The 2014 Bizarro Hall of Fame Preview

The 2014 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot was released this week, prompting former Bus Leaguer Michael Lortz to shoot me a link and suggest a few possible new members of the Bizarro Hall of Fame, whose membership includes anyone listed on the real Hall of Fame ballot who does not receive any votes.

I don’t usually do a preview for the Bizarro Hall of Fame, mainly because it’s difficult to predict; all it takes is one rogue voter to completely upend the process. The last time I tried, I correctly pegged Brady Anderson and Jose Rijo as likely candidates, which was good. I also suggested Travis Fryman, Shawon Dunston, and Todd Stottlemyre, which is bad because now I keep finding myself thinking that Stottlemyre is actually a Bizarro Hall of Famer when he’s really just a guy who got a random Hall of Fame vote.

This year, however, there was clamoring* to produce such a preview. So I tried to use common sense and reasoning to come up with a few names who might be the newest members of the Bizarro Hall.

*One guy. There was one. And he was kind of lukewarm on the idea.

One important thing to remember going in: most of the time, there are six or fewer new additions. Nine times since 1997, there have been three or fewer. Last year? Eleven. So it could fluctuate quite a bit.

First thing to do is consider the ballot. There are nineteen first-timers on it this year, with a handful of them likely to reach the real Hall of Fame. Let’s get those guys out of the way first: Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Mike Mussina, and Frank Thomas. I can also talk myself into Jeff Kent, though he will likely wait a few years if he gets in at all. It may ultimately be the Joe Gordon Plan for Mr. Kent. Either way, he’s not a Bizarro.

That leaves fourteen possibilities. The first that stood out to me was Mike Timlin, a reliever closely identified with two teams (Toronto and Boston) who pitched a lot (1,058 career games), closed when needed (141 saves), and won a few World Series rings (four). I was all set to predict a vote in his favor, largely based on his time with the Red Sox and importance to the team’s bullpen during two championship runs, until I realized he’s basically Mike Stanton (we will also accept Mike Jackson as an answer). There’s always a chance, but I think Timlin ends up a Bizarro.

If Timlin is Stanton, then Todd Jones and Armando Benitez could well be Roberto Hernandez and Jose Mesa, 300 save guys who were never really regarded as lockdown closers. The voters appear to have a definition of “Hall of Fame reliever” in their minds, as illustrated by Bruce Sutter (innovation of the splitter), Goose Gossage (hard-throwing badass), Rollie Fingers (held the saves records at the time of his induction; I’d also like to believe his mustache played a role), Hoyt Wilhelm (dat knuckler), and Dennis Eckersley (an exceptional starter before a multi-year stretch as a dominant closer). Four of those guys have 300 saves, while Wilhelm had 227 in a different era, but all had something different that made them cool and got them elected.

Earlier today, I would have argued that neither Jones nor Benitez was in possession of that certain something extra that would convince someone to vote for him; the latter in particular was, if memory serves, always a train wreck waiting to happen (though that could well be a result of his time spent with the Mets in New York, where the spotlight is hotter than anywhere else and mistakes are grossly magnified).

I still think Benitez is in; he fits the Bizarro reliever mold. Jones, however, is potentially a different story. Michael tweeted at me earlier today to check out the tweets of ESPN’s Jayson Stark, who passed along the fact that Jones issued an “official release” stating that he didn’t even belong on the Hall of Fame ballot. This is a brilliant maneuver that I like to call the Jim Deshaies Plan, after the journeyman lefthander who led a campaign to get himself a Hall of Fame vote after landing on the 2001 ballot. Usually players who get just one vote are condemned, in my worldview, to a life of anonymity and the “what might have been?” that comes from a near-brush with Bizarro greatness. No such sad fate befell Deshaies, who was able to enjoy the best of both worlds. Jones may be playing a variation of that plan (hereby called the Todd Jones Corollary) in which he uses humility to suggest he doesn’t deserve a vote, which could thereby result in him being awarded one anyway. I applaud Todd Jones while still hoping that he earns Bizarro honors. He probably won’t, though.

