AngelsWin.com Today: Should Some Bloggers Be Allowed to Vote for the Hall of Fame?

[AngelsWin.com]

By @Dave Saltzer, AngelsWin.com Senior Writer

With the MLB offseason moving at a glacially slow speed, a lot of time, columns, and commentary has been devoted to which players, if any, might be voted into the Hall of Fame. As of the time this article was written, there are 57 public ballots and 5 anonymous ballots.  There’s even a Hall of Fame vote tracker, where fans can see which players are likely to gain admittance into the Hall of Fame.

Again, as of the time of this article, it appears that 2021 may not produce a single Hall of Fame admittance for a player. With all the public ballots known, representing about 16.4% of the eligible voters, that presents a problem for the Hall of Fame and for Major League Baseball, as the induction ceremony is where baseball has a chance to celebrate and glorify its past and connect it to its present.

Rather than debating the merits of which players deserve enshrinement, I’d like to debate the question of who gets to vote for the Hall of Fame. More specifically, should some baseball bloggers be allowed to vote for the Hall of Fame?

The immediate answer would appear to be “no” to that question. However, with all due respect to those writers that I know who can vote for the Hall of Fame, I’d take issue with that response.

I get it that “any idiot with a keyboard” is a “blogger”. I want to be clear that I’m not at all advocating that all bloggers be allowed to vote for the Hall of Fame. Not all baseball writers are eligible to vote, so I can certainly see some need to create criteria for bloggers who would be eligible to vote.

Since 1936, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) has had the exclusive privilege to vote for those players to gain admission into the Hall of Fame. At that time, that made a lot of sense. Most baseball fans did not “see” most of the games, and instead heard the games over the radio or read about the games in the newspaper. The beat reporters were the ones who saw the players on a daily basis and were in the best position to determine those players who played at a level far above their peers.

However, times change. With cable TV, fans today can watch as many games as the beat reporters. In fact, there are plenty of fans who may watch more games than reporters. More importantly, by watching the games on TV, with multiple commentators, fans will be exposed to multiple opinions about the play of individual players as they hear different broadcasters call the game whereas a beat reporter may only hear the same opinions from reporters on the same beat. The days where the members of the BBWAA serve as the sole or main “eyes” of the game are no longer upon us. Therefore, it is fair to ask if they should be the sole “guardians” of the history, the lore, and the mystique of the game.

More importantly, the Hall of Fame is exactly what the name implies, the Hall of Fame. It is not the Hall of Stats. It is not the Hall of Personality. It is the Hall of Fame. If it were the Hall of Stats, then there wouldn’t be a need for a vote on eligibility for players, as the stats would speak for themselves. And, if it were the Hall of Personality, then several players presently in the Hall of Fame would need to be removed for what we now know about them, whereas others may deserve admission but did not receive it because they were not well liked by the voting members, or held ideological/political views that differed from the voting members.

With all due respect to the members of the BBWAA that I know, while they are all fans of baseball, many of them are not fans of the team that they cover. They may like the team that they cover, but, in many cases, their beat doesn’t encompass their truly favorite team. While this may help them with their coverage for the team(s) that they write about, their experience is not what fuels and funds the game of baseball. It is the fans who do that. It’s truly the fans who determine “fame”, not the writers.

Enshrining a player in Cooperstown essentially asks a question that the voting members of the BBWAA cannot truly answer. Essentially, it asks, which players over a prolonged period of play, were with the price of a ticket. Since the voting members of the BBWAA generally do not pay to attend games, and instead are paid to be at the games, that’s not a question that they can answer. Only fans can truly answer which players were worth paying to see. And, today’s fans are best represented by bloggers, not the BBWAA.

That creates a real problem for the Hall of Fame. Having been there several times, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the overwhelming majority of people who visit it are there to visit and see things about their favorite team and players. One of the most crowded and slowest moving sections of the Hall of Fame is at the beginning, where every team has its locker full of memorabilia specific to that team. Fans stop for long periods to study their favorite team(s)’ lockers before spreading out to see the exhibits on baseball in general. That’s because they want to see the fame and glory for their team. They will stop to look at all displays for their favorite players, most of whom played for their team. They will take pictures with the plaques for their favorite players because that is fame for them. The Hall of Fame doesn’t exist just for the BBWAA; it exists for the fans and is attended by the fans.

