Before I go into this I have to issue a huge disclaimer: The entry you are about to read has swearing in it so please read it with this disclaimer in mind. So here we go!
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Here’s a complete list of the voters who voted against San Diego Padres pitcher Trevor Hoffman as well as Seattle Mariners Designated Hitter Edgar Martinez and their location last year. Note that the location might be slightly off for some, but this was based on what I could find publicly through Wikipedia, Twitter, and through recently published work:
| BBWAA Member | Location |
|---|
| Jeff Fletcher | Anaheim |
| Mark Bradley | Atlanta |
| Peter Abraham | Boston |
| Bill Ballou | Boston |
| David Borges | Boston |
| Paul Doyle | Boston |
| Alan Greenwood | Boston |
| Scott Lauber | Boston |
| Art Martone | Boston |
| Tony Massarotti | Boston |
| Joe McDonald | Boston |
| Brendan Roberts | Boston |
| Bob Ryan | Boston |
| Dan Shaughnessy | Boston |
| Michael Silverman | Boston |
| John Tomase | Boston |
| Mike Harrington | Buffalo |
| Ryan Fagan | Charlotte |
| Bernie Lincicome | Chicago |
| Carrie Muskat | Chicago |
| Mike Nadel | Chicago |
| Phil Rogers | Chicago |
| Gordon Wittenmyer | Chicago |
| Paul Daugherty | Cincinnati |
| Scott Priestle | Cincinnati |
| C. Trent Rosecrans | Cincinnati |
| Bill Livingston | Cleveland |
| Tim Cowlishaw | Dallas |
| Lynn Henning | Detroit |
| Tom Keegan | Kansas City |
| Sam Mellinger | Kansas City |
| Jeff Passan | Kansas City |
| Rick Plumlee | Kansas City |
| Joe Posnanski | Kansas City |
| Juan Vené | Miami |
| Steve Wine | Miami |
| Peter Botte | New York |
| Larry Brooks | New York |
| Pete Caldera | New York |
| Murray Chass | New York |
| Ken Davidoff | New York |
| Mark Feinsand | New York |
| Mark Hale | New York |
| Anthony McCarron | New York |
| Eric Nunez | New York |
| Steve Popper | New York |
| Mike Puma | New York |
| Mike Shalin | New York |
| Joel Sherman | New York |
| Mike Vaccaro | New York |
| George Willis | New York |
| Pat Caputo | Oakland |
| Josh Dubow | Oakland |
| Alan Robinson | Pittsburgh |
| Bob Smizik | Pittsburgh |
| Andrew Baggarly | San Francisco |
| Mark Purdy | San Francisco |
| Jim Caple | Seattle |
| Willie Smith | South Carolina |
| Mark Saxon | St. Louis |
| Mike Berardino | St. Paul |
| Phil Miller | St. Paul |
| John Romano | Tampa |
| Jeff Blair | Toronto |
| Rob Gillies | Toronto |
| Dave Perkins | Toronto |
| Peter Barzilai | Washington D.C. |
Notice any trends? Amazingly, there were 14 ballots from the Boston area – more on this later – alone that omitted Trevor Hoffman & Edgar Martinez. Another 15 New York ballots omitted Hoffman & Edgar. Only 6 West Coast ballots omitted the two.
This is not insignificant. In fact, using an Exact Test – a statistical method to determine the “rarity” of a contingency table in a random sampling – we see that the revealed Boston vote is very statistically significant, with a two-tailed P value of .0041. If you aren’t familiar with what the P value means:
If there really is no association between the variable defining the rows and the variable defining the columns in the overall population, what is the chance that random sampling would result in an association as strong (or stronger) as observed in this experiment?
In other words, the Boston/Not Boston contingency table is very unlikely if the null hypothesis, that Boston voters are not different from non-Boston voters, is true:
And while New York had 15 no votes, they also had 30 yes votes: a statistically insignificant P value of 0.3682. California, meanwhile, was somewhat biased in Hoffman’s favor, but not enough (P = 0.0966) to definitively conclude anything:
Outside of statistically biased Boston, Hoffman got the required 75.6% of votes needed for induction. In fact, if just 65% of the known Boston ballots voted in Hoffman’s favor, he would have been inducted.
But that’s not even what makes the vote an East Coast sham.
