Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experienced, but that’s not where I live.

—Marilyn "Pete" Monroe

Yesterday, Major League Baseball released the 2005 Hall of Fame baseball writers' ballot. The obvious choice on this year's ballot is first timer Wade Boggs, a certain first-ballot inductee. With just 27 players on the ballot, 12 first-timers, this is one of the smallest pools ever presented to the writers. Perhaps it will simplify the vote to such a degree that one or two more inductees will be culled from the bubble candidates—can I get a Ryne Sandberg, brothers and sisters?

I would like to take a look at the writers' ballot as I did last year and with a little help from a study on the Hall elections that I did last offseason. First, here is the ballot with some pertinent data for each player:

They did a decent job of selecting the best candidates from this year's newly eligible players. Of the first-timers with at least 122 career Win Shares Jeff Blauser (154) and
Brian McRae (132) were the only ones overlooked.

Now, let's run the candidates through their paces. Here is a comparison using Bill James's Hall of Fame criteria. Also, I threw in Blauser, McRae, and the other overlooked newly eligibles with at least 100 Win Shares:

Next, let's compare the players to their similar players from Baseball-Reference.com. How many of the similar players who were eligible for the Hall are actually in? We'll also throw in career Win Shares. Using the data from my Hall study last season, we know that 337 Win Shares is the Hall average. Finally, from the six criteria in both tables, we'll rate the candidates based on the percentage of those tests that each candidate passed:

Boggs and Blyleven got the highest marks passing five of six tests. Dawson, Morris, Murphy, and Rice all passed at least half of them. Besides Boggs, Strawberry is the only new candidate who passes at least one test.

All of this leads me to my final assessment. As a point of reference, I have included the voting percentage for each candidate over the last three years and the all-time high for each:

There's one more thing that bodes well for this year's class. As I mentioned previously, this is one of the smallest ballots of all time. Let's take a look at how the smaller pools have faired in the past. Here are the ten smallest:

That's an average of 6.81% inducted in these classes as compared to 2.85% as an overall average, or about three times the average. Of the ten years in which the writers failed to select a single player, none had fewer than 35 men on the ballot and just one had fewer than 47. Also, of the 14 seasons in which the writers selected at least 6% of the available candidates, eight were from ballots of 33 or fewer.

So maybe this is the year that the writers start to whittle down the list of those in baseball's purgatory, the players who never amass enough votes to gain election but earn enough to remain on the ballot year after year. I'm hoping that writers feel Sandberg has completed his penance for not playing the bulk of his career during the offensive surge of the last eleven or so seasons. Maybe they will take Sandberg and spot him a buddy, perhaps Bruce Sutter. Dare I dream that Blyleven even has a shot? No, I daren't.

Anyway, of the new candidates, I doubt that more than one or two will remain on the ballot next year. I don't think that a small class will help the likes of Steinbach and Montgomery.

Just a few more Hall-related items: Let's take a look at last year's candidate pool and review my predictions for each. First the pertinent criteria as in the lists above:

Now, the predictions and the actual results:

I did get Eckersley and Molitor right and still may be right about Sandberg. The one thing that surprises me is that I predicted a few more of the new candidates in 2004 would at least stick around on the ballot, but none did. Maybe that's why I'm being so hard on this year's new guys.

Finally, here are the career Win Shares leaders for those players not already in the Hall of Fame, including active and not-yet-Hall-eligible players. I have included all players with at least 250 career Win Shares plus those active players with at least 200. It's a long list, but you can suffer through it:

Parts I, II, III, IV, V, and VI

I have one last note on the ridiculousness of the Rookie of the Year eligibility rules. Since they were instituted in 1971, there have been five players who exceed the eligibility thresholds have received votes. One was this year.

Here's the list:

Nate Robertson was this year. Greg Mathews received one vote in 1987 after winning 11 games in 1986. And they barred Lew Ford. Disgraceful.

Parts I, II, III, IV, and V

Next in our review of the most overlooked players in award-voting history is Rookie of the Year. The ROY award was by far the most complicated study and comes with the most caveats.

What is a rookie after all?

The current eligibility rules are that the player enters the given year with fewer than 130 career at-bats, 50 career innings pitched, and forty-five days of major-league experience. These were set forth in 1971. This year, Lew Ford met the first two but not the third. The problem is that you have to work in the commissioner's office to be able to calculate major-league experience; the other two are readily available. I was unable to find the rules prior to 1971 but will continue scanning my old TSN Baseball Guides.

The ROY, like the Cy Young, was at first just given out to one player in the entire majors. In 1947 and '48 only one Rookie of the Year per year was awarded. From 1949 on, each league has its own ROY winner.

For this study, I will base eligibility on the first two criteria above (<130 ABs and <50 IP). I will lump all players together for 1947-48 and separate them by league for every year since. This will mean that players who were not considered eligible at the time (like Ford) will be included in the list, and I'm fine with that. I think that it demonstrates how esoteric and meaningless the third rule (i.e., fewer than 45 days on a major-league roster) is.

So without further ado here's the list:

I'm sorry it's so long but I wanted to include all of the overlooked rookies who actually finished first in their leagues in Win Shares (i.e., Rank).

By the way, here are the men who actually won in those years:

As a Phils fan, I have to love that Richie "The Hack" Hebner was ignored the year that Teddy Sizemore won the award. One can understand why the voters select, say, Willie McCovey, but someone has to explain to me how John Castino got a share of the award in 1979.

If one were to list these overlooked players by year, the result would be, as with the Cy Young, that large numbers of overlooked players occurred when the award was shared between the two leagues (four per year in 1947-48). However, early voting was lackluster at best overall (four overlooked in the AL in 1950 and three in the NL in 1956).

