What our hypothetical Hall of Fame ballots look like (part 1)

Those I would not vote for

First off, if I had a vote, I would not include players that tested positive for steroids or has serious steroid allegations behind them. The only two of the bunch that I would potentially consider are Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. The reason behind this is I believe that they would have been Hall of Famers regardless.

However, I believe that there are more than 10 players that are worthy of being in the Hall of Fame that did not take steroids. Therefore, I would not vote for Bonds or Clemens. Even if I had a ballot and that ballot didn’t have a limit on the players, I’m not sure if I would vote for them but I would be more open to including them. Also, in the steroid category are Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa, and Manny Ramirez.

Others like Chris Carpenter, Johnny Damon, Livan Hernandez, Orlando Hudson, Aubrey Huff, Jason Isringhausen, Carlos Lee, Brad Lidge, Hideki Matsui, Kevin Millwood, Jamie Moyer, Kerry Wood, Billy Wagner, and Carlos Zambrano will not be on next year’s ballot and are not Hall of Famers.

With the exception of Wagner, combined, through Thibodaux’s HOF tracker, only Damon and Moyer have tallied a vote in that group…and even then, it boggles my mind that some are voting for Damon and not voting for others. For example, the three voters who voted for Damon all did not vote for Larry Walker, who has a lot better numbers than Damon, who had a career 104 OPS+ and zero Gold Gloves, to Walker’s 141 OPS+ and seven Gold Gloves.

For Wagner, I wouldn’t vote for him because he only ranked in Cy Young Award voting twice, had less saves and a lower conversion rate than Hoffman (422 and 85.9%). However, the kicker is that, while it was only limited, he was beyond atrocious in postseason play. In 14 games (11 1/3 innings), he had an ERA of 10.03. When you are a closer, you have to get outs in tough spots and big games and there is nothing bigger than the postseason.