I think the Griffey of the 2000s will be stuck in voters minds,

2 more Chass ballots, listing Morris alone.

I think the Griffey of the 2000s will be stuck in voters minds,

Ken Gurnick

Ballot: Morris

Like Bert Blyleven, Morris has flaws (a 3.90 ERA for example). But he gets my vote for more than a decade of ace performance that included three 20-win seasons, Cy Young Award votes in seven seasons and MVP votes in five. As for players from the Steroid Era, I won't vote for any of them.

Tracy Ringolsby

Ballot: Bagwell, Biggio, Bonds, Clemens, Morris, Murphy, Piazza, Raines, Trammell, Larry Walker

Sad part of this year's Hall of Fame voting is it doesn't seem likely that any of the votes are going to really matter, because there is a segment of the voters with an axe to grind. They want to turn this year's vote into the baseball version of the Salem Witch Hunt. And they have not only indicted and convicted Bonds and Clemens of wrongdoing in their minds, but are so intent on their anger toward Bonds and Clemens they will take it out on others and turn in blank ballots. Election to the Hall of Fame requires a player to be listed on 75 percent of the ballots cast. A blank ballot is a vote for no one but has to be counted if it is submitted. Each voter who turns in a blank ballot is not only expressing displeasure toward Clemens and Bonds, but also hurting the candidacy of every other eligible player. Nobody ever questioned Murphy's character, but he will suffer more than anyone else from the blank ballots because this is his 15th and final year of eligibility. There is no next year for him, like there is for the other candidates. The outrage over PEDs is the in-thing, but it is so inconsistent. My biggest challenge this year was trimming my list of candidates to 10 players, with apologies to Smith.

Like Bert Blyleven, Morris

has flaws (a 3.90 ERA for example). But he gets my vote for more than a decade of ace performance that included three 20-win seasons, Cy Young Award votes in seven seasons and MVP votes in five. As for players from the Steroid Era, I won't vote for any of them.

Among Bonds supporters, he finds Piazza, Bagwell, and Biggio all getting over 75% of the vote, but they all get fewer votes from those voting against Bonds. Which could imply that broad-brush steroid suspicions might keep all 3 of these guys out of the Hall (or not, but it's an interesting analysis).

Marty Noble
Ballot: Morris

I'm not comfortable with the suspicions I have, so I'm voting for only Morris and hoping for a bolt of wisdom from Kenesaw Mountain Landis or Lee MacPhail. Perhaps a trip to Cooperstown will provide guidance. This is my first vote for Morris. I've been swayed by evidence presented this year about his complete games and innings. Moreover, the Giants' postseason pitching last year reminded me of Morris' brilliant performance against the Braves in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series.

Nate Silver has an interesting article up that looks at HOF voting

Some voters have sought to apply a standard in which players are given full credit for statistics they compiled during seasons in which they were not suspected of steroid use, while discarding or discounting those in which they were. But Bonds and Clemens would probably have qualified for the Hall of Fame even by this rule. News accounts suggest that Bonds began using steroids after the 1998 season. By that time, he had already won three M.V.P. awards and eight Gold Gloves and had hit 411 home runs and stolen 445 bases. On the basis of Wins Above Replacement, he would have ranked as roughly the 30th best player in baseball history had he retired then. The same sort of reasoning does not work for McGwire, whose signature seasons were associated with steroid use, or for Palmeiro, who was found to have used banned substances late in his career and whose Hall of Fame case rests largely upon his longevity.

Because any time you're asking for wisdom from a man who kept African-Americans out of the game for close to 30 years

Roy Oswalt - CYA votes in six seasons
Doc Gooden - CYA votes in five seasons
Kevin Brown - CYA votes in five seasons
Ron Guidry - CYA votes in six seasons
David Cone - CYA votes in five seasons

And a player who might have a tough time getting in:

Mike Mussina - CYA votes in nine seasons

The Gizmo has apparently gone Philly ward politics on us -- the count nearly stops as Biggio inches up to 70%....

