Baseball Bloggers Alliance and the HOF Ballot

With the announcement for election into the most storied of institutions, Baseball’s Hall of Fame, coming soon, the Baseball Bloggers Alliance conducts its own vote. As a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, Blog Red Machine participates in the vote.

Alex, John and I all cast a separate ballot as to what BRM’s ballot submitted to the BBA would be. Majority rules if a player was not submitted on all three of our ballots. Even though that would fall short percentage-wise, we chose that route as a group. After the jump, you will see our ballot.

BRM had two players that received unanimous consideration: Barry Larkin (that was a a given for us!) and Roberto Alomar.

We had six players that were mentioned on two out of three ballots: Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire, Dale Murphy, Edgar Martinez, Jeff Bagwell and Fred McGriff.

In the BBA’s press release (which follows this little blurb), Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven received at least 75% of the vote, same terms as used by the BBWAA for election.

Concerning the BBA’s complete vote compared to BRM’s, we hit on Alomar but missed on Blyleven. One of us did vote for Blyleven. I’m not mentioning any names, but I’m throwing my arm out of socket patting myself on the back. As you will see in the press release, Larkin did not miss by much.

The following is the official press release from the BBA:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
12:30 AM EDT, December 30, 2010
Contact: Daniel Shoptaw
E-mail: baseballbloggersalliance@gmail.com

BBA RECOMMENDS ALOMAR, BLYLEVEN FOR HALL OF FAME

Second baseman Roberto Alomar and starting pitcher Bert Blyleven were named today as the recommended 2011 Hall of Fame class by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.

Alomar, who is on the ballot for his second year, and Blyleven, looking at his fourteenth time, both finished just shy of the BBA’s recommendation in 2010 at just a fraction under the 75% threshold. As was the case last year, both Alomar and Blyleven received the same amount of votes from the BBA membership in 2010, but this time it was enough to push them into the recommended status.

Both players received 117 votes out of the 154 ballots cast, resulting in a 75.97% approval rate. Again echoing the vote taken at the end of 2009, shortstop Barry Larkin was the third man in the balloting, missing selection by being named on just 70.78% of the ballots.

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance’s vote has no impact on the official vote taken by the Baseball Writers of America and the members of the Hall of Fame. However, the BBA has been often a predictor of awards granted by the writers, matching their selection in fourteen of the sixteen major awards in the last two postseasons combined.

The final voting results are as follows:

Roberto Alomar, 75.97%
Bert Blyleven, 75.97%
Barry Larkin, 70.78%
Jeff Bagwell, 62.34%
Edgar Martinez, 59.09%
Tim Raines, 54.55%
Mark McGwire, 44.16%
Lee Smith, 38.96%
Alan Trammell, 35.71%
Don Mattingly, 33.12%
Larry Walker, 31.17%
Fred McGriff, 27.27%
Jack Morris, 25.97%
Rafael Palmerio, 20.78%
Dale Murphy, 16.23%
Dave Parker, 12.34%
Harold Baines, 10.39%
Kevin Brown, 9.09%
John Franco, 7.14%
Tino Martinez, 5.19%
John Olerud, 5.19%
Al Leiter, 4.55%
Bret Boone, 3.90%
Juan Gonzalez, 3.90%
Marquis Grissom, 2.60%
Benito Santiago, 1.30%
Bobby Higginson, 0.65%
Charles Johnson, 0.65%
Kirk Rueter, 0.65%
Carlos Baerga, 0.00%
Raul Mondesi, 0.00%
BJ Surhoff, 0.00%

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was established in the fall of 2009 for the purpose of fostering collaboration and communication among bloggers from across baseball. The BBA has quickly grown to its current membership of 256 blogs, including some of the most prominent blogs on the internet, spanning all major league teams and various other general aspects of the game.

More information about the BBA can be found at their website, www.baseballbloggersalliance.com, or by contacting the founder and administrator of the organization, Daniel Shoptaw, at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.