Hall of Fame

Ken Griffey Jr. was elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, receiving 99.32% of the vote. He becomes the 51^st player elected in their first year. His percentage of votes is the highest all-time. Mike Piazza was also elected in his fourth year on the ballot. 

With three players (Maddux, Glavine, Thomas) elected in 2014 and four players (Johnson, Martinez, Smoltz, and Biggio) elected in 2015, this now makes a total of nine players elected in a three-year span. This is only the third time that has happened in history, following 1954-56 and 1936-38.

This year’s Hall of Fame ballot has 32 players total, including 15 newcomers, for voters to consider. Last year’s elections saw four worthy candidates elected—Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Craig Biggio—and only one new-comer—Ken Griffey Jr.—is likely to get elected this year. This election is thus a crucial one for down-ballot players, especially given the reduction in the number of years a player can remain on the ballot from 15 to 10 made in 2015.

Randy Johnson (97.3%), Pedro Martinez (91.1%), John Smoltz (82.9%), and Craig Biggio (82.7%) were all elected to the Hall of Fame today. Mike Piazza came up just a bit short with 69.9%.

This is the first time four players have been elected in one year since 1955 (Dimaggio, Lyons, Vance, and Hartnett) and only the third time ever, following 1947 (Hubbell, Frisch, Cochrane, Grove) and the inaugural 1936 class (Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Mathewson, Johnson). Four were also elected in 1939, but Lou Gehrig was admitted on a special ballot, not the normal writer’s ballot.

This year’s Hall of Fame ballot is stacked with 34 players total, including 17 newcomers, for voters to consider. New rules, announced in July, reduced the number of years a player can remain on the ballot from 15 to 10, but failed to expand the maximum number of names a voter can list on their ballots from the current 10. Many voters will be faced with more than 10 worthy candidates. This is in part because a number of players with Hall of Fame numbers are linked to PEDs and are languishing in no man’s land, far away from election but with strong enough support to avoid falling below the 5% threshold and being removed from the ballot. Ballots were due by December 27, and the results will be announced on Tuesday (January 6). A player must appear on 75 percent of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballots to be inducted. The big question this year is whether or not the change from 15 to 10 years will cause voters to reconsider PED players and candidates nearing that 10-year mark more quickly, perhaps upping their totals. Therefore, there could be far more volatility in the vote totals this year than there typically is from year to year, making them difficult to predict. With that caveat, below are my brief thoughts on each player on the ballot and my prediction for the type of general support they are likely to receive.

Hall of Fame ballots were due by December 27, and the results will be announced on January 6. A player must appear on 75 percent of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballots to be inducted. I’ll have more commentary on the entire ballot soon, but in this post, I’ll more closely examine the case of one former Cub: Lee Smith.

...lunkhead to ruin it for everybody.

The BBWAA released the Hall of Fame ballot today and I count 6 players that you can reasonably associate with the Cubs: Rafael Palmeiro, Jacque Jones, Sammy Sosa, Lee Smith, Moises Alou and Greg Maddux. Of course, all but Sammy and maybe Lee Smith are more closesly associated with other organziations.

"Small Hall" ballot: Barry Larkin, Rock Raines

"There Are Worse Players in" Ballot: Barry Larkin, Rock Raines, Alan Trammell, Lee Smith, Larry Walker, Fred McGriff, Edgar Martinez.

"Let the Roiders In" Ballot: add Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire, Jeff Bagwell, Juan Gonzalez, subtract Edgar Martinez.

I'm a bit buzzed writing this, so I'm sure I'm missing some names. I've flipped a bit on Martinez, Walker and McGriff from past years.

Have at it...

The Hall of Fame made the right move, albeit the unpopular one, by announcing that Andre Dawson will be inducted as a Montreal Expo. Real Neal did the legwork for me using BP's WARP3 numbers:

Montreal: 43.7 Wins
Chicago: 18.1 Wins
Others: -2.2 Wins

Dawson may have been a more popular player in baseball thanks to his Cubs days, but he was clearly a better player as an Expo. Even if you divide his wins per season, it's 3.97 as an Expo and 3.01 as a Cub, so there's just no reasonable argument for Dawson as a Cub other than a popularity contest. Dawson did prefer the Cubs for what it's worth and says he may don a Cubs hat during his speech to acknowledge the Cubs fans.

One of the many criteria people use when voting for the Hall of Fame is the question of, "Was he one of the best players of his time?" or at least, "Was he one of the best players at his position at that time?"

So I was curious who we think may be the best in the game right now? Here's my top 10 list and then top 3 at each position. I purposefully did very little statiscal research on this one, just more of when I think of the best players, this is who I think of.