Scott Rolen, top vote-getter in Baseball Roundtable Readers’ Hall of Fame Balloting. Photo: User Darwin’s Bulldog on en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
The Baseball Roundtable (unofficial) Fan Hall of Fame Balloting is closed and the votes are counted. The end result? Roundtable readers threw a shutout – with no player reaching the 75 percent support needed for induction in the official balloting.
In this post, I’ll pass on the results of the reader voting, as well as share a few observations on the differences between the Roundtable fan ballots and the publicly announced (to date) Baseball Writers Association of America official balloting (as reported by the Baseball Hall of Fame Vote Tracker).
For those interested in a deeper dive into Hall of Fame voting, I would recommend the BBHOF Vote tracker (at bbhoftracker.com). The site offers an updated listing of public votes (total and individual ballots), as well as commentary on voting trends and implications. All of the official ballot totals used in this post are as of January 14, with 39.4% of ballots made public.
Roundtable Side Note
Roundtable reader (and voter) Ralph from North Carolina won the randomly drawn Fan Ballot prize package, which included: a complete 1993 Topps set (with Derek Jeter’s rookie card); a Bob Gibson replica Cardinals jersey; a Tony Oliva HOF bobblehead; a replica Ernie Banks Wrigley Field flag; and a Bert Blyleven HOF “How to Throw a Curve Ball” baseball.
So, on to a few observations. No player received the necessary 75 percent support in the fan ballot, while Scott Rolen and Todd Helton have each drawn more than 75 percent support among the official ballots made public (again via bbhoftracker.com) as of January 14.
As you can see, the top five in the fan ballot mirrored the top five in the public official balloting (to date). The only exceptions being that fans placed Jeff Kent in the top five, while Gary Sheffield was the top five in the BBWAA public ballots.
Voting percentages tend to fall in the official balloting when final results are reported. At this point, it appears Rolen has the best chance of making it into the Hall in 2023, while Helton may end up very close. Below are the full results of the Baseball Roundtable reader voting.
Overall, readers tended to spread out their ballots among more players (some home-team bias, perhaps). Reader voters cast votes for 6.23 players per ballot, as opposed to 6.42 among the writers. Thirteen players on each ballot did not receive enough votes to remain on the ballot for 2024. However, only two players received zero votes on the fan ballot, as opposed to 12 on the official ballot (again, that is on ballots made public to date).
Carlos Beltran, top vote-getter among first-timers. Photo: Jeffrey Hayes, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The strongest newcomer to the ballot (among both groups) was Carlos Beltran – at 53.5 percent (sixth) among readers and 57.1 percent (sixth) in the official balloting. Reader votes and the public official votes to date indicate only two ballot first-timers will carry over to next year (Beltran and Francisco Rodriguez) on the ballot (5 percent minimum support).
Among the biggest differences (beyond Rolen’s and Helton’s totals) between the reader ballots and the public official ballots to date are:
- Gary Sheffield (29.3% among readers; 65.4% among writers);
- Francisco Rodriguez (41.4% among readers; 9.0% among writers);
- Torii Hunter (26.3% among readers; 1.9% among writers).
Again, thanks to all the readers who voted. And, remember bbhoftracker.com is a great source for more in-depth information on the official balloting.
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