[Mondogarage]

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I'm not really saying "hey, it's always been broken, so let's continue to vote undeserving players in". What I am saying, though, is that if you reduce the "voting" to a purely objective mathematical equation (say, a composite of VORP+ and OPS+, for the sake of discussion), then you no longer have an election anymore. What you have is something akin to the BCS.

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2/3 of the BCS is based on people voting subjectively, so I don't think your example is a good one.

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I realized that while I was typing it, but it still seemed reasonably illustrative. My point being that, if you remove all subjective consideration, then there is no point in a ballot at all, but I think you understand that.

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I'm not asking anyone to be completely objective (how can you be?) but at least try to think about your subjective opinions and how they might be biased. Why were you more in awe of Rice than Raines? Was it a valid opinion? If not, should it be used?

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I think the first question is easier to answer. Rice seemed a threat to change the game every time he stepped into the batter's box. I suspect KneelB4Zod was at least 1/2-leveling in his post about Rice being most feared (and certainly, that's no objective HOF credential), but really, there's truth to that perception. In a less offensive era, seeing Rice step into the batter's box with a runner or two on was somewhat similar at that time to seeing someone like Jim Thome or Carlos Delgado do now.

With Raines, it was more a matter of "damn, don't let this guy on base, because he'll wreak havoc if he does". To me, that's not quite the same thing. And even then, during Raines' best years, he always seemed to come up short of Rickey Henderson. I am not at all suggesting that falling short of Rickey makes you not HOF-worthy -- all I'm trying to illustrate is those non-objective criteria that can influence one's vote. I don't see how those are invalid opinions, when at least a part of the criteria for the HOF is a comparison of a player to his peers.

Obviously, reasonable minds can differ, and different people can place different weight on different criteria, but that doesn't make someone's opinion invalid, even if the objective data ultimately disagrees.