Howdy baseball folks,
I realize most of you aren’t necessarily baseball folks, and I’m being a wise ass by implying otherwise, but we’re coming up on the end of the year, and it’s time to talk about the retired baseball players who are under consideration for the highest honor in the sport: entry to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Mvsevm.
But because I want to get mad page views, I’ve decided to make this a Hader’s Guide. I’ve been told that Hader’s Guides consistently juice attention, and that’s the name of the game. Gotta give the folks what they want. I’m not entirely sure Bill Hader moves the needle that much, but to be honest, I’m all for it. He’s a pretty cool guy. I’ll talk about the candidates and then, I guess try to compare them to a clip of Bill Hader that I find online.
By the way, I first did a long draft and then realized that absolutely nobody cares about my analysis, and that there are far too few jokes.
Mariano Rivera
Should he get in?
Yes
Will He get in?
Yes.
Will he be unanimous?
No. Who gives a shit? You’re never going to please everybody either.
What hat would he wear:
Yankees
Bill Hader clip:
Mo was effectively the Grim Reaper, so I give you a man who seems to enjoy death.
Roy Halladay
Should he get in?
Sure, but I don’t think he was as great as everybody is making him out to be. Here’s a spicy take:
Maybe we’re overrating him a little because he’s dead.
That’s pretty rude. I know. But people are listing him as if he is a no doubt Hall of Famer, and well, he’s not quite that good. Don’t get me wrong, I still think he deserves to get in. But there are better players who had to wait. He’s tied for 41st in bWAR among all pitchers, which is fine, but I think it’s worth noting that Kevin Brown is 33rd, and very few people will scream at you that Kevin Brown needs to be inducted. And Kevin Brown has some blistering seasons.
bWAR or fWAR aren’t perfect stats, and Roy Halladay was better than Kevin Brown, but if he hadn’t died and you told me he just missed the cutoff, my reaction would have been “Well, that’s kind of stupid, but I guess I can see how he wasn’t a slam dunk case. He’ll probably get in pretty soon though.”
Will he get in:
Yup.
What Hat Would He Wear:
I’d say Phillies, though he spent most of his career in Toronto. But the Blue Jays traded him away for scrap, and that’s what you get, Toronto.
Bill Hader clip:
I’m not going to come up with gimmick excuses. That’s the Bill Hader clip that you get.
Edgar Martinez
Should he get in:
Yeah.
Will he get in:
I think so. Last year on the ballot though, so it better happen this year.
Who Is He?:
The best DH of all time, which means, not much of a fielder.
The Narrative Surrounding His Case:
Do you like the Designated Hitter or are you wrong?
What Hat Would He Wear?:
He only played for Seattle. I guess it should be a big stupid helmet though. That’s what you get for being a DH, to go through life looking like John Olerud.
Bill Hader clip:
Larry Walker
Should he get in:
I don’t know. Did you like Edgar Martinez? Because he’s basically Edgar Martinez but also an outfielder.
Will he get in?
Nope.
The Narrative Surrounding His Case:
The Coors Effect
Much like their shitty light beer, the air at Coors Field is thin and bland enough to render any traditional counting stats irrelevant. Tell me a guy hit 30 dingers in Colorado, and I’ll tell you I just slammed 10 Silver Bullets. They’re both ridiculously easy things to do*. But Larry Walker didn’t play every game at Coors Field. For one, they played road games at real baseball stadiums with thick and chunky American air. And for another, he played several years as something called a Montreal Expose. And yes, while in Montreal he did rock out with his proverbial cock out, to the tune of a 128 OPS+. And OPS+ does take ballpark factors into account, so his score of 147 over 10 years in the Rockies is absolutely legit. If you’re going on merit, and you loved Edgar Martinez, you should probably vote for Larry Walker as well.
*I probably can’t do either, but you get it.
What Hat Would He Wear:
If you want to actually get in, promise everybody you’ll go in as a Cardinal. Writers can’t help but blow the Cardinals. He should wear a CR, but I know every idiot is going to shake their head and say he was a scrub who took advantage of altitude.