If it is truly supposed to be a hall of “fame” then the fans deserve to have a voice in the process of selecting those players enshrined within it. While the members of the BBWAA will have the factual knowledge of the best players of an era, and may recall which players played the most prominent roles in their stories over the seasons, they don’t always share the same passion and feelings towards players like dedicated fans. While they will have written about the plays and wins, it doesn’t always carry the same sting to them as knowing that a certain player is coming in for a homestand did to a diehard fan. Bloggers do know those pains, and are in the best position to represent the interests and beliefs of the fans who fuel the game.

More importantly, in some cases, the members of the BBWAA may at times become too close to the players to always be entirely objective about it. It is easy to see that when players like Ken Griffey Jr. (99.3%), Nolan Ryan (98.8%), Ted Williams (93.4%), Jackie Robinson (77.5%), etc. did not achieve 100 percent of the vote for their admission into the Hall of Fame. It seems quite plausible that in some members of the BBWAA may have been swayed by personality conflicts with players and did not vote for those players or other players simply for reasons other than those that were part of the game. Personality conflicts appears to be the reason why one candidate on this year's ballot may not be enshrined in Cooperstown even though his stats would argue otherwise. Several members of the BBWAA have openly discussed this problem and their difficulty detaching his play on the field from their ideological conflicts with the player.  

Similarly, the members of the BBWAA may be a bit too close to some scandals in baseball, such as the steroid scandal, to truly be the objective and sole voters for the hall of “fame”. To fill in the time for the lack of movement this offseason, many voting members of the BBWAA have appeared on shows such as MLB Now and MLB Tonight to discuss the schism between older voting members and younger voting members when it comes to the steroid scandal. In both cases, though, both the more senior and the more junior writers may not share the same feelings about the steroid scandal as the fans do. In both cases, those members of the BBWAA may not understand the impact that those scandals had on the passion for the game because it was their job to watch and report the game, rather than making the choice to dedicate time and money to following the sport like fans did.

The last point I would make about why some bloggers should be allowed to vote for membership in the Hall of Fame is the recognition of the obviously changing economics of sports coverage. To say that the legacy media is on the ropes is an understatement. The number of baseball writing jobs and positions in newspapers is shrinking annually. Again, with all due respect to the current voting members of the BBWAA that I know, at some people, they may become extinct. There may not be that many writers left who meet the voting eligibility requirements for the Hall of Fame to truly make it or their vote relevant. That would be a serious blow to the sport, the coverage, and the Hall of Fame. It would be far wiser to develop new criteria to reflect the times and realities by letting some bloggers be eligible to vote for the Hall of Fame than to wait for a foreseeable crash to happen and have no plan for how to proceed.

If Major League Baseball truly wanted to capture the younger, more diverse audience, then it needs to adapt with the times. Baseball coverage and thought is not the same as it was in 1936 when the BBWAA became the official voting body of the Hall of Fame. Not only do some bloggers represent a way forward for continued baseball coverage, but they also represent a diversity of opinions. Bloggers are more likely to challenge the orthodoxy on certain viewpoints, such as whether or not a pure DH should be in the Hall of Fame, how to recognize the most outstanding middle relievers, etc. (focusing just on issues concerning Hall of Fame voting). By allowing some bloggers to vote for admission into the Hall of Fame, Major League Baseball will ensure the diversity of opinions continue to matter and will continue to carry the history and legacy of the sport forward.

Again, I want to be clear that I am not advocating for all bloggers to be given a vote. Just as there are eligibility requirements for baseball writers to be eligible to vote, so too should there be eligibility requirements for bloggers. What those eligibility rules should be, and how those rules would be balanced out can be discussed once the idea of allowing some bloggers to be able to vote becomes acceptable and official.

Until then, the question needs to be continuously asked: should some bloggers be allowed to vote for the Hall of Fame?

 

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[Vegas Halo Fan]

Everybody who ever played for the Yankees would automatically make it in.

[Dave Saltzer]

49 minutes ago, Vegas Halo Fan said:

Everybody who ever played for the Yankees would automatically make it in.

