Pryor, Soriano, and McKain are my locks -- in that order.

Carl Harvey, Liriano, Armista, Servais, and are my next tier -- in that order.

Martinez, Shipley, Torres, and Guillen are maybe just a very small step behind, IMO.

Do we have enough HOF Member votes to make a World Chat announcement?

Hey, sorry, was away on vacation until today and it was basically all I could do to check my phone and change lineups across various leagues.

Guys I'm stumping for
Reynaldo Soriano (3B) - Great D, both longevity and peak production, strong all-around player.
John Servais (2B) - Elite production in multiple years and consistent excellence throughout. Played an error-free2b, but didn't have range after a S36 injury, so I'd consider his defense largely a wash (useful, positive positional value, but a lotta negative plays in 2nd half of his career. 2468 hits, .300 avg, 327 hrs and 200 steals from an ok 2b is HOF for me.
Carl Harvey (SP) - Are the wins (183) low? Absolutely. But he has Juuuuuuust enough innings (2800) and they were GOOD innings. 6 seasons of sub-3.00 ERAs, five more that were right around that number, and he did it all in neutral or worse parks, so no real park assist. Gave his teams roughly 200 near-elite innings for 16 years - there's a biiiit of a Mike Mussina comp here, though Moose wasn't as good on a per-inning basis, while pitching for better teams and racking up the wins.
Pete Pryor - Great defensive center fielder who also had power and speed, OPS above .800. Offering those things with plus defensive value at a premium position? Sign me up.

Guy I'm fine with but don't really feel strongly about, so while I'd count it as a "vote" for the sake of argument, I'm not backing him strongly.
Marcus Shipley - basically Soriano but playing LF instead of 3b, which is a downgrade in value but not a massive one.

Guy I'd vote for if I had 6 votes, but don't mind leaving off as it is.
Aroldis Torres - Great hitter, high peak, but played 1b and played it horribly.

Guys who don't make my cut, and why -
Darren Harvey (C) - Awesome numbers, but in a limited role. basically a half-season player, only topped 400 ab's twice, and barely. Decent defense for a bat-first catcher but doesn't stand out. If he was a full-time player, clear HOF, but with only 5600 AB and 1600 hits, can't make that vote. For comp purposes, the only real HOF's with that few #'s are basically deadball era guys or players who lost huge time to WWII service.
Alex Guillen/Willy Liriano - Guys with near-4.00 ERA's aren't hall of famers.
Marcel Amarista - On the surface, he's similar to Carl Harvey; but drill deeper, and he didn't pitch long enough (2400 innings) and spent 1/3 of his career in pitching paradises Tacoma and Burlington, so his number are basically getting the reverse Coors effect. Decent, but doesn't stand out to me.

Ok, so having left my own thoughts up for a while to be digested, I've worked on collating the existing opinions. The players who got many votes (5 each) and are clear locks are Soriano and Pryor. I think we should present those as our "locks" and receive our highest recommendation, please everyone vote for them - and then say that there were several others who received support from multiple committee members: Amarista, Servais, C. Harvey.
Then I'd like to mention the special case of McKain - who has received strong support from several committee members, but also strong opposition from several others. Basically put him out there as a "hey this guy is at the very least interesting, we'd like to highlight him without necessarily endorsing him, have at it."

Here's how that would look in a sample post:

"Hi world, Thanks for your patience. The HOF committee has met, and identified two "lock" players, who we would ask you all to vote for, for this year's Hall of Fame. Those are CF Pete Pryor and 3B Reynaldo Soriano.
The committee also endorses SP Marcel Amarista, SP Carl Harvey and 2b John Servais as worthy candidates, but does not give them "lock" status. Vote for them if you'd like!
The committee also wants to highlight one special case - stolen base king Gabriel McKain. McKain is a fascinating but polarizing player, and he has received both strong support and strong opposition from members of the committee. We are not officially endorsing him, but definitely want to shine a spotlight on him and his fascinating career, and he certainly deserves a good long look.
Thanks to all!"

?So hopefully that is essentially good, if not, lemme know, and we'll get this moving!

Sounds good.

I am on board

That was a very good way to put it. Thank you.

I'm fine with that as well.

Dan missed the 60min wins that was set as his "needed-to-make" in order to remain in the league by two wins. He made 58, which is a big improvement over last season. I'm feeling a bit sheepish about booting him since he clearly made an effort to win more at the ML level this season. Please vote on (A) Dan stays, or (B) we need to give him the boot. Thank you in advance. -Stick

A

A

A

B.

And while I can see it's not going to go that way, let me make my argument why. This is obviously not a case of what we're trying to combat, which is tanking for the purpose of freeing up budget space/breaking the game through an unfairly effective strategy. The dude just basically sucks at the game, and it even more sucks to double-penalize that (He's in my division! Trust me, these are easy wins for me! I should want him to stay!). But at the same time, he has violated every version of the MWR, the 1-5 year varieties. And then was given a one-year grace period, and didn't make the requirement for that. So like, at this point, if we don't enforce that, we essentially don't have an MWR, and any future cases will (rightly!) say that the rule is basically BS. And we can argue back that "well, tanking is the real villain, and it's like the porno standard, you know it when you see it..." but when you have a rule on the books that you don't apply to cases that clearly deserve it even without ill intent, you are already well down that slippery slope where people with questionable intentions will exploit that and argue for their own exceptions("But my dog died, that's why I ran a $20 mil payroll and got the 1 pick and a monster IFA!") and you really then have zero legs to stand on.

All good points Pimp but these are not normal times. If he’s booted will the franchise be filled with a better, more committed owner who will step in right away and not cause a rollover delay? Also we’re talking 2 wins. He have any walkoff losses or huge blown leads that could have turned into 2 more wins with a little more whatif luck?

Okay, I'm going to apply the porno standard and give him the option to return.

I agree with Pimp, but I also have to say, Dan is the son of another (much loved) owner in this world, so I'd hate to lose them BOTH over two measly losses. My plan is to proceed with the same standard heading into next season. 60 wins, minimum for Dan. I just hope it doesn't erode the MWR veracity. I really appreciate you guys, porn references aside.

-Stick

OK That said, what about

Augusta Lobsters

Foreigner82