Alomar and Blyleven Get into Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame announced today that second baseman Roberto Alomar and pitcher Bert Blyleven have made it into the Hall of Fame. A candidate needs to receive 75% of the votes cast by the eligible Baseball Writers' Association of America members in order to make it. Alomar received 90% in his second year of eligibility and Blyleven received 79.7%.

It is especially good to see Blyleven get in after his long wait. With 3,701 career strikeouts (fifth all-time) 60 shutouts (9th), 4,970 innings (14th) and 328 pitching runs (23rd), he certainly deserved it. Blyleven received less than 30% of the vote in his first six years on the ballot and it appeared he would not make it. However, he gained steam in recent years thanks in part to the internet and sabermetrics.

Long-time Tigers Right-hander Jack Morris had a small jump this year from 52.3% to 53.5%. That does not bode well for Morris, who has only three more chances. Unlike Blyleven, Morris receives little support from the sabermetric community due to his underwhelming statistics such as a 3.90 ERA and 105 ERA+.

Tigers Shortstop Alan Trammell rose from 22.4% last year to 24.3% this year, so there is little chance of his ever getting voted in by the writers. I've always thought he and Lou Whitaker would get voted in together by the Veteran's Committee some day ala Joe Tinker, Jonny Evers and Frank Chance. I'm less sure about Whitaker though since he was knocked off the ballot getting less than 5% of the vote in his first year of eligibility. The VC doesn't generally consider those who received so little support from the writers.

This year's Whitaker was Kevin Brown who received only 2.1% of the vote. He deserved better. It's a flawed process no doubt.