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

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

>>>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.<<<

Oh yeah, they fight ferociously.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

I would put Biggio on the ballot before Mussina. Not entirely sold on Schilling, either. While I do agree that the Coors Field effect on Walker is exaggerated, he still strikes me as a borderline candidate.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Man, I can't disagree with a word of what Keri wrote.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

This is correct. Last year, 78% of the voters did not fill all 10 spots.

The idea that there is some sort of national outrage about the Hall of Fame voting process comes from a Twitter-fueled echo chamber. The process can be improved, absolutely, and the BBWAA has formed a committee to determine how. But most of the "outrage" last year came because no one was elected, not because of the election process itself. Obviously, there won't be another shutout this year.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Because I have no life, I cross-referenced the known votes from last year with the known votes from this year. Based on the 569 voters, the number was 225, almost 40 percent of the electorate.

So if those voters from last year voted the same way they did for Biggio, Bagwell, Morris and Piazza:

Biggio would be at 70.2 percent
Bagwell and Piazza tied at 59.5 percent
Morris would be at 58.2 percent

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

I think the 10-player limit is silly, but like Screwball said, it doesn't have a particularly large effect on the voting.

The biggest change I would like to see is for the BBWAA to take away Hall of Fame votes from anyone who hasn't covered baseball regularly in five or more years. All due respect to writers like Bob Sherwin who spent 20 years on the beat, but when you haven't covered baseball since 2005 and you're now working for GolfersWest.com ... it's time for both parties to move on.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

I am always amused by the fact that people tend to look at the tiny extremes and say they are a sign of a problem.

Like 1 vote out of 569 for Aaron Sele.
Or the 3 or 4 people this year who won't vote for Greg Maddux.

Who cares? What matters is who gets in.

By the way, I saw a recent fan poll in which about 20 percent didn't vote for Maddux.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

I would like to see the votes be taken away from those who haven't covered anyone on the ballot. I think if you move on or retire but were a beat reporter during the times of the guys on the ballot, then I have no problem with it. But if you are 85 and stopped covering baseball in 1975 to go cover something else, well......

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

My thinking is, a guy who just got into the BBWAA last week decreeing that the context and perspective of those qualified voters who no longer happen to write about baseball as their full-time jobs isn't worth having in the election process lacks context and perspective.

Go fetch me a beer, Keri.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Keri was bang on. I do love the old boys network arrogance. As if having a vote makes them baseball experts. This site alone tells us that's not true.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

As someone who hasn't covered baseball (or anything else) for some time and still has a vote, I would agree with Della9250s statement. We are still in the period of voting on guys I did cover. In a decade, we won't be, and if the Hall and BBWAA then decided my vote wasn't based on adequate information, I wouldn't like it but I would accept it as fair.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

As opposed to the young boys network arrogance.

If the BBWAA wants to limit HOF voting only to writers voting on players they covered, then it needs to clip the voter pool at both ends. If there's no longer anyone on the ballot whom a writer covered, then eliminate him as a voter. If there are guys on the ballot that a writer wasn't around yet to cover -- at least a significant portion of the players' careers, minimum five seasons -- don't give those BBWAA members ballots yet either.

If you weren't covering baseball by, say, 1991, you have no more automatic credibility evaluating the careers of Alan Trammell, Jack Morris and Don Mattingly than someone who hasn't covered since 1991 has in evaluating Jeff Kent, Tom Glavine or Larry Walker. Actually, you might have less because those who have stopped covering on a daily basis still can stay focused on the game, see the players in the context of their teams and time and maybe even get close via freelance work. Those who weren't on the scene yet for the older players have to rely on statistics, memory from their young-fan days and glimpses of video that's available. Both groups will lean on others' opinions.

If the alleged credibility issue is "too many guys voting for players they didn't cover," it applies at both ends.

And as I contended previously, a Hall of Fame is in large part about history, context and perspective. Maintaining that in the electorate is more of a good thing than a bad thing.