I wrote previously about the executives elected to the Hall of Fame, and Bud Selig in particular. Now the vote on actual players is in. There is much less to complain about.
In: Pudge Rodriguez, Jeff Bagwell, and Tim Raines.
Out: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, as well as a bunch of other guys for various reasons.
You can see the entire vote results here. If you want to complain about Bonds and Clemens, go ahead. I’ll go take a nap. I don’t mean this as commentary on the validity of the complaint, but rather on the chance of there being anything I haven’t seen approximately three gazillion times already.
As for the guys who got in, I am not surprised that Rodriguez got in, but I am a bit surprised it happened his first time on that turnip cart. I don’t know if I should be surprised. I don’t pay close enough attention to have an informed sense of this. But I had the impression that there was a strong prejudice among some HoF voters against elected on the first ballot anyone other than the second coming of Babe Ruth. This was Bagwell’s seventh year of eligibility. His getting in around this point seems about what I would expect.
Tim Raines is the most interesting case of the three. This was his final year of eligibility. This might have garnered him some votes. But his case also highlights disagreement between the sabermetrics crowd and the traditional stats crowds. His traditional stats show him as merely very good: not a shoe-in. His advanced stats (same link) rate him higher. The Hall of Fame voters tend not to be at the cutting edge. Perhaps this vote indicates a shift.
The other notable item is that, starting next year, the individual ballots will be made public. Right now, individual voters may disclose their ballots, but there is no requirement for this. This ties into the Bonds/Clemens question, since the secret ballots seem to be disproportionately against them. So perhaps they will get in after all, and I can catch up on my intense nap schedule.
I’m looking forward to Jeter getting 100% because the writers are afraid of being lynched by a mob of angry Yankee fans, and those same writers insisting this proves he was the bestest player ever.
Congrats to the honorees. All of whom deserved it. I’m not sure who is up next year but those remaining on the ballot are denied shoe-ins (Clemens and Bonds) and guys in a murky middle (Schilling, Mussina, couple others) and no-chancers. Sad a couple other murky middlers fell off so quickly, specifically Lofton and Edmonds.
I think Tim Raines suffered because he was the second-best player of all time with his particular, unusual, underappreciated skill-set, and a rough contemporary of the best of all time of that type, Rickey Henderson.