2013 MLB Hall of Fame Screechfest

DAMNIT! Kenny deserves more than 1 vote! C'Mon, people!

 

Early indicators are when a guy is not close to the 75 percent, even at eight percent it is extremely tough to make up the ground to get elected.

For example, last year Barry Larkin was at 92 percent in this first 10 percent recorded. He had wiggle room to get there.

Right now no one has any wiggle room because they are all below the threshold. Even with hundreds of ballots still out there, it is not looking good.

 

Corre

Correct. As voters release their ballots, in print, online, anywhere, people are tracking them. There are at least three trackers I know of that are pretty good.

And that is the part of the problem of tracking. There is a definite silent majority in NYC from decades past that account for a final spike in certain candidates, like Mattingly, that are waaay off from the projections. Otherwise they are normally pretty good indicators.

 

One of those places I saw had basically guessed at my vote from a blog post because I never said exactly who I voted for.

 

Not necessarily. You could have plenty of old school guys who had an easy vote -- pick who they voted for last year and vote no to all the PED newcomers.

This year will probably be tougher earlier because the deadline is Dec. 31, and i think you have a lot of people admitting they are waiting until the last minute to decide because of the names on the ballot.

And I think there is a good mix of old school/new school votes that have been out there.

 

We need Nate Silver to figure out the historical accuracy of the pre HOF election polls.

 

For 2012, 148 full ballots, top 5 projected were

89.2 - B. Larkin (actual 86.4)
58.8 - Morris (66.7)
56.8 - Bagwell (56.0)
52.0 - T. Raines (48.7)
44.6 - Lee Smith (50.6)

In 2011 (138 ballots)

93.4 - Alomar (actual 90.0)
79.7 - Blyleven (79.7)
66.6 - Larkin (62.1)
49.2 - J. Morris (53.5)
47.1 - Raines (37.5)

In 2010 (128 ballots)

87.5 - Alomar (73.7)
80.5 - Blyleven (74.2)
79.7 - Dawson (77.9)
54.7 - Larkin (51.6)
47.7 - J. Morris (52.3)

The recent tend shows early voting tends to undderate Morris and overrate Raines.

 

And the first known "protest with a blank ballot" goes to Mark Faller. But it's just a one-year protest. Probably.

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/newsstand/discussion/mark_faller_nobody_deserves_my_hall_of_fame_vote_this_year

 

Three trackers on Morris and I'm sure there is some overlap.

58.3 percent (around 10 percent of vote), fifth in voting, behind at least Bagwell, Biggio and Piazza.
on 15 of 27 ballots. fifth in voting; Biggio on 22; Bagwell/ Raines on 21, Piazza on 20,
on 13 of 27 ballots. Seventh in that voting; Bagwell/Raines on 19, Biggio/Bonds/Clemens on 15, Piazza on 14.

I have yet to see a ballot where someone picks Bonds but not Clemens or Clemens but not Bonds.

 

Pete Abraham has a fine ballot -- Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, Curt Schilling, Alan Trammell -- but says this about Edgar Martinez:

"Martinez, along with David Ortiz, ranks as one of the best DHs ever. But DH is a not a position. Were he a third baseman, Edgar would be a borderline case."

 

Players who spend most or all of their careers at DH do deserve to face a tougher standard to get in the Hall of Fame. They are being measured primarily against players who at least gave their teams some value in the field, even if they weren't very good defensively.

I think that makes the difference with Martinez. As a third baseman, those numbers would have been enough to make the Hall of Fame despite the relative lack of home runs (309). As a DH? I agree with Abraham in leaving him out.

Didn't Martinez become pretty much a full-time DH very early in his career because he had trouble staying healthy when he played the field?

 

DH IS a position. It's a position on the team Abraham gets paid to cover. It's been a position for 40 years. If he feels Martinez didn't hit enough to qualify as a player at a position that has hitter in its title, say so. What makes baseball writers, otherwise normal people, such snotty, entitled, judgmental jerks in print?