Porter was the director of professional scouting with the Chicago Cubs when he met the reporter, who exchanged business cards with him, thinking it could be a beneficial and professional relationship for her career. Porter texted her the day they met multiple times asking to get a drink. She agreed, thinking that he could be another person to discuss baseball with. The plans fell through, but Porter kept on texting with no response and saying: “You’re so pretty” and “Do you have a boyfriend yet?”, with a selfie and another text saying “It can be me!” The reporter, being from another country, with limited understanding of American language and culture said that she “would’ve definitely realized sooner what was going on” if she had more of a grasp on it. Eventually she responded out of courtesy, to avoid awkwardness, and Porter took it as an opportunity to send multiple photos, including one of a man laying on a bed with a bulge in his pants that Porter denies is of him. The next message seems to rebuke that claim, as Porter followed the photo asking “Like?” The reporter did not understand the nature of the photo until later, and once she did, she immediately tried to stop communicating with Porter.

Porter then sent 62 texts to the woman, all of which were left unanswered. Those 62 unanswered messages from July 19 to August 10, 2016 were inappropriate enough, but on August 11th, Porter sent her 17 images including a photo of his naked penis. He kept on sending messages sporadically, and eventually the reporter replied to him, saying: “This is extremely inappropriate, very offensive, and getting out of line. Could you please stop sending offensive photos or msg.” Porter then replied with 3 messages in the line of an apology, and the next day sent another “I’m sorry” and a photo of Dodger Stadium. This was his final text to her.

The woman decided against reporting the situation to the Cubs, for fear of repercussions that would affect her career. The most terrible part of the situation is that Porter had a big part of pushing this woman out of sports. She has now left the sports industry and returned to her home country to work in finance, realizing that experiencing situations like the one she experienced with Porter was simply not worth going through just to make a living.

The Mets made a difficult decision in firing Porter, but it was the right one. In condemning him, the organization acknowledged that Porter used his position and power as a baseball executive to sexually harass a woman into basically leaving sports altogether, and the organization won’t stand for it. Keeping Porter would have shown a basic lack of respect for all women in sports, when the goal should be to bring women into the industry.

This news broke about a week after Porter pulled off possibly the most important acquisition of his career, and probably the biggest one he will ever make, when he traded for star shortstop Francisco Lindor. His career as a renowned front office executive looked to be finally taking off.

I don’t believe in karma, but if I did, Jared Porter was just slapped in the face by it.

However, where there’s passion like the kind that some people have for the Baseball Hall of Fame, there’s sure to be some controversy that surrounds it. Some of this controversy has manifested itself in the form of all-time greats like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, who have been condemned by many HOF voters because of their connections with the doping scandal that swept Major League Baseball in the early-2000s. Other notable steroid users on the 2021 HOF ballot are Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield, and Andy Pettitte (some say Sammy Sosa was a steroid user, but he was never proven by MLB to be doping and he denies any PED use during his career to this day). This article is not about any one of those 6 players and their individual cases to make it to the Hall of Fame. This is about perhaps the most controversial HOF case on the 2021 ballot: Curt Schilling.

Curt Schilling’s Hall of Fame case is very strong on paper. He has all the career accolades that one would need to make it in: 3 World Series titles, along with an NLCS MVP and co-WS MVP award that he shared with teammate Randy Johnson in 2001. He is perhaps the most dominant postseason pitcher of the Modern era. He has accumulated 79.8 fWAR, Fangraphs’ stat that accumulates all the positive or negative value a player gives their team and quantifies it into how many “wins” that player added to his team over that of a replacement level player. That number alone pretty much punches Schilling’s ticket to Cooperstown. He never won a Cy Young award, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t an absolutely dominant pitcher in his era. Yet, in spite of Curt Schilling’s place in the Hall all but set in stone, I believe that he should not be a Hall of Famer. Why? Because Curt Schilling is a bigot.