I wouldn't be so certain of that. With the threshold for admittance still remaining at 75%, my bet is that they wouldn't get in at a higher rate, but players from other teams would get a better chance of admission. 

[Revad]

Nice argument. I think that some bloggers should be able to vote.

[Lou]

Hell no. 

[Dave Saltzer]

44 minutes ago, Revad said:

Nice argument. I think that some bloggers should be able to vote.

Thanks. As I said, the eligibility requirements would need to be flushed out. But, think about the writers are MLBTradeRumors.com. How many hundreds of thousands of fans read their material. They will never get to vote for the Hall of Fame, and yet, fans consider them "experts" on the game.

 

Many legacy media sites have essentially "bloggers" writing commentary about teams and the sport. So, again, they will never get a vote even though they are writing constantly about it. 

 

I believe that there could be and should be some ways to vet some bloggers (again to separate the idiots with keyboards from those who have more writing experience and analysis) to represent teams and the fans. Leaving the vote to just those members of the BBWAA no longer makes as much sense as it did in 1936. The world has changed a bit from then.

 

 

[floplag]

Extending the voting body isnt as important as setting some criteria and taking personal butthurt out of it in my view.
Im not opposed to it per say, but lets be real about who bloggers follow.. Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox... teams with large rabid followings to get the clicks and responses they need for content.  Im not sure I would consider many of them really that knowledgeable of the game as a whole, just whatever their audience wants to discuss. 
The MLB media needs o get over a lot of things.. whu spurned them, who wasnt the nicest guy, frankly even the steroid era, since most of them were complicit in that whole thing then threw the players under the bus when the shit hit the fan. 
Once all of these things are addressed, then expand the voting pool where it makes sense.
Sidenote, its time to put Rose in there... but im sure thats an other debate.  

[Dave Saltzer]

7 minutes ago, floplag said:

Extending the voting body isnt as important as setting some criteria and taking personal butthurt out of it in my view.
Im not opposed to it per say, but lets be real about who bloggers follow.. Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox... teams with large rabid followings to get the clicks and responses they need for content.  Im not sure I would consider many of them really that knowledgeable of the game as a whole, just whatever their audience wants to discuss. 
The MLB media needs o get over a lot of things.. whu spurned them, who wasnt the nicest guy, frankly even the steroid era, since most of them were complicit in that whole thing then threw the players under the bus when the shit hit the fan. 
Once all of these things are addressed, then expand the voting pool where it makes sense.
Sidenote, its time to put Rose in there... but im sure thats an other debate.  

There'd have to be a way to balance it out for all teams so that all teams are represented. Teams should be allowed to vet and recognize the bloggers that they know and trust, and teams should get equal numbers to represent them. And, there would need to be some generic positions as well, for those writers at MLBTradeRumors.com and some other sites as well.

 

If the voting membership were expanded, it would lead to more writing as more people would want to participate. And, that would lead to more interest in the sport. That would be a good thing for baseball.

 

I don't see many of the voting members of the BBWAA getting over their issues as easily as you suggest. The better solution would be to expand the voting and open it up more to a greater diversity of opinions.

[T.G.]

No

[Chuck]

Yes. 

[SlappyUtilityMIF]

No

[Inside Pitch]

I'm neither a yes or no, the game is constantly changing and so is how it's covered..... 

That said, I can't think of a single current "blogger" who's opinions merit consideration for inclusion in the vote other than some of the guys writing for sites devoted to statistical analysis or those who eventually graduated to actual media outlets (Sarris, Fagerstrom, Keri, Pertiello). The best example of a blog writer who went on to bigger things may be Aaron Gleeman, who blogged about the Twins and who started/created The Hardball Times before moving on to NBC, Baseball Prospectus, and is currently at The Athletic.  Everyone's favorite prospect punching bag Keith Law is another.  It's harder to point to the analytical guys writing for sites like FGs and BBP, since they keep getting hired by MLB teams (Cameron, Sullivan, Bendix)...  Thing is those guys all proved they had the chops to look at players objectively and showed a deeper understanding of the game and of the players who truly stood out from the rest... and that (IMO), is the biggest issue. The vast majority of bloggers are homers and the thought of guys like that being gatekeepers for the HOF is frightening.

