AMERICA VOTED: Forty votes have been cast, and I'm willing to call it over since no one's close enough to the border in either direction. The ALOTT5MA electorate has voted to induct the following players into the National Baseball Hall of Fame:
Barry Larkin (36 votes, 90%), Jeff Bagwell (36, 90%), Tim Raines (33, 82.5%)
We also would have inducted Bagwell on last year's ballot, when Larkin and Raines both fell just short. The rest of this year's tally looks like this:
Receiving Significant Support
Edgar Martinez (24, 60%)
Mark McGwire (21, 52.5%)
Alan Trammell (18, 45%)
We Haven't Entirely Forgotten
Jack Morris and Larry Walker (9, 22.5%)
Dale Murphy (8, 20%)
Fred McGriff (7, 17.5%), Lee Smith (6, 15%), Rafael Palmeiro (5, 12.5%), Bernie Williams (4, 10%), Juan Gonzalez (3, 7.5%), Don Mattingly (2, 5%)
Brad Radke received one vote; he and everyone else would fall off our ballot for next year. Given that next year's ballot includes Craig Biggio, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, Curt Schilling, and Sammy Sosa, this year really is the last chance for a lot of Very Very Good players before the deluge.
Clemens and Biggio are certainly worth consideration next year (Biggio's Baseball Reference page is interesting to me in how many years for his similarity scores, as well as the comporable by age swinging from Paul Molitor to Ray Durham to Joe Morgan.)
ReplyDeleteThe first four on the list for next year are no-brainers, all legitimately top five all-time at their positions.
ReplyDeletealso, how could Alan Sepinwall vote for Bernie Williams but not Larkin?
Oh, Edgar. When people don't vote you in, it will make me forever sad. Not for you, because you have a good life, but for them, because they are delusional.
ReplyDeletei flipped on Edgar, and my reason for including him isn't that he has a slam-dunk case but because i learned a little bit about baseball by reading about his case. (He was a good hitter, but an even greater batter, if that makes any sense.) If the Hall wants to be an educational institution, it should be at the forefront of using more advanced stats, but its induction process and personnel suggests the exact opposite. Next year, i'm voting Martinez, Dale Murphy, and every key first timer mentioned but Sosa.
ReplyDeleteThis makes this A's fan smile like crazy. Edgar forever!
ReplyDeleteFan bias. Same reason I always voted for Harold Baines.
ReplyDeleteLarry Walker's gettin' screwed by EVERYBODY.
ReplyDelete#TeamLarryWalker
<span>Did I not vote for Larkin? Yeesh. I absolutely would have had I noticed him. Bad job by me, as Mad Dog Russo would say.
ReplyDeleteBernie was a sympathy vote. He's probably not a Hall of Famer, but as one of my favorite Yankees and the only ballot newbie who deserves serious consideration at all, I threw him a vote, knowing he wouldn't get in.</span>
Also, that Baines deserved to be in. Hopefully, the veterans committee won't screw him like they've been screwing Minoso.
ReplyDelete