Re: Fixing the Hall of Fame
Quote:
Originally Posted by
HoustonGM
Well, than the second case I mentioned would apply. Take a player that we would agree is absolutely deserving. If there's 10 better players on the ballot, is he not deserving that year, but will be the next when he's back in the top 10?
I think the problem is that if there are 10 better players that retired in very close proximity to someone, but that weren't so good that they were elected yet, then I will not find that player "absolutely deserving".
The 2007 and 2008 groups of retirees are large. But the 2006 is absolutely zero - Bernie Williams and Brad Radke have the highest WAR numbers. That might allow some of the backlog to subside - it should also give those people promoting players like Raines and Larkin a deadline - get in by 2012 or don't get in at all. And I am OK with that.
Basically, I don't care about the length of the ballot - make it unlimited if you like. But if the voters don't like someone for long enough that other, better, players push him off your ballot, then the hall of fame is not that much worse without him.
Quote:
I'm completely against a one-and-done ballot. It has too much potential to leave way too many deserving players on the outside. It's a very "small Hall" method, but the Hall in Cooperstown isn't a small Hall, and I don't think it's right to suddenly switch the standards like that. I'd be much more in favor of perpetual eligibility, like the Hall of Merit has, than one-year-only eligibility, but this would require a restructuring to a voting method similar to the HoM (a ranked ballot), as well as a much more intelligent voting block.
I'd be fine with that, I guess I don't really care how the voting is done because I don't think that it matters. And the problem with the voters is not intelligence, it is attention. Here is the comment by Jeff Blair, a reasonably good Toronto writer, on how he does his ballot:
Quote:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...rticle1420377/
Also, for the record, my approach is pretty simple: I look at the ballot, see who strikes me first as a Hall of Famer, then try to build a case against voting for the guy. The fewer layers of statistical gunk I need to do it, the easier it is. I will not vote for a player on subsequent ballots if I didn’t vote for him on the first.
All told it takes a couple minutes and, no, I don’t lose any sleep over it.
And he voted for Alomar, Raines and McGwire and slams the choice of Dawson - so it isn't like he is living in the past. I'm guessing most of the voters spend less time on their ballot then I am spending writing this post.
Re: Fixing the Hall of Fame
It's a combination of things. There's also the fact that BBWAA membership and voting privileges are for life. There are a lot of voters that don't even cover baseball anymore, and probably don't pay much attention to it. Intelligence is probably the wrong word, but I have no doubt that there's a good deal of voters that are just simply ignorant of baseball at this point and don't put any time into their ballots yet still vote just based on their gut feelings. Then there's jackasses like Jay Mariotti that make a spectacle of it all and a bunch of voters that use their privilege to make points rather than vote for the most deserving players. It's a shame.
Re: Fixing the Hall of Fame
Quote:
Originally Posted by
HoustonGM
Until now, the 10 player limit hasn't been a problem, but it will be very soon. I don't see the problem with listing the candidates and having each voter say "yes" or "no" for each one. I think that's the fairest way to all the candidates.
I'm not sure that that's true. Yes, there will be a backlog of strong candidates for a couple of years or so in the near future, but that's happened before, and it won't last long. Even with that backlog, I'd bet that there aren't more than 7.5 candidates listed on the average ballot in those years. And remember, this is coming from a guy who, except for the last couple of years, thought that there were more than 10 deserving candidates each year, and would have had to leave someone off if I'd actually had a vote.
I do tend to agree that just voting up or down for each player seems better on the surface, but I'm not 100% sold on that idea. I do think that it would be a better solution than allowing 12 or 15 names per ballot.
I'm not certain that we really need to "fix" the BBWAA voting process anyway. Yes, there are idiots that vote, and people who just aren't paying attention, and others with axes to grind, but in general, the BBWAA has actually done a pretty good job. Yeah, they didn't do a great job this year or last year on Dawson and Rice, but if you look at most of the undeserving people who have been voted into the HoF, they are Veteren's Committee selections, not guys voted in by the BBWAA. The problem with the BBWAA isn't generally the quality of their selections, it's the essential unfairness of them having a chokehold on the frontdoor to the HoF.
Re: Fixing the Hall of Fame
I read a comment on BTF that made me chuckle - the BBWAA is raising and lowering the standards of the Hall at the same time recently. They're "raising" it in the sense that they're being very tough on some overly qualified candidates like Tim Raines, Bert Blyleven, Roberto Alomar and Barry Larkin, while they're "lowering" it by inducting guys like Andre Dawson, Bruce Sutter and Jim Rice.
Basically, the standards of the CURRENT BBWAA, not their overall historical standards, which I agree tend to be relatively good, although there are some notable sins of omission like Ron Santo, Arky Vaughan and Johnny Mize and some sins of commission (Sutter and Rice), are all over the place.
