was a dominant pitcher from age 22 through 29 with Boston, never finishing fewer than 6 wins over .500 and only having an ERA over 3.00 once and that was 3.13.

For the next four years, he was 40-39 with an ERA under 3.5 only once, in the strike-shortened '94 season, and was over 4.00 in '93 and '95. In his last year with the Sox, with free agency looming, the 33 year-old Clemens was 10-13, 3.63, but his strikeouts shot up, to the second best ratio of his career.

Then, when he went to Toronto, he had possibly the two best statistical seasons of his career and his highest-ever strikeout ratios at ages 34 and 35. After that, he went to the Yankees and while he was still a strong pitcher who picked up a lot of wins on good teams, his other numbers went back toward where they were in his later Boston years.

Without judging whether it's true or not, those stats feed the Sox fan narrative that after eight incredible years and a huge workload, Clemens declined once he hit age 30, then strangely started to rebound right before hitting free agency at 33 ('96) and was dominant for Toronto in '97 and '98.

LA fans are apparently still feeling bad about Piazza's departure:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/dodgersnow/la-sp-dn-mike-piazza-dodgers-hall-of-fame-20160106-story.html

I don't know if Piazza himself is still bitter over his trade from LA, which was of course all about the money.

But regardless, LA fans probably don't understand Piazza's place in New York Mets history.  He is without a doubt, the best hitter who ever wore the Mets uniform (during his tenure with the team, because of course Mays was the best overall).  He played in two NLCS and a World Series with the Mets.  He got off to a somewhat rocky start with the fans, but eventually he became the most popular Mets player during his time with the team (how many Mets received a standing ovation when returning as a visiting player?).  He's in the Mets Hall of Fame, and he was chosen to catch the last pitch at Shea Stadium from Tom Seaver, the best and most beloved player in Mets history.

The Dodgers have a long list of great players who are an important part of their history (Robinson, Hodges, Snyder, Koufax, etc.).  For the New York Mets, Mike Piazza is that important.  If you name the most important players in the history of the franchise, you get to him in the top 3 at least.

Seaver, Piazza, and ??   Only candidates I can come up with are Wright, Hernandez, Carter, maybe Straw.

Definitely Seaver and Piazza as 1, 2 in my book.

Ed Charles

jimmurphy said:

Seaver, Piazza, and ??   Only candidates I can come up with are Wright, Hernandez, Carter, maybe Straw.

Definitely Seaver and Piazza as 1, 2 in my book.

I wouldn't argue with Piazza as 2nd greatest Met.  But I think a good case could be made for Wright as well.  He grew up as a Mets fan, was drafted by the team, and will likely play his entire career as a Met.  He will hold nearly every important career team batting record by the time he retires.  And the effort and dedication he's shown to keep playing despite his back condition makes him a sentimental favorite. 

This was a pretty great Mets moment:

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/63106348/v526927883/ws2015-gm3-wright-connects-for-a-tworun-homer

He was not a super star, but I was a big fan of Jerry Koosman. 

This is one of those things about baseball, I like. We find additional meaning/importance in the structural aspects of the game.

#1 and 2 best players in Mets history are pitcher and catcher. 

#3 and 4 best players are first and third basemen.

IMO, of course.

ml1 said:

jimmurphy said:

Seaver, Piazza, and ??   Only candidates I can come up with are Wright, Hernandez, Carter, maybe Straw.

Definitely Seaver and Piazza as 1, 2 in my book.

I wouldn't argue with Piazza as 2nd greatest Met.  But I think a good case could be made for Wright as well.  He grew up as a Mets fan, was drafted by the team, and will likely play his entire career as a Met.  He will hold nearly every important career team batting record by the time he retires.  And the effort and dedication he's shown to keep playing despite his back condition makes him a sentimental favorite. 

You make a good argument,  I love David Wright. Horrible how injuries rob both potential and performance. Sheer persistence, durability, and an ability to overcome are excellent arguments against those who consider "compilers" as somehow less-than. I'd agree to a draw between Piazza and Wright.

As great as Piazza was, you never saw this from him:

ml1 said:

The Dodgers have a long list of great players who are an important part of their history (Robinson, Hodges, Snyder, Koufax, etc.).  For the New York Mets, Mike Piazza is that important.  If you name the most important players in the history of the franchise, you get to him in the top 3 at least.

Fwiw, though, unless you count LaSorda, I don't believe the Dodgers have had a bona fide Los Angeles Dodger inducted since Don Sutton, who is a Seaver contemporary. And they don't appear to have one on the reasonable horizon. So, while I'm all for Mikey going in a Met, I wouldn't dismiss how starving for a HOFer Dodger fans (especially younger ones) may justifiably be, the old Brooklyn legends notwithstanding.

jimmurphy said:

Seaver, Piazza, and ??   Only candidates I can come up with are Wright, Hernandez, Carter, maybe Straw.

Definitely Seaver and Piazza as 1, 2 in my book.

Koosman?  Gooden?  Matlack?  

Gooden is disqualified in my book. Wasted his gifts with poor conduct. Matlack's tenure wasn't long enough, although he did pitch the first Mets game I saw. You may have me on Koosman. I really only remember back to '73, so his earlier heroics are only in the books for me. Maybe I took him for granted, as there was such a gulf between Seaver and Koosman/Matlack in my 8 to 13yo mind...

some of you may not realize this about me, but I am not a Mets fan. That said, as a non-Mets fan, I have incredible admiration and respect for David Wright not just for his talents which I think have been overlooked by many, but by his character, his leadership and the responsibility he felt as the face of the franchise. Not that he is not well compensated...all baseball players are...but he could have gotten out of Dodge but chose to stay when things were looking really bleak and when not many would have blamed him (except for some morons in the fanbase, but every fanbase has those). Id give him the #3 spot...or the Met with the greatest longevity -- Bobby Bonilla. (I had to get one knock in)

Marv Throneberry has to have a place in the Mets' pantheon of greats.

Still more Phillies love than Mets love for Tug?

And what about the incomparable Al Weis, who hit 12.5% of his career home runs in the 1969 World Series?!