2020 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame Results

Larry Walker and Derek Jeter, members of the 2020 Hall of Fame class.

Well, I was right in half of my prediction for the 2020 Baseball Hall of Fame results. Of course, the part I got right was the easy part—everyone knew Derek Jeter was going to sail into the Hall of Fame. (I was wrong about Curt Schilling making the jump this year.) It’s amazing that Jeter was just one ballot away from being the Hall’s second unanimous inductee. I wonder if there will be another unanimous inductee someday. Well, probably when Mike Trout hits the ballot. I also think Ichiro could have a chance at being a unanimous choice. 

Larry Walker made the unlikely 20% jump to induction on his final ballot. On a weak ballot, voters must have taken another look at his stats. Walker is one of the most amazing turnarounds in the history of Hall of Fame voting. In 2017, Walker got just 21.9% of the vote, which means that in the space of only three years, Walker went from not being named on more than 75% of the ballots to being named on 76.6% of the ballots this year. My wife made the point that the Hall of Fame voting is proof that people can actually change their minds. 

If you’re obsessed with the baseball Hall of Fame, one of the best websites out there is Chris Bodig’s Cooperstown Cred. Year-round Bodig writes in-depth articles about the Hall of Fame cases for various players, from slam-dunks like Derek Jeter to super long shots like Dave Stieb. His article on Larry Walker is an excellent deep dive into Walker’s stats. For me, the most shocking thing is Walker’s home/road splits during the time he played for the Rockies. Walker’s slash line on the road was a decent .281/.386/.518. At Coors Field, he turned into a combination of Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth, slashing .383/.463/.713! It feels wrong to punish Walker simply because of how good he was at Coors Field, but it’s bizarre what an extreme home/road split he has. 

As I’ve written before, I just don’t have strong feelings about Larry Walker. I’m happy for him that he got in, he has 72.7 WAR, and JAWS ranks him as the 10^th best right fielder ever, so good for him. He just never became one of my favorite players. 

Of the returning candidates on the ballot, every single player increased their percentage of the vote this year, which leads me to the obvious conclusion that voters took this opportunity to examine their statistics even more. I wonder if that’s ever happened before in Hall of Fame voting, that every returning player increased their percentage of the vote? 

Curt Schilling made an almost 10% jump, up to 70% of the vote, which means he’ll likely get in next year. I’m no fan of Schilling as a person, but as a player he deserves to be in. 

There were 397 ballots this year, down from 425 in 2019. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens actually got fewer votes than they did in 2019, but their percentages increased slightly. On a weak ballot, they gained less than 2%, so that might not bode well for their possible induction by the BBWAA. They have two years left on the ballot, and they need a 15% boost. It could still happen, but this year’s results make it seem less likely. I’m super curious as to what an Era Committee would do with Bonds and Clemens. Would former players vote them in, or keep them out? I still think that part of the Hall of Fame’s reason for changing the time players spend on the ballot from 15 years to 10 was an attempt to get the debate about steroid guys like Bonds and Clemens over with faster. The change from 15 years to 10 has worked out well, as it’s just forced the sportswriters to not dither around so much. 

Omar Vizquel moved up almost 10%, from 42.8% to 52.6%, so that bodes well for his future chances. Vizquel is only on his 3^rd ballot, so he has plenty of time to get to 75% of the vote. I’m not going to passionately argue for Vizquel as a Hall of Famer, but I’m fine with him getting into the Hall. He was obviously a very poor hitter, but getting close to 3,000 hits helps him, despite all the outs he made along the way. Vizquel isn’t as good as the elite shortstops in the Hall, but he stuck around forever. Vizquel will be getting in because he got close to 3,000 hits, played the most games at shortstop of anyone, and won 11 Gold Gloves. He’s 9^th all-time in defensive WAR, with 29.5. (Exactly 10 points behind Mark Belanger, the ultimate good-field, no-hit shortstop.) 

Scott Rolen broke out on this ballot, getting 35.3% of the vote, which takes him out of the no man’s land zone and into the “serious candidate” zone. Rolen more than doubled his percentage from 2019, and another weak ballot year in 2021 could help him. I think Rolen should be a Hall of Famer. He has 70.2 WAR, and JAWS ranks him as the 10^th best third baseman ever. Third base has been a weird position for the Hall of Fame. Ron Santo, who should have been a slam-dunk HOFer, didn’t get in during his lifetime, while George Kell, who is way below the standards, got voted in by the Veteran’s Committee in 1983. Kell was a 10-time All-Star who won a batting title, and finished with a .306 career batting average, so I guess that outweighed his total lack of power: just 79 career home runs. If Rolen gets elected, maybe the Era Committees will start paying attention to my two favorite third basemen who have been overlooked by the Hall: Graig Nettles and Buddy Bell. 

