Change HOF period from 15 to 5 years?

[Jlighter]

Originally Posted by z28jd

I'd like to know why they decided they needed more than 50.0% of the votes to get in? If more than half of them thought they were a Hall of Famer, why doesn't that put them in like every other voting process. I would think if they are qualified enough to vote, then only one more than half of them needs to think they should be there.

They probably thought it would dilute the already water downed significance of the Hall. If it was 50% this year we would have had 5 inductees. Craig Biggio, Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza and Tim Raines.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by Jlighter

They probably thought it would dilute the already water downed significance of the Hall. If it was 50% this year we would have had 5 inductees. Craig Biggio, Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza and Tim Raines.

They started that in 1936, so that is who I meant. If the people voting were supposedly qualified to do this vote, a simple majority should get people in. The simple answer is not everyone is qualified to vote for the HOF, so they made the number higher to compensate for that, which just means the system was flawed from the start. There definitely isn't over 500 qualified voters now.

I think there should be some sort of testing to see if you're qualified to vote first before you get to vote. If you have 100 qualified voters knowing what they are looking at, then 51 should be all that is needed to make the Hall.

[dgo71]

Originally Posted by Jlighter

They probably thought it would dilute the already water downed significance of the Hall. If it was 50% this year we would have had 5 inductees. Craig Biggio, Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza and Tim Raines.

IMO all 5 of these guys would make fine HOFers. Morris being the low man on the totem pole, but I feel he's going to get in regardless of my opinion of his worthiness.

So I don't understand the above logic, what's the difference between putting them all in now versus putting them in a little at a time over the course of the next 10 years or so? If these guys go in through the Vets' Committee in 20 years, does that still make the HOF watered down? Or less watered down?

The problem is the writers. There are a lot of them who are petty people who feel like they can make some kind of point by not voting for a guy. It's absurd really. Tony Gwynn was on XM today, and he was asked to say "yes" or "no" on ten names. He said "yes" to 9 of them. I trust a HOFers opinion on judging a players' HOF worthiness over the opinion of some beat writer who has too much personal bias. The point being, if you don't feel someone is a HOFer don't vote for them. If you do, vote for them. But base your opinion on what the guy did on the field, and his character off of it. Period!

Sure, sometimes you have a guy (like Blyleven) where people need to understand that the player's worth goes beyond stats. The changing mindset of the "win" statistic helped his case. However, there is rarely a good reason for voting for someone in 2013 when you didn't vote for them in 2010. These are some of the "reasons" I've heard voters give for not voting for someone:

* "I don't trust the era he played in."
* "Nobody should be inducted their first year." (Is there a First Year Wing???)
* "Hank Aaron wasn't unanimous, so nobody should be."
* "He was uncooperative with the media." (So what???)
* "He never won a World Series." (Isn't that a TEAM accomplishment? And if that is a detriment, then why praise Mazeroski and Jack Morris for their postseason success, since that was the impetus of their HOF case.)

To me, if those statements pass as justification to not vote for someone for the HOF, then the voting has clearly been placed in the wrong hands. The HOF vote is not the time to make some petty point about whether you like a guy or not. A vote as important as the 2013 vote was not the time to send in a blank ballot, or one with only Aaron Sele selected (PLEASE!). If the writers don't want to take the responsibility of HOF voting seriously, give it to someone who will.

One last point, baseball is still far and away the most exclusive Hall to get into. Football has a MINIMUM number of inductees. Hockey is approaching 400 members, and basketball inducts 5-10 people a year. Nobody complains about that. 1-2 people get into baseball's HOF, which represents slightly less than 1% of the total players EVER in the game, and it is still somehow viewed as watered down. I really don't get that.

#end rant....