The FAN 2020 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot THE RESULTS ARE IN

[RI Richmark]

Well the Baseball Hall of Fame has just announced it's ballot for this year. For the last few years we held our own ballot and once again it's time to have our say.

Last year Mariano Rivera made history as the Hall's first unanimous selection but not here where he fell two votes short of that mark. That's how hard we are with our votes. With that in mind I've decided once again to make 70% of votes the threshold for induction rather than the 75% the actual Hall requires.

All other rules remain the same as the rules for the BBWAA. You can vote for up to 10 of the players listed here. If for some reason you don't think any of the players are worthy then there is a blank ballot option but if you click it you can't vote for anybody else.

Voting will close and the winners will be announced on Jan 1, 2020 a couple of weeks before the Hall of Fame announces it's results. Have fun and good luck to all the nominees.

[RI Richmark]

Just to let you know I made a mistake with the original poll and had to take it down. I quickly put a new one up but if you voted in that original poll you'll have to vote again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[fw91]

Jeter
Schilling
Kent
Helton

[Vice honcho room temperature]

I'm not one to make 1st year protest non votes but... f*** Derek Jeter. He's a jerk. Skipping Bob Sheppard's funeral but still wanted to use his voice for his at bat announcements. Also he's a jerk. Also a bad captain.

[Ben Wyatt]

My picks:

Clemens
Bonds
Manny Ramirez
Schillling
Sheffield

[Heart of fools gold]

Bonds
The Rocket
The Captain Derek Jeter
Jones
Kent
Manny
Walker
Andy P
Helton
Curt Schilling

Now let me say this as a Yankee fan Jeter is a 1st ballot HOFer and all those not voting for him are wrong and need to explain why. Was he overrated, a little. Was his defense subpar and not deserving of 5 GGs, yes. Was he the greatest yankee ever, no. Was he the best SS of his generation, no that was Arod. Should he have moved to 3rd for Arod, yes. Jeter was a flawed individual yes but the man was the face of baseball, he has more than a HOF resume, 3464 hits(6th all time), a .310 batting average, 5 WS rings, 00 WS MVP, 5 silver sluggers, 14 AS appearances, ALROY, 72 war. He is a HOFer, his positives outweigh his negatives

[Ben Wyatt]

I feel like Chone Figgins is one of those guys that were put on the ballot to see if people were paying attention

[fw91]

Nov 19, 2019 12:16:06 GMT -5 Vice honcho room temperature said:

I'm not one to make 1st year protest non votes but... f*** Derek Jeter. He's a jerk. Skipping Bob Sheppard's funeral but still wanted to use his voice for his at bat announcements. Also he's a jerk. Also a bad captain.

Most overrated player in any sport ever, but he’s still a sure fire hall of famer

[RI Richmark]

Bumping this back up for more votes. Remember the poll closes New Year's Day at 5 PM EST.

My picks:
Bonds
Clemens
Jeter
Ramirez
Schilling

[bob]

Vizquel, Jeter, Kent, Andruw Jones, Andy P

[Deleted]

Giambi, Jones, Pettitte, and Wagner.

I'm protesting Jeter being a crappy owner and chasing off both the legendary Marlin Man & Homer the Home Run Sculpture, and Curt Schilling is a lousy person in his own right.

So I'm finally exercising my right as a voter to be a poobah.

[BRV]

Here are my seven inductees and the reasoning behind each selection.

- Barry Bonds: You want to put it on his plaque that he was a PED guy? Be my guest. Babe Ruth didn't have to play against players of color. Hank Aaron hit his 755 home runs in an era when amphetamines were passed around like chewable vitamins. If you look hard enough, I'm sure you could find something to accuse every baseball player ever. But don't ignore the 494 home runs, 471 stolen bases, three MVP awards and nine All-Star appearances that he achieved before his alleged steroid use began. Also, he's baseball's all-time home run king. In an era when almost everybody was cheating, he was still the most feared hitter in the game.

- Roger Clemens: Like Bonds, he was a Hall of Famer before the alleged PED use, and like Bonds he deserves enshrinement. One of the most dominant power pitchers ever, plain and simple. And like Bonds, if you want to slap an asterisk on his plaque, feel free.

- Todd Helton: He may have had the benefit of the Mile High air of Coors Field for the duration of his career, but Helton raked wherever he played. He hit .300 or better 12 times in his 17-year career, including a .372 season in 2000 when it seemed entirely plausible that he’d flirt with .400. Even though he had the thin air of Denver to his advantage, he wasn’t just a power hitter, hitting 30 or more home runs six times. He could seemingly put the ball anywhere on the field at a whim, making it look effortless at times. While he never won an MVP award and was largely overshadowed in the National League by the likes of Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols, he has five All-Stars and three Gold Gloves on his resume.

