Quick Takes Post Thanksgiving

Two items of interest I ran into this evening while getting ready for the post-holiday week.

McGwire Reasoning - Interesting article in the Philadelphia Inquirer on some of the opinions of members of the Baseball Writers Association of America on the upcoming ballot for the Hall of Fame. Essentially I agree with those who want to take a wait and see attitude with the steroids era in general and McGwire in particular. There's no rush and history will give us a better perspective. Aside from that I'm also in agreement with those who think that perhaps Mark McGwire does not possess Hall of Fame credentials and is more comparable to a Roger Maris albeit with inflated numbers as a result of playing in an inflated era. It would also look very strange for him to be inducted alongside Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken.

Defense, Defense - Nice article by Joe Hamrahi over at Baseball Digest Daily on defensive metrics complete with some comments by John Dewan on The Fielding Bible metrics which I like very much and which changed a bit this year. The Bill James Handbook 2007 has them in abbreviated form and Joe lists how those stack up against the Gold Glove voting with the largest error in the voters selecting Omar Vizquel over Adam Everett. It's unfortunate that there apparently won't be a fielding bible published this year and that the handbook contains scant information.