It seems that the new rules were instituted in 1971 because so many questionable candidates were getting the award and so many qualified ones were either overlooked or ineligible. In 1968 Reggie Jackson was completed ignored in favor of Stan Bahnsen, "The Bahnsen Burner", who quickly burned out his arm. (The Senators' Del Unser, later a teammate of Bahnsen in Montreal, was the only other candidate to receive a vote.) From 1968 to 1973 there was one "eligible" rookie that was overlooked but had more Win Shares than the actual award winner (i.e., eligible by my rules).

Since 1973 only three players have been overlooked/ineligible with more Win Shares than the award winner. One was Ford. The other two were Dwayne Murphy (1979) and Craig Biggio (1989) and both played at least 45 games the previous season even though they met the at-bat cutoff. Since 1990 only three players have made the list: Ford, Mike Lansing (1993), and John Rocker (1999). Rocker pitched in 47 games (38 innings) in 1998. In the 1993 NL voting, eleven players received votes (including Pedro Martinez, Carlos Guillen, Jeff Conine, Kirk Rueter, and Ricky Gutierrez) and Mike Piazza swept the first-place votes, but Lansing, then a third baseman with no pop who had not played a major-league game before the season started, was completely ignored.

I decided not to eliminate those players who had appeared in at least 45 games prior to their "rookie" season. They clearly did not pass the experience criterion, but I think it’s the silliest of the three rules. I mean, 130 at-bats and 50 innings pitched are pretty arbitrary numbers (especially for relievers as opposed to starters), but at least they are reasonable. I see no reason why Dwayne Murphy should have been ineligible in 1979 because the A's decided to use him in 60 games in 1978 as defensive replacement in the outfield and pinch-runner. He only had 52 at-bats for the season. I think these rules were outdated before the print dried in 1971.

I understand the need to set up some objective rule to determine rookie eligibility. I just think that Lew Ford, who had all of 73 major-league at-bats entering the 2004 season, shouldn't have to pay for it. I would prefer something closer to though not as stringent as the batting/ERA title eligibility rules. Let's say that a player becomes ineligible once he has accumulated at least 251 plate appearances. That is based on the batting title's 3.1 plate appearances per game and 81 games or half of a season. For pitchers, 81 innings or one per game based on half a season (that is for starting pitchers—relievers would be limited to something like 30 innings). I would eliminate the experience threshold altogether. Who cares how many days a player sat on a major-league bench?

Another alternative would be to keep the current criteria but extend the player's eligibility for another year should he receive no votes in the ROY voting. That would enable players like Ford, who met the criteria but clearly did get enough exposure to merit consideration, to have another chance. Throw 'em back—they're not big enough yet. Maybe the criteria that I outlined would be the ceiling for the players thrown back so that those players who just plain stunk their rookie year don't get another chance the next year.

Anyway, the last entry in this series will be study of how well the voters have done over the years based on Win Shares. I want to look not only at the high-profile cases where Mo Vaughn and Juan Gonzalez stole the MVP from Alex Rodriguez. I want to see how closely all the seedings match reality. For instance, someone has to explain to me how Bobby Abreu finished with three points in this year's NL MVP vote but J.D. Drew had 114 and finished in sixth place. If you say it's because the Braves, and not the Phils, won the NL East (an argument I find silly anyway), then explain to me how fellow Phils Jim Thome finished ahead of Abreu after Abreu had a markedly better season than Thome. It must be those 12 extra home runs (42 for Thome and 30 for Abreu). Then explain to me how Todd Helton and Juan Pierre both ended up with nine votes. Then there are the five points that were all that Melvin Mora received in the AL vote. At least he finished ahead of Chone Figgins. But I digress.

I'd like to look at how closely the voting totals per award reflect reality and how that relationship, or lack thereof, has changed over time.

Sheez, I post a fluff piece to pass off some research on the novelty of Damian Miller playing in Miller Park as an analysis of his career, and people actually hold me to it.

Well, I think the most interesting thing in the Miller signing is how it affects the A's. The Miller signing itself was somewhat ho-hum. I think my quickie analysis showed that Miller was one of the better catchers in baseball basically because of his defense as opposed to his just-average offense.

The one thing I did question was the wisdom of locking up a 35-year-old catcher for three years (though only two guaranteed). So how risky is that, in general?

Since Miller just turned 35 in October, I looked for all of the 34-year-old starting catchers in baseball history (minimum of 80 games behind the plate). Then I tried to determine how effective those catchers would be over the next three years. I averaged the games played and OPS for those players for any years that they were active. I prorated the total Win Shares over three years, even if the player was not active for those years. The reason for this was to determine the player's worth to his team over three years (ergo Win Shares), but the other stats totals only made sense as an average. (Note that Brent Mayne, who was 34 in 2002, and Brad Ausmus and Dan Wilson, who were 34 in 2003, are not penalized for the years that they have yet to play: their Win Shares are averaged over the years yet far that they have been active). Then I took the difference between their Win Share total in their 34th year and compared it to their 35-37 average. I ranked them by the difference:

Of the 64 catchers on the list, just 11 witnessed either an improvement or at least no decline in their Win Share total. A number were fairly recent players, so maybe the trend is becoming less pronounced, but most catchers declined by an average of 5 Win Shares (from 11 to 9 in year one—2 WS—, to 7 in year two—4 WS—, and then to 6 in year three).

More significantly, those catchers played an average of just 82 games, or 25 fewer than in their 34th year, and that ignores those player-years when the players were inactive/retired. If you add in those years, the players averaged just 73 games.

