If I Had a Vote in the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Election

My 2016 Hall of Fame Ballot (If I Had One)

Has the logjam of qualified candidates for the Baseball Hall of Fame been broken? Not by my count—I identify 15 Hall of Famers on the 2016 ballot, with another five just below the threshold whose election would not perturb me unduly.

Those 15 definite candidates include two first-timers, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Trevor Hoffman; all four SABR Darlings, Jeff Kent, Mike Mussina, Tim Raines, and Alan Trammell; five of the Wallflowers, Jeff Bagwell, Edgar Martinez, Mike Piazza, Curt Schilling, and Larry Walker; and four of the PEDs Pariahs, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa. The five bubble candidates include two first-timers, Jim Edmonds and Billy Wagner; two of the Wallflowers, Fred McGriff and Lee Smith; and PEDs Pariah Gary Sheffield.

Counting the below-the-threshold candidates, that is twice the maximum allowable number of votes on a BBWAA ballot, and even excluding them means having to discard one-third of the qualified candidates. That in turn leads to a number of different voting strategies: Do you vote for the most likely winners just to ensure that they get off the ballot and help to reduce the logjam? Do you include those candidates whose time on the ballot is drawing to a close? Do you omit those candidates because they are unlikely to be elected in any event? Do you omit the PEDs Pariahs entirely? Or only some of them? Or do you attempt a combination of some or even all of those strategies?

No matter how you slice it, you are still going to omit a deserving candidate, making it a simultaneously, and even a paradoxically, can't-miss and can't-win situation.

Given all these considerations, and were I to have a ballot, I would do something rash—a protest vote. No, I wouldn't submit a blank ballot, or pull a Dan le Batard and give away my ballot to another entity, or do anything that would disqualify me or the ballot. But I would vote for underdogs, pariahs, and hopeless cases.

To illustrate, here are the five for whom I would not vote this year, keeping in mind that I consider them to be Hall of Famers. First are the two first-timers, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Trevor Hoffman. Griffey is a gimme, and Hoffman should be one; Griffey should get sufficient votes this year to be elected, and if Hoffman does not, he still has nine more chances. Next is Mike Piazza, whom I pegged as a "tough sell" back in 2011, but who made an encouraging ballot debut in 2013 and had garnered nearly 70 percent of the vote last year—a year that saw the election of four candidates. Call me an optimist, but I think Piazza will be elected this year. It is possible that Jeff Kent could disappear from the ballot in just his third appearance although his 15.2 percent debut support in 2014 and his 14.0 percent share last year indicate some interest in his candidacy.

Is there such a thing as a non-essential Hall of Famer? The short and obvious answer is, no—if he is non-essential, then he is not a Hall of Famer. Yet Sammy Sosa's accomplishments are emblematic of his era even if they seem to have been self-serving; that's the non-essential part. However, there is something weirdly appropriate that Sosa, the only hitter ever to have three seasons of 60 or more home runs, should never have led his league in home runs in those years; he did lead the league in home runs in two other seasons. And even though I think Sosa, having scraped together just enough votes last year to stave off elimination from the ballot, will go the way of Rafael Palmeiro this year and receive less than five percent of the vote, that too is weirdly appropriate, because years from now, when baseball fans and scholars ask how it was that one of only eight men as of 2015 to hit 600 or more home runs but was not elected to the Hall of Fame, it will force a re-appraisal of Sosa's era.

With that, here are my ten choices for the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. The rankings indicate a "snub and suffering" index that reflects the candidate's level of support—or lack thereof—and time on the ballot: The bigger the snub and the longer the suffering, the higher the ranking.

10. Mike Mussina

Mike Mussina is another one I considered to be a "tough sell" in 2011, and his first two years on the ballot have seen him poll in the 20-to-25 percent range. I didn't pick Mussina for my ten in 2014—he was ranked 14th—but he did make the eighth slot last year.

Mussina is a relative newcomer compared to the others in my ten for this year, which is why he snuck onto the end of the list, but as I noted previously, with a fractionally lower ERA and 35 more wins, Mussina is Tom Glavine. And if 35 wins seems like a significant margin, consider that Glavine pitched primarily for the perennial division-winning Atlanta Braves while Mussina toiled for half his career for the middling Baltimore Orioles. Sabermetrician Jay Jaffe's War Score (JAWS) System ranks Mussina as the 28th-best pitcher in MLB history while Glavine is two places behind Mussina.