- Derek Jeter: As a Red Sox fan, I bore witness to 20 years of this guy doing his damndest to torture my favorite team. Believe me, I tried for about a decade-plus to say Jeter was overrated and even I can't make that argument anymore without sounding like a fool. He arrived in the Bronx with a tremendous amount of hype and exceeded just about every expectation, collecting 3,465 hits (I don't even want to know how many of them were those dang opposite-field singles between the first and second basemen), boasting a lifetime .310/.377/.440, and hitting .308 in 158 career playoff games, all while being the face of the New York Yankees during the team's high-pressure glory days of the 1990s and 2000s. He was the definition of clutch, one of those hitters whose turn in the order was coming up, so you were praying to get out of the inning before he could come to the plate with runners on base.

- Andruw Jones: He probably won’t ever get into Cooperstown, but man does he deserve it. Probably the best defensive centerfielder of his era right alongside Jim Edmonds, Jones won 10 consecutive Gold Gloves patrolling center for the Braves. Jones, like Omar Vizquel, deserves recognition for his defensive acumen alone, but it’s his bat that puts him over the top as a first-ballot inductee for me. His 434 home runs are eye-popping numbers for a guy best regarded for his defense.

- Manny Ramirez: An admittedly biased pick given my allegiances, but Manny Ramirez's credentials are impossibly to deny. He was a weapon in the batter's box, making hitting look effortless. A career .312 hitter with 555 home runs, he will face the wrath of voters because of his links to performance-enhancers but you could tell with his beautiful, natural swing that he was just made for baseball. He would have been a .300 hitter even if he didn't juice, as he and Albert Pujols were nos. 1 and 1a as the best right-handed hitters of their era.

- Curt Schilling: My 2014 and 2015 ballots did not include Schilling, but I've warmed to his candidacy over the past few years. He doesn't have longevity on his side, having been an ace pitcher for about a decade and he never won a Cy Young Award, but he was a bulldog on the mound and was the kind of guy you could hand the ball to in October and know he'd get the job done. 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA in 19 postseason starts, Schilling was a driving force on three World Series champions and four World Series finalists spread over 14 years. While his starts in the 2004 postseason were memorable for how he gutted out an ankle injury, his performance in the 2001 World Series is one of the single most dominant playoff pitching performances ever.

[cabbageboy]

There's a ton of "Hall of Very Good" level guys to me on there. A lot of them are guys that might get in years later on the 14th try or on a Veteran's ballot. But here goes:

--Bonds. Yes, he was probably doing more than just the cream and clear. But really all that's ever been proven is that the guy rubbed some stuff on his bad knees. Sorry but that isn't enough to keep someone out of the Hall, especially the best player of his era.

--Clemens. The guy won 7 Cy Youngs, 3 of which were before any accusations. Should have also won in 1990 and 1992. Look if they want to just ban Bonds and Clemens for life then go for it, but if they aren't banned and are on the ballot then they have to be in. The numbers are irrefutable.

--Jeter. As noted, Jeter is somewhat overrated as a player given that he was the perennial Yankee during their glory years, but his best WAR years coincided with World Series years (1998, 99, 2009). Still, hard to argue with all of those WS, 3465 career hits, etc.

--Schilling. I know he runs his mouth about politics and alienates people, but he was certainly a dominant pitcher of an era. He's probably getting in mainly for the 2001-04 era, but was also solid and an All Star with Philly before that, as well as the 1993 NLCS MVP.

I didn't put Manny in mostly because I feel that too much of his numbers are due to PEDs whereas I don't feel that way as much about Bonds and Clemens. That and Manny was a liability in the field. I toyed with various Rockies players but they might get in another time.

Speaking of the Rivera unanimous vote last year, frankly I felt that was a joke (and got eviscerated on Facebook for this). It's not that I don't think he's a HOF guy (he is), but the first ever unanimous selection is a guy that for all intents and purposes pitched 1 inning against an already largely beaten opponent? It's not that he even has a spotless resume. He blew Game 7 in 2001, as well as two back to back blown saves in 2004 that let the Red Sox back into the series. How many World Series would the Yankees have won without Rivera and with Closer X out there? Probably about the same. They actually did win in 1996 with John Wetteland as closer and Rivera as a middle relief man (which ironically was his highest WAR season I believe). I just don't find closers especially valuable, or at least find their value laughably overrated. If you're up 1 run after 8 innings, you're going to win about 85% of the time. Up 2 runs? You'll win 93-94% of the time. Up 3 runs? About 96-97% of the time.

