Le Batard, Deadspin, the HOF vote

How could it have been, right? How creative can you get with a HOF ballot? There are two schools of thought right now. One that votes for Bonds and Clemens. One that does not. Deadspin's ballot basically aligns with a third of the ballots out there, including that from renegade outsider Buster Olney.

What did LeBatard hope to accomplish? What did Deadspin hope to accomplish? Mike Greenberg said the accomplished it. What did they accomplish?

 

The truest thing written on this thread is LongTermListener saying this protects Le Batard from getting ridiculed by Deadspin for his mawkish look-at-me act. He gets to have it both ways. He makes insider, establishment money and he's protected from scorn even though if Deadspin had any honesty about what targets they pick and choose, he'd be regularly subjected to ridicule. I'll give the man credit, he managed to win over the cool kids on the internet with this, pretend he's one of em, even though he does the same kind of thing (just his own brand of it) the Reillys, Baylesses, etcetera, get torched for.

 

What he said2.

 

The BBWAA has established a committee to review the HOF voting process. Le Batard could have joined the committee and offered constructive criticism. But he'd rather draw attention to himself than actually try to improve the process. Bet he doesn't even know the committee exists.

 

What strikes me as being wrong with the process for the baseball HOF would be this:

1. It's just "mark a ballot and you're done." Why can't it be structured where you first vote for your top 10 to 15 players who are eligible, to pare it down to a group of finalists, then everyone gets together and discusses the finalists. That would be similar to the Pro Football HOF, and while that process isn't perfect, the intent is to at least force more discussion and critical thinking about the candidates.

2. There is still a lack of transparency. Some voters have chosen to reveal their ballots, others have not. So let's require everyone to reveal their votes. Heck, do that with the other HOFs as well. Or at the very least, you are required to reveal your finalists picks and how you voted on the actual finalists for HOF inclusion.

Again, it wouldn't make it a perfect process, but it would force more discussion about candidates among the voters and everyone else. You might be able to figure out who is making an honest effort to decide who belongs and who is engaging in silly reasoning or doesn't bother to think about their votes at all.

 

Why? What have they gotten wrong?

 

Well, three pages worth of stuff!

 

This factor should not be overlooked. How many voters saw Blyleven's percentage rising slowly year after year, and each said to themselves, "OK, what am I missing?" Then you do a little more research, see his overwhelming numbers that the eye test sometimes missed, and come to the conclusion, "Holy shit, why wasn't this guy in 10 years ago?"

 

These two threads are now merging into one, subject wise...

My solution for this Benitez problem is simply not to put these guys on the ballot. Basically, if it's going to be embarassing for a guy to get a vote, why is he on there. Honestly, out of 571 people, if anyone can't get 5 percent they didn't belong on there in the first place.

 

This is another solution in search of a problem. You play 10 years in the bigs, you're on the ballot. That's that. Takes the subjectivity out of it.

Granted, there was a log jam to end all log jams at the time, but in 1938, six future HOFers received one vote. Same deal in 1952.

You play 10 years, you get your name on the ballot. It serves three purposes, being a little token of recognition for that length of service in the big leagues, as a fail safe against a worth but unappreciated player not even getting on the ballot, and, again, it takes the subjectivity out of the nominating process.

 

Call something "full of shit" when you missed my point?

It wasn't about whether Santo was worthy of the Hall, but that he shouldn't have had to wait with bated breath every year to see if he would be bestowed with the sports highest honor. He was tortured by the process.

 

Honestly, the only thing they need to do is cut out the 10-man limit.

Make it 15. Make it 20. Make it however many you want.

But it has become obvious that the guys who want to put three or four or five names on their ballot now are never going to change that. There seems to be a significant number of voters who will go beyond 10 if allowed. If 50 percent used the max, shouldn't the 15-25 percent, if not more, who want to vote 11 or 13 or 17 be allowed to?

There's really no point to the limit, especially since the number of players on the ballot continues to expand.

There were nearly 40 on this year's ballot.
The ballot next year could potentially have close to 50.

Getting rid of the limit is a pretty simple step that would go a long way to helping the process along.