Ken Griffey Jr. will make the Hall of Fame, but not unanimously

No player has ever been unanimously voted into the Hall of Fame. Babe Ruth received 95.13 percent of votes, Hank Aaron received 97.83 percent of votes and Nolan Ryan received 98.79 percent of votes.

Those three players are legends. Ruth’s prodigious pop changed the game, and his larger than life personality led to some tremendous off the field stories. Aaron broke baseball’s color barrier, and produced exceptional numbers despite dealing with things most of us could never imagine. Ryan was tough as nails, pitched until he was 46 years old and threw seven no-hitters. 

And yet, none of them were unanimously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. For some reason or another, at least one writer left those players off their ballots. Of those three, Ryan came the closest to unanimous election, but still was omitted from six ballots. Tom Seaver actually holds the record with the highest vote percentage, checking in with 98.84 percent. He was left off just five ballots.

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Because of this, there’s significant reason to believe no player will ever be unanimously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. If Aaron, Ruth and Ryan weren’t unanimous, how can we expect anyone else to reach those heights?

There’s some hope this year, however. Ken Griffey Jr. is making his first appearance on the ballot, and there’s absolutely no doubt he belongs in the Hall of Fame. 

Like those legends, Griffey checks all the Hall of Fame boxes. He revolutionized the game with his play and personality. He also hit 630 home runs and a .284/.370/.538 slash line over 22 years in the majors. Based on those facts, there’s no logical reason for anyone to leave Griffey off their ballot. 

Thus far, logic has won out. Twitter user, and definite crazy person, Ryan Thibodaux (who goes by @NotMrTibbs on Twitter) has done his best to compile every single public ballot in order to predict which players might get elected before the official announcement. In the 171 ballots Thibodaux has collected, Griffey has been on all of them. Thibodaux estimates that 171 figure is roughly 38 percent of all ballots.

While Thibodaux’s numbers are encouraging, there’s no chance Griffey will be elected unanimously. For one, all candidates should expect to see their numbers decline once every ballot is released. Even though Jeff Bagwell has been listed on 79.3 percent of all public ballots, he’s no lock to make the Hall. The remaining 60 percent of voters may not feel Bagwell is a deserving candidate, and that could easily push him below the 75 percent thresh hold. Similar drops will be seen by nearly every other candidate once every ballot is revealed.

In Griffey’s case, this makes even more sense. If you aren’t going to vote for Griffey, you probably aren’t going to make your ballot public, especially before the official announcement.

Someone will leave Griffey off their ballot, though, and it will likely be for a bad reason. In the past, some voters have refused to vote for any first-time candidates, which is why there has never been a unanimous inductee. Now, that history plays into some voters’ decisions. If Ruth wasn’t unanimous, no one should be, thus, they leave Griffey off their ballot.

The issue of steroids has also clouded the voting. While Griffey hasn’t been connected to steroids, there are some voters who may opt to leave him off the ballot merely based on the fact that he played during the steroid era. Similar things have happened to Bagwell and Craig Biggio before the latter was inducted in 2015. Some voters may just turn in a blank ballot as a way of protest.

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All of these things have happened in the past, and have contributed to obvious Hall of Famers not being selected unanimously. 

There’s really only one legitimate reason to exclude Griffey from a ballot, but it will lead to a similar amount of criticism. 

A voter who knows Griffey is a lock to make the Hall may choose to leave Griffey off his ballot in order to support another candidate he or she feels is deserving. For example, that voter could leave off Griffey in order to support Alan Trammel, who is in his final year of eligibility. Or they could use Griffey’s spot to vote for Jim Edmonds in order to ensure Edmonds doesn’t drop off the ballot after just one year. 

Under the current Hall of Fame policy, writers may vote for a maximum of 10 players on their ballots. There are some who believe there are currently more than 10 deserving candidates on the ballot, but cannot vote for all of them due to the Hall of Fame’s restrictions. The BBWAA has petitioned the Hall of Fame to increase this number to 12, but the Hall has not altered their current policy. Because of that, some may leave off an obvious candidate like Griffey in order to vote for a fringe player who may need extra help due to voting restrictions.

There’s precedence for this strategy. Just last year, Pioneer Press reporter Mike Berardino left Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez off his ballot in order to give Trammel and Larry Walker some much needed support. 

Berardino laid out his strategy in an article on the Pioneer Press site, detailing why he decided it was more important to support Trammel and Walker. While his strategy was viable, logical and within the rules, he received a massive amount of criticism from fans for leaving off Johnson and Martinez, even after both were easily elected. 

Berardino’s strategy highlights some of the problems and limitations of the current voting process. These situations could be avoided if writers could vote for as many players as they felt were deserving, or if the ballot were simply a “yes/no” option. The latter idea has been proposed by the Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Until that happens, the temptation for some writers to employ Berardino’s strategy will be tempting. 

Even if the Hall of Fame makes drastic changes to the voting process, it’s unclear whether we’ll ever see a unanimous candidate. In recent years, people found reasons to leave Johnson, Martinez and Greg Maddux off their ballots, so it probably won’t be hard to come up with similar excuses for future candidates. Even Derek Jeter, once he’s eligible, probably won’t be a unanimous inductee.

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For whatever reason, someone is going to leave Griffey off their ballot Wednesday. Ultimately, that’s not going to matter. Griffey will easily soar into the Hall, and may even challenge Seaver’s record for the highest vote percentage. While that will provide plenty of reason to celebrate, you have to wonder whether Griffey could have the first unanimous inductee 

Still, the fact that Griffey won’t be a unanimous inductee says a lot about the electorate and the voting process. If a player deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, they shouldn’t be punished by writers clinging to history, sending in blank ballots as a form of protest or trying to navigate around the current voting restrictions.

If you don’t think Griffey belongs in the Hall, or you have to leave him off a ballot for strategic reasons, something in the process is broken.

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Chris Cwik is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik