one_eyed_jack

Here's a question related to Jeter's HOF candidacy: There were a few voters who refused to vote for Craig Biggio due to steroid suspicions. There's never been any solid proof that he used PED's, but their argument was basically, "He played with on a team with guys we know used, so we know it was going on around him, and we can't be sure he didn't use, so we're not going to vote for him." Doesn't that same reasoning apply to Jeter? Will any of these voters withhold their vote for him on that basis? To be clear, I'm not saying they should, I think it's a silly argument. I'm just curious as to whether any of them will actually do it.

That particular game in '04 doesn't stand out in my memory as a mismanaged one. But the various postseason disappointments kinda blend together for me at times, I just remember throwing things and swearing a lot. But seriously, if we're talking about dubious Gardenhire post season moves, the one that stands out to me is Game 1 of the 2010 ALDS - he left Frankie in one batter too long, and Granderson made him pay with a 2-run triple that turned a 3-2 lead into a 4-3 deficit. Frankie cruised for much of the night, but the Yanks started to hit him, and you could tell Liriano was a bit rattled. I would have brought in Fuentes to face the Grandyman there.

I'd prefer to see someone from outside the organization. A new voice with new ideas and new perspectives would be a welcome change. As for who that is, I'm open to ideas. I'll throw out a name again that I threw out a while back in a discussion of potential Gardy replacements: Ken Oberkfell. I happened to catch this article on him. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/26582426/ He's not a young guy, but it seems like he's got some ability to work with young players, and is open to blending new school and old school ways of baseball thinking. I dunno, just a thought. I've seen Jose Oqueno's name tossed around, that's an interesting thought. No interest in Guillen. I think his act wears thin very quickly. I don't insist on another decade+ run for the next guy, but I also don't want to have to be facing this decision again in a year or two.

Had to happen, probably overdue. But I tip my cap to Gardy who is a good manager and a good guy. A good Gardy memory that will always stick out to me is the 2009 season. The Twins were sitting at .500, 7 games behind Detroit on September 6th. Morneau was done for the year. They were pretty much written off. But they went on to win 18 of the next 26, getting unexpected contributions from scrubs and September call-ups, to set up the epic game 163 in the Dome's final season. It was one hell of a fun month of baseball. And I'm not sure just any manager could have done it. So thanks for the memories and best wishes, Mr. Gardenhire.

1) Ripken? Fernandez? Come on, these guys were on the downsides of their careers when Jeter started. 2) Horrendous may be overstating it, but yeah, he probably did get more Gold Gloves than he deserved 3) I'm sure he was helped with that to some degree, but plenty of other guys have hit in front of great hitters and not produced the way Jeter did. 4) When a guy is doing things like getting over 200 hits and finishing in the top 10 in MVP voting, I think it's really difficult to dismiss him as a compiler. 5) Yes, I agree we wouldn't hear about Jeter ad nauseum if he played in flyover country. However the guys you mentioned were pretty damn good players, much better players than you're making Jeter out to be in your other points. 6) I don't think anyone posting here knows nearly enough to fairly or adequately judge how good or bad a teammate Jeter is or has been in his career. 7) Agree on this. Winning a World Series is a team accomplishment, not an individual one. I think the whole rings argument is way overdone, even with quarterbacks in the NFL who have a unique ability to impact a game.

---He's never been linked to steroids by any credible evidence, but certain individual voters have refused to vote for him because they suspect him of using. (Murray Chass and Rick Morrissey are a couple of examples.) Their arguments are more guilt-by-association - i.e. Biggio played with known roiders like Camminitti, so they can't be sure he didn't use. So I will be interested to see what these guys do with Jeter. Because if they apply the same logic to Jeter's candidacy that they did to Biggio's, then they won't be voting for Jeter due to steroid suspicion.