[RI Richmark]

Just a reminder that the poll closes at 5 PM EST TODAY!

As of this post are 130 votes by 22 ballots. That's an average of 5.9 votes per ballot. It also means that a player will need 16 votes (15.4 actually) to past the 70% threshold required for induction. We'll see how the voting turns out later on tonight.

[RI Richmark]

I'm sorry if this is late. I got invited to dinner with my family and missed the deadline. Anyway, on to the results.

This year we had a total of 142 votes from 24 voters. This meant that a player needed 17 votes (actually 16.8) to reach the 70% threshold required for induction. And it looks like FAN's reputation as a tough voting body continues as only ONE player was able to pass the threshold.


Derek Jeter

A New York icon, Jeter spent all of his 20 year carerr with the Yankees and was a major part of their dominance. In addition to his 5 World Championships he was a 14x All-Star, a 5x Gold Glover and a 5x Silver Slugger. In addition he was the 1996 Rookie of the Year and the MVP of the 2000 World Series.

Jeter was named on 22 of the 24 ballots meaning he got 92% of the vote.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, two players who made the cut last year came soooo close again this year each falling 1 vote short (or 0.8 votes depending how you look at it) Manny Ramirez and Curt Schilling each got 11 votes. No one else even got 10.

I'll have a breakdown later tonight but for now thanks to all the voters for their time. Congratulations to Derek Jeter and good luck to all the nominees with the actual Hall of Fame ballot in a few weeks.

[RI Richmark]

Voting Breakdown:
1. Derek Jeter 22 Votes 92%
---------------------------------------
T2. Barry Bonds 16 Votes 67%
T2. Roger Clemens 16 Votes 67%
T4. Manny Ramirez 11 Votes 47%
T4. Curt Schilling 11 Votes 47%
6. Todd Helton 9 Votes 38%
7. Andruw Jones 7 Votes 29%
T8. Jeff Kent 6 Votes 25%
T8. Andy Pettitte 6 Votes 25%
T8. Sammy Sosa 6 Votes 25%
T8. Billy Wagner 6 Votes 25%
12. Larry Walker 5 Votes 21%
T13. Jason Giambi 3 Votes 13%
T13. Scott Rolen 3 Votes 13%
T15. Josh Beckett 2 Votes 8%
T15. Cliff Lee 2 Votes 8%
T15. Gary Sheffield 2 Votes 8%
T15. Omar Vizquel 2 Votes 8%
---------------------------------------
T19. Bobby Abreu 1 Vote 4%
T19. Adam Dunn 1 Vote 4%
T19. Paul Konerko 1 Vote 4%
T19. Alfonso Soriano 1 Vote 4%
T23. Heath Bell 0 Votes 0%
T23. Eric Chavez 0 Votes 0%
T23. Chone Figgins 0 Votes 0%
T23. Rafael Furcal 0 Votes 0%
T23. Raul Ibanez 0 Votes 0%
T23. Carlos Pena 0 Votes 0%
T23. Brad Penny 0 Votes 0%
T23. JJ Putz 0 Votes 0%
T23. Brian Roberts 0 Votes 0%
T23. Jose Valverde 0 Votes 0%

Anyone earning less than 5% of the vote is dropped from the ballot.

[RI Richmark]

Also only 2 people didn't vote for Derek Jeter but there are 3 Blank Ballots meaning somebody doesn't know how Blank Ballots are supposed to work.

[Toilet Paper Roll]

Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Manny Ramirez
Curt Schilling
Andy Pettitte
Sammy Sosa

Are all HOFers. Clemens, Bonds and Ramirez are all better baseball players than Jeter. Jeter gets extra love for being the long term captain of the Yankees during a winning era.

He's a deserving HOFer om the first ballot but when you cut through the intangibles those three are better

[häšhtå.gdālėÿ]

Barry Bonds is the most Hall of Fame worthy Hall of Famer that ever existed. If he spent his career being as cordial and downright pleasant as he’s been in retirement the baseball writers would have already voted him in. Instead they hold a grudge because he was a massive dickbag to everyone and hide it behind the “DUR DURRRR BUT STEROIDS” excuse.

[bob]

that Blank Ballot is a sleeper HOF player with 3 voetes