Hall of Fame problems all over

Well, you gotta give the Brewers one thing: When they see a voting system that’s not electing anyone, they change the system. Not that it led to a different result:

The Milwaukee Brewers announced yet another shutout in their annual Walk of Fame balloting on Tuesday.

No candidates received the required 65% of the 40 ballots cast by local and state media as well as representatives of the club. Teddy Higuera came closest with 24 votes, falling two short. Joe Adcock was five votes short as the highest vote-getter among former Milwaukee Braves on the ballot.

Since 2007, only two candidates have been voted onto the Brewers Walk of Fame -- Lew Burdette in 2010 and Johnny Logan in 2013. There was so much difficulty in getting electees, the Brewers lowered the percentage necessary to get in from 75% to 65% last year. But that still wasn’t enough to avert another shutout.

Look, at some point you run out of worthy candidates. If you want to just start electing guys to elect guys, you can fix the rules so somebody gets elected every year. You could just say the top vote-getter makes it, but only the top vote-getter. Or that anybody who clears the percentage bar makes it, or the top vote-getter if nobody clears the bar.

In this situation, that’s probably what I would do. Because if you’re not going to elect anyone, why bother trying? And it’s not like the Brewers have been creating great new candidates in recent seasons. Aside from Ryan Braun -- oh, by the way, is there an integrity clause in voting guidelines -- it’s been a while since the Brewers came up with a long-term star.

Leaving aside the process, you have to wonder about those 16 voters who didn’t favor Teddy Higuera. He piled up roughly 30 Wins Above Replacement with the Brewers, tops in franchise history. He’s second in strikeouts, and third in shutouts. I suppose he’s been missed by some voters because he won only 94 games as a Brewer, third behind Jim Slaton (117) and Mike Caldwell (102) ... and neither of them have been elected, either. In fact, Slaton got only six votes this season. The voters just don’t seem to be impressed by any starting pitchers, as Burdette and Warren Spahn -- neither of whom ever pitched for the Brewers -- are the only pitchers in the Walk of Fame.

There’s something to be said for exclusivity. The Royals have been around for almost exactly as long as the Brewers, and yet there are seven Royal starting pitchers in that franchise’s Hall of Fame. Of course, that’s largely because the Royals have enjoyed the services of more good starting pitchers. Steve Busby, though? He threw two no-hitters, but won only 70 games. Larry Gura won only 111 games, and was really good in just three seasons.

I’m not saying Busby and Gura shouldn’t be in there; I’m saying they’re lucky they didn’t pitch for the Milwaukee Brewers. Seems to me that Slaton belongs in the Brewers Walk of Fame because of his quantity, and Higuera because of his quality. After those guys, though ... Gorman Thomas is already there, which means there’s little rationale for leaving out Ben Oglivie. But otherwise, they’re basically out of candidates. All the great Milwaukee Braves have been elected, and there just haven’t been many great Milwaukee Brewers.

My recommendation: Hold an election every couple of years, and elect the highest vote-getter. Maybe in six or eight years, Rickie Weeks will look a lot better. Probably not, though. So here’s another recommendation, too late for the Brewers but maybe useful for young franchises like the Diamondbacks and the Rays ... If you do get around to doing something like this, don’t allow more than one new member per year. Otherwise you’ll run out of guys quickly, and then you’ll just be disappointing people every year.

Sometimes it seems like people just don’t think these things through.