Darowski: 2015 Hall of Fame ballot was the strongest modern ballot
From SABR member Adam Darowski at Hall of Stats on January 12, 2015:
[This] year, in particular, I noticed an uptick of Hall of Fame voters—young and old, saber-focused and traditional—lamenting the ten-vote limit. There’s a reason for that. By Hall Rating, this year’s Hall of Fame ballot was the strongest modern ballot.
I’m defining a “modern ballot” as one that:
- is held annually (from 1957 to 1965, the BBWAA voted every other year)
- limits the number of votes to ten (previously, voters were required to vote for ten)
- removes players receiving less than 5% of the vote from the ballot (previously, they would hang on indefinitely—the 1958 ballot featured “about 400” names)
- does not require a runoff election if nobody reaches 75% (this happened in 1949, 1964, and 1967)
The first ballot to meet all these requirements came in 1968. That year, Joe Medwick was inducted in his ninth year on the ballot with 84.8% (and Roy Campanella came close on his fourth ballot, finishing with 72.4%).
This graph shows the total Hall Rating of all players on the ballot, from 1936 to 2015.
Read the full article here: http://www.hallofstats.com/articles/2015-ballot-strongest-modern-ballot
Originally published: January 13, 2015. Last Updated: January 13, 2015.