Southside Showdown
Fansided

Reacting to FanSided 2021 mock Hall of Fame voting results

By Vincent Parise

CHICAGO, IL - AUGUST 17: Starting pitcher Mark Buehrle #56 of the Chicago White Sox delivers during the first inning against the Cleveland Indians at U.S. Cellular Field on August 17, 2011 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Brian Kersey/Getty Images)
CHICAGO, IL - AUGUST 17: Starting pitcher Mark Buehrle #56 of the Chicago White Sox delivers during the first inning against the Cleveland Indians at U.S. Cellular Field on August 17, 2011 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Brian Kersey/Getty Images) /
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FanSided has announced the results of our 2021 mock Hall of Fame vote. They are very interesting as our Site Experts did not vote a single eligible player into the Hall of Fame. Nobody received the 75% of the vote that you need to make it into the Hall of Fame so nobody goes. There were some Chicago White Sox alumni available but none more prominent than Mark Buehrle. He received 7 votes out of 39, which was good for 18 percent. In that case, he would stay on the ballot which is good to know.

On my ballot, I cast a vote for Mark Buehrle and Barry Bonds. Both of them are great players but have very different reputations. Bonds has caused a divide amongst all baseball fans for off the field stuff and Buehrle is a legend in the city of Chicago. Either way, my vote didn’t matter because none of my fellow experts collectively saw one individual as a Hall of Famer.

Fansided’s mock Hall of Fame voting for 2021 might surprise some people.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Curt Schilling all had lower percentages than they did the year before. There were some significant rises for certain players but nothing that got anyone close to 75 percent. The voting also shows how the first-year players did. The fact that the FanSided experts couldn’t collectively get anybody in shows the divide amongst baseball people on the matter.

For example, a player like Barry Bonds isn’t in the Hall of Fame. As mentioned before, I voted for him but plenty of my peers don’t see eye to eye on me with that. It is a fair opinion to believe that PED users don’t belong in the Hall but I don’t share that opinion. A guy like Bonds was going to the Hall of Fame before the PED use and you can’t tell the story of baseball without him.

Bonds led the voting with 64 percent (25 out of 39 ballots). Barry Zito was the only one who didn’t stay on the ballot by reaching five percent as he received one vote (3 percent). In the middle are the guys mentioned above, along with names like Scott Rolen, Manny Ramirez, Andy Pettitte, and Bobby Abreu amongst others.

It is a shame that this is where we are with the Hall of Fame vote right now. It is more fun to have at least one person make it every year so we can highlight their careers but it isn’t the case this year, at least on FanSided. A lot of people have mixed feelings about those who used performance-enhancing drugs and none of the clean players had undisputable Hall of Fame numbers.

Mark Buehrle deserves a vote because of the fact that he was an elite (and consistent) pitcher during parts of the steroid era. He always threw the ball well no matter what. He had two no-hitters (one was a perfect game) and he is a World Series Champion. He was the ace of this White Sox team for a long time and he was a joy to watch. Even though he wasn’t voted in by our peers, he is a Hall of Famer in the eyes of all White Sox fans.

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