Going forward, players will get 10, not 15, years. Players in their 11th year being grandfathered in. Blyleven the best inductee to go in after 10th ballot.
Wonder why they changed now; there haven’t been any ridiculous Veteran’s Committee inductions lately, and the writers’ refusal to induct anybody of the last generation even rumored to use steroids has hurt the Hall’s credibility much more than bad Veteran’s Committee inductions.
I’m not so sure there’s much, if any, “credibility” to the Hall of Fame at all. It’s a popularity contest amongst insecure good ol’ boys and, in reality, it’s just a museum looking to sell tickets and pull in tourists.
I don’t understand why they did this or what it’s supposed to accomplish.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with the changes, but there wasn’t any pressing need for them, and I can’t figure out why they made THESE specific changes right now.
The only “logic” I can see is… maybe they figure that, eventually, voters would get tired of policing steroid users, and decide to start voting in the users and suspected users who have stellar numbers. The hope may be that, if we shorten the window, McGwire and Bonds et al. will run out of eligibility before the tide turns.
I’m with the consensus here: I don’t object to this or see much need for it. I guess this could reduce the backlog of candidates a bit, but if they wanted to do that I think there were much better ways (hey guys, eliminate the 10-vote limit already). I’ve seen a few writers point out that this really screws Tim Raines, who was gradually building support but is unlikely to get to 75% in the next two years. Players who have already been on the ballot for 10 years were grandfathered in under the new rules, but Raines was not. So that kind of bites. I thought Joe Posnanski had some insightful comments about why this is happening:
I think it’s a great move. It’ll help prevent borderline but not HOF players like Blyleven from being elected in slow years. Raines: Very good player but not HOF level.
Man, if a guy who has the 11th Highest WAR for Pitchers and 5th most Strikeouts is a “borderline” player, the Hall of Fame must only have like 50 people in it, right?
I completely disagree on Raines.
Here’s Jay Jaffe and his JAWS rating for potential Hall of Fame inductees. Raines makes the cut in all three categories.
Raines was much more than just the 808 stolen bases, but it should be noted that of all those with 300+steals, Raines has the highest success rate at 85%..
And I screwed up the second link. It was meant to go to this ESPN article by Keith Law, making the Hall case for Tim Raines.
Now I see that’s not all I screwed up. Jesus. But does anyone really care?
Carlos Beltran has since surpassed 300 steals and thus has the best percentage, successful in 310 of 358 attempts. Remarkable.
Making it harder for the steroid era players to wait out the bad memories and slip in when no one still cares?
He pitched for 22 seasons. His 11th highest WAR is the result of pitching well for a long time, not for ever being the best pitcher in the league (his best Cy Young year, he finished 3rd in voting). He had one amazing year (1973), where he had a 9.9 WAR (good enough for 113th place in best season WAR’s amongst pitchers), but he never even came close to matching that again, with his second best season being 7.9, (good for 314th best season), and his third being 7.2 (454th).
Blyleven was a very good pitcher for a few years of his career, and maybe, just maybe if you squint and look upside down, the best pitcher for one year. But, to me, that’s not Hall of Fame worthy. Hall of Very Good for a bit, then Good Enough for A Long Time, maybe.
That Hall would be the size of the Smithsonian! We should also start a Hall of Guys Who Should be in the real Hall but Screwed The Pooch. Right now it would probably only have Shoeless Joe and Rose, but over the next few years, it could expand rapidly.
One point I hadn’t seen brought up.
I don’t think the shortening of eligbility will make MUCH difference. I think that, regardless of whether a player’s eligibility expires in 10 years or 15, voters respond to deadline pressure.
Yes, there are players who didn’t get elected until their 15th year of eligibility, but I don’t think Jim Rice or Andre Dawson really needed 15 years to get in. Rather, I think they’d have gained support WHENEVER their deadlines loomed. They had 15 years, so voters didn’t feel any real sense of urgency to get them elected until the last year or two. If the cutoff point had been ten years, I think voters would have started casting ballots for them around year 8, 9 or 10.
Either way, of course, I find the attitude silly. If you think a guy is deserving, vote him in right away. If he’s not, then don’t vote for him at all. Waiting and voting for somebody at the very end of his eligibility is stupid.
That’s a fair point.
I don’t think a lot of voters wait. After that first year, when some guys will vote against a player to make a nonsensical or mythological point, I think votes change because the voters change their minds or because they have space on their ballots.
SOMETIMES that’s true. I think the sabremetric case for Bert Blyleven made a huge difference. There were MANY writers who just didn’t thnk Blyleven was deserving, but who were eventually persuaded by the number crunchers.
But Jim Rice? Nah, the expanded numbers never really improved his case. I think he was always viewed as a borderline case, from year 1 through year 15.
It’s a given that someone who needs 10 to 15 years to get voted in is a borderline case. But I don’t think a lot of BBWAA members will vote against a player for 8 or 12 or 14 years when they ultimately want him to go in. I think their votes change because they’re persuaded to vote another way or because they find space on their ballots.
I agree guys going in in year 11-15 are marginal. Another reform I’d like to see: lift cap on # of guys you can vote for, or at least raise it to 12-15.
I think this is simply the Hall throwing a live grenade into the BWAA’s tent, which I wholeheartedly agree with. Time to get those fuckers off their asses. Enough of the blank ballots and “no unanimous votes” and “not a first year inductee.” I don’t give a crap if the player was once mean to you or struck out once in a key playoff game. Do your job.
I hate seeing writers ignore controversial players for years when they were getting 70% of the vote, only to start voting for them in year 10 when others have forgotten the player. A worthy player gets left out because of some random writer had a burr in his saddle.
Vote them in or not. Don’t dawdle for a decade deciding.
Right. I’ve been saying for a while they should just eliminate that limit. My hypothetical vote for Craig Biggio shouldn’t come at the expense of Alan Trammell.