Maddux, Glavine, Thomas elected to Baseball Hall of Fame; Biggio just misses

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

You could easily vote for ten this year.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

You can pick any random year and find a boatload of future all of famers. The 2006 ballot has the top five already inducted and only one got in that year (Sutter, Rice, Gossage, Dawson, Blyleven). I picked the following three years at random:

1996: Niekro, Perez, Sutton, Santo, Rice and Sutter (And that's a ballot no one got 75 percent that year)

1981: Gibson, Drysdale, Killebrew, Wilhelm, Marichal, Fox, Schoedenist, Bunning, Aparico, Ashburn, Cepeda, Mazeroski (Gibson was the only one to get in that year. Eight of the top nine are in. Hodges was third.

1968: Medwick, Campanella, Boudreau, Slaughter, Kiner, Mize, Vaughan, Reese, Gordon, Rizzuto, Newhouser, Doerr, Kell, Lemon, Ashburn (Medwick was the only one to get in that year. 14 of the top 18 eventually got in.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Any BBWAA ballot before, say, the early 1970s is going to have a tremendous number of Hall of Famers on it.

For example, 1951:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hof_1951.shtml

46 eventual Hall of Famers received votes that year from the BBWAA. Only Mel Ott (87.2%) and Jimmie Foxx (79.1%) got in that year.

But 26 of the top 30 vote-getters are now in the Hall of Fame. Only ones who aren't: Hank Gowdy, Pepper Martin, Lefty O'Doul and Babe Adams.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Adams would be a fine Hall of Famer. O'Doul should be in for lifetime contributions.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

>>>1981: Gibson, Drysdale, Killebrew, Wilhelm, Marichal, Fox, Schoedenist, Bunning, Aparico, Ashburn, Cepeda, Mazeroski (Gibson was the only one to get in that year. Eight of the top nine are in. Hodges was third.<<<

Worth noting that Fox, Schoendienst, Bunning, Ashburn, Cepeda and Mazeroski were all selected by the former Veterans Committee. It used to serve as sort of an appeals court for guys who missed out on the 15-year writers vote. With the new process, it's now more difficult for someone to get that second chance.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

True.

But even if you go by just writer's votes, there's always a bunch Hall of Famers picked by them on just about every ballot.

Since 2000: 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 7, 5, 6, 4, 4, 4, 3, 1, 0.

So history says that there were at least seven hall of famers on last year's ballot.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

If the Buck O'Neil Award ever goes to a dead guy*, I bet O'Doul gets it first.


* That said, I'm OK if it doesn't. I think it's an outstanding way to honor baseball lifers like Buck O'Neil, Roland Hemond, Johnny Pesky, Jimmie Reese and other "ambassador" types who don't really qualify in any one category. (Personally, I don't think Frick and Spink award winners — like Joe Garagiola this year — should be eligible for the Buck O'Neil Award because they're already being honored for excellence in their field. But whatever.)

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

What are you going to do, though? Require a baseball literacy test? Upon whose criteria?

Sports editors, for example, have a seat at the table because the BBWAA wants people with some clout to have entree when they are battling MLB and its organizations over something. Ninety-five percent of sports editors know their baseball. Five percent are baseball idiots. We're grousing over like a fraction of 1 percent of the votership who may or may not, for example, have purposely denied Tom Seaver unanimity. Or, save that, might have accidentally left him off the ballot. I just putt three "O's" in the street name for my mom's Christmas card. People make mistakes. Over the course of 500-plus ballots, two possible Seaver mistakes is a pretty damned good rate.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

OK, looks like for 1942, Wikipedia and BB-Ref differ as to the number of votes that Rube Waddell received (Wiki says 126, BB-Ref says 136). That accounts for the 10-vote gap, though I still don't know which is accurate. I'm inclined to go with 126, if simply because it results in a ratio under 10, but Wikipedia's source is a broken link to the HOF website, which apparently no longer lists historical BBWAA election results but instead simply links to BB-Ref. Annoying.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Morris lost a vote with Jay Dunn, who had nine on his ballot last year — including Morris, but dropped him and Trammell to get Maddux, Glavine and Thomas in his top 10.

Dunn went with Maddux, Glavine, Thomas, Biggio, Schilling, Smith, Piazza, Bagwell, McGriff and Raines.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/10155321/breaking-baseball-hall-fame-ballot

I think this makes a lot of sense, his suggestions and choices. I disagree on Schilling (too many bad years - I'll take Trammel or Biggio instead) and Walker (3 years is not enough, otherwise put in Mattingly & Murphy).

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Schilling only had one truly bad season. All his others were at the very worst, around average. And his run from 1995-2004 overcomes the other six seasons as a starter that go one bad, two around average and three a little above average