2016 could be the start of a shift in HOF voters’ attitudes

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The Baseball Hall of Fame will announce the results of its 2016 election on this coming Wednesday, and while the focus should be (and probably will be) on guys like Ken Griffey Jr. and Trevor Hoffman possibly earning their way into the Hall of Fame, right now the focus is once again on the voters and the people who they are choosing to keep out of the Cooperstown institution. However, when it comes to this seemingly tireless debate, there appears to be a shift in the attitudes of voters and baseball writers, in general.

In December, we saw Ken Rosenthal pen a column in which he explained why he had finally decided to give Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens his Hall of Fame vote. Jerry Crasnick also felt compelled to do the same when he voted for the two faces most strongly connected with the Steroid Era. Then on Saturday, in response to a somewhat inflammatory article concerning the morals of certain players on the ballot, Buster Olney -- who doesn’t participate in Hall of Fame voting anymore -- declared that now was the time for HOF voters to stop acting as “moral gatekeepers” and just vote for the best players on the ballot, regardless of their connections to PED usage.

Now, we absolutely should not expect to see Bonds and Clemens elected to the Hall of Fame this go around, and it’ll probably still be a long shot for guys like Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell and other players from that era who are simply guilty by association. With that being said, if the BBWAA actually listens to these prominent writers -- and judging by the growing transparency among voters, this could be the case -- then we could be looking back at the 2016 election as the time when the tide really started to change when it came to those players. Maybe we’ll finally return to a time when the majority of focus on a Hall of Fame candidate’s chances were centered on his on-the-field exploits instead of rumors and suspicions. That time isn’t now, but it could be on the way in the near future.