2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Nominees

Nope he is still perfect - 166 for 166

 

I will say this too for Sosa, McGwire and Palmeiro when we was on the ballot -- there are so many other choices that a lot of voters have basically said: if I have 10 guys I think are Hall of Famers before I have to decide on PEDish people, then they just avoid it.

If the ballot hadn't gotten so clogged, I think Sosa would be doing better (not much better) because there would be fewer options.

 

Who the fuck voted for Jim Edmonds?

 

Edmonds was a better player than a lot of guys who are in the Hall of Fame, Jim Rice and Andre Dawson to name two.

 

The Edmonds voters so far -- Earl Bloom, Derrick Goold, Mike Nadel and Mike Peticca

If you go by WAR, Edmonds is tied for 12th on the ballot at 60.3. He is ranked 16th in WAR for centerfielders.

He's a borderline HOFer. It's not a terrible vote, especially if you eliminate the PED guys and want to fill all 10 spots.

 

Edmonds (and Sosa, who I realize I kind of negged earlier today) are defensible votes to me. I probably wouldn't vote for either if I had a ballot, but they're not nutty "let's cast a ballot for Mickey Morandini!" vote.

 

The night before:

At 37.1 percent reported (174 of 469 ballots):

Griffey is still at 100 percent
Piazza is at 86.2 percent
Bagwell is at 79.3 percent
Raines is at 77.6 percent
Hoffman is at 62.1 percent (by comparison Lee Smith is at 29.3)
Schilling is at 58 percent
Mussina is at 52.3 percent
Bonds is at 50.0 percent
Clemens is at 49.4 percent
Trammell getting a nice last-ballot kiss at 46
Edgar is at 46

Over those same ballots, Edgar has gained 30 votes, Mussina has gained 25, Bagwell has gained 23, Trammell has gained 20 and Raines has gained 15.

Wagner has gotten 16 votes (9.2 percent) and I think is pretty safe to stay on the ballot. He needs seven more votes. Sheffield (5) and Sosa (8) still need a handful of votes to stay on ballot. Every other holdover guy already has enough to stay on the ballot. Edmonds now has five votes, adding one from Dejean Kovacevic.

 

DK's 2016 ballot for Baseball Hall of Fame - DKPittsburghSports.com

Here's Kovacevic's column about his ballot. All he said about Edmonds was that his case is best made by advanced metrics, but Dejan didn't bother to make that case.

 

I see where the Hall of Fame website says the announcements will come at 6 p.m. Eastern. MLB Network's show starts at 3.

Are they really going to have a 3-hour "pre-game" show?

Fuckin' TV. Everything has to be a "primetime event" now.

As recently as last year, they announced it in the early afternoon.

 

Regarding the PED question and guys like Sosa....

There are 2 camps of voters, both with defensible positions:

1. Using PEDs at all eliminates you based on the integrity clause.

2. Using PEDs doesn't eliminate you, but is another factor to use to asses your performance, just like playing in Coors Field. If the numbers still are good enough despite a PED adjustment, you can still get in.

If you're in group 2, that's how you can justify voting for Bonds/Clemens and not Sosa/McGwire.

 

Still hoping for Raines, 2nd best lead off hitter, IMHO, in the modern era (1969).