{"id":191,"date":"2008-01-16T14:34:42","date_gmt":"2008-01-16T21:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/16\/2008-bbwaa-results-%e2%80%93-some-thoughts\/"},"modified":"2008-01-16T14:34:42","modified_gmt":"2008-01-16T21:34:42","slug":"2008-bbwaa-results-%e2%80%93-some-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/16\/2008-bbwaa-results-%e2%80%93-some-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"2008 BBWAA Results \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Some Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Goose Gossage<\/strong> on his election to the Hall of Fame. <\/span>He got 86% of the vote and was the only candidate elected. <\/span>As we have said here before, Gossage has HOF<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> numbers and should have been elected long ago.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p>Three other players scored better than 60% of the vote and will probably be elected some day. <\/span>They are Jim Rice, Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span>Jim Rice<\/span><\/strong> got 72% of the vote this year and almost certainly will be elected next year. <\/span>It will be his last chance because 2009 will be his fifteenth (and last) year on the ballot. <\/span>Rice does not have HOF<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> numbers according to the NEWS HOF Gauge. <\/span>In fact, he is not even close. <\/span>His NEWS score is 245 when he needs a score of 280. <\/span>He is a good example of the marginal player who hangs around on the ballot for a long time but really does not deserve induction into the Hall of Fame.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span>Andre Dawson <\/span><\/strong>got 66% of the vote and has a very good chance of getting in within the next few years. <\/span>However, like Jim Rice, Dawson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> does not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. <\/span>His NEWS score of 261 is better than Rice but is still far short of the benchmark of 280. <\/span>Like Rice, he may get in if he hangs around long enough (this was his seventh year on the ballot).<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span>Bert Blyleven <\/span><\/strong>got 62% of the vote and, hopefully, will be elected within the next few years. <\/span>He is the 24th<\/sup> best starting pitcher of the 20th<\/sup> century according to the NEWS HOF Gauge and should have been elected long ago (this was his eleventh year on the ballot).<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p>Only three other players on the ballot had HOF<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> numbers according to the NEWS HOF Gauge: Lee Smith, Tim Raines and Mark McGwire.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span>Lee Smith <\/span><\/strong>got 43% of the votes this year. <\/span>This was his sixth year on the ballot and he got 45% in 2006. <\/span>So, it is anyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s guess as to whether he will ever get enough votes.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span>Tim Raines <\/span><\/strong>was on the ballot for the first time this year and he got 24% of the vote. <\/span>He certainly has HOF<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> numbers (a NEWS score of 304). <\/span>He is the 48th best position player of the century. <\/span>But, obviously, he is underappreciated by many of those doing the voting. <\/span>We can only hope that many more of the voters will come to their senses over the next few years and elect this man to the Hall.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span>Mark McGwire <\/span><\/strong>has HOF<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> numbers but he is also under the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153steroids\u00e2\u20ac\u009d cloud. <\/span>He got 128 votes this year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the exact same number as last year<\/em>. <\/span>That would certainly seem to indicate that the writers are holding firm. So, what does this mean? Can we conclude anything from this? My conclusion is as follows: <\/span>Mark McGwire will never be elected to the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA.<\/o:p><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As reluctant as I am to think that the majority of writers could agree on any firm principle, I am concluding now that most of them (rightly or wrongly) will not vote for a candidate implicated in the “steroid scandal.”<\/o:p>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I am not saying that I believe that this is good or bad. But what it says to me is that if a writer will not vote for Mark McGwire, why would he vote, for example, for Rafael Palmeiro or Sammy Sosa or Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens? Fairly or not, a good number of elite players have been negatively affected by this issue. And if McGwire is not elected, why would we think any of the others would be. <\/span>I really do not think it will mean anything to most of the voters that Bonds or Clemens were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153better players\u00e2\u20ac\u009d than McGwire. <\/span>I think the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153principle\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of not voting for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153steroid players\u00e2\u20ac\u009d will prevail. <\/span>I think there is a good chance that none of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tainted\u00e2\u20ac\u009d players will ever be elected to the Hall of Fame.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

For more info on the NEWS HOF Gauge, see BASEBALL\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S BEST: The TRUE Hall of<\/strong> Famers<\/strong><\/a> on this site.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Goose Gossage on his election to the Hall of Fame. He got 86% of the vote and was the only candidate elected. As we have said here before, Gossage has HOF numbers and should have been elected long ago. Three other players scored better than 60% of the vote and will probably be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prof-hobans-hall-of-fame-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}