Goose Gossage was named on 86% of this year's BBWAA Hall of Fame ballots, more than the requisite 75% necessary for induction. Nobody else made the cut, though Jim Rice appeared on 72.2% of ballots.

Bert Blyleven received around 62% support and Tim Raines received a disappointing 24%.

The 2008 National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot was announced on Monday. Here is the docket, with my would-be votes in bold:

Brady Anderson
Harold Baines
Rod Beck
Bert Blyleven
Dave Concepcion
Andre Dawson
Shawon Dunston
Chuck Finley
Travis Fryman
Rich Gossage
Tommy John
David Justice
Chuck Knoblauch
Don Mattingly
Mark McGwire
Jack Morris
Dale Murphy
Robb Nen
Dave Parker
Tim Raines
Jim Rice
Jose Rijo
Lee Smith
Todd Stottlemyre
Alan Trammell

Bert Blyleven's candidacy has been trumpeted by far better writers and baseball minds than my own. Like this one. Or this one. Or this one. Or all of these.

Rich Gossage, the Goose, defined the closer's role in baseball and was a better pitcher for longer than Bruce Sutter, a first-ballot inductee last year. In 1975, 1977 and 1978 he threw 409 (!) combined relief innings, whiffing just shy of a batter per and posting ERAs of 1.84 (ERA+ of 212), 1.62 (243 ERA+) and 2.01 (180 ERA+). (I left out 1976 because he was a starter all year). Gossage excelled for most of his 22 years, and it's inexplicable that Sutter is somehow remembered as the better pitcher.

Mark McGwire wears the mark of a steroid user despite never testing positive for any banned performance enhancing drugs. He took andro, not banned by baseball at the time. Did he take anabolic steroids? Maybe. Were they banned by baseball and/or did he ever test positive? No. Is he a hall-worthy baseball player? 583 homeruns and a career .263/.394/.588 batting line seem to indicate as much. Hardly the one-dimensional slugger people remember, Mac drew 90 or more walks seven times and 100 or more five times. He is twelfth all time in OPS+ at 162. He was a very, very good baseball player.

Tim Raines is probably the second-best leadoff hitter in baseball history. He has a career .293/.385/.425 batting line with 808 steals in 952 attempts, an 84.9% success rate which is substantially better than Rickey Henderson's 80.8%. He never hit a lot of homeruns but he collected a lot of doubles and triples and was a true four-tool star when that still actually meant something (his throwing arm was bleah).

That's my ballot. What about you guys?

Every year, SBN conducts an internal vote among our baseball bloggers to determine the results of MLB's annual awards. Our votes don't really count, but it's a neat exercise to see if we can do a better job of picking the winners than the real voters whose actual votes we deride for being shoddy and misinformed.

I was only given a vote for the National League awards, but I will include the results of both leagues here over the coming days.

Rookies of the Year
Managers of the Year
Cy Youngs

My Ballot

1. Hanley Ramirez
2. David Wright
3. Chipper Jones
4. Matt Holliday
5. Albert Pujols
6. Miguel Cabrera
7. Prince Fielder
8. Chase Utley
9. Jimmy Rollins
10. Barry Bonds

Clearly, I watched a different baseball season than my SBN compatriots. I don't really have anything new to say about this, and everyone's reasons for voting as they did were hashed out on the SBN internal mailing list. Suffice it to say there are differences of opinion as to how to judge the "value" of a player, and a lot of people still insist on marrying the overall performance of a team to the individual accomplishments of a single player.

Your thoughts?

National League	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	Points
Matt Holliday	12	4	1	2	1	-	-	1	-	-	235
Prince Fielder	-	4	9	2	1	2	1	2	-	-	148
Jimmy Rollins	4	2	3	2	2	1	-	1	2	1	137
David Wright	1	2	1	3	5	1	2	4	-	1	117
Chipper Jones	-	2	2	2	2	2	4	2	1	1	95
Hanley Ramirez	2	-	-	3	2	1	2	2	5	-	90
Chase Utley	-	2	-	2	3	1	4	3	4	-	88
Albert Pujols	-	1	1	3	2	4	-	2	1	2	80
Ryan Howard	1	2	1	1	-	1	3	-	2	2	70
Jake Peavy	1	2	2	-	1	2	-	-	1	2	68
Miguel Cabrera	-	-	-	-	-	3	2	2	1	4	35
Brandon Webb	-	-	-	1	-	-	2	-	-	1	16
Aramis Ramirez	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	-	1	1	13
Eric Byrnes	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	1	-	-	13
Derrek Lee	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	8
Ryan Braun	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	1	1	8
Brad Penny	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	1	6
Jose Reyes	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	3
John Smoltz	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	2
Troy Tulowitzki	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Adam Dunn	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Roy Oswalt	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1
Carlos Lee	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Todd Helton	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Barry Bonds	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1