What I really want to talk about is how the F**K Boston, with one baseball team, has roughly 10% of the entire electorate? As you can see, a whopping 26 (10.7%) of all revealed ballots originated from Boston Red Sox territory. There were dudes with votes from obscure newspapers scattered all across New England. Writers from newspapers in Framingham (20 miles away from Boston), Worcester (about 50 miles), and Hartford (keep going)… and then some nimrod that covers UConn basketball in New Haven, ESPN.com’s Boston Bruins hockey analyst, two 1st time voters in the Boston area, and SIX people each from the Boston Globe and Boston Herald.
That’s 26 from just the known votes for one baseball team spanning a population center of roughly 14 million people. And yet Southern California, home to three baseball teams and a population of over 22 million, has just 9 of the 242 known ballots. Proportionally, the Southern California teams receive just 1/9th the representation as the Boston Red Sox.
If writers in Framingham or Hartford and hockey writers get a vote, where’s San Bernardino’s Dodgers representative? Does Bakersfield have a voter?
What ticks me off the most, though, isn’t that Hoffman & Edgar didn’t get inducted last year, since there’s a really high probability that happens in 2018. It’s that we all know that as soon David Ortiz hits the ballot, Bob Ryan and the rest of the Boston mafia will instantly forget the Wins Above Replacement arguments they’ve made against Hoffman & Edgar. Instead, they’ll say their overweight, steroid using Designated Hitter deserves to enter the Hall despite trailing many fellow stars they left off their ballots in WAR: Gary Sheffield (by 12 wins), Edgar Martinez (by 15!), Larry Walker (by 18), and Barry Bonds (by 2.3 David Ortiz careers).
What else would you expect from the B(oston)BWAA?
The year 1993 was a pivotal one in the history of the Seattle Mariners. The previous year was a disaster, as general manager Woody Woodward traded young pitchers Bill Swift, Mike Jackson and Dave Burba for Giants slugger Kevin Mitchell. Mitchell was an unenthusiastic performer and with the young relievers stripped from the bullpen, the Mariners were a laughingstock [No changes there then!]. Their 64-98 season cost Bill Plummer his job.
Plummer’s departure, however, made way for the arrival of Lou Piniella. Piniella made it clear things would be different. The team that took the field in the Kingdome in ’93 had many of the heroes of ’95. Ken Griffey, Jay Buhner, Tino Martinez and Rich Amaral. Edgar Martinez had torn his hamstrings in the last pre-season game in Vancouver, after winning his first batting title in 1992, but he would be back as a DH in ’94. The other hero of ’95 who returned was Randy Johnson.
Johnson was in his sixth year in the majors, his fifth year with the M’s. Let’s just say he was unique. The tallest man in Major League Baseball, he threw hard, had a slider and loved heavy metal music [although he enjoyed listening to the opera on his way to the stadium]. But he was wild, leading the American League in walks from 1990-92 with 120, 152 and 144 respectively. If he could just put it all together, Johnson could be a monster. But in 1992 Johnson was outpitched by soft-tossing lefty Dave Fleming, who went 17-10 and finished third in Rookie of the Year balloting.
It would never happen again.
In 1993 at age 29, after working with Nolan Ryan in the off-season Randy Johnson appeared a different pitcher. He won 19 games, struck out 308 batters and finished second in Cy Young voting. It was the beginning of Randy Johnson as a Hall of Fame pitcher. From 1993-2004 Johnson would finish first or second in Cy Young voting eight times and make all-star appearances nine times.
In a September 2016 story with Tim Rodmaker of Professional Baseball Strength and Conditioning, Johnson credited his off-season sessions with Ryan for helping him find a new delivery that helped him control his extra long limbs. Ryan taught him to be more aggressive, control the game more effectively, and make clear to batters that he was in charge. Ryan also taught Johnson more about the importance of being a good teammate.
2018 is James Paxton’s sixth season, also his age 29 year. His big year might have been 2016 when with a change in his arm slot and a big tick up in his fastball velocity and better command of his pitches, Paxton became a much better pitcher. But, like Johnson in ’93, this year is the most important of Paxton’s tenure with the Mariners. My belief is that progress by the big lefty is critical and makes him, in many respects, the most important player on the team. 29, after working with Nolan Ryan in the off-season Randy Johnson appeared a different pitcher. He won 19 games, struck out 308 batters and finished second in Cy Young voting. It was the beginning of Randy Johnson as a Hall of Fame pitcher. From 1993-2004 Johnson would finish first or second in Cy Young voting eight times and make all-star appearances nine times.
