The results of the BBWAA component of Hall of Fame voting were revealed Tuesday night, with Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia becoming first-ballot Hall of Famers while Billy Wagner made it on his 10th and final try. Andruw Jones inched closer with 66.2% of the vote (75% is needed for induction).
This wasn’t good enough for Hall of Famer and former Braves teammate of Jones, Chipper Jones, who has an idea and a misguided perception:
Yes, everyone’s favorite pastime is claiming preferential treatment toward the pinstripes.
Unfortunately, giving any thought to the process means the argument falls apart on itself. The Yankees bias accusations ignore players like Thurman Munson (12th in catcher JAWS), Willie Randolph (16th at second base) and Graig Nettles (12th at third base) sitting on the outside looking in, much like Jones (11th at center field).
Let’s also not forget that Jones did, in fact, play for the Yankees, suiting up for the final two seasons of his career.
Plus, as noted above, Jones got essentially two-thirds of the vote this year. Think about how difficult it is to get 66% of people to agree on anything these days. And yet, the voting body had an awful lot of people agreeing about Jones this time around, myself included.
Let us not forget that Jones’ career fell apart after age 30 and he ended up a .254 hitter with a .337 on-base percentage. His 1,933 hits would be pretty low for a Hall of Famer. There are also people withholding votes for him due to his domestic violence arrest.
Again, I voted for him, but he isn’t the slam dunk Chipper professes him to be, at least not in comparison with the current Hall of Fame standard, and there is certainly baggage.
And by the way, former players do get a chance to vote on Hall of Famers through the veteran committee. That just happens to come with several instances throughout history where there was pretty blatant cronyism (check Frankie Frisch for reference).
I’m all for current Hall of Famers getting a say if they want one, but the rationale for changing the electorate needs to be better than my buddy who is a quality-yet-borderline candidate only got 66.2% of the vote topped with “Yankee bias” catnip.
