I vote 10 in #Cooperstown, uphold principle on #roiding, keep "small Hall"

Here's the 2014 Hall of Fame ballot.

And, in a few brief words, I'll show how I can vote 10 quality players in, not vote in pretty obvious and unrepentant users of performance-enhancing drugs, and still avoid ESPN's Big Hall drooling.

Per previous discussion, most recently updated here, I'm not willing to let the most likely roiders, like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, in without some contrition, not just by them, but lots of others. It's not just the contrition, it's to get info from them on how they did it so we can improve current testing. It's to figure out, like a Roids+ similar to ERA+ and OPS+, approximately how much to adjust their records.

Call me back when that happens.

Meanwhile, the 10? Going by last year's voting rank, for the non-newcomers, followed by them:

1.  Craig Biggio.

2. Jeff Bagwell.

3. Tim Raines.

4. Curt Schilling.

5. Allen Trammell.

6. Jeff Kent.

7. Greg Maddux.

8. Tom Glavine.

9. Mike Mussina.

10. Frank Thomas. 

I've blogged more than once about Jack Morris and his anti-sabermetric career. About Larry Walker and how a non-Coors career would have dinged his counting stats as well as WAR, etc, plus injuries and so forth. About Edgar Martinez in a similar vein, discussing the injuries and games missed, etc., for a DH. Lee Smith falls under my generally being underwhelmed by closers.

Here's my in-depth wrap of last year's candidates, and another of this year's.

Mike Piazza? After reading recently, via CBS, about what Jeff Pearlman quotes him, and quotes other players as saying about him, while I'm not quite in Murray Chass territory, I want to think a bit more.

To ESPN-type fluffers who don't take my stance on roiding? You can easily add Bonds and Clemens by having Kent and, say, Schilling, wait a year. You can then deal with lesser roiders after that.

And, at the same time, this still would put a brake on your fluffing. That's even as Jim Caple flings out yet one more paean to Morris. Good fucking doorknob, give it a rest. Caple should stick to his "Off Base" columns, and by the amount of HOF fluffing ESPN's other writers do, they should become Republican presidential pollsters.

Or, take them out and shoot them. Shoot Jayson Stark twice for being a flip-flopping hypocrite (no, not a repentant mind-changer) on this issue. 

That also said, when ESPN's current staff has people voting for Fred McGriff ahead of Mussina, one realizes that a sports writer is just a lucky man with a big opinion who found a big place to land.

And, Michael Knisley has some very interesting thoughts about some "Name" players who might not stay above 5 percent this year.