Schilling has spent almost the entirety of his post-playing career dehumanizing and diminishing just about anyone possible. He is a social media troll in the truest sense of the term. Some of his most repulsive antics include alleging that former Orioles outfielder Adam Jones lied about the racist insults he received from fans at Fenway Park, and being fired from ESPN for “unacceptable” conduct after he made a Facebook post of a transphobic meme. He also made a tweet commenting on a t-shirt that encouraged the lynching of journalists, which should be especially troublesome for Schilling’s HOF case because guess who votes to send players to the Hall? That’s right: Journalists. He has used his platform to make baseless claims to conspiracy theories, peddle completely false information in support of Donald Trump, sometimes from Trump himself, and he has denounced Dr. Anthony Fauci as a “war criminal”. Most recently, he made comments in support of the attempted insurrection at the Capitol, one of the most historically vile and embarrassing days in American history. Many of the people involved in the attack are openly white supremacists, and yet, Schilling stood in support of them. These are not things that a Hall of Famer in the year 2021 should do.

Schilling would like the public to think that his actions have either been jokes, or strictly political, and therefore should have no bearing on his case to be enshrined in the hall. To that I say there is a line between political opinion and deliberately continuing the oppression that so many groups in American society face. He has a platform as a former star baseball player that he is using for evil. If Schilling makes it to the Hall of Fame, that platform will only grow, and he does not deserve that added popularity.

A case for allowing Curt Schilling in the HOF despite his hideousness would be the fact that there are already plenty of people in the hall that were also terrible people. Former MLB Player’s Union director Marvin Miller, a Hall of Famer himself, made claims that HOF players Tris Speaker and Cap Anson were members of the Ku Klux Klan when advocating for former catcher Mike Piazza’s enshrinement. Until this year, the league MVP awards were named after Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the league’s first commissioner, who actively fought against the integration of Black players in MLB. I believe that this point actually works against Schilling, because in my eyes the Hall of Fame should evolve away from its troubled past by warding off openly intolerant people like him. In a year that has brought so much acknowledgment of oppression in America’s past, why would you want to further elevate someone hellbent on blocking progress in any way possible?

Despite his excellence on the field and legendary postseason heroics, Curt Schilling has made his Hall of Fame case much more complicated than it had to be. Schilling’s stats paint him as a no-doubt, slam dunk pick to make the HOF, but his racism, transphobia, and belief in conspiracy theories that have been shown after his playing days should make any voter stop themselves from checking his name on their ballot. As icing on the cake, Schilling stood in support of white supremacists as they tried to destroy American democracy as we know it. The Baseball Hall of Fame should tell the story of everything and everyone that is good and respectable about the game we love.

Curt Schilling is exactly the opposite.

Coming back to Cleveland in return is a rather disappointing package compared to what experts speculated the return to be. Shortstops Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez, pitcher Josh Wolf, and outfielder Isaiah Greene. Rosario is a former top prospect who has never quite found his way during his 4 years in the big leagues. Gimenez made his MLB debut for the Mets in 2020, and was a slightly above average hitter in 49 games. He seems to be the key piece of the deal here, but his projections don’t show him to be a star player by any means. Josh Wolf is a 19 year old RHP who the Mets drafted in the 2nd round of the 2019 Amateur Draft. He is still is very young, but MLB.com projects him to be an average pitcher with above average stuff. He was the Mets #9 ranked prospect. The final player of the deal is Isaiah Greene. There is still a bit of mystery around Greene. He has yet to play pro ball, as he was drafted in the 2nd compensation round of the 2020 Amateur Draft. He, like Wolf, is also very young having just been drafted out of high school and he was ranked the #10 prospect in the Mets system.