9. Roger Clemens

JAWS ranks Roger Clemens as the third-best pitcher in MLB history. I ranked Clemens second in 2013, third in 2014, and fourth last year.

8. Barry Bonds

JAWS ranks Barry Bonds as the best left fielder in MLB history. Bonds topped my list in 2013, he came in second in 2014, and he was ranked third in 2015.

7. Curt Schilling

JAWS ranks Curt Schilling as the 27th-best starting pitcher of all time. He was one of my "tough sells" back in 2011, and that has proved to be the case, unfortunately. Schilling placed fourth on my 2013 ranking, fifth in 2014, and sixth last year.


Too many voters seem to have collective amnesia when it comes to recalling Curt Schilling's Hall of Fame career.

6. Larry Walker

JAWS ranks Larry Walker as the tenth-best right fielder in MLB history. The nine ahead of him on the list are in the Hall of Fame.

Walker is one of those candidates I'm tired of discussing. In 2011, he was featured in my first article for this site. He was listed as one of my picks for the 2012 ballot. I ranked him sixth in 2013. His ranking in 2014 was ninth. Last year it was tenth.


Is Coors Field the kiss of Hall of Fame death for hitters like Larry Walker who played there?

5. Edgar Martinez

JAWS ranks Edgar Martinez as the 11th-best third baseman in MLB history, which of course is a little misleading because it is his status as a designated hitter—for whom the damned award is now named—that is the issue. Maybe voters were waiting until Ken Griffey, Jr., was eligible for the Hall of Fame ballot, so they can be inducted together? What a foolish pipe dream that is.

Speaking of foolish pipe dreams, I see that in 2011 I assumed that Martinez, who had debuted the previous year, would be elected soon enough. At least by 2012 I recognized that he would be a "controversial pick," although in 2013 I had him lodged in the 11th spot. By 2014 I had him slotted in 13th place, and last year I again didn't have him in the top ten.

Well, Edgar Martinez has been on the ballot for six years and has never received more than roughly a third of the votes; he got just over a quarter last year. He has four more chances on the ballot. It's time to stop mucking around and elect him.


With Ken Griffey, Jr., likely to be elected this year, will fellow Mariner Edgar Martinez get the Hall nod too?

4. Mark McGwire

Mark McGwire embodies the best and the worst of the Steroids Era. He gave baseball a shot in the arm (and, yes, I use that phrase advisedly) in 1998 when he broke Roger Maris's single-season home run record—shattered may be the better word—and when everyone caught wind of performance-enhancing drugs, McGwire was the first up on the chopping block.

That includes consideration for the Hall of Fame as this is McGwire's last year on a BBWAA ballot. In nine years, he has never attracted more than a quarter of the vote, and last year that sunk to ten percent. McGwire himself has given up on being elected to the Hall of Fame.

And yet Mark McGwire should be in the Hall of Fame.

JAWS ranks McGwire as the 17th-best first baseman in MLB history. He is ranked higher than Hall of Famers Harmon Killebrew, another classic Three True Outcomes hitter, as well as Tony Perez and Orlando Cepeda.

It's not just that McGwire is tenth in home runs all-time with 583, or even that many of those dingers traveled a long way; it's that he hit them at a greater rate than anyone in baseball history, including Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Ralph Kiner, Killebrew, and the rest—McGwire's at-bat per home run rate is 10.61, besting Ruth's 11.76. It's not that McGwire's slugging percentage of .588 ranks seventh all-time.

It's not even that McGwire, who hit an unimpressive .263 lifetime based on 1626 hits, managed to get on base at a .394 clip, 131 points higher than his batting average and good for 80th place on the career list, as he walked 1317 times although only 150 of those were intentional. That in turn contributed to his career OPS of .982, ninth-best all-time, and indexed as OPS+ that translates to 163, tenth-best in history and tied with Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx.

It's that Mark McGwire epitomized the gaudiness of the Steroids Era yet had the lumber to back it up. McGwire will leave the ballot this year far short of the 75 percent of the vote needed to elect him to the Hall of Fame, and he will then join the expected logjam of players hoping for a second chance with the Expansion Era Committee or whatever that veterans committee will be called in the future. But had the writers been honest about the period that they covered, they would have elected McGwire by now.

I discussed McGwire's chances in 2012, ranked him 12th in 2013, and 17th in 2014, although he did not make my top ten last year.

