Last year's results

Player Name Percent
Ken Griffey Jr. 99%
Jeff Bagwell 96%
Mike Piazza 96%
Barry Bonds 92%
Roger Clemens 92%
Tim Raines 91%
Mike Mussina 87%
Alan Trammell 81%
Curt Schilling 80%
Larry Walker 41%
Edgar Martinez 39%
Mark McGwire 37%
Jim Edmonds 17%
Sammy Sosa 15%
Fred McGriff 5%
Gary Sheffield 5%
Jeff Kent 3%
Nomar Garciaparra 1%

Everyone else 0%

Interesting that Sheffield isn't moving as quickly up the ballot as Walker or Martinez. I don't see a whole lot of difference between Manny and Sheffield.

Interesting to see Raines take an odd jump. If hes moving from #11 to #7-10 on lots of ballot you would not expect him to have started so high to begin with. Bagwell for instance goes from 96-98 and Moose and Schill stay nearly identical. Also good to know I'm the personification of BTF groupthink as both years the top 10 were identical to my ballot. I claim plagiarism!

Interesting that Sheffield isn't moving as quickly up the ballot as Walker or Martinez. I don't see a whole lot of difference between Manny and Sheffield.

Confusing comment... Walker and Martinez are moving up because they are pretty clearly on the line or better (just using a broad instrument we are talking about 72 war for Walker and 68 for Edgar. Both are probably over the line depending on your personal perceptions.

Between Sheffield and Manny though you are looking at 60 war for Sheff, and 69 for Manny. There is a clear difference there, you would need to maker a bunch of arguments about position and eras that are unaccounted for to put Sheff on a career with Manny, and considering that Manny is a peak candidate, it's hard to argue Sheff over him as a peak candidate. I think war overrates Manny and I wouldn't take him over Walker(nor would I even consider Edgar over Walker, which on the face of it, just seems silly) but that is what happened..

Sheffield was probably the 10th or 11th or 12th name on many ballots and just couldn't fit in.

I think war overrates Manny

Really? dWAR butchers Manny. He was an all time great hitter in a long career. You called him a "peak" candidate, but his peak was basically 1995-2008; that's a really long damn peak. Even with awful D it doesn't surprise me that a top 20 all time hitter (factoring in career length) would still show as a clear (lower to mid level) HOFer.

I actually think WAR seems to underrate Manny. I don't see how Thome is ahead of him and Edgar right on par, for example.

I actually think WAR seems to underrate Manny. I don't see how Thome is ahead of him and Edgar right on par, for example.

Thome is easy, 600 more plate appearances with a difference of 154 ops+ vs 147 while Thome played an adequate third base for the first third of his career compared to Manny's disaster in the outfield....

Edgar vs Manny has the same issues, Edgar was a decent fielder in his youth, and again same difference in ops+, the thing here is that Edgar has 2000 fewer pa, so that is hard to reconcile with history. Edgar's obp relative to his era was much better than Manny's relative to his era, and that makes a big difference, but there is an argument to be made that the positional adjustment between left fielders and DH's isn't enough. Heck I've made that argument in one way or another. Ultimately I think if you are comparing strictly bats like Edgar vs Manny, then rpos and rfield should be ignored, and Manny does a good job of trumping that.

I think if I would have done a more thorough job of evaluating Manny for the hof vote, I would have put him ahead of Edgar (who I had behind Walker, but barely....as it stands now, I think Manny is closer to Walker than Manny.

Someone didn't vote for Bagwell?

cfb - Sounds like you're quoting stats from memory, same as I was. ;-)

Thome has a bigger advantage in PA over Manny than I thought, so I can understand that. Did he really play 3B for a full third of his career though? I thought it was just for a few seasons at the beginning (maybe through 1996? Too lazy to look it up).

Edgar actually only has 1100-ish fewer plate appearances than Manny, not 2000. Still, that's a big difference, especially since Manny already beats him in OPS+ 154-147. And I'm of the mindset that even bad fielders have more defensive value than DH's. Edgar's time at 3B just brings him even or maybe slightly above Manny defensively IMO, but the offensive difference is too big in Manny's favor for me to really believe that Edgar was an equal player overall. You mentioned that Martinez had a much bigger OBP edge relative to his era, but it doesn't look that huge to me:

Edgar - .418 OBP vs .336 league average
Manny - .411 OBP vs .343 league average

Ramirez vs Walker is tougher. Obviously Larry runs circles around Manny defensively and on the basepaths, but Manny's offensive advantage is huge: 154-141 OPS+ in over 1700(!) more PA's. I could go either way with them.

Only seven elected as opposed to nine last year? For shame XD

I like how none of the closers got even 5% of the vote.

I like how none of the closers got even 5% of the vote

That struck me too. I reckon it's the biggest discrepancy between the BBWAA and the BBTF.

Manny is closer to Walker than Manny

Ummm...

I think we should start keeping track of how many times some,players have been elected.