Eligibility to Vote for Hall of Famers

A few years ago, The Umpire wrote an article about Greg Maddux and how he will not be a unanimous entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Later, he wrote one that declared that Randy Johnson would be a snub for the 2015 HoF.  This was more of an indictment on the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) than on Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson.

At the time of the first article, I posted a comment on some eligibility for the voters. I’d like to expand on that today.  Here are some criteria to be eliminated as a voter:

• If you haven’t written a published baseball article in more than 10 years, you should not have a vote.
• If you don’t know the names of most of the players on current teams, but you can name the starting lineup of the 1941 NY Yankees, you should not have a vote.
• If you don’t have an internet connection and do not read the major sports newsmagazines – CNN-SI, TSN and ESPN, for example – you should not have a vote.
• If you believe that every person that has used PEDs in the past couple of decades automatically cannot be in the Hall, but you’re OK with Mickey Mantle’s and players’ of the 50, 60s and 70s abuse of amphetamines (the PEDs of their day), you should not have a vote.
• If you have no clue what WAR and OPS+ or any of the recent Sabremetician metrics, or worse yet, you think it’s bullsh**, you should not have a vote.
• If you have some preconceived notion that someone is a first-time ballot guy or a later ballot guy, and vote that way, or you’re Marty Noble, you should not have a vote.
• If you have stated publicly that you want to give up the honor to vote because of your own prejudices (and this means you Jay Mariotti), you should not have a vote.
• If you consistently do not vote for clear cut Hall of Famers – those getting 95% of the vote for example – because they’re not Babe Ruth or whomever, then you should not have a vote.
• If you are consistently inconsistent – that is changing your vote from year to year – you should not have a vote.

Here’s who should have a vote:

• Bill James – just because.
• Current MLB players – just because.
• Writers who have written more than 180 baseball articles every year for three years.  These are the modern baseball writers and probably know more about the players than your old-school beat writers.  That may include people like me…and this would open up the voting and level the playing field.
• The Hall of Famers themselves – just because.
• The Fans – just because.  There will need to be an anti-ballot-box-stuffing methodology, and I am sure someone can figure it out.

Then we will need a way to weigh all these votes.  My suggestion is to split it four ways – 25% for the Hall of Famers, 25% players, 25% writers and 25% fans.  Top three vote getters get in no matter what.

Unless they’ve received less than 50% of the vote, each player stays on for 15 years.  Half is a good cut-off point, especially if all the voters still get to vote for 10 players.