My friends over at The Platoon Advantage have proffered a modest proposal: the Baseball Hall of Fame should lower its voting threshold from three-fourths -- a super-super-majority to just two-thirds, still a super-majority.
Should Baseball Hall Of Fame Relax Voting Standard?
But wouldn’t lowering the necessary voting percentage also lower the standards of the institution, something most of us (who care) are against? Actually, probably not.
But wait, some of you are going to say, the Hall of Fame is for the best players ever and lowering the voting threshold would allow unworthy players a way in. Not true! Since 1980, only three players (Orlando Cepeda, Jim Bunning and Nellie Fox) have garnered more than two-thirds of the vote and still fallen short of election by the BBWAA, and no player has had more than two-thirds of the vote and not eventually been elected since 1994. However, you probably aren't shocked to know that all three were elected by the Veterans Committee shortly thereafter. All have plaques resting comfortably in Cooperstown.
This all comes up because there’s soon going to be a massive number of worthy candidates on the Hall of Fame ballot every year, and the 75-percent requirement is going to result in a massive backlog. Dropping the percentage to 66.6 wouldn’t fix this “problem” ... but it might help, a little.
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