HOF expansion era ballot

[theshleps]

I don't understand why after someone is rejected for 15 years in a row, they should go to another committee and be looked at again. It seems after 15 years that should do it. They should actually shorten the 15 years to maybe 5. What makes someone more qualified his 15th year of voting than his 5th?

[mr2686]

Originally Posted by theshleps

I don't understand why after someone is rejected for 15 years in a row, they should go to another committee and be looked at again. It seems after 15 years that should do it. They should actually shorten the 15 years to maybe 5. What makes someone more qualified his 15th year of voting than his 5th?

I think it has more to do with the people voting and not if the player was actually worthy of enshrinement. I would have taken the vote away from the writers years ago. They are the dumbest bags of hair in the world.

[steve B]

This was mostly a response to Michael at post 40 it just took me a while to get it typed.


For a lot of reasons.

If a player doesn't get at least 5% in any eligible year they're off the ballot. So it's possible a player didn't get 5 years of eligibility. If for instance they were getting votes just short of being elected, then there was a very strong retirement group. Not a great example, but Dwight Evans had 5.9%, 10.4 %, and 3.6% what happened that last year? Ryan, Brett, Yount, and Fisk happened. It's possible Evans would have made it in eventually, maybe his 5th year. But he was removed from the ballot. His career numbers may seem unimpressive, but many are in the top 100 all time, a few in the top 50. Even after the steroid era his 385 HR are tenth for AL righthanders. Not too shabby for a borderline candidate.

For some players their impact may not be realized until much later. Some of these might more properly go in as contributors. Flood, Tommy John, probably others. Flood provided a player willing to take the risk that created free agency, Tommy John - Heck, the surgery that saves a few careers is named for him. Both had a larger impact than just what they did on the field.

And since the voting is done by the writers, there's a bias towards the guys who were more likable, or made for better stories. And towards NY and Boston players to some degree. Albert Belle is a prime example of a guy who did himself no favors. His numbers are pretty good, 381HR, .295 BA 1239 RBI and all that in what's more like ten and a half years. (And close to what Jim Rice did in 15 years, and it took them another 15 to elect him) But Belle was very abrasive, especially towards the press and only lasted 2 years on the ballot.

That's why it's good to give some players, as well as other contributors another look later on.

Steve B

[dgo71]

Those are all valid points, and that's not even getting into consideration given to position, the era the player played in and the teams the player played for.

Bert Blyleven is my favorite example of why vote totals can jump, and by extension, why we need a Veteran's Committee. Before Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens surpassed him, Blyleven was third on the all-time strikeout list. Ask anyone who faced him, Bert's curveball was a back-breaker. Know how many shutouts he had? 60. One fewer than Seaver and Ryan, and good for 9th all-time. Those two stats alone scream dominance to me. Blyleven won 287 games, playing for some really, really poor teams. Just 13 wins away from a magic number that (rightly or wrongly) would have had him inducted on his first ballot. His teams were so bad in fact, that in terms of "quality starts", he had 99 such outings in which he was saddled with the loss and had ANOTHER 79 quality starts where he received a no-decision. That's 178 games that could easily have been W's with better offensive support. Keep in mind, his career ERA was 3.13, so it's not like he was asking a lot of his teams' hitters. If he could have won even 10% of those starts - basically if he had the fortune of playing just one season with the Yankees or Dodgers of his era - he's at 304 wins and a HOF lock. A big knock on him was that he never won a Cy Young Award. Well, the same writers who vote for the HOF also vote for postseason awards. So if the writers can get one vote wrong, what's to say they didn't misinterpret a player's worth when handing out CY/MVP awards? He did, however, help win 2 World Series, appear in 2 All-Star games, finish in Top 4 or better in Cy voting 3 times, and consistently rank among the league leaders in every important pitching stat several times.

Some purists feel the Hall should be reserved for only the very, very elite - the Ruths, Aarons and Cobbs of the world - but I think that a HOF consisting of only 50 or so guys would be pretty boring. The Hall still contains less than 1% of the men who have played the game, and I see no problem with varying levels of "greatness" being inducted. In other words, the worst HOFer was still miles ahead of the best "average" player. Great players like Blyleven deserve to be recognized for their real contributions and not just by lining their stats up against the stats of others.

OK, rant over, sorry for going OT....

[mighty bombjack]

Great post Derek, I completely agree.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by mighty bombjack

Great post Derek, I completely agree.

+1 Good job, Derek!

[Briscogun]

Great post above! Very well stated!

As a side note, I would personally love to see Garvey get in. 10x All-Star, 4WS appearances, NL MVP. Not a bad resume. But I'm not biased at all...

[Bigdaddy]

LaRussa and Cox, and Garvey.

From the mid 70's to the mid 80's, who would you take at 1st base over Garvey?? Stargell - past his prime and already a HOFer; Perez - see Stargell; Chambliss - no; E Murray - didn't start until the late 70's; Hernandez - good glove, but not quite. For a 10 year span, Garvey was the best first baseman in MLB.