RESULTS: 2008 Hall of Fame voting
Posted by Andy on January 7, 2008
Well, thanks to everyone who voted. We managed to get 71 ballots and, while not the 100 I hoped for, I'm quite happy with the total, and the 150+ overall comments we got.
Click through for the results!
Without any further delay, here are the results:
87.3% Blyleven 69.0% Raines 67.6% Gossage 52.1% Rice 50.7% McGwire 45.1% Trammell 42.3% Dawson 38.0% Smith 29.6% Murphy 28.2% Morris 25.4% John 23.9% Mattingly 11.3% Baines 9.9% Parker 8.5% Concepcion 1.4% Fryman 1.4% Knoblauch 0.0% Anderson 0.0% Beck 0.0% Dunston 0.0% Finley 0.0% Justice 0.0% Nen 0.0% Rijo 0.0% Stottlemyre
So the Baseball-Reference.com SOTD readers elected just Bert Blyleven with the necessary 75% to our virtual HOF. For most of the voting, Gossage was a close second to Blyleven and far ahead of Raines, but some late support for Rock bumped him just ahead of Goose. Each vote ended up being worth about 1.4%, so Raines needed 5 more votes and Gossage needed 6 to get in.
SOTD readers voted for an average of 5.9 players per ballot, which includes one ballot submitted with zero votes. For the 9 ballots that didn't include Blyleven, those voters picked, on average, just 3.8 players.
Players with less than 5% of the vote get dropped from the real ballot. So in our virtual process here, everybody from Fryman and Knoblauch on down would get dropped. I would be somewhat surprised if Beck and Nen both finish with no votes in the real balloting.
In the real voting, to be announced tomorrow, I expect Gossage to be the only entrant. I also expect Raines to be quite a bit lower in the voting, and Blyleven and Rice to be #2 and #3 (but perhaps not in that order.)
Anyway, thanks again to everybody for participating, and thanks again to reader spartanbill for suggesting this poll in the first place. Let's meet back here tomorrow to discuss the results of the real voting!
January 7th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Andy. Thanks for doing all that. It is great fun. Helps me get through the baseball-less winter.
In regards to Raines, BR contributors and baseball writers don't see him anywhere close to a shoe-in, and I am miffed about that! I really don't understand it. Alas.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
No problem.
By the way, when I was tabulating the votes, I was reciting names out loud, making sure I transcribed them properly. After a while, my wife (in the other room) wanted to know why I was mumbling about Mexican food. Apparently, a few times I said "Baines and Rice" and she thought I was saying "beans and rice", which she never fails to get on her burrito when we eat Mexican food.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:37 am
There are only 18 players in ML history to have:
HR>=400, H>=2500, RBI>=1500, and TB>=4750)
I believe that everyone of them who is eligable is in the HOF, except for Andre Dawson.
SLG is higher than several HO Famers with similiar stats.
Only three players have ever done this:
HR>=400, 2B>=500, RBI>=1500, and SB>=300)
B.Bonds, W.Mays and Dawson.
Only three players! Two are probably top 10 all time players.
I never paid much attention to Dawson while he was playing -- but he seems like he belongs. I see his weakness is OBP -- mostly due to really low BB total. But that shouldn't be enough to keep him out.
January 8th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Kingturtle,
Besides the low Slugging Pct, please remember the cocaine trials he was caught up in.
January 8th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Andy,
Very funny story. I do hope you were simply repeating the names of players who don't belong in the Hall w/o an admission ticket.
January 8th, 2008 at 10:20 am
mrbaseballcard, I have to say I find your comments about Raines' cocaine use to be very judgmental and unfair. Everybody makes mistakes. Raines grew up in a very pressured environment different from what most Americans experience. He made a mistake and then you know what he did? He came right out and admitted it, sought treatment, and fixed the problem. He was never arrested, nor did he show up drunk for games like Mickey Mantle, nor did he do a lot of things that other players have done. Give the guy a break, for goodness sake. He stood up tall and took responsibility better than most people have ever done.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
So how many players have 650 more steals than caught stealing, 100 triples, slugging percentage of .425, OPS+ of at least 123, etc.? It's hard to believe the only such player -- not even Ty Cobb or Rickey Henderson managed all four criteria -- got only 24% support.