Why just Bonds for this? Why not Clemens? Haven't RTFA, so I don't know if Nate linked them together or not.

Clearly ballots with Bonds and Clemens on them have more votes/ballot than others, and that might also factor into what Mike was saying.

Roger Clemens could be on his way back to Major League Baseball with the Houston Astros, though his role is still to be determined.

According to Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle, the Astros will meet with Clemens next Monday and are willing to let him participate in team activities as much as he wants during the 2013 season.

The Astros plan to open their 2013 schedule to Clemens, allowing him to participate as much as he wants during spring training and the regular season. Owner Jim Crane and pitching coach Doug Brocail are onboard with the move, which would see Clemens take a role he’s often hinted at since retiring in 2007.

In the same report, Smith notes that Astros owner Jim Crane is talking like he wants Clemens to pitch again.

However, general manager Jeff Luhnow is quoted as saying that he is excited about having Clemens around as a teacher for the Astros pitchers.

The blank ballot clause is the rule that most needs to be changed, as it allows for an overtly punitive cast to come into play in the voting process.

Palmeiro doesn't really have an obvious "spike" to his career, so there is no way to really guess when he would have (presumably) started taking steroids. It could lead one to suspect that he took them throughout his career to maintain his steady pace.

The blank ballot clause is the rule that most needs to be changed, as it allows for an overtly punitive cast to come into play in the voting process.

I am on board with removing blanks from consideration.

It could lead one to suspect that he took them throughout his career to maintain his steady pace.

Or you could conclude he started using in his early to mid 30's to avoid/delay the typical decline phase of his career.

"received more Hall of Fame votes than Roger Clemens" is a better HOF qualifier than "received Cy Young Award votes in seven seasons"

Just a note to remind that Lee Smith held the career saves record for 13 years, just about the same as Wilhelm or Fingers. At some point, we have to be able to recognize that a ballplayer's main job is to do what his manager asks of him.

I'm not sure if this would help or hurt the best candidates this year, but would including Pete Rose as a write-in warrant disqualification of the ballot? The rules specifically state that write-ins are not allowed on the ballot, yet some still do it and the rest of their votes are counted just like anyone else's.

This is just an educated guess, but by this time next year, No. 1 and 2 on the list of most lifetime Hall of Fame votes received will be Jim Rice and Jack Morris.

This is just an educated guess, but by this time next year, No. 1 and 2 on the list of most lifetime Hall of Fame votes received will be Jim Rice and Jack Morris.

Even if you don't want to vote for someone who played after 1998 or so, why not Trammell?

No, the Griffey of the 1990s will.

The 2000s Griffey has already faded from memory.

The best(?), though the absence of Schilling is weird.

Roy Oswalt - CYA votes in six seasons
Doc Gooden - CYA votes in five seasons
Kevin Brown - CYA votes in five seasons
Ron Guidry - CYA votes in six seasons
David Cone - CYA votes in five seasons

And a player who might have a tough time getting in:

Mike Mussina - CYA votes in nine seasons

I am absolutely, 100% against this. A blank ballot is a completely legitimate ballot, petty and childish as it may be. There is no justification for removing them.

Lenny Harris for the hof.

Lenny Harris deserves to be in the hof by that reasoning, and probably more so than Lee Smith.

Assuming Morris falls short this year, does that mean he's done? Is it plausible he can pick up the additional votes he will need next year with Maddux and Glavine joining an increasingly crowded ballot?

That's fine, but no one should pretend for one instant it's any more valid than the members of the House casting a vote for Donald Duck for Speaker. It deserves the same amount of respect and no more.

Why should a ballot with zero names be tossed, but one with one name not be? That makes no sense.

That's fine, but no one should pretend for one instant it's any more valid than the members of the House casting a vote for Donald Duck for Speaker. It deserves the same amount of respect and no more.

Yes, which just means what we've seen: anyone can claim anything about the effects of steroids use.