All in all, it looks like the Mets completely fleeced Cleveland. Even though as of now, they will only have 1 season of Lindor, the prospects they gave up are not projected to be a superstar like Lindor has shown flashes of becoming. This to me resembles the Dodgers acquisition of Mookie Betts and David Price, granted Mookie is a far superior player to Lindor. Star player on final year of contract and pitcher with contract the team wants to get rid of. The main difference is that the Red Sox got a proven big leaguer in Alex Verdugo, and Cleveland did not. Unless one of the former Mets prospects beats his prospect projections, the Mets made an excellent move.

Statcast is a “high-speed, high-accuracy, automated tool developed to analyze player movements and athletic abilities in Major League Baseball” as described by the league. It was introduced in 2015 to all 30 MLB teams and provides insight into a player’s performance that traditional numbers can’t show us. The funny thing about baseball is sometimes a player can do everything right on the field, and it just doesn’t work out. This is why being a scout at any level of the game is so difficult; One game can’t show a scout why a player is worth spending a draft pick on and one good inning can’t show a team why a pitcher is worth spending millions on in free agency. Baseball is about bodies of work, but even a body of work can sometimes be misleading. Statcast is our best hope at cutting through this uncertainty. It measures physical attributes of batted balls, like exit velocity and launch angle, as well as pitch data such as spin rate. It can then quantify this data into expected stats based on where the ball is hit, how hard, and at what angle. These expected stats have proven to be more accurate in predicting MLB players’ stats year to year than traditional measurements are. Even though 2020 was a small sample size, there were some real winners this year on the Statcast side of the game. I have compiled a lineup of players who had success this season by Statcast standards. These aren’t necessarily players who were the best by all standards; This list was compiled with a focus on players who had elite Statcast numbers but less than conventional success. Sometimes the expected success lines up with that conventional success, sometimes not– that’s the fun.

Note: Numbers used for the following list are from baseballsavant.com’s player percentages page

P: Phil Maton, Cleveland Indians

HM: Devin Williams, Milwaukee Brewers

Notable Statcast numbers:

Exit Velocity:99th percentile/ Barrel %:98th percentile/ Fastball Spin:97th percentile

Phil Maton is the perfect player for this list. Why? Because his xERA was an elite 2.81, good for the 91st percentile in the Majors, but his standard ERA was 4.57. His traditional career numbers have never even been below league average, but throughout Maton’s career, every Statcast number says he should be in the top tier of Major League relief pitchers. His Hard Hit % and xSLG were better than A’s reliever Liam Hendricks, and his Exit Velocity is slightly better than Devin Williams, the dominant Brewers rookie. Devin Williams was the best pitcher in the league during the small 2020 sample when accounting for both traditional and expected stats, but Phil Maton is the best example of being a good pitcher with top tier expected numbers, but for whatever reason, just never getting the results. Phil Maton is the Worst Great Pitcher in the league.

C: Travis d’Arnaud, Atlanta Braves

HM: Salvador Perez, Kansas City Royals

Notable Statcast numbers: 

Hard Hit %: 100th percentile/ Exit Velocity: 98th percentile/ xBA: 95th percentile

Travis d’Arnaud, Salvador Perez, and Will Smith of the Dodgers were the best hitting catchers in the league, and because of d’Arnaud’s breakout leap of hard contact, I’ve selected him to be the Catcher on this list. He had a good offensive season at a position full of not-so-good offensive players. That’s pretty much it.

1B: Miguel Sano, Minnesota Twins

HM: Freddie Freeman, Atlanta Braves

Notable Statcast numbers: 

Exit Velocity: 100th percentile/ Barrel %: 100th percentile/ Hard Hit %: 99th percentile

Miguel Sano had a pretty bad 2020. His batting average was barely above the Mendoza line, at .204. However, if there is one thing you need to know about Miguel Sano as a player, it’s that he can hit the ball HARD. I mean look at these numbers. While he didn’t make much contact, the contact he did make was some of the best contact in the league. NL MVP Freddie Freeman had elite contact numbers as well as elite traditional hitting stats, but Sano represents what is valued in the state of the game in 2020 perhaps better than anyone.