A couple of things: 1) I was not trying to start a debate on the relative merits of Jeter and Biggio. I was merely wondering whether the voters responsible for denying Biggio HOF entry due to PED suspicions based on the guilt-by-association rationale would treat Jeter the same way. Just like Biggio, Jeter played with multiple guys who either admitted using or tested positive for PED's. To me, if they're going to be consistent, they should refuse to vote for Jeter as well, but I suspect they won't be. 2) IMO, there is a difference between 'overrated' and 'overexposed'. Overrated = Guys who are not that great, but talked about as though they are great Overexposed = Guys who are truly great, but whose greatness is discussed ad nauseum Yes, we hear about Jeter's greatness far more often than necessary, far more than we would have had he had the same career in a smaller market. But to me, that doesn't diminish his greatness.

I just can't buy into Jeter being overrated. Overexposed? There's an argument for that. It happens with all great Yankees. I may get tired of hearing about it, but I'm not going to deny his greatness. Now here's what will be interesting to me: a non-trivial minority of hall of fame voters refused to vote for Craig Biggio due to PED suspicions. Their argument was one of guilt by association - Biggio had teammates who were known users, so he may have been using too. But isn't that just as true of Derek Jeter, especially as we learn more about A-Rod? Will these same voters leave Jeter off their ballots?

---Well, while missing the HOF by 2 votes it not like being diagnosed with terminal cancer, I don't think it's that hard to see why some folks feel he got the shaft and feel a bit bad for him. To me his HOF case involves a lot of what's wrong with HOF voting - worthy players being kept out for no good reason. A bunch of people didn't vote for him last year because of the "first-ballot HOFer" thing, which is silly and illogical. It's little more than blind deference to tradition, or egotistical voters who want to make it about them and not the players. Then he lost votes this year because of the arbitrary 10-vote limit. And some won't vote for him over steroid suspicions, which are based solely on vague gossip and innuendo. Basically, it boils down the idea that he had teammates that were using PED's, so he might have been too. It will be interesting to see what these folks do when Jeter is eligible because by that logic, he shouldn't be in either.

The prediction is probably sound. Although I think Biggio might not get to 80%, I think he could make it by a hair. I think there were 5 or 6 voters who admitted to voting for him last year but not this year because he was their #11 guy. He should at get least a few of those, maybe even all of them, which would put him over the hump. But he may not get any more than that.

I like to think I'm pretty tolerant of different opinions and consider the zone of reasonable disagreement to be enormous. But reading through some of these ballot explanations, Good Lord. If you're either unable or unwilling to submit a ballot that can by supported by at least a small measure of facts, logic and common sense, you shouldn't be voting. A couple of highlights, or lowlights as it were: This buffoon, who said "I refuse to vote for a guy who cheats, as Biggio did with all that armor on his arm, so he could get hit with pitches and trot to first base as a result", but also voted for McGwire, Bonds and Clemens because they "had the numbers long before they juiced". Putting aside how completely illogical that is, consider that McGwire admitted to first taking steroids before the 1990 season. So basically he's saying that McGwire's numbers from his first 3 years in the majors were HOF-worthy. Then we have Mark Purdy, who looks at each year's ballot as a "separate election" and votes for the 3 or 4 best. So Biggio got his vote last year, but not this year. Is there anyone on earth besides Mark Purdy who thinks this make sense on any level? Look at the ridiculous results this produces. Question: Is Craig Biggio a Hall-of-Famer? Answers: 74.8% - yes 25.1% - no Mark Purdy - Umm, I dunno, maybe, it depends on who else is on the ballot And then there's Larry Rocca. His ballot: Trammell, Nomo, Raines and Morris. Looks like something that was the product of eenie-meenie-minie-moe. At least the Deadspin ballot was defensible. Ken Rosenthal was dead on when he said that there were "too many crappy ballots" submitted.

I always enjoy following the debates on controversial candidates - I hear different perspectives, and I learn. I do not view Morris as a Hall-of-Famer. I see him as a good pitcher who had some great, even historic, moments. But my view of a Hall-of-Famer is a guy who showed consistent excellence over a long period of time. I'm a lot more moved by 10 great seasons over the course of a decade than 10 great innings on one October day. It seems to me that the case for Morris is based on the "feel" test - the BBHOF version of Potter Stewart's "I can't define it but I know it when I see it" test for obscenity. (I do not consider the silly "pitch to the score" rebuttals to his chubby ERA worthy of consideration.) He was a guy who was thought of as an ace and a big-game pitcher for a long time. So people think he belongs. A lot of voters use the "feel" test. For example, Dan Shaugnessy with his decision not to vote for Biggio (though he made a feeble attempt to justify it with stats by saying that Biggio only had one 200-hit season, so he wasn't a dominant 2B like Roberto Alomar, ignoring the fact that Alomar never had a 200-hit season.) I get where people are going with that. Some guys just have that superstar aura about them. But the problem with taking that into account in HOF voting is that often times that's a product of things like their personality or media hype that have little to do with how good they actually are. I guess I wouldn't totally object to that being considered a little bit, maybe to push a borderline candidate in. But that kind of stuff is the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.

---Agreed. There's a lot to dislike about the current voting process. (Reading some of these dunderheads' explanations of their ballots, yikes.) But Lebtard's Deadspin stunt was a lot like Chris Kluwe's last week - a childish, self-indulgent, attention-seeking tantrum masquerading as a fight against injustice.

Feel bad for Biggio. 2 votes short, and several voters have said they felt he's worthy but didn't vote for him because of the max 10. (Jon Becker tweeted that he took Biggio off at the last minute in favor of Larry Walker - are you kidding me?). That shows you the process is broken. Last year he didn't get in because of the phony "first ballot hall of famer" standard. This year he got screwed because of the voting limit. So that's two years in a row where he's kept out because there are voters are not voting for him even though they think he deserves to be in.

Love HOF debates, hate HOF voting. Here are the things that drive me nuts about the current voting body. Overvaluing postseason play and undervaluing longevity Every year I hear the baseball punditry hype the HOF candidacy of certain players for what they did in the postseason, then turn around and dismiss other guys as “compilers”. It makes no sense to me at all. It takes a truly special player to maintain a high level of play over the tough grind of a 162-game schedule year in and year out for more than a decade. But any decent major leaguer who happens to play on a good team can get hot for a couple of weeks in October. Look at your all-time leaders in any major stat. See many mediocre players near the top of the list? Now look at the list of guys who have won WS or LCS MVP award. Should we put Scott Brosius in the Hall? The “first ballot Hall of Famer” thing Either you think a guy is worthy of admission or you don’t. If you do, vote for him. If not, then don’t. But “I think he deserves to be in, but he should have to wait at least another year” is illogical and obnoxious. Hall of Fame voting is a difficult task that has devolved into a giant, sloppy mess thanks to things like this. If the voters believe in a tiered system where some guys receive higher honors than other, then that should be made official, and the voters should be allowed to vote on different levels of Hall of Famers. The “if you have to think about it, he’s not a Hall of Famer” argument Translation: I’m too lazy to put any thought or effort into this supposedly sacred process. This position is absurd on its face. Basically, if you believe this, you’re saying that there is no such thing as a borderline case. Reasonable minds can disagree about where the line should be drawn. But no matter if you draw it high or low, there will be guys who fall close to or on it. People who make silly votes shouldn't be voting I’m not even talking about token votes for fringe players, which is silly but relatively harmless. But if you’re one of those “I won’t vote for anyone who played in the 90’s” people, you shouldn’t be voting. You aren’t allowed to serve on a jury if you’ve already made up your mind that the defendant is guilty because it deprives him of the right to a fair and impartial trial. Same rationale applies here. It you’re not willing to give guys fair consideration, you should be decided their fate. Also, if you just make indefensible selections (e.g. voting for Larry Walker and Curt Schilling but not Greg Maddox or Frank Thomas), it should be the last ballot you cast.

