2015 Hall of Fame Ballot (with results!)

[NJ Ave]

Mussina being below Lee Smith is such a joke. Hell, Mussina being below John Smoltz is a friggin' joke. You like traditional stats?

Highest wins in a season, by season:

Smoltz: 24
Mussina: 20
Mussina: 19
Mussina: 19
Mussina: 18
Mussina: 18
Mussina: 18
Mussina: 17
Mussina: 17
Smoltz: 17

Wait, maybe those sophisticated voters were looking at advanced statistics.

Total career WAR:

Smoltz: 66.5
Mussina: 82.7

What a friggin' JOKE.

[HalfSmokes]

Smoltz is getting in because Maddux Glavin and Smoltz are joined in too many voters' eyes. All three should be in, but Smoltz above Mussina and Schilling is a joke

[JCA-CrystalCity]

18 or so carryovers, with 10 above 24%.

There will be a push for Raines next year.  I think he has 2 years left.  Schilling is the top vote getter among starting pitcher not yet in and should remain that way next year.  My sense is he eventually gets in.

Trammel I think will get timed out. 

[blue911]

The ten vote rule is stupid. Vote up or down on each player.

[houston-nat]

384   Mike Piazza   69.9%
306   Jeff Bagwell   55.7%
302   Tim Raines   55.0%
215   Curt Schilling   39.2%
148   Edgar Martinez   27.0%

Guys I'd vote for without a second thought. Edgar won't make it, but he should. I hope the others do.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Smoltz is getting in because Maddux Glavin and Smoltz are joined in too many voters' eyes. All three should be in, but Smoltz above Mussina and Schilling is a joke

It's a bit like Tinker, Evers, and Chance.  One, maybe 2 deserved it.

[madj55]

The ten vote rule is stupid. Vote up or down on each player.

I think it's stupid that they have to vote for the same guy multiple times through the years while they're on the ballot. Once you vote for a guy that vote should stick in my opinion. If you voted for him once, chances are you aren't going to change your rationale on why you voted for said player and it's a waste of a vote to have to continue to vote for the same guy with new players being added to the ballot each year.

[Mathguy]

The purpose of the 10 vote rule (or any number as a maximum) is to better differentiate between players with strong support and players with weak support. 

The ten vote rule is stupid. Vote up or down on each player.

[imref]

they should be able to clear the backlog next year.  Likely Piazza and Griffey get in.  Hoffman could too.  Beyond that, you should see Schilling, Raines, Mussina, and Bagwell move closer to the 75% mark.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

The purpose of the 10 vote rule (or any number as a maximum) is to better differentiate between players with strong support and players with weak support. 

mathguy - the 10 vote rule goes back to the era when there were 16 teams.  Now there are 30.  There are many more players who would be eligible for consideration now.  With a required minimum of 5% to stay on the ballot, and a recent rule change to limit the window of eligibility to 10 years, there is a squeeze out of players who have credentials to match current hall members. 

I like the idea Ken Rosenthal suggests and that Madj55 brought up - you vote for a guy, the guy banks the vote until he is elected or dropped from eligibility, allowing a voter who to recognize newly-eligible players and ones who he has reevaluated.  It's not perfect, but the consensus is that the current backlog on the ballot probably has 15 or so very credible candidates.

Here's a link to Rosenthal's article:
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/baseball-hall-of-fame-ballot-needs-to-change-bbwaa-cooperstown-122114

The rules are screwy - we all know that. But voters from the Baseball Writers' Association of America need to take a pragmatic view and account for the under-representation of players from recent eras while continuing to push the Hall to adjust the voting process.

The Hall initiated a change of its own in July, reducing a player’s eligibility from 15 years to 10. To me, this seemed a rather obvious attempt to clear the ballot of players who are linked to performance-enhancing drugs, and I didn’t like it.

Not because I vote for such players - to this point, I have not. But perspectives occasionally change over time, as evidenced by the elections of Bert Blyleven in his 14th year of eligibility and Jim Rice in his 15th. As I’ve written before, I want to stay open-minded on even confirmed PED users. Reducing the years that such players are eligible deprives them of a fuller consideration.

The BBWAA delivered a sensible response to the Hall’s maneuver at the winter meetings, asking that the maximum number of votes on each ballot be increased from 10 to 12. Honestly, 15 might have been an even better number, but 12 at least would ease the pressure on each voter, pressure that only increased with the Hall’s unilateral action.

To illustrate how the backlog affects even a voter who snubs confirmed PED users or others with compelling evidence against them, consider my 2015 ballot.
...
Choosing my 10 actually wasn’t all that difficult - I simply took the three spots that I reserved for last year’s inductees (Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and Frank Thomas) and awarded them to the three compelling first-time candidates (Johnson, Martinez and Smoltz).

My holdovers were the same: Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Mike Piazza, Tim Raines and Curt Schilling. But my exclusions again included three players for whom I have voted for in the past (Fred McGriff, Lee Smith and Alan Trammell) as well as at least one other for whom I would strongly consider voting for in the future (Jeff Kent). And again, I did not even factor Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa into the equation.

[varoadking]

Mussina being below Lee Smith is such a joke. Hell, Mussina being below John Smoltz is a friggin' joke. You like traditional stats?

Total career WAR:

Smoltz: 66.5
Mussina: 82.7

What a friggin' JOKE.

Haven't we all been a bit puzzled by pitcher WAR "logic" though?

