It's about time: Hall of Fame ballots will be made public starting next year

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Baseball Writers Association of America made a change to its Hall of Fame voting process Tuesday that is long overdue: Starting with the 2018 vote, all ballots will be made public.

It’s a win for transparency in the voting process — something many BBWAA voters have championed in recent years. Many of the more active writers share their individual ballots on social media anyway, but this is a mandate that all ballots will be public.

This isn’t out of character for the BBWAA, since it already makes public the ballots for MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year. Hall of Fame voting is something of a different beast, though, because every qualified BBWAA member gets a ballot as opposed to awards where a panel of 30 active writers vote. To earn a Hall of Fame vote, a writer must be a BBWAA member for 10 years.

The concern about public ballots has risen in the social-media era, where the public is quicker to dissect everything and, as far as the Hall of Fame is concerned, hold individual voters accountable for their choices. For instance: Some people still want to know which three voters didn’t choose Ken Griffey Jr. last year.

In recent years, the BBWAA has made efforts to weed from its Hall-of-Fame-voting ranks some of the writers who no longer cover baseball. That means the voting pool was smaller last year and promises to be again this year.

Moving forward, a more focused electorate and a more transparent voting process should be a good thing.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz