David Ortiz elected to Baseball HOF but…

Youwrong wrote:

Why does Ortiz, a great player and apparent steroid user, get in, but not Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens etc.? Please explain.

The Hall of Fame is joke. Multiple players who almost certainly used drugs Ortiz, and Piazza are in. Probably half a dozen others or more who doped and were never inspected.

The baseball HOF does not have the all-time hits leaders.

The baseball HOF does not have the all-time home run king who is without a doubt the best player anyone under 50 has ever watched play.

The best pitcher of the past 30 years is also not in the HOF.

If you have that much greatness excluded from the Hall, despite what those individuals did, your institution is meaningless.

I'd have to go with Willie Mays as the greatest living player, not Barry Bonds.

fell in love with a clown at a clown show wrote:

carmine9 wrote:

He pushed the official narrative of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Can we come back to this? I think we'd all love to hear your explanation of what actually happened at the Marathon.

Here ya go.

What a lot of people forget is that before he even donned a Giants uniform, he was among the best, if not the best, player in the game.

The dude's last 3 seasons in Pittsburgh before he joined the Giants:

2 MVPs

2nd place in MVP voting

3 Gold Gloves

If you include his first 2 seasons with the Giants after that, you're looking at, in a 5 year time frame:

3 MVPs

2nd place MVP

4th place MVP

5 Gold Gloves

That is all-time great level...and this is before he really got huge.

Anyone who knows and follows the game knows how good Bonds was before the PEDs

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

What a lot of people forget is that before he even donned a Giants uniform, he was among the best, if not the best, player in the game.

The dude's last 3 seasons in Pittsburgh before he joined the Giants:

2 MVPs

2nd place in MVP voting

3 Gold Gloves

If you include his first 2 seasons with the Giants after that, you're looking at, in a 5 year time frame:

3 MVPs

2nd place MVP

4th place MVP

5 Gold Gloves

That is all-time great level...and this is before he really got huge.

Anyone who knows and follows the game knows how good Bonds was before the PEDs

He was.

But Bonds on the juice was the greatest hitter of all time, surpassing Ruth and Williams.

Baseball’s HOF is a joke. The sportswriters are in charge of who gets in.

former baseballer wrote:

I think a lot of people are turned off by Barry's apparent psychotic narcissism. I grew up watching the guy and loved his skills, but he turned into a mega jacka-- at the end of his career.

Don't know what to say about Roger.

And as for Big Papi, he never came across as negative like BB did. I think the voters consider that.

So the HOF is a popularity contest? Got it.

Pick It Up wrote:

I'd have to go with Willie Mays as the greatest living player, not Barry Bonds.

Ok, fair enough. I’m sure Bonds would agree. I’m an SF fan and native and season ticket holder. Just a little to young to have watched Mays except for when he was on the Mets. I watched Bonds night in and night out. I don’t think Mays was as great a hitter. I won’t get into all of the statistical arguments. If you factor in all around play, the importance of CF > LF and of course the doping allegations, fair to give it to Mays. What I can tell you steroids or no, Bonds had the greatest left handed swing and plate discipline of any hitter. Steroids did not give him his eye for the strike zone , nor did it refine his swing. The swing as short, compact and with no holes. No place to pitch him. He never offered at a bad pitch and he made contact every time. I think I read in his home run record year that he had more home runs than swing and miss strikes.

carmine9 wrote:

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

What a lot of people forget is that before he even donned a Giants uniform, he was among the best, if not the best, player in the game.

The dude's last 3 seasons in Pittsburgh before he joined the Giants:

2 MVPs

2nd place in MVP voting

3 Gold Gloves

If you include his first 2 seasons with the Giants after that, you're looking at, in a 5 year time frame:

3 MVPs

2nd place MVP

4th place MVP

5 Gold Gloves

That is all-time great level...and this is before he really got huge.

Anyone who knows and follows the game knows how good Bonds was before the PEDs

He was.

But Bonds on the juice was the greatest hitter of all time, surpassing Ruth and Williams.

Off topic, but I don't think that Ruth and Williams are actually the greatest hitters of all time. It's like saying Zatopek was the greatest runner of all time. If you want to call Willie Mays the GOAT, I won't argue too much, but I think of him as the equivalent of Kip Keino or Jim Ryun, pre-modern, but good enough to deserve a second glance.

In reality, the best runners are likely the ones from the past 30 years, and the same is true for baseball players. If you want to throw out Bonds and A-Rod, I'll give you Trout and Pujols. But I think it's pretty unlikely that Ruth could have raked like those guys in the modern game, even if he had been born a century later.

Exactly. Let’s also acknowledge the pitchers were all doped too. If you magically transplanted the 2002-04 Bonds to the 1927 Yankees he probably would have hit 100 home runs/yr, especially in the old Yankee stadium.

analyst wrote:

[

But Bonds on the juice was the greatest hitter of all time, surpassing Ruth and Williams.

Off topic, but I don't think that Ruth and Williams are actually the greatest hitters of all time. It's like saying Zatopek was the greatest runner of all time. If you want to call Willie Mays the GOAT, I won't argue too much, but I think of him as the equivalent of Kip Keino or Jim Ryun, pre-modern, but good enough to deserve a second glance.

Look at the numbers. I am talking about hitting only.

carmine9 wrote:

analyst wrote:

[

But Bonds on the juice was the greatest hitter of all time, surpassing Ruth and Williams.

Off topic, but I don't think that Ruth and Williams are actually the greatest hitters of all time. It's like saying Zatopek was the greatest runner of all time. If you want to call Willie Mays the GOAT, I won't argue too much, but I think of him as the equivalent of Kip Keino or Jim Ryun, pre-modern, but good enough to deserve a second glance.

