[rats60]

Originally Posted by Handsome Wes

I agree - but only to a point. As mentioned earlier, there are plenty of players who've been enshrined -- deservedly so! -- who would have been forever eliminated from consideration had this rule been in place.

Additionally, as mentioned earlier, you can easily stack an eight-player ballot with eight players who easily deserve consideration. Given the vote limits, you will have a Minnie Minoso-type player who will be removed from future ballots.

And that also fails to take into account how players may be viewed differently as time goes on. Bobby Grich, for example, was a one-and-done on the HOF ballot. And yet he is a cause de celebre among the stat community these days. While he hasn't been considered by the vet committee yet, what's to say that someone like him will be permanently removed years before his career is appreciated?

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I would make three changes that I think would at least satisfy most people:
- For the BBWAA ballot, the threshold for staying on goes up 5% each year. On your first ballot you need to clear 5%; second, 10%, etc. That would at least eliminate players who clog up the ballot while getting stuck at 20 - 25% of the vote every year.
- We revert back to the "era committees" and rotation of a few years ago. I thought we had a good system with the "early baseball every ten years", "golden era every five", and "todays game / modern baseball twice every five." We had good delineations as well. Let's go back to that.
- The era committees -- people can vote for as many candidates as they want. However, only the top two will be inducted during that cycle.

Under the current system, Bobby Grich is never getting a second chance. By eliminating guys who can't get more than 25% on multiple ballots, players like Grich will have their second chance with the Veterans Committee.