With the Hall Of Fame election announcement coming on January 9, 2012, it is time to review the ballot, go over the names, and decide who belongs in the Hall Of Fame.

There are twenty seven men on the ballot this year and we will take a look at each one individually prior to official announcements. You can find all of the profiles in the I-70 Baseball Exclusives: Cooperstown Choices 2012 menu at the top of the page.

Tune in Saturday, January 7, 2012 as I-70 Baseball Radio will host a panel of writers discussing the Hall Of Fame Ballot in a 2-hour special.

In this article, we take a look at Tony Womack

Tony Womack
Womack spent thirteen season playing primarily shortstop for seven franchises. He debuted in 1993 with the Pittsburgh Pirates and retired as a member of the Chicago Cubs in 2006. This is his first year on the ballot.

Why He Should Get In
Womack was an All Star during his rookie campaign in 1997 and led the league in stolen bases three consecutive seasons.

Why He Should Not Get In
While Womack found himself in the right place at the right time a few times in his career, he was a bit player for most of those franchises. His numbers are low, even his 363 stolen bases are underwhelming for a speedy player.

Bill Ivie is the editor here at I-70 Baseball as well as the Assignment Editor for BaseballDigest.com.
He is the host of I-70 Radio, hosted every week on BlogTalkRadio.com.
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In the annual polling of members of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, former Cincinnati Reds shortstop Barry Larkin and former Houston Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell were recommended for induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. This is the third year the organization has conducted this survey of the membership.

Larkin, a 12-time All-Star who fashioned an .815 OPS over 19 seasons, received the largest percentage of votes, being named on 84.25% of the 148 ballots cast. This is the highest percentage garnered by any player in the three years of BBA voting.

Bagwell, who hit 449 HR and had a .948 OPS in his 15 seasons in Houston, was selected on 115 ballots for a 78.77% rate. As with the official voting done by the Baseball Writers of America, a player must be named on 75% of the ballots to be recommended by the alliance.

Last year, the BBA recommended second baseman Roberto Alomar and pitcher Bert Blyleven, both of whom were inducted into Cooperstown during the summer. In 2010, no player reached the 75% mark in BBA balloting, the year that outfielder Andre Dawson was selected for the Hall by the baseball writers.

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance’s vote has no impact on the official vote taken by the Baseball Writers of America. However, the BBA has often been a predictor of major awards granted by the writers.

The final voting results are as follows:

Barry Larkin 84.25%
Jeff Bagwell 78.77%

Edgar Martinez 60.27%
Tim Raines 57.53%
Alan Trammell 44.52%
Mark McGwire 41.10%
Larry Walker 35.62%
Lee Smith 33.56%
Jack Morris 32.19%
Don Mattingly 29.45%
Rafael Palmerio 28.77%
Fred McGriff 28.08%
Dale Murphy 16.44%
Bernie Williams 11.64%
Juan Gonzalez 6.16%
Javy Lopez 2.74%
Brad Radke 2.05%
Tim Salmon 1.37%
Bill Mueller 0.68%
Phil Nevin 0.68%
Ruben Sierra 0.68%
Tony Womack 0.68%
Jeromy Burnitz 0.00%
Vinny Castilla 0.00%
Brian Jordan 0.00%
Terry Mulholland 0.00%
Eric Young 0.00%

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was established in the fall of 2009 for the purpose of fostering collaboration and communication among bloggers from across baseball. The BBA has quickly grown to its current membership of 347 blogs, including some of the most prominent blogs on the Internet, spanning all major league teams and various other general aspects of the game.

More information about the BBA can be found at their website, baseballbloggersalliance.wordpress.com, or by contacting the founder and administrator of the organization, Daniel Shoptaw, at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.

Ryan Theriot is projected to be the Cardinals Opening Day shortstop, and Skip Schumaker the second baseman. Many have expressed anxiousness at how well they will play defensively. How will Theriot and Schumaker compare to recent keystone combinations?

Fangraphs started keeping defensive data in 2002, so let’s look at Cardinal combinations starting with there. Take a walk down memory lane and remind yourself of these duos. When multiple players played the position in a season, I chose the guy who started the most games there.

• 2002 – Fernando Vina and Edgar Renteria
• 2003 – Bo Hart and Renteria
• 2004 – Tony Womack and Renteria
• 2005 – Mark Grudzielanek and David Eckstein
• 2006 – Aaron Miles and Eckstein (yep, Miles; 471 PA)
• 2007 – Adam Kennedy and Eckstein
• 2008 – Kennedy and Cesar Izturis
• 2009 – Skip Schumaker and Brendan Ryan
• 2010 – Schumaker and Ryan

Interesting that 2009-2010 marked the first time since 2000-2002 the same two players started the majority of games at second and short.

Using UZR/150 from Fangraphs, here is how each individual performed.

• 2002: Vina -0.8, Renteria 5.8
• 2003: Hart 7.7, Renteria 6.1
• 2004: Womack 2.7, Renteria 0.6
• 2005: Grudzielanek 9.2, Eckstein -6.9
• 2006: Miles -5.4, Eckstein 1.7
• 2007: Kennedy -1.8, Eckstein -13.6
• 2008: Kennedy 18.0, Izturis 8.6
• 2009: Schumaker -8.5, Ryan 9.6
• 2010: Schumaker -17.2, Ryan 12.1

We see a ton of variation in these statistics, even among those with multiple seasons at the same position. Ryan was the best defensive shortstop of this group, Renteria was very good, Eckstein was ultimately not very good during his time in St Louis. On the other side of the bag, Kennedy was above average defensively for most of his career (despite the wide statistical variation seen in St Louis), and Schumaker is well below average.

For the one-season guys, starting at second base, Vina and Womack were in their primes before advanced defensive metrics came to be, making it hard to generalize this one season as indicative of their careers. Hart only played part of one more season (2004), again making it hard to determine if 2003 is an accurate reflection of his talent. Grudzielanek had some very good defensive seasons with the Royals after leaving St Louis, and his 2005 score is right in line with those years. Miles is poor defensively and has seen his innings in the field at second base decline every season since 2006. Izturis has long been considered an excellent defensive shortstop and his career numbers back that up.

Back to the 2011 pairing. Virtually everyone who has weighed in on the subject projects Theriot as below average defensively at short. However, his pre-2010 numbers were pretty good by UZR/150: 4.4 in 2007, 2.3 in 2008, 4.1 in 2009. Only last season did he show a marked drop-off (-18.1), but he only played 246 innings at short (in comparison to at least 850 in each of the previous 3 seasons). Theriot will probably not play to the level of Renteria, Ryan, or Izturis, but he almost certainly won’t be as big a liability at second as Eckstein was in 2004 and 2006. Schumaker is a below-average second baseman and will continue to be so.

Theriot will be a step back from Ryan, but is not as weak a defender as Eckstein was. There won’t be a superhighway up the middle for ground balls to take into the outfield. This combination will not be as stone-fingered as the 2006 and 2007 Cardinal versions were. In fact, given the trend of having one position post a negative or average UZR/150 and the other a positive, 2011 should be just like 7 of the last 9 seasons in St Louis up the middle.