Bill James' excellent "What Happened to the Hall of Fame? Baseball, Cooperstown, and the Politics of Glory" goes a long ways towards highlighting the issues with potentially extending the vote to bloggers IMHO.

[floplag]

17 hours ago, Dave Saltzer said:

There'd have to be a way to balance it out for all teams so that all teams are represented. Teams should be allowed to vet and recognize the bloggers that they know and trust, and teams should get equal numbers to represent them. And, there would need to be some generic positions as well, for those writers at MLBTradeRumors.com and some other sites as well.

 

If the voting membership were expanded, it would lead to more writing as more people would want to participate. And, that would lead to more interest in the sport. That would be a good thing for baseball.

 

I don't see many of the voting members of the BBWAA getting over their issues as easily as you suggest. The better solution would be to expand the voting and open it up more to a greater diversity of opinions.

But does this do that?  Adding people whose expertise is limited to one team adds bias as well... but then again, perhaps thats already a problem as we all know most of the top writers were beat writers and followed specific teams as well at least early on so who knows maybe im over thinking it.
Regardless i think the MLB media, in whatever for it takes, needs to get over the hypocrisy of the steroid era and trying to compare everything to the great Yankee teams of history. 

[Dave Saltzer]

On 12/27/2020 at 6:39 AM, Inside Pitch said:

I'm neither a yes or no, the game is constantly changing and so is how it's covered..... 

That said, I can't think of a single current "blogger" who's opinions merit consideration for inclusion in the vote other than some of the guys writing for sites devoted to statistical analysis or those who eventually graduated to actual media outlets (Sarris, Fagerstrom, Keri, Pertiello). The best example of a blog writer who went on to bigger things may be Aaron Gleeman, who blogged about the Twins and who started/created The Hardball Times before moving on to NBC, Baseball Prospectus, and is currently at The Athletic.  Everyone's favorite prospect punching bag Keith Law is another.  It's harder to point to the analytical guys writing for sites like FGs and BBP, since they keep getting hired by MLB teams (Cameron, Sullivan, Bendix)...  Thing is those guys all proved they had the chops to look at players objectively and showed a deeper understanding of the game and of the players who truly stood out from the rest... and that (IMO), is the biggest issue. The vast majority of bloggers are homers and the thought of guys like that being gatekeepers for the HOF is frightening.

Bill James' excellent "What Happened to the Hall of Fame? Baseball, Cooperstown, and the Politics of Glory" goes a long ways towards highlighting the issues with potentially extending the vote to bloggers IMHO.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

 

I can think of several bloggers who would fit this profile. Many baseball books have been written by people with blogs/podcasts (I guess I'd be using the term "blogger" a bit loosely to encompass a more wide range of people). As I said earlier, the people working for MLBTradeRumors would easily be qualified to vote. And, for reasons that I'll post below, I think even some dedicated team sites could be and should be allowed to vote. 

 

The goal should be to expand the thinking and to generate more interest in the sport. As I said in the article, it is the Hall of Fame, and to that end, it should be represent the interests and thoughts of the fans who go there. Bloggers, even some team site bloggers, would be in the best position to represent those interests.

 

Again, I'm not talking about the vast majority of bloggers, but, with some vetting and criteria, it would be easy to weed out those who lack the depth of knowledge and analytical abilities to be voting. But, then again, looking at the voting totals of the BBWAA (particularly those who did not get 100 percent of the vote), it's not like the BBWAA can claim that all of their voting members have the knowledge and analytical abilities to always get it right either.

[Dave Saltzer]

On 12/27/2020 at 8:54 AM, floplag said:

But does this do that?  Adding people whose expertise is limited to one team adds bias as well... but then again, perhaps thats already a problem as we all know most of the top writers were beat writers and followed specific teams as well at least early on so who knows maybe im over thinking it.
Regardless i think the MLB media, in whatever for it takes, needs to get over the hypocrisy of the steroid era and trying to compare everything to the great Yankee teams of history. 

If all the teams could vet and choose a set number of bloggers to represent their fanbases, this really wouldn't be a problem. If every one of those voting were just homers, and voted just for their players, they would cancel each other out. So, it wouldn't lead to non-deserving players getting into the HOF. If the numbers were relatively balanced for each team, along with some independent bloggers (such as those who write for analytical sites), then they wouldn't lead to any bias towards any team. I did not say that the 75% threshold should be dropped.

