And it looks like either one of the voters or the person who complied the list of 101 ballots wrote Todd Walker when they meant Larry Walker.

No, they meant Chico Walker.

How many voters named 10 guys on their ballot? I don't think it is a large number. Many of us here on BTF would have had more than ten, but the only writer I remember saying he would was JoePoz. So upping the limit would likely have little effect.

I am pleasantly surprised that the HoF did not "cook" this election, which I strongly thought they might do.

I am still not convinced that had Biggio been close enough that the 5 blank ballots would have put him in, the books wouldn't have been cooked.

I think there was roughly a 9.6% chance of this happening.

How big of a final year bump did Rice get?

Four percentage points.

Or 20 votes. Morris needs to pick up more than 40.

One additional fact that I would like to know is what was the average number of candidates per ballot. I suspect it went up A LOT this year (even excluding the 5 blank ballots), but not enough.

You have to follow the data such as it is, but I mention this because I suspect that raising the number of candidates a voter can vote for (say, from 10 to 15 or 20), will not ALONE suffice to clear this logjam.

(raisiing the number of candidates PLUS not counting blank ballots MIGHT help a little, but not enough).

I would like to know (but I don't think this information is public), if Biggio or even maybe Bagwell could have gotten in this year if Morris was not on the ballot because he'd already been inducted (*). I tend to think that at least with Biggio, Morris kind of cokc blocked him.

There's no way of knowing for sure, but my suspicion is no. Bagwell had too much ground to make up, and Biggio's excellence seems to have flown a bit under the radar (much as it did throughout his career).

How many voters named 10 guys on their ballot? I don't think it is a large number. Many of us here on BTF would have had more than ten, but the only writer I remember saying he would was JoePoz. So upping the limit would likely have little effect.

Actually, quite a few used all 10 slots, far more than I've ever seen. And many of them indicated they had to leave off guys they otherwise would have voted for.

okay, so here is the (first?) prediciton for January 2014.

I figure some guys will vote for the PEDs-ers after giving them the no-first-ballot treatment. Biggio will have a hard time climbing, and Morris will regress as even the third-best new pitcher (Moose) makes Jack look unqualified.

name . predicted vote %
Greg Maddux 94
Tom Glavine 78
Craig Biggio 69
Jack Morris 63
Mike Piazza 57
Jeff Bagwell 56
Tim Raines 50
Lee Smith 46
Barry Bonds 45
Frank Thomas 44
Roger Clemens 44
Curt Schilling 35
Edgar Martinez 31
Alan Trammell 30
Jeff Kent 16
Sammy Sosa 15
Mark McGwire 15
Mike Mussina 15

That might have gotten Biggio and possibly one or two others over the threshold this year.

I don't see how. Thats ~40 people who picked ten people but not Biggio, and more for everyone else. I don't see how there are that many people who think eleven, or more, people are eligible but didn't grab Biggio.

"We remain pleased with their role in evaluating candidates based on the criteria we provide.”

This is meaningless. While Bud Selig made a career out of running down his own product, most CEOs are smart enough to say good things no matter how displeased they are. ("We remain pleased with sales of product ___," about five minutes before the product is pulled from the shelves.) Why would anyone expect him to say, "This sucks. These voters are idiots and we need to reform the process immediately because of how bad a job they did"? Nothing about the statement precludes wholesale changes in the process.

How many voters named 10 guys on their ballot? I don't think it is a large number. Many of us here on BTF would have had more than ten, but the only writer I remember saying he would was JoePoz. So upping the limit would likely have little effect.

And left Biggio off their ballot...an even smaller number.

"I'm not seeing any Jeff Kent love."

I'm wondering what his chances of dropping of the ballot are.

When one of the strongest ballots since the founding of the Hall produces no inductees, it's time for a rules change of some sort: probably the simplest is to just let voters list more than ten.

How many voters named 10 guys on their ballot? I don't think it is a large number. Many of us here on BTF would have had more than ten, but the only writer I remember saying he would was JoePoz. So upping the limit would likely have little effect.

Yeah. When one of the strongest ballots since the founding of the Hall produces an average of 6.6 names per voter, a limit of 10 names is not the problem.

Kurkjian said he would have 15 I believe.

