Regarding a couple of the others mentioned, I'm just not sure what the argument would be for supporting Bridger Presley over Renato Viriato... Viriato pitched more innings (3200 vs 2900), BETTER innings, (3.23ERA/1.15 WHIP vs 3.37/1.22) and even piled up 5 more wins than Presley for the heck of it. I've voted for Viriato before and would do so again.

Julio Hollands is an interesting player, nice defense, great speed, the offense (.805 OPS) is a little lacking, certainly compared to someone like Roth, who I'd put in ahead of him for sure. Not much of a peak there either. Brian Blair is clearly a good player but I have a hard time getting excited about him, as a masher who played 1/3 of his career as a decent 1b 1/3 as a lousy LF, 1/3 as a pure DH, and spent almost his whole career in hitter's parks (CIN, COL, Wrigley, and then 4-5 years in neutral SXF and JAC). Could be talked into him at some point, but when we have guys like Nieves, Stewart, Searle, Viriato and Roth, I'm not sure how he'd come close to knocking any of them off for me.

My FINAL vote:

I'm leaning towards the following two locks:

1. Julio Hollands --> 11.0 Importance Score
2. Leonys Nieves --> 10.0 Importance Score

But I also really would consider locking:

3. Slim Stewart --> 7.2 Importance Score

The one I'm even further on the fence about is:

4. Bridger Presley, despite his 11.2 Importance Score.

===================================================

I'd like to collect votes from all of the HOF voting crew. 6 more FINAL votes are needed, please.

-Stick

I would vote for Nieves and Stewart as locks. Re: Stewart, if a pitcher with 260 wins, a sub-3.00 ERA and 3100 strikeouts doesn't make our hall, I don't know who does.

I would support Viriato as a recommendation and not a lock, same for Roth and Hollands.

So:

Locks:
1. Nieves
2. Stewart

Recs:
3. Roth
4. Hollands
5. Viriato

The only thing I'd really get up in arms about would be promoting presley over viriato; I just don't see any logic for that.

Nieves and Stewart for locks

Posted by mr_stickball on 3/20/2024 2:29:00 PM (view original):
My FINAL vote:

I'm leaning towards the following two locks:

1. Julio Hollands --> 11.0 Importance Score
2. Leonys Nieves --> 10.0 Importance Score

But I also really would consider locking:

3. Slim Stewart --> 7.2 Importance Score

The one I'm even further on the fence about is:

4. Bridger Presley, despite his 11.2 Importance Score.

===================================================

I'd like to collect votes from all of the HOF voting crew. 6 more FINAL votes are needed, please.

-Stick

Some context for the difference in the Importance Scores for Stewart/Presley: Presley has 4 rings (and therefore 8 points) to Stewart's 0 rings. So if we look at Importance Scores that are based solely on individual performances it's 7.2 to 3.2 in favor of Stewart. So I'd be totally fine not having Presley on the list at all despite the high score, and I do think that the Importance Score undersells Stewart's achievements. Therefore, I'd vote for Hollands, Nieves and Stewart as our locks.

Three locks is sounding like the way we are heading: Hollands, Nieves, and Stewart.

We have some other members yet to cast their vote though. So let's see!

I am good with Stewart and can love with Nieves. Holland was one of my guys so was voting for him anyways. I will also vote for Roth.

I was asked to join this season, but I don’t think my picks should be given any weight since I don’t even know what “importance score” is! All I can tell you is who I would vote for and why.
1. Brian Blair - I am not a proponent of 500 homers getting an automatic vote, but when combined with 1500 rbi and a .300 lifetime, I’m in.
2. Nieves
3. Stewart
4. Viriato - His very impressive lifetime numbers are just too good to ignore.
5. Hollands

Maybe we say "Stewart and Nieves as pure locks, with Hollands, Pressley, and Blair being really solid additional picks". Something like that? Still waiting for one final vote.

Generally speaking re: 2 locks, I think that's fine, we don't HAVE to have 3 locks every time. We shouldn't, really! (I assume you are just using Blair and particularly Pressley as generalized examples there because otherwise we have to go back to the Pressley war again...)

Pimp, do you want to make your announcement in the World Chat now?

NOT ON COMMITTEE, but my votes would be...
1) Slim Stewart - pretty simple
2) Leonys Nieves - 2-time MVP, 7 SS, amazing peak, by far highest OPS of everyone except ...
3) Phil Searle (over Brian Blair) - shorter career but significantly higher peak, 7 straight 128+ RBI seasons (compared to zero for Blair), significantly better in post-season as well, better defensive ratings, (zero credit given to SB w/ ~40% CS%)
4) Renato Viriato (over Bridger Presley) - This one is really tough:
Presley has 4 WSR vs 1 for Viriato, but looking deeper
...in his 4 WS post-seasons Presley was real bad in one, was fine-to-good in one, was ace-level in one, and pitched 0 post-season innings in one.
...BUT Presley was likely in a tandem at least 3, maybe 4 seasons which really hurt his win accumulation (maybe 40 wins taken off the table?)
...AND Presley's 20-1 / 0.92 / 2.56 season is probably the best single season between the two
Presley was just less consistent and less reliable, and I just revert to who would I rather have had on my team and the answer for me is Viriato
5) Julio Hollands (over Markus Roth) - (another really tough one, splitting hairs and they're not really the same players...) I'm willing to overlook something like 1 WSR vs 0, but 4 rings to none matters especially when Hollands played well and was a major part in all 4. Great base stealer, really good 3B, I think he's got a higher peak, and performed better in the post-season, all around great player.

Here are my initial thoughts for S65 HOF voting, in order of importance:

1. Marty Sisler (RF)
2. Bud Rucker (SP)
3. Julio Hollands (3B/SS) <-- I think his overall contrib. puts him over the below.
4. Phil Searle (2B) <-- see Deuce's comment above
5. Brian Blair (DH/LF/1B) <-- but Blair was pretty fantastic...
6. Bridger Presley (SP) <-- Tweener for me, but a fine SP for sure.

I can be swayed on this list, but this is just my first take.

I would go with Sisler and Rucker as locks. I will also vote for Hollands.

Yeah, I think Sisler and Rucker are the obvious locks. This season is pretty simple compared to usual.