Source: thecomeback.com --- Tuesday, December 05, 2017
Among all the factors that influence voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame, one criterion drives results more than any other. It is not batting average, ERA, home runs or WAR. It is a qualitative metric we might call “Feels like a Hall of Famer.” Some voters admit that “Feels like a Hall of Famer” informs their vote, arguing that Baseball’s greatest honor should be bestowed to the players who pass an instinctive sniff test. But even voters who claim to rely on data more than gut often let “Feels like a Hall of Famer” affect their ballot, by manipulating stats to match their preexisting opinions. This helps explain why Jim Rice was voted in and why Jack Morris nearly was, why Bert Blyleven struggled to earn induction, why Jim Edmonds and Kenny Lofton fell off the ballot immediately and why Steve Garvey’s candidacy endures. Quite often, voters forget to induct players who are empirically worthy as they seek to induct players who seem like they are worthy. It’s the “Feels like a Hall of Famer” test that will unjustly keep former Phillies, Cardinals, Blue Jays and Reds third baseman Scott Rolen out of Cooperstown for the near future and maybe off the Hall ballot after a single year. Though results have barely begun to trickle in, Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame tracker reports that Rolen has been named on only four of 19 ballots so far, and it’s conceivable he could fall short of the 5 percent threshold that would keep him around next ...
from Baseball http://ift.tt/2zPRD0R
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