My 2019 IBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot

Embed from Getty Images

Former Phillies star Jim Thome was among those voted into the HOF last year

As a lifetime member of the IBWAA (Internet Baseball Writers Association), I have the honor of being involved in the organization’s annual Hall of Fame voting process. This is my fifth year with a ballot, and my selections were turned in about two weeks ago.

The IBWAA voting process does not earn a player a plaque at Cooperstown. It does, however, allow a group of well-informed voters to express their opinion as to which players are deserving of the ultimate honor for their baseball career. You can consider it a formal endorsement from baseball writers and bloggers who represent dozens of internet sites.

I had decided over the last couple of years to break my ballot down into three segments. “Hall of Fame” players are those who, for me, are obvious, or whom I evaluated from previous years and decided were worthy.

“Future Consideration” names are not so obvious to me, but are strong enough candidates that I will continue to evaluate them moving forward. Finally, “Not Hall of Famer” guys are those who just don’t make the cut for me and will not in the future.

In 2017, eight players received my IBWAA vote: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Trevor Hoffman, Mike Mussina, Manny Ramirez, Ivan Rodriguez, Curt Schilling, and Larry Walker. Both Rodriguez and Vladimir Guerrero, who I had on my “Future Consideration” list that year, were voted in by the full IBWAA membership.

Last year just five returning players received my vote as a “Hall of Fame” player: Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling once again, as well as two newcomers to the ballot: Jim Thome and Chipper Jones.

On my “Future Consideration” list from the 2018 ballot were Hoffman, Mussina, Walker, Ramirez, Scott Rolen, Gary Sheffield, Billy Wagner, Lee Smith, Johnny Damon, Sammy Sosa, Jeff Kent, Fred McGriff, Omar Vizquel, Jamie Moyer, Andruw Jones, and Johan Santana.

The IBWAA membership honored six players in the final vote a year ago. Bonds and Clemens each finally got in, joined by Thome, CJones, Mussina, and Hoffman.

While the BBWAA only allow their eligible Hall of Fame voters to cast ballots for up to 10 players, the IBWAA has a 15-player limit. I decided after looking over the names to cast a wide ballot this year. Bottom line, I simply felt generous.

MY 2019 IBWAA BALLOT

My list for the 2019 IBWAA ballot was led by Schilling, the only player who has been a definite, no-doubt “Hall of Fame” player for me in both of the last two years but hasn’t made it as yet.

Two newcomers on this year’s ballot were considered by me to be no-doubt “Hall of Fame” players. Both Mariano Rivera and Roy Halladay thus received my vote as well.

I had decided early-on to bump up two players from last year’s “Future Consideration” list who were back on the 2019 IBWAA ballot, Walker and Rolen, to receive my vote.

Lenny Dykstra indicted by grand jury and faces possible return to prison

Embed from Getty Images

In a decision related to actions allegedly taken by former Phillies star outfielder Lenny Dykstra back in May of this year, a New Jersey grand jury handed down indictments on Wednesday.

The Associated Press has reported that third-degree charges for possession of cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as terroristic threats, carry with them potential sentences of up to five years imprisonment.

The now 55-year-old Dykstra became involved in an altercation involving an Uber driver, one in which the former Mets and Phillies outfielder was accused of putting a gun to the driver’s head. That driver, 47-year-old Brian Lutty, had reportedly refused to change the final destination of the trip.

Lutty pulled outside of police headquarters in Linden, New Jersey, about 20 miles outside of New York City, and bolted from the car. Responding officers found no gun but did find drugs in Dykstra’s possession.

Dykstra claimed that Lutty had “kidnapped” him. Christian Red and Larry McShane of the New York Daily News quoted him back in May: “The guy went nuclear on me. He f—ing kidnapped me and almost killed me going 100 mph. He locked me in his f—ing car, and he wouldn’t let me out.”