Now, speaking of relievers: Eric Gagne…Gagne is a wild card, in theory. One of the most dominant relief stretches ever from 2002-04 (152 saves and the 2003 National League Cy Young award), but he was eventually named in the Mitchell Report and admitted to using banned substances (and we all know how the writers feel about that). No chance he is a Hall of Famer, even without PEDs (his peak was amazing, but way too short), and almost none that he stays on the ballot next year, but does someone decide to pitch him a courtesy vote or two? I asked more or less the same question of Brady Anderson several years ago. It seemed in question because he had that 50 homer season, tainted though it might have been. Ultimately, the voters spoke and made him a Bizarro Hall of Famer. The more I think about it, the more I see the same happening with Gagne.

And now, speaking of steroids: Paul Lo Duca…the four-time All-Star catcher had one exceptional season (25 homers, 90 RBI, .320 batting average) as Gagne’s teammate in 2001 and was later named in the Mitchell Report. If Gagne is a possible Bizarro, then Lo Duca should be a slam dunk.

Many will be tempted to include Luis Gonzalez in the steroid conversation, and one story I found said that he was included on the list of players who tested positive in 2003 (that list is invalid because it also included David Ortiz. I may be biased in certain cases), but I worry about our tendency to witch hunt players that we think MIGHT have done something naughty. Jeff Bagwell is a perfect example – he’s got Hall of Fame numbers, seemed to be a quality person, but he’s never garnered sufficient support because he LOOKS like he might have used steroids. That’s not right. In the end, though, it doesn’t matter what I think. It’s all about how the voters view it. I’ve never gotten the same “no chance” vibe from Gonzalez as I did from Brady Anderson, so I’m gonna say he doesn’t make it as a Bizarro (and kick myself when proven wrong).

On the other hand, I don’t ever recall any PED allegations at all when it came to Richie Sexson. He was too much like Adam Dunn – just naturally a large human – to seem like he needed something extra. Sexson still won’t make the Hall of Fame, though, because he was a power hitter in the late 90s and early 00s, and power hitters from that era are not looked upon kindly (see Greg Vaughn and Phil Nevin, to name two). For that reason, I think he is a Bizarro.

Moises Alou is in the same boat as Sexson: a few great seasons and a really exceptional career. He always struck me as a much bigger name than Sexson, though, which is why I think he has a real shot of not only getting some votes, but sticking on the ballot for a while.

While we’re talking about good players who probably will fall into some in-between world that exists between the real and Bizarro Halls of Fame, let’s mention Hideo Nomo and Kenny Rogers. First, regarding Nomo: no Bizarro pitcher has two no-hitters on his resume (Mike Witt did have a combined effort with Mark Langston in addition to his perfect game) and I don’t think Nomo will be the first, especially because of the excitement he engendered upon arriving in Los Angeles. Someone will vote for him, and they should; I hope he sticks around the ballot for a few years. Likewise, I think Rogers escapes Bizarro induction by virtue of his perfect game – the only player in the Bizarro Hall with a perfecto to his credit is Witt, who was a decent pitcher but not a great one – and the fact that he won 219 games in his career, a number that will still matter to a lot of people (only one Bizarro pitcher has more: Frank Tanana, who had a career record of 240-236).

There are two guys on the ballot who fall into the “decent player, good person” category: Sean Casey and J.T. Snow. The former’s nickname was “The Mayor”, the latter saved Dusty Baker’s three-year-old son from being run over by a base runner during a game in the 2002 World Series. Andrew Rosin made the point on Twitter that if any player stands to benefit from the continued backlash against PED users, it’s Casey, and I’d feel comfortable including Snow in that analysis as well. I’d say they both receive a couple votes.

Finally, we come to the last two: Jacque Jones and Ray Durham. Both were good players – Durham was eight homeruns shy of a career 200-200 and Jones had four twenty homer seasons on his resume – but neither was particularly memorable, as far as I can remember. Michael thinks Durham is a worthy Bizarro candidate, while Andrew has mentioned Jones. While neither is a slam dunk, and could in fact benefit from the same benignity as Casey and Snow, I think I’ll predict Bizarro inclusion for both.

This year, with nineteen newcomers to the ballot, there could be anywhere from zero to fourteen Bizarro Hall of Famers. At this point, I’m going with seven: Mike Timlin, Armando Benitez, Eric Gagne, Paul Lo Duca, Richie Sexson, Jacque Jones, and Ray Durham.