Nate Silver -- with a strong assist from @leokitty, who has compiled a spreadsheet of public Hall of Fame votes -- gives those public Hall of Fame votes the old Nate Silver treatment in his latest post.
Specifically, he looks for patterns among voters who did and didn’t vote for Barry Bonds and/or Roger Clemens in an attempt to see what that means for others on the ballot. The upshot: while Bonds and Clemens represent a clear and unambiguous case of voters weighing in on the steroid era for good or for ill, the suction is taking guys like Bagwell and Piazza down with them. Which, if you’re not yet sick of my Hall of Fame posts here, you’re well aware of.
Silver notes, however, that that suction, well, sucks, because it’s based on some pretty crude and inaccurate stereotyping by the electorate. Because -- based on the sorts of players who have been suspended for performance-enhancing drugs, it makes little sense to simply assume use by the big guys and assume that the little guys were clean:Among these players are the utility infielder Neifi Perez, who hit 64 home runs in a 12-year career, the slap-hitting outfielder Jorge Piedra, and a substantial number of pitchers. The incidence of performance-enhancing drug use seems to be fairly randomly distributed between stars and benchwarmers, players at different positions and those with different skills.
Some writers seem to think they can profile steroid users, and some otherwise-deserving players seem likely to be denied a place in Cooperstown because of it.