Hall of Fame Candidates Announced

The Baseball Writers’ Association of America has published the official 2013 Hall of Fame Ballot. It’s nothing you couldn’t have known ahead of time, we were all aware of who would be up for election from the moment they retired and began putting in the 5 years of inactivity necessary. But it’s official now, see. Like the Gold Glove, MVP and Cy Young “finalists” that suddenly exist for ceremonial purposes.

Many names are familiar ones, including former White Sox Tim Raines, who has a sizeable sabermetric backing but failed to crack 50% of the vote last year. Jeff Bagwell lead last year’s non-inductees with 56% of the vote, falling short of the necessary 75%. There are 13 returning candidates, at least three of which have been testing the waters before this years’ elephants with the curiously high testosterone levels enters the room. Among the new 2013 candidates are Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa. Results will be announced on January 9th, so you can expect the next 6 weeks to be full of speeches about morality and honor accompanying the chatter about who played well enough to be enshrined.

As far as the White Sox are concerned, I counted 7 eligibles that spent some time in a Sox uniform:

Sandy Alomar Jr.
Royce Clayton
Julio Franco
Roberto Hernandez
Kenny Lofton
Tim Raines
Sammy Sosa

Of those, probably just Tim Raines and Sammy Sosa have a reasonable shot, and the latter loses that likelihood because of PED perception, despite his 609 homeruns.

Prepare your arguments, stare long and hard at Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs. Use JAWS! Have fun and don’t get too angry at those that see it differently than you. We’re all viewing this thing differently…you’ll see.