MLB HOF 2024

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For the ones who get it done. Baseball's Hall of Fame will announce its class for this summer 2024 to be enshrined in Cooperstown. If I was going to predict, I would say we are going to have three going in. Adrian Beltre and Joe Maurer. Maybe not Joe, I think Joe Maurer. Both of those first ballot, which is, hmm. Also, Todd Helton is likely going to go in.

This is the sixth year on the ballot. Billy Wagner, I think, in his ninth year is going to fall just short. A man who owned future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer in his career, with Cleveland, with Atlanta, with Kansas City, and with Tampa.

Elliot Johnson joins us on the Adam Gold show. I told you right off the top that we were going to start with Todd Helton. Because I am one who holds the Baseball Hall of Fame as the Holy Grail of Hall of Fames, where I think it should just be the very best that ever played. I can't fathom the support for Todd Helton when he was clearly a Coors Field production over the course of his career. Good player on the road, obviously super productive at home, but the gap is too strong for me to have Todd Helton in the Hall of Fame when guys like Gary Sheffield are not going in.

Interesting. I didn't know we were going that route. To me, Adam, and I respect your viewpoint. To me, we don't want to water down the Hall of Fame either.

I don't want it watered down whatsoever. This year is strange, Adam. This is the first year where I've got a lot of guys I've played against and with. It's kind of weird. The guys before me grow up growing up, you view them as these larger than life people.

And when you've had conversations with them and you realize they're just normal people that do extra normal things, if you will, it's different. So this is a weird conversation to have because I'm looking at some of these guys and I'm like, well, I played against Billy Wags and I can tell you the guy should be in. I mean, he would dominate, tell you what's coming and you still can't hit it. And it's a great story to see how he came about it, breaking his arm in high school and reinventing himself as a lefty. It's fascinating. He was a righty at one point. He was a righty, broke his arm in high school, taught himself to throw lefty and figured out how to throw a hundred. It's a great story.

Just the story alone is the Hall of Fame. And you have a conversation with him, Adam, and he's still driving a single bed Ford, an old school truck. It's just who he is.

It's great. He's authentic. And he was a leader in the clubhouse.

I mean, how many times does a closer get to speak other than when they blow a save? And he was still doing interviews, if you remember. So I love Billy Wags special place for me, uh, you know, watching him and how he went about his business and his reputation in the clubhouse, of course, you know, Todd helped me. If you want to start with him, um, you know, I understand the, the course field thing.

I just think that if Yankee stadium were in Denver, it would have a different connotation to it. Um, and you know, his numbers were exceptional. I think even with the course field effect, I think he's done enough from, from me personally, Adam, you're, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I thought, thought it helped me, had a wonderful career and his numbers away from cores were still respectable.

Um, and then you combined the two of them. I don't want to hold it against them that he played in course. They, they were respectable, but the, the split, the gap, they're like two completely different players, uh, at home, Helton's OBS was over a thousand is, uh, 1.048. That is otherworldly on the road.

It was good. 8 55. That's, you know, that's kind of, I mean, that's a pretty, that's almost a 200 point gap in OBS. Gary Sheffield's numbers were essentially the same home and road. And this guy had over 500 home runs in his career and didn't play his home games ever at course field. And he played some at Yankee stadium, but as a right-handed batter, didn't get the same help that lefties get at Yankee stadium. I don't get why Sheffield is not going to get in. He's going to be close this year, but this is his last year. So it's going to be up to a veterans committee, whatever we call it now to get him in. That's where I just don't get. I think Sheffield was the better hitter than Todd helped. Maybe not the better person. Hello. It is Ryan and we could all use an extra bright spot in our day.

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That's Chumba casino.com. Well, sure. But you know, chef, I can't, you know, every year during Christmas, when you get the, the cardboard wrapping wrapper from the wrapping paper and you know, who didn't pretend to be Gary Sheffield. I know I did. I did almost every day playing wiffle ball in the yard.

