Sutter's Hall Call: Subjective or Arbitrary?

Congratulations to Bruce Sutter on being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. After failing to gain the required 75% of the vote on his first 12 tries, Sutter now joins Hoyt Wilhelm (elected in 1985), Rollie Fingers (1992) and Dennis Eckersley (2004) as the only relief pitchers enshrined in Cooperstown.

Question: What makes Sutter a Hall of Famer in 2006 when he wasn't deemed worthy of induction in any of preceding 12 years?

Answer: Absolutely nothing.

Bruce Sutter's career stats are exactly the same as they were when he recorded his 300th and final save in 1998. If he deserves to be voted into the Hall of Fame now, then he should have been voted in way back in 1994. If he didn't deserve to be voted in back in 1994 (not to mention 1995-2005) then he doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame now.

This is not intended as an indictment of Sutter. This is an indictment of the baseball writers who do the voting. Look at how their opinion of Sutter has steadily improved while the case for his induction has remained exactly the same:

Year 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006	Votes 109 137 137 130 147 121 192 245 238 266 301 344 400	% of Votes 23.9% 29.8% 29.2% 27.5% 31.1% 24.4% 38.5% 47.6% 50.4% 53.6% 59.5% 66.7% 76.9%

In 1994, over three-out-of-every-four voters felt Bruce Sutter did not belong in the Hall of Fame. This year - 12 years later – over three-out-of-every-four voters feel that Sutter does belong in the Hall of Fame. In other words, over 50% of the voters (largely the same group of writers) changed their mind ... for no reason whatsoever.

Subjective: Based on or influenced by personal opinion.

Arbitrary: Determined by impulse; seemingly random or without reason.

Herein lies the problem. Hall of Fame voting is subjective by nature ... that's fine. In fact, that's what makes the debate entertaining. But 50% changing their minds for no reason? That makes the inclusion of a borderline case (like Sutter) seem almost arbitrary. Subjective is OK. Arbitrary is not OK.

What do we mean by arbitrary? Let's look at an example. Currently, candidates receiving less than 5% of the vote are removed from the ballot. Let's assume a different cutoff, say 50%. In other words, if the majority of voters feel a player belongs in the Hall of Fame, he stays on the ballot. If the majority feels he does not belong, he's off the ballot. Is 50% arbitrary just as arbitrary as 5%? Yes. But unreasonable? No.

Yet, under this scenario, Bruce Sutter would not have been voted into the Hall of Fame. Neither would Ryne Sandberg, Gary Carter, Billy Williams, Hoyt Wilhelm, Luis Aparicio, Don Drysdale or Duke Snider. Over the past 25 years, all of these players climbed in the voting from under 50% to over 75% ... without doing a thing. Voters changed their vote without reason ... arbitrarily.

Here's another example of the arbitrary nature of Hall of Fame voting. Voters like to vote for at least one player each year. So this year – with no automatic first ballot Hall of Famers – was seen as a great opportunity for a frequently passed-over candidate like Sutter (or Goose Gossage or Jim Rice) to get in ... and it was. Next year's ballot will have Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn on it for the first time (not to mention the juice brothers, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire). Translation: Neither Gossage nor Rice will not get in next year. Not because they will be – in any way – more or less qualified, but rather because voters will be focusing on other players.

2008 will present another golden opportunity for a borderline case to get in. Why? Simply because Tim Raines will be the best first-timer on the ballot and voters will again give Gossage and Rice and Andre Dawson a closer look ... and - in all likelihood - arbitrarily decide that at least one of them deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

Proposal: Leave balloting the way it is. It's flawed but should remain relatively unchanged for the sake of historical consistency. However a new tier of the Hall of Fame should be created ... only it would be limited to 100 players. The Hall of Fame's Hall of Fame. Ten players would be added every year for the next ten years. After that, voters could elect to add a new player to the Top 100 ... but they would have to identify the player they are replacing as well. Voting Ripken and Gwynn into the "regular" Hall of Fame next year is easy. Voting either of them into the Top 100 – when you also have to identify who is to be removed - is an infinitely more difficult call. Subjective? Yes. Fascinating new fodder for debate? Absolutely. But arbitrary? Not at all.