So is three mil a year a bit steep to pay for what amounts to a bad gamble? I would think so, at least for the Brewers where that would constitute about ten percent of their 2004 payroll. Even so, Miller will probably be a major upgrade over the Chad Moeller and Gary Bennett rotation that the Brewers employed last season. The more's the pity.

The Brewers are set to sign Damian Miller to an exorbitant contract (3 years, $8.75 M) apparently so that they can have an on-field Miller ad, as if the stadium signs weren't enough:

"Miller playing at Miller Park was too tough to pass up," Miller's agent Bob Garber said.

On the surface it actually doesn't look like a bad deal. Miller was third in Win Shares among starting catchers last year (min. 81 games at catcher). That is, even though his OPS was 14th among the 25 catchers who qualified and slightly below average for the group. Even so, Miller's per-season salary will be less than average for the group:

Miller is, however, one of the older starting catchers in baseball. He'll be 37 when the contract expires. That's ancient for a catcher, and he doesn't hit enough to play first. And as a catcher ages, he can go from an average hitter to a poor one extremely quickly (witness Charles Johnson, Mike Lieberthal, and Dan Wilson above). I just think it's a poor gamble but those are the kind that the Brewers make.

As for the novelty of Miller playing at Miller Park, it's not the first time a player's last name has appeared in his home park's name (though some are cheating, e.g.,Jim Field?), and I don't mean Arthur 3Com, who never made it out of training camp with the Giants a few years back:

Now, that is the height of triviality.

Parts I, II, III, and IV

Next in our pursuit of the most egregiously overlooked players in baseball award history is the Cy Yoing award.

The Cy Young is not as straight-forward as the MVP vote even though it's only been in existence for just under fifty years. The difficulty arises with a couple of voting rules for the award.

First, when the award was first created (1956) it was for the best pitcher in the major leagues, not in each league as it is today. It wasn't until 1967 that a Cy Young was given out in each league. This allowed a number of candidates to slip through the cracks.

The other eccentricity was that the voters selected just one candidate for the first 15 years of the awards existence. Essentially, it would be like lopping off the second- and third-place votes from today's ballots. Initially, multiple candidates would still split the vote. However, as the mid-Sixties witnessed the domination of Sandy Koufax, fewer candidates were even considered. Koufax was the only man in the majors to receive a vote in 1963, 1965, and 1966. Perhaps that was the reason they split the award up per league: so that an American Leaguer would have a chance. However, in 1968 in both leagues only one candidate received votes (Bob Gibson in the NL and Denny McLain in the AL).

Here's a table of the number of player performance that received Cy Young consideration for each decade in each league. Followed by the average number receiving votes per year per league for the decade (through 2004):

Note the number of candidates quadrupling in the Seventies? The numbers have actually been shrinking in each decade since. But the award will never return to the two-man average that the NL vote in the Seventies achieved. That is, unless they remove third place from the ballot.

This allowed boatloads of deserving candidates to be completely overlooked through the Sixties. In the study below you'll see that there were 12 candidates who would meet our criterion (24 Win Shares) in the National League in 1969 and yet just two (winner Tom Terrific Seaver and Phil Niekro) received any votes. Also, of the 44 overlooked pitchers in the study, only six have been since the ballot was expanded to include second- and third-place votes (and two of them were relievers).

OK, after that rambling preamble, let's off to the actual study. Below are the pitchers who had the best seasons during the Cy Young award era and yet received no notice, or at least no votes (based on a min. of 24 Win Shares. Note Rank is based on WS ranks in the majors for 1956-66 and within league since):

The last entry on the list was the ever-underrated Dave Stieb in 1983. The highest Win Share for an overlooked pitcher since was Tim Hudson's 23 Win Shares in 2002 (15-9, 2.98). I guess the paucity of 20-game winners has allowed voters to focus more on the best performances not just the most wins (John Kruk notwithstanding).

By the way, for the players ranked number one above here are the players who beat them for the award:

Next, we'll look at Rookie of the Year, and that gets very complicated.

Parts I, II, and III

After taking a look at the worst award vote-getters of all time and thoroughly beating the dead horse into the ground while mixing my metaphors, my next pursuit in award voting eccentricities is to determine those players who were the most unjustly overlooked.

Which players were most overlooked for the MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year vote in the years that those awards were handed out? I'm not talking about A-Rod losing to Mo Vaughn or Juan Gonzalez. I mean, who are the guys who received absolutely no support while having great years?

Using Total Win Shares as the criterion, here are the best player years that were totally ignored by the voters. Let’s start first with the MVP award (30 WS min.):

It's not easy being the greatest player to play the game (apologies to Barry Bonds). Ruth's sole MVP award came in 1923, and he did not even receive a vote in four years in which he "led" the league in Win Shares. Rich Lederer reminds me that there was once a rule that barred past MVPs from the award. I'm not sure when that rule was enacted nor when it was reversed, but I would have to expect that Ruth was its main victim.

Below is a list of the players who won the award for the years in which the Win Share leader received no votes:

As for modern players, it seems that Craig Biggio is the new Ruth. At least his lack of votes in 1992 and 1996 was downright Ruthian.

A naked, once-hot Nicolette Sheridan jumps into bad boy Terrell Owens awaiting arms. This comes on the heels of a college player, Pittsburgh quarterback Tyler Palko, saying the Bono/Cheney word in a postgame interview.

Ron Artest and half the Indiana Pacers roster attempt to reenact a game of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" with Bowie's "Panic in Detroit" as the soundtrack in Auburn Hills.

The National Hockey League is still dead. And now they won't even be drafting young players until and unless they have a CBA in place.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, baseball seems reconciled to missing sports sweeps week for scandals. Even with the ongoing Balco investigation belching up a morsel or two every so often, not much interest is being generated. I guess Barry Bonds continuing to amaze after the scandal sort of took the wind out of their sails.

