VEB Community Votes on the Hall of Fame

On Thursday, Viva El Birdos will be posting its picks for the Hall of Fame, voted on by the people who write for the site. Today though, it’s the VEB community’s turn to vote. At the bottom of this post, you’ll get a chance to make your picks. Much like the actual Hall of Fame, you can only pick 10 players at most.

I will be posting a one sentence description of every player on the ballot. So just read over the players involved, that way you don’t just pick the first 10 players that you see. Obviously, you do not need to vote for 10 players, that is just the maximum. The one sentence description will not be anything intended to sway votes, but I will be linking to Jay Jaffe’s JAWS writeups on Fangraphs. (Clicking the player’s name will send you to the appropriate part)

Rick Ankiel - Left-handed hotshot prospect whose pitching career ended due to injuries turned decent outfielder turned...reliever?

Jason Bay - An outfielder that some people once preferred the Cardinals to sign over Matt Holliday.

Lance Berkman - Famously prefers the one team he won a ring with and not the other teams he can’t remember playing for.

Barry Bonds - His home run record is in doubt because at least a few of his home runs were hit by his shoulders.

Roger Clemens - He is most well known for being outpitched by Jeff Suppan in a decisive Game 7.

Freddy Garcia - What can I say about a man who pitched 85 total innings in the National League? No really, what can I say, I got nothing.

Jon Garland - Had a very successful career striking out less people than Seth Maness.

Travis Hafner - For a brief few years, he was waaaaaaaay better than you realized, because the rest of his career, he was about as good as you remember.

Roy Halladay - Ah these were supposed to be fun....

Todd Helton - I was going to use this on either Helton or Walker and Walker played for the Cards once, so here’s a reminder that zero players have made the Hall who primarily played for the Rockies.

Andruw Jones - He’s one of those players where I wish I was paying more attention to him when he was good, because I do not remember him whatsoever in his prime.

Jeff Kent - Owner of one of the distinctive mustaches of 2000s baseball.

Ted Lilly - Pretty much the epitome of the soft-tossing lefty, and as such an absolutely infuriating player to lose to.

Derek Lowe - Dan Duquette once traded for this man and Jason Varitek for Heathcliff Slocumb and Lowe thinks Duquette was under the impression Lowe was left-handed. Only in 1997.

Edgar Martinez - The weirdest thing about Martinez is that he played 1,403 games at DH.... and the vast majority of his other 600+ games were at 3B, not 1B.

Fred McGriff - His nickname is Crime Dog, and at first, he preferred Fire Dog, which Freddy, my man, no.

Mike Mussina - I have nothing much to say about this AL-only pitcher, except his last season at 40-years-old is probably one of the better final seasons in baseball history.

Darren Oliver - He played one season for the Cardinals and then later gave up back-to-back hits to lefties Dan Descalso and Jon Jay, helping to blow a two-run lead in the 10th inning of a somewhat important game.

Roy Oswalt - He apparently played for the Rangers and Rockies at the end of his career, something I have no memory of at all.

Andy Pettitte - To this day, honest to god, my dad complains about the fact that he gets credit for confessing to PEDs when he really just got caught.

Juan Pierre - For every home run he hit in his career, he stole 34 bases.

Placido Polanco - The Rolen trade, if it happened today, would be hated and even retrospectively, Polanco was very good for the Phillies and it’s not a one-sided trade like some might think, especially since Rolen was under contract for just half a season.

Manny Ramirez - He did not retire easy, playing for the AAA affiliate of the Athletics, Rangers, and Cubs from 2012-2014, never playing more than 30 games for any of them.

Mariano Rivera - Is partially responsible for one of the greatest Game 7s of all-time, but unfortunately at his expense.

Scott Rolen - He will probably be the greatest defensive third baseman who will ever play on a team I root for.

Curt Schilling - His middle name is Montague, which sure.

Gary Sheffield - If you want to see an example of a team that mishandles a star player, look no further than the Milwaukee Brewers, who traded him after his age 22 season after just 1.2 WAR in 1,244 PAs and immediately paid the price.

Sammy Sosa - Him and Mark McGwire once won Sportsman of the Year together and in the article, SI said it was the easiest decision in their history of picking Sportsman of the Year.

Miguel Tejada - This will sound like a weird insult, but I was under the impression he had a better career than he did, even though he had a very good career.

Omar Vizquel - I can at least count on this site to not have more votes for Vizquel than Rolen right?

Billy Wagner - No biggie, but his last season of his career was possibly his best.

Larry Walker - He wasn’t able to play for the Cardinals for very much, but he did have a 139 wRC+ with them, before he retired.

Vernon Wells - It really doesn’t feel like that long ago that the Blue Jays were able to improbably unload him to the Angels with his terrible contract, but that was eight years ago apparently.

Kevin Youkilis - I’m surprised he played enough years to even be on a ballot. He basically became a full-time starter at 27 and retired at 34.

Michael Young - Yet another member of the 2011 Texas Rangers! I mention this for no particular reason.

The results will be published next week at some point. I am very interested in the responses.

*Players with an asterisk are appearing on the ballot for the first time.