Prediction: Alomar Will Be Only One Elected to HOF
By Mike Silva ~ January 5th, 2010. Filed under: Hall of Fame.
Tomorrow the 2010 Hall of Fame will be announced. If you haven’t been following BBTF HOF Ballot Gathering Machine, head over there and check it out. Each year, Repoz tabulates writer’s ballots that are made public in order to predict who the next class will be. As of this writing (Jan 5) it appears there will be three members inducted:
Roberto Alomar
Bert Blyleven
Andre Dawson
Alomar and Blyleven are not a surprise, but the support for Dawson did catch me off guard. I wouldn’t have voted for Dawson, as I outlined when I wrote about my ballot. Obviously, I don’t have a vote so it’s a moot point, but I figured “The Hawk” would have some trouble getting in, since he has hung around 65% of the vote for the last few years. As for Blyleven, I thought he had a chance since he has been a public debate for quite some while.
In the end, I believe Alomar gets in, maybe Blyleven or Dawson, but not both. The last time the writers voted more than two players was 1999, when George Brett, Robin Yount, and Nolan Ryan all were selected.
In the end I wouldn’t be surprised if Alomar was the only one that gets elected on Wednesday. The 99′ vote is an unfair comparison since Blyleven and Dawson are not a “slam dunk” like Brett, Yount, and Ryan.
With that said, my official prediction is that Roberto Alomar will be the only one elected on Wednesday, and will get the spotlight in Cooperstown come July.
What do NYBD Fans Think?
The NYBD vote is open till midnight. As I mentioned, polldaddy won’t allow me to tabulate the total number of participants (going to do a better job next year), but it won’t stop me from making some unscientific assumptions based on the results.
If you use Alomar and Blyleven as the benchmark, both get in. I assume about 90% of the participants voted for Alomar/Blyleven, so that would put Larkin, Raines, and Edgar Martinez on the outside looking in. Of course, having a New York slant to the site, Don Mattingly received a great deal of support with roughly 40% of the votes, more than Jack Morris, who I personally think deserves to be in the Hall.
The write in candidates produced some interesting results as well. Lee Smith and Keith Hernandez received 2 votes each, while Buck O’ Neil, Robin Ventura, David Cone, and Pete Rose garnered one vote.
On Wednesday I will lead off the show with my thoughts on the 2010 selection.
January 5th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Interesting to see all the guys that aren’t eligible that got write-in votes. And yes…I will take credit for one of those Smith votes.