I'm wondering what his chances of dropping of the ballot are?

I'd say they're excellent.

Bagwell has the 400 homers and 1,500 runs scored and RBI in a relatively short career. Less than thirty guys have done that. It's easy to explain to the low information voters if they are listening.

I'm not going to say that allowing more than 10 votes would have zero effect, but I sure don't think it'd be much of an effect. The reason I say that is because we know that a lot of voters believe that the HOF standard is much higher than it in fact historically is. cf. Poz:

I was on a panel discussion on the MLB Network (it airs on Tuesday night, 9 p.m. ET, if you're interested) and I don't believe I had a Barack-Obama-in-his-first-debate kind of performance -- but good guys like Bob Costas and Tom Verducci and Harold Reynolds and Mad Dog Russo and Harold Reynolds [sic] have much more stringent standards for the Hall of Fame than I do. They believe in a Hall of Fame that should only have Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Lou Gehrig, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle -- you know, players about whom there are "no arguments."

So Poz was on a panel with four other highly visible analysts (I'm assuming Reynolds in fact cannot bilocate), and he was the only one there who understood the most basic thing about the history of HOF voting.

If you think the HOF should be restricted to the Ruth/Mays class, it is going to seem inherently impossible that there could be anything close to 10 legitimate candidates on the same ballot, much less more than 10.

I'm shocked the voters almost averaged seven per ballot, honestly.

OTOH it's also true that while Bonds and Clemens are starting very low, this is also, as is being pointed out, a gradual process that still has 14 more years before anything's "final". But Costas also made the point that if Bonds and Clemens don't rise significantly next year, it may be that they're never going to get in. I think he's right about that, but it also depends on what he means by "significantly". I think if they jump up to 55% or so next year, that'll be enough to give them momentum and a bit of the bandwagoning effect, but if they're still below 45%, then I can't see anything other than a mass poisoning of the BBWAA annual dinner will ever do them much good.

I suspect that Bonds and Clemens are going to lose ground next year, but there is plenty of time (as Harvey noted) for them to make it in through the front door. Consider these examples, even though the "causes" behind the voting pattern are clearly different: Bob Lemon languished below 30% for seven years, then moved up and was elected in year 12. Blyleven took a couple years longer, but he also languished for seven years. Duke Snider stalled out for 4-5 years before picking up. What's clear is that some folks will probably drop Bonds and Clemens off the ballot for 1-2-3 years to work through the ballot glut; by 2017 or 2018, the steroid issue will have receded enough to push them back up.

Can anyone use the Gizmo results of the last two years to "triangulate" any voting trends? I know it's not really enough years, but I don't think Repoz had enough ballots prior to 2012 (maybe 2011) for such a process to be viable.

Mike, out of curiosity--just when are you thinking that the "steroid era" began? It seems as though a segment of the writers have pushed that back in time to cover Canseco's claims, so that anyone from 1988 on has to contend with that characterization.

I guess next year, my hypothetical ballot would go something like this:

1. Maddux
2. Bonds
3. Clemens
4. Bagwell
5. Glavine
6. Piazza
7. Thomas
8. Schilling
9. Mussina
10. Biggio
11. Raines
12. Martinez
13. Trammell
14. Walker
15. Palmeiro
16. McGwire

If they remove the 10-player limit, which I'd guess there's a fair chance they'll do, there should be quite a few stathead types voting for more than ten players. I'd definitely vote for the first twelve and am undecided on 13-16. I wouldn't consider voting for any of the other players.

If the limit stays in place, some very deserving players are going to get completely lost in the shuffle. Martinez, Trammell, and Schilling might not get even 25% of the vote, and Mussina will probably get terribly overlooked (maybe he'll get 15% or something). Heck, the same thing may happen even if the limit is dispensed with.

an average of 6.6 names per voter, a limit of 10 names is not the problem

All right, fair enough. But it's still a reasonable and simple reform. If I had a vote, next year I'd be leaving off 5-7 guys I thought were HOFers.

That might have gotten Biggio and possibly one or two others over the threshold this year.

Looking at that list of 101, I counted 19 full ballots and only 1 did not list Biggio. It's unlikely an expansion to more than 10 names would have helped him enough.

