Jaffe: Projecting a five-year outlook on Hall of Fame voting
From SABR member Jay Jaffe at Sports Illustrated on January 25, 2017:
When the Hall of Fame election results were announced last Wednesday, nearly as much of the focus was on the players who didn’t get in as those who did. While Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Ivan Rodriguez will get their plaques in Cooperstown on July 30, the near-misses of Trevor Hoffman and Vladimir Guerrero, the sudden ascent of Edgar Martinez and the changing attitudes regarding Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens have many already looking ahead to the 2018 ballot and beyond.
For the fourth year in a row, I’ll peer into my crystal ball to see what the next five years of balloting might hold. Admittedly, this is an exercise requiring some amount of imagination and speculation, though it is grounded in my research into the candidates and the history and mechanics of the voting. Underlying it is my own spreadsheet simulation, in which I’ve apportioned similar shares of the vote across the top candidates from year to year while expecting candidates to follow certain trajectories, some of them rather well-worn by similar candidates.
Read the full article here: http://www.si.com/mlb/2017/01/25/jaws-hall-fame-five-year-outlook-bonds-clemens
Originally published: January 25, 2017. Last Updated: January 25, 2017.