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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Nobody. Not one. Ugh. Click the link to see the results. A winning candidate did not emerge from the Hall of Fame balloting conducted by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and verified by Ernst & Young. There were 569 ballots cast, the third highest total in the history of the voting, but none of the 37 candidates in the 2013 vote gained mention on the required 75 percent for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Craig Biggio, who totaled 3,060 hits and was a seven-time All-Star while playing three positions (catcher, second base, outfield), topped the ballot with 388 votes – 39 shy of the 427 needed for election. His total reflected 68.2 percent of the electorate, which consists of BBWAA members with 10 or more consecutive years of Major League Baseball coverage. Five blank ballots were among those submitted. Other players named on more than half the ballots were pitcher Jack Morris with 385 (67.7 percent), first baseman Jeff Bagwell with 339 (59.6), catcher Mike Piazza with 329 (57.8) and outfielder Tim Raines with 297 (52.2).
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I'll take Trammell over Mussina, Glavine or Schilling. But again, the rules don't require you to vote for the best candidates, just whether they are deserving(in your mind) or not. (which is what Ray likes to point out when people make a vote for a guy like Sele)
Of course your point stands. It's going to be an embarrasment of riches.
Maddux
Clemens
Bonds
Piazza
Glavine
Schilling
Mussina
Bagwell
Trammell
Raines
As someone who doesn't "do the math", so to speak -- I think I'd probably slot Biggio a smidge ahead of Trammell... but I'm willing to be convinced that I'm wrong. Peak vs career, I generally tend to land on career if I have to pick one.
The case against Biggio as a top-10 ballot hopeful next year rests on a negative evaluation of his defense. I am extremely doubtful that Biggio was 100 runs below league average with the glove over his career. An overall average-defending Biggio (which better matches his 4-GG, respected defender career) is hard to drop.
Unless you make some adjustments for variance of performance / difficulty of domination that dings the sillyball guys compared to the 80s guys. That's certainly worth considering.
ther fervor is dropping because the public doesn't give a sh8t.
it's identical to the &&& marriage issue. it was hot for a brief spell and then a few years passed, folks realized 'wow, this is dumb', and now things are changing.
it will be the same. and all the folks here who were all smug back in the day will wonder what happened.
what happened is that the world calmed down and realized all this shouting was about not much.
time can be a beautiful thing
And none of the 16 Alomar ballots.
What better candidate than Bernie for the "Your regular season career fell just short but your massive postseason performance puts you in"?
And everyone agrees that Schilling was one of the best postseason performers ever.
Huh? If you had the public vote I think it's even money Clemens and Bonds get a lower percentage of the vote.
Only two of the crazy votes are listed: Jill Painter for Shawn Green and Yasushi Kikuchi for Julio Franco.
If you don't vote for Biggio, you are just helping to keep him on the ballot to block another group of candidates. At this point in time, I think that you have to vote for Biggio next year, just to clear up some ballot space. Obviously if you don't think he's deserving you don't vote for him, but if you think he's the 11th best candidate and deserving, then you go ahead and vote for him. Again the rules do not stipulate they have to be the best candidates, just worthy.
disagree. folks are already forgetting the particulars.
Precisely.
That's the problem - there were 569 ballots.
I'm betting that least 100 of them belong to guys who basically got their membership card years and year ago (well, obviously - all of them at least 10 years ago) and no longer even write about (or care about) baseball.
...Now... I'm sure that some of them are quite capable of putting some work into reading up on names on the ballot, but I'm sure plenty of them just treat it like form mail - "Oh, I remember that guy..."
They need to eliminate this... treating it like a court appointment inevitably means ballots are going to guys who simply do. not. deserve. them.
I'm not sure about that. I've ran into all types of people on the issue and for the most part it seems that the press is more concerned about it than the fans. Yes there are Bonds haters out there who wouldn't vote for him, even if god came down from the heavens and said he never used roids. But that is more about their hatred for Bonds than it is about the roids. I do think getting 75% with the public is unlikely, but lower is also probably unlikely.
sorry. folks here are the exception not the rule. memory is a tricky thing
Well there's your problem.
I think you missed the point. Harvey said things are changing and changing slowly.
Yeah, I think this helps Biggio next year. Being the top returning vote-getter* should help him if some voters want to help clear the backlog.
* I"m not sure the same phenomenon would help Jack as much (and obviously, it didn't this year), since he's been around for so long and his negatives are so widely known.
Sadly, some of these can probably be explained with two words: "Roberto Alomar."
EDIT: Coke to Guapo.
another 10 and the vehement anti-bonds attitude will be regarded as the ravings of a lunatic
granted, some of us recognized it for what it was at the beginning but never late than never
I don't think it would even take this much (and I don't think they'll do anything, yet...). I think a simpler, more direct approach would be to keep the BBWAA voters, but stipulate it's 10 years as a member and you are still actively covering baseball for a publication or internet site.
Then it's time to start the "cheater" rumor mill bandwagon rolling against him, since there's rumblings that he cut or otherwise doctored baseballs during his career (see Bill James's comment on "Clubhouse Confidential"). Certainly no "first ballot" for him since Gaylord Perry, Whitey Ford, Don Sutton, and Don Drysdale didn't get in on their initial try, either. Start early enough, and the ballot clogging can be raised to a really fine art.