Every year, SBN conducts an internal vote among our baseball bloggers to determine the results of MLB's annual awards. Our votes don't really count, but it's a neat exercise to see if we can do a better job of picking the winners than the real voters whose actual votes we deride for being shoddy and misinformed.

I was only given a vote for the National League awards, but I will include the results of both leagues here over the coming days.

Rookies of the Year
Managers of the Year

My Ballot

1. Jake Peavy
2. Tim Hudson
3. Brad Penny

Jake Peavy was a no-brainer here and I'm happy to say that SBN voted for him unanimously as the best pitcher in the senior circuit. He struck out 240 batters in 223.1 innings, walked 68 and allowed just 13 homeruns. He led the NL in ERA, ERA+, WHIP, wins (thanks, Padres!), K/9, strikeouts and SNLVAR.

Tim Hudson was terrific this year, but had a bit of bad luck and played for a so-so Braves team so he managed to accumulate a nothing special 16-10 record. He doesn't have incredible strikeout marks, but he doesn't walk many, he gives up very few homeruns, and he collects almost three groundballs for every ball he puts in the air.

I basically had three guys very close: Hudson, Brad Penny and Brandon Webb. If I filled out my ballot on a different day, #2 and #3 might have been different, so I can't fault anyone for putting Webb in the top three.

National League	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
Jake Peavy	21	-	-	105
Brandon Webb	-	17	1	72
Brad Penny	-	-	10	10
John Smoltz	-	1	2	5
Cole Hamels	-	1	1	4
Jeff Francis	-	1	1	4
Tim Hudson	-	1	-	3
Aaron Harang	-	-	3	3
Chris Young	-	-	2	2
Carlos Zambrano	-	-	1	1

American League	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
C. C. Sabathia	13	3	2	76
Josh Beckett	3	10	2	47
John Lackey	2	3	4	23
Fausto Carmona	1	1	3	11
Johan Santana	-	1	4	7
Erik Bedard	-	1	3	6
Roy Halladay	-	-	1	1

The MLB Gold Glove winners have been announced, and David Wright has collected his first for his terrific season at third base. Most zone-based defensive metrics had him at or near the top of the league, and he was especially effective at getting to balls outside of his zone. Gold Gloves are extremely subjective and are often incorrectly awarded to the best offensive player at a position, but Wright has worked very hard over the last few years to bring his glove up to the level of his bat and most will agree he has accomplished just that. In case you needed yet another reason not to move the kid off of third base, there you go.

Carlos Beltran also collected some goodies, nabbing his second consecutive outfield Gold Glove with the Mets. There were actually four outfield Gold Gloves handed out in the NL; a tie for third place was announced, though we don't know the actual tabulated results.

The big news in the American League voting is Derek Jeter failing to win his fourth consecutive undeserved Gold Glove. Despite ranking at or near the bottom of the pack among AL shortstops year after year in virtually every metric aside from JTORP (Jump-Throws Over Replacement Player), Jeter skated by on his hitting prowess and awkwardly mediocre looks.

Jeter is actually something of a fielding paradox: If you can ignore all of the balls he doesn't get to, he actually looks rather smooth in the field. He has pretty good hands, a decent arm, and is quite good at chasing down pop flies. He makes the occasional highlight reel play, which only serve to perpetuate the baseball myth that he is actually helping his team with his glove.

The truth is that Jeter costs his team between two and three wins with the glove every year relative to an average shortstop. He provides far more than that at the plate, but his three Gold Gloves put him in fairly elite company among shortstops, whether he belongs there or not (read: not).

Only two winners of this year's Fielding Bible Awards took home actual MLB hardware: Andruw Jones and Johan Santana.

