Baseball Hall of Fame Voting

ESPN posted the ballots of their baseball writers who have a vote for the Hall of Fame.

To me, it's pretty simple. Rickey Henderson, Bert Blyleven, Alan Trammell, Mark McGwire and Tim Raines.

I really don't see the debate for Henderson, Blyleven or Raines so I won't address them.

For McGwire, he played in his era and was one of the most dominant players.

If you look at Alan Trammell's stats, they don't look that impressive. His career OPS+ is 110. An OPS+ of 100 indicates an average major league baseball player. At 110, he was a very good hitter. However, you have to take into account that he played shortstop. He wasn't a first baseman, right fielder or designated hitter hitting 110. Taking into account his position, he actually was an impressive hitter. And since most people agree that Craig Biggio is a first ballot hall of famer, as a fellow middle infielder, his stats look similar.

This will mark Jim Rice's final year on the ballot. For whatever reason, he will make it into the hall of fame. His career OPS+ is 128, which is very good. But most legit baseball writers, namely Keith Law and Rob Neyer, will point out that he was a horrible fielder, couldn't run and had bad away stats.

This movement of Jim Rice love has come from this label of "feared hitter." One writer labeled him a feared hitter and now everyone believes it. Under the reader comments of the ESPN ballot, user 4reojr14 has a long post and ends it with "And remember that there was a reason that Rice was feared!" Of course he was.