2013 HOF In Balloting Thread

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Frayed Knot wrote: metsguyinmichigan wrote: I guarantee there is ZERO chance that the writers don't elect anyone this year. There would be an uproar, and a huge economic hit to Cooperstown. The rules would be changed pronto, and the BBWAA would find itself with a very different process. So what, the BBWA members are going to conspire amongst themselves to rig the vote so as to not offend the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce? It's not like there is a constitutional amendment out there somewhere decreeing that the BBWAA gets to vote for the Hall of Fame. The Hall board could change the rules to make the Crane Pool Forum pick the honorees with a vote at the drop of a hat. Do you honestly believe they'd take a nearly 80 year process and turn it upside-down on the basis of one year's result? ... a result which, as pointed out somewhere above, has already happened before.

The Hall made changes in the veteran's committee multiple times after they didn't elect anyone. That one year where no one was elected, I don't recall there being any super-strong candidates that year, or any big protests.

Would they strip the BBWAA of the vote if no one is elected this year? Probably not, I was in a Chass-filled rage and over-reacted. But would there be some changes in the voting process? I wouldn't be stunned. 600 voters is a lot -- and that number seems to be growing steadily -- especially when a growing number of them are, well, idiots. It would make sense to start trimming some of the ancient Murray Chass types.

Or, instead of the 75 percent rule, they could say something like the top two or three vote-getters are elected each year, regardless of the percentage. The negates the impact of the blank-ballot types.

[Valadius]

I'd lower the threshold to 60%. Everybody that reaches 60% gets in eventually. Let's spare people a year or two of waiting.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

If you're looking to send a message without unduly influencing the actual vote count, there's always been an option: not to vote.

The problem is that my vote isn't one among 120 million; it's one among about 575. If MLB and the Hall of Fame won't provide guidelines about performance-enhancing drugs, it makes no sense to me to let 575 writers apply 575 different standards. I can speak for no one but myself, so myself says adieu... To start with, I haven't covered games on a regular basis since 2002. Too many eligible voters like me have been away from the game for too long, and I think we undermine the integrity of the process. When I had spent seven seasons covering the White Sox and then the Mets as a full-time beat, followed by three seasons as an investigative reporter who spent a lot of time at the ballpark, I believe I was as qualified as anyone. But that was a long time ago. These days, my sons see more games in a year than I do. As a journalist, I was also never completely comfortable with the idea of being a participant in a process I'm supposed to cover. I enjoyed it immensely, just as I enjoyed voting for MVP, Cy Young and everything else when I was a beat writer... The role comes with a sense of power and belonging that is intoxicating. And from a simple point of ego, having a Hall of Fame vote is a great tiebreaker in arguments around a Little League field or a bar. For the most part, the members of the BBWAA have done an admirable job with their votes for Hall inductions. But too often, I've seen writers use their votes as a way to punish or reward players, and I don't think journalists should be in that position. I don't see voting for the Hall of Fame as the equivalent of a political reporter voting for a candidate; it's more like a political reporter serving in the Electoral College. I liked having that power, but I just can't justify it.

The blank ballot/"protest vote" is something else entirely, and much more like grandstanding.

[Edgy MD]

Another reasonable alternative is that they recognize the gravity of their votes, the cache it gives them and their outlets, and do a little research over the course of the year. Talk to somebody, compare them side by side. Look at the decades of precedents among who has gotten in previously. Use the internet. I won't tell.

Am I to believe more people were going to baseball games than ever before from 1995-2005, but no reporters were paying a lick of attention?

It's easy enough to read the criteria and use a sound consistent logic in applying them.

[G-Fafif]

Rubin's reasoning, as cut and pasted by Real Dirty Mets Blog. Based on the comments section at ESPN, I take it these were in the comments before, for whatever reason, Rubin/ESPN removed them.

While there is no smoking gun with Piazza related to performance-enhancing drugs, there are enough things swirling around to at least cause me to pause for one year: � Back acne that you do not see on players today, and which appeared to clear up as testing was instituted. � Reporting to camp significantly thinner for spring training (with yoga instructor in tow) as testing began. � Tearing the groin muscle off the bone � an injury suggesting he was bulked up beyond the norm.

