Let’s start with a correction. The title of this post is a misnomer. I do not have a Hall of Fame ballot. Only members of the Baseball Writers Association of America  (BBWAA) are allowed to vote for Hall of Fame candidates and I am not a member of the BBWAA. However, here are some thoughts on the HOF candidates and how I would vote if I had a ballot.

First, let’s take a look at the players who are on the ballot for the first time this year. Those players are:

• Jeremy Burnitz
• Vinny Castilla
• Brian Jordan
• Javy Lopez
• Bill Mueller
• Terry Mulholland
• Phil Nevin
• Brad Radke
• Tim Salmon
• Rueben Sierra
• Bernie Williams
• Tony Womack
• Eric Young

Do you see any Hall of Famers on that list. No, I don’t either. There are some good players on the list — chief among them would probably be Bernie Williams — but none of them had careers that would rise to the level of serious Hall of Fame consideration. That takes us to the holdovers from previous years.

This group of players have been on the HOF ballot previously and they received enough votes to stay on the ballot, but not enough to gain entrance into the Hall. The players on this list include;

• Jeff Bagwell
• Juan Gonzalez
• Barry Larkin
• Edgar Martinez
• Don Mattingly
• Fred McGriff
• Mark McGwire
• Jack Morris
• Dale Murphy
• Rafael Palmeiro
• Tim Raines
• Lee Smith
• Alan Trammel
• Larry Walker

Let’s look at each player individually.

Jeff Bagwell

Jeff Bagwell should absolutely not be branded with the steroids tag. Sure, he played during the steroids era, but he was never connected to PED use. His career should be judged on it’s merits, not on rumor and speculation. And when it is judged on it’s merits, it becomes clear that Bagwell is a Hall of Famer. He was a great hitter, hitting .297/.408/.540 over his career. Wait, a .408 OBP?  Yeah, I had to look twice at that, but it’s true. He only played 15 years in the big leagues, but has a very impressive 79.9 WAR. The closer you look at Bagwell, the more impressive his career becomes. He has my vote.

Juan Gonzalez

This is Juan Gone’s second year on the ballot and very well could be his last. In 2010, his first year on the ballot, he only received 5.2% of the vote, far less than any other hold over player on this year’s ballot. On the plus side, Gonzalez won two MVP awards and hit more than 400 home runs in his career. He had a slash line of .295/.343/.561 and an OPS+ of 132, which I have to admit is more impressive than I would have imagined. Even so, to me, Gonzalez fails the “eye test;” did he look like a Hall of Famer. In this case, I say “no.” Gonzalez always seemed lazy to me. He played defense like he preferred to be somewhere else and his base running skills left a lot to be desired.  I don’t recall ever thinking that Gonzalez was one of the best players in MLB during the course of his career.  He was good, but not that good.

Barry Larkin

At first, I wasn’t sold on Barry Larkin. I don’t remember him being as great as he was. Maybe he just had a more quiet career than some other players, but it’s hard to deny that Larkin was a great shortstop. He came along at a time when many shortstops were still weak hitting defensive specialists. But Larkin could hit AND play defense. He hit for average, he had some power, and he got on base. Larkin received 62.1% of the vote last year and is expected to rise about the 75% level this year.  I expect him to be elected to the Hall of Fame in 2012.

Edgar Martinez

Edgar Martinez has kind of become my pet project. In my opinion, he is the greatest DH ever. However, there are a lot of people that don’t believe that a player who spent the vast majority of his career as a DH should ever be allowed into the HOF. I disagree. If baseball is going to have the DH rule, then we should honor the greatest DHs in the HOF. The irony is if Martinez would have continued to play third base, a position he did not field very well, he likely would be a shoe-in for the Hall. Let’s face it, fielding isn’t always taken very seriously when a really good hitter comes up for HOF consideration. So as a poor fielding third baseman, Martinez would likely be elected to the HOF, but as a non-fielding DH, he is being excluded. Does that really make sense? During his career, Martinez hit .312/.418/.515, had an OPS+ of 147 and a WAR of 67.2.  He won two batting titles and led the league in on-base percentage three times. By any measure, those are extremely impressive statistics. Does it really matter that Martinez didn’t play in the field? I’m not a fan of the DH rule, but as long as it exists, then let’s recognize the guys who fill the role the best. For my money, Edgar Martinez was the best and he deserves to be in the HOF.

Don Mattingly

For crying out loud, the man’s nickname is Donnie Baseball. Doesn’t he deserve to be in the HOF just for that? In a word, no. Mattingly had some great years, but he did not have a great career. He hit .307/.358/.471 with an OPS+ of 127 and a WAR (BR) of 39.8. His WAR was so low because he played just 14 seasons and most of them after the age of 27 were not particularly noteworthy. Mattingly was a very good ball player, particularly before his body began to betray him, but for me, he simply did not rise to the level necessary to be inducted into the HOF.

Mark McGwire

Mark McGwire was a lot of fun to watch. I still have very fond memories of the home run race between him and Sammy Sosa in 1998. I know all about the steroids, but that does not diminish my memories of that year. However, it’s hard to separate McGwire’s career from his use of steroids. In fact, many writers simply refuse to vote for him because he admitted to using steroids. I believe we need to judge the player by the era in which he played, otherwise no one from the so-called “steroids era” will ever make it into the HOF no matter how great they may have been. Having said that, I still don’t believe McGwire had a HOF career.  Sure, he was the most prodigious home run hitter in history, hitting a home run every 10.6 at-bats. However, his game was too one-dimensional for me. He was a tremendous home run hitter, but I found the rest of his game lacking. I have to admit that I am closer to voting for him now than I was in 2005 when he first came on the ballot, but I’m still not there yet.

