Barry Larkin Elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame

In a rather unsurprising development, Barry Larkin was the only player elected to Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame on this years writers ballot. Ron Santo was previously elected by the Veterans Committee, and then of course the awards for writing and broadcasting were also announced previously. Larkin was named on about 62% of the ballots last year but about 86.4% of them this year, which was quite a leap. In an unfortunate sign, Jack Morris has reached 66.7 percent of the vote and will probably make it in the next two years (his last 2 years of eligibility on this ballot), Edgar Martinez was still only named on 36.5% of the ballot instead of taking a great leap forward, and Alan Trammell was only named on 36.8% of the ballots.. However, in a couple of very good signs, Jeff Bagwell is up to 56.0% and (in a particularly excellent sign) Tim Raines is up to 48.7%. I hope Bagwell makes it next year along with Biggio, though the crowded 2013 ballot will make that exceedingly difficult, and it does look like Tim Raines will make it eventually (which is excellent). Alan Trammell's jump was big, but he's probably going to have to wait until the Veterans Committee considers him.