Billy Wagner and Gary Sheffield also broke out, as they both finished above 30% of the vote for the first time. I don’t have strong feelings about either player. I’m conflicted on how the Hall of Fame should treat closers. Before they were in the Hall, I thought Bruce Sutter and Goose Gossage should be in the Hall. Then after they got in, I thought, “Meh, those are kind of weak choices.” The role of a closer keeps changing, so it’s hard to evaluate and compare them. With Sheffield getting above 30%, maybe we’ll be confronted with the burning question: which team would be represented on his Hall of Fame plaque?? How could he possibly choose? Fun fact about Gary Sheffield: he finished his career with 80.8 offensive WAR, and -27.7 defensive WAR. Yikes!

Todd Helton went up to 29.2% of the vote, so be prepared for more debates about the Coors Field effect. 

In his 7^th year on the ballot, Jeff Kent finally made it over 25% of the vote for the first time. I’ve always been surprised at how little support Kent has received for the Hall of Fame. Chris Bodig does an excellent deep dive on Kent’s career, and comes up with some of the reasons why Kent’s candidacy has never caught on. Maybe Kent can hope for a Larry Walker-like surge in his last three years on the ballot. In JAWS, Kent is ranked 20^th among second basemen, which is below the HOF standard, but he’s still ahead of several HOFers, like Billy Herman, Bobby Doerr, Nellie Fox, and Tony Lazzeri. The standard for second basemen is also a little high because there are four second basemen who have over 100 WAR: Rogers Hornsby, Eddie Collins, Nap Lajoie, and Joe Morgan. 

Andruw Jones had been barely hanging on the ballot, but this year he moved up to 19.4% of the vote. That gives him some security of staying on the ballot. I don’t think Jones should be a Hall of Famer, but I don’t have any problem with him remaining on the ballot and letting writers discuss his candidacy more. If you like your HOFers to have peak value, Jones certainly had that. It’ll be interesting to see if Jones has a similar vote gain in 2021. 

Even Sammy Sosa increased his percentage this year, moving up to 13.9%, putting him firmly in Dave Concepcion territory. 

Bobby Abreu was the only first-time candidate who will remain on the ballot for 2021, and he just barely made it, getting 5.5% of the vote. I think Abreu deserves to be considered as a serious candidate. As I wrote in my ballot preview, Abreu was an unusual player who combined a lot of different skills. Abreu doesn’t have one stat that really screams Hall of Famer. As Chris Bodig wrote in his piece on Abreu, it’s hard to make an elevator pitch for Abreu. 

In a way, Bobby Abreu shouldn’t make the Hall of Fame. It would ruin his reputation as an under the radar guy if he made the Hall of Fame. He should just be this low-key guy that only serious baseball fans know about. There won’t be any biopics of Bobby Abreu, his legend will spread by word of mouth, and through obscure blog posts. One day, years from now, you’ll go to the Hall of Fame and ask about Bobby Abreu, and they’ll point you over to an old man who’ll say, “Bobby Abreu? No one’s asked about him in 30 years!” And then he’ll spin you a tale of Bobby Abreu’s amazing career, and how he played in more than 150 games for 13 seasons in a row. 

Paul Konerko got just 2.5% of the vote, so he will drop off the ballot. Konerko always seemed like a nice guy, even when he was pulverizing my Minnesota Twins. I guess I can’t prove to you that Paul Konerko is a nice guy, but I’ve never heard any stories about him being a jerk, so I assume he’s a decent fellow. I’m not going to say that Paul Konerko should be a Hall of Famer, but he seems like someone who should have stayed on the ballot. He played his entire career for one team, except for 81 games at the start of his career. (There’s definitely a Hall of Fame bonus for being strongly identified with one team.) Konerko helped the White Sox win the World Series in 2005, he was never connected to PEDs, and he seemed to be a nice guy, so I would imagine that sportswriters liked him. When you look at those peripheral things, in addition to his 439 home runs and his 1,412 RBIs, I’m surprised he dropped off the ballot. He seems like a guy who would hang out in the Dave Concepcion zone, getting 10-20% of the vote every year. I thought Konerko really boosted his Hall of Fame chances after his strong seasons in his mid-30’s from 2010-2012, but I guess I was wrong. 

In addition to Konerko, three other players with more than 400 home runs also dropped off the ballot: Jason Giambi, Alfonso Soriano, and Adam Dunn. I’m not that surprised these three players didn’t get 5% of the vote. 