Fred McGriff

McGriff is another one of those guys who had a terrific career, but never rose to the level of HOFer. He was always one of the better hitting first basemen, but he was never an elite hitter. He was always one of the guys you would want on your team if you couldn’t have one of the very best guys, but he was never considered to be among the very best. McGriff had a very nice career, but it wasn’t good enough for the HOF.

Jack Morris

So much could be written about Jack Morris. Of all of the players on the HOF ballot in recent years, Morris just might have the most rabid supporters. The problem those supporters run into is the fact that their arguments for Morris being included in the HOF are often wrong. For instance, Morris supporters love to make the claim that, while his ERA was not great, it was because he had the rare ability to pitch to the score. In other words, he bared down when the game was close, and eased up when he had room for error. It’s a nice argument, but it’s not based in fact. The facts are that Morris was a very good pitcher who was a bulldog on the mound and compiled some respectable stats, including a W-L record of 254-186. He also threw an incredible game 7 in the World Series for the Twins against the Braves in 1991 that will go down in history. But he had a 3.90 ERA during a pitchers era which is hard to explain away. Morris has been steadily gaining momentum for his HOF bid and garnered 53.5% of the vote last year. He very well may be elected this year, but if he does so, he will have to do it without my vote. (Note: Once again, I do not actually have a vote, so this should not hurt Morris’ chances.)

Dale Murphy

If we were talking about the HOF for nice guys, Dale Murphy would have already gotten in on the first ballot. But that’s not what we are talking about. I have a soft spot in my heart for Murphy. At a time when baseball on TV was a much rarer occurrence, I used to be able to watch him and the Atlanta Braves most nights on WTBS. He was my favorite Brave and I looked forward to watching him play. Even so, in many ways, Murphy is the poster child for players who fade away quickly as they get older. He ended his career just two home runs short of 400, but the vast majority of those were hit before he was 32. After that age, Murphy didn’t do much. He had a couple of good years, but his home runs decreased, his batting average and OBP plummeted, and he became just another struggling player trying to hold on to his career.

Rafael Palmiero

I have more trouble than I should judging Palmeiro’s career. He played for 20 seasons, hit 569 home runs, had a slash line of .288/.371/.515, an OPS+ of 132 and a WAR of 66.0. He also was a terrific fielding first baseman, although he spent the later part of his career as a DH. Despite these very good numbers, Palmiero will forever be remembered for pointing his finger at the camera in those Congressional hearings and stating that he had never taken steroids. Just a few months later, he failed a steroids test. Putting the steroids test aside, I still don’t view Palmiero as a HOFer. He was a good ball player, but was never considered even the best player on the teams he played for, let alone one of the best in MLB. Palmiero only received 11.0% of the vote last year and I don’t see him doing much better this year.  My vote is “no.”

Tim Raines

Tim Raines did everything well. He hit for average, he had some power, he got on base, and he was a prodigious base stealer. He played for 23 seasons and was very good throughout his long career, except for his final year with the Marlins in 2002. During the course of his career he hit .294/.385/.425 with an OPS+ of 149 and a WAR of 64.6. If I was voting, I would vote for Raines. However, he only received 37.5% of the vote last year and I have the feeling that most of the writers still don’t fully appreciate Tim Raines. I think he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, but if I was a betting man, I would bet he doesn’t make it in this year.

Lee Smith

Lee Smith had the benefit of coming along at just the right time. The closer role was becoming much more well defined and Smith took full advantage of it. When he retired, he held the record for most career saves. That record was impressive at the time, but seems less so now as it has fallen again and again. Unlike others who have written on the subject, I definitely think that closers should be in the HOF. However, as time has marched on, I think we see that while Lee Smith was very good, he wasn’t truly great. He just appeared great for a short time because of what he was being compared against. Today, he no longer appears like one of the truly great closers in history.

Alan Trammel

This might be the toughest call I have to make this year. I’ve already said that I would vote for Barry Larkin. If you look at their stats, Larkin and Trammel were very similar. Even so, Trammel falls short of Larkin in almost every way you can compare the two. I’ll admit, it’s a very fine line between the two players, but I’m drawing the line. Larkin is just barely a Hall of Famer and Trammel just barely misses making the Hall.

Larry Walker

Walker was a terrific hitter, but I can’t help but be bothered by the fact that he did most of his hitting in Colorado, a place where video game numbers were being put up at the time. I don’t think Walker should be penalized for where he played the majority of his games, but I don’t think he should be rewarded for it either. There’s no arguing that Walker’s numbers are impressive, but those numbers didn’t really blossom until he left Montreal and went to Colorado. Would he have been a great hitter outside of Colorado? There’s no doubt he would have been good, but it’s unlikely he would have put up the type of numbers he put up during his tenure in Colorado anywhere else. Of course, the short answer is we don’t know and can never know for sure.  But in my gut, I just don’t think Larry Walker was a Hall of Famer.