David Porter of the AP outlined some of Dykstra’s many public troubles since he last played Major League Baseball following the 1996 season:

My 2018 IBWAA Hall of Fame Ballot

Thome and Jones among five to receive my 2018 HOF vote

This past year marked a major change in direction as far as my baseball writing was concerned. For the previous three years, I wrote almost exclusively on the national pastime.

As the Fall of 2017 arrived, I decided to return to writing across the broader spectrum of politics, religion, entertainment, and social issues.

Baseball is always going to hold a special place in my heart and life, especially in regards to my hometown Philadelphia Phillies.

For anyone who has enjoyed my baseball writing in the past, rest easy. I am going to continue writing on the sport here at my website from time to time. You can enjoy those pieces, including all from the past, by clicking on the "Baseball" category from the website toolbar.

As a lifetime member of the IBWAA (Internet Baseball Writers Association), I have the honor of being involved in the organization's annual Hall of Fame voting process. This was my fourth year with a ballot, and my selections were returned just this past week.

The IBWAA voting process does not earn a player a plaque at Cooperstown. It does, however, allow another block of informed voters to express their opinion as to which players are deserving of that ultimate career honor. You can consider it a formal endorsement from the Internet baseball writers and bloggers.

A year ago for the 2017 IBWAA Hall of Fame voting, I broke down my ballot into three categories: Hall of Famers, Under Future Consideration, and Not Hall of Famer. I am doing the same for this piece on the 2018 ballot, and will continue that process into the future.

There were 31 eligible players on last year's 2017 ballot. Eight of those players received my vote as a Hall of Famer: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Trevor Hoffman, Mike Mussina, Manny Ramirez, Ivan Rodriguez. Curt Schilling, and Larry Walker.

Rodriguez and Vladimir Guerrero, who was on my "Future Consideration" list a year ago, were each voted in by the IBWAA in 2017. Both players received 175 votes (84.54%) to gain the honor of our HOF endorsement. Mussina, Hoffman, Bonds, and Clemens all received more than 70% of the vote, falling just short of the 75% requirement for endorsement.

This year, I was more frugal with my own vote, casting a ballot for just five players. In doing so, I left off three players who received my vote a year ago: Walker, Ramirez, and Hoffman. 

Frankly, I don't really enjoy taking a vote away from these players. It's not that I no longer feel they are worthy. I made a personal decision this year to "tier" my deserving choices. The five players who did receive my vote are, for me, clearly ahead of those three.

A year ago there were 31 players on the ballot. After voting for eight, I listed another seven under consideration, and rated 16 as not deserving. You can see here that the number of players who I will be considering in the future has grown considerably.

There are three videos accompanying this piece. I would recommend that you view each of them for more information on the HOF 2018 nominees and process. The middle video on Schilling's worthiness is particularly revealing. 

Here is my breakdown of the 2018 IBWAA Hall of Fame ballot. You will also absolutely have your own opinions, and I would love to hear them. Among the below nominees who were on the 2018 IBWAA ballot, which would receive your vote to the Baseball Hall of Fame?

My 2017 IBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

The Internet Baseball Writer’s Association of America (IBWAA) conducts voting in December of each year for its Baseball Hall of Fame.

This process is conducted in much the same manner as the formal BBWAA voting, which results in players being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown.

The IBWAA was born on the Fourth of July in 2009. As described at the association website, the organization was formed “to organize and promote the growing online baseball media, and to serve as a digital alternative to the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA).” 

The BBWAA is made up of writers who have covered the game for “traditional” media. This usually means of the print variety, such as newspapers. 

Meanwhile, coverage of the game has exploded beyond such traditional means over the last two decades.

Baseball coverage has now expanded to purely digital websites and blogs. Due to this expansion, a vibrant and vital new resource is available to all fans of the sport. 

Hence, the IBWAA organizes internet writers, columnists, and bloggers who might otherwise be shut out of the aging print media structure.

Barry Bonds Deserves Hall of Fame Enshrinement

A highly controversial former MLB superstar will again be eligible for Baseball Hall of Fame voting this year, and he deserves to be elected and inducted.

There is little doubt that Barry Bonds is one of the most controversial figures in Major League Baseball over the last few decades.

