Reacting to the Hall of Fame Results

For the first time since 1999, a Hall of Fame class will feature three first-ballot selections. Compared to last year's lackluster results, this 2014 election cycle was a heartening development. But a closer examination of the percentages reveals some puzzling issues and inconsistencies.

Greg Maddux (97.2%): So we won't have a unanimous Hall of Fame selection until Mike Trout.

Tom Glavine (91.9%): He obviously deserves this honor, but hypothetically, if Glavine, Curt Schilling, and Mike Mussina had all played for the same team, Glavine would have been the third-best pitcher in that rotation.

Frank Thomas (83.7%): He spent more than half of his career games as a designated hitter and he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Edgar Martinez is confused.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Craig Biggio (74.8%): Agonizingly, he fell just two votes short of making it. His induction is, and always has been, an inevitability -- so what is being accomplished by forcing him to wait another twelve months?

Mike Piazza (62.2%): He and Biggio were the only two holdover candidates to actually see their vote totals increase, so Piazza is headed in the right direction. He's the only player on this ballot besides the three inductees who actually got good news.

Jack Morris (61.5%): He falls off the ballot after exhausting his 15 years of eligibility. To some extent, this is just delaying the inevitable -- Morris is basically a lock to be inducted by the Veteran's Committee in a few years. But this way, the BBWAA's high standards.haven't been compromised. It's a win-win result: Morris will get his plaque without lowering the bar for future candidates.

Jeff Bagwell (54.3%): Ridiculously, support for Bagwell dropped by five percent. There is no proof that he ever used a banned substance. He never failed a drug test and wasn't mentioned in the Mitchell Report. So nearly half of the baseball writers appear willing to exclude a player from the Hall of Fame based on nothing but speculation and rumor. That's the most significant (and disappointing) takeaway from this year's voting.

Tim Raines (46.1%): Fell back under 50%, but he has eight more years of eligibility. Raines' case is gathering momentum.

Roger Clemens (35.4%): Even fewer votes than last year. So the people in charge of honoring the best players in the history of baseball are just flat-out refusing to honor two of the best players in the history of baseball.

Barry Bonds (34.7%): Apparently Barry Bonds did more to "damage the integrity of the sport" than  Hall of Fame racists like Ty Cobb and Cap Anson, who helped perpetuate the segregationist policies that denied Satchel Paige and Oscar Charleston and Josh Gibson the right to play major league baseball.

Lee Smith (29.9%): Relief pitchers have the easiest job in baseball, so the Hall's standard at the position should be extremely high. Smith doesn't meet that standard.

Curt Schilling (29.2%): Twice the pitcher Jack Morris was; half the votes Jack Morris got.

Edgar Martinez (25.2%): The year Frank Thomas was elected on the first ballot, Martinez's support dropped by ten percentage points. Figure that one out.

Alan Trammell (20.8%): He deserves more than this. Trammell had a higher career on-base percentage than Cal Ripken Jr., Ernie Banks, and Robin Yount; he had eight excellent offensive seasons and was the league's best position player in 1987. He should be one of the most-debated candidates on the ballot. Instead, he's just a footnote.

Mike Mussina (20.3%): This result was the one most disconnected from reality. Why will it take Mussina a decade longer to reach Cooperstown than Glavine? There's no good answer to that question.

Jeff Kent (15.2%): Like Trammell, Kent was almost completely overlooked in this crowded field. He has a solid case, but those calling him the best offensive second baseman ever are incorrectly placing him ahead of Rogers Hornsby, Jackie Robinson, Nap Lajoie, and maybe even a few others.

Fred McGriff (11.7%): Very close, but only one season with an OPS over 1.000 during this hitter-friendly era? Not going to cut it at the first base position.

Mark McGwire (11.0%): He's the only notable name from the Steroid Era to openly admit the truth about his drug use. And he's being completely ignored by a voting bloc that claims to care about morality and character. What kind of message does that send?

Larry Walker (10.2%): His ludicrous 1997 season alone is worth 10.2% of the vote. The writers aren't doing their homework on Walker.

Don Mattingly (8.2%): On this stacked ballot, even 8.2% for Mattingly is too much.

Sammy Sosa (7.2%): Among the voters, his connections to performance-enhancing drugs render his 609 career homers irrelevant. But Sosa's exile isn't nearly the same as Bonds' or Clemens'. Though his peak was incredible, his cumulative performance was borderline at best for the Hall of Fame. His career OBP (.344), OPS (.878), and OPS+ (128) weren't elite for a corner outfielder in the Steroid Era who didn't provide much value away from the plate. Larry Walker, for example, easily bests Sosa in each of those three categories (.400, .965, 141) with a similar peak and better defense and baserunning. Sosa wouldn't be a slam-dunk candidate even if he had been clean.

Rafael Palmeiro (4.4%): Despite being one of only four players with at least 3,000 hits and 500 homers, Palmeiro has now fallen off the ballot entirely by receiving less than 5% of the vote, thanks to an infamous failed drug test. But like Sosa, Palmeiro might not be worthy of the Hall just based on performance alone. He never had a significant peak -- like McGriff, he only had one season with an OPS over 1.000. He played his entire career in hitter-friendly home ballparks. And his career OPS (.885) and OPS+ (132) aren't impressive relative to his contemporaries, especially at his position. It's too easy to name other first basemen and DHs from his era who were significantly better: Frank Thomas, Albert Pujols, Jeff Bagwell, Jim Thome, Edgar Martinez, and Mark McGwire, for instance. Palmeiro is the perfect example of why arbitrary milestones like 3,000 hits and 500 homers should not be treated like magic numbers when it comes to the Hall of Fame.