With the Hall of Fame ballot results due to be announced on Wednesday, here are the results of the first SB Nation Hall of Fame balloting. In this, we took the same players eligible for Cooperstown, and up to two voters from each blog - in our case, that was myself and 'Charmer - were able to submit a ballot, following the same rules as the "regular" ballot. After the jump, you'll find the results: if this is any indication of what to expect from the "real' ballot, it's going to be quite a short induction at Cooperstown this summer, since only one player reached the necessary 75% of votes to qualify. Though another one fell just a single vote short... Click the 'Continue reading this post' link to find the names concerned, and also details of who was on my ballot.
| Player | % Vote | Total Votes |
| Bert Blyleven | 92.3% | 48 |
| Roberto Alomar | 73.1% | 38 |
| Barry Larkin | 63.5% | 33 |
| Tim Raines | 53.8% | 28 |
| Mark McGwire | 51.9% | 27 |
| Edgar Martinez | 48.1% | 25 |
| Alan Trammell | 40.4% | 21 |
| Andre Dawson | 32.7% | 17 |
| Lee Smith | 26.9% | 14 |
| Fred McGriff | 25.0% | 13 |
| Dale Murphy | 17.3% | 9 |
| Jack Morris | 13.5% | 7 |
| Don Mattingly | 11.5% | 6 |
| Harold Baines | 7.7% | 4 |
| Dave Parker | 3.8% | 2 |
| Kevin Appier | 3.8% | 2 |
| Ellis Burks | 1.9% | 1 |
| Ray Lankford | 1.9% | 1 |
| Shane Reynolds | 1.9% | 1 |
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Not receiving votes: Andres Galarraga, Pat Hentgen, Mike Jackson, Eric Karros, David Segui, Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile |
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My ballot was short, with only Blyleven and Alomar listed. The former was an almost universal choice, and one wonders if this augurs well from him, in his lucky thirteenth year on the official ballot? He reached 62.7% approval in the 2009 balloting, his best-ever number, and it's been a long climb for Bert from the 17.5% he received in his debut year. Always strikes me as kinda weird the way that works: you're either a Hall of Fame player or you're not, but it seems that almost half the entire electorate have changed their minds on this since 1998. I think it would just be cool to have someone born in the Netherlands get inducted.
Alomar should also get in, by most objective standards. According to baseball-reference.com, he scores as follows:
Hall of Fame Monitor Batting - 194 (46), Likely HOFer ≈ 100
Hall of Fame Standards Batting - 57 (43), Average HOFer ≈ 50
12 All-Star Appearances, 10 Gold Gloves, five times in the top six of MVP voting. While his career OPS+ of 116 is not stellar, it was dragged down significantly by his last three seasons. In the decade 1992-2001 he was arguably the best at his position, hitting .315 with an OPS+ of 127, excellent numbers for a second-baseman.
Looks like 'charmer's ballot was a good bit longer than mine, but I'll let her provide an explanation for that.