VEB community votes Rolen, two others into real Hall of Fame

Last week, we asked you to vote on your picks for the Hall of Fame. With an overstuffed ballot, some former Cardinals, and some tough choices, the VEB community delivered with a good amount of responses. Only three people cleared the 75% threshold, which honestly surprised me. I was expecting more players to make the list.

There were 373 people who submitted a ballot. There were not 373 legal ballots. Yes, I went through all of them. 16 people sent in a ballot with 11 players. Three people sent in a ballot with 12 players. Three people for 13 players. One person sent in a ballot with 14 players and one person sent in a ballot with 15 players.

There are only two conclusions to reach based off this. The first is that some of you can’t count. The second is that some people just said screw it, I’m voting for everyone I want. I find it hard to believe someone voted for FIFTEEN people and just forgot that they clicked on too many for instance. 11? Yes, definitely can see that. Anyway, I had to throw out all those ballots out.

Another programming note. Unfortunately, Roger Clemens and Scott Rolen were not on the list for the first 48 voters (one of whom still managed to vote for 13 people somehow), so my solution to that was to simply count the percentage of each player from Vote 49 onward. It actually did not end up mattering and you’ll see why, but that was my response to that.

The Hall of Famers

Scott Rolen - 93.4%

If you’re wondering, Scott Rolen still got 75.6% of the vote... and wasn’t even included for the first 48 votes. Amusingly enough, I considered throwing out a few ballots that just had Scott Rolen and nobody else, just because I suspected it might have been second accounts from people who wanted to make sure Rolen made it, but it really wouldn’t have made a difference and I couldn’t really prove these people weren’t giving their true ballots.

Mariano Rivera - 79.7%

I was a little surprised that Rivera was “only” on 20 of the 24 illegal votes. His percentage was barely affected as a result.

Roy Halladay - 77.4%

Halladay, by comparison, was on 21 of the 24 votes, which I also found surprising. I don’t know, I guess I just expected people who went through the trouble of voting for more than 10 people would ALL vote for the surefire Hall of Famers in real life.

Voted on by greater than 50%

Larry Walker - 71.9%

I believe he would have made it had I closed the poll at 300 or so people, but he just kept falling at the end for whatever reason.

Barry Bonds - 59.6%

Roger Clemens - 59.3%

Bonds was on 20 ballots I couldn’t count and Clemens was on 19 ballots. Both players had a percentage above 60% before the recount, so they were reasonably affected, but still well short of 75%.

Edgar Martinez - 59.3%

If I had to guess, because I’m not running the numbers, but Martinez was the most negatively affected by the recount. He received 21 votes on the 24 illegal ballots. He went down almost 2 percentage points as a result.

Mike Mussina - 54.2%

Mussina is crazy underrated. I will say this until the day he makes the Hall of Fame, at which point it will probably still be true, but I will stop saying it.

Significant Votes

Curt Schilling - 44.2%

Lance Berkman - 36.1%

Andruw Jones - 35%

If I may interject my own opinion, Berkman receiving more votes than Jones is absurd, but I do realize we are running a fan site. If Jones played the last two seasons of his career as a Cardinal and one of them was a 4.8 fWAR season while Berkman retired as a lifelong Astro, I am positive Jones would receive way more votes than Berkman.

Todd Helton - 33%

Manny Ramirez - 27.5%

Fred McGriff - 21.5%

Garry Sheffield 16.9%

Sammy Sosa - 15.2%

Jeff Kent - 13.8%

Andy Pettitte - 11.5%

Billy Wagner - 11.2%

I would really have liked to see what VEB’s stance on Trevor Hoffman would be, because I suspect it would have roughly aligned with how the Hall of Fame voters went, and the BIG disparity between Wagner and Hoffman is just confusing to me. Full disclosure: Neither has my vote, though I’m more in favor of Wagner making it than Hoffman.

The Rest

Omar Vizquel - 8%

Very strangely, Vizquel was on one of the 24 ballots that I couldn’t count, so he was actually the only player positively affected by the recount. As a comparison point, Pettitte was on 9 ballots and Roy Oswalt was on 7.

Roy Oswalt - 7.7%

Rick Ankiel - 3.7%

Placido Polanco - 1.7%

Miguel Tejada - 1.7%

Michael Young - 1.1%

Juan Pierre - 0.6%

So four people voted for Michael Young and two people voted for Juan Pierre. Multiple people voted these players for the Hall of Fame. Why?

Exactly One Vote

Jason Bay, Jon Garland, Travis Hafner, Ted Lilly, Derek Lowe, Darren Oliver, Kevin Youkilis

I thought these votes were all from one person before I checked the ballots, but no, these votes were all spread out among more reasonable picks.

Shut Out

Freddy Garcia, Vernon Wells

Is it a coincidence that both of these players played pretty much their entire careers in the American League? Probably not!

To recap, the VEB writers Hall of Fame was Halladay, Mussina, Walker, Martinez, Bonds, Clemens, Rivera, and Rolen. The VEB community, which comprised a lot more than 11 voters, inducted Rolen, Rivera, and Halladay. I don’t know how to take that information, but I present it to you as if there is a deeper meaning behind it.