2015 Hall of Fame ballot

[Sammy Sofa]

Sad Pete Rose hunkers down in a store and signs autographs.

 

Huh. That actually seems like the opposite of sad for me.

 

'Sad' because he was a great player and if not for his gambling would be in the Hall.

 

Eh, I've never actually thought he shouldn't be in the HoF; nobody should be excluded from it. It just seems like what he really wants is to actually work in pro baseball in any capacity and that's what he should never have.

[Banedon]

Sad Pete Rose hunkers down in a store and signs autographs.

 

Huh. That actually seems like the opposite of sad for me.

 

'Sad' because he was a great player and if not for his gambling would be in the Hall.

 

Stop being an enabler.

[mul21]

Sad Pete Rose hunkers down in a store and signs autographs.

 

Huh. That actually seems like the opposite of sad for me.

 

'Sad' because he was a great player and if not for his gambling would be in the Hall.

 

Eh, I've never actually thought he shouldn't be in the HoF; nobody should be excluded from it. It just seems like what he really wants is to actually work in pro baseball in any capacity and that's what he should never have.

 

This is pretty much how I feel. No reason not to put him in as far as I'm concerned, but the whole job in baseball thing should be completely out of the question.

[Sammy Sofa]

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2533546-baseball-hall-of-fame-will-cut-voters-who-have-been-inactive-more-than-10-years

 

The Baseball Hall of Fame's board of directors announced the decision Tuesday to remove voters who have been inactive in covering the game for more than 10 years.

 

If nothing else, the new policy will save Hall of Fame personnel hassle in what was approximately 650 eligible voters to keep track of. The condensed catalog of voters makes sense, but it will be interesting to see how the generally younger crowd views prospective inductees from the steroid era.

[OleMissCub]

Open ballots needs to be next. For example, we need to know which buttheads voted against Maddux so they can publicly humiliated.

[Clem Fandango]

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2533546-baseball-hall-of-fame-will-cut-voters-who-have-been-inactive-more-than-10-years

 

The Baseball Hall of Fame's board of directors announced the decision Tuesday to remove voters who have been inactive in covering the game for more than 10 years.

 

If nothing else, the new policy will save Hall of Fame personnel hassle in what was approximately 650 eligible voters to keep track of. The condensed catalog of voters makes sense, but it will be interesting to see how the generally younger crowd views prospective inductees from the steroid era.

 

Excellent and logical decision.

[TruffleShuffle]

keith law tweeted this article as an example of why the changes to voting eligibility were necessary.

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/ct-smack-hersh-spt-0803-20150802-column.html

 

Of those members, 20 percent, or 130, no longer will be eligible, O'Connell said. That group includes me, a lifetime honorary member.

 

That move will delight the anonymous Twitter trolls who have hectored me every year to give up my vote because they apparently are upset that I roundly dismiss the candidacies of players like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, whose use of PEDs was apparent, admitted or both.

 

My only regret in losing the vote now is not having a further voice in shutting that crowd out of Cooperstown until their 15 years of eligibility is over. One can only hope that 26 percent of the 520 or so remaining voters will continue to bar the door.

 

...

 

That one can make a more knowledgeable decision while watching a player regularly affected my consideration of the late Mark Belanger, whom I covered for four years with the Baltimore Evening Sun.

 

Yes, Belanger was a .228 career hitter. But he also was the best defensive shortstop I ever have seen (eight Gold Gloves, second all time in defensive wins above replacement), and he played during an era when teams valued shortstops for defense, not hitting.

 

Looking only at his numbers was uninformative but undoubtedly the reason why Belanger got just 3.7 percent of the vote during his one year on the ballot. That low total means even writers actively covering the game find it hard to assess players they see infrequently.

 

belanger, for all his defensive brilliance, had a career .580 ops and a 68 ops+.

[jersey cubs fan]

Hersh? Isn't he the guy that has only been covering olympic sports for the past 20+ years.

[OleMissCub]

belanger, for all his defensive brilliance, had a career .580 ops and a 68 ops+.

 

He is even below Rabbit Maranville in JAWS. That's freaking hard to do.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_SS.shtml

 

To be fair, 41.0 WAR is not a terrible total for a no-hitting SS. Quite impressive actually. Compare that to a contemporary SS like Don Kessinger, who actually played in more games, went to the All-Star game 5 more times than Belanger, and yet has an 8.9 total WAR.

 

Nevertheless, he shouldn't get HOF votes IMO.

[TruffleShuffle]

yeah 41 war is actually kind of mind-boggling for a guy who couldn't hit his way out of a paper bag. neifi perez and rey ordonez were basically replacement level over the course of their unnecessarily long careers. one could probably argue that belanger is the best defensive shortstop in history, at least based on how b-r rates him.

[Felix Leiter]

Belanger used to hold the AL record of being pinch hit for 333 times. As I remember his gloves were quite small, maybe even a youth size.

[Sammy Sofa]

yeah 41 war is actually kind of mind-boggling for a guy who couldn't hit his way out of a paper bag. neifi perez and rey ordonez were basically replacement level over the course of their unnecessarily long careers. one could probably argue that belanger is the best defensive shortstop in history, at least based on how b-r rates him.

 

Holy crap, that WAR is insane given how terrible his bat is. That almost makes it like deserves some kind of honorable mention. That defensive value is almost Ozzie Smith-good (plus Belanger racked his up in about 500 fewer games). What a weird career.

[Guest]

Sad Pete Rose hunkers down in a store and signs autographs.

 

Huh. That actually seems like the opposite of sad for me.

 

'Sad' because he was a great player and if not for his gambling would be in the Hall.

 

Stop being an enabler.

 

Pete Rose doesn't leave Lamborghinis on the expressway like some kind of deadbeat.

[OleMissCub]

Doing some more screwing around on BR concerning Belanger, who I'm fascinated by now. Going by descending WAR among SS, you have to get to a guy named George McBride to find a player with a lower OPS+. McBride had an OPS+ of 65 and a WAR of 21.0.

 

Belanger is such an outlier that it's damn near laughable. Descending OPS+:

 

http://i.imgur.com/hK6sDXA.jpg

 

He and Ozzie Smith are basically identical at the very top of Total Zone Runs at SS and no one else is particularly close.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/tz_runs_total_ss_career.shtml