The full Chass, in other words.

[Frayed Knot]

- The option of NOT voting has always been there and one that is often taken by various eligible members. The 675 number (assuming that's correct) sounds like the total number of those who qualify to vote but the actual number seems to me (without actually checking) to usually be in the low 500s. Blank votes as a protest over steroid issues are another story (a bit of a silly one if you ask me although I'm not going to bust a gut over someone doing that) but writers who long ago stopped covering the sport opting not to vote even though they have that right is nothing new.

- The election guidelines (ten years as a BWAA member) have been consistent for a long time now and, to paraphrase Captain Renault, I'd be SHOCKED ... SHOCKED!! if there was even a discussion about changing things as the result of one year without a new member (and, again, it's not like this hasn't happened before, nor do I think it's going to happen now). The Vets committee is an entirely different deal. That was and is a much smaller group with less specific membership requirements that they've tweaked a number of times over the years - both for electing no one and for electing too many (or too many questionable ones). In fact it wasn't even that they elected no one recently that spurred a change it was that no one got elected at least in part because the HoF players admitted to not knowing what their role was supposed to be with their newly granted powers.

- Lowering the threshold to 60% based on the idea that anyone who gets to 60 usually gets to 75 is a really dumb idea. I'd venture that most of those who get to 50% eventually get to 60% and so on down the line and you can see where that logic leads. The idea here isn't to get as many people as possible in. It's kind of just the opposite.

[Ceetar]

Frayed Knot wrote: Blank votes as a protest over steroid issues are another story (a bit of a silly one if you ask me although I'm not going to bust a gut over someone doing that)

Blank votes are like a professor submitting the answer key to count in the curve.

The Hall isn't an inner sanctum protected by the writers, they're simply supposed to select who they think are deserving without politicizing it. Voting blank, moralizing, leaving guys off for a year or more because they want to punish a player are all against what they're supposed to be doing. Anyone suspecting of doing so, never mind admitting to doing so, should be stripped of their voting rights for 10 years. We've got zillions of writers out there that would love a vote.

In a way though, they've already changed by letting in internet writers. Guys that I respect a hell of a lot more than Chass, Rubin et all like Eno Sarris will, granted 10 years from now, get a vote which I suspect will be used much more responsibly.

[metirish]

I used to really want to visit the HOF , not so anymore,....it's a bit of a joke.

[Frayed Knot]

In some cases a blank ballot might be the best one.

That's not saying that some don't do that for stupid reasons, but I don't think we want to get into a situation where some higher power scrutinizes each ballot and takes the voting privileges away from anyone whose answers they don't like. One of the good things about a large ballot is that a handful of kooky votes can't skew the overall results too badly. If this stuff was all cut-n-dried obvious there wouldn't be the need for a vote in the first place.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

metirish wrote: I used to really want to visit the HOF , not so anymore,....it's a bit of a joke.

I've been there five or six times, and honestly spend 10% of my time, if that, in the 'Hall of Fame' area. The museum is the thing, and it's worth the visit.

[Ceetar]

Swan Swan H wrote: metirish wrote: I used to really want to visit the HOF , not so anymore,....it's a bit of a joke. I've been there five or six times, and honestly spend 10% of my time, if that, in the 'Hall of Fame' area. The museum is the thing, and it's worth the visit.

yeah, this. It's a good time.

Frayed Knot wrote: In some cases a blank ballot might be the best one. That's not saying that some don't do that for stupid reasons, but I don't think we want to get into a situation where some higher power scrutinizes each ballot and takes the voting privileges away from anyone whose answers they don't like. One of the good things about a large ballot is that a handful of kooky votes can't skew the overall results too badly. If this stuff was all cut-n-dried obvious there wouldn't be the need for a vote in the first place.

Nope. not submitting a ballot is fine, purposing voting against guys is not. They're asked who should be in the Hall of Fame, not who shouldn't. why should they be able to downgrade other voters by submitting blank?

