This year’s ballots are in, and Jim Rice and Rickey Henderson have been elected to the Baseball Hall Of Fame, Rice on his fifteenth and final time on the ballot, Henderson on his first. There’ll be a lot written about Henderson’s greatness and whether or not Rice deserves to be in the Hall, so I’m not going to bother with either of those. I’m going to touch on something that’s never discussed.

It’s the bottom of the ballot.

Because the following players got the following votes:

• Mark Grace (22 votes)
• David Cone (21 votes)
• Matt Williams (7 votes)
• Mo Vaughn (6 votes)
• Jay Bell (2 votes)
• Jesse Orosco (1 vote)

Personally, I find this trend of voting far more egregious than voting for or not voting for a borderline Hall of Fame candidate (as Rice is generally considered).

Mark Grace won four gold gloves at first base and a ring with Arizona, got on base a lot (.383 OBP), didn’t strike out, and had a little pop in his bat.  He also never had a 200 hit season, never drove in 100 runs in a season, scored 100 runs in a season once, and never finished above 13th in the MVP balloting.

David Cone won a Cy Young Award, several rings with the New York Yankees, made the All-Star team five times, and led the league in strikeouts twice.  He also never won the ERA title, struck out fewer batters than Frank Tanana, and came up short of 200 wins.

It gets much worse from here…

Matt Williams had four seasons with 100 RBIs, won four gold gloves, lead the league in home runs in 1994 (and was on pace to break Roger Maris’ record when the strike ended the season), and made the All-Star team five times.  He also never won an MVP, finished his career with a .317 OBP, and came up short of 400 home runs.

Mo Vaughn won an MVP trophy, made the All-Star team three times, and came a point short of winning the batting title in 1998 (losing it to Bernie Williams).  He also had only nine productive years, hit only 328 home runs, and struck out 1429 times, ranking him in between Jack Clark (who had 1300 more ABs) and Rice (who had 2700 more ABs).

Jay Bell won a ring with Arizona, a gold glove at shortstop in 1993, and had one season where he went 132/38/112 (R/HR/RBI).  He also only appears on the leaderboard for outs and sacrifice hits, batted .265/.343/.416 for his career, and despite that 38 homer season, hit only 195 for his career (without any notable speed or average).

Jesse Orosco was the first person to try Coca-Cola (that’s a joke, although he was the oldest player in baseball for six years).  He won a ring with the Mets in 1986, was a two-time All Star, and is the all time leader in pitching appearances.  He also saved only 144 games over his twenty-four year career, and didn’t compile any meaningful leaderboard statistics.

Aren’t I cherry-picking stats?  What’s the point here?

Yes, I am cherry-picking stats here, but the point I’m making is that while none of these players should ever be embarrassed by their career credentials – they’re certainly better than almost anyone who has ever played the game – none of them deserved even a single Hall Of Fame vote.

In order to put a player to be in the Hall Of Fame, I believe you can’t just make the argument that he belongs in the Hall, but also that he can’t be excluded.  Mark McGwire received 118 votes this year, and on his career alone, he should be in the Hall Of Fame.  But voters still have questions about whether he used illegal performance enhancing drugs or not.  Lee Smith received 240 votes, is third on the all-time saves list (having been passed by Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera, but none of his other numbers are particularly noteworthy, and voters still question the value of closers.

From Grace on down, the negatives vastly outweigh the positives.  For every “Well, hey, he did this…” there are several “Yeah, buts”.

I suppose there’s no reason to get too upset about this.  The balloting process requires players to get at least 5% of the votes cast in order to remain on the ballot, so Grace and the others won’t be on the ballot next year, and the guys in between will likely drift closer to the Hall or closer to being dropped from the ballot.  It’s just unfortunate that some voters clearly don’t take their responsibility seriously.

* From the late 80s commercial wherein an excited boy exclaimed “Wowee, Rickey Henderson!”, earning the enduring scorn of me and all of my friends.