Backup at the Hall of Fame

We are going to learn the new inductees in the Baseball Hall of Fame today. It's a pretty safe bet that two great pitchers, Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez, will make it. There's a decent chance that another pitcher, John Smoltz, will be in as well. There's also an excellent chance that longtime second basemen Craig Biggio will earn the nod, as he fell only two votes short last year. That would be a good class.

I've written extensively about the HOF in the past and I remain convinced that there are a lot of good candidates who aren't getting proper consideration. In particular, I'm mystified that Tim Raines and Alan Trammell haven't received more support from the voters. I suspect there are just too many good candidates out there and since the rules state that you can only vote for ten candidates per year, there simply aren't enough votes to go around. There were 34 candidates on this year's ballot. Many are clearly not HOF material -- no one seriously believes that Rich Aurilia or Eddie Guardado are all-time greats, to use just two examples, but you could make a strong argument for a lot of players. From the outstanding Baseball Reference website that I've linked above, consider the 24 names they have essentially stack ranked:

The only player on this list who is certain not to make it is Brian Giles. If you could only pick 10 of these people, which ones would you pick? If I had a ballot, I'd choose:

Randy Johnson
Pedro Martinez
Craig Biggio
Jeff Bagwell
Tim Raines
Alan Trammell
Mike Mussina
Mike Piazza
Edgar Martinez
Roger Clemens
Barry Bonds

Clemens and Bonds are both among the top 10 players in MLB history, but neither will get in soon because they are both linked to steroid use. The only guy I've listed that I have any misgivings about is Edgar Martinez, mostly because he was a career DH. As I see it, the problem is that it's become more difficult for a player to get in during the modern era. If you could take George Kell or Dave Bancroft and put them in the modern era, they'd pale behind some of the candidates on this ballot. Bancroft, who primarily played in the 1920s, a good era for hitting, was a lifetime .279 hitter who had 2,004 total hits. Trammell, who played most of his career in the 1980s, is a lifetime .285 hitter who had 2,365 hits. How do you compare these guys across eras? It's not easy, but if you believe Dave Bancroft is a Hall of Famer, then I don't understand how Trammell is not.