Printer-friendly

January 15, 2013

Western Front

Zeroes and Ones

by Geoff Young

Hall of Fame. Made you look!

One of the many things that makes baseball great is that it isn't politics. Well, usually. But voting always brings out the best in people. It's when they're at their most logical, exercising reason while avoiding rhetoric and personal attacks.

The color of the sky in my world? Why do you ask?

Bickering is all well and good, but today we'll do something more constructive, albeit imbued with less Great Meaning™. Today we'll consider players who were on only one Hall of Fame ballot and received either zero votes or one vote.

We'll focus on elections dating no earlier than 1978, the first time there's a clear record of players on the ballot that received zero votes in a given year. This date is somewhat arbitrary, but it's easier than using a cutoff based on the Hall of Fame's “dynamic” voting rules.

Zeroes against ones. It's like shirts against blouses, but different. Also, Team Zero is filled with the best (as measured by WAR and JAWS for purposes of this exercise) players to appear on a ballot and receive zero votes, while Team One is filled with the worst players to appear on a ballot and receive one vote. Fair? Hardly, but you already know that about the Hall of Fame. Jesus Alou received a vote in 1985, Roy White didn't. Fairness is irrelevant.