Posted August 16, 2010 on this blog, "Still I think the class of 2011 is a 2 man photo, I'll go with Bert Blyleven and Robbie Alomar for Cooperstown, NY in '11."
Ding Ding Ding, We have a winner! It wasn't really that hard to see this coming based on the group of first time eligible players.
The 3 guys that I mentioned in that post back in August from the first time group were Jeff Bagwell 242 votes 41.7% not bad first time on the ballot and I think he'll get in in the next 2-3 years. Raffy, 64 votes 11% I told you before he should get in based on his numbers but his positive PED test shortly after his 3,000 hit will be hard to overcome. John Franco only 27 votes, 4.6%. This surprises me! I said Franco had longevity and that alone should not get a player in but as a RP with longevity comes stats and the stats have to be good to maintain longevity. It is cyclical. Franco didn't achieve the 5% minimum needed by 1st timers to remain on the ballot for future years.
After falling just short last year, Blyleven got enough votes this year to get in by 4%. It was Bert's 14th year on the ballot he only had one more year left if he didn't get in. Voting rules state that each voter can only vote for 10 players on the ballot(usually between 25-40 players on ballot). So what this is telling me is that for the last 13 years there have been some writers who felt there could have been 10 better players than Blyleven. Doesn't mean they all voted for 10 players that just can't vote for more than 10. However, 63 voters thought that Blyleven was somehow more deserving in his 14th year of eligibility than he was in his 13th year. So, did those guys all vote for 10 other guys last year or just rethink things over the last 12 months? It's probably not all 63 because there may be some new voters this year as opposed to last and we may have lost a few as well.
Alomar received 523 votes or 90% in his 2nd year. Just goes to show how dumb this HoF balloting is, Alomar only received 397 votes in his first year on the ballot and missed by 2.3%. 126 voters who didn't vote for Alomar in year 1 decided in year 2 he was worthy. If he's worthy he's worthy!! Why keep him out for a year because you morons think you can't have a guy be a "1st ballot HoFer" w/o him having kissed your ass. It's dumb!
In 2010 Morris 282 votes, Larkin 278 votes, and Lee Smith 255 votes were just behind Alomar and Blyleven. Larkin was in his 1st year of eligibility while Morris was in his 11th and Smith his 8th. On this year's ballot Larkin received a boost to 361 votes an increase of almost 11% again 83 voters playing the first ballot game or did they truly think there were 10 guys more deserving last year. Morris gained 29 votes but only went up by just over 1% and with only 3 years left on the ballot it doesn't appear he will get the call. Smith picked up 8 more votes than the previous year but actually lost 2% points and even though he has 6 years of eligibility left it doesn't appear he will make it in either.
No comments:
Post a Comment