Not that they'd necessarily want it, btw, but I'll endorse pretty much everything said by zubinsum and contrarian23 in here.  Edit: also Bilfert.

Posted by llamanunts on 2/7/2011 12:01:00 PM (view original):
Pettitte, for one, is going to get significant support.  Clearly inferior to Brown, and as Posnanski (the anti-Plaschke) recently pointed out, similar to Chuck Finley.  Jack Morris has a Kevin Brown problem.  Brown was a better pitcher than Glavine, but Glavine pitched a lot more.

I don't think it'll be a firestorm, per se, but it's going to be a problem.

I don't mean to be thick but I still don't get this.

Pettite was going to get support because he was a Yankee and won a bunch of post season games.  I think you'll have a hard time finding anyone living west of say, Trenton, who actually thinks Andy Pettite is a HOF.   With or without steroids that "argument" was gonna happen.

I think your statement of Brown was better than Glavine is at best debatable and at worst, ridiculous.  Glavine did win 2 Cy Youngs and finish 2nd twice.  His good years are just as good as Brown's.  They were just more spread out.

I can't think of one pitcher who is worse than Brown that will get more consideration (ie some) BECAUSE of steroids.

I would argue that any pitcher other than Maddux, Clemens, Unit, Pedro and Schilling* who stays on the ballot after his first year of eligibility is getting more consideration because of PEDs.  I believe that, absent the PED factor, Brown definitely stays on and gradually builds to some substantial level of support despite the fact that he's an ***.  He may not ever have gotten in, and he may not have been worthy, but there you go.

*Maybe Schilling.  I think he was probably better than Brown, but an interesting comp for the purposes of this discussion.  Schilling was better in the postseason (than almost anyone who ever lived) but, like Brown, took a while to become dominant and was also disliked by a huge number of writers and fans.

Mussina, Smoltz  and David Wells are the only starting pitchers that will stay on the ballet  past year one.  

I haven't looked at the #'s but I don't think Brown stacks up favorably against any of them, drugs or not.

That's fair - I'd put Brown ahead of Wells for sure, but that's kind of a side argument.

Brown was actually a really good pitcher and is probably worthy of consideration. But he was also a class A jerk, won his only title on a team that was immediately forgotten when it was torn down, and signed a huge contract that he didn't live up to. Plus he is more of a stathead's favorite than a blindingly obvious "popular" candidate like Pettitte and Glavine will be. PEDs or no PEDs, he was going to have a hard time staying on the ballot. [Being 0-3 in 2 world series doesn't really help you]

Schilling will be an interesting case. I hate the guy and he was a jerk to the media, but I think the "bloody" sock and his post-career media appearance have helped to re-shape his image. And in all honesty I think he deserves to get in. He's got Mussina's regular season with Pettitte's post-season.

I agree with you on the stathead angle, jfranco.  What's more, if the reporters who voted on the Cy Young back in the late '90s were as SABR-informed as the ones who gave it to Felix this past season, Brown might have a Cy Young (or two) to his name, as well.

It's going to be an interesting 10-15 years of HoF voting, both on the hitting and pitching sides.

Will get in, and should: Maddux, Pedro, Unit, Smoltz, Rivera

Should get in, not sure if they will: Mussina, Schilling, Clemens

Will get in, not sure if they should: Glavine, Pettitte

Won't get in, not sure if they should or not: Brown

Won't get in, and shouldn't, but might be discussed: Wells, Moyer

Not really sure if they will/should get in or not: Hoffman, Billy Wagner

I might be missing some, I'm not sure. I'm leaving out guys that still have some stats to compile (Halladay, CC, Johan)

Why are you down on Glavine, John?

What didn't he do well?  

Agreed...I put Glavine squarely in the "will get in, and should" camp.

I agree with all of those assessments, save for Glavine.  He's got the right combination of accomplishments.  To me, he's Pettite plus 1400 IP.  I have to say yes to that.

Note: I hate to say yes to that.  I never could stand Glavine.  If he had to pitch to the same strike zone everyone else did, I think he would have been Jamie Moyer at best.

BUT he didn't have to do that.  He made umpires expand the strike zone.  He created and exploited that edge.  However I feel about it, he leveraged that skill to win ballgames.  Lots of 'em.

Trentonjoe: As far as head-to-head is concerned, I'd contend that of the 8 best seasons between Brown and Glavine, Kevin Brown has at least 5.  I'd say his peak was higher, at least.

I'm not overwhelmed by Glavine's peak. He certainly doesn't hurt the standards for the Hall (he's no Marquard) but he was never a dominant pitcher. He only has 1 season over 6 WAR and he was usually the 3rd best pitcher on his team (Maddux, Smoltz, even Neagle/Millwood/Burkett). But he fielded well, handled the bat well, and did OK in the post-season (14-16, 3.30 ERA). And the Hall is also a museum, and he does tell the story of 1990-2005 better than most (better than Moose, for sure).

Check out his leaderboard appearances for pitching WAR:

1991 NL  7.4 (1st)
1995 NL  4.7 (4th)
1996 NL  5.6 (4th)
1997 NL  5.0 (7th)
1998 NL  5.6 (5th)
2000 NL  4.5 (10th)

Not exactly blowing away the competition there. But I doubt there are many who are consistently in the top 5 for that period of 95-98 like he was.
 

Compared with:

1996 NL  7.5 (1st)
1997 NL  6.4 (3rd)
1998 NL  8.4 (1st)
1999 NL  5.8 (3rd)
2000 NL  6.5 (2nd)
2003 NL  5.4 (3rd)

Starting to get a bit off-topic here, but the peak/career thing reminds of something that drove me crazy about the 2nd edition of Bill James's Historical Abstract.  I was 16 or 17 when the original came out, read it cover to cover many times, and was blown away by it. 

In that first version James hammered the point that the two had to be considered separately when it comes to comparing players.  He used many examples (Mantle > Mays at peak; Mays > Mantle at career; Koufax > Spahn at peak; Spahn > Koufax at career; etc).  He had two separate lists for his rankings, one for peak and one for career.  And he basically criticized every other attempt by anyone else to rank players because no one was consistent as to whether they were using peak value, career value, or some combination.

The revised edition comes out 15 years later, not quite as good, but with some new material and revised player evaluations, and the whole peak/career thing was just gone.

Not "I've rethought my position on this."
Not "I've discovered a way to combine the two into a single evaluation"
Not "I'm going strictly with one or the other."

Just ignored the whole issue.

I think the world of Bill James, but this just struck me as sloppy.