DaveFleming
Good question, cderosa. I'd say my hopes are:

1) To create a 'seperate' discourse around the subject of the Hall-of-Fame....to have a space to discuss the players that our weird little community is most interested in discussing.

Take Barry Larkin...I don't think many of us really had to debate Larkin's candidacy for the Hall-of-Fame. I think the vast majority of us just know he was an extremely good player.

On baseball-centered sites that parallel the BBWAA vote, they've been writing about Larkin for three years...saying the same thing over and over again. I'm very glad that other sites are doing that....I think it's important for websites and writers to convince whoever needs convincing that someone like Barry Larkin is a rare player...but I don't really want to have that discussion.

The BJOL HOF thing is a way to channel our discussion to the subjects that are interesting to us; to the audience we have here....I wanted to know: who are people like you and I, who are sabermetrically inclined and/or fans of Bill's work, on the fence about? Who gets us talking?

So that's number one...having a fake, parallel HOF lets us talk about the players we want to talk about.

Where it's going....well, I think it's clear that a few folks would like to go backwards, and talk about guys like Will Clark and Dwight Evans and Darryl Strawberry. So...I'm tempted to do something about that.

But...I also don't want to crowd other things out...I sort of like having a month of HOF talk, and then I like moving on the coming season.

So; how does one create a space to talk about guys like Will Clark, without distracting attention from the other topics of the day? Hmm...
3:26 AM Jan 12th

metsfan17
I look at the PED issue this way. Was the guy a Hall of Famer without the help of steroids. Guys like Barry and Clemens would have been Hall of Famers without the steroids. Its a shame that they tarnished their own legacies. Sosa, McGwire and Palmeiro just weren't Hall of Fame talents before steriod use turned them into Babe Ruth. I can't really look at it any other way. However, it wasn't just steroids. I'll bet you the ball was juiced, parks became smaller and the strike zone became very small in the interest of increasing offense. These were definitely other factors.
8:33 PM Jan 10th

chuck
Thanks for doing this each year, Dave. I know you're jesting about sending Edgar a certificate of merit, but I wonder if it's possible for you all to actually send something of this sort to the players that get elected by the readers here each year.

Edgar probably wasn't sitting by the phone yesterday in case the Hall called; but I think he would appreciate knowing that he was enshrined by at least one group of people.
10:17 AM Jan 10th

ventboys
Thanks Dave, this is one of the coolest BJOL features. I look forward to it every year.

What's next? It's well into January, so I hope that you will continue your "X" players articles. Those are fantastic. I'll leave you alone from now on, and limit my own opinions to the reader posts section.​
11:18 PM Jan 9th

Chihuahua332
I completely agree with you Maris and you actually highlight some of my points. We need to separate the PEDs which are clearly unsafe or untested from those which are considerred acceptable but I do realize how idealistic and simplistic this comes across. We do operate in the real world and the current policies are getting better. However, there is still too much of a witch hunt mentality.

On that note, big kudos to Larkin for getting into the Hall today!
3:19 PM Jan 9th

Chihuahua332
I don't find it unusual that member of this site have a more lenient attitude about players attached to PEDs considering the views that Bill has expressed on the subject.

My overall view is that MLB is just as responsible as the players are for the Steroids era. For years the league turned a blind eye as the money came in and the players were acting equally irresponsibly. I believe that this falls in the category of "The league made its bed and now they need to sleep in it."

Going forward my view is that we need to get over the blanket stigma attached to PEDs. The issue should not be whether or not players are taking suppliments to boost their performance or prolong their careers. Atheletes of all kinds are supposed to enhance their performance. That's what competition is all about.

The issue should be focused on the health risks of those enhancements to the players and to those who may emulate those players. If a PED is deemed safe by the FDA whether over the counter or under the guidance of a physician then it should be allowed. If it is a controlled substance requiring a physician then there should be a list of league sanctioned physicians who are approved to perscribe the suppliments AND monitor their use by the players. If players go outside of these boundaries then they should receive stiff penalties. If an approved doctor is shown to over-perscribe then he loses his standing as an approved physician for the league.

Obviously there would be a lot of details to work out but the end result is that the league, the players, the media and all of us need to end this mob mentality and find a way to responsibly push the envelope of performance. It can be done.
1:04 PM Jan 9th

cderosa
To address MarisFan61's question: I would note that being into sabermetrics has traditionally put one at odds with moralizing old fart sportswriters.

For example, when I was reading the Baseball Abstracts, I was a NY baseball fan in the age of Don Mattingly, Rickey Henderson, and Darryl Strawberry. The NY press often cast Strawberry and Henderson as underachievers and malcontents, and Mattingly as a representative of all things virtuous. This had something to do with these guys' personalities, and it might have had something to do with race, but it also had a lot to do with their batting averages. My friends and I who were into sabermetrics said, "these sportswriters, with their pompous moralistic pronouncements, don't have a clue. They're missing the Rickey Henderson show! Darryl is the Mets' MVP!"

A few years down the road, the sabermetric community reflexively took the part of walk-drawing sluggers and self-improved players against the moralizing old fart sportswriters, because we'd established that it was a sound percentage move.

By the time it became obvious that this was a major problem in the game, that we'd told a generation or two of players that they had to do something illegal to give themselves the best chance at success, many in the community were locked into their positions.

Speaking only for myself, I voted for steroid suspects because I think it is wrong for me to say, "After twenty years I've achieved some clarity in my mind on this issue, and so now I'm going to hold you retroactively to my new standards."
5:33 AM Jan 9th

MarisFan61
I'd love someone to offer a view on why it is that the membership of this site is less hesitant to enshrine players whose performance was almost certainly enhanced by PED use than is the world-at-large, or at least than is the BBWAA membership, which I'm guessing does sort of reflect the world at large.

For example, we're giving 48% to Palmeiro, which I'm guessing is more than double what the BBWAA will give him, and perhaps triple or quadruple.

I myself don't have any guesses at all for this, and in fact I've been quite flabbergasted to see this inclination of our membership. I would have figured that the kinds of things that make someone a sabermetrics devotee would in several ways tend to incline him/her against artificial things that distort the game and players' performance -- but obviously I'm wrong.

BTW, when I've said this in the Reader Posts, it has often been taken as a moral judgment. It is nothing of the sort.
12:41 AM Jan 9th

evanecurb
Thanks again Dave. This is always fun.
1:16 PM Jan 8th

Trailbzr
Mattingly, Murphy, and Martinez might have been better candidates if they had led championship teams, but they never played in a World Series. Mattingly played five post-season games in his career (in his final season), which must be some kind of post-1920 Yankee record.

7:09 AM Jan 8th