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2022 HOF Ballot


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#41 weird-O

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 01:42 PM

Then let's rename the Hall of Fame to the Hall of Players the Writer's Liked.

Sounds like a plan. These writers earned their votes. I don't see anything wrong with any of them exercising their authority when they want to. 


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#42 mweb08

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 01:58 PM

Sounds like a plan. These writers earned their votes. I don't see anything wrong with any of them exercising their authority when they want to.


Would you apply this logic to elected representatives, police officers, and teachers? They earned that position so they can use their authority however they see fit, regardless of how they do so?

#43 weird-O

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 02:03 PM

Would you apply this logic to elected representatives, police officers, and teachers? They earned that position so they can use their authority however they see fit, regardless of how they do so?

Your question is flawed, because you're converting the voter, whose voting his conscious, into the elected and then asking if I think they should also be able to use their authority as they see fit. As an aside, elected officials always take liberties with their authority. So even at that level, the question doesn't work. 


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#44 mweb08

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 02:15 PM

Your question is flawed, because you're converting the voter, whose voting his conscious, into the elected and then asking if I think they should also be able to use their authority as they see fit. As an aside, elected officials always take liberties with their authority. So even at that level, the question doesn't work.


The question works unless you think it's ok that they take liberties with their authority.

The voters should take this privilege very seriously and thus should be thoughtful and as objective as possible when voting on this incredible honor rather than letting personal grudges interfere.

#45 weird-O

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 02:23 PM

The question works unless you think it's ok that they take liberties with their authority.

The voters should take this privilege very seriously and thus should be thoughtful and as objective as possible when voting on this incredible honor rather than letting personal grudges interfere.

I think the question only works in your head, because you made it up. The voter is not the elected. In this situation, you cannot be both. You're either able to vote, or you're being voted for. And since elected officials always take liberties with their authority, your hypothetical scenario is eliminated since it's an actual thing, whether any of us thinks it's ok or not.  


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#46 mweb08

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 02:48 PM

I think the question only works in your head, because you made it up. The voter is not the elected. In this situation, you cannot be both. You're either able to vote, or you're being voted for. And since elected officials always take liberties with their authority, your hypothetical scenario is eliminated since it's an actual thing, whether any of us thinks it's ok or not.


I am saying it's not ok to abuse one's power regardless of the role. You apparently think that is just fine.

#47 mweb08

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 04:18 PM

To add to that, I am a teacher and I have had students that are difficult to deal with just like these writers have covered athletes that have been difficult to deal with, but I would never decide to withhold the grade that they deserved because of that. If that student deserves an A, that's what they'll get. Anything else would be unethical. 


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#48 weird-O

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 05:03 PM

I am saying it's not ok to abuse one's power regardless of the role. You apparently think that is just fine.

I can see many flaws in your thinking. For one, you're framing this as if a few writers are acting unethically and abusing their power for petty reasons. That's not the case at all. The majority of the voting body have chosen to hold these men accountable for their actions. That's within their right. Some might say it's actually their responsibility. You're also displaying an arrogance by assuming you know how and why the members of the BBWAA voted, by stating as fact, that they've never used the character clause to inform their decisions. I'm not blessed with your knowledge, so I can only surmise what factors guide their vote. I just happen to agree with them on this point. 


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#49 mweb08

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 05:32 PM

I can see many flaws in your thinking. For one, you're framing this as if a few writers are acting unethically and abusing their power for petty reasons. That's not the case at all. The majority of the voting body have chosen to hold these men accountable for their actions. That's within their right. Some might say it's actually their responsibility. You're also displaying an arrogance by assuming you know how and why the members of the BBWAA voted, by stating as fact, that they've never used the character clause to inform their decisions. I'm not blessed with your knowledge, so I can only surmise what factors guide their vote. I just happen to agree with them on this point.


If you've been following what I've been saying, I actually don't think voters generally keep guys out of the HOF based on their own relationship with them (I just pointed to it as the lone "character" consideration of the voting body until recently). I am though responding to you who seemingly not only thinks that it's ok to do that, but celebrates it.

