Here Is My 2021 HOF Ballot

Last year I correctly opted against voting for Yankees "great" Derek Jeter on my Hall of Fame ballot:

It is WILD to me that fans of the New York Yankees - an organization hellbent on nothing less than domination and greatness - are so obsessed with the mediocrity that was Derek Jeter. Look, Jeter an overrated slap hitter that should have been playing second base or left field, if that. That's just a fact. He's the most overrated baseball player in baseball history. That's not me talking, that's statistics. Sure he could put the bat on the ball and find holes here and there, but he was lucky more often than not. Dude was born holding a horseshoe. Good thing there are these new aged methods of measuring a baseball player called sabermetrics that take luck into account when quantifying any given player's quality.

Let's first take a look at his defensive numbers: 

1. Derek Jeter was worth negative (!!!) 152 defensive runs saved in his career, which is a stat that measures an impeding a run from scoring by making a non-routine play - This is the WORST in baseball history and more than 2x (!!!) worse than the second worst ever. Yes, the is a cumulative statistic and Jeter unfortunately played like 3 decades but the point remains - he allowed more runs to score on his behalf than anyone ever.

2. Derek Jeter held a negative (!!!) 66.1 ultimate zone rating which is the number of outs above or below average in range runs or error runs: this is the worst in baseball history

3. Derek Jeter held an 89.3 Range Runs rating, which is how well a player gets to baseballs not in his vicinity: this is the worst in baseball history, and more than 2x worse than the 2nd worst ever

4. Derek Jeter had an 11.2 Def rating, which measures how well a player fields his position with respect to league average: Derek Jeter was the 8th worst in baseball history.

Just a god fucking awful defensive short stop. So bad that I'm not sure I'd even want him on my team, as he didn't hit for any power to make up for his defensive shortcomings. He was just a slap hitter that found green grass and was for some reason got sucked off by a bunch of meathead gabagools that eat nothing but salted meats for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's an anomaly of this world that will never make sense to me. 

I'm sorry if any of these statistics offend you.

PS - Giambi was safe at home 

Let's get to my real ballot though:

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5x all star, 4 gold gloves, 200IP in 14 straight years, no hitter, perfect game, and World Series champion. Oh, and he was drunk when he saved game 3 in the 2005 World Series the night after the White Sox went up 2-0 in the series due in part to his start:

Former White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper told SportsTalk Live he saw Buehrle drinking out of a styrofoam cup during the 7th inning. “I look in it, there’s a beer in there. It wasn’t uncommon for guys on the 2005 staff, the starters when they weren’t pitching, to enjoy a cocktail from time to time.”

'Nuff said. Just aim for the middle glove. Give this man his rightful shrine in Cooperstown.

Roger Clemens

Simply put, Roger Clemens is arguably the best pitcher in baseball history and belongs in the Hall of Fame, steroids or not. I'm not one to crucify those who took steroids in the 1990s and early 2000s - the entire league was doing it and we know there are players in the Hall right now who used the drugs. That, and Bud Selig is in the Hall. The entire steroid era happened under his watch and legitimately might have saved the game. Juice heads like Roger Clemens and his 354 career wins, 11 all star games, and his 7 Cy Young awards are the reason baseball is alive today. We writers need to quit with the holier than thou bullshit and vote players who deserve to be in The Hall, in The Hall. 

Dan Haren

153 career wins, 3.75 ERA but his SABERMETRICS are way better than his standard stats. That's all that matters in baseball my friends. Math is king.

Aramis Ramirez

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Only voting him in to prove I'm not biased because most people would say I'd never vote an ex-Cub into the Hall

Curt Schilling

79.8 career fWAR. .597 career winning percentage. Nails in the postseason. Bloody sock wearer. Video game tycoon. Confirmed NOT a disgusting scumbag juice head that tarnished the game's image while also setting awful examples for children by enhancing his performance with drugs. A+ humanitarian and philanthropist. Not a red army Karl Marx loving dirty liberal PC culture freak show like the MSM wants him to be. He's worthy of being in Cooperstown for everything he did during his career ON the field, but truly belongs in the Hall of Fame for being a true patriot off it.

Gary Sheffield

Gary Sheffield had swag for days. If you were born in the late 80s or early 90s, you grew up emulating his swing. Like Shilling, he was NOT guilty of baseball's cardinal sin - using steroids. If I had any inkling that Sheffield took steroids, he wouldn't sniff a vote from me. He never touched the shit though, and because he was one of the premier and CLEAN power hitters of the 1990s, he belongs in Cooperstown. His stats speak for themselves; 509 career dingers, OBP near .400 for his career, 9x all star, and more. It's a damn shame people like Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa had to exist at the same time as Sheffield, because if they didn't, we'd be talking about Sheffield being an all time great. Simple as that.

Now it's clear that I can't vote for steroid users or those questionable character all willy nilly. Perhaps if any of them agree to come on Red Line Radio in 2021, my stance on them will change and they can find their way on my ballot next year. Until then, get them the fuck out of my face, those dirty cheaters. 

Now excuse me while I focus on the 2021 White Sox - your future World Series champions.