As Baseball Roundtable’s awaits today’s announcement of the Hall of Fame Golden Days and Early Baseball Era Committee balloting, I decided to pass time taking a look at early voting in the Baseball Roundtable Baseball Hall of Fame (unofficial) Fan Balloting (reader votes on the thirty candidates being considered by the Baseball Writers Association of America -BBWAA). (Note: If you are interested in Baseball Roundtable’s take on the Golden Days and Early Era Committee candidates, click here for Golden Days and here for Early Baseball.
Now, for a look at the Roundtable Fan ballot among traditional candidates.
BBRT Fan Ballot Still Open
The Baseball Roundtable (unofficial) Baseball Hall of Fame Fan Ballot is open until December 28, still plenty of time to vote. To access the ballot click here. For a look at the thirty candidates (and some Roundtable predictions), click here (there are also links to the ballot the bio/prediction post.)
With 32 votes now in, readers have voted for an average of 6.8 candidates per ballot. At this point, only David Ortiz (83.8 percent) is running ahead of the 75 percent needed for election in the BBWAA) official balloting. It appears fans are giving Ortiz the benefit of the doubt for a positive (but possibly erroneous) 2003 PED test. Ortiz is one of only six candidates polling more than 50 percent in the reader balloting. Here are the current top ten:
- David Ortiz (83.9%)
- Jeff Kent (61.3)
- Roger Clemens (58.1)
- Billy Wagner (58.1)
- Barry Bonds (51.6)
- Todd Helton (51.6)
- Andy Pettitte (48.4)
- Alex Rodriguez (48.4)
- Omar Vizquel (45.2)
- Scott Rolen (35.4)
A few other observations:
Fan voters appear to be taking Curt Schilling’s request to be taken off the ballot seriously. In fan voting, he dropped from 51.4 percent a year ago, to 22.8 percent so far in this year’s unofficial balloting. Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds are both above 50 percent, but do not seem to gaining traction (in the Roundtable fan ballot or among the BBWAA voters). Clemens did have an unexplained “blip” in Roundtable balloting. His vote total in the fan ballot over the past five years: 50.2 percent; 44.8 percent; 46.9 percent; 24.3 percent; and 58.1 percent this year.
Among first-year candidates, David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez currently lead among Roundtable vote-casters (first-time HOF candidates occupy eight of the nine bottom slots on the preliminary Roundtable balloting.
The Baseball RoundTable unofficial fan ballot also asked voters to indicate players not on the ballot that they through belong in the Hall. Leading the way thus far, with six mentions, is Jim Kaat. Next comes a group with three mentions each: Gil Hodges, Pete Rose and Joe Jackson. At two mentions are Tony Oliva, Don Baylor, Bobby Grich and Don Mattingly. (A full list of those mentioned at least once will be included in a future post.)
Here are the Baseball Roundtable reader votes so far.
Baseball Roundtable 2022 (unofficial) Baseball Hall of Fame Fan Ballot
As of December 4 – Voting open through December 28.
Again, to access the ballot, click here. For a deep dive into the thirty candidates, click here.
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