One of my favorite players, Raul Ibanez, received just one vote for the Hall of Fame. However, he did receive just enough votes to become a member of the Turtle Club. Despite not getting 400 plate appearances in a season until his age 30 season in 2002, Ibanez still met all four official Mark Taylor criteria for having a “nice career,” which I define for a position player as achieving one or more of the following: 1,000 runs, 2,000 hits, 200 home runs, and 1,000 RBI’s. Fun fact: Raul Ibanez was never traded. He changed franchises seven times in his career without being traded. I wonder if that’s a record. 

This concludes my recap of the 2020 BBWAA ballot results. Looking ahead, the 2021 ballot is another pretty weak one, so we’ll see if some of these players continue to gain and get closer to eventual election.

Concert Review: Dane Stauffer and Dan Chouinard at Crooners Supper Club

Dane Stauffer singing, and Dan Chouinard at the piano, at Crooners Supper Club on January 25, 2020. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

On Saturday night, singer Dane Stauffer and pianist Dan Chouinard entertained patrons at Crooners Supper Club. (I reviewed Stauffer’s August show with George Maurer here.) This January show celebrated singers and songwriters who were born in January. The list is certainly a long one: Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, Kenny Loggins, Ethel Merman, Jerome Kern, Roger Miller, Sam Cooke, Neil Diamond, and Antonio Carlos Jobim, among others. 

Stauffer and Chouinard created a fascinating set list that featured huge hits along with some deeper cuts from the catalogues of these entertainers. Stauffer is a highly entertaining performer, as his infectious enthusiasm draws the audience in. Chouinard is a remarkable entertainer in his own right—a pianist, accordionist, and storyteller. He’s able to play seemingly any song at a moment’s notice—my wife and I observed this closeup when we saw Chouinard last fall in Grand Marais. He was leading a morning sing-along, and just about anything the audience shouted out he was able to play. 

The show opened with Dolly Parton’s “Two Doors Down,” and Stauffer noted that he had the opportunity to work with Dolly herself when he appeared as Scrooge in her musical Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol. The versatile singer/songwriter Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” was next. I’ve always really enjoyed Roger Miller, in part because he contributed to the soundtrack to Disney’s Robin Hood, one of my favorite movies from my childhood. 

Since Stauffer is an Elvis fan, he paid tribute to the King with two songs: the gorgeous “Mystery Train,” which Dane transformed into a hollering blues, and the maudlin “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” complete with spoken recitation. Dane made it through the recitation with less laughter than Elvis. If you listen to Elvis’s live recordings, I don’t think he ever made it through the recitation without cracking up. Kenny Loggins was represented by “Your Mama Don’t Dance” and “Danny’s Song,” two staples of 1970’s pop. As Stauffer pointed out, you could do an entire show featuring the great songs of Sam Cooke. He and Chouinard chose the excellent “Bring It on Home to Me” to honor the soul singer extraordinaire. 

If you’re paying tribute to Neil Diamond, you must play “Sweet Caroline.” As Chouinard said, the song has a life of its own, as it has become ubiquitous in pop culture. So, we all sang along on that great chorus. Stauffer then sang another Diamond hit, the excellent “Thank the Lord for the Night Time.” 

Stauffer sang other interesting songs, like “Button Up Your Overcoat,” a hit for Ruth Etting in 1928, “You’re Just in Love,” an Irving Berlin tune that featured Stauffer and Chouinard singing counterpoint, and the classic “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” which is undoubtedly the only hit song to feature the word “chaffed.” 

Personally, I was very pleased that Stauffer included pop singer Jack Jones amongst the January birthdays. Jones has long been one of my own favorite singers. (I reviewed Jones’ performance at the Dakota Jazz Club here.) Stauffer sang Jones’ hit “Wives and Lovers,” prefacing it by saying that the lyrics are very much of their time. A Burt Bacharach/Hal David composition, “Wives and Lovers” offers advice to married women about how to keep their husbands happy. “Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your makeup, soon he will open the door. Don’t think because there’s a ring on your finger, you needn’t try anymore.” So, yeah, it’s not a song that’s performed very often these days. When I worked in the music department at Barnes & Noble back in 1999, I would play Jack Jones’ CDs, but the one time I accidentally let “Wives and Lovers” pipe out over the loudspeakers several women complained. (As well they should have.) From then on, I was very careful to skip over “Wives and Lovers” if I brought in my Jack Jones CD. It’s too bad that the lyrics are so cringy, because the song has a gorgeous melody. 

Another highlight of the show was Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars).” That’s long been one of my favorite songs of Jobim’s, thanks in part to Frank Sinatra’s gorgeous rendition. For the encore, Stauffer sang a beautiful version of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.” Stauffer did a great job of making the song his own.

All in all, it was a very entertaining evening at Crooners with two of the most talented people in the Twin Cities music and theater scene.