2B: Jake Cronenworth, San Diego Padres

HM: DJ LeMahieu, New York Yankees

Notable Statcast numbers:

xBA: 98th percentile/ Sprint Speed: 92th percentile/ Whiff %: 91st percentile

Jake Cronenworth had a great rookie year for San Diego in both expected and traditional stats after seemingly being a throw-in in the Tommy Pham trade. However, his expected stats say he probably should’ve been better. The difference between his wOBA and his xwOBA is -.033 which is worth mentioning (his xwOBA was in the 95th percentile as well). He also had a great year defensively at both 1B and 2B, being in the 89th percentile for Outs Above Average.

3B: Matt Chapman, Oakland A’s

HM: Justin Turner, Los Angeles Dodgers

Notable Statcast numbers:

Barrel %: 98th percentile/ Exit Velocity: 98th percentile/ xSLG: 91st percentile

Matt Chapman’s season ending torn hip labrum was a heart-breaking injury for all baseball fans. For the more casual fans, Matt Chapman is an elite defensive 3B who makes highlight plays seemingly every game. For the baseball stat nerds, he is a truly elite underrated bat and is probably the best player at his position in the entire sport when you account for both his offensive and defensive value. Not only this, but in 2020, Chapman was on pace for the best season of his career and looked ready to show everyone how great he truly is. Hopefully he’ll be back to full strength in 2021.

SS: Corey Seager, Los Angeles Dodgers

HM: Jose Iglesias, Baltimore Orioles

Notable Statcast numbers:

xSLG: 99th percentile/ xBA: 99th percentile/ Hard Hit %: 98th percentile

Corey Seager was the best SS in the league, despite what MLB’s Instagram account will have you believe about Fernando Tatis Jr.. Honestly, just take your pick of numbers for Seager, and odds are he will be in the top 10% of the league in that stat. He was finally fully healthy for the first time since his spectacular NL Rookie of the Year season in 2016 and he flashed the potential everyone in the game knew he had. He also had a legendary postseason for the World Series champion Dodgers, taking home MVP awards for both the NLCS and the World Series.

LF: Juan Soto, Washington Nationals

HM: Christian Yelich, Milwaukee Brewers

Notable Statcast numbers: 

xwOBA: 100th percentile/ xSLG: 100th percentile/ BB %: 100th percentile

Juan Soto, age 22, might already be the best hitter in baseball. It is still too early in his career to compare his body of work to Mike Trout’s, but he is certainly on pace to be one of the true legendary batsmen in baseball’s history. I was trying to compile this list by selecting players who had larger gaps between their expected stats and traditional stats, but Juan Soto’s success was too great this season to ignore.

CF: Ronald Acuña Jr., Atlanta Braves

HM: Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels

Notable Statcast numbers:

Hard Hit %: 99th Percentile/ Sprint Speed: 97th percentile/ xwOBA: 97th percentile

Mike Trout is always the best player in the game. We know this. However, I have selected Acuña here because he made great strides this year, increasing his Exit Velocity and xwOBA, as well as his Walk Rate. He was also a great defender, as he was in the 82nd percentile for Outs Above Average. Acuña had some really eye-popping Statcast numbers in 2020 as a key contributor to an Atlanta team that went deep into the postseason.

RF: Bryce Harper, Philadelphia Phillies

HM: Teoscar Hernandez, Toronto Blue Jays

Notable Statcast numbers: 

BB %/ 100th percentile/ xwOBA: 99th percentile/ xSLG: 99th percentile

Harper quietly had a spectacular 2nd season for a mediocre Phillies team, as he was in the 90th percentile or above for a lot of statcast numbers. He consistently hit the ball hard, which Statcast is obviously a big fan of. He also got on base 42% of the time which is especially great because as The Athletic’s Keith Law says in his book Smart Baseball: “OBP is life”.