I don't know what percentage of the gizmo voters had full ballots but my impression was that it wasn't very high.

On Harvey's claim about turning the corner:

I'd like to think so. I get your point and it's correct. And it would further make sense that the entry of B/C would provide a burst of reinvigoration to the blackballing movement only to fade. But we really so no evidence of it fading among the voters between Mac's entry and now -- Mac never made any progress, Palmeiro was DOA. I'm more optimistic that we will see the rumored roiders continue to make progress but I suspect that B/C/M/P/S (and later Manny) are just screwed -- the blackballers are zealots and there seem to be a lot of them.

Of course you're right about the ignorance of the public in general ... but then probably 70% of them don't know who Bonds is and probably 20% of those who do think he was convicted for dealing steroids.

If you had the public vote I think it's even money Clemens and Bonds get a lower percentage of the vote.

Not mutually exclusive to HW's points actually. What he said is the public doesn't care and they don't. Sure, put the question in front of them and a lot of them will say no. But the public (in general) aren't going to be upset if they're put in the HoF (nor if they aren't). It's not an important or relevant issue to much of anybody.

To the extent that matters, it matters in whether the blackballing voters will continue to find an audience for their screeds and, if the issue has no relevance, will their zeal hold. Being a street corner preacher is hard work!

If they remove the 10 player limit what jackass do you think will vote for everyone on the ballot as a protest? I'd bet someone does it. "how can there possibly be more than 10 worthy players on a ballot, ridiculous."

166 - I watched that roundtable, and disagree with Poz's interpretation of the rest of the table. He's being too nice about them. Reynolds wanted Morris, Russo wanted Schilling. The table didn't want a very small Hall. They just wanted to get angry about steroids.

Upping the limit to 15 sends a message to the voters that the HOF thinks there are more than ten worthy candidates. As now, a lot of people will not be filling their ballot. But it prods everyone to list another name or two.

A 15-vote limit ups the average per ballot up by one or two. This year that would have elected Biggio and may have saved Lofton or Bernie from extinction.

I'd absolutely support Jeff Kent for the Hall of Fame. He'd be somewhere in the 15-20 range among eligibles.

Yeah. When one of the strongest ballots since the founding of the Hall produces an average of 6.6 names per voter, a limit of 10 names is not the problem.

It takes 10 ballots with all ten names filled in to get the vote total with 5 blank ballots to average out at 6.6 names per. There were a lot of ballots that were maxed out. We know that several people had 2, 3, or 4 names on a ballot, it took a lot of 10 and 9 name ballots to get that percentage up to even 6.6. More room on the ballot and it obviously goes up higher for a few dozen ballots.

At the least, it couldn't hurt the process.

162, 166, I think that the 6.6 average would probably be significantly higher (probably up to the 8/9 range), if voters could vote for more than 10 candidates, and ESPECIALLY if blank ballots are not counted (thus dragging down averages).

so that anyone from 1988 on has to contend with that characterization.

I assume, then, that steroids have kept Morris out of the Hall?

Upping the limit may be the difference that allows aJeff Kent type to stay on the ballot rather than have a worthy case for onside ration lost in the crush of the next five years. It's worth doing for that reason, even if it doesn't help get anyone elected.

Biggio's excellence seems to have flown a bit under the radar (much as it did throughout his career).

Do 3,000 hits fly under the radar? How many other 3,000-hits candidates failed to be elected on their first ballot? (I'm asking seriously as I don't know.) I'll spot you the Evil Palmeiro, and Rose of course never made the ballot.

Mike, out of curiosity--just when are you thinking that the "steroid era" began?

I think the voters (who are all that matter) are targeting the 90s forward (the Anabolic Steroid Control Act was passed in 1990). I have no doubt it started before that, though, especially given the history of other sports in the 70s and 80s.

-- MWE

Reynolds wanted Morris

Oh, I bet there is in fact a positive correlation between talking about how Willie Mays is the HOF standard and voting for Jack Morris. Which is a mind-bending contradiction. (But they both ultimately stem from the same place, i.e. not understanding stuff.)

Still, I think the basic modus operandi of this type of voter is to vote for everyone with 300 non-steroid wins/3,000 non-steroid hits/500 non-steroid homers, then one or two personal favorites, then give up on everyone else because hey, I would have to think about them, so clearly they weren't Willie Mays.