 

If the concern is that it would lead to an East Coast bias, or something similar, that seems a bit more difficult with free agency and increased player movement. Almost all of today's bloggers have grown up with free agency (whereas for the longest time, most BBWAA voting members did not), so, bloggers today are more willing to look at the player's on the field performance rather than team identity. More importantly, bloggers would be better able to recall which players they truly coveted in free agency and also the ones that they were grateful that their team avoided. Most of the voting members don't feel those pangs, but those pangs are part of what leads to a player's fame, and should be a factor for enshrinement in Cooperstown (or not).

 

Look at the endless threads and discussions on here about signing this player or that. I'm not so certain that the voting members of the BBWAA have the same sentiments about the Hot Stove and the potential player movement in it. The voting members look at the hot stove season as news to report. Bloggers look at it as a way to improve a franchise and focus on those players who are most likely to improve their franchise. That basically is "fame" which the present voting members of the BBWAA most likely don't factor as heavily.

 

Along those lines, for the longest time, the voting members of the BBWAA had their litmus tests and sacred numbers for enshrinement (such as 300 wins, 500 HRs, etc.). It wasn't until bloggers came along and really starting pushing a lot more of the modern analytics that got the voters to change some of their opinions. It was bloggers who were far more likely to support someone like Blyleven making it in to the HOF even though he didn't have the requisite 300 wins. And, it was bloggers who were pushing for Edgar Martinez to make it into the HOF before the voters got over the whole "he's just a DH and therefore not worthy" issue. 

 

The game of baseball is always changing. For a variety of reasons I believe that some bloggers (again, not all) are better able to recognize and adopt these newer trends and analysis to their thought process and writing. With careful vetting, these bloggers would bring a diversity of viewpoints that would encompass more of the fanbase's opinions. That would generate more discussion and interest in the sport and the HOF.

 

If for no other reason, as legacy media dies, the voting membership of the BBWAA will continue to shrink, until it achieves irrelevancy. At some point, the Hall of Fame will have to move on, so it would be best to start the discussion now while there are enough voting members of the BBWAA to develop a smooth transition. Otherwise, we will end up with very few voting members left, and in all likelihood, almost no one making it into Cooperstown as it will become more and more difficult to achieve that 75% threshold (and the biases of those few voting members will have a greater and greater impact on that 75% threshold). Do we really want the voting members of the BBWAA to become like the "veterans committee" in terms of the difficulty in voting players into the HOF?

[Inside Pitch]

1 hour ago, Dave Saltzer said:

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

 

I can think of several bloggers who would fit this profile. Many baseball books have been written by people with blogs/podcasts (I guess I'd be using the term "blogger" a bit loosely to encompass a more wide range of people). As I said earlier, the people working for MLBTradeRumors would easily be qualified to vote. And, for reasons that I'll post below, I think even some dedicated team sites could be and should be allowed to vote. 

 

The goal should be to expand the thinking and to generate more interest in the sport. As I said in the article, it is the Hall of Fame, and to that end, it should be represent the interests and thoughts of the fans who go there. Bloggers, even some team site bloggers, would be in the best position to represent those interests.

 

Again, I'm not talking about the vast majority of bloggers, but, with some vetting and criteria, it would be easy to weed out those who lack the depth of knowledge and analytical abilities to be voting. But, then again, looking at the voting totals of the BBWAA (particularly those who did not get 100 percent of the vote), it's not like the BBWAA can claim that all of their voting members have the knowledge and analytical abilities to always get it right either.

Honestly the guys at MLBtraderumors are among the last guys I'd consider. 

There isn't much original thought coming from there, mostly they compile other peoples original thoughts and articles and then sprinkle in their opinions on top of it as if its an original piece -- its kind of loathsome IMO.  To their credit they link/reference the actual authors but still annoying how they essentially snake the click and I'd much rather get the info from the original source and the guy that put in the time to do the research and get the quotes. I understand they do end of season recaps and their free agent tracker/ranking stuff but its a far cry from anything put out by FGs or BBP, even ESPN and again in most cases they read like a copy paste of those sources.

