November 25, 2014

2015 Hall of Fame - preview

The BBWAA ballot for 2015 induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame is out. As I did last year, I’m going to publish my ballot in three stages.  First I will evaluate all the former Red Sox players.  I will focus on new additions to the ballot as I already assessed the holdover candidates in last year’s column. I will then do the same for players of interest to Canadians – either those who were born in the Great White North, or played in Canada, as I did last year. Finally I will publish my ballot by completing it by adding other deserving candidates.  




Here are the names on the ballot, alphabetically: Returning candidates are indicated by showing the % votes they received last year.

Red Sox
   Jeff Bagwell (54%)
   Tony Clark
   Roger Clemens (35%)
   Cliff Floyd
   Nomar Garciaparra
   Tom Gordon
   Pedro Martinez
   Curt Schilling (29%)
   Lee Smith (30%)
   John Smoltz

Canadian Connections
   Roger Clemens (35%)
   Carlos Delgado
   Cliff Floyd
   Randy Johnson
   Jeff Kent (15%)
   Edgar Martinez (25%)
   Pedro Martinez
   Fred McGriff (12%)
   Tim Raines (46%)
   Larry Walker (10%)

The Rest
   Rich Aurilia
   Craig Biggio (74.8%)
   Barry Bonds (35%)
   Aaron Boone
   Jermaine Dye
   Darin Erstad
   Brian Giles
   Eddie Guardado
   Don Mattingly (8%)
   Mark McGwire (11%)
   Mike Mussina (20%)
   Troy Percival
   Mike Piazza (62%)
   Jason Schmidt
   Gary Sheffield
   Sammy Sosa  (7%)
   Alan Trammell (21%)

Just taking a quick glance I can already see 12-15 players I would put into the Hall.  Once again, it will be tough to keep my ballot to 10.  Stay tuned as I update my ballot over the next couple of weeks.