I honestly have little idea what will happen, but I generally agree with Mick about who does and does not belong.  Ted Simmons might be the exception.  He was on a clear Hall of Fame path through age 30, but then didn't do much after that. 

Assuming a Hall of the same size as it currently is, Simmons would reasonably be close to the in/out line and you'd have to spend a lot of time thinking about the evaluation of catcher defence to come up with an informed opinion.  His bat clearly is enough for a catcher.  He probably added more value than Joe Torre did, during Torre's years as a catcher (a little less O and more D). 

Yeah., I dunno what to say about Simmons'' D ... he had the misfortune of his career almost exactly overlapping that of one John Bench, so there were no Gold Gloves available for him to collect. (Bench won 10 in a row from 1968-77, which were Simmons'' first 10 years in the bigs.)

Though to be honest, my often faulty memory seems to recall Simmons defensive rep as at least below average, maybe poor? Anyone else recall Ted as a backstop?

Simmons was about average.  A fair arm and mobile enough, but perhaps not the best at the subtler aspects of catcher defence such as blocking the plate, handling pitchers and so on. 

I recall Simmons well, and his value was offensive. He was a very good hitter for a catcher. He was a solid choice at catcher while JB was the gold standard. Nothing to sneeze at to be sure, but he was not Johnny Bench.

So I want to take a run at something someone said yesterday, perhaps Mike Green but I may be wrong. The writer criticized the voters for failing to elect Marvin Miller. Miller was a labour relations rep, who helped the players get from the situation where the owners screwed the players to the current situation where the owners and the players screw the fans. He was part strategist (and a good one, in playing the grievance arbitration system with bargaining to get rid of the reserve clause) but he wasn't Curt Flood or Huner who had skin in the game.

After Congress compelled the MLBPA and MLB to get real on the steroids issue he came out and dissed Fehr indirectly by saying he never would have agreed to limit PED use - the worst thing someone can do to their successor and 180 degrees wrong on the issue. It was a 'cold war' response to the issue and was destructive to the organization that he'd worked for, the game, and his successor.

I don't see how he gets in anymore than Rob Manfred.

It was me, CBDC.  Miller was the key person in changing the rules of the game which had subsisted for decades, whereas Charles Comiskey was (let's put it at its nicest) a typical parsimonious owner of his time.  Which one is in?

I suspect Simmons' defense was quite a bit better than he gets credit for. He spent his prime on a bad team, working with bad pitchers, active at the same as one of the greatest defensive catchers in the history of the game. Hard to impress anyone under those circumstances. Then he started getting old, his defense did begin slipping - and then Whitey Herzog came to town, and loudly told the whole world that Simmons was a lousy catcher and needed to move off the position.

Simmons always seemed to me to be a very bright guy, and he was always a guy who was simply fascinated with the subtleties of the game, both at bat and in the field. (He gave great interview, especially during his Milwaukee days - the collected works of Boswell, Angell, Okrent are full of his insights on what's going on out on the field.)

Anyway, I don't know if Simmons is a Hall of Famer because who knows where they've set the bar this week - but he's surely one of 12-15 best catchers in history, no? And it's a pretty important position. If you don't have a catcher... you have a lot of passed balls.

The writer's ballot has been released.  My choices would be: Blyleven, Alomar, Larkin, Edgar Martinez, Raines, Trammell, Bagwell and Walker.  I would leave off McGwire, Palmeiro and Kevin Brown for PED reasons. 

It seems pretty clear to me that some obviously deserving player will get 20% or less of the vote. 

It seems pretty clear to me that some obviously deserving player will get 20% or less of the vote. 

Just one?

Are you thinking Walker or Trammel?

Maybe both Walker and Trammell. Youneverknow.  Perhaps this will be the year that Trammell gets more votes than Jack Morris. 

I'd vote Alomar, Blyleven, Raines, Walker, E.Martinez, Bagwell, Larkin, Trammell, Palmiero and McGwire. PED's don't really enter into my decision because I don't know whether guys already voted in are clean or not.