There are two sure fire ones: Jeter and Mo (the Greatest of All Time). But after that it gets intersting. Conditional ARod is better than almost everyone already in the HOF, but he took juice. He may not make it. CC obviously has the talent, and if he keeps going like he is, should make it. If they are really this good: If Granderson or Cano were to keep up their present level of production for another 13 years... Can't count em out: Remember after his first season, Mo was a skinny 26 year old with failed starter. There's an outside chance that Nova or Robertson could be as good as they seem. And between Montero and Romine, one could be the real thing for a long, long time. Fun to think about.

Do you vote for the player or the season? Or more specifically, how much do you consider each?  (An alternative, voting for the players who have done the best since the last all star game, is not a serious option, since that info is rather hard to find).

A-rod is not having a great season so far, but he's A-rod, he's a great player, and he's not stinking up the joint.  I gave him the nod on my first two votes.

Cano is an easy vote. 

Grandy is a surprise easy vote.

Those are the only No-brainers in the Yankee line up.  I also voted for Russell Martin and Tex, but the Tex vote was a team loyalty vote.

 

I know it's early to think about who deserves to be there, but the voting is open.

 

In  a review  of Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won, by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim, in the recent NYT Book Review, Bruce Weber writes:

 

home-field advantage in virtually all sports is largely due to the bias of ­officials toward the home team...In baseball ... their numbers are, well, striking: fewer called strikes, especially in crucial situations, against the home team.

 So much for home cooking!  Obviously, this doesn't negate the effects of a team being to some extent built to win in their own ball park, but it does help to explain why this effect is consistent; it is so rare that a player performs worse at home that when  we see it, we look for reasons, even though random chance would suggest that between 40 - 50% of players should be better on the road (I'm assuming that at least that many are in a ballpark which to some degree devalues their skills).