What In the World Are These Voters Waiting For?

Great post by Dave Cameron over at FanGraphs on the dearth of baseball hall-of-famers elected recently.  Myself and many others have been saying for years that the writers need to begin voting great players into the HOF. Isn’t that the point of The Hall?

Writers have made clear that the only late 80’s stars that need apply are Kirby Puckett and Dennis Eckersley.

Let’s hope that we see Tim Raines, Fred McGriff, Alan Trammell, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza, Curt Schilling, Mark McGwire, Larry Walker get some major vote totals increases this year.

Finally, how they whiffed on Kenny Lofton is just beyond me.  According to fWAR Lofton provided as much value as Duke Snider.  Would these voters not put Duke Snider in if he had played during the “steroid era”?

Give the Voters a Little Bit of Credit

Earlier in the week I compared the careers of Fred McGriff and Sammy Sosa.  The contributions to their teams were nearly identical.  Given these facts I have to give the voters some credit today.  McGriff received 47 more hall-of-fame votes than Sosa.  Considering they were near equals as players the 47 extra votes for Crime Dog could be viewed as bonus points for “playing clean”.

Of course I can not explain Kenny Lofton falling off the ballot after one year.  18 votes for Lofton is disgraceful.  His career value is on par with Andre Dawson, Richie Ashburn and Max Carey.  Should these three guys be removed from the Hall?

The bigger question is are we at a more permanent level of smaller hall?   With all-time greats like Alan Trammell and Lofton dropping like flies it’s a fair question.

Not to mention Curt Schilling unable to crack 40% of the vote.  If voters keep Schilling out then there is no way they can vote Tom Glavine in next year.  Unless of course they aren’t paying attention.