2024 Baseball Hall of Fame thread

You're a lot more bullish that I am here. He was 27 votes shy last time and has only 5 flips through a third of the ballot reveals. Last time his final percentage was 18 percent worse on private ballots compared to public. He better hope a lot of older votes that didn't vote for him dropped off the voting roll. I think he ends up where Helton was last year, around 72 percent -- which is a four percent increase over last time.

I am starting to worry about Helton just a tad. He needs to flip 12 votes and he's a net 0 right now -- three adds and three drops.

 

I hope Sheffield misses the HOF by the margin of, say, a high throw to first or a throw in the dirt.

 

HE AND HIS SON SAY HE NEVER DID THAT YOU BIG JERK SO THEREFORE IT MUST BE TRUE

 

Helton's got a better case than Wagner, but both are classic cases of, as Joel Sherman writes, borderline candidates getting a big boost from peer pressure (from online idiots).

 

Oh I have no doubt they are getting in at some point, it's just a question of when. Wagner is going to get the final ballot boost next year if he doesn't get in this time. And Helton's going to get those dozen votes he needs either this year or next. Clearing the decks when you can for the next wave is always ideal

 

Two weeks out:

 

I generally loathe Hall of Fame debates since they exist as a means for beat writers to avoid offseason assignments, but the thing that annoys me the most about this is that it's obvious a lot of these voters view this as a last chance to get revenge against a player who wronged them (or were liars/assholes).

 

The voters I knew who put thumbs down on guys like Clemens and Bonds were not animated by personal animus. Worse, they thought they were acting on principle as part of their responsibility as Hall voters. They weren't getting payback, they were playing baseball God.

 

If this were the case (and I'm sure @Michael_ Gee can better confirm this), Jim Rice never would have sniffed the Hall. Instead, he got nudged across the finish line b/c Boston writers took up his case every year, even though he was and is as fun to deal with as a nest of pissed off hornets.

 

the counter could be it took making it by 7 votes on the 15th and final try because he was that difficult

 

Or he was the most borderline of borderline candidates. Among the seven players to make it in their last year, only Ralph Kiner made it by a smaller margin.

Sheffield aims for HOF election in final year on ballot

 

I find it distasteful to repeatedly be on the side of my former colleagues but BYH is right. Rice was a borderline candidate who wound up on the right side of the border, IMO as part of the PED backlash.