Category: Baseball Hall of Fame

With the Baseball Writers Association of America announcing the results of its latest round of Hall of Fame voting, one of my favorite traditions occurred. If the revelation of who’s getting into Cooperstown is like Christmas, seeing who doesn’t receive any votes each year has got to at least be like Cranberry Sauce. I think it’s secretly the best thing about this most wonderful time of the baseball year. Six more players can now be added to the list of solid, if far from great, veterans who got zero votes their only time on the BBWAA ballot: Carlos Baerga, Lenny Harris, Bobby Higginson, Charles Johnson, Raul Mondesi, and Kirk Rueter,

Months ago, I created a line-up of some of the best players to not receive any Hall of Fame votes from the writers. One of the regulars here emailed me today, suggesting I do an update to the post, considering Baerga, Johnson, and Mondesi might boost the talent level. I’m happy to oblige. To anyone reading, please feel free to request a story, either by leaving a comment or emailing me. It helps me out a lot, since coming up with original content here four times a week can be challenging.

To make things interesting, I’m adding a different wrinkle to my new roster. Rather than simply revise my old lineup, I’ll offer a second one comprised of Baerga, Johnson, and Mondesi, as well as many players I missed the first time around. No one who appeared on the first lineup is on this one.

Anyhow, here goes:

P – Earl Wilson: One of the first successful black pitchers, Wilson went 121-109 with just nine full seasons and was 22-11 for the Tigers in 1967. Had Wilson not stayed in the minors for much of the 1950s with the Boston Red Sox, who did not field a black player until 1959, he may have had Hall of Fame numbers.

C – Charles Johnson: It’s no surprise Johnson failed to dent the rather deep Cooperstown ballot this year, since his .245 career batting average and OPS+ of 97 would rank him near the bottom of Hall of Fame hitters. Nevertheless, in his prime, Johnson was perhaps the best defensive catcher in baseball, winning four Gold Gloves.

1B – Hal Trosky: The 1930s was a time for hulking first basemen in the American League, with Jimmie Foxx in Boston, Hank Greenberg in Detroit, and Trosky in Cleveland. Trosky topped 100 RBI his first six full seasons, had 136 home runs by his 25th birthday, and hit .302 lifetime. Had he sustained the pace for a full career and not began to decline in his late 20s, who knows what might have been.

2B – Carlos Baerga: Same story, same city even. But after Baerga’s All Star-level career flat-lined, he resurrected himself as a mediocre journeyman. I give him points for trying. Call it the Ruben Sierra Award.

3B – Harlond Clift: Clift played 12 years in the majors and was an All Star in 1937. Mostly, though, his career is about what might have been. Playing his prime years with the St. Louis Browns probably lowered his numbers some, and he suffered a horseback riding injury and case of the mumps in the early ’40s, never the same player thereafter.

SS – Vern Stephens: Here’s proof a few hundred Hall of Fame voters can be wrong. Of any man here, Stephens deserved at least one vote. A seven-time All Star, he offered impressive power for his position, leading the American League in RBI three times and home runs once. It makes little sense his contemporary and teammate Bobby Doerr is in Cooperstown and Stephens isn’t.

OF – Raul Mondesi: Early in his career, Mondesi looked on-track for Cooperstown, a Gold Glove-winning right fielder who could hit for average and power and was the best thing going offensively in Chavez Ravine besides Mike Piazza. After Mondesi’s batting average dipped in 1999, Los Angeles unloaded him to Toronto for Shawn Green, and his career went south, taking him to five other teams. I’m no Dodger fan but I once booed Mondesi at a Yankee-Red Sox game. It’s not one of my prouder moments.

OF – Debs Garms: I came across Garms yesterday in researching my post on Harry Walker, and the name alone makes Garms worthy for here. He sounds more like a soap opera character or a rodeo star or a woman than a former National League batting champion. Of course, his .293 lifetime batting average and .355 clip that NL-leading 1940 season helps, too.

OF – Hal McRae: He’s here for hijacking George Brett’s bat following the Pine Tar Incident, racing down a stadium tunnel, and doing his best to keep opposing manager Billy Martin from stealing a game based on an obscure rule. McRae hit .290 lifetime and had an OPS+ of 122, and while his defense wasn’t much to speak of, he’d be the kind of bat and teammate I’d want around.

I got a Christmas Day email from a reader, Fredrico Brilhart regarding a post from September, Clash of the titans. I had offered a starting lineup of some of the best baseball players not in the Hall of Fame to compete against a lineup created by Bobby Aguilera for Seamheads.com.

I assumed my lineup would reign supreme, since Aguilera mostly picked players with high career WAR totals while I opted for big names who had shorter careers but, I figured, better peak value. Michael Lynch, the founder of Seamheads.com input the lineups Aguilera and I created into a run generator and determined Aguilera might have the advantage.

Fredrico went another direction. His lineup brims with names probably familiar to supporters of the Hall of Merit on BaseballThinkFactory.org, but obscure if not completely foreign to most fans. In fact, I hadn’t heard of most of them until I became aware of the Hall of Merit earlier this year, and I still don’t know much beyond names. Fredrico’s email begs the question: Could a team of veritable unknowns, at least to me, annihilate my squad? Might I be wrong again?

Fredrico writes:

I am only using one player that appears on either of those teams and that is Spottswood Poles, whom I have ranked in my listings as the 2nd most qualified for the Hall of Fame, not in the Hall of Fame, that is eligible. A personal favorite of mine….

For a team of this nature, I will value peak value over career value and therefore some might have earned the right for induction into the Hall of Fame in my thinking, before some on my peak value team that is listed here. I have tried to keep position integrity intact, but will make some logical shifts to make the team stronger.

I think this team would crush either the Aguilera or Womack teams in a seven game series or in a 162 game season.

Fredrico’s batting order
1- Spottswood Poles – CF B-L
2- Dick Lundy – SS B-B [ he is Ozzie & Aparicio with a 60 to 80 + higher BA ] King Richard is my choice for the greatest plaer not in the HOF that is eligible
3- Dobie Moore – 2B [ he was a SS, but is moved to get him in the line up ]
4- John Beckwith – 3B [ can also play SS, 1B & would be the 3rd string C ]
5- platoon at DH > Lefty O’ Doul B-L vs RHP … Frank Howard vs LHP
6- platoon in RF > Chino Smith B-L vs RHP … Rocky Colavito vs LHP
7- Mark McGwire – 1B ( steroid use should void him from going into the HOF )
8- platoon in LF > Tony Oliva [ he was a RF, but is moved ] B-L vs RHP … Minnie Minoso vs LHP
[ Joe Jackson would most likely be considered for the top choice here, but Womack had already taken him ]
9- Katsuya Nomura – C
I have not crunched the numbers, but my guess is that this team is a seven, eight or nine + runs a game offense.

The pitchers
1- John Donaldson – LHP
2- Dick Redding
3- Hippo Vaughn – LHP
4- Smokey Joe Wood
5- Spud Chandler
closer – Will Jackman ( submarine flame thrower )
RP- Webster McDonald ( submarine junk ball artist )
RP- Harry Brecheen – LHP

Bench
Alejandro Oms – OF B-L
Bill Monroe – 2B – 3B – SS
Max Bishop – 2B B-L
Omar Linares – 3B
Elston Howard – C

LET THE GAMES BEGIN !!!!!!

