Is CC Sabathia a Hall of Famer?

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Rickey Henderson, who was worth almost 2 Ichiro's, via the WAR statistic, was left off of 28 ballots.

And it took Joe Dimaggio three tries to get elected. Doesn't make it any less dumb.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Rickey Henderson, who was worth almost 2 Ichiro's, via the WAR statistic, was left off of 28 ballots.

And it took Joe Dimaggio three tries to get elected. Doesn't make it any less dumb.

[Mike D.]

Put me on team "just because the past was dumb, doesn't mean the future has to be".

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Tabe

And it took Joe Dimaggio three tries to get elected. Doesn't make it any less dumb.

True, but it looks like Hall of Fame voting was a little different back in DiMaggio's time. He retired in 1951 and appeared on the ballot in 1953. There were 83 people on the ballot that year, and eventually 42 of them became Hall of Famers. In 1954, there were only 53 on the ballot, and eventually 33 of them became Hall of Famers. When he was finally elected in 1955, there were 65 on the ballot with 35 eventual Hall of Famers. With that many people on the ballot and that many eventual Hall of Famers, it's not surprising that getting elected on your first ballot would be harder and being unanimous would be almost impossible.

[D. Bergin]

Either you're in the Hall of Fame, or you're not. There's no magical tiers assigned based on your vote percentage.