What's happen to the national pastime's ability to offend? Where are the halcyon days of Robbie Alomar spitting in umpire John Hirschbeck's face? These overpaid millionaire players today aren't even trying. A 60-year-old war, as interpreted by Steven Spielberg, can now incite people's enmity more effectively than baseball.

Baseball missed out on all the hand-wringing and blame assessing that make the other sports so popular. Everyone who ever played an NFL game has now apologized for the towel incident. Never mind that the spot was as racy as the intro to "Petticoat Junction" and that a forty-something Sheridan in a towel is no longer Must See TV. Of course, another kind of "raciness" was really what piqued the public's ire especially for a game that was broadcast in good-ole-boy Texas.

As for me, I was offended by ABC's blatant cross-selling of the entertainment division by their sports division. I mean, Fox shuttles the cast of "That Seventies Show" to every sporting event they cover, but they don't make them part of the game (they reserve that for Budweiser's "Leon" and Jimmy Fallon).

I don't want to hear the argument that the cheerleaders are more revealing or that the in-game violence is more offensive. Don't worry: Michael Powell and the FCC is after them, too. We just need the go-ahead from a couple of nuts like the ones that held "Saving Private Ryan" hostage on Veterans Day to stir Powell and his crack squad into action. My mention of "Petticoat Junction" above already has the FCC investigating TV Land.

As for David Stern's outrage over the Artest incident, has he forgotten the Vernon Maxwell incident, which happened on his watch? Yes, Artest's actions were abhorrent, and yes, he should be fined. But shouldn't someone be looking into what was going on with Detroit's security enforcement that night. Did the guards leave the game early to beat traffic? Artest was hit with a Big Gulp of beer after all. He shouldn't have rushed into the crowd, but I didn't see any rent-a-cops tracking down the offending fan. Of course, given what hockey players have done to fans in the past should be remembered when trying to get perspective on the incident. Then again, those guys were white so their actions were not seen as an indictment of the all the players and the sport in general like in Artest's case. Some may argue that it is the SportsCenter affect: Maxwell got just a 10-game suspension while Artest will have to sit out the year (73 games) and in total 143 games will be lost for the players involved.

And I won't even go into why I don't care if a player uses off-color language in the excitement of winning a big game. Isn't it more interesting than another bobblehead thanking his maker?

In baseball, Jose Guillen gets shuttled to the new Nationals because of an on-field incident in Anaheim that would have seemed like a love-in for the crosstown Lakers last season. Barry Bonds endured a season in which threats that his batting records should be removed or asterisked because of steroid allegations and went on to have one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time. And players actually congratulated each other after the Dodgers lost to the Cardinals in the playoffs last year. Tanner Boyle must be rolling over in his wee little grave.

Where's Chad Kreuter when you need him anyway?

Don't know much about a player's history? Don't know much about his biology, er, injury history? Well, if you're a major-league GM, MLB now is providing you with the Cliffs Notes to ensure that you don't overpay.

So if you're Theo Epstein and you need help from the commissioner's office whenever you make a trade or you're Omar Minaya and you got "promoted" to the Mets for despoiling the Expos minor-league system, then this new aid is for you. Who cares if you are a fifty-year-old man who needs training wheels? You want to keep that cushy job at any cost.

Baseball calls it the Free Agent Advice Form. The "Handy Dandy Free Agent Advice Form" was just too long:

So if Scott Boras is bullying you into a 10-year, $200 M contract, all you have to do is write to Dear Abby, er, Buddy. All you need is to send in the player's name (including middle initials for any Bobby Joneses or Javier Lopi) and the contract length desired. You don't even need a self-addressed stamped envelope if you use your fax.

You get "date him"/"drop him" advice with an estimate of the player's value—"[Player's name] value would appear to be between $___ and $ ____". They have to do the math to determine if the figure they have in mind is between those two on their own, however. Then you get a list of "relevant comparables", however they might be determined, with their contract info. And if all that's not enough for our junior GM to arrive at a decision, you also receive at no extra cost a list of "Other Factors" such as age, injury history, etc. Ron Popeil would be proud. And if you act today, you get the Veg-O-Matic, a $50 value, absolutely free.

Why can't Eddie Wade read? Because daddy Bud does his homework for him.

But why come up with the form now after two offseasons in which accusations have been swirling? That's precisely the reason to come up with this form according to Jayson Stark. The paper trail will now act as a form of CYA (Cover Your Assets) for MLB. The thinking is that since everything will be out in the open—the players union has access to the forms—and fully documented, then MLB's obvious innocence from collusion will be apparent to all.

MLB Corporate wea..,er, labor-relations chief Rob Manfred basically says as much to Stark, "Our position is that nothing untoward has gone on. The union has been concerned about this, so we were prepared to do something to address their concerns." Whether anything toward has transpired was not addressed.

And if that's not enough, the Handy Dandy Form comes with keano whizbang disclaimers:

"Obviously the value of a free agent Player is ultimately determined by market forces, the most fundamental of which are supply of such Players and the demand for those Players. Moreover, the potential value of a free agent Player to one Club may be different from the same Player's value to another Club. Given this, the amount that your Club is willing to pay a free agent may appropriately differ from the value range supplied above…

"Moreover, this advice is strictly advisory and is intended to assist you in formulating contract offers that you deem appropriate. As has always been the case, advice from the Office of the Commissioner cannot interfere with a Club's obligation to act in its own individual interest in a free market. In fact, you are required to act in your individual interest in deciding what contract terms to offer a free agent player."

"Wink wink. Nudge nudge, say no more, say no more." If it's all so obvious, why include it on a one-page form? Because everyone needs a little legalese to indemnify oneself. Beware of forms bearing regular nouns in capital letters. Do You know what i mean? Where else is the word "Moreover" used except in documents drawn up by lawyers.