I'm all for expanding the field but I genuinely don't see any good way of doing it and I can't help but wonder who the gatekeepers giving these people votes would be.  Teams would love to have local blog writers involved because they would likely see a greater push among them for their guys, but I'm not sure that's a good thing - just more noise.  I think an easier option would be to create greater methodology, maybe even go back and redo the HOF as a whole and create different tiers, so all time greats like Babe Ruth, and the guys who had friends in the league like Jim Rice and the sort can both be in the HOF and yet be recognized as different animals...   Maybe break it down into all timers and generational (decade) greats sort of thing...  I dunno, I haven't given it the thought the subject deserves.

At the end of the day the biggest question I ask myself when people talk about making changes is "will this change, improve, or fix ________".   Not sure adding blogger types won't make it worse.  I tend to be a big hall guy but exclusivity is a thing, if you lower the bar to get more voices in the conversation I think you risk blunting it all.

[Inside Pitch]

49 minutes ago, Dave Saltzer said:

If all the teams could vet and choose a set number of bloggers to represent their fanbases, this really wouldn't be a problem. If every one of those voting were just homers, and voted just for their players, they would cancel each other out. So, it wouldn't lead to non-deserving players getting into the HOF. If the numbers were relatively balanced for each team, along with some independent bloggers (such as those who write for analytical sites), then they wouldn't lead to any bias towards any team. I did not say that the 75% threshold should be dropped.

Yes, the 75% criteria is still in play, but in adding bodies to the field you're also potentially making reaching that 75% prerequisite harder.   Those local guys voting for their own guys could also bring down the number of guys that deserve to go and aren't getting votes because more and more players are retiring/becoming eligible and the total number of guys that can be picked remains at 10.   There is also a real possibility the voting becomes even more fractured/regional than it already is.

49 minutes ago, Dave Saltzer said:

If the concern is that it would lead to an East Coast bias, or something similar, that seems a bit more difficult with free agency and increased player movement. Almost all of today's bloggers have grown up with free agency (whereas for the longest time, most BBWAA voting members did not), so, bloggers today are more willing to look at the player's on the field performance rather than team identity. More importantly, bloggers would be better able to recall which players they truly coveted in free agency and also the ones that they were grateful that their team avoided. Most of the voting members don't feel those pangs, but those pangs are part of what leads to a player's fame, and should be a factor for enshrinement in Cooperstown (or not).

Bias will always exist regardless -- it's incredibly difficult to control bias when you have a vote centered on personal opinion which is why I think maybe the better call is for them to alter the methodology or create tiers to the HOF, and again, that's creating more noise.  Thinking about how to do that gives me a headache.

49 minutes ago, Dave Saltzer said:

Along those lines, for the longest time, the voting members of the BBWAA had their litmus tests and sacred numbers for enshrinement (such as 300 wins, 500 HRs, etc.). It wasn't until bloggers came along and really starting pushing a lot more of the modern analytics that got the voters to change some of their opinions. It was bloggers who were far more likely to support someone like Blyleven making it in to the HOF even though he didn't have the requisite 300 wins. And, it was bloggers who were pushing for Edgar Martinez to make it into the HOF before the voters got over the whole "he's just a DH and therefore not worthy" issue. 

I think you're giving "bloggers' too much credit here.  The analytical guys pushing those narratives tended to write for places like StatsInc, BBP, more recently FGs, and again, most of their principles have been embraced by MLB to where we have seen a great deal of them hired.  The guy who deserves the most credit for moving away from the "sacred numbers" mindset is Bill James.  As I mentioned earlier he wrote a book in the 90s essentially arguing what you're trying to argue regarding "fame".   Not sure if you've ever read it but it should be required reading for Angels fans since one of his examples of a guy who should be in and isn't because of the antiquated/ignorant views of the BBWAA is a much loved Angels great.

49 minutes ago, Dave Saltzer said:

If for no other reason, as legacy media dies, the voting membership of the BBWAA will continue to shrink, until it achieves irrelevancy. At some point, the Hall of Fame will have to move on, so it would be best to start the discussion now while there are enough voting members of the BBWAA to develop a smooth transition. Otherwise, we will end up with very few voting members left, and in all likelihood, almost no one making it into Cooperstown as it will become more and more difficult to achieve that 75% threshold (and the biases of those few voting members will have a greater and greater impact on that 75% threshold). Do we really want the voting members of the BBWAA to become like the "veterans committee" in terms of the difficulty in voting players into the HOF?

