OT - New Hall of Famers: Bagwell, Raines and Ivan Rodriguez

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Conor, my first inclination was to agree with your post. Certainly, for the last 30 years I do completely agree with you. There were a few who were 'almost great' during that period, like Sandberg, Jenkins and Hunter; however, the truly great all got in their first year.

Prior to that you have Marichal and Killebrew who didn't get in immediately, and I consider both to be great and HOF-worthy. But I wonder if there isn't currently a mentality among voters that they can put off voting for players because they have ten years - they don't have to start thinking hard until the 8 or 9 year mark. If it were reduced to 'now or never', Killebrew, Marichal and maybe even a few others, might have gotten in on the first ballot.

I would love to see a HOF that contained only the truly great players, but our sports mentality is 'the more the merrier', as such a philosophy can generally be linked to a result of 'more money'.

bolding mine:

yes I know from reading voter's articles that many leave guys off they know will stay on the ballot so as to use one of their 10 spots on a guy they want to either keep on for another year or try to get in. IMO all of this could be avoided if the HOF would change the process from "pick 10" to "give each player in the ballot a vote of yes or no"