Between last summer and my crazy baseball brain now, I've always wondered: will we ever see a unanimous selection for the Hall of Fame? Some writers have already disclosed to the media that they will not vote for anyone who played in the steroid era. Though I disagree with that, I do understand the thought process and the necessity for purifying the era (however, remember my post from about a month ago that preached that we don't live in the steroid era, we live in the Hall of Fame era). Then there are other writers who will argue that certain players don't deserve to be first-ballot Hall of Famers. At the Hall of Fame, there is no denotation whether or not someone was a first-ballot inductee or a last ballot inductee, so why does it matter? Hall of Famer is a Hall of Famer, regardless of the year they were inducted. Inducted means inducted, and anyone who visits the Hall of Fame knows that some players are just better than others, that's a fact.
Of course now that I wrote that, I guess I'm contradicting myself - why does it matter if someone is elected unanimously or not?
I'll tell you why: because some players are that good.
Tom Seaver of the 1992 class is the reigning champion for percentage of votes received with 98.8% (Nolan Ryan also got 98.8% but with rounding and conversion rates and sigfigs, Seaver wins out). The thing is, with his 3 Cy Young awards, Rookie of the Year, and 311 wins, Greg Maddux is a better pitcher with 4 Cy Youngs and 355 wins (a lot of the more specific stats like ERA and WHIP belong to Seaver), at least on paper he is. But Maddux only received 97.2% of the vote (only, ha) - is that circumstantial? Personally, I believe so. If you put Maddux in the Seaver era with the same stats, Maddux might have gotten 98.8%. So it will be very hard for anyone in the near future to be elected unanimously given the steroid era, but this is the man that has the best shot:
Randy Johnson
Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux (sorry to keep referring to Maddux, I just think he's a good basis for example and comparison for the upcoming years of Hall of Famers) are incredibly similar pitchers, except for Johnson's gory strikeout numbers. Johnson's ERA is .13 worse than Maddux's (though Johnson actually allowed fewer earned runs in his career) and Johnson's WHIP is .03 worse than his. In that regard, they are similar pitchers. Not a lot of people ever made solid contact and they did not walk a lot of batters. Here's where Maddux has an edge: he has 52 more wins and almost 1,000 more innings pitched. Decent edge. Here's where Johnson blows Maddux away: one more Cy Young award (Johnson also has 4 consecutive), 2nd all-time in strikeouts and 1st all-time in strikeouts per 9 innings. He has the same hardware as Maddux (plus a World Series co-MVP) and the power numbers of Nolan Ryan, who never won a Cy Young. Judging by his low WHIP and high K/9, Johnson combined the finesse of Maddux and the power of Nolan Ryan, all from the low left arm slot which made it nearly impossible to hit (just ask John Kruk). He's got the hardware, he's got the stats, he's got a ring (Maddux did win 18 Gold Gloves - that's hard to beat). If I were a writer, I can't find a good enough reason to justify not voting for him. Look at these batting averages against him:
- Rickey Henderson: .115, 30 K's in 61 AB
- Adrian Beltre: .219, 19 K's in 64 AB
- Frank Thomas: .233, 18 K's in 43 AB
- Roberto Alomar: .220, 13 K's in 41 AB
- Jim Thome, Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn: .111 average
- Andre Dawson: .133
These are Hall of Famers (or soon to be Hall of Famers). The dude didn't mess around. Although lucky for him, he never had to face Don Kelly.
To be honest, I don't think we'll see anyone inducted unanimously in my lifetime. There's always a couple people who will prevent that from happening. But if I were to guess, Johnson would be it. Here's a picture of the lanky 6'10" Big Unit at USC just because Google is awesome.
Thanks for reading.
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