Along with players such as Pete Rose, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, and Manny Ramirez, Bonds is a player who would be a slam-dunk Baseball Hall of Famer if only statistics and career achievements were considered.

Bonds is in a category with all of those players other than Rose. Issues with gambling on the sport are keeping the game's all-time hit king from being enshrined at Cooperstown as a ball player. The issue with Bonds and the others is performance enhancing drugs. Use of PEDs appears to have been chronic throughout the 1990s and into the early part of this century.

The problems for Bonds can almost certainly be traced to the 1998 home run chase in Major League Baseball between McGwire and Sosa. That summer, the pair captured the attention and hearts of fans as they chased the single-season home run record of 61. That record was set by Roger Maris all the way back in 1961.

MLB was still trying to recover from the devastating effects of the strike of 1994.

Baseball Hall of Fame Announces Voting Rules Change

HOF reduces time for players on election ballot

The Baseball Hall of Fame this morning has announced a major rules change. Newly retiring players will remain on the BBWAA ballot and under consideration for enshrinement for just 10 years, down from the 15 years previously considered and voted upon.  

This could impact chances of players like former Phillie, Roy Halladay who recently retired.

Three players who are on the current ballot will not be affected: Alan Trammell, Lee Smith, and Don Mattingly. Each of these players was “grandfathered” to the full 15 years consideration since they have already been on the ballot for at least 10 years.

Per a statement released this morning, as the Hall prepares to welcome new enshrinees Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa, and Bobby Cox, the changes will be effective immediately, and will be first applied with voting for next year’s prospective 2015 class of honorees.

A Decade of Parity and History

In western historical terms, there was no year '0', so most people realize that an official decade truly runs from the year ending in '1' through the 10th year.

This means that 2001 opened the true first year, and the recent 2010 season ended the final year of the first decade of the 21st century.

For all of the talk about payrolls in baseball and a fear of competitive imbalance, here is the bottom line fact as it relates to that recently completed first decade: 9 different teams won the World Series.

The only franchise that was able to win multiple World Series titles was the one that opened the decade with a supposed jinx or curse, one that hadn't won in 90 years. That franchise was the Boston Red Sox, who won in 2004 and then again took the crown in 2007.

League or Divisional assignments didn't matter this past decade either. The two leagues evenly split the World Series victories at 5 apiece, and teams from every division won titles. The Phillies ('08) and Marlins ('03) from the N.L. East, the Cardinals ('06) from the N.L. Central, the Diamondbacks ('01) and Giants ('10) from the N.L. West gave the National League 5 titles. In addition to Boston's two titles, the Yankees ('09) joined from the A.L. East, the White Sox ('05) won from the A.L. Central, and the Angels ('02) from the A.L. West to give the American League 5 titles as well.

Hall Welcomes the Hawk

On September 11th, 1976, the Montreal Expos were winding down the final weeks of both that '76 season in Major League Baseball and their final season at Jarry Park. The following season they would move into the new Olympic Stadium, built for the Summer Olympics which the city had hosted that summer.

On that particular night, however, the team was on the road in Pittsburgh, and the 4-3 loss suffered at the hands of the perennial N.L. East power Pirates was the Expos 90th of the season. The night would be lost in memory but for one small tidbit. Starting in right field for the Expos on this night would be a rookie prospect by the name of Andre Dawson.

Dawson had been an 11th round draft pick of the Expos just a year earlier, the 250th player selected overall in that draft. Dawson would go 0-2 in that night's game and would be lifted for pinch-hitter Jose Morales in the top of the 7th inning as the Expos rallied from a 4-1 deficit to cut the lead to 4-3. It would be one of the only times that Andre Dawson would be removed from any kind of Montreal rally for the next decade.

Dawson thus began to get his feet wet in the Majors that September with 85 mostly uneventful at-bats for a last place team. His batting average was just .235, and he hit no homeruns. In 1977, however, it was a different story. Dawson was a starter right from spring training, and ended up as the National League Rookie of the Year after posting a .282 average with 19 homeruns and 21 stolen bases.

