Hall Of Fame Voting: 2012 Vs. 2011

The Baseball Writers' Association of America has voted Barry Larkin into the Hall of Fame. A year ago - Larkin's second year on the ballot - the shortstop received 62.1 percent of the votes. This time around, he received 86.4 percent of the votes. That's a huge, huge jump - the biggest jump out of all the holdovers.

What about the rest of them, though? How did their 2012 results compare to their 2011 results? I have constructed a simple table, for your convenience. Here you are:

Player	2011 (%)	2012 (%)	Change
Barry Larkin	62.1	86.4	24.3
Jeff Bagwell	41.7	56.0	14.3
Jack Morris	53.5	66.7	13.2
Alan Trammell	24.3	36.8	12.5
Tim Raines	37.5	48.7	11.2
Fred McGriff	17.9	23.9	6.0
Lee Smith	45.3	50.6	5.3
Don Mattingly	13.6	17.8	4.2
Edgar Martinez	32.9	36.5	3.6
Larry Walker	20.3	22.9	2.6
Dale Murphy	12.6	14.5	1.9
Rafael Palmeiro	11.0	12.6	1.6
Mark McGwire	19.8	19.5	-0.3

Mark McGwire was the only holdover to lose support, and he barely lost any support. All of the rest of them gained, with Bagwell, Morris, Trammell and Raines gaining in the double digits, along with Larkin.

Of course, next year's going to be something of a mess. We know that. We can prepare for that. But things are looking good for Bagwell and Morris. Raines, too. Trammell has a ways to go in a short amount of time - this was his 11th year on the ballot - but that's an encouraging gain for him.