Fredrico seems highly knowledgeable about Negro League and other non-big league ball, and he was the person who prompted me back in June to write a post on Donaldson. I appreciate him speaking up here and encourage anyone who’s interested to do likewise.

I’m pleased to present a guest post written by Matthew Warburg. Matthew contacted me after reading my recent post, The 50 best baseball players not in the Hall of Fame. Thus, it’s not surprising that Matthew’s debut post here is about Cooperstown.

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First of all, as this is my first contribution to this Web site, let me introduce myself. My name is Matthew Warburg, I’m 41 years old, born and raised in San Francisco, currently living in Beijing, and a life-long Giants fan. Let it be noted that the only thing worse than having to wait umpteen years for your team to finally win the World Series, is having them finally do it when you are living halfway across the world.

But I’m not writing today about the Giants, but rather, another of my passions: the Hall of Fame. Let me start by saying I think it’s too easy to get in there. I don’t think players should have fifteen shots at being voted in. I also think getting in with only one ballot of 75 percent is too low a barrier. And I don’t think the Veteran’s Committee should enshrine players. For me, the Hall of Fame should be reserved for the true greats of the game, not the merely very good. Therefore, I think it’s time to revamp the HOF voting process. I believe it should be more difficult to get in, though still fair.

I’ll begin by making a simple assertion: We know, for the most part, which players are HOF-worthy and which are not the minute they retire. Among the recently retired, for example, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, Barry Bonds and Mike Piazza are without question HOF-worthy. We don’t even need to look at the numbers. We just know in our guts. On the other hand, there are players like Mike Mussina and Rafael Palmeiro who despite having gaudy numbers are not worthy, at least in my eyes. I just know it. Truth be told, there just aren’t many players who fall into the gray area of requiring serious debate. Most players are either one of the greats of their era (i.e someone who made opponents shiver in their spikes) or not. No discussion necessary. Thus, I think giving candidates fifteen shots at making their case rather ludicrous.

Therefore, my first suggested revamp would be to reduce the number of times a player is on the ballot to six: in the 5th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 20th years after their retirement. This would still allow candidates to be in front of the voters for the same 15-year period between their 5th and 20th seasons of retirement as the current system, but it would make it much more difficult for them to get in through endless years of campaigning in that they would only appear on the ballot every third year.

My second suggested revamp would be to raise the thresholds for both remaining on the ballot and for gaining entrance. Nobody should be able to stay eligible after three years under 20 percent and six years under 30 percent like Bert Blyleven has or gain entrance like Jim Rice did by sneaking over the line with just over 75 percent on his last shot after fourteen rejections. So my first suggestion would be to raise the threshold for remaining on the ballot to 25 percent and to add a three strikes provision stipulating that if you receive less than 50 percent on three separate ballots you lose your eligibility. On the other side of the coin I would make enshrinement tougher by forcing candidates to earn either 75 percent of the vote three times, 80 percent twice, or 90 percent once. Definite HOFers would still get in just as easily with more than 90 percent on their first ballot, but the good but not great players whom I feel are diluting the overall quality of the Hall of Fame would have a higher hurdle to overcome.

If you want an idea of how things would have turned out over the last five years had this system been in place, note the following. Using just the new voting thresholds, only three returning players would be on the 2011 ballot: Roberto Alomar, Barry Larkin, and Edgar Martinez. Bert Blyleven would have lost his eligibility in 1998 after receiving only 17.4 percent of the vote, Jack Morris in 2000 after receiving 22.2 percent of the vote, and Lee Smith in 2005 after his third ballot with less than 50 percent, and Tim Raines in 2008 after receiving only 24.3 percent on his first ballot.

Among the recently elected, Rickey Henderson, Tony Gwynn, and Cal Ripken, would still have been first ballot electees, Bruce Sutter would have lost his eligibility in 1994 after receiving 23.9 percent of the vote on his first ballot, Jim Rice would having lost his eligibility in 1997 after his third ballot with less than 50 percent, Goose Gossage would have lost his eligibility in 2002 after his third ballot with less than 50 percent, and Andre Dawson would still be eligible, needing two more ballots of more than 75 percent to get elected.

Note that if players were only on the ballot every third year instead of every year, as I have suggested, Gossage would still be eligible, needing one more ballot of 80 percent, and Rice would have remained eligible for all fifteen years without being elected. The bar for the good but not great players would be a little higher, but not insurmountable.

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This was a guest post written by Matthew Warburg. Email him at mattwarburg@hotmail.com

It’s been an incredible week around here. For anyone just happening by, on Monday evening, I posted a voter-determined list of the 50 best baseball players not in the Hall of Fame. Since then, ESPN.com and Baseball Think Factory have linked to the story, and I’ve been deluged with comments and emails. I’m stoked to see the project having such an impact, and I want to thank everyone who voted and everyone who’s had a kind word to say.

I want to do a brief follow-up to address some questions that have arisen since publication. After that, I’ll offer a brief look at where I see this thing going in 2011. As mentioned before, there will definitely be another one of these projects.

First, the questions:

Why aren’t there any old-timers here? A few people have commented about the near total absence of 19th century ballplayers, save for Bill Dahlen. Pete Browning was involved in a four-way tie for 49th place with Dave Concepcion, David Cone, and Billy Pierce, though Concepcion and Cone won out in a run-off. I have mixed feelings. While I was bummed to see Browning fall, he was one of the few pre-1900 ballplayers I had on my personal ballot save for Dahlen, Bobby Mathews, Deacon Phillippe, George Van Haltren, and Deacon White. I simply didn’t think the skill level was as high back then. I also think a lot of us voted based on our personal biases, on the players we’d seen and the ones closest to our hearts. I don’t think that’s egregious for a Hall of Fame-related vote.

Why wasn’t there a ranking system? It would have complicated an already intense project. Originally, I was going to ask for 100 players, but I cut it down to 50, partly because I needed votes in under two weeks, and I felt 100 was asking too much. I also thought it was too much to ask people to determine rankings. I’d also say that a ranking system creates inequity, since a 50-point vote, say for first place, could counteract a ton of lower scores. I like all votes counting equally.

Players not on the ballot: The list of notables now stands at Eric Davis, Bob Johnson, Darryl Kile, Kevin Mitchell, Camilo Pascual, Vic Power, Double Duty Radcliffe, and J.R. Richard, plus all the write-in players. I invite anyone to tell me who else I missed.

Where do we go from here? I think this was an awesome debut for this project, but clearly, there’s plenty to improve on. First off, I plan to start the 2011 voting a lot sooner. I have this crazy idea to kick things off at the upcoming Society for American Baseball Research convention, in Los Angeles next July and stump for votes all weekend. We’ll still shoot for a December results post, but my idea is to allow more time for a stronger return rate on ballots and to get more people voting. The more people that vote, the fewer the ties, the better the rankings. Also, I’d like to get former players voting. If anyone has ideas on how to go about this, I’m game.