[HalfSmokes]

Am I the only one who doesn't see a problem with the ten vote rule? Was there any slam dunk candidate who didn't get in (aside from the steroid guys which is a different argument)? You can say Piazza, but that's a steroid argument as much as anything else. I think Schilling and Mussina are getting screwed, but I think there are a lot of voters who just don't think they belong.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Am I the only one who doesn't see a problem with the ten vote rule? Was there any slam dunk candidate who didn't get in (aside from the steroid guys which is a different argument)? You can say Piazza, but that's a steroid argument as much as anything else. I think Schilling and Mussina are getting screwed, but I think there are a lot of voters who just don't think they belong.

Trammell is being hurt by the 10 vote rule, as is Mussina and Raines.  There is practically 0 chance that Trammell will pick up the extra 50% he needs to get in, and he is quite comparable to guys who are in like Larkin and guys who are "first ballot locks" like Jeter.  Trammell is also hurt by cutting down the eligibility period from 15 to 10 years.

Delgado not being carried forward is ridiculous.  10 straight years of 30+ homers and no suggestions of PEDs?  Off in one ballot?  Even if you feel that Jim Rice and Andre Dawson should be out rather than in, they were certainly close enough that they deserved the multiple years of scrutiny they got.  Delgado is not going to get that.

Of course, there are debatable candidates like Larry Walker, who I think should be in but others do  not.  But the 10 vote rule simply has not kept up with the number of eligibles due to expansion, and the combination of the 10 vote rule and the 5% cut off / 75% election threshold, plus the blank and short ballots, results in a backlog and under representation of the free agency era in the HOF. 

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Haven't we all been a bit puzzled by pitcher WAR "logic" though?

It really does not work for relievers because it factors out leverage, but if you look at career numbers for starters, it is more or less a function of innings pitched and quality of the pitching. It is probably better than just citing wins.  You might want to cite baseball reference WAR more than fangraphs WAR if you have an issue with FIP.  For individual seasons and certain types of pitchers, it does not look right, but in the aggregate, especially for similar pitchers, it works pretty well.   

[HalfSmokes]

Everyone you listed is a marginal guy- if they weren't don't you think they'd be in? Marginal guys may be hurt by this, but, personally, I don't like the fact that a player can sit on the ballot for a decade and then everyone realizes they really should be in- if you need the decade of debate, perhaps they shouldn't be in?  I think the Mussina gets in next year when only Griffey and Hoffman are going to pull a large percentage of votes as first time eligibles.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Everyone you listed is a marginal guy- if they weren't don't you think they'd be in? Marginal guys may be hurt by this, but, personally, I don't like the fact that a player can sit on the ballot for a decade and then everyone realizes they really should be in- if you need the decade of debate, perhaps they shouldn't be in?  I think the Mussina gets in next year when only Griffey and Hoffman are going to pull a large percentage of votes as first time eligibles.

No, Mussina needs at least 2 more years to get close and then get in.  You don't go from mid 20s to in in a year.  I don't even think Schilling gets in, and he has a 15% lead over Mussina.

You are basically making the extreme small hall argument.  Only the very obvious should be honored, however you define obvious.  Just recognize that you are raising the bar for eligibility for the current generation to something much higher than what it took to get into the Hall for the first 40 years or so.

[shoeshineboy]

Some idiot called in yesterday to Bowden and Stern to argue against Biggio. The guy had no facts and represented the dumbest of fans. Casey Stern ripped him to shreds.

[blue911]

Some idiot called in yesterday to Bowden and Stern to argue against Biggio. The guy had no facts and represented the dumbest of fans. Casey Stern ripped him to shreds.

Biggio is from Long Island and probably grew up an Islanders fan. Good enough reason for me 

[HalfSmokes]

No, Mussina needs at least 2 more years to get close and then get in.  You don't go from mid 20s to in in a year.  I don't even think Schilling gets in, and he has a 15% lead over Mussina.

You are basically making the extreme small hall argument.  Only the very obvious should be honored, however you define obvious.  Just recognize that you are raising the bar for eligibility for the current generation to something much higher than what it took to get into the Hall for the first 40 years or so.

I do like the extreme small hall, but I don't think that's what's happening, 10 years of consideration is a long time and guys are still going to get in after multiple years of consideration. As far as raising the bar, maybe, but it's also possible that there is a limited pool of great players and that we have more good and ok players than ever, but roughly the same number of great players.

As far as the PED era guys clogging ballots, that's the BBWA refusing to have a position and then being shocked when their members disagree and split in such a way that ballots get clogged. If you want reform of the rules, I'd think the criteria for membership in the BBWA would be the first place to start- Thom Loverro gets a vote, but someone like Jeff Sullivan at fangraphs doesn't

[Lintyfresh85]

Biggio is from Long Island and probably grew up an Islanders fan. Good enough reason for me 

Are you Casey Stern

[spidernat]

Don't know if it's true because I haven't read it anywhere but someone told me one of the voters said he didn't vote for Martinez because sometimes he acted like a punk on the mound.

[imref]

Are you Casey Stern

blue needs to change his tag line to "1 in 63"

[UMDNats]

Don't know if it's true because I haven't read it anywhere but someone told me one of the voters said he didn't vote for Martinez because sometimes he acted like a punk on the mound.

Voters haven't voted in Mussina or Schilling because they were mean to them sometimes.

[HalfSmokes]

As much as I think Schilling deserves to go in, every time he opens his mouth, I'm glad he isn't in

http://deadspin.com/curt-schilling-says-being-a-republican-cost-him-hof-vot-1678064839

[imref]

As much as I think Schilling deserves to go in, every time he opens his mouth, I'm glad he isn't in

http://deadspin.com/curt-schilling-says-being-a-republican-cost-him-hof-vot-1678064839

I've been arguing for a while that Schilling deserves a spot in Cooperstown, but yeah, he really needs to shut the heck up and stop acting like an idiot.  Besides, Slateman doesn't have a ballot.