Tiger337

Another thing I'd like to see them do is require that all ballots be public. The private ballots tend to be writers that don't vote for many players. This is not a presidential election. It's sports. You would think that sports writers would want to make their votes public and talk about them.

You can't weed them all out. So, what's the solution? Use a statistical algorithm? Maybe, they can have a statistical algorithm to make sure all the best players get in. Then they can have a ballot where the writers can vote for the borderline guys that don't get in statistically. Rank voting might yield better results too. Make the writers rank every eligible player and then add up the ranks. Any writer that is not disqualifying Bonds will probably give him a really high rank and he might end up doing better than Ortiz. If any writers think that is too much work, they don't have to vote.

Their peers are the ones who put Harold Baines in the Hall of Fame. The writers are fine, but they need to get rid of the ones that don't take it seriously. If they haven't covered the game for ten years, they shouldn't be voting.

I enjoy seeing all the negativity here about Ortiz. I think he is legit, but he was probably about the 9th best player on the ballot and has some of the same character flaws as those who were better. It's funny because everybody in Boston thinks he is greatest thing ever and I was hoping he'd have to wait his turn.

It shows that he wants to win.

I go back and forth on Sheffield. He was a poor fielder which I think legitimately brings down his value. That hurts him with young voters and the other stuff hurts him with old voters. Another thing is the 10-vote limit and the PED log jam. It was not difficult to find 10 better players than Sheffield on recent ballots. Players like Sheffield, Kent and Abreu should do better next year. Personally, I do not think any of them are shoo ins.

I think it's mostly his stolen base records that got him in. It's just that stolen bases are not as valuable as we though they were at the time. I tend to rank players on value rather than fame. I wouldn't be upset if Sosa made it. He had an odd career though playing in the perfect era for his main skill. I think he probably benefitted more from his era than any else playing at the time. Put him in the 70s or 80s and I think he hits maybe 150 fewer home runs.

Raines was borderline too. As much as I don't like to say this about my first baseball hero, Brock doesn't belong by today's standards.

Old white guys call everybody bastards and sons of bitches, even their friends.

128 OPS+ for a corner outfielder is borderline too. McGwire was a much better hitter throughout his career

I think the fact that he contacted him and talked to him about it is good enough. Questioning whether that qualifies as an official apology makes one sound like a whiney little snowflake. Biden said something dumb and apolgized for it. Trump never did that in his life.

Juicier than Sosa? 🙂

500 is becoming more commonplace. Does Sheffield belong? He is close, but he shouldn't be automatic.

I think Sosa is borderline. He had a relatively short peak and a 128 career OPS+. I wouldn't put him in.

I am actually reconsidering Rose in light of MLBs highly hypocritical parnership with gambling organizations. I know buddha will love that!

Ortiz was also issued a restraining order for a domestic problem.

Right, people can dislike Biden's presidential performance all they want, but to consider his behavior to be anything remotely like Trump is dishonest at the very least.

It's not ridiculous, but aiming for the playoffs and aiming for the World Series is really the same thing.

Given the original source of "shutup and dribble", it probably had racist intent.

Racism still exists today. People are just a little more subtle about it.

It's bad genes. Stupid runs in the family.

Don't let Trump see this.

I think the anti-vax stuff and all the deliberate misinformaton is stupid, but I am not really behind mandates. Vaccines are safe and they work to an extent, but we are still getting changing reports on how well the vaccines work as the virus evolves. It's hard to force to scared people to do stuff when the information keeps changing.

Neither do politicians.