However, I had read how hard Jayson Stark had to work to get Peter Gammons to recognize Tim Raines's accomplishment. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/hof08/news/story?id=3169953
If Peter Gammons needs persuasion, then it's no wonder Stat of the Day contributors were a whole lot more sensible than the voters at BBWAA.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I just saw the actual results, and they make me sick to my stomach. Blyleven on just 61.9% means he has a ways to go. Raines on just 24.3%!!
January 8th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I'm not all that surprised the BBWAA didn't give more support to Raines. Looks like Rice should make it in next year, his last on the ballot. Blyleven made some strides, but I'm not sure if he can get over the hump.
Vote totals (543 total cast)
Rich Gossage 466 85.8%
Jim Rice 392 72.2%
Andre Dawson 358 65.9%
Bert Blyleven 336 61.9%
Lee Smith 235 43.3%
Jack Morris 233 42.9%
Tommy John 158 29.1%
Tim Raines 132 24.3%
Mark McGwire 128 23.6%
Alan Trammell 99 18.2%
Dave Concepcion 88 16.2%
Don Mattingly 86 15.8%
Dave Parker 82 15.1%
Dale Murphy 75 13.8%
Harold Baines 28 5.2%
Rod Beck 2 0.4%
Travis Fryman 2 0.4%
Robb Nen 2 0.4%
Shawon Dunston 1 0.2%
Chuck Finley 1 0.2%
David Justice 1 0.2%
Chuck Knoblauch 1 0.2%
Todd Stottlemyre 1 0.2%
Jose Rijo 0 0%
Brady Anderson 0 0%
January 8th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Perhaps the Hall of Fame should open up voting to Internet bloggers and sabermatricians who have demonstrated 10 years of covering the game. Hell, I'd bet a lot of us know WAY more about baseball than many of the writer-voters.
Yeah, it'll never happen, but it probably should be considered.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I'm just glad that someone got in. I was actually expecting a repeat of 1996 with no one getting elected. That ballot had four Hall of Famers (Niekro, Perez, Sutton and Sutter) on it and a handful more that I think will eventually get in (including Rice). That election kicked of my hatred of the whole process since I would have been able to get up to Cooperstown that year to see Niekro get inducted, but by the time he got elected in '97 I was working full time and couldn't make it. Stupid writers!!!
January 8th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I don't think mrbaseballcard was neccessarily making the point that Raines should't be in becuase of his drug use; just that some of the voters feel that way.
On stats alone, McGwire should be in and when Bonds name comes up, he should get into with 100 per cent. But in the system we have, I am sure Raines lost some votes because some members of the BBWAA see him as a druggy. McGwire did as well. I wonder how many Jack Morris and Steve Carlton lost becuase most writers saw them as surly and uncooperative. Bonds is going to lose point based on his "alleged" steroid use as well as his boorish personality. Even though Clemens says he doesn't give a "rats ass" about the HOF, the next few weeks will largely determine his electabilty more than his 354 wins and 4672 K's.
I beleive that in a voters eyes, being a "good person" whatever the heck that means, counts to many voters. It is silly to presume otherwise. It helped a personable guy like Tom LaSorda, and to one extent or another, it hurts some of the others.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
I followed up my new acquaintance with the use of the gameday PI feature. I assume the best way to get a 162-game career best is to just scroll up and down and then highlight and calculate periods that look particularly promising. Anyway, in this 162 game stretch Raines had a bases-advanced average of .649. I'll bet no other current HoF nominee (except McGwire) comes close to it: not Rice, Dawson, Murphy, Mattingly, Baines. . . maybe Parker (I'll check).