Bill Hader clip:
Mike Mussina
Should he get in:
Yeah man. I get that he’s kind of a boring dude, but he was really good for a really long time. He did more cool baseball things than Roy Halladay, and you’re about to put his bloated corpse in there. Why have we waited so long to induct Moose? Is it because he’d probably talk about crossword puzzles or discuss the history surrounding an old bridge? Fine, maybe give him a hard red light when he starts to go long, but he belongs in the Hall.
Will he get in:
Yeah, it’s looking like he’s in
What Hat Would He Wear:
The Orioles. I’d like to say Yankees, but he was better in Baltimore. I saw him pitch four times in a row at the old Yankee Stadium. For whatever reason, whenever I bought a ticket, he was the starter. It didn’t mean a hell of a lot to me at the time. His dominance was kind of boring. Not sure what to tell you.
Curt Schilling
Should he get in:
Probably, but fuck that guy. I mean it. He’s deserving, but fuck him.
Will he get in:
I’m going to say yes. If it doesn’t happen this year, it’ll happen next year. Again, he deserves to be in.
The Narrative Surrounding His Case:
Let’s say that Rhode Island is a party. It’s the shittiest party ever though, and every single man, woman and child has ponied up 50 bucks for beer, so that this party might become an absolute rager. Let’s say that they gave this money to Curt, who promptly drove a quarter mile out of town, got lost, broke down in the snow, and had to burn that $50MM for warmth before being discovered by a mother of four about 17 minutes after his car had broken down. That’s essentially what 38 Studios did to Rhode Island.
What Hat Would He Wear:
See the above photo
Bill Hader clip:
PED Lightning Round
I don’t think any of these guys will get in. But should they get in?
Yes
Yup
Sure
Nah
GAH!
Oh, it’s you. Yeah, I’d put Sammy in.
I’d also put Mark McGwire in, but he’s not on the ballot anymore. Rafael Palmeiro would have gotten a no from me. David Ortiz can fucking blow me when he comes up for a vote.
Bill Hader Clip:
What’s the takeaway:
Lots of people like to get Mad Online about whether certain dudes get a bronze plaque in a room they might visit one time in their life. A lot of old baseball men like to ask themselves whether they would be able to justify showing their kids a certain guy’s plaque, completely forgetting that their kid probably won’t give one pig’s whistling anus about those players, or the Hall of Fame, or baseball in general. If you took them they’d ask you why you can’t go to the Fortnight Hall of Fame, and you’d consider the ramifications of slapping them in public for making you feel old. Don’t slap your child.
Also, I kind of get it with the Hader lists. I mean, I don’t get why we do it, but I enjoy it. And it kind of works with our Sexy Friday theme. If I were a cis woman, I’d probably dig Bill Hader. It’s not that I’m attracted to him now, but if one of my women friends told me that she was dating Bill Hader, my reaction would be “Really? That’s awesome. You know, he’s consistently one of the best parts of anything he’s in. Anyway, that’s really cool about you and Bill Hader. Do you think we can hang out sometime? I’ll buy.” And it wouldn’t be envy. I think I’d be really happy for that hypothetical woman. He seems like a nice guy to settle down with. Stability is pretty key when you hit your mid 30’s, if you catch my drift. Good for those two.
Okay. That’s it. Free to disagree or post Bill Hader videos of your own.
[…] not get to until 2020 at the earliest. I’ve already gone over all of this stuff before in my Hader’s Guide, but that was before everybody was voted on and decided. Let’s talk about the notables who […]
Larry Walker is a no-bullshit Hall of Famer to me. Here’s one to piss off the old-timers too: He was a better hitter than Pete Rose. A lot of guys are, so fuck your “Hit King”, Andy Van Slyke has a better career OPS+.
Prefect, the Jays shouldn’t ever be recognized.
and was surprised that i even knew anyone on this list as a non-baseball fan
/6 out of 6 overs.
If they can keep Pete Rose out for gambling, they can keep Schilling out for stealing millions from Rhode Island and otherwise being an unrepentant black hole of shittiness.