And what's the current status of the idea that Jack Morris may have used PEDs at some point in his career?
I would have thought that the sort of moron who'd be impressed by milestones in isolation would have appreciated his 1,500 RBI (46th all-time).
And we're really supposed to believe a guy nicknamed the Professor didn't use Adderall to reach his goals? Take a look at the size of those spectacles!
C - Piazza
1B - Bagwell
2B - Biggio
SS - Trammell
3B - Edgar
LF - Bonds
CF - Raines
RF - Sosa
DH - Thomas
I think a team put together from the 2014 ballot could hold its own against a current HOF team.
There was a proposed fix earlier in the thread that made sense: make voters request a ballot rather than just send them out to everyone on the rolls. It might not make a big difference, but it would get rid of some of the guys who only think about baseball when they receive their HoF ballot.
But, yeah, I'd love to see some effort made to rid the electorate of guys who aren't keeping up with the game.
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).
I mean - it's the Hall of Fame - not a life/death decision, but seriously... people who "forget" Henderson or "confuse"/don't bother to doublecheck Sandy vs Roberto, etc... those people should. not. have. ballots.
569 ballots... I think there probably should be about 300 -- maybe even just 200 or so... there ought to be some criteria to demonstrate that 1) you actually care enough to put some time into it, 2)you actually like the thing - baseball - that you're measuring, and 3) that you've kept up with the game.
Note that nowhere in that do I think one must use dWAR or FIPs (I think you ought to understand the concepts, though - even if you think they're bunk)....
I'm fine with the PED screechers... I'm fine with the cranky Murray Chass's... I'm even OK with the, well, other sort of Chass's (calculators are ruining baseball as opposed to the "I'm grumpy and cranky!" types).
But - there ought to some criteria to ensure that you meet 1), 2), and 3) above.
I wonder how many writers out there will leave off a couple names at the top of the ballot knowing full well that someone like Maddux will easily clear the bar, and he can use his 10 votes on guys who need them more?
Edit: See 116. I'd seriously consider voting for Trammell before Maddux.
Some borderline guys will get dropped, but not someone who is currently polling at 33%.
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.
Maddux did benefit from a personal performance enhancing strike zone. And wasn't the Atlanta grounds crew caught red-handed fudging the batters box to make pitches off the plate look closer? Seems like cheating, no? Some voters have said they'd never vote for cheaters, so Maddux could have problems with those voters.
More seriously, if the ballot glut continues, we may see some voters concentrate on non-first year candidates, in a stick-to-your-guns strategy designed to counter the anti-steroid zealots. The Bagwell & Piazza tallies (among others) could be an indication that the lynch mob doesn't really care about evidence, although it may take another year or two to see the trend. That could provoke a backlash in which 1st year candidates are ignored by voters who continue to vote for their "deserving" candidates with diminishing eligibility.
On top of the fact that he's off of the ballot no matter what, you wouldn't be clearing a future backlog with his election.
Player Votes Sample Actual DifferenceBiggio 75 74.3% 68.2% +6.1%
Bagwell 73 72.3% 59.6% +12.7%
Piazza 65 64.4% 57.8% +6.6%
Raines 65 64.4% 52.2% +12.2%
Morris 60 59.4% 67.7% -8.3%
Bonds 49 48.5% 36.2% +12.3%
Clemens 49 48.5% 37.6% +10.9%
Schilling 46 45.5% 38.8% +6.7%
Martinez 41 40.6% 35.9% +4.7%
Smith 36 35.6% 47.8% -12.2%
Trammell 35 34.7% 33.6% +1.1%
L.Walker 19 18.8% 21.6% -2.8%
McGriff 15 14.9% 20.7% -5.8%
McGwire 15 14.9% 16.9% -2.0%
Murphy 15 14.9% 18.6% -3.7%
Sosa 13 12.9% 12.5% +0.4%
Palmeiro 11 10.9% 8.8% +2.1%
Mattingly 6 5.9% 13.2% -7.3%
Lofton 4 4.0% 3.2% +0.8%
B.Williams 2 2.0% 3.3% -1.3%
Alomar 0 0.0% 2.8% -2.8%
Franco 0 0.0% 1.1% -1.1%
Wells 0 0.0% 0.9% -0.9%
Finley 0 0.0% 0.7% -0.7%
Green 0 0.0% 0.4% -0.4%
Sele 0 0.0% 0.2% -0.2%
This group of candidates, and none of them are better than the worst guy in the Hall.
...Just shocked. What an awfully stupid process.
without that rose might well have been inducted at some point
there is not 'rule' keeping these players out. only willpower
willpower fades. voter population changes. new attitudes develop
i likely won't be around to see it but all these guys will get in the hof
Maddux, Mussina, Glavine and Thomas.
Shame.