Tim Raines batting from career game #817 (Jul 23, 1986) to game #978 (Aug 19, 1987)
G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS
+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+
162 712 611 126 208 41 7 18 83 93 21 57 4 0 4 8 67 7 .340 .428 .519 .947
What does it (total bases plus bb plus sb minus cs and gdp) mean? If he came up to bat five times, he was likely to advance 3.25 bases all by himself. For his great 1978 year, Jim Rice's numbers would be .611/ab and 3.05 bases in five trips.
Where Rice has an advantage is that his 46 home runs in 1978 obviously drove home more teammates than Raines's 18 on the line above. On his own, however, not considering whether anyone was on base when he came up, Raines was clearly more of a force -- for one year or over his career -- than any of the other HoF candidates named in paragraph one.
The guys with highest bases-advanced percentages are the sluggers who also draw a lot of walks (and if they can steal a few bases with some efficiency and avoid hitting into double plays, that helps even more).
January 8th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Here's the answer to my own question about Dave Parker. Coincidentally, in the same year (1978) that Jim Rice was AL MVP, Parker was NL MVP and his bases-advanced that year (and a few games of 1977) make up, for 162 games, 426 in 697 PA. That's a percentage of .611, THE SAME % that Jim Rice compiled in 163 games during 1978. Remember that I found a stretch in which Tim Raines got to .649 for 162 consecutive games. . . .
Parker was a great defensive outfielder during this stretch. If only he could have kept it up. Raines may have dallied with drugs in a way that didn't hurt his performance measurably; something seriously impacted Dave Parker from 1980 through 1984.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:36 am
#10 zimcity...that's really unfair. Bloggers and statheads like us MIGHT know a lot more about baseball STATS...but not necessarily more about baseball. Journalists who cover the game know about things like demeanor, effort, attitude, cooperativeness, tenacity, etc, that you can never see from a page of stats, and those things are not inconsequential when considering a player's HOF candidacy.
January 9th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Maybe it was slightly unfair to many of the writers, Andy. But, of the 543 voters, I would bet a fair amount of them don't take it as seriously as they should, or as many of us do. How else do you explain Raines low vote total, or Rice and Blyleven's continued struggle to get the required 75%?
My main point was that the voting system is somewhat antiquated as long as it is with ONLY the BBWAA. It's the 21st century and all media should be represented in the voting.
January 9th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Zim, you might be right. I don't know, and I don't think there is an easy answer. Jim Rice's early years on the HOF ballot were hurt tremendously by the fact that he was blackballed by the Boston-area media for being uncooperative when he was a player. Other media around the country heard that he wasn't getting support EVEN from his local media, and they felt that they then shouldn't vote him either. I forget the numbers, but I think Rice started in the low 20-percent area on his first ballot. Since then, the Boston media have turned over a lot, and I heard yesterday that he was named on every ballot from Boston-area media. Now, he's over 70%, and no player to previously get at least 70% has failed to make the HOF eventually. Rice will definitely make it next year (unless it comes out that he used steroids...LOL.)
Anyway, my point here is just to characterize the intensely complex situation around HOF voting. Do I think that looking from a purely statistical view as we do has merit? And do I think that sites such as this one, Hardball Time, Baseball Prospectus, and numerous others take a very smart approach to stats? Yes I do. But I think it's only one segment of what needs to be considered.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:29 am
True enough as there are no stats to measure integrity and contributions in the clubhouse or off the field.
Interesting note, I was looking at some HOF vote totals and Jim Bunning had 74.2% in 1988 and didn't make it in his final three years on the writer's ballot.
So he was even closer than Rice and still had to wait until 1996 when the Veteran's Committee selected him.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:46 am
yeah...I believe nobody has had 70% of the BBWAA and didn't EVENTUALLY get in, even if voted by the Veterans Committee.
January 9th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Andy, and all others
Spartanbill had it right. I was simply pointing out that many writers will not look past the cocaine issues Raines had (remember stories that he would slide headfirst so as to not break the vials he had in his back pocket) and this would explain lower vote totals than his high OBP and high SB's would otherwise deserve.