Monday in this space, I wrote: "I suspect if you solicited ballots from five nonvoters (say: Rob Neyer, Joe Sheehan, Keith Law, Rich Lederer and David Pinto), you would find a great deal of uniformity. I suspect that we all would vote for [Tim] Raines, [Bert] Blyleven, [Alan] Trammell and [Goose] Gossage."Well, no. At the very least I should have checked to see if Joe Sheehan had already written about his (theoretical) ballot. He had, last week (members only). And indeed, Joe would vote for Raines, Blyleven and Gossage (and Mark McGwire, as I suspected). But not Trammell ...

Once again, Trammell's candidacy is the most difficult one to evaluate. He was one of the best players in baseball at his peak, and was part of the bridge from shortstops as singles hitters to the better players we see out there today. On the other hand, he had a fairly short peak and a short career. I'm wary of the defensive numbers on him, as his home park was notorious for its high infield grass. With so much of Trammell's statistical case built on very good defensive stats at his peak, the twinge of doubt I feel about their validity makes me nervous. My bigger objection, though, is to the way his career ended. Trammell was done as a full-time player at 32, which is awfully early for a 20th-century position player being pushed for Cooperstown. Like [Jim] Rice, Trammell would have been a Hall of Famer with a more typical decline phase. Instead, he had 10.2 WARP, total, after 32. I'm leaving him off, again.

A few things about this.One, while it's true that a typical decline phase would make Trammell's career stats look a lot better, I don't think Trammell's (apparently) atypical decline is a reason to leave him out of the Hall of Fame. Joe mentions 20th-century position players, but I think the more relevant point of comparison is 20th-century shortstops. And they typically suffered early declines. Most of the best ones, anyway. Arky Vaughan, Lou Boudreau, Phil Rizzuto, Pee Wee Reese, Ernie Banks, Robin Yount ... All these Hall of Fame shortstops were either finished as productive everyday players in their early 30s or moved to an easier position.I'm afraid I don't have an easy way to check, but I believe Trammell, even with that atypical decline phase, ranks fourth in hits among 20th century shortstops -- considering only hits gained while actually playing shortstop -- behind Hall of Famers Luis Aparicio, Luke Appling and Ozzie Smith (and for what it's worth, Trammell hit more home runs than those three guys combined).I am not saying that Trammell's 2,365 career hits constitute, by themselves, a great case for the Hall of Fame. I'm saying we shouldn't hold Trammell's decline phase against him, because his career accomplishments are right in line with plenty of Hall of Fame shortstops.Two, while I'm intrigued by the notion that Trammell's solid defensive credentials -- he won four Gold Gloves, and Bill James has him as a Grade B-minus shortstop over his entire career -- are partly the result of the high grass in the Tiger Stadium infield, I'd sure like to see somebody do some actual work on this one. Yes, sinkerballer Walt Terrell's home/road splits were massive when he pitched for the Tigers, particularly from 1985 through '87. But did other sinkerball pitchers fare particularly well in Tiger Stadium during Trammell's career? Were Trammell's fielding stats significantly better at home than on the road? If the grass was long and did lead to more plays for Trammell, did it cost him anything as a hitter?Five years ago, Joe Sheehan did a great deal of work and concluded that Jack Morris did not "pitch to the score" -- that's the excuse often given for his relatively poor career ERA.Maybe Sheehan and roughly 85 percent of the Hall of Fame voters have been right about Trammell, which means I've been wrong. Someday, though, Trammell's going to get another hearing before a different set of judges. I hope by then we know more about that Tiger Stadium infield grass.