Not enough upvotes in the world.
Excellent, all the way around. Here were my highlights, which no one cares about but I’m gonna pollute the site anyway.
1) Bill Hader as Keith Morrison is something I imitate around the house with alarming frequency. Thank you for posting all things Hader but especially this one. “But ya didn’t do that, didja?”
m) Larry Walker should get in, especially if Martinez gets in. And “…thick and chunky American air” is something I imagine Sarah Sanders exhales.
8V) White Sammy Sosa kind of looks like a lesbian.
word) The only Hall that should accept Curt Schilling is Jerry Hall (he could tag-team her with current husband Rupert Murdoch, which is a very erotic mental image).
$) When Halladay gets in, his hat should be this:
Doc Halladay absolutely should get in because he was dominant in the AL East, despite being on consistently shitty teams and constantly going up against the Steroid Sox and the super steroided Yankees. He never got any universal love until he went on the Phillies. I remember Doc would go many a games where he’d give up a run and lose, or, not give up any and eventually have the decision remove due to a shitty bullpen.
You can’t compare Doc with Moose because Moose was on some solid O’s teams and then joined a dynasty.
Doc’s career reminds me of Curt Schilling had Schilling never went to Boston and toiled with the Phillies.
Yeah but bWAR and fWAR doesn’t care what team you played for. Moose was about 20 higher in both. If you’re in the 60’s, you’ve got a case (He’s CC Sabathia. If CC does it for you, Doc should, but there are guys with more who aren’t getting in). If you’ve got 83, you’re in. Moose is waaaaay past the borderline. Some of that is health. But health and counting stats do matter when discussing a career. If you could ask me to draft one of these players for their entire career in a vacuum, I’d select Moose ahead of Doc, because the sum total of his career will add up to more than Doc gave. Even if Doc’s peak was better than Moose’s.
I think a player should get extra credit for playing his entire career in a vacuum, unless it’s a nice one like a Dyson.
I don’t have the vocab to argue with your advance stats. I just remember what I saw. He was a guy who dominated the Yankees and had many BJ fans mad for him that they never provided him a good team. So much so, when he asked for a trade, most Jays fans were fine with that.
However, after typing in Roy Halladay advanced stats into Google, the article below popped up. He had an 11 year era of dominance where he was first in pretty much every major stat. Most notably, Halladay posted a 58.7 fWAR over a 10-year span from 2002 to 2011, nearly 10 wins above the second-highest fWAR of any pitcher during that timeframe.
https://bluejaysnation.com/2018/11/20/roy-halladay-deserves-to-be-a-first-ballot-hall-of-famer/
Right but doing the “best player for ____ through ____” is deceptive. Players begin and end their careers at different points.
Roy had a better peak, but what parts of Mussina’s career count and what doesn’t count? Because when you’re asking me to look at what player X did in 10 years as opposed to what they did over the whole of their careers you’re entering some arbitrary territory.
If we’re looking at the totality of their careers, Mike Mussina was better than Roy Halladay.
…And managed to be both a year too early and a year too late to win a ring.
Had no idea Halladay was dead. Shows you how much I follow baseball.
If Schilling gets in, then McGwire and Rose should be in.
I just love this. All of it.
Also, mad props for this line:
entry to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Mvsevm
https://youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=RlsiiWlt35s
This is highly accurate and wonderful, yet also blows because the videos are geo-blocked.
Maybe we’re overrating him a little because he’s dead.
If only literature professors had this self awareness.
[DOOR FLIES OPEN]
FACK YOU FACK YOU FACK YOUUUUUUU! BIG PAH-PI IS THE GREAT-HAST DEE-H EVAH! YOU-AH CAN SEND THAT MEXICAN BACK OVAH THE WALL CAUSE HE CAN’T HOLD PAH-PI’S JAWK! NO ONE DENIES THIS!
MARIANO DESERVES TO GET IN BECAUSE HE BLEW IT FOR THE YANKS IN OH FAUR! GO SAWX!!
https://youtu.be/beaxpAjjnMI?t=379