Is this Piazza's year?

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: I mean, in the first year of voting, Babe Ruth received votes on but 95.1% of the ballots, so it's not as if things are necessarily and definitively deteriorating.

It's that they were iffy to begin with and that the 'integrity' of journalism maybe isn't what it was purported to be. The digital age is exposing a lot of assumptions like that to be mostly BS.

I don't think the system is broken so much as could be so so much better. the simple part is to change to a yes/no system of voting, but also to cull the voting class to people actually covering baseball. Writers no longer far and above the most likely people to have seen and covered all the players either, but the ones that don't actually cover baseball anymore, even if they covered all the of the players on the ballot, are too far removed to need a vote.


Yes, we got 4 players worth celebrating. For the most part the system elects HoFers and that's what it's intended to do, but.. their is something valuable about honoring the guys on time. It's a game, and a museum, and entertainment. While it's not going to be lesser to celebrate Piazza as a Hall of Famer next year, that's three years we haven't really had that opportunity. I'm sure it's part of the reason the Mets are waiting to retire his number. It's obviously going to happen, and while it wouldn't be bad to do it separate from celebrating his entry into the Hall, it's a nice tie-in to the overall game of baseball and what not. It's a game and fun, but think about how much fun it would've been doing the ASG if we got to hold up Piazza as a HoFer as well?

[Gwreck]

Quick fix:

1. No more anonymous ballots. You want to vote for Darin Erstad, you have to do it publicly. There will still be people who do that but it'll be reduced if they have to own up to it.

2. No more 10-player limit. You have to vote "yes" or "no" to each player on the ballot.

[Edgy MD]

I'm not really sure what that fixes. Or if there is consensus on what's broken.

I mean, the people on social media I've read tend to be furious, but all furious about different things. One guy was in a pique because Eddie Guardado got ignored.

[nymr83]

I agree the ballot shouldn't be anonymous - we aren't voting for president here. if you arent willing to publish and defend your vote then you shouldn't have one.

They need to change the structure of who votes as well:
-I'd limit the writers to those whose full time job is covering baseball in some capacity, with a rule that you lose the ballot 5 years after that is no longer your job. They've already shortened the time on the ballot to ten years for players so i dont see an issue with the older players getting shafted by this rule, and there is always the veterans committee.

-they need more voters than just writers, but i'm not sure who this should be

[Ceetar]

Nymr83 wrote: -they need more voters than just writers, but i'm not sure who this should be

Jesse Spector suggested fan vote (since, you know, we're the ones that are supposed to be wanting to celebrate these guys?) via paper ballots when you go there or by request. Then that fan vote counts for 1 total vote. minor impact but meaningful imo.

[Frayed Knot]

Nymr83 wrote: -they need more voters than just writers, but i'm not sure who this should be

That's the tough part.

That there are writers who barely cover baseball anymore who do vote while others who know as much baseball as anyone -- like Gary Cohen and Bob Costas just to pick two -- can't is a problem.
But at least by designating the BBWAA as the sole arbiter, and by them requiring a minimum of ten years in it, you at least establish a set of criteria that needs to be earned before a ballot is granted. By expanding it to, say, electronic media you start to run into the question not only of who gets a ballot but of who decides who gets a ballot. Being inclusive all sounds good until every geek at ESPN, who thinks they know the sport (whenever they're not mocking it that is) because they once played Fantasy and because they make wisecracks over highlights a couple days a week, is suddenly demanding a right to vote for the HoF.

[Ceetar]

well, they've already expanded it to electronic media.

When these guys get a vote (oh, and most of them don't get a vote until AFTER Bonds and Clemens fall off the ballot due to the time on the ballot rule change, isn't that awfully convenient?) it's already gonna start to swing things a bit.

But I'd have to think it should be limited to guys that focus on baseball, and on the games themselves not just 'Sportscenter' type coverage. So like the guys that do the MLB Live Look Ins every night type thing.

[Edgy MD]

It's just that MLBAA is a body that controls for it's membership. And as a professional organization, you don't join just to get a vote. So who is and isn't in the electorate is clear. Nobody can get a vote just because he or she thinks he or she has a valid opinion.

I'm just not clear at how this election diminishes the Hall.

[Frayed Knot]

Ceetar wrote: well, they've already expanded it to electronic media.

Writers via electronic media, yes, but not yet anyone outside the writing community which eliminates the informed Costas, Olbemann, BB2N types. Hell, it eliminates Vin Scully.
But, again, the problem comes with once you step over that line to non-writers how do you keep it from the half-wits?

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Frayed Knot wrote: Ceetar wrote: well, they've already expanded it to electronic media. Writers via electronic media, yes, but not yet anyone outside the writing community which eliminates the informed Costas, Olbemann, BB2N types. Hell, it eliminates Vin Scully. But, again, the problem comes with once you step over that line to non-writers how do you keep it from the half-wits?

Unfortunately, being a member of the BBWAA does not prevent one from being a half-wit. As you point out, there are many people who cannot vote, that are more knowledgeable about the game�s history and a player's place in that history, than many of the writers actually casting ballots.

[nymr83]

I would add broadcasters for sure, make the rule "10 years as a broadcaster whose primary job is to cover baseball (not sports in general)" or something like that. i'd also want to include living hall of famers to get that side of it in there.

[Edgy MD]

It may seem more fair from the broadcasters' point of view, but I don't see how that's going to mean less knuckleheadedness or produce outcomes that are met with more universal acclaim.

I don't even think there is a broadcasters' association.

[Benjamin Grimm]

And for every Gary Cohen or Bob Costas or Vin Scully out there, there are at least eight or ten idiots who happen to have a job sitting behind a microphone.

[Ceetar]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: And for every Gary Cohen or Bob Costas or Vin Scully out there, there are at least eight or ten idiots who happen to have a job sitting behind a microphone.

[nymr83]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: And for every Gary Cohen or Bob Costas or Vin Scully out there, there are at least eight or ten idiots who happen to have a job sitting behind a microphone.

there are blockheads everywhere, but i think it wouldbe better to expand the types of voters and to cut out the guys who either 1) have not covered baseball in years or 2) wont publicize their ballot

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: I'm just not clear at how this election diminishes the Hall.

It doesn't -- in fact it seems to do the opposite IMO -- except for those who think that anyone who doesn't vote for their choices are idiots - and there seems to be a lot of that right now.

This anger has been building up for a couple of years now and it seems to be due to several factors.

- obviously the steroid era has thrown a wrench into the works. the backlog now contains a half-dozen or more guys who aren't being cleared in either direction; they're not getting voted in but are still getting enough votes to not get dropped.

- I think we're at a conjunction where old-timey writers are butting heads with younger analytic-types with neither camp holding a majority and both camps being very pro some guys and anti others (call them the JackMorrites vs the Tim Rainesians). Again this contributes to a backlog as the faves of each group are getting neither enough support to go over the top nor fall off the back.

- There's been five 1st-ballot electees in the past two classes. I haven't researched that but I'll bet that's unusual at best and maybe a first overall. Those votes both take away from the borderline guys like Piazza or Raines and, when combined with the backlog, create situations where writers are opting not to vote for the no-brainers in order to give their votes to the ones whom they think need the support. So it's not like 9% of the voters truly thought that Pedro didn't deserve election (and therefore deserve a flogging and/or their voting privileges revoked) it's that they chose to cast those votes elsewhere. One partial solution I heard to this (oddly, perhaps, from Curt Schilling) is that any 1st ballot votes should not count against the ten. It might be a compromise between those favoring unlimited voting (which could cheapen each individual vote) and at the same time relieve temporarily crowded ballots due to the size or strength of that year's incoming class.



All that said, I've heard enough sober commentary from inside the BBWAA (reasonable guys like Richard Justice, Tim Kurkjian, Buster Olney) that contends that the system needs some degree of reform with their main complaint seeming to be the lifetime privileges still retained by those who no longer follow the sport professionally and maybe not at all. Justice in particular suggested that the process would be better if the voting body were reduced by maybe 1/3

[Edgy MD]

My only problem is that, if the result turned out more or less fine but the fan base is miserable and bitter and speaking with exclamation points, it only gives the damned-no-matter-what-they-do writers less motivation to bring gravity to their vote, and instead turn into intractable old stinkers like Murray Chass.

On another note, with five starting pitchers elected in two years, it could be another five or more until another one gets the call, unless the electorate comes around on Mussina, Schilling, or Clemens.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The most recent Galling Thing I Learned About The Voting Process © is that ten years of membership is what's required... NOT actual, up-close baseball coverage. Theoretically, you could have a guy who worked the Reds beat for a year 30 years ago, was admitted to the BBWAA, and continued to pay dues for a decade (after getting moved to, say, horse racing, or the Lifestyle session)... and casts a vote for Lee Smith, Erstad, and a write-in for Jack Morris.

[Gwreck]

Frayed Knot wrote: - There's been five 1st-ballot electees in the past two classes. I haven't researched that but I'll bet that's unusual at best and maybe a first overall.

It is the first time there has been 5 in two years combined. But having a large number of worthy candidates becoming eligible in a short period of time is not unusual:

1989 ballot debuts: Bench and Yastrzemski (both elected) plus Jenkins and Perry
1990 ballot debuts: Palmer and Morgan (both elected)
1991 ballot debuts: Carew (elected) and Fingers; Jenkins and Perry both get in this year
1992 ballot debuts: Seaver (elected), plus Fingers gets in

[Edgy MD]

But I think that's the point. The electorate was less restrained this time, not more.