Concert Review: Peter Asher at the Dakota Jazz Club: "A Musical Memoir of the 1960's and Beyond"

Peter Asher at the Dakota Jazz Club, Minneapolis, January 14, 2020. (Photo taken by my better half.)

Peter Asher and Gordon Waller, 1960's.

Last week my wife and I saw Peter Asher at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. He was performing his show, “A Musical Memoir of the 60’s and Beyond.” I’ve seen Asher perform this show twice before, once in 2012 and again in 2017. I also saw Asher perform at the Dakota with Albert Lee last summer. (However, I missed seeing him and Lee open for Leo Kottke at the Guthrie in November.) 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Peter Asher, I’ll give you a brief rundown on his musical career. Asher was part of a successful pop duo, Peter & Gordon, with his schoolmate Gordon Waller. Peter & Gordon scored 10 Top 40 singles in the US, including the number one smash “A World Without Love,” and the top ten hits “I Go to Pieces” and “Lady Godiva.” After Peter & Gordon split up, Asher moved into record production, becoming head of A&R at the Beatles’ Apple Records. Asher discovered a talented young American singer/songwriter. Asher became this guy’s manager and produced his first album for Apple Records. His name? James Taylor. Asher also managed Linda Ronstadt, and has been one of the most in-demand record producers since the 1970’s. He has twice won the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year. 

Asher may not be a household name himself, but he has connections with anyone who’s anyone in music. In his show, he tells his life story, and how he went from child actor to pop star to mega-producer. Peter & Gordon mixed many different musical influences, and they were originally envisioned as a sort of folk duo. But while recording their first album, they came in with “A World Without Love,” a Lennon/McCartney song that the Beatles weren’t going to record. How did this unknown vocal duo score such a coup? Well, Paul McCartney, the song’s author, happened to be dating Jane Asher, an up-and-coming young actress who happened to be Peter’s sister. Asher had heard McCartney play the song and asked him if he and Gordon could record it. McCartney said sure, and after some badgering by Asher, finished off the bridge of the song “in something like seven minutes,” according to Asher. “A World Without Love” went to Number One in both the UK and the US, and it was the first British Invasion single by a group other than the Beatles to hit the top spot in the US. 

Asher was involved in many other Beatle-related adventures during the 1960’s, including the Indica bookstore and art gallery. Asher helped organize a show at the Indica art gallery in November of 1966. It was a show by a Japanese American artist named Yoko Ono. And, of course, it was at a party for the opening of this exhibit that Yoko met a certain Beatle named John. 

If you’ve listened to Asher’s radio show From Me to You, on the Beatles’ Sirius XM channel, you know that Peter Asher is a highly engaging storyteller, and his tales are full of British self-deprecating humor. I’ve listened to Asher’s show a lot, partly because I’m a huge Beatles fan, and because my 5-year-old son only wants to listen to the Beatles every time he’s in the car. Asher even addresses his physical appearance in the 1960’s being an influence on Austin Powers’ signature look. (Red hair, thick Buddy Holly glasses, bad teeth.) I also appreciated that at the end of the show Asher made a plug for contemporary music—he basically said, there’s still lots of good music being made today. I appreciated hearing that coming from a 75-year-old who has been in the music industry since 1964. The point of his show isn’t to tell us about how wonderful everything was back in the day, and how everything now is just crap. 

On a slight digression, I think it’s amazing how much the music and culture of the 1960’s is still with us today, 50 years after that decade ended. Sure, that’s partly due to the continuing influence of the Baby Boomer generation on pop culture. But think about how prevalent the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, to name just three artists, are in pop culture today. Now think about going back 50 years into the past, and if the same thing were happening then. It would be as if the musical stars of the 1910’s were still household names in the 1960’s. That wasn’t the case. It’s remarkable that this music has lasted for so long. Obviously, it’s a testament to the quality of that music, but I think it’s fascinating how this music and culture has survived and thrived through the decades. 

Back to the show! Asher performed with Jeff Alan Ross on piano and Jennifer Jo Oberle on bass guitar. They did a great job of making the songs sound good. I didn’t miss not having drums at all. Ross, a former touring member of Badfinger, got a solo spot when he sang the group’s lovely song “Day After Day.” Oberle soloed on “Blue Bayou,” the Roy Orbison song that Linda Ronstadt had a big hit with, and she did a great job, offering up a soulful vocal. 

If you go see Peter Asher, be warned that there’s a lot of talking in between the songs, and he doesn’t really play that many songs during the evening. Still, you’ll get to hear some great Peter & Gordon songs and some fantastic stories. The show we saw was the last one of the tour, and Asher held court for about 2 ½ hours!