HOF - True or False

[GeoPoto]

I thought the phenomena correlated with advances in communications, media, and now social media. Over time it has gotten easier to identify the voters, shame them into revealing their votes, and shame anybody who declines to, for example, vote for Mariano Rivera on the first ballot. Once it became feasible, hounding voters became a popular internet sport. The hyper-scrutiny has virtually eliminated blank and near-blank ballots, which used to occur as a result of voter negligence, incapacity, or caprice. It used to be nobody had to reveal or explain their vote. Modern reliance on statistics makes it much easier to rebut the "I didn't vote for him because, as a sportswriter, I saw him play" explanation. Now everybody can see him play and the numbers don't lie, etc.

[Fred]

I think the first player to get 100% is Mariano Rivera. He may be the only one to date at 100%.

Totally mind boggling how a few voters neglect to select what should be "auto" inductees. Not that there are many that I feel are "auto" inductees, but come on, Ruth, Mays, Aaron and all the others. How the heck do you not vote for them.

[molenick]

There are a lot of reasons why the voting percentages don't always reflect the greatness of the player. In 1936, players were competing with everyone who played in the 20th century (there was a separate vote for 19th century players). I don't even think there was a ballot...you just wrote-in 10 players and it seems like there were different rules in effect (or maybe no rules at all). There was no five-year rule (Ruth got in) and active players could be voted for (Hornsby, Gehrig, Grove, Foxx, and others got votes). I doubt there was even a ballot because Young got votes in both the 19th century and 20th century (I assume because people weren't sure where to vote for him). The theory is that this is what kept him out of the first class...if he was on one ballot or the other he probably would have gotten in.

If you look at the list of all the great players with votes, it's a pretty good result that five people were named on over 75% of the ballots (even if, in retrospect, these choices are obvious to us). Especially because the voters couldn't just sort by WAR and pick the top 10 players.

As someone mentioned, for many years after that, there was a large backlog of great players who weren't in yet, so the competition was much tougher in terms of getting the 75% needed.

So, it is true that Walter Johnson got 83.6% of the vote on the first ballot competing with all the 20th century greats who had played up to that point, and that is less than the 86% Raines got on on his tenth ballot competing with Jeff Bagwell, Ivan Rodriguez, Trevor Hoffman, etc. and the 85.9% Gossage got on his ninth ballot competing with Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, Bert Blyleven, etc.

I think there is a lot to question in the HOF voting but at least these results seem okay to me....Johnson as one of the the five greatest players in baseball through 1936 and Raines and Gossage as tenth and ninth ballot HOFers.

I think there used to be some voters who simply did not vote for a player on his first ballot out of some "principal". I think that's what kept Williams, Musial, Mays, Aaron, etc. from being unanimous (or from getting higher percentages). I think now that we know pretty much who everyone voted for, that "principal" no longer exists because of the "public shaming" aspect someone mentioned.

Rivera is the only unanimous player. That doesn't mean voters thought he was better than every previous player ever elected. It just means every voter thought he was a HOFer, which seems like a reasonable opinion. They were not voting for him compared to everyone else who ever played...it was just yes or no as to whether he belonged. No one was thinking, I won't vote for him to stop him from having a higher percentage than Babe Ruth.

I think like all the other stats in baseball from batting average to ERA to complete games, the HOF percentages need to be taken in the context of when the voting occurred...they certainly cannot be interpreted as a reflection of the comparative greatness of a player.

[ParisianJohn]

Originally Posted by GeoPoto

I thought the phenomena correlated with advances in communications, media, and now social media. Over time it has gotten easier to identify the voters, shame them into revealing their votes, and shame anybody who declines to, for example, vote for Mariano Rivera on the first ballot. Once it became feasible, hounding voters became a popular internet sport. The hyper-scrutiny has virtually eliminated blank and near-blank ballots, which used to occur as a result of voter negligence, incapacity, or caprice. It used to be nobody had to reveal or explain their vote. Modern reliance on statistics makes it much easier to rebut the "I didn't vote for him because, as a sportswriter, I saw him play" explanation. Now everybody can see him play and the numbers don't lie, etc.

Rivera got 100% of the BBWAA voters... who voted.

To your point, a few writers knew there was a lot of talk about Rivera having the potential to be the first unanimous vote getter for the HOF and they "didn't want to be the guy who blocked that". Basically these few guys didn't believe Rivera, or any closer with a limited number of innings pitched in a career relative to a starter, deserved a spot in the Hall, especially on the first ballot. But that fear of the online mob (most notably the shouting heads on ESPN and Fox Sports as well as sports radio) coming after them led them to sit out and not vote at all, different than turning in a blank ballot. Rivera got 100% of the ballots cast, but you could asterisk that percentage!

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by ParisianJohn

Rivera got 100% of the BBWAA voters... who voted.

To your point, a few writers knew there was a lot of talk about Rivera having the potential to be the first unanimous vote getter for the HOF and they "didn't want to be the guy who blocked that". Basically these few guys didn't believe Rivera, or any closer with a limited number of innings pitched in a career relative to a starter, deserved a spot in the Hall, especially on the first ballot. But that fear of the online mob (most notably the shouting heads on ESPN and Fox Sports as well as sports radio) coming after them led them to sit out and not vote at all, different than turning in a blank ballot. Rivera got 100% of the ballots cast, but you could asterisk that percentage!

