This week,

Danny reacted to the 2023 Baseball Hall of Fame voting and the future of Cooperstown:

The Baseball Hall of Fame is dead. And it’s the fault of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Every year, I give the same rant, about how the baseball writers who vote for the Hall of Fame are guilty of making it about themselves, rather than the sport or the players. And once again, in 2023, here we are, doing it again. This time, the example is Scott Rolen.

Rolen was the only player voted into the Hall of Fame this year. He received 76.3 percent of the vote. A player needs 75 percent of the vote in order to be elected to the Hall of Fame. It was Rolen’s sixth year on the ballot.

First thing’s first. In a vacuum, was Rolen truly a Hall-of-Fame player? Let’s take a look at the numbers.

In 17 MLB seasons, Rolen was a seven-time All Star and won eight Gold Gloves as a third baseman.

He was the 1997 National League Rookie of the Year with the Philadelphia Phillies, and won the NL Silver Slugger award in 2002.

Rolen won a World Series in 2006 with the St. Louis Cardinals. But, he never won an MVP, and he never even led the league in a single statistical category.

He was a career .281 hitter who had 2,077 hits, 316 home runs, 1,287 RBI, and an OPS of .855, playing for the Phillies, Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, and Toronto Blue Jays.

Statistics and awards aside, Rolen was definitely a threatening figure at the plate, standing in that righthander’s batter’s box at 6-foot-4, 245 pounds. I would say Rolen’s Hallof-Fame status is questionable. And for me, if I even have to think twice about it, then the answer has to be no, he’s not a Hall of Famer in my book.

You can be a great player and still not be a Hall of Famer. Rolen was a great player. But was he ever the best of the best? Nope. And in my opinion, the Hall of Fame should include only the best of the best.

Some may disagree, and that’s fine. But it seems like most of the baseball writers agreed with my opinion of Rolen just five short years ago. And that’s where the problem of the Hall of Fame voting arises.

Back in 2018, in Rolen’s first year on the ballot, Rolen received only 10.2 percent of the vote. That’s right. Rolen, in 2018, received just 43 votes. This year, in his sixth year on the ballot, Rolen received 297 votes.

So let me ask you. What exactly did Rolen do to receive 254 more votes between the years of 2018 and 2023? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I could see if the baseball writers only got to vote for one player each year, or even just three players each year. But that’s not the case. Every year, each baseball writer can vote for up to 10 players. And yet, somehow, Rolen’s voting percentage went from 10.2 percent to 76.3 percent from 2018 to 2023.

Rolen’s numbers didn’t change. The voters just changed their minds. Meanwhile, they refuse obvious Hallof-Fame caliber players like Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Manny Ramirez, because they’ve all been linked to perfor- mance enhancing drugs.

But by doing so, the baseball writers are also telling us that they know for sure Rolen didn’t dabble in the PEDs. And one thing I can assure you of, is that the baseball writers absolutely do not know that for sure.

That’s not an accusation. It’s just a fact of life. PEDs were prevalent in baseball during the time in which Rolen’s numbers were his best. Regardless of all that though, the idea that his voting could skyrocket the way it did is mind-blowing and is solely based on the fact that the baseball writers make it about themselves every year.

Rolen is seen as one of the “good guys” in the sport. And so, that gets him extra points with the media. And as they always do, the media loves to try and send a message to the players they portray as the “bad guys,” or, to be more specific, “the guys who don’t kiss their behinds.”

And by suddenly deciding to vote for Rolen, the baseball writers are secretly just taking shots at guys like Clemens, Bonds, Rodriguez, and Ramirez.

I mean, just take a look at this year’s ballot. Bronson Arroyo got one vote. Yes, somebody actually used a vote on Bronson Arroyo.

The Hall of Fame is dead.

Follow Danny on instagram @ DannyPicard.