Dupe.

Seven is a big ballot, especially for last year's slate. I also would've had seven (I'd swap Martinez in for Palmeiro) and I consider myself a big-hall guy.

These guys are all repeats, though. Trammell, Bagwell, and Larkin are players that really are slam-dunks for even small-hall guys. I could see people disagreeing on Walker (not weighting defense and baserunning as heavily as I do for him), Raines (didn't stay good long enough), Palmeiro (accumulator, poor relative peak), and McGwire (a player particularly susceptible to the "but for steroids" argument). The logjam was already starting in 2011 or even earlier.

I should clarify that I mean players who merit the HOF (or at least have a fairly strong argument for induction), not necessarily those who are elected. Since the average HOF career is so long (WAG 17 yrs?), there ought to be quite a bit of overlap.
I'm likely a bigger-hall guy than you, but one HOF per team seems really small - especially when you acknowledge that they don't all need to be in their primes.

I don't know.

Let's look back at the 2000-2009 ballots. Here are the players I vote for (and continue to vote for until inducted or removed from the ballot) listed in the first year of the sample where they show up:

2000: Blyleven, Fisk, Carter, Hernandez
2001: nobody
2002: Ozzie, Trammell
2003: Murray, Sandberg
2004: Molitor
2005: Boggs
2006: nobody
2007: Ripken, Gwynn, McGwire
2008: Raines
2009: Rickey

That's a ten year run of HOF voting with only 15 inductees (it's actually worse, because Hernandez, Blyleven, Carter, and Fisk aren't on the ballot for the first time in 2000). I think expansion, population growth, and international presence might push that up a little, but I don't think you get close to 60 legitimate HOFers in the league at the same time.

EDIT: You might have 60 argument-worthy players, though, especially if you consider guys like Saberhagen or Appier argument-worthy.

I think 60 active HOFers in a given year sounds terribly high. Maybe 30-40 (counting players that debut but eventually become HOFers and HOFers playing out the garbage at the end of a career).

Well, let's take a random year and see. I started collecting baseball cards and memorizing stats after the 1987 season, so let's look at that one. There's currently 26 players in the HOF who were active in 1987, including those who were just starting out and those who were finishing up - Niekro, Murray, Ripken, Boggs, Rice, Sutton, Sandberg, Dawson, Fisk, Larkin, Carlton, Ryan, Brett, Molitor, Yount, Puckett, Blyleven, Carter, Winfield, Henderson, Reggie, Eckersley, Schmidt, Gwynn, Gossage, Ozzie.

Plus there are at least 4 more that look like locks for future induction - Maddux, Glavine, Morris (will be VC for sure if not next year), Raines.

Plus 4 more who would be in if not for roids - Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Palmeiro.

There's also 14 additional HoMers, some of whom may be eventual VC selections - Ted Simmons, Graig Nettles, Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Darrell Evans, Dwight Evans, Bret Saberhagen, Willie Randolph, Keith Hernandez, David Cone, Rick Reuschel, Edgar Martinez, Will Clark, Dave Stieb.

And lastly, there's several other players that won't make the HoM but who also seem like possible VC choices, guys like Dale Murphy, Lee Smith, Harold Baines, Dave Parker, Dave Concepcion, Don Mattingly, Steve Garvey, Fred McGriff (the only one of these players I'd vote for), etc.

I realize this is just one random year and it may vary wildly from season to season, but if you add the first 3 groups you get 34; throw in a handful of the last two groups from the VC and yeah, 40 looks about right*. Good call, Crosby.



* This was a 26 team league, though, so more modern seasons may deserve a few more.