Of course, there's no collusion since the teams are "not permitted to share this advice" or that they even received advice via the Handy Dandy Form "with another Club"—note the caps: it's legalese. And of course the commissioner's office "will not disclose to any other Club [caps again] the fact that [they] provided this advice." That is, they won't any longer now that Bud's Brewers are being sold.

To quote Hildy and Buffy, "See, it's all perfectly normal."

Stark also refers to a Manfred-penned negotiating memo that MLB circulated to all the teams that prohibits clubs from "discuss[ing] negotiations, contract offers or even 'contemplated' offers with each other" this may include "using the media to circulate information about their contract offers to free agents". It also reiterates that the contract advice is only "upon a specific request from a club" and only on the top-secret advice form, and points out that teams are "not required to seek such advice" nor bound to follow it.

Moreover, it goes on to say that Happy Fun Ball should not be used as a flotation devise.

I see these moves as having three ultimate goals. First and foremost, to protect MLB against any sort of collusion settlement that was seen after the 1986-88 seasons. At least, they're more creative today than in Peter Ueberroth's days.

Second, they want to make sure that regular business, including reining in maverick teams who are doling out Amigo money on free agent contracts, is maintained.

Third, this was a wakeup call to the teams who rubberstamped the advice in the past and offered remarkably similar contracts to similar players. No good confidence game can be run when you have thirty partners who are such boobs.

I, frankly, dismissed the claims by players and agents that collusion was afoot in the past couple off seasons. I thought that the players unwisely signed an extremely lopsided Collective Bargaining Agreement that came with built-in "collusion", a soft salary cap, to which every team has adhered since (except the Yankees). So I disregarded the cries of collusion just like I dismissed the cries of fraud in the past presidential election. Of course, things happened, but you were a party to them. Besides, insurance companies no longer were covering the long-term contracts (over three years) that they had in the past further reducing contract length and thereby, releasing more players more quickly back in the free agent pool increasing supply and reducing demand.

However, methinks Bud dost protest too much this offseason. Going by the "where there's smoke, there's fire" theory, there is something as real at least as the last round of collusion afoot here. Manfred is blowing a whole lot of smoke up too many orifices for there not to be some fire down below. There has been too little salary growth since the last CBA was signed. Apparently, the owners got lazy (not coordinating offers more realistically) and greedy (ticking off too many and suppressing salaries too much). Rob "The Wolf" Manfred now must clean up their mess. Excuse him if he's curt.

The problem is that without an Andre Dawson-like lightning rod for the collusion zeitgeist, the charges may be hard to prove in the courts and in the ever-important court of public opinion, where all players are considered overpaid but no owner's salary is ever evaluated. And now the lawyers are swooping in for plausible deniability. The players may be better served by trying to gear up for the next CBA negotiations, an effort that may be better served with some changes at the top of the union.

Parts I and II

Next in our pursuit of the worst award vote-getters of all time are the Charboneaus, the worst Rookie of the Year candidates, or at least the ones that someone was foolish enough to vote for. Of course, it is named for Joe Charboneau, the Cleveland Indians slugger who set the bar for sophomore slumps.

Here are the worst ROY candidates by career Win Shares. You'll notice that this year's batch gets short shrift: everyone but Jason Bay and Khalil Greene is on the list:

Shooty Babitt was a 22-year-old, sub-par fielding and hitting second baseman who bridged the Dave McKay and Davey Lopes eras in Oakland. He played in 52 of the A's 109 games that strike-shortened year, but yielded to McKay for the postseason, was not even apparently on the postseason roster, and never played in the majors again. He did have a great nickname though. Shooty is now a scout, I believe, in the D-Backs organization.

Now for the single-season leaders:

Buck is the only 2004 player on the list. George Bell took a couple of years, but you'll probably remember was a great player for a time. You have to love that the Benes brothers ended up right next to each other.

I'm actually more encouraged by this list than the career list. There are a number of players who must have shown flashes of if not greatness at least goodness even though their overall performance may not have been overwhelming. I;m talking about guys who became productive major-leagues like Bell, Javy Lopez, Jermaine Dye, Bob Ojeda, Bob Walk, Andy Benes, Floyd Bannister, Dick Groat, Juan Pierre, Sidney Ponson, and Nelson Liriano. There is also a good bit of the Brian Williams-Bud Smith variety of player, but someone got it right when he picked those guys.

The Buddies

The Buddy is named for Buddy Bell, who had one winning record in parts of six seasons as a manager, but always seemed to get decent support in the Manager of the Year award.

Win Shares don't really apply here. Let's try something new. First, let's look at the worst record for a manager who garnered at least a point in the MOY vote:

Someone felt bad for Trammell, Wedge, and Piniella last year. Somehow Mike Hargrove amassed more points in 1993 than 1992 after finishing with the exact same sub-.500 record as the year before.

Next are the worst career records for a MOY candidate:

And just for good measure, here are the managers who received some consideration even though their team's record was worse (or at the same) as the previous year:

Someone was a big Dusty Baker fan. The Giants lost one more game in 1994 than 1993, playing 47 fewer games, their winning percentage dropped 158 points, and yet someone thought Baker was the third best manager in the NL.

Mike Hargrove appears on the list three times. His team declined by at least 80 percentage points in two successive seasons (1996-97). Maybe I should have called it the award the Mikes, but modesty prevailed.

Bobby Cox and Felipe Alou made the list this year. But they represent the contingent, like Jim Leyland in 1992 and Torre post-1998, of managers continuing to win after major losses—free agency, retirement, etc.—to the team. So clearly this comparing the team's record to the previous season's is an imperfect tool at best.