A one name ballot this year deserves no respect. But the problem is where to draw the line. Start tossing them and then next year you'll get Jose Mesa (or his equivalent) and nobody else from the people who would turn in blank ballots. So arguing about blank ballots is a pointless debate.

Why?

And, more generally, why can't the Hall of Fame acknowledge closers?

With the exception of those who'd use their stats and vote as a vendatta against a candidate because they simply don't like a candidates-- presumably, a rare occurence -- I value their opinions and admire their dedication greatly.

My voting system, not unpredictably, is a little less complicated and highly unscientific:

Is the player in question a baseball legend?

Was he unquestionably best of the best in his era, if not one of the best of all time? Did he take your breath away? Did he cause you to go "Wow?" Did his play fill you with wonder, but not the wonder of how he got so strong?

If you insist on this being a comparative exercise, OK, how does he compare to the incomparables? Give me a guy not with one or even two league batting titles, but eight, and a pitcher with four Cy Young Awards in a row.

There were only two names on the 2013 ballot whose careers warranted a place among the gods of the game. Barry Bonds. Roger Clemens. Neither, I’m hoping, will be allowed into Cooperstown.

There were only two names on the 2013 ballot whose careers warranted a place among the gods of the game. Barry Bonds. Roger Clemens. Neither, I’m hoping, will be allowed into Cooperstown.

What time zone is Repoz in?

Also for the record, “Tram” is Alan Trammell, the San Diego product and resident and Diamondbacks coach whom many people think ought to be in Cooperstown.

Just not enough people. Or not the right people. Yet.

It’s a very strange process, the election of candidates into the Hall of Fame, one that seems to get stranger with every year. In the most recent vote, the selection of shortstop Barry Larkin as the lone inductee of 2012 might be interpreted as a boost for Trammell, who’s been a sort of forgotten (or ignored) man over fully 11 years of eligibility.

“My personal thought on this is, I’m happy for Lark,” said Trammell between bites of breakfast at a Kearny Mesa diner. “That’s what a lot of people are thinking about this, and that’s good. I think I got a little more play this year because (of Larkin’s candidacy). Some are looking at his numbers and looking at my numbers and saying “Why not Tram?’

“That’s the argument. That’s ok. That sounds good to me. The numbers aren’t that far off.”

The numbers on the Hall of Fame ballot, however, are way off. Larkin made it with 86.4 percent, easily surpassing the required 75 percent for enshrinement in his third year of eligibility. Trammell, who had not garnered more than 24.3 percent before the 2012 vote, jumped to 36.8.

Still, the difference in those percentages is fairly preposterous when taking into account the similar statistics they posted over marathon careers, and therein is something else they had in common. Each played his entire career for one team, Trammell as the the Detroit Tigers’ shortstop for 20 years, Larkin manning that position for the Cincinnati Reds for 19 seasons.

If it all ended today, if both their baseball careers and the controversies consuming them went no further, if enough Hall of Fame voters were giving the maximum benefit of the doubt, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds could be the Cooperstown Class of '13.

The perfect number for a couple of allegedly imperfect fellows.

To this point, nearly a month before pitchers and catchers report to spring training for the 2008 season, neither Clemens nor Bonds has a job in baseball. What they do have are a lot more important matters on their minds than that next paycheck or major league game.

Such matters are now in the hands of legal representation, aka, the high-powered firm of Liar, Liar, Pants 'n Fire, Esq.

Free agents both, still free citizens both, Bonds and Clemens have yet to announce their retirements from the game that probably would be much better served if they did (or could) follow Mark McGwire's lead and simply vanish into some gated, golf-course community.

...

Just think of this: As things stand today, there is the very real possibility that Clemens and Bonds would share the honors as first-year inductees into Cooperstown in July 2013. Not so far away, really. Not nearly far enough away.

You might want to buy your tickets to that particular circus right now. That, or buy a plane ticket to somewhere where there's no television, a place where you wouldn't risk having to accidentally see replays of that Cooperstown ceremony. Depends on your appetite for the distasteful.