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

Major League Baseball may have the most elite Hall of Fame in sports. More than 17,000 men have played professional baseball dating back to the 19th century, but in 75 years of elections, just 292 people have been enshrined in Cooperstown. The list of great players passed over time and again continues to grow, and with Hall of Fame voting season once more upon us, I figured it a good time to ask: Just who are the best players not in Cooperstown?

UPDATE, 1/6/2014: VERSION 4.0 OF THIS PROJECT IS OUT (and here’s Version 3.0 and Version 2.0)

Rather than base this on my opinion or some all-powerful stat, I decided to go a different direction– I sought votes from fellow baseball writers, researchers, and anyone else interested. I created a 300-player super ballot and began sending it out on November 22. In all, 63 people voted between the 22nd and December 4, including yours truly. The only rules were to vote for 50 players and to not pick anyone who’d played in the last five years. There wasn’t any ranking system required. Total number of votes received determined a player’s place on the list.

What follows is our list of the 50 best players not enshrined– not 50 players who need a plaque tomorrow, just the 50 best not there, whether they belong in Cooperstown or not. I’ll voice my opinion as I discuss these players. I invite anyone to make their own determinations. I’m also listing the 250 other players who received at least one vote and 34 who appeared on the ballot but got no votes.

The top 50 players are as follows, with their vote totals in parentheses:

1. Bert Blyleven (56 votes out of 63): A 287-game winner in his 22-year career, Blyleven has appeared on the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) ballot for the Hall of Fame 13 times and fell just shy of induction last year. He was never a high-profile pitcher in his era, like Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, or Steve Carlton, but the more Blyleven’s stats are looked at, from his 90.1 WAR to his 60 shutouts to his 3,701 strikeouts, the more he seems like a clear choice for Cooperstown. He shouldn’t be long for this list.

UPDATE, 1/6/2014: VERSION 4.0 OF THIS PROJECT IS OUT (and here’s Version 3.0 and Version 2.0)

2-Tie. Roberto Alomar (55): Like Blyleven, Alomar may get the call for Cooperstown from the writers next month, but it’s not as certain, due to some messy personal issues. Nevertheless, in his prime, Alomar was perhaps the game’s best second baseman.

2-Tie. Ron Santo (55): Santo was a lock for the top 10 here even before his death from cancer on Friday, being named on 52 of the 59 ballots cast before the day he died. A nine-time All Star and five-time Gold Glove-winning third baseman, Santo ranked with Billy Williams and Ernie Banks as a cornerstone of the Chicago Cubs in the 1960s. He’s gone, but never forgotten.

4. Alan Trammell (54): Trammell was never spectacular, save for 1987 when he hit .343 with 28 home runs and 1o5 runs batted in, good for a runner-up finish in American League Most Valuable Player voting. Otherwise, he was the quietly consistent shortstop for the Detroit Tigers for the better part of 20 years. With 2,365 hits and a .285 lifetime batting average, he was also one of the best offensive shortstops in baseball history.

5-Tie. Jeff Bagwell (53): Bagwell might not have been the best first baseman of his generation, but he couldn’t have been far off hitting 449 home runs with a .297 lifetime batting average. More impressively, he played a good chunk of his career in the cavernous Astrodome and thrived. During his National League MVP season in strike-shortened 1994, he hit .373 at home with 23 home runs and 58 RBI in just 56 games.

5-Tie. Shoeless Joe Jackson (53): Jackson would have been in the Hall of Fame 70 years ago had he not been banished for helping throw the 1919 World Series. As it stands, Jackson hit .356 lifetime, had a swing Babe Ruth copied, and put up his best power numbers in his final season before being banned, 1920. Had Jackson played out his career, I could have seen him mirroring Tris Speaker, another sweet-swinging Deadball Era outfielder who increased his slugging numbers in the ’20s and was one of the first players in Cooperstown.

7. Tim Raines (50): I consider Raines a poor man’s Rickey Henderson and were it not for a well-documented cocaine problem early in his career or a platoon role with various teams in the latter part, Raines might also be in the Hall of Fame. Even so, he led the National League in stolen bases from 1981 through 1984 and finished with 808 steals for his career, good for fifth best all-time. Aside from that, he had 2,605 hits, 1,517 runs and a .294 career batting average.

8. Barry Larkin (49): Similar to Trammell, Larkin was a quiet, consistent shortstop who played his entire career for one team, the Cincinnati Reds. He may have boasted greater star power, winning the NL Most Valuable Player Award in 1995 and belting 33 home runs the following year, though he never became a superstar.

9. Edgar Martinez (48): Martinez redefined the value of having an excellent designated hitter, as he became a vital part of the Seattle Mariners success in the mid-1990s. During the 1995 season when Seattle went on its run to the American League Championship Series with Ken Griffey Jr. mostly out of commission and Alex Rodriguez a young non-factor, Martinez may have been the team’s most important player, hitting a league-leading .356 with 29 home runs, 103 RBI, and a 1.107 OPS.

10. Pete Rose (47): Were this my list, I’d have Rose and Shoeless Joe first and second, no question. Both would have been easy selections to Cooperstown had they not been banned for gambling-related issues. Rose owns the all-time hits record, 4,256 and had a wonderfully, hyper-competitive style of play, rightfully earning the nickname “Charlie Hustle.” Still, I think some voters here assumed every pick needed to be someone they would vote in the Hall of Fame. I wanted people to make their picks on playing merit, and if this project runs again, I’ll make my approach clear from the outset. I’ll be curious to see if Rose and Jackson rise in the standings.

11. Dick Allen (46): A 2002 book on the 100 best players not enshrined ranked Allen first, and while that’s higher than I would personally tab him, Allen surely belongs somewhere near the top. As a young ballplayer in the 1960s, Allen was one of the premier hitters in baseball, and he bounced back from a mid-career lull to win the 1972 American League MVP. He retired with 351 home runs and a .292 career batting average, and had he not had such a famously surly personality, I suspect Allen would have had his place in Cooperstown 20 years ago.

12. Dwight Evans (45): Evans was the highest-ranked pick that I didn’t have on my personal ballot, and I found myself wondering while I was counting votes why I took Dom DiMaggio and not Evans. While both were superb outfielders for the Boston Red Sox, if I had the pick of either in their prime, I’d take Evans, no question. He offers the better all-around game, particularly with his power.

13. Ted Simmons (44): Simmons has long been a favorite in the baseball research community, ranked by Bill James as the 10th-best catcher all-time. Simmons was an afterthought on the Veterans Committee ballot this year, though we ranked him highest of any player he was up against there. In fact, we gave him more than twice as many votes as the player the Vets voted for most, Dave Concepcion.

14. Lou Whitaker (43): It’s fitting Whitaker would be on this list with his double play partner and Detroit Tigers teammate Trammell. Perhaps if they both get into Cooperstown, their plaques can hang beside one another. That will hinge on the Veterans Committee, which has a stated task to find players overlooked by the BBWAA but often opts for players who garnered significant support with the writers. Whitaker received 2.9 percent of the vote his only time on the writers ballot, despite ranking among the best second basemen of his generation.

