As part of our obligations for membership in the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, we must submit a vote on each year's Hall of Fame Ballot.
Of course, even if we weren't obligated, we would anyway, because this is fun. Sturgeon General and yours truly each picked six players eligible for induction in 2012. Five of our selections overlapped, leaving a total of seven (out of a possible ten) votes. These were the votes we submitted to the BBA.
In the final BBA voting, only two players--Jeff Bagwell and Barry Larkin--surpassed the 75% threshold, making them the official BBA nominees of 2012. Below, we present our votes, alongside the BBA tallies, with explanations after the jump.
| Player | S. General | J-Doug | RP Blog | BBA |
| Barry Larkin | Yea | Yea | Yea | 84.25% |
| Jeff Bagwell | Yea | Yea | Yea | 78.77% |
| Edgar Martinez | Yea | Yea | Yea | 60.27% |
| Tim Raines | Yea | Yea | Yea | 57.53% |
| Alan Trammel | Yea | Yea | Yea | 44.52% |
| Mark McGwire | Nay | Nay | Nay | 41.10% |
| Larry Walker | Yea | Nay | Yea | 35.62% |
| Lee Smith | Nay | Nay | Nay | 33.56% |
| Jack Morris | Nay | Nay | Nay | 32.19% |
| Don Mattingly | Nay | Nay | Nay | 29.45% |
| Rafael Palmeiro | Nay | Yea | Yea | 28.77% |
| Fred McGriff | Nay | Nay | Nay | 28.08% |
| Bernie Williams | Nay | Nay | Nay | 11.64% |
| Juan Gonzalez | Nay | Nay | Nay | 6.16% |
| Terry Mulholland | Nay | Nay | Nay | 0% |
| Also on the ballot: Dale Murphy, Javy Lopez, Brad Radke, Tim Salmon, Bill Mueller, Phil Nevin, Tony Womack, Jeromy Burnitz, Brian Jordan, Eric Young, Ruben Sierra and Vinny Castilla. | ||||
Barry LarkinJ-Doug: Yea; Sturgeon General: Yea; BBA: 84.25%
Pros: Twelve-time All Star. Posted an exceptional 51.7 wins above replacement (rWAR) during his best ten-year stretch (1990-99).
Cons: If you can think of any, feel free to share in the comments.
J-Doug says: His best ten-year stretch leaves no doubt that he deserves this.
Sturgeon General says: Larkin was almost uniformly recognized as the NL's best shortstop throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. As a counterpart of Cal Ripken, he actually compares favorably to the Iron Man when it comes to rate stats.