HOF voting

Was watching one of the MLB network shows yesterday and they reported this site for viewing the publicly released ballots up to this point. Personally I think all ballots should remain secret until all ballots are received to prevent early returns from influencing later ballots. But since it is public anyway here it is.

[url]bbhoftracker.com[/url]

Within that site there is a link to this page which lists the actual votes. You can see percentages of guys right now along with the names of the voters and who each person put on their ballot. Some things I found interesting.....

You can see which players a person voted for whom they did
For example David Ammenheuser only had 4 players on his ballot but this year added Bagwell, Bonds, Clemens, Martinez, Mussina, and Piazza.

You can see which players were not on a person's ballot this year who were last year.
For example Chris Assenheimer only voted for 3 this year. He removed from his ballot Nomar, Lee Smith, and Alan Trammel.

All returning nominees gained votes except for Nomar who lost one vote. The biggest gainer so far is Mussina having 39 additional voters toss his name on their ballots.

Interesting. Could this be the year that Tim Raines finally makes the cut?

Baseball writers should not have a vote.

If Trammell played for the Yankees his entire career he would be in right now. Would Dawson and Carter be in if they were stuck in Montreal their entire career? doubt it.

Retired players with a certain amount of playing time should be the voters. They know the game far more than some of the idiots that claim to be sports writers.

I agree djp.

Tim Raines should get in, but I don't think he will. His prime years were not only played in the wrong city, but the wrong country for voters.

I've always felt sportswriters award bonus points in their estimation of players if they've been loyal to one team their entire careers like Ripken and Gwynn were. That certainly helped Smoltz and Biggio, but so far it hasn't made much of a difference for Bagwell. Raines bounced around with a lot of teams after he left the Expos, and I think that's hurt his candidacy as one of the all-time greats in the eyes of the BBWAA voters.

djp:

Baseball writers should not have a vote.

If Trammell played for the Yankees his entire career he would be in right now. Would Dawson and Carter be in if they were stuck in Montreal their entire career? doubt it.

Retired players with a certain amount of playing time should be the voters. They know the game far more than some of the idiots that claim to be sports writers.

I agree with all of that, especially with Trammell, and Tim Raines .

Unfortunately, if baseball writers did not have a vote, there would be no HOF since they were the ones who started it.

rburgh has a point. And maybe a good point about players playing their entire career in one place. That raises a question. Who is the best player to spend their entire career in Montreal?

rburgh has a point. And maybe a good point about players playing their entire career in one place. That raises a question. Who is the best player to spend their entire career in Montreal?

Steve Rogers.

Watching MLB network and they just said prior to 1950 players were 4 times more likely to make the HOF than players after that time. That would imply to me that we have become too restrictive about who deserves to get in.

I suppose part of that could reflect the refusal to vote in steroid users but with 1950 being the cutoff line I think there is more to it than that.