I think it did end up going through to Musk, but I agree, more fun to see everyone's. You've got some outside-the-box picks there - I like it. Here's mine. Chuck Berry Jimmy Carter Ice Cube Sophia Loren Bill Cosby Ruth Bader Ginsberg Francis Ford Coppola Dennis Rodman Winona Ryder Dwight Gooden Shannen Doherty Gary Busey Steven Adler Jean Beliveau Elgin Baylor Gloria Steinem Jane Fonda Danny DeVito Tom Brokaw Henry Waxman Larry Holmes Leif Garrett Yoko Ono John Mcvie OJ Simpson

Musk - I tried PM'ing you my list, it told me you're inbox was full and you couldn't receive any more messages until you clear some space. Let me know if there's somewhere else I should send it, or if I can post it here.

Yeah that was pretty ridiculous. Like Leber said, because he was a Viking, people would inevitably associate him with the Vikings, and he needed to think about how he was presenting himself. Kluwe has 2 young daughters. One day they'll reaching dating age. I wonder how he'd feel about a guy coming over to his house to pick one of his girls up and talking like that at the first meeting with the parents. What sort of impression would that leave him with? (I can only imagine the look on my father's face had some guy come over to pick up my sister and started talking about "lustful cockmonsters" . Yikes.) And while I understand Kluwe taking shots at Preifer (who is a miserable human being if he really said that), and I don't understand him calling Frazier a coward. Even if you take everything Kluwe said as true, Frazier simply told him to tone it down, which is what any head coach would have done. Head coaches are there to win games, and they don't need to be putting out PR fires created by the punter. So Frazier was simply trying to avoid distractions that took the focus off of winning football games, which is what Frazier was being paid to do. But Kluwe, by his own admission, did not speak up about Preifer because he feared for his job. So like Frazier, he was motivated primarily by self-preservation. And if Frazier's self-preservation was cowardly, then so was Kluwe's. If anything, Kluwe's was more so because Frazier may not have known about the stuff Preifer was saying.

Jeter's career WAR is 71.6. Is he a "no" for you because he's under your 75-WAR cutoff?

---My views on this are very similar to yours. I think what bothers me most is the way he acts like he's doing something noble for civil rights and changing NFL culture, when really he's just doing something childish and vindictive to get revenge on a few specific individuals he feels wronged by. This isn't about a cause, this is about Kluwe. His whole "well, now that I've written this, I'll never get an NFL job" thing makes it sounds like he sacrificed his career for a cause he believes in, but that claim rings hollow because his NFL career was over anyway. In fact he waited until that was a certainty before coming forward with this. If he believed so strongly in GLBT rights, he should have spoken up, at least internally, when Preifer made the "nuke" comment. But he didn't. He was willing to continue working under Preifer as long as he was getting paid a fat salary for kicking a ball down a field. I mean could you really claim to be all about racial equality if the managers at your workplace used the N-word and made offensive racial jokes, and you remained silent until months after they fired you?

---5th place, not half-bad for a first timer.