15. Larry Walker (42): Walker is Chuck Klein or Lefty O’Doul for a newer generation, another player who put up gaudy numbers in a hitter’s era in a ballpark clearly favoring batters. Seeing as Klein needed almost 30 years after his career ended to make the Hall of Fame, and O’Doul isn’t enshrined, I think there’s a chance Walker might not get in, at least for awhile. That would be unfortunate since Walker also played outstanding defense early in his career, with an arm that could throw out slow runners at first base from his perch in right field. The fact Walker played at the height of the Steroid Era doesn’t help his chances either.

16. Fred McGriff (38): This is another pick I personally flubbed. For some reason, I chose the wrong Mc, going with Tug McGraw when I’d have been better suited to honor All Star first baseman McGriff. How does one take a relief pitcher, even a fine one, over a player with 492 home runs? Luckily, enough fellow voters recognized McGriff’s value to negate my gaffe. That’s one benefit of doing this sort of project via committee.

17-Tie. Will Clark (37): Call me cheesy, but I’m Thrilled about this pick. I grew up in Northern California when Clark was starring for the San Francisco Giants, and to this day, he remains my all-time favorite player. I made a case for his induction after the Giants won the World Series last month. I’ll say here briefly that Clark hit .303 lifetime, offered good power, and provided underrated defense at first base. He finished a distant 17th his only year on the Cooperstown ballot in 2006, receiving 4.4 percent of the vote. At the very least, he deserved more consideration.

17-Tie. Dale Murphy (37): Like Clark, Murphy is another fan favorite. When I included him in a now-outdated list from May 2009 of the 10 best players not in the Hall of Fame, I wrote: “If character counts, Murphy should have been a first-ballot inductee. The Atlanta Braves outfielder and devout Mormon deserves a spot on the All-Time Nice Guy squad, being a throw-back player who never drank and instead did things like answer children’s questions in a regular newspaper column. He also hit 398 home runs and won back-to-back Most Valuable Player awards.” I’d add that Murphy was the best player on some abysmal Braves teams and had comparable numbers to several Hall of Fame outfielders, including Duke Snider.

17-Tie. Luis Tiant (37): If Blyleven gets voted into the Hall of Fame in January as expected, the hunt may be on to find the next underrated pitcher researchers can get behind and promote for Cooperstown. My vote is Tiant, who went 229-172 with a 3.30 ERA and was one of the best pitchers of the 1970s. During his 19-year career, Tiant won 20 games four times and at various points, led the league in ERA, shutouts, WHIP and SO/9 innings.

20-Tie. Mark McGwire (36): I was happy to include all the openly-acknowledged black sheep of the Steroid Era who’ve been retired longer than five years, even if I want them nowhere near Cooperstown. Most of these guys enjoyed a good day at the polls here. Even Jose Canseco got 10 votes, four more than he received his only year on the BBWAA ballot. McGwire fared best with his 583 home runs and former single season record. I’m not sure if it was considered by voters here, but McGwire also has a career OPS+ of 162, tied for 12th all-time.

20-Tie. Joe Torre (36): Torre will almost certainly be one of the first men from this list to receive a Hall of Fame plaque, courtesy of his recently-ended managerial career, one of the best in baseball history, I think. Before that, Torre was an All Star catcher and first baseman, winning the 1971 National League MVP award when he led the circuit with 230 hits, 137 runs batted in, and a .363 batting average. Lifetime, he hit .297, all the more impressive when considered his career spanned 1960-1977, largely a time ruled by pitchers. In another era, he may have hit .320.

22-Tie. Bobby Grich (34): One of our voters, Josh Wilker included Grich in his memoir, Cardboard Gods. Wilker wrote of Grich, “As far as I know, Grich never tangled with Galactus or Modok or the Red Skull; he did once scream at Earl Weaver for pinch hitting for him too often when he was a rookie, but no blows were thrown by either man. Mostly, Grich quietly went about his job, over the course of his career creating a body of work bettered by only a few second basemen in major league history.” Among this body of work: 224 home runs, six All Star appearances, four Gold Gloves, and a career WAR of 67.6.

22-Tie. Keith Hernandez (34): This list is loaded with first basemen, perhaps because there are so many good ones not enshrined. Hernandez isn’t the only former MVP first baseman or perhaps not even the best defender at his position, though he’s certainly one of the top three or five. Hernandez was simply a very good player for the majority of his career, save for a rapid decline at the end.

24. Gil Hodges (33): Hodges may be the original sentimental favorite among non-enshrined players. Perhaps the best defensive first baseman in big league history, with 370 home runs to boot, Hodges fostered his image as a core member of the iconic Boys of Summer Brooklyn Dodgers and became a tragic figure with his death at 48 in 1972. Since then, he’s had unsuccessful try after posthumous try at Cooperstown. Hodges may not be the best player outside the Hall of Fame, but together with Santo, I suspect he might be the most revered.

25-Tie. Tommy John (32): He played 26 seasons and won 288 games despite needing a year off in the middle for ligament surgery so monumental it was later named after him. More impressive, he won 20 games three times after returning to play.

25-Tie. Tony Oliva (32): Oliva won three batting titles and led the American League in hits five times in seven years between 1964 and 1970 before injuries hampered his career. Together with Matty Alou, teammate Rod Carew, Roberto Clemente, and Pete Rose, Oliva was one of the best hitters of the pitcher-dominated 1960s.

27. Don Mattingly (31): Had Donnie Baseball sustained the pace from early in his career, 1984 through 1989 when he won a batting title and an MVP and perennially hit .300, he’d have made Cooperstown, no question. But Mattingly is another fine player whose career permanently shifted course after injury problems. That’s kind of the norm among first basemen on this list.

28-Tie. Jim Kaat (30): In 25 seasons that spanned five decades, from the waning days of the Eisenhower Administration to the Reagan Years and five presidents in between, Kaat won 283 games and 16 straight Gold Gloves.

28-Tie. Rafael Palmeiro (30): I recently chronicled Palmeiro’s troubled bid for the Hall of Fame. Barring a last-minute change of heart from the BBWAA, Palmeiro looks to be the first member of the 3,000 hit club since 1952 to not be inducted into Cooperstown on his first ballot. Even with 500 home runs as well, Palmeiro appears doomed, at least with the writers, for his positive steroid test in August 2005 and his vehement denials before Congress just months prior that he’d ever used.

28-Tie. Dave Parker (30): Another supremely talented player whose career was seriously affected by drug abuse, Parker made my May 2009 list. I wrote then, “This guy’s a Veteran’s Committee pick waiting to happen. If Jim Rice and Orlando Cepeda can get into the Hall, Parker should too. He had better career numbers than those players for hits, doubles, runs batted in, runs scored, and stolen bases.”

31-Tie. Albert Belle (29): Belle got little support the two years he appeared on the writers ballot for the Hall of Fame, consequences of his boorish behavior, his peaking during the Steroid Era, and his early retirement due to injuries. He still might have been the fourth best hitter in baseball for the full decade of the 1990s, after Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas. His defense was something awful, the reason he has a defensive WAR for his career of -6.6, but in his prime, Belle was generally good for 30-50 home runs a year, north of 100 RBI, and a .300 batting average or better.