Part I

Here are just a few notes on the Zolio award winners before we go on to the other categories:

Earl Torgeson a.k.a. "The Earl Of Snohomish" (succeeding Earl Averill with the title, both being natives of Snohomish, WA), who topped the single-season list, was a good-hitting first baseman for years. However, he hurt his left shoulder blocking Jackie Robinson on a doubleplay ball on May 14, 1949 and was out for the rest of the season. After playing just 25 games that year, he still got two points in the MVP vote. The voter(s) must have been thinking about his .389 average in the 1949 Series.

Bobby Malkmus was a weak-hitting (.231/.276/.327), 29-year-old second baseman with seemingly very good range for the Phils in 1961, his only year as a starter. He received one vote in the 1961 NL MVP vote and proceeded to play just one more major-league game.

Elston Howard was tied for second in the single-season list in 1967. He was traded from the Yankees to the Red Sox on August 3 that year, and batted under .200 for each team (.196 with New York and .147 with the Red Sox), but he was credited with helping settle the Red Sox staff and was rewarded with a whopping 7 points in the AL MVP vote.

36-year-old Joe Cronin was a player-manager for the Red Sox in 1943, playing in just 59 games and registering 77 at-bats (though his adjusted OPS was 76% better than average). However, his votes came mostly from one day of the season. On June 17 Cronin hit two three-run pinch-hit home runs, one per each game of a double-header that the Sox wplit with the Browns. He ended up with five pinch-hit home runs, an AL record, for the season. That was enough to garner him 3 points in the MVP vote.

Eddie Yuhas, second on the career list, was not "the rebel" in a Johnny Cash song, but rather a one-year wonder with the Cardinals in 1952. He went 12-2 with a 2.72 ERA (37% better than the park-adjusted league average) in 99.1 innings. He finished 31 games, six of which for posthumous saves. He received 5 points in the NL MVP vote in 1952 but due to injuries only pitched one more major-league inning.

Roy Schalk, not to be confused with Hall-of-Fame catcher Ray Schalk, was second baseman who was pressed into major-league duty because of World War II. In 1932, as a 23-year-old, he has a cup o' joe with the Yanks. Twelve years later he made it back to the majors as the White Sox starting second sacker. He lasted two seasons registering awful offensive seasons even for war-time ball (his OPS was 45% and 25% worse than the adjusted league average in those two years). He lead AL second basemen in RBI (65, eighth overall) and led the league in bunts (24) in '45 and was rewarded with an incredible 13 points in the 1945 AL MVP race. He never played another major-league game. When the real players came back, he was gone.

Jose Valdivielso, the best name on the career list, was a prototypical good-fielding/weak-hitting (OPS+ of 55) shortstop for the old Senators/Twins from 1955-1961. He never played more than 117 games or collected more than 294 at-bats in a season, and his claim to fame was that a Rocky Colavito grounder in the eluded him for the only hit a no-hit bid for Pedro Ramos on July 19, 1960. In his rookie year, he played just 94 games (294 ABs) and had an OPS 34% worse than the park-adjusted league average but showed great range (his range factor was 5.07 to the league's 4.04 average at short). His reward was one point in the 1955 AL MVP vote.

Blondy Ryan in 1933 was a rookie called up to replace injured Travis Jackson at short, who had the cajones to send a telegram to Giant manager Bill Terry reading, "We can't lose now. Am en route!" The Giants did win the pennant and Ryan was an on-field mascot. His exuberance made Jose Lima seem tame. He wasn't much with the bat, however, (59 OPS+ and finishing third in the AL in strikeouts), and he committed 42 errors at short. But he still picked up 19 points in the MVP vote that year.

Then there's the legendary Creepy Crespi (real name Frank Angelo Joseph Crespi, that is creepy). Crespi was good-looking young second baseman for the Cards right before World War II. However, his career ended with just a season and a half under his belt after he injured his leg playing army ball. He got 13 MVP points as a rookie in 1941.

Mookie Wilson received his sole MVP vote in 1989 as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, not the Mets, oddly enough. He played only 54 games for the Jays that year after an August 1 trade from the Metsgoes. But he hit .298 in those games (94 OPS+) and scored the teams' division-clinching run (just their second division crown at the time). The Blue Jays went 37-20 under Wilson's "leadership" and went from three games back on July 31 to two games up at the end of the season. Ergo, someone gave Wilson his one vote the next fall.

As for the OPS "leader", Sam "Slam" Agnew, he actually was not a presidential candidate in the Fifties. He was a prototypical no-hit, no-field catcher for the hapless Browns in the Teens. His career adjusted OPS was just 56 and he committed 39 errors (mostly due to his throwing) and 17 passed balls in 1915 for a miraculously low—for a catcher—fielding percentage of .934. Somehow he managed two points in the 1914 AL MVP vote.

Roxie Lawson, the ERA leader (or trailer), was a journeyman pitcher who had one Steve Stone-like season in 1937 winning 18, third in the league,—his next highest single-season win total was 8—despite a 5.26 ERA which was 11% worse than the park-adjusted league average. He was rewarded with four points in the AL MVP vote. He was also one of the ten players in the Bobo Newsom trade from the Browns to the Tigers in 1939.

The Vuckoviches

[Named for Pete Vuckovich]

Now, let's look at the worst Cy Young award candidates. You'll notice that the quality goes up quiet a bit from the MVP vote getters. I guess being able to vote for just three candidates eliminates a great deal of the eccentric choices. It also doesn’t hurt that the award started in the Sixties as opposed to the 1910s.

OK, here are the worst based on career Win Shares:

There are a lot of young pitchers on there. I never realized that Buzz Capra, the old Brave mop-up man, was ever on the ballot.

