The BIG Problem with the Baseball Hall of Fame

I went from Puerto Rico to Cooperstown for Edgar in July 2019. On Induction Day a family that flew from Seattle placed their seats near me, they wore Edgar jerseys and had signs celebrating his enshrinement. They were having a photo session and when the guy with the camera said Say Cheese I couldn't contain myself and said, "Hey, why not say Eeeeddddgarrrrrr !!!" It was magical !!! They laughed a lot and had a great time taking photos. Afterwards the father of the family came to me, addressed the Team Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 jersey and matching cap I was wearing, shook my hand and in a sort of emotional way said 'Thank You, for him, he saved baseball for us in Seattle'. Needless to say, I was so touched I couldn't utter a word. A moment I will never forget.

When you hear the MF DOOM start up you know it’s about to really get going

I prefer team Hall of Fames over the MLB HoF anyway. Jim Edmonds is in the Cardinals, Will Clark is in the Giants, etc. The fans and teams these players played for can ensure their careers are recognized and appreciated.

Mariano Rivera being the ONLY unanimous winner tells me all i need to know about this stupid HOF and its voters.

I think the easiest change would be to get rid of the 10 vote limit. Either the players are good enough or not. It’s an arbitrary number that doesn’t accurately reflect the caliber of players the writers vote for. There shouldn’t be a limit on the hall of fame. Players are either good enough or not.

Honestly, the main that rubs me the wrong way about Hall of Fame voting is the way journeymen are treated, even when they have Hall of Fame stats. Like you gotta commit to one or two teams throughout your career or else you won't get in. It's like slut shaming for baseball.

TL;DR - the HOF puts in players that no fan considered “famous” during their play time and at the same time keeps out the players that all fans consider famous. This is due to baseball writers voting, who have their own agenda other than how good or famous a player was. The fact that even players don’t vote on this until the very, very end is also counter-intuitive.

David Ortiz age 27 - retirement 1953 games, 8398 plate appearances Carlos Delgado age 24 - retirement 1953 games, 8397 plate appearances Their 162 game averages during their prime: Ortiz 100 runs, 43 doubles, 40 HR, 127 RBI, .290 AVG .386 OBP, .956 OPS, 148 OPS+, 4.1 WAR Delgado 101 runs, 40 doubles, 38 HR, 123 RBI, .283 AVG, .380 OBP, .937 OPS, 140 OPS+, 3.5 WAR One gets inducted in their first year of eligibility, the other fails to receive the necessary 5% of the vote to stay on the ballot

As a lifelong Mariner fan, and someone who grew up watching Edgar, seeing him get the HoF nod was so satisfying.

Glad someone FINALLY covered Clark.

To me, the biggest hipocrisy is to not vote for some "so-called" steroid guys based on hearsay, suspicion, assumption but no positive test, yet vote in a guy like Ortiz who DID test positive. That he did before it was "illegal" sure, but he CLEARLY cheated too.

Yeah, you didn't mention Tony Oliva - Rookie of the year 1962, 3 time batting champion, gold glover, 8 time allstar, got 8 hits in a row in a one day double header, and was the first designated hitter to hit a home run as DH. Slightly shortened career with bad knees, played 14 years until 1976. One of the greatest pure hitters of all time.Took them an eternity until 2022 to vote him in via the Golden Era Committee. Greatfully, Tony still doing well and was able to speak at his induction in his 80s. BTW, he still supports my favorite local charity: Crescent Cove Children's Hospice and Respite Home. A fabulous human being. One of the greatest pure hitters of all time.... - John B.

To me this shit is very simple. Accountability. If you get to vote, you have to explain why you voted for someone, and why you didn't. Make people able to vote either for or against - if they want to abstain they better have good reason, and then their vote is not counted in the total for a player to be excluded. "I didn't know enough about his career" is fine, but then that shouldn't be used to decrease a players voting percentage, you shouldn't count. But it would make it so much better: "why did you vote for player A to become ineligible in his first year?" and suddenly a lot of voters would start doing that minimum 15mins of research. Otherwise you might as well take their voting power away

I feel like the one and out needs to be changed. Give them three years to fully determine if they belong. That would mean an increase of the percentage to stay on would also happen. Maybe have it at 10 or 15%. With the increase in the ballot names, some players may be off ballots. You mentioned Werth and Weaver getting in last years ballot even though they shouldn't. Those type of players could be one and done or removed from the ballot entirely. TLDR; Move the 5%(or more) cutoff to three years. If a player gets no votes in their 1st year, they are one and done.

Something you forgot to mention with Will Clark is that he played more than half his career with Chandlestick Park as his home park, one of the most notoriously hitter unfriendly parks in recent history that significantly depressed his traditional stats. Like in his 1989 MVP runnerup year, at home he slashed .325/.394/.516/.910, while on the road he hit .341/.420/.572/.992. Yet while the HOF voters for so long overly penalized Coors hitters (and some still were this past vote in their reasoning for not voting for Helton), they never gave an appropriate counter boost to hitters that predominantly played in pitcher parks. Alongside Clark, I also like to bring up Olerud, another contemporary well-rounded first baseman that was better than McGriff, yet also went one-and-done just because he didn't hit a lot of home runs.

Been an Astros fan my whole life, watching Berkman getting left off genuinely hurt ngl, he was a huge piece of our team for years and I wish he got more recognition.

I think the Edmonds/Rolen debate shows that the difference between a great player and a HOF player isn’t a well defined line but rather a hazy gray area that is constantly expanding and contracting depending on how and what stats are valued

On the 2017 Vet's Committee ballot, Alan Trammell and Jack Morris were elected... Whitaker was omitted from that ballot because "a 10 player ballot should not have 3 players from the same franchise", yet Thurman Munson, Don Mattingly and Tommy John from the Yankees were on the same ballot In 2019, Whitaker should have been a slam dunk Vet's Committee selection...EXCEPT Rod Carew and George Brett did NOT champion Whitaker like they did Morris and Trammell 2 Decembers earlier

will clark has always been my favorite baseball player of all time. thank you for covering him. 🙏

As an Astros fan I've been saying for years that Berkman is a HOFer and he got snubbed on the first try.