FanHouse Andre Dawson

Next Big Thing is MLB FanHouse's look at emerging teams, trends and stars in 2009.

You don't have to look very hard for the player who will take Jim Rice's place as a lightning rod at the top of the 2010 Hall of Fame ballot. Just look one spot down in this year's voting and ready yourself for the same arguments all over again.

Andre Dawson's career numbers aren't very impressive. Dawson played before the "steroid era" and has to be judged differently because of it. Dawson has a mediocre on-base percentage. Dawson didn't play in a time when on-base percentage was valued. Dawson's numbers don't merit inclusion to Cooperstown. Numbers can't represent how feared a hitter Dawson was during his career.

Every one of those arguments raged about Rice's candidacy and they'll all be revived when discussion begins about Dawson in advance of next year's ballot. But, just like Rice, the biggest story isn't about any of those arguments.

From the Windup is FanHouse's extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

The Hall of Fame talk has begun to die down and baseball fans are starting to look forward to that oh-so-exciting date -- February 15th, when pitchers and catchers report -- but before we get there, let's look ahead at the players who will be eligible for enshrinement in Cooperstown for the first time in 2010.

For every jubilant call received by a new member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, there's someone waiting by a phone that just won't ring. This year that person is Andre Dawson, who received 361 votes, 43 shy of the number he needed for election. He shouldn't fret too much, however, as there's only been one player, Gil Hodges, who ever got more than 60 percent of the vote and didn't get elected.

Matt Snyder did an excellent job of laying out the relevant arguments about Dawson this morning, particularly that it is very difficult to justify a vote for Jim Rice, who got in today, and withhold one from The Hawk. We won't go over them again here, except to say that I'm not enamored of either man's candidacy.

Congratulations are in order for Jim Rice, who, after 15 long years of waiting, was finally elected to the Hall of Fame Monday.

Rice's candidacy has been debated ad nauseam the last few years, with rigid statistical analysts citing his mediocre on-base percentage and poor numbers away from Fenway Park as cause to keep him out and equally rigid supporters, most of them writers who covered Rice when he played, lauding his presence in the batter's box and status as the "most feared" hitter in the American League for much of his career.

Regardless of where you come down in the Rice debate (Personally, I would not have cast a vote in his favor), it's impossible not to feel good for him. Getting as close as he did on the previous 14 elections, and then being forced to wait another year had to be tougher in many respects than falling off the ballot right away.

The Baseball Hall of Fame is expanding to include the giant resume of Rickey Henderson. Much to the chagrin of Corky Simpson -- who is "not a Rickey guy" -- Henderson easily cake-walked to induction in his first year of eligibility, garnering a whopping 94.8 percent of the vote.

Joining the stolen base, walks, and runs scored king will be Red Sox slugger, Jim Rice.

From the Windup is FanHouse's extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

The results of the baseball Hall of Fame voting will be revealed Monday (2:00 PM ET), and there's a good chance Jim Rice will finally make it. Andre Dawson almost certainly will not. While I believe Rice has a good case to be in the Hall of Fame, I am left wondering how he's become so much more qualified than Dawson -- at least by the electorate. Really, if you factor in all aspects of play, they are equally deserving of entry into Cooperstown.

Let's take a look at the case of Rice and compare him to Dawson.

From the Windup is FanHouse's extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

The 2009 Hall of Fame ballot was released Monday, and with it is certain to come heated debate right up until and after the voting results are revealed on Jan. 12, 2009. This year's class of candidates is similar to last year's, in that it's a shallow group.

There is only one sure-fire Hall of Famer among the 23 candidates, which means this is a critical vote for the borderline players who have been up for election on multiple occasions. Now is the time for those borderline guys to get over the top or make a big push to lay the groundwork for election in future years.

After the jump is a breakdown of the ballot, complete with what I think will happen and what should happen with this year's class of Cooperstown contenders.

From the Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

One of the great things about baseball is that a hundred different people can have a hundred different opinions on one particular player. Go ahead and ask ten of your friends who the best player in baseball is, and you're likely to get five to 10 different answers.

Yet at the end of every season MLB hands out awards to players proclaiming them the best in a particular area. There's the Cy Young Award for pitchers, the Gold Gloves for defense, and of course, there's the MVP award that's handed out in each league to the player deemed to be the most valuable.

The problem with this, though, is that nobody is exactly sure what MVP means. We know it stands for Most Valuable Player, and we know that most means having more of something than any other. We also know that player means guy who wears a uniform and swings a bat or throws a ball.

When it comes to the word valuable, though, there are a million different ways somebody can go when figuring out what it means. According to Webster's, valuable means "having monetary value" or "worth a good price." It can also mean "having desirable or esteemed characteristics or qualities" or being of "great use and service."

So it should be pretty easy, after all, all we have to do is find the guy who wears a uniform and swings a bat or throws a ball who has great monetary value at a good price, while having desirable or esteemed characteristics and is of great use and service.

So why the hell is it so hard to figure out who the MVP is?