With the official announcement of the 2017 Hall of Fame ballot, it’s time to open the doors for the third year of SnakePit balloting. This uses the same qualification score - a 75% vote is necessary - as Cooperstown, but so far seems to have been tougher to get into. Over the previous two seasons, six players were elected into the real thing, but just half as many (Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Jr) to the SnakePit one. Will that change this year?
The ballot contains the same 19 new names as we added to the Cooperstown list this season, and the same total number (34) of possible choices. However, we have a number of names you won’t see on the official ballot, because we didn’t (yet) vote in John Smoltz, Craig Biggio or Mike Piazza. Joining the 19 newcomers, we thus have the top 15 holdovers who didn’t get elected in the 2016 SnakePit election and who would still be eligible for Cooperstown in 2017. Our candidates therefore include that trio, while excluding Alan Trammell and Mark McGwire, who dropped off the actual ballot this time around.
To prevent potential ballot-box stuffing, voting is open only to registered AZ SnakePit users - forms without the username filled in will be rejected [however, since you can join by clicking on a link and filling in a form, it’s not exactly an onerous requirement!]. I reserve the right to publish your ballot, with or without your name attached, depending on how amusing it is. However, feel free to announce your ballot and explain it in the comments. You can select as many candidates as you want: there’s no “10 maximum” as on the real thing. Don’t say we’re not good to you! Voting will remain open for a while, certainly through Christmas, with the results being announced on or around the same date the Cooperstown results come out, so early January.
The form is below, or if you’re on mobile - or are lazy and just want to pick a couple of names! - click here for a pre-filled ballot with all 34 candidates defaulting to “No”. :)