Hall of Fame balloting

[Spacemans Bong]

I love the fact that a scumbag like Palmeiro is off the ballot.  This is the best way to handle PED users: hope they get less than 5% so that the media doesn't debate their candidacy.  Hopefully, Sosa and/or McGwire will get less than 5% next year.  As much as I would like to see Bonds and Clemens get less than 5%, I don't think it is likely.  However, it is even less likely that they ever get 75%.
 
PED users like Pettitte and Manny may get under 5% in their first year of eligibility. 
 
As part of the application process for the FBI, the applicant must pass a lie detector test.  I don't know why MLB can't implement something similar for HOF candidacy.  Players who don't submit to a test, or who fail a test, will not be eligible for the HOF.  That is one way, perhaps the only way, to distinguish genuine HOF players from frauds.

 
So when will you be campaigning for Willie Mays's expulsion from the Hall of Fame?

 

[FanSinceBoggs]

I don’t know why Schilling isn’t getting more support (higher percentage) for the HOF.  He is a legitimate HOF player.
 
A theory: Schilling’s participation in the congressional committee hearing on PED use in baseball has lowered his support?  It was well known that Schilling was the only participant at that hearing who was not suspected of taking PEDs.  Nevertheless, maybe some baseball writers, not knowing any better, lump him together with the usual suspects, Sosa, McGwire, etc?
 
His support should be higher.  Much higher.

 

[Bosoxen]

I don’t know why Schilling isn’t getting more support (higher percentage) for the HOF.  He is a legitimate HOF player.
 
A theory: Schilling’s participation in the congressional committee hearing on PED use in baseball has lowered his support?  It was well known that Schilling was the only participant at that hearing who was not suspected of taking PEDs.  Nevertheless, maybe some baseball writers, not knowing any better, lump him together with the usual suspects, Sosa, McGwire, etc?
 
His support should be higher.  Much higher.

 
You're over thinking this. He doesn't have 300 wins. That's why there's not a massive groundswell among voters to get him into the Hall. Seriously, it's really that simple.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

 
You're over thinking this. He doesn't have 300 wins. That's why there's not a massive groundswell among voters to get him into the Hall. Seriously, it's really that simple.

 
Bingo.  Probably the sole reason that Glavine breezed in with 90+% while Mussina and Schilling both got less than 30%.
 
It's extremely likely that after the Big Unit next year, there won't be another 300 win pitcher on the ballot for a long long LONG time, if ever again.  The only active players with at least 200 wins are Tim Hudson and CC Sabathia with 205 each.  Hudson is 37 and likely on his last contract and Sabathia is going to have to average about 16 wins a season for another six years to get there.
 
The voters are going to have to get the notion of 300 wins as a magical number out of their head.

 

[terrisus]

It is kind of interesting that 500 HRs has been discounted so quickly as a "magic number," but 300 Wins still factors so strongly into things.

 

[OttoC]

It is kind of interesting that 500 HRs has been discounted so quickly as a "magic number," but 300 Wins still factors so strongly into things.

 
When Ted Williams retired after the 1960 season, he was 3rd on the all-time HR list. Today, he stands tied with two others in 18th place with 16 of the 20 hitters all coming after him. Whereas, of the 24 pitchers who won 300+ games, fourteen of them can be considered old-timers (Early Wynn the youngest).

 

[terrisus]

Well, yeah - you think it would have been long enough since 300 had been a reachable number for Hall of Fame credentials that adjustments could be made to realize that a pitcher could still be Hall of Fame-worthy without hitting that magic 300.

 

[Spacemans Bong]

I think the voters may have been on the verge of thinking that, then Clemens, Maddux, Glavine and Johnson all won 300 games.
 
Mind you, Jack Morris's 254 wins has been used more than a few times as justification for why he is a Hall of Famer. Meanwhile Mussina wins 270 and gets 25% of the vote. I hate the Hall voters.

 

[BigMike]

I don’t know why Schilling isn’t getting more support (higher percentage) for the HOF.  He is a legitimate HOF player.
 
A theory: Schilling’s participation in the congressional committee hearing on PED use in baseball has lowered his support?  It was well known that Schilling was the only participant at that hearing who was not suspected of taking PEDs.  Nevertheless, maybe some baseball writers, not knowing any better, lump him together with the usual suspects, Sosa, McGwire, etc?
 
His support should be higher.  Much higher.

 
Screwing the State of Rhode Island out of 70 million (long after his career was over) might have hurt him a bit in the voting,   I seriously doubt him appearing in the steroid hearing hurt him
 
Born 8 months apart
 
Glavine made his major league debut a year before Schilling, and lasted a year after Curt was done   
 
Glavine won 89 more games
Glavine made 3 more all star games
Glavine won 2 more Cy Youngs
 
And if you want to throw steroid era BS into the mix,  there is there sudden WOW moment that comes after his 34th birthday, and he posts the 4 best years of his career, with his k/9 jumping by 3.5 - 4 overnight

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

Posnanski chips in with his two cents:
 
http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/a-hall-of-fame-idea/#more-1506
 
Have to say I agree in principal with all of this