Yeah, though I'm not sure if guys would think of that. I was thinking more along the lines that a) guys have had 14 years to formulate an opinion on Jack, so it makes it harder for that kind of player to make gains, and b) he didn't enjoy any top-of-the-pack bump this year when there were no 300 game winners joining the ballot.
folks, the only reason pete rose never got inducted was because they created a rule to make sure he could not be inducted
I strenuously disagree. As long as he was on the permanently ineligible list, he wasn't getting 75 percent of the vote.
It may not, but I'm hoping someone will start talking about Trammell's character and he picks up some Murhpy voters.
This is an absolutely fantastic analogy! Well done, Sir!
You're wishcasting. Maddux gets 95% of the vote next year and sails in. The debate is purely about whether anybody will join him.
Why Biggio over Bagwell & Piazza? 3000 hits
Why Walker in the non-Gizmo sample? Good question. Same thing happened last year. I'll go with 313 BA. Sure, the non-Gizmo voters might not understand park effects (the Gizmo voters do?) but Walker didn't even make it to 400 HR, 1500 runs, 1500 RBI so why would they be impressed by his raw stats? Either there are enough of them that understand overall value or they like the shiny BA (and three batting titles and 1 MVP). The BA and MVP of course owe a lot to Coors but that's hardly what it's known for.
Note the much larger drop of B/C relative to Biggio, Bagwell, Piazza. This gives us some notion of the size of the "won't deny based on rumors" crowd among the non-Gizmo. Sosa also barely dropped while McGwire actually got more support among the non-Gizmo.
But Costas also made the point that if Bonds and Clemens don't rise significantly next year
None of the backlog are making a big jump next year, too many big names joining the ballot that the blackballers will vote for. Again, what do we mean by big (Biggio has a good shot at getting across). I won't rule it out entirely for B/C given there's some chance of a large "penalize them for 1 year" contingent but if somebody is in the strange "make them wait" camp, it will be even easier to make them wait again next year ... and the year after ... and the year after.
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.
That might have gotten Biggio and possibly one or two others over the threshold this year. If you honestly think Biggio was the eleventh-best candidate this year (I disagree, but it's a non-insane position), you'd leave him off, despite thinking that he was also a HOFer. That makes no sense.
The snubs to Bonds and Clemens could be seen coming a long way off, and given the crowded ballot, Sosa's low total isn't a great surprise either. Many of the high totals were garnered by worthy but middling candidates. The one really odd total, to me, is Schilling. No PEDs suspicions, a really terrific record, and 38.8% of the vote. I don't get that one. Clearly some of the logjam was created by people who had been voting for Morris and Smith and didn't feel they could drop them off their ballots even though a whole mess of better players had arrived. Also an argument for changing the rules.
We just saw Piazza, Biggio, and Bagwell fail to gain admittance.
We saw protest votes. We saw blank ballots. We saw Back To The '80s ballots. I think it's time to concede that the situation is so effed up right now that making grand proclamations about who will sail in is a bit premature.
Or they may have confused Sandy Jr. with Sandy Sr., and then confused him with Julio Franco.
A lot of us suspected Biggio might struggle to get electe, for a variety of reasons. Maddux will have no such problems. The ballot issues could knock him from the high 90s to the low 90s, but that's about all.
Keep in mind, the voters (other than the protest guys) aren't trying to keep anyone from getting in. The numbers per ballot jumped this year. They just didn't reach a consensus on this group. That won't be a problem for an inner-circle, perceived-clean guy like Maddux.
Maddux's case isn't remotely similar to Biggio's (who would have been looking at a Sandberg-like trek to Coopertown if he hadn't stumbled over the 3K mark). Trust me on this, for once. Maddux sails in.
I am pleasantly surprised that the HoF did not "cook" this election, which I strongly thought they might do. The fact that the HoF treated this fair and square, shows you that the rule of law still prevails in the U.S. (it's not exactly the same, but I wonder if the HoF results were not announced - like the Academy Awards, where you never see percentages - if the HoF would not have been tempted to play around with this election).
Other than that, I wrote last year that I had hoped Morris had gotten in to avoid this logjam. I feel the same way this year. 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 were 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.
(*) My point is that with so many viable candidates, Morris getting 67% of the votes by definition is screwing other candidates which now can't get in because there's only 9 slots available for voting.
No, they meant Chico Walker.
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.
Or 20 votes. Morris needs to pick up more than 40.
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).
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).
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.
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
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.
And left Biggio off their ballot...an even smaller number.
I'm wondering what his chances of dropping of the ballot are.
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.
I'd say they're excellent.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
I assume, then, that steroids have kept Morris out of the Hall?
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.
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
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.)
I think last year the Jets' GM gave the OC (Schottenheimer) a vote of confidence just a day or so before he was fired.
http://www.baltimoreorless.com/2011/01/babe-ruth-injected-sheeps-testicles/
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.
I would support that guy in a heartbeat. It would be an awesome ballot.
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
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.
The two you mentioned and Paul Waner.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hall-of-fame-ballot-history.shtml
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.
But it wasn't baseball performance he was trying to enhance.
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.
That's because he was lazy. Earlier in his career he would eat them.
based on what i am seeing i am changing that assessment.
things are evolving more rapidly toward a better outcome pretty quickly
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