2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Nominees

The worst of the early releases are Juan Vene (above), Rick Morressey's Griffey, Hoffman and Trammell ballot and Art Davidson's Griffey, Hoffman, Bagwell, Piazza ballot. All the others have at least six and most are either nine or 10.

 

Vets Committee votes no one in
Doc Adams fell two votes shy with 10
Bill Dahlen and Harry Stovey each got eight (Dahlen got 10 last time)
No one else got more than three votes

I guess this means we get another round of this era in 2019.

Next year will be fun on Jack Morris watch.

 

BBWAA.com: Official site of the Baseball Writers' Assn. of America.

Dan Shaughnessy wins the Spink Award with 185 of 417 votes. Furman Bisher got 157 votes. Juan Vene got 74

 

The official number of purged voters has been confirmed at 90 people, which was 14 percent of last year's total/

 

Graham McNamee, who died in 1942, wins the Frick Award

He beat out finalists Jack Graney, Harry Heilmann, Al Helfer, France Laux, Tom Manning, Rosey Rowswell, Hal Totten, Ty Tyson, and Bert Wilson. Thankfully next year we go back to a ballot where not all the candidates are deceased

Too bad Bisher couldn't have won the Spink and the Pre-Integration Committee couldn't pick a guy or two.

 

Not even 40 ballots counted and already two Pete Rose votes.

 

FWIW, I still have a vote for the Spink, if not the Hall anymore. I like Dan and he was/is an incredible baseball beat guy., but I voted for Furman because I really liked him and how many more chances will he get. Dan was a cinch, either this year or next.

 

I was surprised that after he came just six votes short that the voters just didn't go in order and elect Bisher this year and then Shaughnessy in 2016. The fact that Bisher has been a runner-up for the last three ballots should mean they keep running him out there until he gets elected.

Assuming Vene was so far back in third, , I would imagine Bisher is the front-runner, unless the third guy were to leapfrog everyone. Melvin Durslag was a finalist the year before and then dropped for Shaughnessey, so the question might be who is the next recent writer moving to the top of the committee's list that is over 60?

 

Same story for me. I nearly wrote on the Spink ballot: "You've decided I'm not qualified to vote for the players; why do you think I'm qualified to vote for this?" But I didn't.

 

Steve Simmons votes for nine players: Bagwell, Griffey, Hoffman, Edgar, Piazza, Raines, Sheffield, Smith and Walker.

He added Edgar, Sheffield and Smith to his ballot this year.....after removing Kent, Schilling and Mussina. Which makes no sense for two reasons, particularly the fact that he has an open slot to keep one of the three he dropped after voting for 10 guys in 2015.

 

And as a I side note. Bagwell has already gained eight votes through 40 ballots. If you would like to assume that at least keeps him at his total from last year and there are 450 voters, he would be at 68 percent and need 32 votes.

If you want to be optimistic and he has actually gained those eight votes, he'd be at 69.7 percent and need 24 more votes.

Might this be a three-man class after all (I don't think many though Hoffman had a realistic shot to get in on the first ballot but he is at 75 percent so far)?

 

How many of the voters could identify more than two of the Frick award finalists? How many were alive to hear any of those guys?