If you concerned about there being enough votes to reach 75% then maybe the answer is to create a set number of voters and keep it static, not flood the voting pool with guys with even bigger biases.   I also think you may be a tad premature when it comes to the death of legacy media, my guess it will learn/continue to evolve.  Information is always in demand, I don't think that will change..  People will always want greater access to the thoughts and actions of players, barring some massive changes with how access to players is granted bloggers will always have a harder time with that.   Maybe more importantly...  given the amount of misinformation and absolute garbage that we have seen when it comes to politics and news in general I think it's a safe bet to say raising the bar and not lowering is in the best interest of everyone involved.

As I said previously, I'm not for or against it, I don't believe I've given it enough thought to have an intelligent opinion.  Also, I'm sure there are some really strong bloggers out there that would make great HOF voters, but I wouldn't want MLB teams vetting them.  If anything it's the guys at the BBWAA who may be best equipped to grant them those votes.  But I will say its fun topic of conversation it's interesting to see how AW views it.

Also, I'd like to add this... 

I know @Chuckster70 and this site has a pretty solid relationship with Tim Mead.  Could always ask him from a frank assessment of how he would improve the HOF, or how he would address some of the issues you bring up.  I'm guessing the HOF has an idea of how to combat the changes facing legacy media -- would be nice to hear what the President of the MLB HOF has to say about it. 

[Jay]

On 12/27/2020 at 7:39 AM, Inside Pitch said:

The vast majority of bloggers are homers and the thought of guys like that being gatekeepers for the HOF is frightening.

this

[Dtwncbad]

Whatever.  I don’t really care who votes or who gets in.  Not bitter.  Not mad.  Just don’t really care.

They can throw Ruben Sierra in there if they want.  Have fun.

[Jeff Fletcher]

On 12/26/2020 at 3:36 PM, floplag said:

(somehow I deleted the comment, but it was about the media and its opinion on steroids.)
 

I did a Twitter poll a few weeks ago about the steroid issue and the ratio of opinion among Twitter people was about the same as among HOF voters. 
 

I think the issue divides all groups (writers, fans, players, broadcasters, etc) in roughly the same proportion, so it would remain an issue no matter who voted. 
 

Also, in order to get a HOF vote a person has to spend 10 years as an active member of the BBWAA. So if you want to include anyone else, you need to find a similar threshold.

I think it’s more likely that they just let anyone vote online and have that count for a small percentage of the process. That eliminates the need to try to parse which bloggers should vote and which don’t. 
 

The BBWAA has already admitted many non-legacy writers from FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, etc.

Edited December 31, 2020 by Jeff Fletcher

[Jeff Fletcher]

@floplag

 

[Blarg]

You can add one more no. 

[AngelStew43]

Until Dick Allen, Tommy John, (287 wins) and Bobby Grich get in, someone needs to brighten up some of the baseball writers who have ballots.  

So, why not?

[floplag]

7 hours ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

@floplag

 

OK, i am curious the point you are making with that though?   are you in favor, or opposed? 

[floplag]

7 hours ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

(somehow I deleted the comment, but it was about the media and its opinion on steroids.)
 

I did a Twitter poll a few weeks ago about the steroid issue and the ratio of opinion among Twitter people was about the same as among HOF voters. 
 

I think the issue divides all groups (writers, fans, players, broadcasters, etc) in roughly the same proportion, so it would remain an issue no matter who voted. 
 

Also, in order to get a HOF vote a person has to spend 10 years as an active member of the BBWAA. So if you want to include anyone else, you need to find a similar threshold.

I think it’s more likely that they just let anyone vote online and have that count for a small percentage of the process. That eliminates the need to try to parse which bloggers should vote and which don’t. 
 

The BBWAA has already admitted many non-legacy writers from FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, etc.

Yes but, part of that opinion was that the baseball writers who were aware, and said/did nothing, yet now are voting against these guys when MLB let them go to bring back the fans... for me thats a pretty egregious position. 
I dont have a problem with more people voting, especially when so many are making it a political statement, but the fact that those guys are not in there is to me rather puzzling.