Baseball Hall of Fame Needs to Change 5% Voting Rule

For the first time in almost two weeks, the biggest story in baseball was not about sign stealing, the Astros’ horrible public relations strategy or the banging scheme. Instead, on Tuesday we got to celebrate the careers of two new Hall of Famers: Derek Jeter and Larry Walker. Sure, Jeets didn’t get in as a unanimous selection, but neither did Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Tom Seaver or Willie Mays. Let’s not lose sleep over it.

As I watched hours of MLB Network coverage, the two storylines I followed closest were far more important than Jeter getting 100% of BBWAA to agree he’s a Hall of Famer: (1) Would Larry Waker get in? (2) How many people would vote for Bobby Abreu?

Abreu, I suspected, would be an afterthought for most voters and fall dangerously close to the 5% minimum of the vote needed to remain on the ballot. But if there's one thing the last few Hall of Fame classes show us, it’s that writers' opinions change over time. It's time for the Hall to reconsider its 5% policy and allow players to remain on the ballot for longer than one season.

Here’s a sample of some of the players who lasted just one year on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot in the last 20 years: Lance Berkman, Johan Santana, Jorge Posada, Jim Edmonds, Carlos Delgado, Kenny Lofton, David Cone and Lou Whitaker. In their second year of eligibility Bernie Williams, Albert Belle and Nomar Garciapara dropped below the 5% threshold.

Do I believe all of these guys are Hall of Famers? Not right now. But again, the last few years of voting have demonstrated how voters' opinions evolve.

Just two years ago, only 34.1% of voters thought Walker was a Hall of Famer. At his lowest point, in 2014, he bottomed out at 10.2%. That was also the lowest point for 2019 inductee Edgar Martinez, who was so good that the award for best designated hitter has been his namesake for more than 15 years. Martinez appeared on just 25.2% of all ballots that year, yet more than 85% of the electorate checked his name in his 10th and final year of eligibility.

Mike Mussina, also inducted in 2019, debuted on the ballot in 2014 and received 20.3% of the vote. Six years later he was elected to Cooperstown. It took 14 years for enough writers (under the old election rules) to come around on Bert Blyleven, who received 14.1% in his worst year. 

Part of the reason why so many more people came around on Walker, Martinez and Mussina in recent years is because of how much easier it is to debate the Hall credentials of players that not everybody got to see on a nightly basis. Not long ago, the reach of writers' arguments would’ve been limited to the pages of their local sports section. Now, all you have to do to get all the goods on Walker is follow MLB.com’s Manny Randhawa on Twitter. We also have more tools to measure players’ Hall credentials than we did at the turn of the century. One of my favorite starting points is the Jaffe WAR Score system (JAWS), developed by former Sports Illustrated writer Jay Jaffe. For what it’s worth, Walker is the 10th-best rightfielder of all time, according to JAWS.

It also shouldn’t be overlooked that Ted Simmons, the third player in the class of 2020, will be the first Hall member to fall off the ballot in his first year of eligibility. Only 3.7% of voters thought the longtime Cardinals catcher was a Hall of Famer when he appeared on the 1994 ballot. Simmons also ranks 10th at his position, per JAWS.

(Clarification: Ron Santo appeared on 3.9% of all ballots in his first year of eligibility in 1980, and fell off. However, his situation differs from that of Simmons because Santo was put back on the BBWAA ballot in 1985, received 13.4% of the vote and remained on the ballot until his eligibility expired in 1998.)

And that brings us back to Bobby Abreu, who survived for another year of eligibility by two votes. Abreu’s lifetime 60.0 WAR is better than more than a handful of Hall of Famers', including Vladimir Guerrero and Enos Slaughter. His 128 OPS+ is the same as Sammy Sosa’s. Over his best 10-year stretch from 1999 to 2008, Abreu slashed .301/.407/.503 and averaged 22 homers and 29 stolen bases a year. He’s one of six players in MLB history with at least 250 home runs and 400 stolen bases—three of the other five are Hall of Famers, and the other two have the last name Bonds.

Does this mean Abreu should be in the Hall? Maybe not. But it does mean he should be more than just an afterthought.

A possible solution? Give all players on the ballot at least three years of eligibility. If they don’t get 5% of the vote in the third year, then they fall off the ballot. That way future worthy candidates don’t get lost on one rogue crowded ballot. Maybe, to avoid an overwhelming number of names, players need to receive at least 1% of the vote to remain eligible for years two and three before the minimum increases to 5%. That way we won’t get three years of zero for Chone Figgins, Heath Bell and Jose Valverde, and I won’t have to go double-or-nothing on J.J. Putz getting a vote.

Of course, the Hall of Fame doesn’t easily change its voting rules. So the probability that this won't happen is greater than the percent of voters who said yes to Jeter.

For now, this is a time of celebration for all that is good in our game, like Jeter, Walker and Simmons. Thankfully, we can also be happy that Abreu avoided the same one-and-done fate that left plenty of worthy candidates on the outside looking in.