I find it interesting that Morris got a yes vote here, but no votes in the Hall of Merit election. That implies that this ballot was 'easier'.

But then Sammy Sosa only picked up 4 votes of 24 here, and he finished a strong 6th in the Hall of Merit election, and looks very likely to get inducted there by 2017 or so.

Those two statements don't really jive with each other . . .

Elect 8 is kind of crazy. Take those 8 off and I bet McGwire and Walker get elected too with Palmeiro and Sosa getting over 50%

Those two statements don't really jive with each other . . .

Pretty sure they might.

What they don't do is jibe with each other.

I find it interesting that Morris got a yes vote here, but no votes in the Hall of Merit election. That implies that this ballot was 'easier'.

Surely this conclusion can't be drawn based on how one of 88 people happens to vote.

Amazing (and totally appropriate) that the average ballot rounds up to 10 names. If the BBWAA did the same, I suspect that the results would be much more palatable, even though of course Morris would be one of the beneficiaries. Heck, it's quite possible that we deal with a historically strong ballot by electing eight, while they elect none...

[3] solid contribution.

Looking at the full list of candidates, I'm surprised to realize I'd feel comfortable with 17 of them being in the Hall of Fame. I'd probably vote for fifteen of them if I could.

The average voter had 9.71 players per ballot.

Good job Primates!

Surely this conclusion can't be drawn based on how one of 88 people happens to vote.

No . . . it was based on how one of 24 who voted in both elections voted. Assuming the voters were consistent on both votes that is what is implied. Or inferred. Not sure which, it's late.

Isn't there a difference between voting for, at most, four and having rhe freedom to list ten?

Re Joe's comment: Actually, this ballot is both harder and easier.

It's harder because there are seven players on it that the HoM has already elected--Bagwell, Raines, Trammell, McGwire, Walker, Palmeiro, E. Martinez, plus four players we elected in their first year of eligibility this year: Ba. Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, and Biggio. Given that context, it's clear how Sosa could get pushed down, and he was pushed off a lot of ballots, including mine, if I recall correctly.

On the other hand, there are a hundred or so top players that the Hall of Fame no longer considers eligible that we do, which makes it a lot easier for Morris to slip onto the ballot of someone who tends to favor counting-stat pitcher candidates over peak candidates of any variety. Morris is not competing on this ballot with Grimes, John, and Willis, for example, so if a voter is prepared to rank pitchers like these ahead of a pitcher like Schilling or a player like Sosa, Morris is the best candidate of that type eligible, and so he sneaks onto the ballot.

One prominent and outspoken poster voted for Clemens but not Bonds due, essentially, to the different results at trial. From the results, one person voted Bonds but not Clemens. I wonder how a poster could have reached that determination.

One prominent and outspoken poster voted for Clemens but not Bonds due, essentially, to the different results at trial. From the results, one person voted Bonds but not Clemens. I wonder how a poster could have reached that determination.

In the BBWAA vote...Clemens has one more vote than Bonds.

One prominent and outspoken poster voted for Clemens but not Bonds due, essentially, to the different results at trial. From the results, one person voted Bonds but not Clemens. I wonder how a poster could have reached that determination.

Beats me, too. The Primate in question was JC (not to be confused with JC in DC) in post #80 of the balloting thread, and though another Primate hinted that JC may have left off Clemens by accident, he never got a response.

The HoM lack of love for Sammy Sosa was an ongoing thing in the discussion and ballot threads this year. And it surprised the hell out of me. I thought Sammy was such a no-brainer that I didn't really even work him up, except in comparison to Bobby (not Barry) Bonds. They came up about equal, although their values are distributed differently, but I had voted Bobby as my #2 last year, so that didn't tip me off that Sammy was not going to get "teh love." Back when I was doing player rankings for the BBBA, I thought very little of Sosa before he moved to the Cubs. In fact, when I wrote my comment on him that year, I called him "Sammy So-so." But then he got into Wrigley and started hitting homers in profusion. Since Wrigley favors homers, I knew there was a deduction due there, but I had no idea what a serious deduction the various systems would make, and perhaps no idea of how right I had been in my So-so evaluation of him before Wrigley. But, then, Sammy has about one fewer WAR than Bobby Bonds did, and I'm one of Bobby's biggest fans in the HoM, so the HoM probably sees that he's comparable to Bobby, but they don't think as much of Bobby as I do.

What I really don't understand is the lack of love for McGwire. I have him on the border between the Inner and Middle circles of the Hall. When I ask people about him in threads here, I get back complaints about a short career, which is true. But then, there are the peak and prime, and the fact that, for most of his career, he was playing in Oakland, which is a lousy homer park, and more than half his career is before 1994, so it wasn't Sillyball, either. I just don't get it, except for the people who use only WAR without realizing that WAR is a raw counting stat only and doesn't factor in peaks and primes. You can USE WAR to do work up peaks and primes, just as the New Historical Abstract uses Win Shares to fuel its system. But WAR, just added up over time, doesn't factor in peak and prime. That is, WAR is like Win Shares, but there is no equivalent to the New Historical system that I know of based on WAR. Perhaps that is starting to become a problem in analysis here, since it's so easy to go to BB-Ref and look up WAR. WAR, by itself, is not a fully robust system of evaluation for careers, although it is one for individual seasons. But, then, so is Linear Weights. Both need to be used as fuel for a more comprehensive system, as Bill does with the New Historical system. The only system I have heard of at all that uses WAR as fuel for something more comprehensive is JAWS, and that one seems a little rudimentary to me. It only takes career WAR and the strongest 7-year stretch, if I understand it right. That's not really robust enough for me. - Brock Hanke

I think the ballot crunch explains McGwire. 8 people were recommended for election. People had to pick who to select for their last two guys on the ballot. McGwire was recommended for election in last year's mock ballot.