2024 HALL OF FAME BALLOT: TEN (MINUS TWO)

IT was a very hectic non-baseball month here once the "final fizzle" came and went like a leaky balloon: we've spent much time on our non-baseball book and the now-ongoing French noir festival (capped by the anguish of Bernard Blier as he stares into a slowly-evolving abyss in THE SEVENTH JUROR, which plays on December 4 as the last salvo in this year's lucky thirteen shots in the dark: should you be interesting in learning more, go here).

We did notice, however, that there are rumblings underway about the upcoming Hall of Fame election: ballots are out to all of those "eligible voters" (may several of them rest in peace...) and the results, such as they will prove to be, will be announced on January 23rd. Two high-profile candidates (Adrian Beltre and Joe Mauer) will make their first appearance on the ballot: we'll discuss their respective chances for induction shortly.

At the social media swamp formerly known as Twitter, the HOF Tracker crew posted a ballot sure to provoke widespread derision, as it contains only two selections from the (mercifully anonymous) voter--who is nothing if not "up to date," since he/she has voted only for the two "hot-shot" new candidates. 

Since we know that folks these days want their information compressed (folded, spindled, etc.), we seized upon this opportunity to use the image to convey our picks--if the BBWAA was reckless enough to grant us a vote, that is.  

Note that we are indeed voting for Beltre and Mauer, who represent high-quality players at positions which remain under-represented in Cooperstown. 

We are also not voting again this year for either Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones. The former is, in our estimation, a worthy candidate, but we're voting tactically here, preferring to send votes to Bobby Abreu, whose case is (in our minds at least) at least as deserving and who is not drawing the type of support he warrants. We can only hope for a stall in the "quant quackery" driving the voting surge for Jones, who is to the "silly saberist" cabal what Jack Morris was to the dying curmudgeons of the old BBWAA. Morris was subsequently shoved into the Hall via the side door, and that should also be the case for Jones as well. 

Meanwhile, three far more deserving candidates--Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield and Manny Ramirez--will continue to struggle on the thorny vine of non-objective voter behavior, with Sheffield needing a serious boost in his final year on the ballot to make it in via the front door. 

We continue to cast votes for Todd Helton and Billy Wagner, hoping that both of them will get over the line in January, after which we suspect they'll accompany Beltre to the dais during 2024's induction ceremony. We expect Mauer to come up a bit short in his first time on the ballot, but we figure he'll likely make it in either 2025 or 2026. 

Folks might raise eyebrows over a pick for Andy Pettitte, but this is a solid choice when we consider that this is someone who pitched much of his career in an era of heightened offense. 

And finally, our tenth pick is another first-timer on the ballot, Chase Utley, who needs votes to stay in contention over the ten-year ballot period. Utley stands in for fellows like Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich, Larry Doyle and Jeff Kent, all of whom should be in the Hall of Fame but aren't. We figure he'll get 20-25% of the vote this time, and then the question will be if some interest group decides to turn their neon crowdsourcing shenanigans loose for him--in this case, such tactics would be fully warranted.

SO there you have it. We have fifty-six days to wait for the official results, but we'll do what we can in that time frame to distract you...stay tuned.

SNAKES RATTLED, FALL INTO 5-GAME WORLD SERIES GHETTO

AN unorthodox World Series featuring two Wild Card teams began with great promise in Texas last week, with the Rangers and the Diamondbacks splitting two games with intriguingly different tonalities and setting up what appeared to be a compelling "punch-counterpunch" rhythm. 

But then the teams moved to Arizona, and that scenario swiftly fell apart, with the Diamondbacks' pesky offense suddenly sputtering in Game Three, followed by a catastrophic "bullpen game" whose 11-7 score was lucky only for the Rangers, and then...

AND then a Game Five where the Snakes were clearly rattled by their inability to score anyone despite five consecutive innings in which they had runners in scoring position. Their ace starter Zac Gallen was pitching a no-hitter, but Arizona's inability to take control of the game cast a pall over the proceedings that swiftly took on inevitable dimensions. The Rangers, working on a remarkable road winning streak, finally broke through against Gallen in the seventh, and the hissing sound that had become progressively more audible was not from the D-backs (no "snaking" back into the game forthcoming) but instead the sound of air leaking out of any and all receptacles--tires, balloons, and several orifices (not) to be named later.

Snakes' closer Paul Sewald, acquired in mid-season to reinvent the top end of the Arizona bullpen, delivered the coup de grace when he allowed four runs in the ninth, dooming the D-backs to a place in the lower depths of World Series history: the ghetto of the five-game series. 

IT is now an architectural archipelago with twenty-seven separate buildings, housing 135 games in all--108 of which were won by the World Champions, and only 27 by the D-back's luckless brethren--exactly one win apiece for 27 teams who simply fell on their swords. 

Very few five-game series are memorable, unless they are upsets: the ones that qualify include those played in 1969 (Mets over Orioles), 1988 (Dodgers over A's), and arguably 1942 (up and coming Cardinal dynasty shocks the Yankee dynasty). 

The sense of deflation that occurs in a five-game series can be seen in the results when we quantify wins/losses on a game-by-game basis. Simply put, an event horizon just clicks into place in Game Four which pushes things inexorably in the direction of the winning team. The aggregate record in Games Four & Five of a five-game series is as starkly dominating as you can get without an outright sweep: 54 wins for the eventual champ, vs. just three for the eventual chump.

THERE are some mildly interesting sub-patterns that emerge in the constricted world of the five-game series, which we'll briefly examine. The Snakes' pattern (splitting on the road, swept at home) has happened only three times previously, all of them involving the Yankees as the winning team (1941, downing the Dodgers; 1949, rinsing and repeating with Brooklyn; and 1961, ripping the Reds a new one in their home park). 

Another dramatic pattern--drop the first game and win four straight--has also happened only four times: in 1915 (Red Sox over Phillies), 1942 (Cards over the Yankees), 1969 (Mets shock the O's and the world), and 1983 (O's take to the Phillies). 

Rarer still is the "win first three, drop Game Four, win Game Five" scenario--shared only by the 1910 Philadelphia A's, the 1937 Yankees, and the 1970 Orioles. 

Nine teams have won the first two games, lost the third, and won the last two--we'll let you pick those out for yourself from the table above. 

BUT these sub-patterns don't really deflect us from the fact that the five-game World Series is just a collection point for an escalating (and simultaneously deflating) sense of lost opportunity. The teams that win and their fan base are, of course, extremely happy, but years later they're likely to have a much fuzzier sense of how and why their teams won. That's because the win came a bit too easily: the sense of competition has been stunted, leaving a mental wasteland that is inextricably intertwined with the desiccated landscape of the "five-game ghetto."

It's been five years since the most recent five-game series; the longest span of time between such series is thirteen years (1916 to 1929). That sounds about right: let's cross fingers that we don't see another one until at least 2036...