Colorado Rockies news and links for Thursday, January 23, 2025
Another Hall of Fame voting cycle has come and gone, and the most hallowed of baseball halls will now be adorned with three new, deserving faces: those of Billy Wagner, CC Sabathia, and a personal favorite of mine in Ichiro Suzuki.
While the announcement of these players’ inclusion in the game’s most-renowned institution has been met with overwhelming support and praise, it hasn’t all been sunshine and rainbows. That’s because members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, while picking three candidates certainly deserving of the honor, find themselves in the spotlight thanks to one glaring reason — Ichiro was not unanimously voted in.
At a glance, this really isn’t that big a deal. One vote was not enough to keep Ichiro out, after all, and who cares if Mariano Rivera remains the only member of the Hall to receive 100% of the votes in his first year of eligibility? It’s not that deep, right?
Well… it kind of is.
See, there’s been discussion for a while now about whether the BBWAA’s method of induction is really the best way to go about things. The issue is complicated, but there are a couple of major hang-ups that fans have with the current process. Let’s talk about it.
For one, there’s the fact that voters can choose to remain anonymous through the selection procedure. While ostensibly meant to shield the members of the BBWAA from any backlash as a result of their ballots (which, let’s be honest, does happen), it also means that there’s a lack of transparency when it comes to this system.
A career as legendary as Ichiro’s should have been a no-brainer entry for every single member, and yet someone decided that he should be left off. Was this because they felt him truly unworthy? Was it because they wanted to vote in ten other players, and knew Ichiro was a shoo-in? We can’t be sure.
There’s also potential biases that can present themselves, such as the perceived East Coast bias. There’s a prevailing theory that this phenomenon is what led to Rivera’s unanimous inclusion, and more than that, it’s why no one else will ever be able to reach that mark. The Yankees are, of course, one of the most historically significant franchises in baseball (and sports overall), and some believe players from the Bronx have an easier path to Cooperstown than others.
That’s…not great.
To go the other direction, there’s also the continued belief that Coors Field, as a “hitter’s park,” excludes Rockies players from Hall consideration.
Now, we know that Coors Field’s status as the Mecca of offensive results in baseball is a bit overblown, but there are those that still view its confines as a gimmick, and therefore playing there for a majority — or even part of — one’s career is inflating their stats, disqualifying them from ever getting close to Hall of Fame status.
That may be why it took the voters six years to finally give Todd Helton his due rewards, despite his standing as the greatest player in Rockies franchise history, or what caused Larry Walker to just barely get in in his final year of eligibility.
Did these biases keep Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos González from receiving the 5% of votes necessary to keep their names on the ballot for future consideration? Maybe not, but again, it’s impossible to know with certainty.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the continued battle for the induction of players that are tied to PED use. That’s another complex matter that doesn’t have an easy answer — do you enter those players and recognize their achievements and their flaws, or do you continue to excommunicate them and leave out some of the sport’s most objectively talented players?
Whichever way you lean, there’s no clear right or wrong answer — and it doesn’t seem like we’re going to get one.
The partition that exists between sports fans and the voters themselves is an increasing point of contention, and it doesn’t appear likely to change any time soon.
As we know, baseball’s standing as one of the oldest sports in the world has historically made fans, owners, and players alike resistant to change, but this current process of voting seems to be in desperate need of some sort of upheaval. Some have mentioned finding some sort of statistical threshold or baseline that all candidates must be held to in order to be considered, and while there are various consistencies to be found in who has made it thus far, I fear that slapping a single, unmovable entry point onto the Hall is a dangerous precedent to set.
I mentioned that baseball resists change, but it’s nonetheless gone through some major modifications in recent years. Even beyond rule changes, the sport itself is virtually unrecognizable from its past iterations, even as recently as 20-odd years ago. We’ll likely never see another 300-game winner, or a .400 hitter, or a 30-wins-in-a-season-er again. With the game having been updated to its new form, shouldn’t the Hall of Fame voting proceedings get with the times as well?
There’s not a quick, immediate fix for this. I recognize that voting for the Hall is a tremendous honor and burden, and something that takes years of work to be considered for. I have nothing but respect for the members of the BBWAA, but I still think it’s fair to consider where exactly the disconnect is in this whole process.
Hopefully we can come up with a clear, defined way of doing things that we can all agree on. Until then, we can be happy for the players that did get the call and hope that those deserving of the honor will be justly granted their plaques in the future.
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