South Side Sox Podcast 75 — White Sox/Golden Days Era Ballot With Adam Darowski — 2021-11-19

A true maverick of the metrics world, Adam Darowski (Hall of Stats, Sports-Reference, Building the Ballot podcast) joins Brett Ballantini on our 75th program, reviewing four White Sox on the precipice of the Hall of Fame and pulling back to take a look at the processes that have created such a backlog of great candidates. We start with some broad Hall of Fame discussion, then hone in on the four White Sox on the Golden Days Era ballot, with results announced on December 5: The emotion that drove Adam to start Hall of Stats a decade ago, and how some of his anger toward the flawed election process has tempered over time Darowski’s preferences: big Hall, small gatekeeping The process and emotions behind the groundbreaking change, led by Seamheads and validated by Baseball-Reference, to officially elevate the Negro Leagues to major status After years of the “unelected till dead” habit of Hall voters, are we on the precipice of a direction change, with the experts making an effort to enshrine living legends? Is it Minnie Miñoso’s time to finally shine by being enshrined? It seems a no-brainer, but ... not so fast Adam executes an apropos “Minnie rant” that illustrates how ludicrous it is that the White Sox legend is still not a Hall-of-Famer Worthy of mention: Minnie show-and-tell The most likely White Sox player to get in? Per Adam’s gut, it’s Dick Allen. Adam also reminds us that DICK ALLEN COULD CRUSH THE BALL Looking at worthiness, not likelihood or any oddsmaking, Darowski tabs Billy Pierce fourth on his ballot. While the great southpaw won’t be elected next month, increased awareness of his greatness (e.g., a near-identical regular season career as HOFer Whitey Ford) could bode well for his future immortality And we take a detour to examine the career of Jim Kaat, a brief but tremendous White Sox hurler. His 16 Gold Gloves simply have to be a typo. Through at least one lens, Kaat is the most likely to make the cut this vote. Oh yeah, and during the podcast, we did claim Adam off of waivers, so he will be bringing his punk rock chops to band rehearsal, and ... well, actually, we can’t afford him, but we made the claim anyway. Hopefully, we can at least talk again soon! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices