Apparently, the Powers That Be wanted to ensure that Bert Blyleven's enshrinement resulted in rhyme time.
Congratulations to Blyleven and Alomar for their well-deserved (if delayed) elections.
A few quick notes:
- Barry Larkin jumped to 62.1%, which makes his enshrinement likely a question of when rather than if
- Tim Raines lost ground, dropping to 30.4% from 37.5% and making my life 7.1% less awesome
- Jeff Bagwell on only 41.7% of ballots; I'm not surprised, just disappointed
- Harold Baines finally fell below 5%; he will be missed
- Dave Parker didn't get the final year bump in votes that most players do, but stayed on the ballot all 15 years
- Kevin Brown got only 2.1% of the vote, something I was afraid of as I looked more and more at this class; Brown might not be a Hall of Famer, but he sure as hell deserved a look before falling off the ballot, as I'm sure he's got a damn good case
- John Franco also deserved to stick around, though I'm very, very skeptical that he has much of a case
All-in-all, it was a tough ballot for newcomers, and I'm pretty disappointed at some of the names that we won't get to consider next year, but to reiterate:
BLYLEVEN IN 2011!
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Yeah Larkin is in next year. There's no one in the upcoming class really. I think Raines regains ground next year but never quite makes it, making me sad for years to come.
ReplyDeleteBrown definitely deserved better than Harold Baines, which somehow didn't happen. Meanwhile Juan Gonzalez is still on the ballot for some reason.
I just looked up Lenny Harris's lifetime WAR. It's -0.9. (BP)