31-Tie. Ron Guidry (29): Guidry had a relatively short career, 14 seasons, but he made the most of his time, going 170-91 lifetime and posting one of the best pitching seasons ever, 1978, when he went 25-3 with a 1.74 ERA, nine shutouts, and 248 strikeouts.

31-Tie. Minnie Minoso (29): Minoso did a little bit of everything well, batting above .300 eight full seasons, hitting 198 home runs, stealing 205 bases, and winning three Gold Gloves, among other things. With the help of two promotional stunts years after he retired, Minoso also managed to come to the plate in five different decades.

34. Steve Garvey (28): There are a lot of similarities between Garvey and Mattingly. Like Mattingly, Garvey looked like a sure bet for Cooperstown in his early seasons, winning the 1974 National League MVP, his first full season and taking home the Gold Glove at first base that year and the three that followed. But around 1980, his career took a sharp turn

35. Ken Boyer (27): A seven-time All Star, five-time Gold Glove-winner, and the 1964 NL MVP as he helped carry his St. Louis Cardinals to a World Series title, Boyer may have been the best third baseman of his generation aside from Brooks Robinson. Lifetime, he posted 282 home runs, a .287 career batting average, and a 58.4 WAR ranking.

36-Tie. Jack Morris (26): One of the better pitchers of the 1980s and early ’90s, Morris went 254-186 lifetime with a 3.90 ERA and is best remembered for his 10-inning, 1-0 shutout victory for the Minnesota Twins over the Atlanta Braves in Game Seven of the 1991 World Series.

36-Tie. Lee Smith (26): At one point, Smith’s 478 saves were the big league record, though it’s long since been eclipsed. But with the vote totals Smith has posted in Hall of Fame voting the last few years, consistently receiving at least 40 percent of the vote with six more years of eligibility after this one, it appears he could be the next closer in Cooperstown.

38-Tie. Kevin Brown (25): Brown’s name surfaced a few years back in the Mitchell Report as a possible user of performance enhancing drugs. That, and his less-than-endearing personality might smother his chance of staying on the Hall of Fame ballot beyond this year, despite his 211-144 career record and string of dominance in the late 1990s.

38-Tie. Dan Quisenberry (25): Like Smith, another great closer, only one who received far less support on the Hall of Fame ballot his only year eligible. Quisenberry’s relatively short 12-year career and 244 saves may have relegated him to 3.8 percent of the vote in 1996, and he died of brain cancer two years later. Nevertheless, he remains a popular figure in the baseball research community.

40-Tie. Bill Dahlen (24): Aside from Shoeless Joe, Dahlen was the only Deadball Era player to crack the top 50. And if there’s any eligible player from the early days of baseball who could best represent it, Dahlen may be the one. A longtime shortstop in a time where players were generally done in their early 30s, Dahlen hit .272 lifetime with 2,461 hits. Modern research shows he has one of the highest WAR rankings of non-enshrined players at 75.9.

40-Tie. Darrell Evans (24): Evans definitely isn’t the most appealing pick at first, from his .248 lifetime batting average to his modest defensive credentials to the fact he generally played for poor teams. But Evans had phenomenal longevity, hitting at least 10 home runs in 19 of his 21 seasons, belting 34 dingers at age 40, and finishing with 414 homers lifetime. He also walked a lot before it was popular and racked up a respectable WAR rating of 57.3.

40-Tie. Roger Maris (24): In 1978, Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray wrote, “The baseball writers are sometimes loathe to reward a guy for a single, incandescent, virtuoso performance over one season. They prefer a guy who keeps doing a predictable thing over and over again. Hank Aaron, who piled up 755 home runs, 30 to 40 at a time over 20 years, will go in the hall by acclamation. Roger Maris, who hit 61 one season, more than anyone ever hit in one season, will never make it.” But what a season it was, 1961. Maris won the American League MVP the previous year as well. Much as I respect Murray, I have no problem voting on the basis of one great year or two. I included Smoky Joe Wood in my top 50 largely for this reason.

43. Orel Hershiser (23): Hershiser won 204 games lifetime, but did his best work early on, going 19-3  with a 2.03 ERA in 1985 and then reaching his pinnacle in 1988. Among his accomplishments that year: a 23-8 record, 2.26 ERA, 58 scoreless inning streak, MVP awards for the NLCS and World Series, and, of course, the National League Cy Young. Hershiser struggled with injuries over the next few years and was never again as dominant.

44-Tie. Graig Nettles (22): Very similar to another third baseman of the 1970s and ’80s, Darrell Evans, Nettles offered good power and not much average, with 390 home runs and a .248 lifetime batting line. In contrast to Evans, though, Nettles won a few Gold Gloves, played on markedly better teams, and managed a slightly superior WAR ranking of 61.6.

44-Tie. Buck O’Neil (22): In September, I interviewed Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski who spent a year traveling the country with O’Neil near the end of his life. Posnanski later wrote a book, The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America. I asked Posnanski if he considered O’Neil the best Negro League player not enshrined. While I didn’t excerpt it in the interview I published in September, I’ll relay it here. Posnanski told me:

I don’t think he’s the best player. I think he’s the singular spokesman for the Negro Leagues and the voice of the Negro Leagues. I mean, he was a very, very good player, and he was a very, very good manager, and he was a very, very good scout, and he was a very, very good coach, you know the first black coach. I think his case for the Hall of Fame– which I thought was an absolute slam dunk case– revolved around a lifetime in baseball. He was a good player. He won a batting title, almost won another one. He was definitely a good player, but it was not his playing that made him this sort of slam dunk Hall of Fame person. I think it’s the fact that he lived this extraordinary baseball life and contributed to the game on so many different levels. I really don’t know if you could find anybody, certainly not many people in the history of the game who contributed to baseball so many different ways as Buck O’Neil did.

44-Tie. Jimmy Wynn (22): Someone commented here about a year ago, listing Wynn as one of the 10 best players not in the Hall of Fame. I took a look at his stats, noted his .250 batting average, and thought to myself it was crazy talk. But the more I’ve come to understand about how Wynn’s numbers were stunted playing home games in the Astrodome during the 1960s, the more I’ve respected how much he might have thrived in a different era. I don’t know if I could vote Wynn into Cooperstown on the basis of hypothetical projections, but I think it’s a shame he received no votes his only year on the Hall of Fame ballot, 1983.

47. Thurman Munson (21): A seven-time All Star, three-time Gold Glove-winning catcher, and American League MVP in 1976 when he led his New York Yankees to the World Series, Munson appeared on-track for Cooperstown until his death in a small plane crash on August 2, 1979 at 32. The customary five-year waiting period was waved so Munson could appear on the ballot in 1981, the only person I know of besides Roberto Clemente and Darryl Kile to get this exemption since the custom was adopted in 1954. Surprisingly, Munson received just 15.5 percent of the vote, and though he went the full 15 years of eligibility with the writers, his candidacy never again got as much support.

48. Bill Freehan (20): Like Simmons, Freehan was one of the best catchers in baseball, only he played outside a major media market and in an era when back stoppers like Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, and Munson commanded the spotlight. Quietly, Freehan put together a fine career. Playing solely with the Tigers, he won five Gold Gloves and was an All Star 11 of his 15 seasons.