Here now are the singe-season "leaders":

And Pete Vuckovich graciously makes an appearance.

Bill "Jabba" Conlin likes Ryan Howard. He really likes Ryan Howard.

He likes Howard so much that he has been writing homages to the first baseman since he was in Double-A ball last year. In his latest scattershot effort Conlin warns the Phils, "Never walk away from big power."

I always thought it was, "Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line!" But maybe I'm wrong.

As for Conlin himself, he never walks away from a cheesesteak. Sorry, never waddles away. And they pack plenty of gastrointestinal power for Jabba the Reporter.

Given that the Phils have some serious question marks such as:

- Who'll play center and who'll lead off ? Is it Marlon Byrd? Can they land Carlos Beltran and move Rollins to the top of the order?

- Will Chase Utley succeed Placido Polanco at second even though the Phils have been hesitant to hand the mercurial youngster the starting spot?

- Will Jimmy Rollins' mini-renaissance in 2004 continue? If so, where will he bat?

- What will be the makeup of the rotation given that they have quantity but not quality enough for the first two rotation spots? Will they keep their best pitcher, rookie Ryan Madson, in the long relief role again or is he ready for the rotation? How should youngster Gavin Floyd be handled? What is to be done with Brett Myers?

- Who'll back up an aging Mike Lieberthal behind the plate and can he be transitioned into the starting role down the line?

- Who is the real Pat Burrell? Can he ever again play at a high-quality level for a full season as he did in 2002? If not, when do they cut bait and if so, are they going to be resourceful enough to dump his gargantuan contract?

- Can Billy Wagner stay healthy and return to his 2003 dominance for a full season?

There are probably another dozen (Thome's health, bullpen depth, new manager and coaches, payroll reduction, etc.) that I won't even touch upon. However for Conlin:

"One of the biggest questions facing Ed Wade and the New Gang of Six this crucial offseason is this:



Will they walk away from the big longball power represented by a man coming off the greatest minor league home-run season in franchise history?

What?!? He cannot be serious. The only people who consider Ryan Howard's future one of the main issues of the Phils' offseason besides Jabba are old Mr. and Mrs. Howard back in St. Louis, Howard's hometown.

I won't even go into why comparing minor-league numbers for a 24-year-old today to those of 22-year-old Mike Schmidt in 1972 or a 21-year-old Richie Allen in 1963 is a fool's errand at best.

Let me just relay an anecdote. When I lived in Boston in 1989, I went to batting practice at Fenway before a game with the White Sox. I knew I had seats right behind home and would have a great view. I saw a Chicago rookie who looked like the next Frank Thomas, that is even though he predated Thomas by one year, but you get the idea. There was a kid that looked like another species, like something out of "The Lord of the Rings". He just dwarfed the other guys around the batting cage. Then when he took his turn in the cage, he just crushed the ball. If I remember correctly he hit balls out to each outfield position. I was convinced that this guy was going to be a superstar even though he ended up not doing much in the game.

That guy was a forgotten footnote named Carlos Martinez. He ended up with five home runs on the year, and that ended up being his only year as a starter though he lasted until 1995.

Now, if I remember correctly Martinez had good minor league numbers. He could play first and third (not well). There's a world of difference between perceived potential and performance (say that three times fast).

So when Conlin say Howard "treats the opposite field like an old friend". I say that's nice, but is it meaningful especially if he strikes out a third of the time?

And those strikeouts: Conlin admits that "they are significant - 218 of them in those 656 ABs. The mind boggles at the offers Wade would be getting if Ryan's Ks were halved." Jabba justifies it though with "Howard struck out once each 3.01 at-bats, Thome once each 3.53 and Burrell once each 3.45."

To put it in perspective Howard struck out 517 with 206 walks in 1637 at-bats in four minor-league at-bats. That's an average of 129 whiffs, 52 BBs and 409 ABs per season, not too impressive when you realize that three of them were in Single-A ball. He struck out 13 times in 39 major-league at-bats this September. He has struck out 39 times with 12 walks in 133 AFL at-bats (through November 16).

Here is an overall comparison between Howard, Burrell, and Thome for their careers and for last season (career for Howard only includes minors):

Using plate appearances instead of at-bats displays the significance of the strikeout problem for Howard. Since he walks less than the other two, Conlin is being disingenuous comparing them by strikeouts per at-bats. The question is what percentage of the time will this player fail to even make contact (i.e., strikeout) when I send him to the plate. It's also disingenuous to compare these stats with established sluggers who tend to strike out but do enough other things to (hopefully) compensate for it. So don’t buy it when Jabba says, "Don't let his strikeouts put you off - unless you also are put off by the strikeouts of Thome and Pat Burrell." And remember that the bulk of Howard's stats in 2004 come from Double-A and in his career come from Single-A. Conlin hopes to half his K's but how do you go about doing that?

Conlin goes on to praise Howard's work in the Arizona Fall League. Though he admits that Howard has slowed since the start of the AFL season, it is still part of undiminishable "body of work Ryan has accumulated" this year. "[H]e still leads the AFL in many categories - base hits, doubles, extra-base hits and at-bats." (He's actually one hit behind the leader.) However, you have to read that twice to get the significance. Howard is tremendously ahead in at-bats. There are only three players within 20 at-bats of him in the league. And of the league leaders in batting, none are within 20 ABs of him and some have as few as under 60% of his. That's the problem with AFL stats. Different teams are doing different things with different players. Some like to distribute the turns at bat more evenly to help each player develop. Clearly, someone (the Phils maybe?) are ensuring that Howard gets plenty of AFL ABs to help boost his stats, at least the counting stats, perhaps to help shop the player around this fall. Also, remember that few of the players in the AFL are Howard's age or have had his experience. Besides aren't AFL stats just a means of propaganda like when the Yanks defended the Drew Henson signing with his AFL stats a few years back?

