2015 Baseball HOF ballot released

This one's a fun read. The early chatter on Biggio doesn't sound promising. The ballot tracking's going to be interesting.

http://www.nhregister.com/sports/20141210/david-borges-my-first-baseball-hall-of-fame-ballot

 

"... they were both Cooperstown-bound before they allegedly started using, anyway."

Well hell, why don't we just stop games and hand them their plaques right on the mound or in the batter's box based on hard data to that point, after which they can resume their careers in any fashion they choose?

And the line he draws just in front of Sammy Sosa's nose (and presumably would have drawn in front of Palmeiro's) is more arbitrary and phony than that drawn by those who separate PED users from non-users.

 

A very good ballot by one of our own. Hope there are many more like it. Michael Gee's ballot -- Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, John Smoltz and Curt Schilling

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/2014/12/12/immortality-strikes-out-the-baseball-hall-fame-getting-history/F2nkAGx9oCQQrx3uZJjmKK/story.html#comments

 

His entire column is one crappy argument after another. At least he admits to being a hypocrite.

I even agree with your last sentence, and I am as critical as anybody of the HOF voters who misuse their ballots to punish accused PED users, often without real evidence to back up the accusations. Borges's approach to Sosa is just the worst part of series of terrible explanations for a lazy ballot full of hypocrisy and cluelessness.

 

"Borges's approach to Sosa is just the worst part of series of terrible explanations for a lazy ballot full of hypocrisy and cluelessness."

Words in that one sentence alone burst with positivity: worst, terrible, lazy, hypocrisy, cluelessness.

 

So, you are questioning my use of negative terms in a post meant to criticize a column? What's next? Are you going to ask why I use punctuation at the end of my sentences?

 

I'll leave that for Elaine Benes!!!!

Seriously, relax. It's all in good fun.

 

I am relaxed. My last post was poking fun at yours, not arguing with it.

That column, however, was awful and deserved every negative word and more.

 

I fear for Craig Biggio having to be a holdover again.

Two percent of the ballots accounted for have a drop of one (Dave Kreiger dropped him, after voting for him twice for either one of Schilling/Mussina -- because one goes into Morris' old spot or Walker) and a new voter (Borges) not including him. So now he's got to make up four votes.

 

I'm betting it will never happen until probably the HOF's centennial in 2039, but at some point, there is going to have to be a redefinition of what a Hall of Famer is, or is supposed to be, along with graduated levels of selection.

Bill James suggested this in the Abstracts way back in the 1980s: that eventually we will have to have different levels of HOF selection.

There will have to be a 'Grand Re-Induction' where all previous HOF inductees are re-categorized into categories (Gold, Platinum and Diamond???), and from then on the annual elections will feature new inductees at each level.

With the decline and eventual disappearance of the traditional 'beat writer,' the pool of voters, their qualifications and requirements, will be radically redefined probably by 2020.

If not, the pool of voters will be massively dominated (more than it is already) by aging and mostly retired individuals who have had little or no regular contact with the game for a decade or more.

 

I don't think that will happen, because 2013 not withstanding, the writers will put in at least one player a year.

And while the Golden Era pitched a shutout, there are at least five players they viewed as potential hall of famers. There will probably be as many when the Expansion Era meets in 2016 and I am expecting the inevitable selection of Morris.

What is going to make a difference is when the Pre-Integration Era is retired, probably after this next vote. Bill Dahlen will get put in and then the Hall will announce they are going to alternate Golden and Expansion votes from that point forward. It is obvious that pre-1947 is about to be picked clean -- the list of players last time at the bottom was laughable and I can only imagine what three nominees they can scrounge up this time around. Maybe you stretch it to once last time in 2018 but we all need to agree the focus should be on the candidates from 1947 to the present.

 

Some great logic from Joe Henderson: "I've voted for Fred McGriff every year, but it's pretty clear he isn't going to make it so it's time to consider other candidates -- even though I had two "vacant" spots on my ballot. I used eight of a possible 10 votes."

That's right. He had two spots blank and could have voted for a guy he always voted for, but dropped him to consider other candidates he didn't vote for.