Bonds, for defensive purposes, would be the one wearing his body armor up to the podium. (He'd go in wearing a Giants cap, naturally, provided the artist can forge a hat big enough to fit Bonds' head on the plaque.) Clemens, of course, would make his induction speech while holding the barrel end of a sheared-off bat to fend off the tomatoes.

Speaking of which, while we're paying this visit to Futureworld, consider that the 39-year-old, broken-bodied Mike Piazza is also unsigned for 2008. He already may have played his farewell game. Class of '13, perhaps? Oh, lovely.

Now more certain of enshrinement than Bonds or Clemens, Piazza will be forever remembered as the target of both beanballs and the broken bat thrown by Clemens. Picture the two of them seated next to each other through the press conference and ceremonies, to say nothing of the juxtaposition of their plaques, together on the wall in perpetuity.

Putting aside the mistreatment Clemens would get from Mets fans who would make the short trip from New York to applaud Piazza – not to mention the many Red Sox Nationals who would go to the moon to boo the Rocket Man – the specter of steroids would cast a huge and depressing pall over baseball's annual lovefest in upstate New York.

Just as an appreciation for the ethos of Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. drew the largest assembly ever to last summer's festivities, the general disdain and distrust attached to Bonds likely would supersede any signs of grudging or genuine respect that he would receive in Cooperstown. Seated behind Bonds and/or Clemens on the dais would be the Hall of Famers they'd be joining, some of whom already have decried the way their game has been denigrated by drugs, their records devalued.

Among them would be Rich “Goose” Gossage, Class of '08. On the day and day after Gossage learned of his election to Cooperstown, questions about his feat were laced heavily with those focused on the Mitchell Report and steroids.

“Yes, I think they are on the same level,” said Gossage, asked specifically about Bonds and Clemens. “I don't think there's any question about it. It's kind of weird these guys had some of their most productive years when (other) guys in the history of the game, their talents were diminishing as they got older, and these guys it didn't happen that way.

“So we'll just have to wait and see if these guys come clean and finally put an end to this.”

Please. Before it's five years too late.

Relievers are already overrepresented in the hall, and they will be adding Rivera and possibly Hoffman in the future.

How do we know that relievers are already overrepresented in the hall? Why is five an overrepresentation?

How do we know that relievers are already overrepresented in the hall? Why is five an overrepresentation?

Why Lee Smith and not Franco? Why Lee Smith and not an obviously superior reliever like Quiz?

If you include Lee Smith, you massively lower the standards that the hof has established, even among closers.

Why Sutter and not Quiz? They had basically the same career value, but Quiz packed it into a few less seasons

The trouble with "closers" is that the established "line" is way too low

It may be a really, really moo* point.

*Like a cow's opinion. It doesn't matter.

That is why Fingers got in - he held it long enough to get voted in. That is why Smith still gets votes

But there is not a single HOF election year I can think of where a reasonable voter would not have at least one vote to cast unless they were involved in a punitive state of mind.

What about 1996 (i.e., the last time no one went in)?

Bud Geracie voting for Bonds & Morris only. Just weird combos where you wonder what thought process would lead one to vote for those combos. I guess Geracie might be a 'vote for the best pitcher and best hitter and I hate Clemens'

With Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens, I have the same problem I have with Mark McGwire. The numbers that made McGwire a candidate -- 70 home runs in a season and 583 for a career -- would not have happened without chemistry. I believe that to be true of Sosa as well....Clemens is tougher. He was a star from the start. Won a Cy Young and an MVP at age 24, won another Cy the next year and then a third before he began to fade. When he left Boston, at age 34, he had 192 wins -- hardly a Hall of Fame number. Then he found the "fountain" of youth, won four more Cy Youngs, including one at 42 years old. I'm not buying it.

We should never get too comfy with the idea that we've mined all the ways to analyze players. These 1-inning, enter at the start of the 9th guys aren't as complicated as earlier top relievers...

When he left Boston, at age 34, he had 192 wins -- hardly a Hall of Fame number.

The mustache put Fingers in the Hall.