To be sure, there are some voters who want to vote for more than 10... but I think it's a much smaller fraction. I think a large portion of the membership believes themselves to be applying the Ruth/Mays standard. (Even though, again, they are surely not. But when they don't come close to filling out the ballot, they at least feel like they are.)

Pretty obvious that approximately 16 people confused Sandy Alomar Jr. with Roberto Alomar. Seriously. I'm quite sure that's the explanation.

Precisely... and at least that would be a good excuse (relatively speaking... I mean - I'll allow some credit for guys who can at least remember that Roberto was a HoF level candidate).

Calls to mind Bill James' line about Lloyd Waner's election: he'd assume it was because of voters getting confused and accidentally looking at his brother Paul's stats instead... except that this would be the first evidence that writers actually looked at stats before voting.

This is meaningless. While Bud Selig made a career out of running down his own product, most CEOs are smart enough to say good things no matter how displeased they are. ("We remain pleased with sales of product ___," about five minutes before the product is pulled from the shelves.)

I think last year the Jets' GM gave the OC (Schottenheimer) a vote of confidence just a day or so before he was fired.

What about this little known fact? Babe Ruth injected extract from sheep's gonads. It made extremely sick, and he didn't do it again, but given the fact he was willing to go and do that, does any really think that if steroids were available during Ruth's era that he would have abstained from them?


http://www.baltimoreorless.com/2011/01/babe-ruth-injected-sheeps-testicles/

I'm still hoping that when Clemens and Bonds are elected, one or both says, thanks but no thanks. That would just be epic.

OTOH it's also true that while Bonds and Clemens are starting very low, this is also, as is being pointed out, a gradual process that still has 14 more years before anything's "final". But Costas also made the point that if Bonds and Clemens don't rise significantly next year, it may be that they're never going to get in. I think he's right about that, but it also depends on what he means by "significantly". I think if they jump up to 55% or so next year, that'll be enough to give them momentum and a bit of the bandwagoning effect, but if they're still below 45%, then I can't see anything other than a mass poisoning of the BBWAA annual dinner will ever do them much good.

I suspect that Bonds and Clemens are going to lose ground next year,

I can only see that if some of the writers who voted for them this year had them at the "bottom" of their ballots, and will bump them off when Maddux, Thomas and Glavine show up next year. Otherwise why would they change their minds?

OTOH I can see the possibility that they won't go up all that much, since presumably they already have the votes of the "steroid discounters" in their corner, a bloc that's about 20% bigger than McGwire's. The only remaining bloc where they might gain (and maybe gain a lot----that's what we don't know) is the one that wants to make them "suffer" for a year before finally voting for them. The "one year penalty" sub-bloc of that is where you might see the gains in 2014.

but there is plenty of time (as Harvey noted) for them to make it in through the front door. Consider these examples, even though the "causes" behind the voting pattern are clearly different: Bob Lemon languished below 30% for seven years, then moved up and was elected in year 12. Blyleven took a couple years longer, but he also languished for seven years. Duke Snider stalled out for 4-5 years before picking up. What's clear is that some folks will probably drop Bonds and Clemens off the ballot for 1-2-3 years to work through the ballot glut; by 2017 or 2018, the steroid issue will have receded enough to push them back up.

I'm not sure how Bonds and Clemens** can realistically be compared to these much more "normal" players, given the reason for their exclusion. IMO the most certain event that would propel them over 75% would be if some current inductee either confessed or got outed as a steroid user, an event that about 90% of the BTF crowd seems to be openly rooting for as a means to an end that otherwise may be out of reach and maybe even unattainable. Barring that, I can't see any wholesale shift in the overall attitudes on steroids happening for quite a while, based on the stagnation (and actual decline) in McGwire's percentage since the first time he appeared on the ballot.

**I'm lumping their names together in deference to today's vote, not because I equate them WRT the level of the evidence against them. I'm with that 1.2% who voted for Clemens but not Bonds.

If they remove the 10 player limit what jackass do you think will vote for everyone on the ballot as a protest? I'd bet someone does it. "how can there possibly be more than 10 worthy players on a ballot, ridiculous."