Anyway, aside from Conlin's bloviations, Howard may be a decent major-league player or at least power hitter. David Ortiz was once considered no more than a pure power hitter. The problem is what the Phils can do with him.

His defense is reportedly awful even for a first baseman, a position he can't fill unless the Phils decide to reverse their strategy over the last two seasons and trade Jim Thome, highly unlikely at best. So that leaves him with perhaps left field as a possibility. Conlin's plan is to move Burrell to right and Abreu to center for perhaps the worst outfield this side of Greg Luzinski, Manny Ramirez, and Jim Rice's softball league. Oh, and Howard had not played the outfield prior to the AFL, and he's still listed as a first baseman there.

Conlin has an answer to that too: "[Y]ou don't need Clemente, Mays and Bonds to cover the Money Pit's postage-stamp outfield footprint." The only obstacles to moving Howard to the outfield are "contract inflexibility, their own lack of imagination and the selfishness of Bobby Abreu, who won't lead off or play center. Burrell, if he has done nothing else, has made himself into a decent outfielder with a plus arm. There are some options."

So let me get this straight. Conlin is advising rearranging the entire outfield, moving the Phils best player last season (Abreu) to a position—a key defensive one—with which he is not comfortable and has little experience playing, and moving the ever fragile Burrell to right, where his adjustment can justify a relapse to 2003 type offensive woes. All this to accommodate a highly questionable rookie who will be playing way out of position? That's indefensible.

Oh, and evidently Conlin thinks thatAbreu leading off will grease the wheels a bit. I have no idea how. Why he has to take a swipe at their best player's character by calling him selfish I have no idea. I guess he's frustrated that no one else can see the brilliance of his plan.

Conlin ends by deriding basically the rest of the puny baseball players in the universe who are dwarfed by Howard's total domination:

"Just be frightened, very frightened, when Ed Wade mentions a package of players equivalent to Ryan Howard's value.



"Yeah, sure..."

Kevin Brown for Howard? Hrmph! Barry Bonds? Are you kidding?!? Yeah, unless they can resuscitate Babe Ruth, you just can't compensate the Phils for Howard's scary talent.

Look, for all the Phils management's faults, and there are many, they have been right on the money with the assessment of this guy. I wish they would have traded him before the trade deadline when Conlin was praising him to high heaven and his downside was perhaps less apparent. But the best they can do now is to pump up his value in the AFL and get some first-base strapped team (Yanks anyone?) take him off their hands.

It's a no-brainer. With Thome and his contract at first for four more seasons and with Howard's low ceiling, what's the downside. Let's say he turns into the next David Ortiz. He wouldn't be doing it in Philly anyway. That's the argument I have with those bemoaning the loss of Johnny Estrada. Yes, Estrada looks like a decent receiver, but he never was going to supplant Lieberthal, so who cares? You tip your hat and move on. It looked like a brilliant move at the time. Sometimes the better gambles still don't work out.

Maybe this is all part of a brilliant plan to have Conlin promote Howard to the world so that the Phils can pick up a decent starter or centerfielder as compensation. Ed Wade and Jabba are chucking over this master stroke as we speak.

Either that or Conlin is pregnant with Howard's love child and cannot deal with him being traded away.

Or Conlin is just a big boob. Take your pick.

Conlin can’t really mean the things he says. Can he? “Yeah, sure..."

The AL MVP vote was announced yesterday, and to my surprise, the voters again did a decent job. It was an extremely close "race". There were a good many good choices but no clear-cut, obvious choice. If you use Win Shares to evaluate the candidates, Gary Sheffield has a slight edge over Vladimir Guerrero (31 to 29). If you use VORP, Guerrero had a tremendous lead over Sheffield (93.2 to 63.8). If you split the difference, as I did in my IBWA ballot, you give the nod to Guerrero, which is basically what the voters did.

OK, move along. There's not much to see there. No Mo Vaughn or Juan Gonzalez type misappropriation of hardware to get our hackles up. Oh, dang!

My hackles at least had some bête noires to at least occupy themselves. To wit, Chone Figgins got two votes. Two baseball analysts thought that the Angels super reserve player was one of the top ten players in the American League. These are the people who cheer for Super Joe McEwing, Jose Oquendo, Luis Aguayo, and Little Louie Giammona and pooh-pooh Barry Bonds total domination.

Heck, the preeminent analyst, John Kruk, picked Figgins as his AL MVP. I've already gone over why that's misguided.

Then there's the sect that believes that relievers should be represented in the MVP vote but not the Cy Young vote because they are "everyday players". But I think it's a silly argument since if the reliever were truly that valuable, he'd be a starter and then wouldn't be "eligible" for the MVP vote.

Anyway, Joe Nathan, Francisco Cordero, Mariano Rivera received some support. Of the three only Rivera is a truly great closer. Nathan may be a one-year wonder. Cordero was good but probably wasn't more than the 5thor 6th most valuable Ranger.

It all got me to thinking about who were the worst players in baseball history to receive an MVP vote or a vote for any other award for that matter. I'll call the MVP version the Zolio award for Zoilo Versalles, and his one glaringly odd MVP award in the min-Sixties.

The Zolios

First, how do we assess the worst players? What stats should we use? Do we evaluate them based on the season in which he received the odd vote or over his entire career?

Well, let's start with OPS for batters and ERA for pitchers. Here are the players who received an MVP vote with the worst career OPS. The first and last years in which they received a vote and their cumulative MVP points, 1st-place votes, and maximum available points are also listed: