Fixing the Hall of Fame

[HoustonGM]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...6&sportCat=mlb

Can't say I disagree really with anything Caple proposes here.

[kenny1234]

I can. The 10-player limit is fine, and in fact I think that it is too high. If voters didn't vote for Morris, Trammell, McGwire or Raines before, then it really isn't a problem that they can't vote for them in 2014. He writes that:

f there are more than 10 deserving candidates in a year, why not be able to vote for them all?

Except that apparently your fellow writers don't think that those guys are deserving candidates as they didn't get into the Hall before. My feeling is that if you aren't one of the best 10 players not currently in the Hall of Fame, you don't deserve to be there - or at least you can wait until next year. His list includes exactly 3 people that are in their first year of eligibility - so I don't see the problem. It would be interesting to know how many people actually fill out all 10 spots - I would hope that it is relatively few in which case this is totally irrelevant. My preference would be for an unlimited ballot, but then only admitting the top 2 vote getters each year. If you have to wait, you have to wait.

And eliminating people that don't vote with the vast majority doesn't improve anything. It just means that there will be more guys that arbitrarily jump to 100% of the vote. Also, voters would have to figure out who everyone else was going to vote for - if I didn't think Palmeiro belongs I might not want to vote for him, but I might do so just because I think that a lot of people will be sold by the round numbers and I don't want to lose my vote.

Public votes and moving the builder category don't matter to me at all - I neither agree nor disagree.

[HoustonGM]

I can. The 10-player limit is fine, and in fact I think that it is too high. If voters didn't vote for Morris, Trammell, McGwire or Raines before, then it really isn't a problem that they can't vote for them in 2014.

I think that is a problem...voters should be allowed to change their minds. I have no problem with an unlimited ballot.

And eliminating people that don't vote with the vast majority doesn't improve anything. It just means that there will be more guys that arbitrarily jump to 100% of the vote. Also, voters would have to figure out who everyone else was going to vote for - if I didn't think Palmeiro belongs I might not want to vote for him, but I might do so just because I think that a lot of people will be sold by the round numbers and I don't want to lose my vote.

Yeah, that's the only one I don't really care for. Though I do think attention whore blowhards like Jay Mariotti should lose their vote.

[Jeffy25]

But how do you do all that without getting too many voters?

One way is the Corky Simpson rule I proposed last year, named for the meathead who didn't vote for Rickey Henderson. This rule would take ballots away from voters who fail to vote for a player who received, say, 92 percent of the total. In other words, we all can disagree about the qualifications of Andre Dawson, Bert Blyleven and Tim Raines; but if you fail to vote for someone such as Henderson or Hank Aaron (as people have), you not only lose all credibility as a baseball expert, but you also should lose your vote.

nice

[HoustonGM]

Regarding the 10 player limit, this is a likely 2013 ballot:

Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Mike Piazza
Sammy Sosa
Rafael Palmeiro
Curt Schilling
Mark McGwire
Craig Biggio
Jeff Bagwell
Larry Walker
Edgar Martinez
Alan Trammell
Barry Larkin
Kevin Brown
Tim Raines

That's 15 players with convincing Hall of Fame cases. Now, it's fair to say that you can leave the 5 worst players off that list and vote for them in the future, but with so many deserving players entering their HoF candidacy, you're going to have a good amount of other deserving players failing to achieve 5% of the vote and falling off the ballot and way more deserving players not reaching 75% and staying in the backlog for the next year when even MORE deserving players hit the ballot. The future Veterans Committees will be very busy.

With 30 teams in the league now, I think a ballot needs to allow more than 10 players. When the 10 player limit was established, the league was a lot smaller. Naturally, a bigger league will lead to more Hall of Fame caliber players.

[ragecage]

Good ideas, but I dont think it will curb the writers that still hold a grudge against players like Mark McGwire.

[kenny1234]

Regarding the 10 player limit, this is a likely 2013 ballot:

Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Mike Piazza
Sammy Sosa
Rafael Palmeiro
Curt Schilling
Mark McGwire
Craig Biggio
Jeff Bagwell
Larry Walker
Edgar Martinez
Alan Trammell
Barry Larkin
Kevin Brown
Tim Raines

That's 15 players with convincing Hall of Fame cases. Now, it's fair to say that you can leave the 5 worst players off that list and vote for them in the future, but with so many deserving players entering their HoF candidacy, you're going to have a good amount of other deserving players failing to achieve 5% of the vote and falling off the ballot and way more deserving players not reaching 75% and staying in the backlog for the next year when even MORE deserving players hit the ballot. The future Veterans Committees will be very busy.

With 30 teams in the league now, I think a ballot needs to allow more than 10 players. When the 10 player limit was established, the league was a lot smaller. Naturally, a bigger league will lead to more Hall of Fame caliber players.

If the voters want to vote most any of those players in, they have the opportunity to do so before 2013. If Trammell doesn't get in before 2013, and then falls off the ballot because not enough vote for him, then he just didn't have enough support to get into the Hall of Fame. He had his chance, and it didn't happen.