I was trying to be Gary Sheffield and you see the first time he hit the ball and it turns into a golf ball in about 0.2 seconds. You're like, man, that's electric. So, you know, chef chef's going to get, unfortunately for him, he's going to get tied up into the game of shadows and meth. Yeah. I'm not saying all your viewers have read that book, but I certainly did. So he's going to get tied up into that, you know, and the problem for the voters now and they do have a tough job not to give them any credit. Cause I don't want to do that because a lot of them are kind of whiny, but you know, they've already let pudge in and I'm not saying pudge did it or didn't do it. They've let a lot of guys in who have some suspicions. And so are, you know, I don't know how they can pick and choose what information they want to be okay with and what they don't, you know, they're gonna have a tough time with a rod. They're gonna have a tough time with Manny. They're going to have a tough time with a lot of, of, of individual players that, you know, have some doubts about them and it's going to cloud our conversations every single year when we do this. Elliot Johnson is joining us here on the Adam gold show.

I agree with you. I think they've already decided that Manny Ramirez is not going in cause he's tested positive twice. He was suspended twice.

He's only at 35% and he's only got two more years on the ballot. Alex Rodriguez. I don't know how you keep that guy out, but again, here's somebody who was suspended for what a year and a half. Right.

So, um, you know, who, who knows how they're going to treat it. Bonds isn't in that he's off the ballot. Uh, Clemons is, we have some of the greatest we have ever seen that are, uh, are not going in. Here's this, are you surprised? You know, I'll get to another guy who's also sort of, uh, part of, uh, the, the speculation and David Ortiz, by the way, was mentioned, I believe in the, uh, the Mitchell report. Uh, and he went in, uh, last year. Um, are you surprised at all that Adrian Beltre is almost unanimous at this point?

99% right now, public ballots, about half of the, of the ballots are, are public right now. Are you surprised? Well, but here, here in life, the issue with the, with the voting process is it becomes about somewhat of a Mr. Congeniality award because he was so good with me and look, and I played with Adrian and against him a lot, and he's always smiling and he's always having a good time and he's always counting his blessings and big Poppy's the same way. Like you hang out with big Poppy for 30 seconds.

You feel like the most important person in the world. Right. And so there's so many different things that are, it's almost like a buffet where the voters are walking by and picking and choosing what they want to pay attention and not putting it on their plate based on whether or not the guy was good or not, you know, and, or if he was good to them, if he was polite to them, if he was courteous, all those types of things like Barry bonds is one of the worst reputations with the writers. Right. But David Ortiz had a great reputation. Um, you know, so I don't necessarily like that for me, you know, if you're going to do that, why is Ty Cobb in, you know, I mean, we can pick and choose and do things like that. If that's the way you want to have it, but they, they have this arbitrary process where they want to have some things that when it matters to some players, but not across the board.

And that's the thing I have a problem with. Andrew Jones hall of Famer or no. Absolutely.

Come on. I don't even know why we're even discussing unbelievable. I mean, he reinvented what it was like.

He was almost akin to peace pistol, Pete Marovitch and basketball for baseball and Bobby Cox hated it, but he made watching center field players so much fun, the way he would camp with his ball or his glove waiting for the ball and it would land in it. Um, 19 years old on the scene. Unbelievable. I mean, he, he, what he hit 400 home runs for, yeah. Yeah.

He's incredible. You know, and the guy that's getting no love with nine gold gloves is Tori Hunter. How does Tori not get any love? I'm not saying that he definitely needs to be in, but he's getting no respect for not nine gold gloves. And by the way, Tori Hunter, uh, has a chance to fall off the ballot this year.