Here’s my take on the Kluwe thing: I am completely in agreement with Kluwe’s stance on civil rights issues, but I am with Ben Leber in having a problem with the way he went about this If Preifer really said what Kluwe claims he said, he’s a disgusting excuse for a human being and had no place being a leader. My respect for Kluwe has diminished as a result of this. I applauded him for lending his voice in support of civil rights when the marriage amendment vote was still pending. But his actions are not about civil rights or helping achieve equality for the GLBT community or even changing NFL culture. This was about Kluwe being bitter, wanting attention and having an ax to grind against specific individuals. The “Chris Kluwe – Courageous Civil Rights Crusader” narrative is simply belied by his decision to stay silent in the face of comments like Preifer’s. I can understand him not going public, but by his own admission, he did not raise the issue with Frazier, Speilman or Prefier himself out of fear of losing his job. And, also by his own admission, he hoped to continue playing with the Vikings. So while he claims that Preifer is a bigot who has no business being a coach, he was more than willing to keep kicking the ball for him while accepting a salary far in excess of what many people will earn in a lifetime. He claims to feel so strongly about Preifer never coaching again, yet he himself was willing to remain silent and let Prefier keep coaching as long as he still got a paycheck. He had no good answer for when Leber pressed him on why he didn’t say something to Preifer. And Leber talked about how he spoke up to coaches when he felt there was something that needed to be addressed. So I think what we see from that is that Kluwe can talk big about his beliefs on Deadspin and Twitter, but lacks the testicular fortitude to confront someone face-to-face about them. Thus he is in no position to be labeling anyone else a coward. What we have here the one spouse’s version of why the marriage ended in the wake of an ugly divorce. I don’t think Kluwe is making any of this up, but his account is very self-serving, and I would not be surprised to learn he did and said some pretty prickish things that he conveniently left out of his Deadspin piece. I would think a lot more of this if Kluwe had at least tried to engage in some self-reflection or put himself in say, Frazier’s position. Frazier’s job was to win football games, not to enable his punter’s off the field activity choices. There are legitimate football/business reasons why Kluwe doesn’t have an NFL job. He was on the decline. There were younger, cheaper guys available. When teams can get a younger, healthier punter or kicker who is 90% as good as the incumbent veteran for less than half the cost, they do it. It happens all the time. Kluwe’s situation is hardly unique. His activism stuff may have pushed him, but he was on the edge anyway.

I wasn't crazy about the Frazier firing. He hasn't been great, some curious coaching decisions and dubious coordinator choices, but he certainly wasn't terrible. A few calls/plays/bounces go the Vikes way and they would have been in the playoffs. This despite terrible play at QB and the defensive secondary, which are the last two places you want to see terrible play. The guys continued to play hard for Leslie long after they had nothing to play for. Often times you see teams check out in that situation. I have no faith in Spielman. At all. He's too interested trying to prove that he's smarter than everyone else, and too often only ends up outsmarting himself. My prediction: Spielman will identify some obscure candidate that isn't on anyone's radar, convince himself that he sees something there that nobody else does, and hire him. (The Wilfs will like this because he will come cheap). It will be the biggest "WTF?!" moment in Minnesota sports since Kahn passed on Steph Curry to take Jonny Flynn. (Damn, even typing that still hurts.) Then smarmy Rick and his new hire, the assistant tight ends coach from Slippery Rock University or whoever the hell it is, will make a Ponder-esque reach pick of a QB in the first round. After another 2 disastrous seasons, the Wilfs will lose patience and blow the whole thing up. And we'll be right where we are today, minus 2 prime years of AP's career, plus one shiny new stadium.

---I think we mostly agree. Regardless of what happens off the field, the players have every obligation to put in their best effort on the field. And if that's not happening, something needs to be said. I guess what I'm concerned, or at least wondering about, is how much of that attitude flows down from the top? When an organization clearly isn't trying to win, aren't they sending a message that winning doesn't matter? It's a different situation, but as a guy who spends his winters following the T-Wolves, I became disgusted with the culture of losing that was allowed to fester in that organization for years. One failed rebuilding project after another, and they seemed to prefer getting more ping pong balls for the draft lottery to winning more games. There's a part of me that fears that the Twins are starting to head down a slippery slope to that, and we're on the cusp of another dark age like the mid-late 90's.

---I get what you're saying, and I don't necessarily disagree, but OTOH, there is no amount of screaming and throwing things that can turn bad players into good ones. I think those kind of tactics can produce results when you have a good team that's performing poorly. But the Twins are not a good team, and tantrums are no substitute for talent. I think the the "enough is enough" statement needed to come from the front office in the offseason. They needed to make bold moves to send a message that what happened the last 2 years was not acceptable, and that they are committed to making sure it doesn't continue. But they didn't. They brought 4th-tier free agents and penciled in unproven players in starting roles, crossing their fingers that it would all work out. It hasn't.