Quiet day, and my brain is a little fried after finishing up last night's 50 greatest Ranger update...

Richard Durrett reports that GMJ was named the Ranger player of the year by the D/FW segment of the BBWAA, with Ian Kinsler being named rookie of the year and Akinori Otsuka pitcher of the year.

Not surprisingly, Jennifer Floyd-Engel doesn't think Mark McGwire should be in the Hall of Fame, because he's a cheater.  Jim Reeves is glad he missed out, too.  Still no word from them on whether Whitey Ford and Gaylord Perry should be in, as well, or the legions of greenie-poppers.

Here's what Reeves says, though:

I can't imagine that's true.  Too many people are saying that they don't want McGwire in because he's a cheater.  Reeves' take -- that McGwire isn't in because people were so turned off by his performance in front of Congress -- is nonsense.

Reeves references Jason Giambi as an example of someone who is forgiven for being contrite, but you know, as far as I know, Giambi has admitted to exactly as much as McGwire has -- which is, nothing.  

T.R. Sullivan has some Friday notes on his blog.  I have to take issue with him once again on Bert Blyleven (and if you are tired of hearing about Blyleven, you can skip the rest of this blog entry):

I don't think many folks are saying he should be in because of Don Sutton.

They are saying he should be in because of Nolan Ryan, Fergie Jenkins, and a host of other contemporaries who are in the Hall.  

He's as good as, or better than, those guys.

Nate Silver had a blog entry at BP, touching on his JAWS method for evaluating Hall of Fame candidates, and why he uses the average of current HOFers, rather than, say, the 25th percentile, as his threshhold.

In doing so, he compares the average JAWS, WARP3, peak value, and other numbers for players voted in by the BBWAA, and those voted in by the Veteran's Committee (since the BBWAA selections are generally of much higher quality).

Blyleven's JAWS score is higher than the average JAWS score of the 34 pitchers voted in by the BBWAA, and is the 16th highest of all time among pitchers.

Over at Fire Joe Morgan, they have a Fisking of Jayson Stark's explanation of his ballot, which includes extensive head-banging-into-the-wall over Stark's reliance on All-Star appearances.

However, they also acknowledge, at the end, Stark's very reasonable, well-thought-out argument on Blyleven:

Blyleven isn't a borderline case.  He's not a Don Sutton or a Catfish Hunter.  He's a no question HOFer.