What a farce. What possible justification would a voter have for not choosing Piazza, for one?
The problem with what the voters are doing, really, is that if they keep it up in a few years the Hall of Fame will be meaningless. A Hall that excludes some of the best players of all time will, ultimately, become a historical artifact, irrelevant to current fans. It’s stupid and it irritates me. Mike Piazza belongs in the Hall of Fame. Dammit, so does Barry Bonds.
What a colossal joke. Seriously.
Piazza and Biggio. Someone make a case against them that isn’t stupid, please.
Yup, Biggio came the closest at about 68%. 13 players got more than 20% of the vote, one more than the SDMB vote. I’d like to compare some of the other results here. For those in a hurry: Biggio, Morris, Bagwell, Piazza and Raines all surpassed 50%. Lower down: Clemens (37.6%), Bonds (36.2%), McGwire (16.9%), and Sosa (12.5%- WOW).
I don’t see why that’s not a fair standard.
[I also don’t see why you spent most of your post disputing the position of that guy. I’m not defending that guy. I’m just saying that guy being wrong doesn’t mean that no standard at all can be drawn and you need to let in even known users.]
Hopefully the writers signed their own death warrant this year. The pessimist in me thinks otherwise, however.
Ok, here are the current SDMB poll results for the candidates who got into the double digits or close:
And here’s the BBWAA:
That’s the last year for Murphy. Morris has one more year.
Lee Smith gets 47%, Alan Trammell gets 33%. It would be funny if it wasn’t so damn pathetic.
The thing with Sosa is that there is a very strong argument that he really isn’t a Hall of Famer even if you discount PEDs. I know that seems wacky, but he’s an extreme example of a player whose primary qualification was significantly jacked up by context. In a strong class, you can quite reasonably argue he was not one of the ten best players on the ballot.
I agree entirely about Sosa, but I didn’t think he’d get only 12.5% of the vote.
He would have been a shoo in had he picked up that splintered bat and sent it back at Clemens, just twice as hard and more accurately.
Aaron Sele got a vote…Aaron Sele.
Jeff Kent will be on the ballot next year. I’m certain that would annoy (anger?) Bonds if Kent got into the Hall before he did. That’s looking likely.
Because, in general, I don’t like standards that rely on hunches or what somebody looked liked, especially when we have evidence that contradicts the notion that PED users are more likely to be big bulky HR hitters.
Jeff Bagwell has HOF stats. There is no evidence that Jeff Bagwell used PEDs other than hunches and body-type arguments. And yet plenty of voters didn’t vote for Jeff Bagwell, and the data we have indicates that they were folks that didn’t vote for Bonds (which I think is a good proxy for non-PED voters).
It’s not fair.
But anyway, even beyond the PED issue, the fact that Craig Biggio didn’t make it in is evidence that the process is fatally flawed, and that the voting roll needs a massive update.
Career WAR:
Edgar Martinez - 64.4
Craig Biggio - 62.1
Mark McGwire - 58.7
Mike Piazza - 56.1
Sammy Sosa - 54.8
Kenny Lofton - 64.9
Kenny only got 18 votes, and won’t be eligible to appear on the ballot anymore. The other guys I mentioned will remain eligible. Makes perfect sense.
Looks like you nailed that one, Rick. I’m a little surprised Biggio didn’t get in, but I shouldn’t be. The writers on the panel have all covered baseball for ten years or more, but some of them have done so only as a minor sideline. To folks who couldn’t tell you right off what OBP stands for, Biggio looks like a margiinal talent, as did Yogi Berra when he didn’t get in the first year he was eligible. Let’s face it: when the best catcher in the game up to that point can’t get in on the first ballot, neither can a guy like Biggio, whose skills on defense and in the less glamorous aspects of the offensive game don’t register with the game’s hangers-on. Hopefully, Biggio gets in next year with Maddux and Thomas. Who knows–Bagwell, Piazza, and Glavine might join them. We may well go from 0 to 6 in one year.
I wonder what would happen in a one-and-done method of voting. Personally, I’d be glad to see the end of this politicization and bullshit of first-ballot vs. non arguments. Put up or shut up. In or out. If you don’t know whether Mike Piazza belongs in the HoF now, you shouldn’t have a vote. If you want to “punish” someone, call them names or don’t send them a Christmas card.
My opinion of the baseball writers is… not good.
He’ll probably make it in next year.
There have been plenty of “shoo-ins” who didn’t make it on their first try but nobody cares much once they’re in.
As for Bonds, Clemens et al, some of that crowd will make it in eventually. Let 'em stew in their steroidal juices for awhile.
On the other hand, I’m not quite sure about Deacon White. Great mustache, though.
Yeah, that fair. It’s just more fun to be righteously indignant, I guess. 
I do think that the suggested change to the voting scheme I saw from Posnanski (although I think he got it from somewhere else) is a great idea. Three options instead of two: Yes, Not Now, and No. This lets all those “not on the first ballot” guys get their say without all the silliness of voting No on somebody that you actually think probably is an eventual Hall of Famer. And as long as Yes and Not Now is over some threshold you stay on the ballot.
I dunno, I think that it’s going to take some sort of veterans committee to get Bonds and Clemens in.
That. I’m surprised at the number of voters who are still up on their high horses about something they knew about all along, knew was prevalent, and even cheered for. By my age, I should know better than to be surprised about encountering massive hypocrisy, but there it is. And that alone is enough to discredit the entire body.
If we’re going to indignantly disqualify everyone who played in the Steroid Era just because we don’t know for sure if anyone was clean, why not the entire Amphetamines Era and the entire Nicotine and Alcohol Era too? Is *anyone *pure enough to satisfy some of these sanctimonious twits?