2013 MLB Hall of Fame Screechfest

That's a little sticky because a lot of voters didn't "cover" anyone. They were columnists or editors or backups. And the time frame isn't always continuous. And do you define "cover" meaning a guy on the team he covered, or who was just playing in the majors when he was covering baseball? What if he was in the other league?

It just opens up a big mess.

 

I'm glad the world is so black and white to you OOP.

Like I said, it's not how I'd vote, but I can see how someone might feel it's a good compromise if you are conflicted about the whole steroid issue.

 

Just when the player was in the majors. I don't think you have had to cover only that player's team or league. Just be a working member of the baseball media during that span — in the case of the current ballot, from 1977 to today. Again, if it only impacts 15 or so voters, not a big deal. But I've never seen a breakdown of just how many of the 569 are covering the sport currently and how long ago those not involved did retire. If you stopped covering baseball 20 years ago, you are at the point where guys coming up on the ballot had next to zero or no overlap at all with your time in baseball.

 

I think two changes to the process are necessary:

1. Make all ballots public, period. Not that it matters who voted for Aaron Sele, but if you're going to use your ballot for that crap, you better be able to explain why. Public voting = better accountability. (Read this to see how different the public ballots were from the "secret" ballots.) I was glad to see the BBWAA open all the ballots for the first time this year for the seasonal awards. They should require the same for Hall of Fame voting next year, too. It's the right thing to do.

2. Eliminate the 10-player limit. From what I'm hearing, this is almost a lock to happen. The ballot is simply too backlogged with qualified players over the next decade. I don't see many voters actually using all 10 spots next year, but they all need to at least have that option.

One change I would like to see, though I don't think it will happen, is a suggestion similar to something Joe Posnanski wrote: Rather than a yes-or-no question, I'd prefer to see the ballot include a third option for "Not right now, but I want more time to consider him." This would improve the process in two ways: a) It helps ensure that someone like, say, Kenny Lofton — who I don't believe is a Hall of Famer but who definitely deserves more than one year of consideration, that's for sure — doesn't lose any shot at getting elected. And b) It gives the significant (yes, significant) subset of voters who have adopted this "first-ballot" nonsense a real option to express their sentiments and also codifies the distinction of being a first-ballot Hall of Famer, which actually does make some sense to me.

Dick's right: What happened Wednesday wasn't a travesty. But that doesn't mean the process is working as intended, either. (Dick's not right this "happened all the time" in the early days; a BBWAA shutout has only happened eight times in history.)

And the Hall of Fame better hope this never happens again ... especially not if they're losing a net $2 million a year, as reported for 2010 and '11. Ouch.

 

All you sons of bitches who DIDN'T vote for Aaron Sele, show thy selves.

Do you know that in 1999, he went 18-9 with a 4.79 ERA and 1.532 WHIP and finished FIFTH in the Cy Young Award voting? A fucking travesty. He should have been no lower than third.

 

I think you're serious about this post.

 

As long as human beings vote, some human beings holding a vote will use that vote to "make a statement." It's not different than people voting for Ralph Nadar or Gary Johnson in a presidential election. But with 500-some people voting in the BBWAA election, the consensus well overwhelms the the outlier ballots.

And BuckW, I think we are just having a semantics dispute about "all the time." Shutouts occurred in 1945, '46, '50, '58, and '60.

To me, that qualifies as "all the time," though I can see how someone else might say it doesn't.

 

Bobcat said in an earlier post that 22 percent of the ballots had the maximum 10 picked. That's at least 125 voters. With no one getting in, if they didn't vote for Murphy, Lofton or Williams, they have to drop at least three guys assuming they would all chose Maddux, Glavine and Thomas.

So out of the remaining 444 ballots, how many of them were eight or nine player ballots that have all still on the ballot, forcing someone to get dropped to add one of those three? Is it safe to assume that number is pushing almost 40 percent? And shouldn't something affecting that many voters be changed?

 

And when enough people think that way, Maddux falls short and no one gets in again.

 

Impossible. It may take several years before you "know for sure."

If you vote him in "because he's a Hall of Famer," you can't take that back once you "know for sure" he did roids.

The only option available to voters who are on the fence (did he or didn't he?) is to wait. You have 15 years to make it right. You can't undo it if you let him in and he goes on Oprah a week later and says he was the biggest user in the majors.

You're not penalizing a player by making him wait. There's no "twisting in the wind" like someone about to lose a job or someone on death row. It's delayed gratification. Nothing more. The only penalty for a Hall of Fame candidate is final exclusion. And that takes 15 years.

 

It may not be the same as those extreme examples, but if you don't think there is an aspect to making them wait as punishment, you are kidding yourself.

Intent also matters. We've seen at least four examples on this thread of voters who clearly aren't waiting to be sure. They are just punishing anybody who they think might have used PEDs. You don't think there are more? That would be fine if they stuck with proven users, but they don't.

As I have mentioned before, we've seen plenty of examples of voters looking at what one other voters do. They see others not voting for a guy, it may push them one way or another. Do it long enough, and the player doesn't get in at all. Maybe the voter decides to finally cast his ballot for Bonds in year 15, for example, but too many of his peers have seen Bonds not get in for so long, so they leave him off.

Point being, there is a cost to the players who have to wait, and guys like Bagwell and Piazza have voters imposing that upon them not because they don't think either is a Hal of Famer, but because they want to punish anybody from that era who might have used. I understand not voting for proven users, but if you're going to hold out guys based on guesswork and assumptions, then you have to make every single player from the steroid era wait the full 15 years. Can you really be sure Frank Thomas was clean? Hell, even Maddux and Glavine. You're going assume they are clean just because you don't think they look like users? That's ridiculous.

Of course, journalists refusing to vote for players they believe to be of Hall of Fame caliber because there were rumors or accusations that said player used PEDs is ridiculous, too. We should all know better.

 

Why is it when voters convince each other to elect an unworthy candidate like Andre Dawson? Happens both ways.