Fixing how the Hall of Fame voting works

[AussieDodger]

Here is how you fix it:

Everyone who didn't vote for Barry Bonds just now is fired.

Done

[J35J]

Here is how you fix it:

Everyone who didn't vote for Barry Bonds just now is fired.

Done

LOL

[Ender]

Biggio had a much much better career than Puckett. So at least one of those names does stick out to me.

[thedude]

Two quick changes and the process is "fixed"

1) MOST important- remove the ten vote cap from the ballots. This ballot is stacked with great players. Next year Maddux and Glavine join the ranks along with Frank Thomas among other worthy contenders. I count over ten players on the 2014 ballot who all have legitimate hall of fame cases. There is a bottleneck here and the players are suffering.

2) Remove the words "integrity, sportsmanship, character" from the hall of fame voting instructions. The writers never cared about it before, but they do now. Even if the writers only consider "integrity" as it relates on the field play, they still elected Gaylord Perry and his spitball, andis that not cheating?. (note: I am not getting into the "Greenie"/cocaine issue, since that does not affect the physical abilities of play in the same manner). Without the integrity clause, some writers (not all, maybe not even many) would vote for PED users.

[Ender]

I don't agree with removing the 10 vote cap. I do agree with removing the character clause since it has been ignored for 50+ years now anyway. I also think you should be removed if you can't get 10% of the vote. If you get under 10% of the vote you are never ever getting in and just wasting spots on the ballot. To be honest you could probably push that to 15% and I wouldn't have an issue with it.

[GiantsFan14]

I don't agree with removing the 10 vote cap.

Why not? a player is either hall of fame worthy or he is not. The writers should be able to vote for whichever players on the ballot are hall of fame worthy, not just the top 10 from that year.

[converge241]

Should be a mix of BBWA and popular voting OR HOF "Museum Members" those who pay the special fees to get free admission and other levels of perks

With the right mix of above you avoid the quirkiness of the writers, popular online ballot box stuffing etc

[Rally Cat]

The idea of a first ballot HOFer is dumb. You're either a HOFer or you aren't.

I totally agree. I also don't believe guys like Biggio and Jim Rice should be in the HOF. Its my belief the HOF should be for players that were special. Elite. Not players that were just very good players.
To me they have already inducted too many players that had very good careers. But stop it now. No need to continue watering the HOF down just because.
I was very pleased to see NOBODY get the call. There is a baseball God !

[Ender]

By advanced metrics Biggio is one of the top 10 2B in the history of the game so I'm not sure how he isn't elite. He put up a higher career WAR than Sandberg or Alomar who are both in and had a better peak than either of them. Biggio seems like a no doubt HOF.

As for the 10 vote thing. You have 15 years to get in so I just don't see the 10 slot rule to be a big problem. I don't think you want that many people voted in on the same year just from a logistics standpoint so I'm fine with it the way it is. It also will make more and more guys hang on for multiple seasons when they don't have a real shot of getting in and to me that is a large part of what is broken. Having guys hang around for 8 years at 15% just seems worthless. It isn't really causing any problems so I fail to see how it needs to be fixed.

[MashinSpuds]

Should be a mix of BBWA and popular voting OR HOF "Museum Members" those who pay the special fees to get free admission and other levels of perks

I like the idea of including members, but the problem with that is those are just another group of fans who can stuff the ballot box if they pay money. Paying to vote is sketchy.