Did a significantly lower number of ballots get cast that year than say, the prior year and the year after?

[ParisianJohn]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

Did a significantly lower number of ballots get cast that year than say, the prior year and the year after?

I took a quick look now and saw that when Junior was elected 3 years earlier than Rivera in 2016 that he received 437 out of 440 votes. When Rivera was elected he received 425 votes. I couldn't find the number of people who didn't vote in 2019, but it seems there were more than just a handful, though membership could have dropped.

Also keep in mind that in 2016 the BBWAA voted to no longer have anonymous voting for the HOF, with the first year that going into effect being 2018 https://www.mlb.com/news/anonymous-h...018-c210445566.

This was rejected by the Hall, but, the pressure was on to "shame" some, or at least make them answer for their bonehead choices.

[paul]

My understanding is that, starting with Mariano Rivera's year, BBWAA ballots are no longer secret ballots. After the vote totals are announced, the individual ballots are made public. So, writers who used to vote "no" for every first ballot player are now voting "yes" to avoid public shaming.

[Rhotchkiss]

Thanks for all the replies- very helpful!

[molenick]

One other point: if you receive a ballot and do not return it, your are not considered to have voted. If you return a blank ballot, you are considered to have voted for no one and that will be counted as part of the results (lowering the % for anyone who does a receive a vote).

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by ParisianJohn

I took a quick look now and saw that when Junior was elected 3 years earlier than Rivera in 2016 that he received 437 out of 440 votes. When Rivera was elected he received 425 votes. I couldn't find the number of people who didn't vote in 2019, but it seems there were more than just a handful, though membership could have dropped.

Also keep in mind that in 2016 the BBWAA voted to no longer have anonymous voting for the HOF, with the first year that going into effect being 2018 https://www.mlb.com/news/anonymous-h...018-c210445566.

This was rejected by the Hall, but, the pressure was on to "shame" some, or at least make them answer for their bonehead choices.

Some people's "shame" is other people's "transparency".

Total Ballots Cast

2016: 440
2017: 442
2018: 422
2019: 425
2020: 397
2021: 401

The number of voters has been trending downwards since the BBWAA started implementing rules to remove voters who hadn't covered the game in a very long time.

I don't see anything that suggests people didn't vote in 2019 in some kind of secret protest, seeing as the number of votes cast was higher than the prior year and the 2020 number was also lower.

[tbob]

It has become the Hall of Very Good. Diluted more and more all the time…..

[Fred]

Originally Posted by tbob

It has become the Hall of Very Good. Diluted more and more all the time…..

Yup. We all have our top 30 of players that have "generously" been inducted. For example, I'm not a Baines hater, but really?

The Baseball Hall of Fame with players like Babe Ruth, Cy Young, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Ken Griffey Jr., Harold Baines, et al. That just sounds silly...

I never understood the need to exclude an obvious HOFer in their first year of eligibility. Well, not many voters/writers did so that tells you something about those that did.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by tbob

It has become the Hall of Very Good. Diluted more and more all the time…..

+1,000,000!

The baseball HOF has zero credibility or relevance anymore. Synonymous with the Rock and Roll HOF. Doesn't carry the weight it once did.

Too many deserving not in; too many undeserving of late got in.

[ParisianJohn]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

Some people's "shame" is other people's "transparency".

Total Ballots Cast

2016: 440
2017: 442
2018: 422
2019: 425
2020: 397
2021: 401

The number of voters has been trending downwards since the BBWAA started implementing rules to remove voters who hadn't covered the game in a very long time.

I don't see anything that suggests people didn't vote in 2019 in some kind of secret protest, seeing as the number of votes cast was higher than the prior year and the 2020 number was also lower.

Good point about the lower number of HOF voters due to new rules

It may not have been that many in 2019 but I do know Bill Balou said he'd not vote at all because he didn't want to cost Rivera the first 100% vote. There may have been others.

https://nesn.com/2018/12/boston-area...-hall-of-fame/

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by ParisianJohn

Good point about the lower number of HOF voters due to new rules

It may not have been that many in 2019 but I do know Bill Balou said he'd not vote at all because he didn't want to cost Rivera the first 100% vote. There may have been others.

https://nesn.com/2018/12/boston-area...-hall-of-fame/

There may have been a handful of folks like this guy, who didn't cast a ballot (as others have pointed out, he didn't send one, not send a blank ballot).

But his logic is pretty terrible. "He's the best closer, but doesn't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame because saves are a bad statistic" is non-sensical. Even if saves were not a stat, wouldn't Rivera STILL be the best closer?

I always thought the "percent of the vote" thing is given more attention than it deserves, both from those who would "protect" the "unanimous" and those who concern themselves too much with who got what.

An awful lot of this is all context driven...the first class didn't have low percentages for obvious reasons. A player who was on a weak ballot might see a bit higher percentage.

One minor thing that public ballots has more or less done away with is the whole "local writer throws a vote to local favorite who's clearly not a Hall of Famer". Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't really have an opinion on.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by GeoPoto

... and the numbers don't lie, etc.

But, the way people interpret the numbers can lie.

With all due respect to Mr. Rivera, I wouldn't have voted for him in 2019.

https://retrosheet.org/Research/Smit...fTheCloser.pdf

I would, however, vote for Mr. Smith.

Doug