Here are the winners of the 2007 MLB Gold Gloves:

NATIONAL LEAGUE
C	Russell Martin, LAD
1B	Derrek Lee, CHC
2B	Orlando Hudson, ARI
3B	David Wright, NYM
SS	Jimmy Rollins, PHI
OF	Carlos Beltran, NYM
OF	Andruw Jones, ATL
OF	Jeff Francoeur, ATL
OF	Aaron Rowand, PHI
P	Greg Maddux, SD

AMERICAN LEAGUE
C	Ivan Rodriguez, DET
1B	Kevin Youkilis, BOS
2B	Placido Polanco, DET
3B	Adrian Beltre, SEA
SS	Orlando Cabrera, LAA
OF	Ichiro Suzuki, SEA
OF	Torii Hunter, MIN
OF	Grady Sizemore, CLE
P	Johan Santana, MIN

Every year, SBN conducts an internal vote among our baseball bloggers to determine the results of MLB's annual awards. Our votes don't really count, but it's a neat exercise to see if we can do a better job of picking the winners than the real voters whose actual votes we deride for being shoddy and misinformed.

I was only given a vote for the National League awards, but I will include the results of both leagues here over the coming days.

Other 2007 SBN Awards Posts

Rookies of the Year

My Ballot

1. Lou Piniella
2. Bud Black
3. Clint Hurdle

The Cubs improved by 19 games in the standings (15 games according to Pythagoras), so some credit for that turnaround should go to Sweet Lou. I always have a tough time picking the best managers because, quite frankly, I don't really know who they are. I watch Willie Randolph every day and I have a pretty good sense of what he is good at and what he isn't, but I don't see the rest of the league's managers with enough frequency to really know. The Cubs signed a bunch of free agents, spent a bunch of money, brough in Piniella, and won a lot more games in 2007 than in the prior year.

The Diamondbacks and Rockies each outperformed expectations, the Diamondbacks wildly so. Arizona won eleven more games than expected based on their run differential, so some portion of luck, managing and an uneven record in blowouts likely contributed to that fact.

The Rockies actually underperformed their expected record by one win, so I guess that ridiculous winning streak just wasn't good enough now, was it?

I'd like to hear what you guys think. Who would you have voted for, and what is your take on managerial evaluation?

National League	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
Bob Melvin	10	5	2	67
Charlie Manuel	3	5	4	34
Clint Hurdle	3	3	3	27
Lou Piniella	3	2	3	24
Manny Acta	1	2	3	14
Bud Black	-	3	2	11
Bobby Cox	1	-	1	6
Ned Yost	-	1	1	4
Tony LaRussa	-	-	1	1
Bruce Bochy	-	-	1	1

American League	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
Eric Wedge	16	3	-	89
Joe Torre	1	7	3	29
Mike Scioscia	2	4	6	28
Mike Hargrove	-	1	4	8
Terry Francona	-	1	3	6
Ozzie Guillen	-	1	1	4
John McLaren	-	1	-	3
Buddy Bell	-	1	-	3
Sam Perlozzo	-	-	1	1
Ron Washington	-	-	1	1

Every year, SBN conducts an internal vote among our baseball bloggers to determine the results of MLB's annual awards. Our votes don't really count, but it's a neat exercise to see if we can do a better job of picking the winners than the real voters whose actual votes we deride for being shoddy and misinformed.

I was only given a vote for the National League awards, but I will include the results of both leagues here over the coming days.

My Ballot

1. Ryan Braun
2. Hunter Pence
3. Troy Tulowitzki

With Tulo's incredible glove and his postseason appearance this year it's easy to forget how good Hunter Pence was in 2007. He hit .322/.360/.539 for an OPS+ of 130. Tulo's defense was oustanding but that doesn't quite bridge the gap between his 108 OPS+ and Pence's 130. Braun is an absolute lead glove at third but his .324/.370/.634 batting line and 153 OPS+ are absurd for a rookie.

National League	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
Ryan Braun	13	6	2	85
Troy Tulowitzki	7	9	3	65
Hunter Pence	-	4	9	21
Kevin Kouzmanoff	1	-	-	5
James Loney	-	1	1	4
Micah Owings	-	1	1	4
Chris Young	-	-	2	2
Yovani Gallardo	-	-	2	2
Tim Lincecum	-	-	1	1

American League	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
Dustin Pedroia	15	4	-	87
Jeremy Guthrie	1	6	2	25
Brian Bannister	2	2	4	20
Daisuke Matsuzaka	-	3	5	14
Reggie Willits	1	1	1	9
Delmon Young	-	1	3	6
Hideki Okajima	-	1	1	4
Rafael Perez	-	1	1	4
Travis Buck	-	-	1	1
Rafael Perez	-	-	1	1