That Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame yesterday isn’t all that interesting. There could be no reasonable argument against Boggs, and while Sandberg may be a bit overrated because he played in Wrigley Field, a great hitter’s park during his career, he is also clearly worthy of Cooperstown. What else is there to say? The Baseball Writers Association of America, as nearly always, voted in deserving men.

At the same time, this year’s voting lists show that the writers might be losing their touch. That is interesting.

The problem with the BBWAA vote has never been whom they elect, but whom they don’t. Even their worst picks, like Rollie Fingers and Tony Perez, were hardly disgraces to the Hall, as the omission of Ron Santo is. Most of the real mistakes have been made by the recently reformed Veteran’s Committee, the body responsible for things like, as legend has it, mistakenly inducting Rick Ferrell rather than Wes Ferrell, and for stuffing Cooperstown full of undeserving teammates of longtime committeeman Frankie Frisch.

Now it appears that less deserving players will soon be heading to Cooperstown. Take the two who this year hit the 60% mark that makes eventual enshrinement a near certainty.

The nearest miss was famed relief ace Bruce Sutter, who was named on 66.7% of ballots cast. Sutter isn’t really at a Hall of Fame level. He only had eight good seasons, and was only great in three of them while being bad in four more.

Bill James’s win shares system credits Sutter with being worth about 55 wins to his teams over his career, which is about 800th in baseball history. It’s as many as Guy Bush, who had four 18-win seasons for the Cubs in the 1920s and 1930s and ended his career with a 3.86 ERA. I’m fairly sure no one outside the Bush family thinks he’s a Hall of Famer.

The argument for Sutter rests more on the ways in which he impacted the game. While he was neither the first pitcher used mainly to protect leads nor the first to throw the split-finger fastball, the great renown he achieved – he was a top-10 finisher in MVP voting five times, more than Boggs – led to the wide adoption of both the role and the pitch. As a crucial link between firemen like Sparky Lyle and modern closers like Eric Gagne, Sutter may deserve induction; he would, however, be by far the worst player ever elected by the writers.

Next, with 59.5% of the vote, was Jim Rice. There are 18 left fielders in the Hall of Fame; Rice would be the worst of them. He was a very good hitter, but not quite dominant. He was, actually, no more valuable than Sandberg with the bat. In a similar number of at-bats, Rice had fewer runs, walks, and doubles, about 300 fewer steals, and grounded into about 200 more double plays, offsetting a small advantage in hits and an edge of 100 home runs.

That’s just not good enough for Cooperstown. Sandberg was a good second baseman, whereas a quarter of Rice’s career at-bats came as a designated hitter, and he was an indifferent left fielder the rest of the time.

More puzzling than the support for Sutter and Rice is that they finished ahead of superior contemporaries. Goose Gossage was better at his best than Sutter, had more great seasons, and after his time as a star was done, he spent another decade as a serviceable reliever; he drew 55.2% of the vote.

Andre Dawson stands in a similar relation to Rice as Gossage does to Sutter. He was just as good a hitter, and for the first half of his career was a good centerfielder, winning five Gold Gloves at the position. Neither Dawson nor Gossage is a no-brainer for election; but they were better than Sutter and Rice, and both deserve election.

At least they look to be nearing election; the most bizarre results concern the three best players on the ballot.

The best, Bert Blyleven, I wrote about last week. He is not a borderline Hall of Famer like Sutter, Rice, Gossage, or even Dawson, but rather one of the five best pitchers of his generation. Like Santo, he is so obviously a Hall of Famer that his exclusion does more damage to the institution than to the player’s legacy. He got 40.9% of the vote.

Next best is Alan Trammell, who was every bit the player Derek Jeter is. While not quite as consistent with the bat, Trammell comes out ahead when his nine best seasons are lined up against Jeter’s nine full seasons and put in the context of their respective eras. Take into account that he was a consistently excellent fielder and his edge grows. His monster 1987 season, when he hit .343 with 28 home runs, was one of the best of the 1980s, and he was the World Series MVP for one of baseball’s all-time great teams, the 1984 Tigers. Trammell received only 16.9% of the vote.

At least that’s better than Dale Murphy, who with only 10.5% is in danger of actually dropping off the ballot. From 1980-1987 Murphy was just about the best player in baseball, consistently hitting .300 with 35 home runs, 90 walks, and 110 runs when those numbers meant something, playing well in center field, and serving as a stunningly dull example of being a good person on top of it all. No other player who was the best in the game for so long has been omitted from the Hall.

If voters want to reward someone who put in a decade of average play after an overrated prime, Jim Rice will be on the ballot next year; if they want to reward a genuinely great player, one worthy of the game’s highest honor, Murphy, Trammell, and Blyleven will be as well.