49-Tie. Dave Concepcion (19): The starting shortstop for the Big Red Machine in the 1970s, Concepcion played all 19 years of his career in Cincinnati, making nine All Star teams, winning five Gold Gloves, and even finishing fourth in NL MVP voting in 1981 when he led the Reds to a first-place finish.

49-Tie. David Cone (19): At 194-126, Cone boasted a .606 career win-loss percentage and a beefy lifetime SO/9 rate of 8.3. He also won 20 games twice and took home the 1992 AL Cy Young Award.

(Editor’s note: There was a four-way tie at 49th place between Pete Browning, Billy Pierce, Concepcion, and Cone, with each player receiving 19 votes. In a tiebreaker runoff held late Sunday night and much of today, voters selected Concepcion and Cone for the final two spots.)

UPDATE, 1/6/2014: VERSION 4.0 OF THIS PROJECT IS OUT (and here’s Version 3.0 and Version 2.0)

Players who received at least 10 votes, in alphabetical order: Harold Baines (18), Ross Barnes (13), Buddy Bell (12), Vida Blue (15), Bobby Bonds (17), Pete Browning (19), Jose Canseco (10), Joe Carter (10), Bob Caruthers (14), Norm Cash (13), Eddie Cicotte (15), Rocky Colavito (12), Gavvy Cravath (13), Dom DiMaggio (13), Wes Ferrell (11), Curt Flood (17), Jack Glasscock (12), Juan Gonzalez (15), Dwight Gooden (15), Heinie Groh (10), Stan Hack (17), Babe Herman (12), Paul Hines (10), Frank Howard (14), Charlie Keller (10), Fred Lynn (12), Sherry Magee (14), Carl Mays (10), Tony Mullane (13), Don Newcombe (14), Lefty O’Doul (12), John Olerud (13), Al Oliver (17), Billy Pierce (19), Vada Pinson (17), Willie Randolph (14), Bret Saberhagen (11), Reggie Smith (17), Rusty Staub (10), Vern Stephens (11), Riggs Stephenson (10), Dave Stieb (14), Fernando Valenzuela (13), George Van Haltren (10), Deacon White (13),  Maury Wills (14), Smoky Joe Wood (17)

Everyone else who received at least one vote: Babe Adams (7), Joe Adcock (5), Matty Alou (1), Kevin Appier (3), Buzz Arlett** (1), Dusty Baker (3), Sal Bando (6), Hank Bauer (2), Don Baylor (6), John Beckwith (7), Mark Belanger (1), Charlie Bennett (7), Wally Berger (4), Joe Black (1), Tommy Bond (3), Bob Boone (2), Larry Bowa (1), Bill Buckner (5), Charlie Buffington (2), Lew Burdette (5), Ellis Burks (2), Brett Butler (5), Dolph Camilli (3), Phil Cavarretta (5), Cesar Cedeno (6), Ron Cey (7), Hal Chase (3), Cupid Childs (1), Jack Clark (6), Harold Clift (3), Vince Coleman (4), Jack Coombs (1), Cecil Cooper (4), Walker Cooper (1), Wilbur Cooper (7), Jim Creighton (3), Lave Cross (1), Jose Cruz Sr. (6), Mike Cuellar (2), Roy Cullenbine** (1), Al Dark (2), Jake Daubert (1), Willie Davis** (1), Paul Derringer (1), John Donaldson (1), Mike Donlin (2), Brian Downing (2), Larry Doyle** (1), Luke Easter** (1), Mark Eichhorn** (1), Bob Elliott (3), Del Ennis (3), Carl Erskine (2), Ferris Fain** (1), Cecil Fielder (4), Chuck Finley (1), Freddie Fitzsimmons (4), George Foster (6), Jack Fournier** (1), Bud Fowler** (1), John Franco (9), Bob Friend (1), Carl Furillo (4), Andres Galarraga (7), Ned Garver** (1), Kirk Gibson (8), George Gore (8), Mark Grace (6), Ken Griffey Sr. (1), Mike Griffin** (1), Charlie Grimm (1), Marquis Grissom (1), Dick Groat** (1), Pedro Guerrero (4), Mel Harder (3), Tom Henke (3), Tommy Henrich (4), Tommy Holmes** (1), Ken Holtzman (1), Willie Horton** (1), Elston Howard (9), Dummy Hoy (1), Bo Jackson (5), Sam Jackson** (1), Home Run Johnson (7), Bob Johnson** (5), Sad Sam Jones (2), Doug Jones** (1), Bill Joyce (1), Wally Joyner (2), Joe Judge (1), David Justice (1), Benny Kauff** (1), Ken Keltner (2), Jimmy Key (2), Johnny Kling (2), Ted Kluszewski (6), Jerry Koosman (4), Harvey Kuenn (6), Mark Langston** (1), Don Larsen (4), Tommy Leach (2), Sam Leever (5), Al Leiter (2), Duffy Lewis (2), Bob Locker ** (1), Kenny Lofton** (1- Editor’s note: Lofton was not eligible because he’s been retired less than five years, but someone wrote him in), Mickey Lolich (7), Herman Long (1), Davey Lopes (3), Dick Lundy (4), Dolf Luque** (1), Sparky Lyle (7), Bill Madlock (9), Sal Maglie (3), Firpo Marberry** (1), Marty Marion (2), Pepper Martin (4), Dennis Martinez (5), Bobby Mathews (2), Dick McBride** (2), Jim McCormick (5), Willie McGee (2), Tug McGraw (4), Stuffy McInnis (1), Ed McKean (1), Denny McLain (5), Sadie McMahon** (1), Dave McNally (2), Hal McRae (2), Cal McVey (7), Bob Meusel (4), Wally Moon (1), Dobie Moore (2), Bobby Murcer (4), Buddy Myer (1), Robb Nen (1), Bill Nicholson (1), Joe Niekro (1), Alejandro Oms (5), Tip O’Neill (3), Jesse Orosco** (1), Dave Orr (2), Amos Otis (2), Mel Parnell (2), Lance Parrish** (3), Dickey Pearce (6), Jim Perry (1), Deacon Phillippe (6), Lip Pike (3), Spottswood Poles (7), Boog Powell (2), Jack Quinn (1), Rick Reuschel (7), Allie Reynolds (5), Hardy Richardson (4), Dave Righetti (3), Red Rolfe (2), Al Rosen (6), Schoolboy Rowe (3), Jimmy Ryan (4), Johnny Sain (2), Wally Schang** (1), Herb Score (3), Jimmy Sheckard (5), Urban Shocker (3), Roy Sievers (2), Ken Singleton (5), Joe Start (6), George Stone (1), Harry Stovey (6), Darryl Strawberry (5), Ezra Sutton (6), Frank Tanana (2), Kent Tekulve** (1), Roy Thomas** (2), Bobby Thomson (4), Luis Tiant Sr.** (1), Cecil Travis (5), Hal Trosky (5), Quincy Trouppe (1), Dizzy Trout (1), Jesse Tunnehill** (1), Johnny Vander Meer (4), Mo Vaughn (2), Hippo Vaughn** (1), Bobby Veach (4), Robin Ventura (6), Mickey Vernon (6), Dixie Walker (2), Fleet Walker (2), Bucky Walters (7), Lon Warneke (1), Guy Weyhing (1), Frank White (4), Roy White (1), Will White (1), Bernie Williams** (1- Editor’s note: Williams was not eligible because he’s been retired less than five years, but someone wrote him in), Cy Williams (2), Ken Williams (2), Matt Williams (2), Wilbur Wood (2), Rudy York (1)
(** = Write-in candidate)

