The tl;dr version is I said I would vote for the following:
- Jeff Bagwell
- Randy Johnson
- Edgar Martinez
- Pedro Martinez
- Fred McGriff
- Tim Raines
- Curt Schilling
- Lee Smith
- John Smoltz
- Larry Walker
That's ten guys already, and I only looked at Red Sox, Jays, Expos and Canadian players.
I still need to assess the rest of the ballot which includes the following 17 players:
- Rich Aurilia
- Craig Biggio
- Barry Bonds
- Aaron Boone
- Jermaine Dye
- Darin Erstad
- Brian Giles
- Eddie Guardado
- Don Mattingly
- Mark McGwire
- Mike Mussina
- Troy Percival
- Mike Piazza
- Jason Schmidt
- Gary Sheffield
- Sammy Sosa
- Alan Trammell
Looking at each on an individual basis, Biggio, Bonds and Trammell get my vote.
Toughest omissions are Mussina (overall career looks good, but I never thought of him as one of the top pitchers or an ace while he was pitching) and Piazza (great offensive numbers for a catcher, but he was a really bad catcher. Would he be in as a first baseman? He's comparable to Carlos Delgado who nobody is voting for).
So my BBA ballot is complete with those 13 names.
Unfortunately, the BBWAA still limits voters to checking off 10 names on a ballot. Lee Smith, Alan Trammell and Fred McGriff need to be removed. My final BBWAA style ballot:
Feel free to criticize, but only after reading my previous posts. It's not a perfect ballot, but scores an 86 using the TangoTiger scoring system where "anything at 85+ points will show you did a good job." I don't like the Hall's voting process, but am reasonably satisfied with my ballot.
If you are interested in reading more about the Hall of Fame, I can recommend The Hall of Nearly Great which has some great stories about several players that are not in Cooperstown or the Bill James' classic The Politics of Glory which has great insight on the history of the Hall and voting and some excellent suggestions for fixing the current voting process.
As this is likely my last post of the year, I'm wishing all my readers a Happy New Year!
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