This Circle of Greats (COG) vote is not to induct anyone into the Circle. Instead, this round of voting will:
– select three players who will be restored back to the main ballot after having been previously dropped from eligibility
– select seven more players who will initially populate a secondary ballot to be used to supplement the primary COG ballot in future rounds of COG voting.
As with earlier redemption rounds, this is an opportunity for voters to reconsider past candidates who have previously fallen off the regular induction ballots. This redemption round is being conducted prior to the final three rounds of COG balloting for candidates born in 1973.
In this vote you may include on your ballot any major league baseball player who:
– was born before 1973; and
– played a majority of his career games since 1901 or compiled 20 WAR since 1901; and
– has not been elected to the Circle of Greats; and
– is not on the ballot for the 1973 Part 1 COG Balloting also being conducted this week
For this round of voting, you must vote for five (5) and only five players to cast a qualifying ballot. The three players who appear on the most ballots cast will be restored to eligibility for the next round of COG voting. The next seven players, including ties, with the highest number of votes will populate the COG secondary ballot. To assist you with your selections, career stats for the most eligible candidates are provided here.
Unlike prior redemption rounds, only three players will be restored to the ballot, NOT the top 3 and ties. If more than 3 players are tied for the 3 highest vote totals, the tie-breaker process will be to discard ballots, starting with the last ballot cast, until the tie is broken. So, vote early as your ballot could be discarded if it is the last, or among the last, to be cast.
In future COG rounds of balloting, two votes will be conducted:
– one vote to elect to the COG one player from the primary ballot
– one vote to elevate to the primary ballot one player currently on the secondary ballot
Here are the proposed rules concerning the secondary ballot election:
– the player winning the secondary ballot will be restored to the primary ballot for the next round of COG balloting
– players dropping from the primary ballot will now drop to the secondary ballot, and thus become eligible to be restored to the primary ballot in a future COG election
– players appearing on fewer than 10% of the secondary ballots cast will drop from the secondary ballot and will only become COG-eligible again if elected in a future Redemption round
– future redemption rounds will occur when there are three or fewer players on the secondary ballot
The deadline to cast your ballots in this redemption round is Sunday night, February 4th at 11:59PM EST. You can change your votes until 11:59PM EST on Friday night, February 2nd. You can keep track of the vote tally in this redemption round here: COG 2018 Redemption Round Vote Tally.