[metirish]

Speaking of people who should be in the HOF......Pete Rose has a reality show....

http://blogs.discovery.com/tlc-new-now/2012/07/baseball-legend-pete-rose-and-fiancee-kiana-kim-coming-soon-to-tlc-.html

[Frayed Knot]

Voting for who should be in the HoF is the same thing as voting for who shouldn't.

Every year there are several dozen choices so MOST of the boxes next to each are blank.
Say there are 30 choices in a given year, I'm not getting how one guy's vote with 8 check marks and 22 blanks is automatically superior to the one who went with 3 yeas and 27 nays, or the one who opted for a complete shutout. Hell, Vlad here thinks anyone not voting for the max of 10 should be tarred and feathered.
They're voting their consciences here, not for quotas.

[Edgy MD]

I have no problem with writers moralizing. It's a moral burden they bear, at least in part. I have a very big problem with them using inconsistent and petulant logic. What color were the pimples on Tim Raines' back? On Alan Trammel's? On Craig Biggio's?

Ceetar wrote: Anyone suspecting of doing so, never mind admitting to doing so, should be stripped of their voting rights for 10 years. We've got zillions of writers out there that would love a vote.

Isn't equating suspicion with guilt, and assigning arbitrary punishments, the problem?

[MFS62]

In the absence of any hard evidence, looks can be deceiving. Acne can have many causes.
Just remind any Yankee fan that Paul O'Neill's skin looked like a topographic map of a Lunar landing site.
Steroids?
Perish the thought.

And did he actually see Piazza's bacne? Or was he just told about it?

I believe that the HOF should not be watered down. It should be reserved for the very greatest players of their era; players about whom you could tell your grandkids about great memories they provided. Not necessarily about this year, but if there aren't any candidates you feel you should vote for, you don't have to vote for a lesser player.

Later

[Edgy MD]

Chass switches beats:


Murray Chass, Weather Reporter:

"It's April, so I can only assume it's raining."

Murray Chass, Film Reporter:

"Moneyball features Brad Pitt wearing a tennis visor. I have to conclude that it's some sort of... tennis movie."

Murray Chass, Crime Reporter:

"He was a black man in Mamaroneck. You do the math."

[metsmarathon]

y'know, it'd be one thing if the anti-roider-voters were the new kids on the block, who weren't really in a position to take a stance against doping and other chemical enhancements while it either nascent or rampant.

but its generally all the writers who were around the game at the time, who generally looked the other way or chose not to dig too deep, or were simply naiive and gullible, and were otherwise facilitating the tarnishing of the game's um, immaculate, historical legacy.

its the new-fangled stats guys who seem better able to view the landscape with the cold light of reason, and consider the context of not only the performances of the steroid era, but also the environment of the steroid era which enabled and fostered and contributed to the inflation of those stats.

[Vic Sage]

Voting: Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

as long as sportsmanship and character are part of the voting criteria for the HOF, the Hall has put BBWAA writers in the position of being moral arbiters. However, as journalists, they are NOT supposed to be moral arbiters, but reporters of substantiated facts. These are two very different roles which are being conflated for rhetorical purposes. It seems to me a reporter who didn't report about steroids abuse (or cocaine abuse, or amphetimine abuse, etc) because he didn't have the evidence an editor would naturally require before publishing such a story, can still have the responsibility to use what he knows (or thinks he knows) about a player in exercising his HOF vote. In fact he is REQUIRED to consider those things, as per the voting criteria.

Unfortunately, i think the "morals" criteria is applied inconsistently, where its applied only in the negative, to keep guys out that writers think are morally undeserving, but rarely used in the positive as a tie-breaker for a marginal candidate of sterling character (e.g., Dale Murphy). And I don't think that journalists should have this authority in any event. They should cover news, not create it. Judging morality of the particpants could well skew the way they report and cover the sport.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Blank/protest ballots strike me as a similar thing as-- only of a much, much less important scope than-- jury nullification. If it's justifiable, it's justifiable as a rock chucked by a citizen at a monolithic, broken system, to which they have little to no access.

The thing with HOF voting is, in this case, all of these guys are presumably legislators in said system. If they think the voting process-- whether it's the mechanics, or the selection criteria, or the restrictive expiration dates on the sandwich coupon they get as a reward for submitting a ballot-- is flawed, they have other means to address said process... since they're all members of the organization, with a say over its bylaws/processes.

Plus, holy hell, it's not like they lack for venues to express protest if they're feeling peevish-- THEY'RE SPORTSWRITERS.

[Edgy MD]

I would imagine most baseball writers who've had 10 or more years in the BBWAA have at some point been given responsibility beyond reporting and gotten a column in which to opine beyond the facts, on matters moral, cultural, and aesthetic. (And if you believe John Keats, those all dovetail.)

Their history as reporters should have taught them to build these opinions on a credible foundation of substantiated facts, so I'm going to disagree a bit with Vic here. I don't think they're failing because their real skill set is in researching and reporting substantiated facts, but because it ain't, or if it ever was, those skills have long since dried up, as their careers have done a lot better for them as purveyors of opinions powered by hubris and volume, rather than sober research and cross-checking.

[Vic Sage]

Not true.

The BBWAA has no authority to change the rules; only the HOF Board can amend voting criteria and rules.
And just because someone is a member of the BBWAA doesn't necessarily he/she has the authority to have published their personal opinions. They are supposed to be journalists, after all.
And even if they can, why should they be limited to only one way to express their views? As a voter, they cast a ballot, and as a journalist, they can explain that ballot.

This is jury nullification, without your caveats.

[ashie62]

How about "term limits" for the HOF voters...

[Edgy MD]

Vic Sage wrote: Not true.

What's not true?

Vic Sage wrote: The BBWAA has no authority to change the rules; only the HOF Board can amend voting criteria and rules. And just because someone is a member of the BBWAA doesn't necessarily he/she has the authority to have published their personal opinions. They are supposed to be journalists, after all.

It certainly doesn't mean that the nature their job is, by definition, distinct from rendering historical judgment on a player's legacy.

Vic Sage wrote: And even if they can, why should they be limited to only one way to express their views? As a voter, they cast a ballot, and as a journalist, they can explain that ballot.

They certainly shouldn't. Rubin casting his ballot and publishing it without explanation was seriously weak.

[ashie62]

I don't like the idea of this closed community of voters influencing each other with their own gossip and inuendo when voting time comes up.

And like the workings of Congress the HOF Board and BBWAA are not likely to change much of anything..

[Vic Sage]

What's not true?

This:

The thing with HOF voting is, in this case, all of these guys are presumably legislators in said system. If they think the voting process-- whether it's the mechanics, or the selection criteria, or the restrictive expiration dates on the sandwich coupon they get as a reward for submitting a ballot-- is flawed, they have other means to address said process... since they're all members of the organization, with a say over its bylaws/processes.

Factually untrue. The sportswriters do not in fact have a say over HOF voting bylaws/processes and are not "legislators" in this system.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Ashie62 wrote: I don't like the idea of this closed community of voters influencing each other with their own gossip and inuendo when voting time comes up. And like the workings of Congress the HOF Board and BBWAA are not likely to change much of anything..

Hell, they do this all the time, especially for the awards. Those things are massive doses of group think.

[ashie62]

Thats why I don't take either institutions very seriously anymore..

[Edgy MD]

Current tallies have Curt Schilling --- doubly penalized for playing in a steroids era and for not being as good as at least one other known user --- at 38.1% of the vote. That's 24.6 points behind Jack Morris.

What is wrong with folks?

[Guest Swan Swan H]

Edgy MD wrote: Current tallies have Curt Schilling --- doubly penalized for playing in a steroids era and for not being as good as at least one other known user --- at 38.1% of the vote. That's 24.6 points behind Jack Morris. What is wrong with folks?

Could it be they think he's an arrogant, unlikeable, self-promoting two-faced prick about whom virtually no ex-teammate has a good word to say, and who duped Rhode Island into funding his business to the tune of $75 million and cut and ran once things got tough? Someone who they might like to see answering questions about why he didn't get in? Just a guess.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Sean Casey's reportedly a hell of a guy. Why isn't HE in the Hall yet?