Worst Hall of Fame ballot ever? Worst Hall of Fame ballot ever.

One vote for Surhoff is almost as bad an injustice as the 13-year wait for Bert. Almost.

 

The vote for Surhoff DOESN'T matter. There are a ton of voters. Some of them make outlier votes. Some people vote for Donald Duck for president, too. It doesn't matter, so long as everything comes out in the wash, and it typically does.

There is no reason to change the process because a few numbnuts get their hands on ballots. Because the rules ensure that far more knowledgeable baseball people get ballots than numbnuts. You don't change the process that works just to try to exclude a few outlier ballots.

 

Yeah, as long as he didn't vote for Surhoff at the exclusion of someone else (and it doesn't seem he did), it's not that big a deal.

 

If you're the best player in your league at your position for a decade, you merit consideration. He's a hell of a lot more deserving than Tony Perez. He made nine all-star games. He won five Gold Gloves.

 

But it does matter. For better or worse, the right to vote for the Baseball HOF ballot is far harder to obtain than the right to vote. Anyone who uses that privilege to follow thru on a fanboish 35-year-old promise is a joke and doesn't deserve the responsibility of voting.

 

Why is it an injustice? Blyleven is a borderline HOFer. If he gets in, fine, but this notion of injustice is something that emotionally builds over time and becomes its own entity as years pass. It doesn't change the fact that Blyleven's has a HOF resume that can be argued either way. It's not as if Babe Ruth is being held out of the HOF.

And to be fair, Jim Rice's HOF resume was the same, someone who I thought should've been in before he was inducted.

Surhoff's vote doesn't matter one bit. You get to put 10 names on a ballot. His name being on a ballot isn't going to influence anything.

I can get behind the argument that Blyleven's name should be on that ballot before the bone-throwing Surhoff vote, but that doesn't seem to be what's being argued.

 

I don't know what's worse, that he voted for him for the HOF or that he told a 12-year-old that he would one day be voting for him for the HOF.

What a complete douche.

 

I understand the argument about defense.

But I think you have to bring it stronger than .679 OPS, even with the five Gold Gloves.

 

Barry's right. Who the hell cares if he decided to vote for Surhoff based on some misty scene from his past? He also can give B.J. a handjob in a dark alley. Has the same meaning, more or less. It matters not. I disagree with his not voting for Alomar, but understand those who want to be pissed at Robby for spitting in the ump's face. His vote, his choice.

Though I am in the "he isn't a HOFer or he isn't an HOFer" camp, the fact remains that first-ballot status has become a status symbol reserved for, more or less, the cream of the crop. Alomar meets that, for sure, but I think his having to wait a year is a just punishment for the face-spitting. Bottom line is, you don't get to do that and not have to pay a price both in the short and long term. Anything more than a couple of years of waiting for him would be overkill, IMO.

 

Concepcion is benefiting from the fact that the ways to put value on defense are pretty obscure, so the value of his defense can be defined as the difference between his offensive value and the total value the observer wants him to have.

 

A very vaild point.

 

Yeah, none of us should ever say a nice thing to a 12-year old. Might make 'em think people are nice or something.

Why are we all so god-damned cranky all the time?