Do you have to be at least 5%, I believe, to stay on the ballot, uh, to, so Tori Hunter could fall off of it. Carlos Beltran. Are we just, you know, one year away from enshrinement for him? Perhaps, you know, and as a switch hitter too, Adam, I loved Beltran. I mean, that when he got bought out and went to Houston and was hitting every ball off the wall, over the wall or walk, I mean, I, I, I can't remember a time where somebody was more dominant than other than, you know, Barry bonds is, you know, 2002, 2003, but Beltran was just unbelievable. Unfortunately for him, he's now dealing with all the Astro stuff. So that's not helping him unfortunately, but it was an unbelievable baseball player. And hopefully he gets in when the time is right, but you know, they they've almost got these like inner circle, you know, connectivity things that they're dropping now for first ballot guys and stuff like that, you know, Beltran should be in for sure.

And, you know, some of this stuff is a little bit weird. I don't really get it, but I understand that you can only let so many guys in at a time. Yeah, I think we'll, I think ultimately we'll have three against my, against my better judgment. One of them will be Todd Hilton this year. We'll, we'll also see Joe Mauer. We didn't talk about mean Mauer as a cat offensive. The numbers are not great and it didn't work out well after he signed the last contract and they tried to move him to first base.

It basically was done at that point. But quickly on Joe Mauer, it's sort of a contemporary yours. No, he was the guy could play, man.

Yeah. He was a tough out no matter what I stole a hit from him in Minnesota one time. And I'm still happy about that. But he was the hard part for him. He was so big.

You couldn't get below strike. So catching probably wasn't really the best ideas in the world, but he hit so well. And unfortunately for the twins that catching takes a toll on you and he ends up not being as efficient or productive later in his career. But I thought Joe was an outstanding player and he should definitely be somebody that's up for consideration.

Yeah. Well, he's, he's one of those guys in the public ballots right now. If you're, if you're above 80%, you've got a good chance of getting in and both he and health and they're a little bit above 82, 83%.

So I think there's a pretty good chance they'll get in. Beltran is again, not Beltran. Beltran is 99%. The guys in the next couple of years Beltran right now polling at 66%, Andrew Jones at just under 70%. Sheffield's close, but he's not going to get it. So he's right now at 74.6%. What about the Yankee effect for Andy Pettit, you know, so Andy Pettit has so many records in the playoffs and in the World Series that I feel like he is very, very, very deserving.

But would he have that same, you know, reputation if you will, if he played for, you know, Seattle every single year? No, absolutely not. And the voting reflects it. The voting, well, this could be a steroid thing for Andy Pettit, because Pettit right now in his sixth year on the ballot, under 16% support. So he's not, he's not going to get in.

You don't go from 16% in year six to somehow getting 75%. But this is the buffet analogy, Adam, because now we're using HGH and which he admitted to and tried about, and I'm not saying one way or another again, you know, and my debut was off of Andy Pettit. He's my first hit in the big league. So, you know, watching him performing against him, he was a perfectionist. He was tough. And what he did in the playoffs was great. But, you know, you know, it's kind of my viewpoint of what the Yankees do when you wear that uniform, how it reflects, you know, I think that a similar player outside of Yankee stadium probably isn't where he is right now, but because he won so much, I think he's very much deserving of an opportunity. By the way, James Shields is getting zero.

Is it 0%? Yeah, that hurts. I love big game, James.

No, I love, I love Shields. I met him my first day of extended, extended spring training or instructionally in 2002. He was consistent. He's the same guy every single day since that day.

I met him until today. No votes. Somebody needs to give him big game, James from love. All right. Well, if I had a vote, I would do it. All right. Final thing is chase Utley, the hall of Famer eventually. Yeah. But I mean, he's, yeah, so he's going to, it's going to take some time for him, but he's going to get in. Yeah. I agree. He's winning the series in 08 and he, he had a great career.

Just for his career numbers against the Mets, he's going to go into the hall of fame. Elliot Johnson, I appreciate your time, my friend. I will talk to you very soon. Pleasure as always, Adam. You got it. Elliot Johnson here on the Adam Gold show.

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