I would support that guy in a heartbeat. It would be an awesome ballot.

Instead of doing a HOF ballot, here's Doc C.'s ballot of major candidates likely to fall off next year in order from most to least likely:

Palmeiro
Kent
Sosa
McGwire
Mattingly
Walker
McGriff

And here's my list of guys who will lose the most support next year:
Sosa
Mattingly
McGwire
Palmeiro
Walker
Edgar
Smith
McGriff
Trammell
Raines
Morris

What about this little known fact? Babe Ruth injected extract from sheep's gonads.

You must be new around here, since the over/under on the number of times that "little known fact" has been ejaculated into these steroids threads is now approximately 873.

Why even have a limit? Why can't you just vote for as many players you think are Hall worthy as you want?

Do 3,000 hits fly under the radar? How many other 3,000-hits candidates failed to be elected on their first ballot? (I'm asking seriously as I don't know.) I'll spot you the Evil Palmeiro, and Rose of course never made the ballot.

The two you mentioned and Paul Waner.

Year-by-year top 8 votegetters and avg # of votes per ballot.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hall-of-fame-ballot-history.shtml

We saw protest votes.

Who other than Chass?

We saw blank ballots.

Five. I suspect that's pretty typical actually.

We saw Back To The '80s ballots.

Huh? Who other than Chass?

You're talking about tiny effects around the margin. Sure, if 30% of the voters next year return a blank ballot, Maddux won't get in. Or if 30% turn in only B/C ballots. But there's no evidence of any widespread movement to #### up the voting. There is evidence of a widespread agreement that "roiders" don't belong. Outside of that there is pretty much just standard issue disagreement over player values and the sort of random sorting you expect to see when people are choosing among 5 "equal" alternatives.

Next year there will be a candidate that every single B/C voter, except for a small handful of protesting wackos, will vote for. Every single Biggio but not B/C voter will vote for Maddux. Every single Morris but not Bagwell/BC voter, except for a small handful of protesting wackos, will vote for. I'll even wager the idiot who voted for Shawn Green will vote for Maddux.

Can anyone use the Gizmo results of the last two years to "triangulate" any voting trends? I know it's not really enough years, but I don't think Repoz had enough ballots prior to 2012 (maybe 2011) for such a process to be viable.

It is likely "viable" as long as you treat it as a panel -- i.e. track individual voters and how they changed. If you want to estimate a trend, you want the same sample from time period to time period as that GREATLY reduces the variance. We still have the problem of the biased sample and you have to decide how to treat voters who leave the population and voters who enter it along with players entering/exiting the ballot. It's still not likely to tell you a lot (i.e. what is driving the change) but you could at least start with basics like "X voters in the sample added Bagwell while Y dropped him" and "Z% of the people who added Bagwell also added Raines" type factoids.

Mike Francesa's ongoing belief that Andy Pettitte, if allowed, was going to testify in the perjury trial that Clemens "did steroids" is really touching. (Listening to the hilarious reactions to all of this.)

168's 2014 ballot is identical to mine except I'd put Kent in for Mussina.

Babe Ruth injected extract from sheep's gonads.

But it wasn't baseball performance he was trying to enhance.

walt

i am not speaking of ignornace as much as energy. it takes 'energy' to hold a grudge. trust me. i know.

over time that energy washes away and you are left wondering why you are not speaking to so and so. and then you start talking

and the great thing about hall of fame voters is that some of them are going to die so you don't even need to wait for any epiphanies.

in another few years folks are going to wonder what the fuss was about and most will think it was a waste of time.

just takes time.

What about this little known fact? Babe Ruth injected extract from sheep's gonads.

That's because he was lazy. Earlier in his career he would eat them.

Everyone's talking about increasing the number of names a voter can list. But, as has been pointed out, many voters don't vote for ten now. If the Hall of Fame and the businesses of Cooperstown really have a problem, wouldn't they just announce beforehand that the top vote-getter (or two) will be inducted, regardless of whether they get 75%. That seems like a much easier solution.

several years ago at the height of this nonsense i thought the ebb and flow of changing attitudes would take more time.

based on what i am seeing i am changing that assessment.

things are evolving more rapidly toward a better outcome pretty quickly