Appeared on the ballot, didn’t receive any votes: Dale Alexander, Dick Bartell, Bret Boone, George J Burns, George H Burns, Jeff Burroughs, Ben Chapman, Jim Davenport, Patsy Donovan, Jim Gentile, Hank Gowdy, Ozzie Guillen, Guy Hecker, Larry Jackson, Sam Jethroe, Charley Jones, Dave Kingman, Carney Lansford, Greg Luzinski, Elliott Maddox, Tino Martinez, Frank McCormick, Irish Meusel, Clyde Milan, Wally Moses, Jack Powell, Jeff Reardon, Joe Rudi, Manny Sanguillen, Mike Scott, Cy Seymour, Germany Smith, Vic Wertz, Todd Worrell

People who voted

1. Myself
2. Bobby Aguilera of Baseball Reality Tour
3. Brendan Bingham, reader
4. Doug Bird, a Sunday contributor on this Web site
5. Charles Beatley of Hawk 4 The Hall
6. Bill Bell, reader
7. Tom Bradley, member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and Retrosheet New York
8. Bob Brichetto, reader
9. Zach C., reader
10. Michael Clair of Old Time Family Baseball
11. Ev Cope, put together a list of names for the Veterans Committee to consider in 2008
12. Craig Cornell, reader
13. Jennifer Cosey of Old English D, member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA)
14. Victor Dadras, reader
15. Paul Dylan, reader
16. Charles Faber, reader
17. Eugene Freedman, SABR member, Baseball Think Factory contributing author
18. Gerry Garte, SABR member, contributes articles every other Friday here
19. Daniel Greenia, who wrote a “Fixing the Hall of Fame” series for Dugout Central and who authored a bi-monthly column for Bill James in the 1980s
20. Hank Greenwald, former San Francisco Giants announcer, SABR member
21. Joe Guzzardi, SABR member, Wednesday and Saturday contributor here
22. Wayne Horiuchi, avid sports card collector who has one of the most extensive game-used/autograph Hall of Fame collections in America
23. Tom Hanrahan, reader
24. Douglas Heeren, reader
25. Jason Hunt of Jason’s Baseball Blog, BBA member
26. Dave Lackie, reader
27. Jimmy Leiderman, 19th century photography researcher
28. Bruce Markusen of The Hardball Times, freelance writer living in Cooperstown.
29. Dan McCloskey of Pickin’ Splinters
30. Robert McConnell, reader
31. Ryan McCrystal of Wahoo’s Warriors
32. Bill Miller of The On Deck Circle
33. Andrew Milner, member of SABR and Baseball Think Factory
34. Cyril Morong of Cybermetrics, SABR member
35. Rory Paap of PaapFly.com, occasional contributor here
36. David Pinto of Baseball Musings, member of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA)
37. Gary Plunkitt, reader
38. Repoz
39. John Robertson, SABR member
40. Bob Sawyer, reader
41. Peter Schiller of Baseball Reflections
42. John Sharp of johnsbigleaguebaseballblog
43. Steven Sheehan, Ph.D., associate professor of history, University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley
44. Daniel Shoptaw of C70 At The Bat, founder of the BBA
45. Christopher Short, “Brooklyn Dodger fan for their existence”
46. Scott Simkus of Outsider Baseball Bulletin
47. Mark Simon, ESPN.com researcher and contributor
48. Gary B. Smith of FoxNews.com and a writer for Sports Illustrated from 1995 to 1997 (not to be confused with longtime SI writer Gary Smith)
49. Sean Smith of Baseball Projection
50. Aaron Somers of Blogging From The Bleachers, BBA member
51. John Swol of Twins Trivia, member of SABR, the BBA and MLB Hall of Fame
52. Dan Szymborski, contributing author to Baseball Think Factory and ESPN.com
53. Brad Templemann of Baseball In-Depth
54. Jacob Thompson, reader
55. Alex Vila, reader
56. Vinnie, reader
57. Shawn Weaver of Cincinnati Reds Blog, BBA member
58. Gregg Weiss, reader
59. Matt Welch, Editor in Chief, Reason (magazine), www.reason.com
60. Josh Wilker of Cardboard Gods
61. Joe Williams, chair of the Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legends Project, Nineteenth Century Committee, SABR
62. Jena Yamada, reader
63. Devon Young of My First Cards, IBWAA member

Thanks to everyone who voted and helped this project. To anyone who missed it, don’t fret– I may make this an annual thing.

UPDATE, 1/6/2014: VERSION 4.0 OF THIS PROJECT IS OUT (and here’s Version 3.0 and Version 2.0)

My apologies.

If there’s one thing conducting a Hall of Fame group project for the first time has taught me, it’s that there was a lot I didn’t know going in. Yesterday, I got my latest lesson: Count votes as they come in. I waited until yesterday evening to start going through the 60-odd ballots, and I realized I needed more time than expected. A lot more time. I’m going through ballots by hand, and I got through 12 in a little over three hours.

The good news is that there’s a strong variation in picks already, a core of consensus choices and dozens of outlying players with a few votes at most. The bad news is that I can’t share the results today, as I had promised.

I have decided to publish the voting results Monday afternoon, sometime after the Veterans Committee pick or picks are announced (if there are any.) I figure this should still be topical until the Baseball Writers Association of America announces in January who it will enshrine and will hopefully have long life on search engines. I also think it will be interesting to see if any of our top 50 will be formally inducted into Cooperstown in the summer of 2011.

Don”t worry if any of the Vets picks are in the top 50. My understanding is that no new picks will be in the Hall of Fame until the induction ceremony next summer. I will make this as clear as I can in the post.

The Hall of Fame project I announced this week is going outstandingly. More than 60 people have said they’ll vote, and as I write these words on Friday evening, 12 people have already gone to the virtual polls including Josh Wilker of Cardboard Gods (the first person to vote– two hours after I sent out the ballot), David Pinto of Baseball Musings, and Mark Simon, a researcher for ESPN New York. I’m excited to see where this thing goes, and I invite anyone who’s interested to email me for a ballot. Anyone is eligible to participate. For more information, go here.

I wanted to take a minute and address some questions. A few people have voiced common themes, and I wanted to offer clarification for any like-minded individuals who haven’t spoken up. I think it’s better to deal with these things sooner rather than later.

Here are some FAQs:

I don’t believe there are 50 players who belong in the Hall of Fame. Can I vote for 12? Please vote for 50. This isn’t going to be a list of 50 players who deserve induction, simply the 50 best who aren’t enshrined. If we wind up with 25 players who have no business near Cooperstown, so be it. I actually think it makes for more interesting writing.

