Tuesday is one of the holy days on the baseball calendar, the announcement of players voted into the Hall of Fame. Rays beat writer Marc Topkin and columnist John Romano are longtime voters who had an email conversation to share their thinking on the candidates and voting process.
If worthy, sure. But not just because we can. That means you and I agree on Ichiro and Sabathia. Will the or so other voters make Ichiro the second unanimous pick? Someone somewhere will find some flaw in the length of the incredible peak part of his career, or the dropoff over the remaining eight-plus seasons, which started when he was 37! The Hall only releases ballots of voters who opt to have them shared.
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But Ichiro also had incredible flair, and that matters when voting is subjective. If it was simply about numbers, you would just pick the guys with a career WAR above The fun — for fans and voters alike — is determining whether dominant players with shorter careers Pedroia and Hernandez are worthy. Or specialists Wagner and DHs. Or steroid dudes. Are you one of those with a bias against relievers? Wagner was superb but he threw less than 1, innings in his career.
Let me flip the question: How do you not vote for Hernandez? Is it that his career was over by 33? Because, if so, he threw almost triple the number of innings as Wagner. There you go again throwing around numbers! His last decent season came when he was 30, and he had — for those who observe — only wins. Conversely, the Sabathia decision, which included his workload and overall impact on his teams, was an easier call than I expected.
