My last Hall of Fame thoughts.  I was trying to research as many ‘online ballots’ by writers and bloggers as I could find, but the work done by others is better so I’ll reference it instead.

Baseball Think Factory has been tallying Hall of Fame voting among 89 full ballots.   Their numbers to date:

Alomar 88.8%
Blyleven 82.0%
Dawson 79.8%
Larkin 57.0%
Morris 51.7%
Raines 42.7%
Martinez 41.6%
Smith 38.2%
McGwire 32.6%
Trammell 25.8%

SB Nation ran a poll of its own bloggers, with the following top 12:

Blyleven 92.3%
Alomar 73.1%
Larkin 63.5%
Raines 53.8%
McGwire 51.9%
Martinez 48.1%
Trammell 40.4%
Dawson 32.7%
Smith 26.9%
McGriff 25.0%
Murphy 17.3%
Morris 13.5%

It’s interesting that Andre Dawson and Jack Morris get so much more support from writers, and Tim Raines and Alan Trammell are pushed more by the bloggers.  But the Dawson/Morris disparities are huge: Dawson get in on the writers’ exit poll, while earning less than 1/3 of the bloggers vote.  And Morris doesn’t even make the bloggers’ top 10.

Why the huge variance? I think the positives for Dawson (438 home runs, great all-around player) and Morris (most wins in the 80s, ‘big game pitcher’) resonate better with the writers, who tend to have been involved in the game longer and are more set in their criteria.  The bloggers, less experienced in covering the game, have tended to latch onto newer stats and newer thinking – and Dawson’s low OBP and Morris’ high ERA have counted against them.

I’m not surprised that a selection of bloggers, even if loosely associated through SB Nation, would only agree on one candidate, since they come from a wider background and more varied experience level than the BBWAA members.

Tags: Andre Dawson, BBWAA, Bert Blyleven, Cooperstown, Hall of Fame, Jack Morris, Tim Raines, voting