Those Expos of '77 improved by 20 wins over the previous year, and Dawson's bat and centerfield play was only one of the reasons for the fans of the franchise to finally feel as if a winner might soon be coming to MLB's only Canadian franchise. The franchise also had a 23-year old catcher named Gary Carter and 23-year old outfielder Ellis Valentine on board to build around.

This group of players would lead the team to it's initial glory years, finishing with the franchise' first-ever winning record by posting 95 victories in 1979 in what was the first of five consecutive winning seasons. That run was highlighted by the 1981 season in which the Expos made the playoffs for the only time in their history before losing the NLCS to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Andre Dawson was one of the main reasons that the Expos experienced so much success into the early 1980's. He regularly would hit .300 and was a consistent power/speed combination offensively while his strong glove and arm developed to the point that he led the NL in putouts for three straight years from 1981-83 and became a regular Gold Glove winner.

After a decade of mostly success in Montreal, Dawson became a free agent following the 1986 season. His knees had taken a pounding on the Olympic Stadium turf, forcing a move from centerfield to right field and taking a physical toll on him. One of the key requirements as he sorted through his free agent suitors was getting to play his home games on grass. For this reason he campaigned to sign with the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs general manager at the time was Dallas Green, who believed that Dawson was on the decline and did not want to sign him. Dawson and his agent presented Green with a contract offer that included a blank salary which the team could fill in itself at any figure that it deemed appropriate. Green took the challenge and filled the contract in at $500,000 with another $250,000 in incentives, a healthy pay cut from Dawson's final Montreal season.

At 32 years of age and with his knees mostly shot, Dawson's days as a centerfielder and speed threat were mostly over. But he had slid over to right field where his strong arm and excellent range allowed him to remain a Gold Glover. At the plate, Dawson exploded with the Cubs as one of the greatest power hitters in the game, and would end up being rewarded with a 5-year contract extension to stay in the Windy City.

In his very first season at Wrigley Field, Andre Dawson showed the Cubbies and Green that he was worth a full contract by putting up a season for the ages that resulted in his winning the National League Most Valuable Player award. He bashed 49 homeruns and knocked in 137 runs for a team that Phillies fans might find interesting included a 24-year old, 2nd year pitcher named Jamie Moyer.

In 1989, Dawson battled injuries to help lead the Cubs into the NLCS where they were beaten by the San Francisco Giants. He continued to put up consistently strong years for the Cubs, including a 1991 season in which he bashed 31 homers and drove in 14 runs. He would wind his career down with two seasons each playing for the Boston Red Sox and Florida Marlins, with his final game coming with the Fish on September 29th, 1996.

During his 20-year MLB career Andre Dawson had been an 8-time All-Star, including the winner of the 1987 Home Run Derby. He was a 4-time winner of the Silver Slugger for hitting excellence at his position. It wasn't nearly all about offense for the all-around Dawson, however. He was also an 8-time Gold Glove Award winner. All of this to go along with the '77 NL Rookie of the Year and '87 NL MVP awards.

Finally, Andre Dawson was one of only 3 players in MLB history to finish his career in the 400/300 Club (at least 400 homeruns and 300 stolen bases) with the others being Willie Mays and Barry Bonds. After waiting the requisite five years, Dawson received just over 45% of a needed 75% vote in his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame.

In 2003, Dawson, who was nicknamed 'The Hawk' during his playing career, received his only World Series ring as a member of the Florida Marlins front office, and he currently serves that team as a special assistant to the team president. He had his #10 retired by the Expos before the franchise moved to Washington. It was announced just yesterday that he was finally elected to full enshrinement as a player in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I watched Andre Dawson all throughout the 1980's and into the early 90's as one of the most dominant all-around players in the game during that pre-steroid era. In the first half of his career he had it all: power, speed, arm, defense. Later in his career he remained a consistent middle-of-the-order power threat. He won major awards, including an MVP for a last place team. In my opinion, Andre Dawson's election to the Hall is a long overdue honor.