3. Jeff Bagwell

JAWS ranks Jeff Bagwell sixth all-time among first basemen. That is higher than Frank Thomas, in the ninth spot, who was elected in 2014 in his first year of eligibility.

Bagwell has been on the ballot since 2011. He debuted at just above 40 percent, saw a high of nearly 60 percent in 2012, and polled 55.7 percent last year. I profiled Bagwell in my very first article for this site, touted him in 2012, ranked him third in 2013, fourth in 2014, and fifth in 2015.

2. Tim Raines

JAWS ranks Tim Raines as the eight-best left fielder of all-time. Including this year, Raines has only two chances on the BBWAA ballot to make the Hall although he is looking a lot like Bert Blyleven in terms of building support: He garnered just under a quarter of the vote in his 2008 debut, but last year was his best showing to date, with 55.0 percent.

Guess what? I've been talking about Raines forever, in my very first article, in 2012, as my number-five pick in 2013, and as my number-six pick in 2014. However, he was not among my top ten in 2015.

1. Alan Trammell

Nor was Alan Trammell among my top ten in 2015 although, like Raines, I think he is a Hall of Famer. JAWS ranks Trammell as the eleventh-best shortstop in MLB history. It will be up to whatever future veterans committee incarnation exists to ponder Trammell's fate when his name comes up for discussion—he is not going to be elected this year, which is his final shot on a BBWAA ballot. He got 15.7 percent of the vote during his 2002 debut, peaked at 36.8 in 2012, and received a tick over one-quarter of the vote last year. That proverbial miracle is needed to get him elected now.

That is why I chose Alan Trammell as my number-one vote. He is not the best Hall of Fame candidate on the ballot by a long shot, but he is a Hall of Fame shortstop, as I noted in 2012, again in 2013—listing him tenth on a highly-packed ballot—and tenth again in 2014 although he did not make the top ten last year.


Barring a miracle, Alan Trammell's Hall of Fame hopes lie with a future veterans committee. Shame on you, writers.

Post-game Wrap

By picking Alan Trammell, I may indeed be throwing away one of my ten hypothetical votes—in fact, I may indeed be throwing away a number of votes here. That is my point: There are too many Hall of Fame-caliber players to be contained on a ballot on which a voter can choose a maximum of ten candidates.

Trammell is a lost cause, Larry Walker is a puzzling one, and Mark McGwire is a foolish one, or so some might think. Perhaps those votes should have gone to Trevor Hoffman, or Mike Piazza, or even Ken Griffey, Jr., although Griffey is most likely going to leapfrog over the returning candidates and become a first-ballot Hall of Famer; Hoffman, too, has a chance to do that as well. And, again, that is my point: Familiarity breeds contempt.

A number of the qualified candidates may not have been elected yet not because they are not Hall of Famers, but because the ballot logjam has impinged upon many of them. A number of them do bear the PEDs stigma, or, like Edgar Martinez and perhaps Hoffman, played a position about which Hall voters have not fully developed a threshold of legacy, or, like Larry Walker, spent some time in a ballpark that they believed conferred an unfair advantage to him.

The 2014 shortening of a candidate's time on the ballot from fifteen years to ten years solves the issue of ballot logjam much like the remedy for a broken hand is to simply cut it off. The Hall of Fame has chosen to throw the problem over the wall to the Expansion Era Committee (or whatever a future veterans committee charged with evaluating recent candidates will be known as). As the overall quality of play continues to increase, it becomes harder to evaluate the talent because the great players do not stand out as much as they used to in decades past. That intense competition also manifests itself in ways that can jeopardize legacy—why do you think so many players are willing to risk taking performance-enhancing drugs?

But in a sense—and not to put lipstick on a pig—it is a happy problem to have: So many qualified candidates from whom to choose. And what is encouraging, considering the debacle of 2013 and no candidates chosen, is that BBWAA voters have elected seven players in the last two years. Moreover, with the pruning of the voter roll of writers who have not actively written about baseball in the last ten years, this leaves a more engaged electorate that has been keeping up with baseball and its significant changes in the last two decades.

And although a few prospective Hall of Famers will be leaving the ballot in the next few years—and not for Cooperstown—I do think that we could see another year of multiple inductees in 2016. My projection, a foolishly optimistic one, is:

4. Jeff Bagwell (77.5 percent)

3. Tim Raines (79.3 percent)

2. Mike Piazza (84.2 percent)

1. Ken Griffey, Jr. (91.7 percent)

Now that would be a return to normal.