Harris: A course correction for Cooperstown
From SABR member Brad Harris at The Hardball Times on December 14, 2015:
If you’re unfamiliar with the many very good reasons for reforming the electoral process of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, then I urge you to pick up a copy of Bill James’ The Politics of Glory, the gold standard on the subject. Even so, you may take interest in some of the proposals that follow.
Summarizing the need for reform can be best put thusly: The current process does a poor job electing any but the highest tier of candidates because it does not have a system designed to sort the wheat from the chaff. This inefficiency historically has created a massively large gray area between the worst inductees in the Hall of Fame and the (superior) top candidates who remain on the outside. This inconsistency is further exploited by the boom-bust cycle of inductions created by institutional rule changes and an electorate unschooled in the traditional levels of excellence honored by their predecessors.
The first step in any reform should be to lay out what the objectives of said reform are.
Read the full article here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/a-course-correction-for-cooperstown/
Originally published: December 16, 2015. Last Updated: December 16, 2015.