Can I vote for current players? No. Please only vote for anyone who hasn’t played past 2005. We’re going with the same five-year waiting period the Baseball Writers Association of America observes for its Hall of Fame voting. Feel free, though, to vote for anyone who’s played before then. There are many 19th century ballplayers and obscure greats on my 300-player super ballot.

You didn’t include (so-and-so) on the ballot. May I vote for him? Absolutely, write-ins are welcome. So far, it’s been pointed out I forgot Tony Taylor, J.R. Richard, and Vic Power, and some of the submitted ballots have included other write-ins. It makes sense. More than 17,000 men have played in the majors and about 300 are in Cooperstown. I almost certainly forgot several deserving players.

Do players need to have played a certain number of years to qualify? No. While Cooperstown generally requires players to have at least 10 years service time for induction, there are no such constraints here. Bo Jackson, eat your heart out.

When do you need this by? Right now, the deadline is December 1 at 9 p.m. PST, but I’m considering extending voting by one week for an awesome reason I can’t disclose yet. But trust me, if it comes through, our project will get even better. More to follow.

Anyone who reads this Web site regularly may know that I write about the Hall of Fame fairly often, at least on a weekly basis and that my first post on the subject was a list in May 2009 of the 10 best players not in Cooperstown. Since I wrote that post, I’ve found many, many more deserving players, and now, I’d like to expand to something bigger.

I want a list of the 50 greatest players who aren’t enshrined, and rather than simply base this on my opinion or career WAR rankings (or some other trendy stat that will be outdated in a few years), I want to try something different: I’d like this to be based on the votes of people who frequent this Web site and other baseball writers.

I’ll keep a master tally of all the votes and base rankings off of which players get the most votes. I want at least 50-100 people to vote. The more votes and the broader the range of voters, the better the players will be separated in the rankings. Anyone is eligible to vote, and I would be happy to link in the post to any fellow baseball writer who participates.

So here’s how this will work: I’m compiling a super ballot of 300 non-enshrined players that I intend to send out this evening  (write-in candidates welcome, too.) Voting will last until December 1 at 9 p.m. PST. I’ll post the results on December 3, ahead of the Veterans Committee’s announcement on December 6 of who it will be inducting in 2011 and the Baseball Writers Association of America’s announcement in January of its picks.

If anyone reading would like to participate, please send me an email at thewomack@gmail.com or leave a comment here and I will email a ballot this evening. And if anyone happens to read this after today, please feel free to reach out to me. As long as it’s before December 1, I have no problem providing a ballot.

One of my regular readers emailed me and another blogger earlier week. The reader wrote:

Gentlemen,

We know the HOF honors indivdual players, but has anyone thought about having a way to honor great teams? Maybe select no more than one or two teams per decade from each league perhaps? If there aren’t any teams that measure up in any decade, then you don’t have to enshrine any.

I like the idea. While much of the rest of the blogosphere is writing about the playoffs (and expect something here on Monday about the Giants and Phillies– I’m just waiting for first blood) I thought I’d offer some thoughts on teams that could be enshrined in Cooperstown.

The following is purely subjective, as my posts about the Hall of Fame often are. This is merely a starting point, and I invite others to expand upon it.

Here are my picks:

1901-1910: Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Giants: What a difference a century makes. The Bucs won at least 90 games eight out of the first ten years of the 20th century and appeared in two World Series, winning in 1909. The Giants were perhaps baseball’s worst team at the start of the decade but transformed into contenders after John McGraw became manager in 1903. Interestingly, both these teams got great raiding others: Pittsburgh plucked Honus Wagner and others from the Louisville Colonels and McGraw brought much of the old Baltimore Orioles roster with him when he joined the Giants. Nefarious perhaps, but it worked brilliantly.

1911-1920: Philadelphia Athletics, Boston Red Sox: Connie Mack’s first dynasty produced three World Series appearances and two titles in the first four years of the decade, led by players like Hall of Fame pitcher Chief Bender. The Red Sox are here because they won four World Series in the decade (including three times with young ace Babe Ruth) and because the last title was followed by an 86-year championship drought.

1921-1930: New York Yankees, Philadelphia Athletics: Some people regard the Murderers Row Yankees as the best team in baseball history, though Sports Illustrated put out a cover story some years back suggesting they were rivaled by Mack’s second dynasty that gelled at the end of the ’20s.

1931-1940: St. Louis Cardinals, New York Yankees: The Gashouse Gang produced two World Series championships, 1931 and 1934. It marked the triumph of St. Louis general manager Branch Rickey and his brainchild: the farm system. Meanwhile, the Yankees in the ’30s had, at different times, an aging Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio turning in productive years. It helped for a staggering five World Series titles between 1931 and 1940, with no worse than a third place finish any year of the decade. Four times in club history, the Yankees have scored more than 1,000 runs in a season. These years were 1930, 1931, 1932, and 1936.

1941-1950: St. Louis Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers: Stan Musial missed most of World War II, and it helped the Cardinals become a dominant team once more, winning three World Series between 1942 and 1946. The Dodgers would be on here even if they were a terrible team in those years (they weren’t) as they broke baseball’s color barrier with Jackie Robinson in 1947, another Branch Rickey idea.

1951-1960: New York Yankees, New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers: New York was again baseball’s capital in the 1950s, with every World Series between 1951 and 1958 featuring a New York team. So many of baseball’s icons played at least a year in New York in the ’50s from Robinson and Duke Snider on the Boys of Summer Dodgers to DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle on the Yankees to Willie Mays on the Giants.

1961-1970: St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers: Baseball was all about pitching in the 1960s, and these two teams exemplified this. The Cardinals were a machine led by Hall of Fame hurler Bob Gibson, who delivered Game Seven victories in the 1964 and 1967 World Series and then amassed a modern era-record 1.12 ERA in 1968, only to fall to the Tigers in the World Series. The Dodgers also won two World Series and made it to another behind ace Sandy Koufax.

1971-1980: Oakland Athletics, Cincinnati Reds: Two of baseball’s more colorful clubs, the Mustache Gang A’s and Big Red Machine accounted for every World Series title between 1972 and 1976. Perhaps no two teams in the same decade were so filled with characters– and talent. Oakland and Cincinnati also signified another thing in baseball in the ’70s: the abrogation of the Reserve Clause which led to both clubs losing core players.

1981-1990: No one: Perhaps the Dodgers deserve recognition, seeing as they won the World Series in 1981 and again in 1988. But compared to most of the other teams written of here, these LA clubs seem nowhere near as memorable. In general, this was a decade defined by teams I don’t care to celebrate: the steroid-addled A’s, the coked-out Mets. Why should Cooperstown lionize that?

1991-2000: New York Yankees: The Yankees resurrected themselves from a decade-long slump in the mid-1990s and became a powerhouse once more, winning the World Series in 1996, and again in 1998, 1999, and 2000. The ’96 club was even somewhat likable, a collection of non-superstars like Paul O’Neill and Bernie Williams, led by everyman manager (everymanager?) Joe Torre.

2001-2010: Boston Red Sox: What’s the best way to shake off close to a century without a World Series title? By hiring a crack young general manager, assembling a contender, and winning everything twice in four years. In a decade where eight teams have won the World Series, Boston is the only club with multiple titles.