2023's First Hall of Fame Vote

After we got a whopping six! new Hall of Famers from the Early Baseball and Golden Days Era committees, the era committees were restructured once again.  Now it's two years of the Contemporary Baseball Era, with players and managers/executives alternating, then the Classic Baseball Era, which combines everybody from pre-1980 into one ballot.  Up first is the player Contemporary Baseball Era, which has a lot of familiar names on it.

In fact, this ballot looks an awful lot like the ballots we've been seeing in the regular January voting over the past several years.  The names from the Steroid Era, who would otherwise have been sure-fire, first-ballot selections, fell off the BBWAA ballot after 10 years and have moved on to this ballot.  Which means the Bonds/Clemens discussion has been transferred to a different group...and will probably yield the same results.  They need 12 of 16 votes to get in, and it seems likely that at least five members of the committee will have their reservations, resulting in their falling short again.

However, I do think that Bonds and Clemens do have a better chance of getting in now than they did on the regular ballot.  It's a much smaller group of voters, but, more importantly, it's a much smaller group of candidates.  There are only eight men up for election on this ballot, all of whom have a reasonable case.

When I do this for the regular election, I rank my 10 votes in order.  I'm going to do it similarly here, but slightly different.  I'll rank all eight, even though, since the voters are limited to four selections each, only the top four would get my "votes."  And, since I've been pretty consistent throughout their candidacy on the main ballot, I bet you all know who gets positions 1 and 2...

1. Barry Bonds: Aaron Judge's home run chase this season was tremendous to watch, but the people suggesting he was the all-time single-season record-holder are just idiots.  That still belongs to Bonds.  As does the career record.  I won't get into the steroid thing, since you know where I stand on that.  And that's the only reason he didn't give a speech in Cooperstown a decade ago.

2. Roger Clemens: Like Bonds, Clemens was a slam dunk Hall of Famer long before the steroid accusations clouded his candidacy.  Steroids or not, he was one of the greatest right-handed pitchers of his generation.  Clemens was so dominant for so long that the thought of him still waiting this long after retiring was completely unimaginable during his playing days.

3. Fred McGriff: My appreciation for Fred McGriff has grown over time.  He finished just shy of 500 home runs, but likely would've gotten there if not for all the games missed because of the 1994-95 strike.  He also moved around a lot, which I actually think is a good thing, since it shows how much good teams wanted him.  And he produced everywhere he was.  Most importantly, no one questions the legitimacy of anything Fred McGriff did.  There are those who consider him to be a "Hall of Very Good" player.  But so is Harold Baines.  And Fred McGriff was a far better player than Harold Baines.

4. Curt Schilling: I was actually hesitant to put Schilling this high, especially after the way he tried to whine his way off the writers' ballot before his eligibility expired.  He said he only wanted to get in via the Era Committee.  Well, he got his wish.  The writers never put him in, so now the Era Committee is the only way he can.  Until last year, when I was put off by his comments, I always had Schilling near the top of my list.  That's why I couldn't drop him much further than fourth on this list.  His postseason dominance is what puts him over the top for me.

5. Don Mattingly: The Baines election was actually good news for players like McGriff and Mattingly, who'll now get a much closer second look.  The Blue Jays' new hitting coach doesn't have the gaudy numbers of some of the other candidates.  But those numbers would've been much higher had he not been forced to retire due to a back injury.  He was arguably THE best first baseman in the American League throughout the 1980s, when he was the face of the New York Yankees.

6. Dale Murphy: Murphy and Mattingly have very similar candidacies.  Murphy played for bad Braves teams, which somewhat overshadowed how good he was.  I never even really realized it myself.  However, I still think he's a borderline Hall of Famer at best.  If we're using Harold Baines as our baseline, though, he should be in.  Because Murphy was better than Baines.

7. Albert Belle: Remember how good Albert Belle was when he played for Cleveland in the mid-90s?  Therein lies the issue.  He was the best player in baseball for those few years, but that wasn't really long enough.  Belle's career was cut short due to a hip injury, so that's part of the reason.  I can't rank him above the others, though.  Well, all of the others except one.

8. Rafael Palmeiro: Why am I OK with Bonds and Clemens, but not Rafael Palmeiro?  One very simple reason.  Palmeiro failed a test after they started testing.  So, while his 3,000 hits, 500 home runs and 10 seasons with 100 RBIs are otherwise Hall of Fame-worthy, the failed test is the disqualifier for me.  I also never considered Palmeiro to be a "great" player.  Those numbers, I thought, were a mark of longevity more than anything else.

Unfortunately, I don't see the wait ending for Bonds or Clemens.  I'm not sure it ever will.  Of the eight candidates, I think the one with the best chance of actually getting in is McGriff.  Which would be a well-deserved and long overdue prize for someone who was so good, yet still incredibly underrated.

Whether it's just McGriff or somebody else or McGriff and somebody else, I do hope and expect that we'll get at least one new Hall of Famer from the Contemporary Baseball Era ballot.  And, there's a chance that whoever it is might be standing on that stage alone in Cooperstown next summer.  Because I'm not sure we're getting anyone from the writers' ballot.