[kenny1234]

Naturally, a bigger league will lead to more Hall of Fame caliber players.

That depends on how you define Hall of Fame caliber. I would say that the best players of a generation should make the Hall of Fame, but the number of "best players" is not increasing. The number of players with very good numbers is increasing - but that doesn't mean they all should make the Hall.

[kenny1234]

Isn't Frank Thomas up for the 2013 ballot as well?

[HoustonGM]

If the voters want to vote most any of those players in, they have the opportunity to do so before 2013. If Trammell doesn't get in before 2013, and then falls off the ballot because not enough vote for him, then he just didn't have enough support to get into the Hall of Fame. He had his chance, and it didn't happen.

Chances are they won't vote any of those guys in before 2013 except maybe Barry Larkin and Jeff Bagwell....and that's my point, you're going to start having a bunch of deserving Hall of Famers piling up and not getting to stay on the ballot.

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.

That depends on how you define Hall of Fame caliber. I would say that the best players of a generation should make the Hall of Fame, but the number of "best players" is not increasing. The number of players with very good numbers is increasing - but that doesn't mean they all should make the Hall.

With a 30 team league, there's going to be more deserving players than a 22 team league or whatever it was when the limit of 10 was instituted. I think there will be more "best players of the 30 team generation" than of the 22 team generation.

You can see it just by looking at the upcoming deluge of OBVIOUSLY qualified players, absent steroids - 5 or 6 in 2013 (Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, Sosa, Biggio, Schilling but perhaps him being 'obvious' is debatable), 4 or 5 in 2014 (Maddux, Glavine, Thomas, Mussina, Kent), in 2015 there will be Randy Johnson, at least.

Perhaps we just had a "star glut" in the 1990's, but that there's more players is definitely part of the reason.

Isn't Frank Thomas up for the 2013 ballot as well?

2014, along with Greg Maddux, Jeff Kent, Tom Glavine, and Mike Mussina. (see above)

[kenny1234]

I'm not convinced that the number of great players increases with the number of teams. Measuring players by WAR, it will, but that is because there are more wins to go around. I guess my feeling is that the bar for entry needs to slowly rise - and guys like Sosa, Schilling, Kent, and Mussina shouldn't be considered obvious picks for the Hall. As I said before, if you aren't one of the 10 best eligible players, then you don't belong in the Hall of Fame.

[HoustonGM]

I'm not convinced that the number of great players increases with the number of teams. Measuring players by WAR, it will, but that is because there are more wins to go around. I guess my feeling is that the bar for entry needs to slowly rise - and guys like Sosa, Schilling, Kent, and Mussina shouldn't be considered obvious picks for the Hall.

With more wins to go around, I think it's fair to honor more players.

As I said before, if you aren't one of the 10 best eligible players, then you don't belong in the Hall of Fame.

I think you're wording this incorrectly. This year, I would've voted for 7 players...that would leave 3 players that I consider among the "10 best eligible players" but NOT Hall of Famers. Also, it's entirely possible to bounce around between, say, the 12th best eligible player and the 8th best, would that player go from deserving to be in, to not deserving it, and back again? Like I said, I just think you may have chose the wrong phrasing there.

[HoustonGM]

Also, I should clarify that by "obvious", I mean that they do obviously meet the established Hall of Fame standard. If you believe in a rising standard (which I don't), they will perhaps not be "obvious" when compared to that standard.

[kenny1234]

I think you're wording this incorrectly. This year, I would've voted for 7 players...that would leave 3 players that I consider among the "10 best eligible players" but NOT Hall of Famers. Also, it's entirely possible to bounce around between, say, the 12th best eligible player and the 8th best, would that player go from deserving to be in, to not deserving it, and back again? Like I said, I just think you may have chose the wrong phrasing there.

I think that I worded it correctly. I didn't say that the top 10 eligible are deserving - I said that if you are not in the top 10 eligible you should not be in the Hall of Fame. There are possibly circumstances in which that would not be true - but I don't see them in this case.

My fix for the Hall of Fame would be for players to be eligible once - people can vote yes or no on as many as they want - but if you don't get in, you're not getting in. In that case the limit of 10 is probably irrelevant, but if you want to get rid of it, that's fine. It would avoid the foolishness of people refusing to vote for someone on the first ballot, and it would mean that attention would be focused on a much smaller group of players.

[HoustonGM]

I think that I worded it correctly. I didn't say that the top 10 eligible are deserving - I said that if you are not in the top 10 eligible you should not be in the Hall of Fame. There are possibly circumstances in which that would not be true - but I don't see them in this case.

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?

My fix for the Hall of Fame would be for players to be eligible once - people can vote yes or no on as many as they want - but if you don't get in, you're not getting in. In that case the limit of 10 is probably irrelevant, but if you want to get rid of it, that's fine. It would avoid the foolishness of people refusing to vote for someone on the first ballot, and it would mean that attention would be focused on a much smaller group of players.

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.