Later today, the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) will announce their selections for the 2014 Hall of Fame class. Every year, members of the BBWAA cast their vote for up to 10 players. The players who receive 75% of the vote will be honored during an induction ceremony in Cooperstown, NY at the end of July. Any player who receives less than 5% of the vote will be removed from the ballot. Players who receive between 5% and 75% will remain on the ballot in future years, for no more than 15 years.
The ballot this year includes 38 names, and the complete list of eligible candidates can be found here. Due to the stance that some members of the BBWAA have taken regarding steroids and other performance enhancing drugs over the past couple of years (anything from not voting at all to not voting for players who “look” like they were using PED’s), the ballot has become increasingly crowded with hall of fame worthy talent. This year is arguably the first year in a long time (I’m being lazy and not looking up the other years) where there are substantially more than 10 players on the ballot who should be enshrined in Cooperstown on talent alone.
Earlier this week, ESPN Sweetspot Network Orioles blog, Camden Depot put together the hall of fame ballots from local Orioles’ blogger’s, in an effort to compare our votes to the overall voting of the BBWAA. My votes can be found within that article (along with some analysis from Head Depot’er Jon Shepherd), and I highly suggest you head over there to read it, as the results and some of the votes are pretty interesting. With that in mind, I thought I would take a moment to explain my choices here on the Proving Ground. Continue reading →
Orioles Proving Ground 