As for holding them accountable for actions beyond not personally liking them, once again the voting body has never used the character clause to keep out players until the so called steroid era players reached the ballot. I prefer consistency. If a voting body has ignored all sorts of character issues including actual performance enhancing drug usage up until that point, then it's hypocritical to deploy it against these players.

#50 Mackus

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 05:44 PM

If you've been following what I've been saying, I actually don't think voters generally keep guys out of the HOF based on their own relationship with them (I just pointed to it as the lone "character" consideration of the voting body until recently). I am though responding to you who seemingly not only thinks that it's ok to do that, but celebrates it.

As for holding them accountable for actions beyond not personally liking them, once again the voting body has never used the character clause to keep out players until the so called steroid era players reached the ballot. I prefer consistency. If a voting body has ignored all sorts of character issues including actual performance enhancing drug usage up until that point, then it's hypocritical to deploy it against these players.

 

Would you have an issue with a voter who won't vote for players with suspensions, admissions of guilt or other legally proven usage but would vote for someone who was never proven to use even if suspected (and also voted for players in the past who were never proven to be on greenies or the like)?

 

Full agreement that not voting for someone because they were a difficult interview is a perversion of their right to vote.  That cannot be supported.  Like if Erik Bedard had Mussina's career, but people didn't vote for him because he was a dick to reporters.  That's ridiculous.

 

That said, I have a hard time being too upset that people aren't voting for Schilling for this reason.  Fundamentally I agree it's probably BS, but it is also great from a different, schaudenfreude-laden perspective.


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#51 weird-O

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 05:54 PM

If you've been following what I've been saying, I actually don't think voters generally keep guys out of the HOF based on their own relationship with them (I just pointed to it as the lone "character" consideration of the voting body until recently). I am though responding to you who seemingly not only thinks that it's ok to do that, but celebrates it.

As for holding them accountable for actions beyond not personally liking them, once again the voting body has never used the character clause to keep out players until the so called steroid era players reached the ballot. I prefer consistency. If a voting body has ignored all sorts of character issues including actual performance enhancing drug usage up until that point, then it's hypocritical to deploy it against these players.

Oh, good


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#52 TwentyThirtyFive

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 06:06 PM

I see weird-o has finally met mweb


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#53 mweb08

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 06:17 PM

Would you have an issue with a voter who won't vote for players with suspensions, admissions of guilt or other legally proven usage but would vote for someone who was never proven to use even if suspected (and also voted for players in the past who were never proven to be on greenies or the like)?

Full agreement that not voting for someone because they were a difficult interview is a perversion of their right to vote. That cannot be supported. Like if Erik Bedard had Mussina's career, but people didn't vote for him because he was a dick to reporters. That's ridiculous.

That said, I have a hard time being too upset that people aren't voting for Schilling for this reason. Fundamentally I agree it's probably BS, but it is also great from a different, schaudenfreude-laden perspective.


I would hold my nose and vote for Schilling. He is not getting support largely because he decided to take the adversarial relationship with the writers to an indefensible extreme, but he is still a HOF baseball player.

I would vote for any player that I think reaches the threshold. I see the logic in what you describe, but don't think it's the strongest. I think that logic holds more water once we get to guilt when the league was actually enforcing PED rules. That would not only apply to steroids though. I still default to the first sentence though.

#54 Pedro Cerrano

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 07:56 PM

I see weird-o has finally met mweb


Lol

There is baseball, and occasionally there are other things of note

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#55 B00E00N00

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 09:09 PM

To add to that, I am a teacher and I have had students that are difficult to deal with just like these writers have covered athletes that have been difficult to deal with, but I would never decide to withhold the grade that they deserved because of that. If that student deserves an A, that's what they'll get. Anything else would be unethical. 

 

Just out of curiosity, what subject do you teach?



