If I Had a 2011 Hall of Fame Ballot

Tomorrow at 2:00 p.m., the announcement of who has been elected to Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame will be made. As I've made a tradition of doing here, I'm indicating for whom I would vote if I had a ballot. The first nine are easy. In rough order of how strongly I feel that they belong, they are:

Roberto Alomar
Mark McGwire
Rafael Palmeiro
Fred McGriff
Barry Larkin
Tim Raines
Jeff Bagwell
Bert Blyleven
Jack Morris

For everyone but Palmeiro and Bagwell, see last year's post. For Palmeiro and Bagwell, both fit into the no-brainer category for me. I know that, especially with Palmeiro on the ballot, a lot of discourse this year focuses on use of performance-enhancing drugs. There's much more I could say to elaborate on my position regarding that, but for now suffice to say that I think using that as a criterion for not voting for recent players fails to recognize the many ways that players of previous eras bent both legal and league-mandated rules to enhance their performances. I, thus, do not use that criterion. (Besides, if this really was a Hall of "Fame" and not Hall of "Excellence," Mark McGwire is the only no-brainer on the list, with only Palmeiro, Don Mattingly, and maybe Dale Murphy even worthy of consideration.) With that in mind, Palmeiro's numbers make him a heavy no-brainer. Bagwell is not as strongly definite. I might pause for a second and glance at his numbers just to make sure, but in the end would not have to think much about it at all.

Since the ballot only contains 10 slots, this leaves me with one slot to fill this year. Based on last year, Harold Baines would go in this spot, though it would be tough to choose among him, Dale Murphy, and Lee Smith. The same pretty much holds true this year, and I suppose I would pick Baines again, but that can change from minute to minute, which of course, means that I would, as in the past, need a bigger ballot. All told, if I could vote for as many individuals as possible, I would vote for the 9 above; the trio of Baines, Murphy, and Smith; and 10 others (in rough order of my assessment of their worthiness for inclusion): Larry Walker, John Franco, Don Mattingly, Alan Trammell, Benito Santiago, Dave Parker, Edgar Martinez, Juan Gonzalez, Maqruis Grissom, and John Olerud. Grissom and Olerud made the cut only after scrutiny of their careers and statistics suggested to me that, after initially leaving them off, they belonged with others whom I've included here and in the past. In all, then, if I could vote for more than 10 players, I would vote for a total of 22 individuals on my 2011 ballot. Obviously, I disagree with the likes of Rob Neyer, who suggest that "Exclusiveness is preferable to inclusiveness."

Among the rest of the names on the list, Kevin Brown is the first one left off the list (joining Ellis Burks and Jay Bell from previous years in this distinction). Like Bell and Burks, I might even be persuaded to include Brown. Indeed, even Neyer argues that Brown has at least a case for consideration. In the end, though, Brown falls just short. I would also give a little more consideration (in alphabetical order) to Bret Boone, Al Leiter, Tino Martinez, and B. J. Surhoff than to the list of remaining names. However, none of these players would make the cut.