Hardball Times and the Hall of Fame vote

From SABR member Dave Studeman at The Hardball Times on January 5, 2012, with quotes from SABR members Joe Dimino, Chris Jaffe and Brian Borawski:

It’s Hall of Fame time. Here at the Hardball Times, we like to think about the Hall and talk about it and write about it. Most of us aren’t as prolific as Chris Jaffe, but we have our opinions and, lucky you, we’ve decided to share them.

The BBWAA results are coming out next week, so we’re stealing the thunder by releasing our results today. Twenty-three THT writers voted for the players on this year’s ballot, resulting in four players passing the 75 percent mark.

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In our estimation, Barry Larkin, Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Alan Trammell should all be headed to the Hall next week; Mark McGwire just misses the cut.

Barry Larkin was a unanimous pick, Bagwell had just one “detractor” and Raines had two. When looking at the results, it’s clear that our writers didn’t disagree so much about specific players (though there are some mighty exceptions; see below), but that they differed in the number of players they voted for. Some of our writers voted for only three or four players; others voted for 10. The ones who voted for just three or four all chose the top three or four players overall.

So vote totals for players beyond the big four or five were a result of individual writers expanding their vote set (wow, that sounded like a math nerd talking, didn’t it?). In other words, the most important question of all is: are you a Big Hall guy or a Small Hall guy?

Read the full article here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/tht-writers-and-the-hall-of-fame



Originally published: January 5, 2012. Last Updated: January 5, 2012.