Okay, here’s the full vote. My thoughts below the table…

2008 Hall of Fame Vote

Player
Votes
Pct

Courtesy MLB.com.

Rich Gossage
466
85.8%

Jim Rice
392
72.2%

Andre Dawson
358
65.9%

Bert Blyleven
336
61.9%

Lee Smith
235
43.3%

Jack Morris
233
42.9%

Tommy John
158
29.1%

Tim Raines
132
24.3%

Mark McGwire
128
23.6%

Alan Trammell
99
18.2%

Dave Concepcion
88
16.2%

Don Mattingly
86
15.8%

Dave Parker
82
15.1%

Dale Murphy
75
13.8%

Harold Baines
28
5.2%

Rod Beck
2
0.4%

Travis Fryman
2
0.4%

Robb Nen
2
0.4%

Shawon Dunston
1
0.2%

Chuck Finley
1
0.2%

David Justice
1
0.2%

Chuck Knoblauch
1
0.2%

Todd Stottlemyre
1
0.2%

Jose Rijo
0
0%

Brady Anderson
0
0%

As promised, my take:

The voters finally stopped screwing Goose Gossage. This business about Bruce Sutter paving the way for him is absolute garbage. Gossage came first and was a better pitcher.
They completely dropped the ball on Tim Raines. There is no way in Hades that Jim Rice was a better player than Raines. Why folks in charge of this sort of …read more

Michael Knisley and John Shea debate Andre Dawson’s Hall of Fame credentials over at ESPN. Dawson, to my way of thinking, is the very definition of a borderline candidate. Check out his list of Top 10 most similar players according to Baseball-Reference:

Billy Williams (133 OPS+)
Tony Perez (122)
Dave Parker (121)
Al Kaline (134)
Harold Baines (120)
Dwight Evans (127)
Ernie Banks (122)
Dave Winfield (130)
Luis Gonzalez (119)
Vada Pinson (110)

As a point of reference, Dawson’s OPS+ was 119. Anyway, five of these guys have been enshrined in Cooperstown: Williams, Perez, Kaline, Banks, and Winfield. Of those five, three were clearly superior players: Williams, Kaline, and Winfield.
The other …read more