{"id":9997,"date":"2015-01-05T13:22:03","date_gmt":"2015-01-05T18:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=9997"},"modified":"2015-01-06T14:36:06","modified_gmt":"2015-01-06T19:36:06","slug":"2015-obligatory-hall-of-fame-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=9997","title":{"rendered":"2015 obligatory Hall of Fame Post"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Randy<\/a>

Randy Johnson leads the 2015 hall of fame ballot. Photo (AP Photo\/ Elaine Thompson) via seattlepi.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Last year’s version<\/a> of this post is here; it has links to prior years where I went into my general thought process on yes\/no votes per individual player.\u00a0 I’ve tired of writing the same 2,000 word post on the topic since everyone else on the internet is, so this is a bit shorter of a HoF post.\u00a0 And it won’t insult me if you don’t respond or even read this post; there’s far, far too much hall of fame arguing going on in the baseball blogosphere, and i’m no more or less qualified to publish an opinion on this ballot than many of the official BBWAA writers at this point.<\/p>\n

The 2015 ballot<\/a> at baseball-reference.com is here.\u00a0 Once again there’s too many deserving players for not enough spots.<\/p>\n

For me, there’s three no-brainer 1st ballot hall-of-famers new to the 2015 ballot: Randy Johnson<\/strong>, Pedro Martinez<\/strong> and John Smoltz<\/strong>.\u00a0 The first two should be unanimous but of course they won’t.\u00a0 In fact, we already have a published ballot of someone who left both off so he could vote for others who “needed the votes.”\u00a0 Smoltz might be borderline for some but for me he’s better than other hurlers recently enshrined; somehow I doubt he gets in this time around.<\/p>\n

Of the carry overs from last year’s ballot, I’d vote as follows:<\/p>\n