The ex-top draft pick concludes his path as a local hero, earning induction on Tuesday. Additionally, Tom Verducci discloses his ballot featuring five individuals.
Joe Mauer went to Cooperstown in what seems magical and unprecedented today: a local kid (St. Paul, Minnesota), who was first drafted by his hometown team (Minnesota Twins), spent his entire baseball career on the Hall team. Glory in the first round. He is only the fourth of the original 59 players inducted into the Hall, joining Harold Baines (1977) and Ken Griffey Jr. (1987) and Chipper Jones (1990), but did it with his hometown team first.
What is a collection of stories? Except that: When the Twins drafted Mauer out of high school instead of USC pitcher Mark Pryor, the team was divided in many directions — like its own backyard — because he was cheap. The Twins accepted $5.15 million for Mauer. They finished second to the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs paid Pryor a record $10.5 million.
“The Twins lost the best player in the amateur draft,” wrote Dan Barrero in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. They blinked, they compromised, they gasped, they bought.”
Do you know what happened next?
Pryor finished 25th. Despite great technique and make-up, Pryor’s birth defect was serious – he slowed down the baseball too slowly – and he couldn’t stay healthy. Mauer won three awards, three Gold Gloves, five Silver Sluggers, and six All-Star Games while hitting .306, second only to Bill Dickey and Mike Piazza among all players, contributing more than half of the 40% who played at least 1,500 games. and the results given. a game back plate.
The only thing that surprised me was how many people thought Mauer wasn’t a first-ballot Hall of Famer. (He broke 75% of the barriers with just four hits.) He is one of the greatest catchers of all time and one of the greatest freshman hitters of all time. position (.323/.406/.466).He was one of the easiest players in my five player poll.
Now is a good time to reconsider the Mauer/Pryor decision. Before it was more of a finished product; He reached the major leagues the next year, striking out 147 in 116⅔ innings. He looked like a franchise pitcher. But Mauer was the picture of consistency: an accomplished, skilled thrower with elite athleticism: he was the best quarterback in the country, played his entire career at Florida State, and he was as athletic as a big-city guy.
Jugs are notoriously boring. Fourteen pitchers have been drafted for the first time, and none have entered the Hall of Fame, although Gerrit Cole (2011) may be the first. Those picks are usually filled with tragic injury stories (Pryor, Stephen Strasburg, Mark Apple, Paul Wilson, Casey Miz, etc.).
This is how the scene unfolds. The decision to throw the ball was made last year, this time with friends from the university. The Pittsburgh Pirates selected pitcher Paul Skeens from LSU and traded outfielder Dylan Crews to the Washington Nationals. History tells us that for a long time the crucifix was the best and safest.
Mauer never had anything like it. Only eight players entered the Hall of Fame for their home states: Lou Gehrig, Phil Rizzuto and Whitey Ford (New York Yankees), Charlie Gehringer (Detroit Tigers), Tony Gwynn (Detroit San Diego Padres) “), Barry Larkin (Cincinnati Reds)“. , Cal Ripken Jr.; (Orioles) and Mauer. Of those, the first pick in the draft that began in 1965 was only Mauer.
It was an incredible feat like no other, definitive proof that Twins general manager Terry Ryan and his staff were right.
Here are the other players on the ballot who got my vote:
Carlos Beltran: Willie Mays, Andre Dawson and Beltran are the only players to amass 2,500 hits, 400 home runs and 300 stolen bases without a PED infection. I didn’t vote for him last year to protest his role in the Houston Astros signing scandal . . But I cannot make a direct connection between plagiarism and use of federally controlled illegal drugs.
Adrian Beltre, Secretary. Even a fool can understand this. Here is the full list of players with 3,000 hits, 475 home runs and five Gold Gloves: Mays and Beltre. That’s not to say they’re the same, but Beltre did too much for too long.
Todd Helton, secretary. He was a wizard when it came to knowing canon. Among batters with 9,000 plate appearances, his 133 OPS+ (adjusted for ballpark effect) was the best among non-Hall players. That distinction now belongs to John Olerud (129).
Billy Wagner, secretary. He’s not the best player (hi, Mariano), but he’s the best hitter (33.2 strikeout rate, .187 batting average per 900 innings).
And here are some other important things that were known after the results:
Wagner lost the election by five votes. He has one year left to choose the writers. He will probably join Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia next year.
The writers have selected 27 players over the last 11 years, averaging 2.45 selections per year. This represents a 52% increase by 2014.
Chase Utley only garnered 28.8% of the vote in his first year on the ballot, but he can be encouraged by the recent victories of Scott Rolen (10.2% early) and Larry Walker (20.3%). Utley’s concern is the lack of a voice. No other first baseman in the last 67 years has entered the Hall with fewer than 2,000 hits. Atley had 1885.
Gary Sheffield finished his 10-year career in the authors’ poll with a score of 63.9%, about the same as Barry Bonds (66%) and Roger Clemens (65.2%).
The draft average had 7.0 players named, down from 5.86 last year but still lower than 2022’s 7.34.
See if you can spot the trend here in the year chart: Alex Rodriguez: 34.3%, 35.7%, 34.8% and Manny Ramirez: 23.8%, 22.0%, 22.8%, 28 , 2%, 28.2%, 28.9%, 33.2% , 33.2% of the population. %. Controversy still exists about players using PEDs before penalty testing began in 2004, but one thing was clear among voters: fail a PED test in this experimental era and you will lose your chance to become a Hall of Famer.