#56 mweb08

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Posted 15 December 2021 - 09:38 PM

Just out of curiosity, what subject do you teach?


American Government has been my primary course.
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#57 mweb08

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Posted 16 December 2021 - 08:47 AM

Would you have an issue with a voter who won't vote for players with suspensions, admissions of guilt or other legally proven usage but would vote for someone who was never proven to use even if suspected (and also voted for players in the past who were never proven to be on greenies or the like)?


To add to what I already said about this, what I would ask is if people are sticking to that standard in cases outside of steroids in the steroid era and if they apply it to other sports. Like football for example.

#58 weird-O

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Posted 16 December 2021 - 09:43 AM

I would hold my nose and vote for Schilling. He is not getting support largely because he decided to take the adversarial relationship with the writers to an indefensible extreme, but he is still a HOF baseball player.

I would vote for any player that I think reaches the threshold. I see the logic in what you describe, but don't think it's the strongest. I think that logic holds more water once we get to guilt when the league was actually enforcing PED rules. That would not only apply to steroids though. I still default to the first sentence though.

I think you may not be aware of how the election process works. The HOF and MLB are separate entities. MLB has no input in the voting process. The extent of their weight seems to be limited to strongly suggesting what hat should be on a player's plaque. But that has now evolved into the players' choice (note that word, evolve). So how MLB governed itself or its players, what PED rules they enforced or didn't has no bearing on who get's elected to the HOF. 

Furthermore, left to their own devices, MLB would have never addressed the issue of steroids. The sport was never more popular than the juiced era. So they turned a blind eye. It was one of those petty writers (Tom Verducci) that had enough of watching the game he loved, turn into a circus freak show. Without him and other writers who felt the game, and its history, were being violated, it's quite possible we'd be watching Shrek sized humans hitting 800' HRs and throwing 200 mph fastballs. So when someone submits their ballot, they aren't bound by whatever rules MLB decided to enforce during any given span of time.   


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#59 Mike in STL

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Posted 16 December 2021 - 10:09 AM

To add to what I already said about this, what I would ask is if people are sticking to that standard in cases outside of steroids in the steroid era and if they apply it to other sports. Like football for example.


Why can’t things be judged on their own, in its own environment, without comparing it to things that are incomparable, like what we don’t in our regular jobs, what happens in everyday life, or how we feel about other sports?
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#60 Mackus

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Posted 16 December 2021 - 10:27 AM

To add to what I already said about this, what I would ask is if people are sticking to that standard in cases outside of steroids in the steroid era and if they apply it to other sports. Like football for example.

 

I don't see the hypocrisy that it seems that you're cautioning against.  What cases outside of steroids in the steroid era are you referring to?  And do those cases influence a player's performance so much that it could reasonably alter how their overall greatness is received?

 

I doubt any baseball HOF voters are also football HOF votes.  It's a little bit of a double standard to judge steroid and PED use in one sport more harshly than the other, but I don't think it's so much so that it invalidates both or either opinion.  Shawne Merriman wasn't a HOF level player, but if he was, I don't think I'd criticize a double-sport voter who voted for him for the football HOF despite his positive tests and against Manny Ramirez for the baseball HOF because of his positive tests.   

 

A big part of that is because of how important and beautiful I think the numbers are in baseball and how unimportant and irrelevant the numbers are records are in football.  baseball across many eras was still pretty consistent in terms of overall statistics.  So the records of old have a lot of meaning even to the game of today (with some exceptions like win totals being hard to keep up with now).  Football changes so much, maybe just me but I don't care about the records from the 60s being tainted by the game of today (whether drug-fueled or just rule and strategy altered).

 

I'd vote for everyone regardless of steroid use, but I understand the rationale to not vote for someone we know used and I don't disapprove of that mindset.  I do disapprove of not voting for someone who the writer merely suspects was a user, like say Bagwell of Piazza.  And I strongly disapprove of any writers who withhold votes just because the guy wasn't nice to them or didn't give them good answers during interviews.  Those people should lose their right to vote.






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