Obviously, pitching has changed so much since 1993. The critical role of the starting pitcher has diminished somewhat as dominant bullpens have assumed a larger role. So comparing Johnson to Paxton maybe doesn’t make sense. Johnson had 14 years of over 200 inning pitched. Between 1993-2002, Johnson missed 200 twice, once because of the strike in 1994, and in the season of his back surgery in 1996. Paxton hasn’t thrown 150 innings in any of his years. Johnson was 6’10” of angry, volatile rocket fuel who not only won 303 games, but is tied for fifth all-time for most career hit batters. Roger Clemens at 14 and Don Drysdale at 19 are soft by comparison. James Paxton isn’t that guy. He may be tall, but angry he isn’t.
But like Johnson in ’93, the Mariners are putting a lot of hope on the tall Canadian’s shoulders. He’s received a lot of accolades from his GM as being among the top ten pitchers in the American League. Some of the stats support this. Of course you’re going to have to dig around for them, because he doesn’t qualify for many of the basic numbers and doesn’t appear on the ESPN or Baseball Reference leader boards. Not enough innings pitched. Yes he is 10th in the AL in pitcher WAR, but still a long way from the league leaders. Jeff Sullivan wrote a great article in August about Paxton leading the American League in wOBA or batted ball speed. And that was just before the big man went on the DL for the second time in August after a pectoral strain. He’d miss three starts and never pitch well in a game for the rest of 2017. Yes, Paxton has great rate stats, but they don’t measure loss to the team when Christian Bergman or Max Povse are taking his starts, or the number of starts when Paxton is regaining his mechanical consistency after time away on the DL.
I can talk until I’m blue in the face about the Mariners rotation, whether it’s passable, or decent, or downright terrible. But if there is a chance for the Mariners to make the playoffs in 2018, it begins with James Paxton. For the years 1993-1998, those remaining of Johnson’s career with the Mariners, The Big Unit was surrounded by a plethora of lesser lights-a declining Chris Bosio, Jeff Fassero, Tim Belcher, reinforced by Jamie Moyer in 2017, and a highly volatile bullpen. Johnson was the guy who led the rest of the pitchers, alongside an admittedly brilliant offensive cast, to the playoffs in ’95 and again in ’97 in spite of the mediocrity of the rest of the pitching.
We can also argue about the 2018 offense, whether it is average, a little better than average or really good, but unless the pitching staff can perform it won’t matter how many runs this team scores, they will lose. A quality pitching staff begins with a legitimate ace, and Paxton has to be that guy. Pitchers become aces by being on the field. Click those ESPN WAR stats again. Check the top five. None has less than 193.1 innings. By comparison, Paxton ranks 47th in innings pitched.
Look, I’m not suggesting Paxton is a malingerer, a slacker, or anything of the kind. Perhaps the hiring of Dr. Lorena Martin as director of high performance will make the difference, or maybe Paxton will figure it out. But the bottom line is no Paxton hurts the team. He needs to be on the field. The Mariners have no shot without him.
This is not only a huge year for Paxton as a Mariner. He’s just avoided his second year of arbitration for a tidy $4.9 million. 2019 will be his final year under Mariner control before he hits free agency. Will he enter the market as a 31-year old established star, or will he limp onto the big stage long on potential but ever-injured like Brett Anderson? Will he be Clayton Kershaw as he walks unscathed on to the big free agent stage in 2019, or will he merely be another can on the scratched and dented aisle in 2020?
James Paxton isn’t likely to be a Hall of Fame pitcher. But it isn’t difficult to see he is the leader of this pitching staff. In 2018 he must take the next step forward by being on the field, just as Randy Johnson made the same leap at the same age. To me that means at least 30 healthy starts and a minimum of 180 innings pitched. Just to compare, that puts him number 15 in the American League using 2017 stats, just behind Jason Hammel and just ahead of Jason Vargas, not anywhere near the AL’s top ten.
The M’s will fare as well in 2018 as James Paxton does. The day his name appears on the DL is the day their hopes for a successful season are likely over. Mark it down.