Look at the numbers. I am talking about hitting only.

Babe Ruth was by far the greatest baseball player of all time, way ahead of anyone else and that is because he was an all-star (likely HOF) pitcher for the first 6 years of his career. Not only would he have been a lock for the 1916 Cy Young award (if there had been one) he was a beast in the post season with a 3-0 record in two world series and a .87 ERA. His batting speaks for itself and you can argue whether he would be as good in the modern era but the fact is he single handedly revolutionized the game of baseball and was heads and shoulders ahead of his peers.

We'll see what Ohtani does but thus far no one has combined the batting and pitching ability of Babe Ruth and for the first half to 2/3 of his career his defense was very strong, he had a bullet arm (not surprising as he started as a pitcher) and good range in the OF.

Always saw slugging % as the best overall single stat to capture someone's batting prowess.

Numbers 1 and 2 career? Ruth and Williams with Gehrig a close 3rd. Then some Negro League players who we unfortunately know little about.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/slugging_perc_career.shtml

Note Manny R is way above David Ortiz.

First off I think that Both Bonds and Clemens are huge Narcissists and in Clemens case an absolute douche who threw his wife under the boss and said the HGH that was sent to his house was for her b/c she felt insecure about appearing in a swimsuit photoshoot, I think that plays as much of a role as suspected PED usage in many writers not voting for them. That said Clemens and Bonds deserve to be in the HOF they was great before PED and great after and frankly there are so many people who were using illegal drugs in the HOF not to mention admitted cheaters like Gaylord Perry and cheaters who were caught red handed like Don Sutton. The other thing that I think bothers voters is that Clemens and Bonds continued to deny they used PEDS despite strong evidence to the contrary (probably due in part to their narcissism).

However, I do think Ortiz is in a different category when it comes to PEDs. The leaded memo that had his name on it doesn't mention what substance and according to MLB the testing was done before there was a drug testing policy and included results for things that were legal at the time. No voter knows what Ortiz tested positive for it very well could have been a legal supplement and that is bolstered by the fact that Ortiz was later tested frequently during his prime and never failed.

The HOF voting process is far from perfect or even far from very good like with the MVP popularity and one's likability comes into play as well writer biases. in 1999 George King left Pedro Martinez off his MVP ballot saying oh the MVP isn't for pitchers (never mind it is per its charter for all players) and yet in in previous years King had voted for several pitchers on his MVP ballot. Baseball writers can be hypocrites like the rest of us.

Curt Schilling is another example and although one could argue he shoulders some of the blame for fanning the flames the fact is he wasn't elected to the hall for his political beliefs not for shortcomings in his ability.

Rose is a tough one b/c of all the things that need to be sancrosanct in professional sports the integrity of an outcome is paramount. We don't know for sure if Rose bet on the Reds only to win or against them but the mere perception that a player or even worse a manager made decisions counter to winning a game cannot be allowed. It would make MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL more account to WWF / WWE 100% entertainment and not entertaining sports.

carmine9 wrote:

Bonds only 7 time MVP.

Clearly a Hall of Famer.

Surprised he is listed at 6 feet 1 inch and 185 lbs (!) in baseball reference

You shouldn’t be surprised assuming you saw him (or photos) when he played for the Pirates. He was a beanpole.

it's very simple:

You don't punish someone for doing what everyone else was doing, and it wasn't illegal, even if it was unethical. Nobody says Ortiz' entire career was owed to drugs, even if he and other were suspected at one time of using.

But you do punish someone for using those methods to make a mockery of the sport for your own personal gain. Clemens and Bonds' careers were falling, and they used drugs not only to stay in the game, but to make a joke of the sport and the record book.

Let's be clear: Ken Griffey Jr. would have obliterated all of Bonds' accomplishments if the playing field had been level. Bonds and Clemens did what they did because theircareers were declining and they used drugs to achieve levels of fame they ever could have achieved ontheir own.

Clemens won 4 Cy Youngs while doping. Bonds won 4 MVPs while doping. It's impossible to separate their career accomplishments on and off drugs because they used drugs to seperate themselves so outlandishly from their competition.

Bonds hit over 40% of his career HRs and had 44% of his career walks when he was doping.

48% of Clemens' career IP and 50% of his Ks came after he started doping.

You can't distunguish their pre- and post-doping careers, because they're too intertwined.

Bonds had 445 career HRs when his career started tailing off. There's a good chance he wouldn't get to 500. That's pretty good, but you know who he would have behind?

Carlos Delgado

Fred McGriff

Gary Sheffield

Adam Dunn

This narrative that Bonds was already a HoFer is silly. He might have been. He wouldn't have been first ballot. But it's moot, because every record he set, and almost half of his career numbers, happened while doping.

Is Jimmy Key a Hall of famer? He has better career stats than Clemens did when he started doping.

That's the dfference.

carmine9 wrote:

fell in love with a clown at a clown show wrote:

Can we come back to this? I think we'd all love to hear your explanation of what actually happened at the Marathon.

Here ya go.

https://whowhatwhy.org/justice/criminal-justice/boston-bombing-anniversary-legacy-unanswered-questions/

You seem to have everything figured out, and not once has it agreed with popular opinion. Does knowing more than the rest of the planet ever get tiring?

hank jr wrote:

carmine9 wrote:

Here ya go.

https://whowhatwhy.org/justice/criminal-justice/boston-bombing-anniversary-legacy-unanswered-questions/

You seem to have everything figured out, and not once has it agreed with popular opinion. Does knowing more than the rest of the planet ever get tiring?

Well I have figured out that the official narratives we are fed are BS. Always.

Don't think I am the only one.

It is tiring watching people regurgitate the official propaganda while thinking it is their own thoughts.