2013 MLB Hall of Fame Screechfest

I think you do top three and you'd be more than fine... How many times have more than three gone in? I remember the Brett, Yount, Ryan, Fisk class... I don't think it's happened too often... (My bad, I just realized that Fisk had to wait a year...).

When has there been a year when someone in the top 3 didn't eventually get in?

When has there been a year when someone in the top 3 wasn't deserving? You could make the argument against Jack Morris this year, and I'd make an argument against Tony Perez in 2000.

 

Bonds had 232 walks and a .609 on-base percentage in 2004.
Whether you are one of the moral arbiters or not, that is f-king insane.
Nobody in a professional sport wanted to compete against him.

 

The last player to finish in the top three and not eventually make the Hall of Fame (other than Morris, Bagwell, and Biggio) was Tony Oliva in 1988.

 

A subtle but important distinction here.

They are not being "moral arbiters," necessarily.

They are, likely, being "ethical arbiters."

Like I said, it's a subtle difference, but it's an extremely, extremely important one.

 

And Cepeda, who did get in, was only three votes behind him.

 

Here's my point in this, which I think underlines 3OF's.

If the voter can take those 232 walks and .609 on-base percentage and definitively extrapolate what his numbers would have been like totally clean, then they have a real leg to stand on. (Oh, and then also tell me how many wins Gaylord Perry would have had with a perfectly clean baseball.)

But nobody can definitively tell me what type of impact the lack of PEDs would have had with ANY of the Steroid Six.

 

There's definitely a difference. Ethics require context. A writer may not find steroid usage to be particularly morally repugnant. In many ways, it's a victimless crime. But that's not the case within a closed competition like baseball, where you force your competitor into a Hobson's choice: Your health or your performance.

You can separate moral judgment from your vote. If I had a vote, I might simply not feel that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens competed on equal footing with their peers, and thus withold my vote for them. That's not necessarily a moral judgment. It could be. But it isn't necessarily one.

 

Well, we know Bonds and Clemens were winning multiple MVPs and Cy Young before they were using... I've yet to read anything that would indicate that either was using early in their careers.

That's how I would defend voting for those two. They were Hall of Famers before they started using.

You can't say that about McGwire and Sosa, and probably not about Palmeiro. I'm not sure on Piazza and Bagwell. Bagwell is kind of borderline as is.

I also get the "anyone who cheats never should get in" line of thinking... But, I don't get the sense that many of the people who left those names off their ballots this week feel that way.

 

I don't get this top 3 or top 5 thing at all...

So one year the guy who finishes 3rd gets 50 percent of the vote and gets in, and the next year a guy finishes 4th with 60 percent and doesnt get in?

Are you only on the ballot one year?

I don't see how mandating any number is fair at all. Then you are forcing players to compete against the other guys on the ballot, rather than be judged on their own against the standard of the HOF.

I, for one, have never taken other names on the ballot into consideration when voting for the HOF. It's all about comparing a player to his contemporaries (who may or may not be on the ballot) and to the other guys in the HOF.

 

I would have no problem tweaking the current system like this:

There is no limit to the people you can vote for. 10 makes no sense anymore. Even going to 12 or 15 on future ballots isn't going to work -- next year alone there are 20 people you could easily vote for.

Ballots should be public. The BBWAA posted a little over 100 on their site. Have them all there. They are doing it for the season awards, so why not also for the highest honor?

If there is a year where no one gets the required 75 percent, the top vote-getter goes in. I'm not going to go as far as say the top three, or five, should make it every time, as long as there are veterans committees and the 15-year waiting period. To be honest, however, they could induct at least two guys every year from now to teh end of time and be fine.

 

I'm beating a dead horse, but: Why? Why change the system, even a little bit? Is there a recent pattern of deserving HOFers being snubbed? If anything, borderline guys are being elected at high rates: Andre Dawson. Bert Blyleven. Bruce Sutter. Goose Gossage. Jim Rice.

Why change the sytem to ensure more inductees? What is broken that needs fixing?

 

I don't think you have to mandate that someone - or a group of someones - has to be voted in every year.

But the sanctimonious pricks at the BBWAA have hijacked the process and they need to be slapped down.

There is no "first ballot worthy" criteria but the BBWAA has fabricated one and been allowed to get away with using it for decades.

Then they got together and decided to throw a little temper tantrum this year and colluded to deflate the vote totals of worthy players simply because they don't like the way MLB handled the steroid era. Of course, this conveniently obscures the fact that many of said voters played a role in how the era was covered due to their willingness to turn a blind eye on of what was in front of them.